Out Bad (10 page)

Gwen grabbed her travel mug off her desk, tipping it against
her lips.  “Damn it.”  

She pried the lid off confirming her suspicions. 
Crossing her office she turned on the
Keurig
sitting
in the corner.  A flashing light at the bottom of the water reservoir
indicated it was going to be a lot more work than she first thought to get
another dose of caffeine running through her veins.

Pulling it free, she headed out of her office to fill the
tank.  She’d tried to get them to upgrade the refrigerator in the break
room to a new model with a water dispenser.  Instead she was stuck with
the clichéd water cooler in the back corner of the building.  She stood,
tapping her foot, listening to the glugging noise as the pale blue jug traded
water for air, waiting for the slow trickle to fill her container.

“Hey Gwen. 
Lookin
’ great
today.”

She was three quarters full and that would have to be enough
for now.  She straightened, ignoring what Richard probably thought of as a
compliment. 

“Have you finished going over the exact numbers from the
company we acquired last week?” 

His shoulders slumped slightly. 

“I have.  I’ll send them your way after lunch.”

She checked her watch.  It was twelve o’clock. 
Where in the hell had her day gone? 

“That’s not necessary.  Come up with a game plan. 
We can go over it when you have that ready.”  She turned and headed back
to her office, not waiting for an answer.  This cup of coffee had already
taken way to much work and she needed to get on with it.

She passed a number of coworkers on their way out to lunch
as she headed back to her office.  Probably all going somewhere
together.  Good.  That meant she would have at least an hour of a
quiet building to get some work done. 

Four minutes later she was finally sitting down at her desk
with a cup of coffee.  Flipping up the lid on her laptop, she had just
opened up a series of spreadsheets when her cell began to ring.  The
frustration of the interruption dissolved as soon as she saw the number. 
Her stomach flipped and all thoughts of work were trampled into dust.

“Hi.” 

She should have said hello.  Pretended she didn’t know
who it was. She could act as if she didn’t have his number memorized. 
That she’d all but forgotten he’d promised to come back this week.  But
she didn’t want to.  In some way, she wanted to be found out.  Wanted
someone to finally know what a fraud she was.  To see the person hiding
behind the hard shell she’d surrounded herself with years ago.

“Hey.”  He paused. 

She held her breath, forcing her mouth to remain shut while
she waited for him to say more. 

“Will you be home tonight?  I have a job right around
the corner from you.  I could come by when I’m finished.”

She wasn’t surprised to find out he was working in her
neighborhood.  She’d posted his information on their HOA site with a
glowing review.  He deserved it.  He’d been nothing but professional
even when faced with her less than appropriate behavior.  She owed
him.  “Okay.  What time do you think it will be?”

“I’ll probably be finishing up around six.”

“Okay.  I’ll see you then.” 

She hung up and set her phone on her desk, staring at it,
her mind racing.  She hadn’t expected him to call so soon.  He said
he’d come by later in the week.  It was Monday. 

She drummed her fingertips against her knees.  What was
she doing?

She shoved her chair back from her desk and walked to the
window looking out over the parking lot as her coworkers filtered out to
lunch.  She tried to punch down the excitement growing within her. 
She was being ridiculous.

There was no rational reason for her to be excited to see a
man she barely knew.  Her eyes fell on the computer screen. 

There was one way to learn more.

So far she’d successfully resisted the urge to do too much
investigating of him aside from her initial name search that found his
business.  The background search suggested at the top of the results had
seemed so… intrusive.

She twisted a strand of hair tightly around one finger,
staring at the screen.

All it would take was a few keystrokes and twenty bucks and
she could know everything she’d ever wondered about Josiah Parker.  He
would never even know. 

Maybe there would be something awful that would squelch
these unexplainable feelings she had toward him.  It might actually be a
good idea.  She could find something that would end this before it took up
any more of her time.  Or worse.

She quickly typed in his name and within seconds, was
entering a credit card number. 

He was from Texas.  Son of Calvin and Suzanne Parker. 
Born May 5, 1979.  She
scrolled
down, her eyes
landing on a picture of a younger Joe.  A much different looking man than
the one she knew.  The hair and the face were almost exactly the same, but
the look in his eyes was so very different.  He looked cold, angry,
threatening.

It was a mug shot taken eight years ago. 

He’d been convicted of a string of felonies including
withholding evidence, assault and trafficking that sent him to prison.  He
was released early for good behavior and from the list of addresses since then,
immediately moved to Alabama and had been here ever since.

She leaned back in her chair stunned.  It seemed so
unbelievable, but the truth was staring her in the face.  She squinted at
the picture on her screen.  It was him, but in a way that seemed
completely foreign.  Like an evil twin. 

Gwen sat like that for a long time.  Looking at the man
staring out from her computer, waiting for all the feelings she was struggling
with to begin to change and fade at this new, less than
exciting
information. 

She expected her opinions of him to flip.  He was a
criminal after all.  But it never happened.  The man she knew was not
the same man whose life was laid out digitally before her. 

Never once had she felt threatened or unsafe around
him.  Quite the opposite actually.

She had basically thrown herself at him and he walked away,
not even taking a glimpse before he went.  Then, in spite of her bad
behavior, he came back, saving her from the watery mess he found her ankle deep
in.  And he had yet to charge her for any of it.

Who was Joe, really?  Was he the same guy he was eight
years ago?  Was he the guy she believed him to be?  Was he someone
else entirely? 

Gwen leaned her head back against the chair, closing her
eyes.  What happened?  How did he end up where he did?  How did
he get where he was now? 

