On Thin Ice (22 page)

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Authors: Susan Andersen

BOOK: On Thin Ice
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And he knew just how to get it.
F
OURTEEN
Not that she'd taken the time to apply much rational thought to the matter, exactly, but in some unacknowledged corner of her mind Sasha must have expected that it would be difficult getting used to living with Mick on a full-time basis. Instead, she found herself taking to it like a cat to its creature comforts.
She'd known the sex would be good but had been more than a little leery that they would get in each other's way once they rolled out of bed. Mick, however, turned out to be thoughtful in ways she hadn't anticipated. He didn't require round-the-clock entertainment. He steered clear of the bathroom until she was finished with it in the mornings, and the night a line skater with man problems had shown up with tale of woe and a pint of cheap vodka seeking female advice and comfort, he had discreetly made himself scarce.
Most days they each went their separate ways much as they had when occupying separate rooms. Mick was usually out and about doing managerial stuff all day long, and she still spent the usual amount of time testing the ice in various arenas and exploring with Connie. And even if they'd been tripping all over each other in the worst way possible, the unadorned truth was she probably
still
would have labored like the devil to find a way to make it work. For Mick possessed two traits that Sasha found almost impossible to resist. He was physical in ways that owed nothing to his sexuality and he spent a great deal of time simply talking to her.
Except for her mother, no one in Sasha's life had shown her much physical affection. She was a toucher by nature, and Mick fulfilled a need she hadn't even realized she possessed when he hugged her, or pulled her onto his lap, or toyed with her hair, or guided her along as they walked, one of his warm, hard-skinned hands wrapped around the back of her neck beneath her heavy fall of hair.
Little by little, she was learning about him. He had strong opinions on selected subjects, the most important of which she tended to agree with, a few of which they had argued to a standstill. He was verbal, tactile, and sometimes a shade too possessive for comfort. He said he loved her, and she refused to say it back until she was absolutely certain it wasn't just the novelty of great sex that she loved.
But deep in her heart she knew she was merely marking time. The man was beginning to own her, body and soul. And eventually she broke down and told him so.
Fairy tales really did come true.
 
 
Oh, Jesus, he was in a whole lot of trouble. He'd always thought love was for other people, never for him, but he'd fallen like a ton of bricks for a pretty little skater with big gray eyes and a mass of curly black hair. The feelings she could induce so effortlessly stripped him of every single protective layer he'd ever owned and he didn't even have the good sense to give a damn. This was the genuine article, all right, Love with a capital L. And no matter what, he was hanging on to it tooth and nail.
The question was, how?
He'd never had a relationship that had lasted more than six goddam hours in his life, but in his arrogance he'd actually thought he was doin' okay, thought he had it all under control. All he had to do was treat her the best he knew how, show her how he felt, use this time to entrench his position.
Then last night she'd told him she loved him.
God, he could see her still, going to pieces in his arms, breath coming fast, eyes luminous, whispering, “I love you, Mick; oh God, Micky, I love you.” It wasn't until then he'd realized just how precarious his hold on this relationship really was.
Sooner or later,
his conscience taunted at the very moment she was making all his dreams come true,
you're going to have to tell her the truth, chump. You're gonna have to look her in those big trusting eyes and tell her you lied to her from the beginning.
And that was going to be the death of all his dreams.
For he'd gotten to know what was important to her. She revealed a new detail of her private life daily. It never even occurred to her to hold anything back, and the minute she realized how defenseless she'd left herself she was going to hate him for it. More than anything he wished there was some way he could reciprocate, some way to hand her a few weapons against him to bolster her defenses, but there were too many aspects of his life that he simply couldn't share with her, at least not yet. Hell, the way he'd made his living for the past decade pretty well
was
his private life, and God knew that cut down fairly dramatically on the number of conversational topics that were safe to discuss.
So he'd talked to her instead about the things that were important to him. What he thought, how he felt about things, what he could live with, what he couldn't.
And knew without being told that it wasn't going to be enough. Not even close. After all the dishonesty that had poisoned her life, finding out he'd lied to her too was going to be one transgression too many.
He knew in his gut it was going to be the one she absolutely would not tolerate.
 
