Lovers and Takers (26 page)

He smiled.
 
Then he leaned down and kissed her on the lips yet again, this time lingering, before standing erect and then leaving for good.

After he had gotten into his car and was long gone, it was Roni’s time to exhale.
 
She hadn’t known that man long at all, but she could tell he was troubled big time.
 
And the way he just kissed her and left, without making arrangements to hook up later, was a little disconcerting too.
 
She grabbed her papers and bottled water and began heading back to the law center.
 
Maybe he was still in love with his ex-wife, she thought.
 
It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
 
Why else, she wondered, would seeing her again, and seeing
her
so
well put together
, as he called it, make him so unhinged?
 
Maybe he compared her with his ex-wife and the comparison was too stark. Maybe Roni didn’t measure up.

She entered the law center and headed upstairs.
 
And just the thought that a relationship she was just beginning to embrace could already be hitting a snag, gave her pause too.
 
Because it was times like these, those sinking feeling
times, that
made her remember why she kept her heart to herself in the first place.
 

FOURTEEN

Jake was not surprised to see a strange car, a Rolls Royce, parked in his driveway when he arrived home later that night.
 
Security at the entrance of his estate had already alerted him that his daughter was home from the hospital, and she had a female visitor with her.
 
And Jake was certain who that female visitor would be.

He got out of his Audi and headed for the entrance.
 
He stretched his strained back and glanced at the silver and blue Rolls Royce as he walked.
 
It was so ostentatious, he thought.
 
But it was also just the kind of car he would expect his ex-wife to favor.
 

Inside his home, he found his daughter playing cards with her mother.
 
Pam was propped up on pillows on the living room sofa, with blankets covering her, while her mother was seated on the floor against the sofa, in shorts and little tennis shoes.
 
They were laughing and talking and looking more like peers than mother and child.
 

“Hey, Daddy,” Pam said when Jake arrived.
 
“Mommy’s a lousy card player.”

“Always has been,
“ Dena
said with a smile.

Jake walked over to Pam, leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, then slid her hair out of her face.
 
“How are you feeling, sweetie?” he asked her.

“Real good, Daddy.
 
Those other tests Dr. Brooks made them run didn’t turn up any problems, either.”

Jake knew.
 
Brooks had phoned and told him.

“Hello, Jake,” Dena said, as she lifted her face toward him.
 

And just seeing that face up close again gave him pause.
 
Her long, weaved hair was pushed back, with a band holding it back, and her long lashes gave her eyes a drooped, sensual look.
 
He still could not get over how wonderful she looked.
 
And not just her face, either.
 
To his dismay, he was unable to stop his eyes from trailing downward, to her breasts.
 
It wasn’t as if they could be overlooked.
 
They were big and imposing in that low-cut shell she wore, with her mounds bunched-up and nearly uncovered. His dick throbbed just looking at them.
 
And he knew she knew it too.
 
That was the anguishing part.
 
She
knew
.

“Hey,” he said to her, and took a seat in the flanking chair.
 

Dena wanted to smile when she saw his eyes trail down, but she didn’t.
 
Causing Jake Varnadore to get a little aroused was the least she was going to do to that man tonight.
 
She’d missed his dick.
 
That was the main thing she missed about him.
 
And she was going to feel that piece of steel up her ass tonight if it was the last thing she did.
 
His reaction to her yesterday made clear that softballs were not going to work.
 
She had to play hardball.
 
And it would begin here and now.
 
Tonight.
 
When she gave him a sight of sensual nakedness he was not going to be able to refuse.

Jake leaned back in the chair and placed his feet up on the ottoman.
 
He slipped his hand inside his suit coat, resting it on his heart, as he watched Pam and Dena continue to play.
 
Or, more accurately, as he watched Dena.
 
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
 
He was seventeen when he first fell in love with her, married her at nineteen, and for the entirety of their marriage she was the love of his life.
 
And the pitiful thing about it, he thought, was how badly whipped he truly was.
 
Because even after he caught her in bed with another man, and even after he had taken his children away from that car wreck of a scene in the middle of the night, he still wanted her back.
 
He’d never admit it to a living soul, but he phoned her once after the fact and asked her to attend marriage counseling with him.
 
He would be willing to make changes, he told her, if it could save his marriage.

But she turned him down cold.

The pain of that turn down still iced over him as he watched her play cards with the daughter that adored her.
 
So many years she’d missed.
 
Nights like this, fourteen years ago, were magical to him.
 
Now they were just too painful.

He stood up, excused himself, and went upstairs.
 

Pam didn’t understand why he had to leave like that.
 
“Daddy can be so moody,” she said, as she tossed another card into the pile.

Dena, however, was pleased.
 
She had him exactly where she wanted him.
 
She looked up the stairs after him.
 

Kara dipped more spaghetti out of the pot on the stove, went back to the small table, and sat down.
 
Roni was already seated, eating her own generous portion of pasta.
 
The two cousins were at Roni’s home having a late dinner together.

