One Wild Night (4 page)

And, up until tonight, it was something I
preferred to do alone. Sure, I’ll dance with a guy now and then,
but nothing like what happened with Gabe. That dance was
soul-shaking, panty-melting, so damned sexy my skin is still
buzzing and my heart racing and my stomach feels like it’s turning
inside out. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way—if I’ve
ever
felt this way—or wanted someone the way I want
Gabe.

If I don’t get out of the club ASAP, I know
I’ll do something I’ll regret.

Going home with a guy isn’t on the agenda,
but especially not a guy like Gabe. I don’t have room in my life
for a smug, privileged asshole who probably spends more money per
month on carwashes than I do on groceries to feed a family of six.
Not now, when everything at home is falling apart and I’m feeling
the difference between a person like me and a person like Gabe more
keenly than I ever have before.

“Come on.” I tug on Sherry’s arm, pulling
her off her stool. “Let’s go.”

She nods and holds up one finger before
leaning over the bar to say goodbye to the bartender she’s been
flirting with all night. I turn, scanning the club for six feet of
walking sex appeal, but thankfully, Gabe is nowhere to be seen.
Sherry and I make it up the stairs and through the front lobby into
the street without running into any trouble, and my chest loosens
in relief.

“Let me go get the car,” I say, holding out
my hand for her keys as she limps to the curb beside me. “That way
you won’t make your blisters any worse.”

“Uh-uh,” Sherry says. “You’ve been drinking.
I’ll take my shoes off and go barefoot.”

I shake my head. “There’s broken glass and
cigarette butts and a hundred other nasty things between here and
where we’re parked. I had my second whiskey sour two hours ago; I’m
fine to drive. Hand over the keys, I don’t want you getting
hurt.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sherry rolls her eyes as she
drops the keys in my hand. “You’re such a mom, sometimes.”

“All the time,” I counter with a grin. “Be
right back.”

You weren’t acting like a mom ten minutes
ago,
I think, as I turn to go, my gold, high-heeled sandals
clicking on the sidewalk.

No, I wasn’t, and that scares me as much as
the fluttery feeling still filling my chest. I can’t afford to lose
control, even for a night. I’m all my brothers and Emmie have left.
I can’t let them down. I don’t have time for distractions like
Gorgeous Gabe. Between working five lunch shifts a week at
Harry’s
and almost every Friday and Saturday night at the
movie theater, I barely have time to make sure the kids are fed,
bathed, homework done, doctor appointments kept, Danny’s latest
school crisis averted, and a couple of loads of laundry done per
week.

I don’t have room in my life for a boyfriend
and I don’t do one-night stands. Before my big sister skipped town,
she made sure the name “Cooney” was synonymous with “easy lay”—I’ve
been called a slut behind my back since long before I ever kissed a
guy—but despite the gossip around the neighborhood, this Cooney
sister isn’t into casual hook-ups. Not that I think they’re wrong,
or that I wouldn’t enjoy making out with one of Isaac’s beefy
football player friends or the notoriously hot Lombardi boys down
the street.

My problem is that I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy
it too much. It would be so easy to get addicted to a feeling as
electric as what I felt in Gabe’s arms, so easy to forget all the
lives depending on me and get lost in that hunger, lost in him.

“Don’t think about it,” I say aloud, earning
myself a sideways glance from the two college boys in brightly
colored polo-shirts walking in the opposite direction, making me
realize how long it’s been since I’ve stepped out of my
routine.

At home and at both of my jobs, everyone
knows I talk to myself. It’s something that’s taken for granted, as
much a part of me as my green eyes or the scattering of freckles
across my nose. No one bats an eye when I walk around the
restaurant mumbling my to-do list, but in the real world, people
think girls who talk to themselves are crazy.

And maybe I
am
crazy, because when I
pull up in front of the club and see Gabe standing next to
Sherry—nodding seriously as my best friend talks a mile a minute—a
shockwave of pleasure shoots through me.

I’m happy to see him. Very happy.

Which is
bad
, so bad, and likely to
get worse if the determined look in Gabe’s piercing blue eyes is
anything to judge by.