 
Lon rolled off Karen and stretched out on his back, smiling in satisfaction. Now this was more like it. It was restful to be in the company of someone who didn't expect him to be so damn good all the time. When Karen looked at him she saw him for exactly what he was. She wasn't forever conjuring up some friggin' boy scout who never had and never would exist outside of a sweet woman's wistful imagination.
He wished more than anything that he could be that boy scout. At the same time he was eternally weary of struggling to be what he damn well wasn't.
Karen rolled onto her stomach. She draped herself across him, scratching her fingernails lightly across his stomach. Lonnie wrapped a friendly arm around her shoulders and stroked her hair where it rested against his chest. He waited for her to once again bring up the subject of distributing her bootleg heroin. He was finally ready to be convinced—his days as a choirboy were definitely coming to a close.
This postcoital interval was generally when she started bossing him around, but she'd been strangely reticent ever since Seattle. He would much prefer that she think he was giving in to her demands, but her continued silence had the effect of making him restless. Now that he'd finally made up his mind he wondered what the holdup was. If she didn't bring the matter up soon, he'd have to throw it onto the table for discussion himself.
He was gearing himself up for the best approach when the little night-light that shed the room's only illumination blew with a sharp pop. They both jumped, then Lon laughed. He squeezed Karen, reaching out with one hand to grope through the soft darkness for the lamp on the nightstand. “Sounded like a gunshot for a minute there, didn't it?”
She didn't respond and it wasn't until her failure to do so became noticeable that he also noticed how rigid she had become against his side. She began to gasp as if she wasn't drawing in enough air, a high-pitched
hee
growing louder at the apex of each successive inhalation. Abandoning his search for the lamp, he turned back to her. “Hey, baby, what's the matter? Karen? You all right?” Her struggle for breath grew louder. “Jesus. Take it easy, now. You're all right; you're just hyperventilating. Christ, I wish we had a paper bag. Shh, now. Shhhhh.”
For once she failed to hear the blasphemy. “Turn-on-the-light-turn-on-the-light-turn-on-the-light,” she wheezed. “Oh please, I'll be good; turn on the light.”
Once again he fumbled for the lamp and finding it, snapped it on. Immediately, most of the tension that held her in its grip left her rigid muscles. Lon spied a sack on the table and slid his arm out from under her, rolling to his feet. Snatching it up, he dumped its contents on the tabletop and brought it over to Karen. “Here. Breathe into this.”
She did as he said, using both hands to clasp it to her nose and mouth. Within a few moments her breathing had resumed its normal cadence. She lowered the bag and lay staring up at the ceiling.
Lon studied her pale face. “You wanna tell me what that was all about?”
“No,” she said through lips so stiff they barely moved.
“Okeydoke.” He pulled the bedspread up, tucking her in, and then sat beside her quietly for several moments. Briefly, strictly in the interests of making conversation, he considered bringing up his newfound willingness to go back to his larcenous ways. But in the end he held his tongue, for he knew Karen too well. She was going to be royally pissed that he had witnessed her in a weak moment and would most likely feel compelled to pull a power play on him just to show him who was still the boss. If he said he was willing to do now what he'd refused to do before when she had demanded it of him, her most probable response would be to say: too bad, the timing's not right for
me
now.
Oh well, no big loss. This was Idaho. There were probably more neo-Nazi skinheads in this state than the type of customer she catered to, anyway.
Sasha spotted Lon sitting by himself in the far corner of the hotel coffee shop when she and Connie went in for lunch. He glanced up at her but then immediately returned his attention to the magazine that was spread out on the tabletop next to his plate. Sasha stopped so abruptly Connie bounced off her back.
Why, that lousy faker. She knew perfectly well he'd seen her but for some reason he was pretending he hadn't. Feeling perverse, she dragged Connie over to his corner table. “Hi! ” She pushed Connie into a chair, tossed her wallet on the tabletop, and took a chair herself. “Mind if we join you?” Without awaiting reply, she snatched up a menu and shoved it in her friend's dainty hands. Connie grinned at her and flipped it open.
Sasha turned her attention back to Lon. “So, whataya reading?” She craned her head sideways.
“Playboy,
huh. You always did have intellectual tastes.” She started thumbing through the magazine in search of the centerfold.
Lonnie jerked it out of her reach. “Saush, do you mind?” Scowling, he smoothed the pages she'd rifled, and in that moment she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he really was pulling away from their friendship. She'd suspected as much, given his recent attitude toward her, but had hoped she was wrong.
Dammit, though, she wasn't. Her old Lonnie could have been counted on to make a facetious comment about reading the magazine strictly for its articles, and then with his usual sarcastic humor would have plunged right in to help her trash the centerfold's good name, intellectual prowess, and flawless, perky, airbrushed figure.
This Lonnie looked at her as if she were a pushy tavern moll encroaching on his sermon preparation time.
Still she kept trying. “I'm going out to check on the ice at the arena after lunch,” she said, hoping the good cheer in her voice didn't sound half as forced and phony to him as it did to her. “You wanna come with?”
Come with
. It was an expression he hadn't heard in years—not, in fact, since they'd finally left Kells Crossing behind them for good—and Lon's heart constricted. His facial muscles wanted to give her a big old lopsided smile, but he sternly put the constraints to them. “No, Mother, I do not,” he said flatly. And fisted his hands under the table at the hurt that flashed across her face.
“Excuse me, won't you?” she murmured breezily and pushed her chair back from the table. “I just remembered I . . . uh, forgot something.” She turned and strode swiftly from the room, her head held high.
Not, however, before her companions caught the sheen of moisture that reflected the overhead light in her large, gray eyes.
There was a heartbeat of silence in the wake of her departure. Then another. Jon looked up to find Connie still sitting there, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed under her diminutive breasts, watching him with a set expression. “What the hell are you gawkin' at?” he snarled.
“You son of a bitch,” she said in disgust. Then her eyes narrowed, her arms dropped to her sides, and she leaned forward. “No. That's probably doing your Mama a disservice. You prick.”
Lon ran his eyes up and down her insultingly. “You think about my prick a lot, Nakamura?”

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