“How did the meeting go?” Kara asked her older cousin.

Roni didn’t want to think about it.
 
“Disastrous.
 
Cary said their funding decision was final and Amcrow would not be bullied.
 
I couldn’t believe he said that.”

“Griff had already warned you not to go running to those people.”

“All I wanted was to remind him that the work of trying to determine the wrongfully convicted was by its definition going to have a terrible success rate.”

“But one percent, Roni?”
Kara said.

“Yes, one percent!
 
Most convictions are not wrong convictions.
 
We’re just trying to help that one in a million
guy
or girl sitting in prison falsely accused.”

“But why bother?” Kara wanted to know.
 
“Okay, when you were a public defender you didn’t do a good job or whatever and the guy died in prison.
 
But to ruin your career on tracking down that one in a million wrongfully convicted person still makes no sense to me.”

But it made perfect sense to Roni.
 
Kara didn’t see Michael’s face when they read that guilty verdict.
 
Kara didn’t see how Roni had no resources, nor the time, to try that case the way it should have been tried.
 
And Kara didn’t see how Roni fell to her knees when she, on her own time and dime, discovered the real killer and brought him to justice, only to have Michael murdered in prison before she could even notify him.
 
It made perfect sense to Roni.

“Oh, Roni,” Kara said, her short attention span rearing its head again, “
what
am I going to do?”

Roni was confused.
 
“What are you going to do? I thought we were talking about me.”

“Aubrey won’t listen to reason.
 
All he wants to do is work all the time.
 
He says he’s got to help his daddy keep his company or whatever, and I’m just tired of it.”

“Come on now, Kay-Kay,” Roni said.
 
“You knew going in that those Varnadores are close-knit, you told me so yourself, and you or nobody else is going to crack that family shell.
 
So don’t try, is my advice.”

Kara looked at Roni.
 
“But I’ve got to crack it, Roni, don’t you see that?
 
I’ve got to get Aubrey to marry me!
 
The only reason he won’t is because his daddy doesn’t like me.”

“I see no indication that Jake Varnadore doesn’t like you.”

“He doesn’t think I’m good enough to marry his son, which to me is the same thing.”

Roni looked at her cousin.
 
“Doesn’t his son want to marry you, K?
 
That’s the question.”

“Yes, he wants to,” Kara said.

“Let me rephrase that,” Roni said, knowing her sometimes delusional cousin.
 
“Does Aubrey know that he wants to marry you?”

“He doesn’t know it yet, but he will if Mr. V. will just leave us alone for two minutes.”

“How is that man bothering y’all?”

“Because he’s always got Aubrey doing this or doing that, as if Aubrey’s the only one he thinks can do anything.”

“Maybe it’s because Aubrey is the only one he trusts to do things.
 
And Aubrey, from what I’ve ever seen of him, is a trustworthy kind of guy.”

“But he’s such a workaholic.
 
He doesn’t have time for anything but working for his father.
 
That’s not good.”

“I agree.
 
It’s not.
 
But it is what it is, K.”

“But he’s got to see the light, Roni,” Kara said with frustration all over her face.
 
“If he doesn’t wake up and marry me, what are we going to do?”

Roni stared at her cousin with a puzzled look on her face.
 
“What are we going to do?
 
What are you talking about?”

“If I don’t marry Aubrey, how are we going to make it, Roni?
 
What do you think I’m talking about?”

Roni frowned.
 
“What does whether or not you marry Aubrey Varnadore have to do with me?”

“If I don’t marry Aubrey we’ll struggle for the rest of our lives.
 
Is that what you want?
 
I thought you would have some sway over his father and get him to see reason, and to support our relationship.
 
But instead you’re too busy fucking him day and night to even think about mentioning me.”

This angered Roni.
 
“Now you hold on right there,” she said.
 
“My relationship with Jake has nothing to do with you.
 
And besides that, I just met the man, how in hell am I going to hold sway over him regarding what’s best for his own son?
 
If I would have known him for years I wouldn’t even fix my mouth to tell that man what’s best for his own son.
 
Are you serious?”

Kara took her fork and played around with her food.
 
Because she was serious as a heart attack.
 
And if she couldn’t depend on Roni coming through for her,
which
she should have figured all along, she had to depend on herself.
 

But how, she wondered as she and Roni ate in silence.
 
She knew she had to get some dirt on Aubrey.
 
That was the only way he’d find out what it felt like to be on the bottom of the totem pole.
 
Druce had cooked up a scheme, and she did her part, but now they just had to wait.
 
And waiting was never her strong suit.

Later that night, Jake was in bed.
 
He always slept in the buff, and tonight was no exception.
 
Except there was an exception.
 
At first he thought he was dreaming.
 
He felt something, and it felt good, but he wasn’t sure what it was.
 
He woke up in a drowsy daze to the feel of lips on his dick.
 
Sweet lips.
 
Lips somehow not entirely alien to him.
 
He thought it was Roni, but he knew it couldn’t be her.
 
He hadn’t seen her after they spoke in the park.