I swallow, ignoring the way my heart beats
in my throat as I roll down the passenger’s window and call for
Sherry to get in.

“Hey.” She leans down, a guilty-excited look
on her face that makes me even more uneasy. “I’ve decided to take a
cab. I should get home and put some medicine on my blisters, but
you and Gabe can have the car.”

My brows draw together so swiftly my head
jerks. “What?”

“We’re taking the car,” Gabe says as he
eases around Sherry.

Before I can hit the lock button, he’s
inside the vehicle, settling into the seat next to me, filling the
cab of Sherry’s VW Bug with that clean-dirty smell of his. Clean,
because the soapy scent that clings to his skin speaks of long
showers and luxury bath products and other sensual things; dirty,
because the base note of man and spice and sex that hovers around
Gabe is enough to make my mouth water, to make me want to give in
the way I gave in on the dance floor and let him take control.

“Get out,” I mutter through gritted teeth,
shooting him my most serious glare, the one that makes Danny jump
up from his video games and set the table without a hint of
backtalk.

I need Gabe out of this car—now.

“No,” he says, making my jaw clench harder.
“I’m going to help you get what you need.”

“I don’t need your help,” I say with a huff,
insulted that he’s reduced sleeping with me to an act of pity. “I’m
not anyone’s charity case, certainly not yours.”

“I know that.” Gabe nods, but makes no move
to exit the car. “That’s why I’m going to
help
you get what
you need, instead of giving it to you. Charity can be insulting, no
matter how well-intentioned, and I think we’ll both have more fun
this way.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, no
longer certain this conversation is about sex.

“Your friend told me about the property
taxes,” he says. “I know where we can get the money.”

My mouth falls open, but before I can
recover Sherry breaks in.

“Okay, well you two have fun.” She wiggles
her fingers as she backs away from the car, the giddy look on her
face making it clear she thinks she’s doing me a favor by throwing
me to the wolves.

To one wolf, anyway, one who watches me with
cool blue eyes that make my lips prickle as his gaze lingers on my
face.

“I’ll swing by your place tomorrow morning
and pick up the car,” Sherry continues as she hops back onto the
sidewalk to await her taxi. “Do all the things I wish I was doing
tonight. At least twice!”

“I’m going to kill you,” I say, ignoring the
heat that flushes my face.

“Sounds good.” She giggles, obviously not
taking my threat seriously.

But she’s right, of course. I’m not going to
kill her, or even hold a grudge for more than a day. I can’t stay
mad at Sherry. She’s impulsive and crazy and runs her mouth when
she shouldn’t, but she’s been my friend since third grade.

She and Isaac were the only friends who
didn’t lose interest when I got an academic scholarship to
Christoph Academy and switched high schools. They were also the
only ones who came by to visit me when I quit the academy to stay
home with Emmie.

Sherry was my rock, stopping by the store
for more diapers when Emmie was too sick for me to take her out and
keeping me company when the stress of caring for an infant and
three wild boys threatened to unravel what was left of my sanity.
Back then, I’d been so overwhelmed I couldn’t have imagined things
getting any harder, but they had. And I had survived, the way I
always do—on my own, without any handouts or knights in shining
BMWs.

I have no idea what kind of “help” Gabe
plans on shelling out, but I know I want no part of it.

“Should I drop you off at your car?” I ask
as I pull back onto the road. “Or do you need a ride home?”

“We’re going to the corner of Grant and
Hawthorne,” Gabe says. “Do you know where that is?”

I grunt beneath my breath. “That’s my side
of town.”

“Is it?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know I
live on the wrong side of the tracks—both sets of them. “Then I
assume you know how to get there.”

“I do, but—”

“Good, but don’t drive past the pawnshop on
the corner,” he interrupts. “You’ll want to park before we get
there, preferably on a side street.” He reaches down, releasing the
seat handle and scooting back to make more room for his long
legs—his thickly muscled, long legs, one of which was between my
thighs less than an hour ago when we were grinding on the dance
floor.

I take a deep breath in and let it out
slowly through my nose, fighting the memory and the sizzle of
awareness it generates.

“Listen, I appreciate that you’d like to
help,” I say. “But I don’t have anything worth pawning and I don’t
want your money.”

“I’m not giving you my money, and we won’t
be pawning anything,” he says, his voice low, silky smooth, and as
ridiculously sexy as everything else about the man Gabe’s become.
“The shop is closed. The owner’s spending some time in the hospital
after being hit in the head with a baseball bat.”

“Crap,” I say, forehead wrinkling. “Poor
guy.”

“Don’t waste your pity.” Gabe leans back in
his seat as I guide the bug down Limestone Avenue and take a right
near the courthouse. “Mr. Purdue broke his wife’s arm in three
places and cracked two of her ribs before his daughter hit him with
the baseball bat, knocking him out long enough to get her mother
out of the house alive.”

My eyes go round and my stomach lurches.
“How do you know that?”

“My father is Mr. Purdue’s defense
attorney,” he says. “I’m working at the office while I’m taking a
semester off. I read the case file. It had all the gory
details.”

I peek at him, dividing my attention between
him and the road. “You’re kidding right?”

“I’m not.” Gabe sighs and for the first time
I see a crack in his cool, confident exterior. I can tell he hates
that his dad is representing a man who would beat his wife. “But
Dad will defend any scumbag with enough cash to pay his retainer,
and he’s the best, so there’s a good chance Mr. Purdue will get
off. Assuming his wife’s courage holds, of course, and she doesn’t
change her mind and refuse to testify the way she did last
time.”

I shake my head, not knowing what to say.
“Well, I guess everyone has the right to an attorney.”

“They shouldn’t,” Gabe says, his voice hard.
“Evil people have too much protection under the law. It’s the
innocent who suffer while they try to prove they’ve been
victimized. If you play by the rules, you get screwed. Every
time.”

I chew the corner of my lip, wishing I could
disagree with him. But the system popped my optimistic cherry a
long time ago, the year I spent three months in a foster home. The
place was ten times worse than the house my caseworker plucked me
out of, and I was stuck there for months while Chuck and my
scatterbrained mom tried to follow all the rules to reestablish
custody.

There had been three other foster kids in
the house, and we’d passed around lice so many times I had to have
my head shaved to get rid of it. Our foster mom gave me the crew
cut herself. She couldn’t be bothered to do all the washing and
cleaning to get rid of the infestation, and I think a part of the
sadistic bitch had enjoyed shaving off my waist-length hair. It had
been so beautiful and healthy and shiny, the only part of my
appearance I took pride in back when I was so skinny the kids at
school made fun of the way my knobby elbows and knees stuck out
from the rest of me.

I’d gone back home looking like a cancer
patient. The moment my mom saw me, she’d burst into tears and run
to her room, refusing to come out for the “welcome home” burgers
and fries my dad had sprung for from McDonald’s.

I should have known right then she wasn’t in
the motherhood game for the long haul. There is nothing that would
keep me from hugging one of my kids if they’d been gone for three
months. Nothing.

“That’s why sometimes rules need to be
broken,” Gabe continues, pulling me from my thoughts. “Sometimes
you have to take justice into your own hands.”

I brake behind a row of cars already stopped
at a red light and turn to face him, grateful for the chance to
look him in the eyes. “Where are we going?” I ask, stomach gurgling
with nerves. “What is this?”

His focus slides my way, the intensity in
his expression enough to make me shiver. “We’re going to get the
money you need to keep your home and take care of your family.”

“How?” I ask.

“You’ve already sacrificed your life on the
altar of sisterly duty,” he says, ignoring my question. “I’d hate
to think all of that was for nothing.”

“Keep your smartass comments to yourself,” I
say, gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles start to
ache. “Or you can get out right here.”

“I’m not being a smartass,” he says, a
gentle note in his voice that’s almost as unnerving as his
penetrating stare. “I heard the gossip after you left school. You
dropped out to take care of your brothers and niece because your
dad’s an alcoholic and your sister bailed on her kid, right?”

“Yeah. So?” I turn my attention to the road
as the cars begin to move, grateful for an excuse to break the eye
contact that’s making my skin feel too tight.