She, better than anyone knew a past could change you. 
Sometimes for worse.  Sometimes for the better.  Maybe Joe wasn’t
like her.  Maybe he was one of the lucky ones it changed for the better.

****

Joe packed up his van and pulled away from the large house
just around the corner from Gwen.  The man who hired him said he found a
review of Parker’s Plumbing on the neighborhood’s
Facebook
page.  Surprising considering he'd only been to one other house in the
area.

He pulled up in front of her house and put the van in
park.  He had just gotten to the back doors when her sleek black BMW
coasted past him and turned into the driveway. 

He walked behind it as Gwen pulled into the garage. 
 A couple of tires sticking out from beneath a cover on one side of the
garage caught his attention.  The discovery would have been a little more
surprising if he hadn't already found a room full of motorcycle parts and tools
when he shut her water off over the weekend.

He looked as he got closer, thinking maybe he’d be able to
figure out what she had under there, but the sight of a pair of long legs
swinging out the open door of her car made the bike seem much less interesting.

As she stood, the hem of her dress scooted down, exposing
much less skin than he’d been able to see just a second ago. 

He shouldn’t be looking at her like this.  He took a
deep breath as he tried to remind himself he had to be careful.  Very
careful.

“Sorry.  I got stuck in a meeting.  I meant to
beat you here.”  She reached back in her car to grab her purse off the
passenger seat, giving him the opportunity to check out her ass.  He was a
little proud of himself when he chose not to take it. 

 “I just got here myself.” 

She straightened up, stepping towards him as she closed the
car door.  Back in the tall heels she seemed to always wear to work, they
were almost eye to eye.  For just a second, he caught uncertainty in the
depths of her pale green irises before she quickly turned from him and walked
to the entry door leading into the house, those shoes making her sway in a way
that would set off all the things a man likes to focus on. 

Instead, he chose to look at her car as they stepped around
it.  It was immaculate.  Not a speck of dirt anywhere he could
see.  One thing was for sure, the woman took care of what she had.

He followed her through the door as she pushed a button on
the wall, closing the garage behind them.  They entered a small room off
the kitchen.  Custom benches and cabinets lined the walls designating it a
mudroom.  He imagined it had never seen any of its namesake.  She
slid
her purse into one of the cubbies on the wall before
continuing on to the kitchen.

“Want something to drink?  A coffee or
something?”  She stood at the counter chewing on her lip as her eyes
slowly came up to meet his, that same uncertainty from before still
lingering. 

There were so many things he wanted to ask her.  He
wanted so much to understand this woman and he felt she needed desperately to
be understood, but some questions weren’t meant to be asked.

“Coffee would be great.  Thank you.”  He nodded to
the back sliding door.  “Is it okay if I let myself out?  It
shouldn’t take long.”

Her shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly, the tiniest flash
of disappointment running across her face. 

He almost smiled.  "Then we can go have
dinner."

“Um, yes.”  She took a deep breath.  “Yes. 
Go ahead out.  I’ll bring your coffee out in a minute.”

He crossed the kitchen, trying to step lightly to keep from
sounding like a herd of buffalo in his work boots on the hardwood floors. 
A few minutes later, as he was pulling the broken faucet free of the water
line, he heard the light clicking of Gwen’s heels across the brick and looked
up as she handed him a travel mug. 

“I forgot to ask how you take it.  I made it the way I
like it, but I can make a fresh cup if you’d rather have it differently.” 
As the last word escaped her lips she clamped her mouth shut, the full line of
her lips thinning under the pressure.

He took the cup from her.  “I take it however you made
it.” 

He sipped the hot liquid letting the sweet creaminess swirl
around his mouth.  He’d been drinking it black his whole life and just
this one sip had him rethinking that decision.  Cream and sugar made one
hell of a big difference. 

He looked across the cup at the pretty blonde staring out
into her backyard, hair blowing in the gentle breeze.  Maybe it wasn’t
just the cream and sugar making the difference.  “It’s perfect. 
Thank you.”

He set the cup on the ground beside him and went back to
work.  He expected her to go back inside to wait for him to finish. 
Instead, she sat down on the ground beside him.  He watched out of the
corner of his eye as she maneuvered herself down, careful not to scoot her
dress or her shoes across the cement.

She sat quietly like that, watching the sky, even as the
breeze changed to a strong wind and occasional raindrops splashed the ground
around them.  He hadn’t checked the weather before he called her this
afternoon.  “You should go inside.  I’m almost done.”

She looked up, the sky dark and threatening above her. 
“It’s okay.” 

She turned to face him, squinting her eyes as her hair
whipped wildly around her face.  “I like storms.”

As the wind continued to pick up and the occasional
raindrops became more frequent, he tried to rush to get the new threaded end on
the pipe, but his blow torch was fighting him. 

After a couple attempts, he finally had a flame and made
quick work of sweating the pipe.  By the time he finished twisting the new
faucet into place, the rain was pelting his back.  He grabbed his stuff
and stood, reaching his hand out to Gwen.  “You’re going to ruin your
dress.”

She looked at his hand, then at his face.  There was
fear in her eyes.

Slowly she raised her arm and fitted her hand into
his.  Her eyes searched his, the fear still there, but an emotion he
couldn’t discern took the forefront. 

She squeezed his hand as he pulled her up beside him then
shook her dress gently, trying to keep it from completely sticking to her body.

He held his hand in the direction of the door.  “After
you.” 

She went ahead of him, walking slowly across the deck,
obviously not concerned about the very expensive dress and shoes she was
wearing getting soaked, before finally going through the sliding door and into
the house.  He pulled the door closed behind him then turned to find her
standing staring at him.

She shivered,
goosebumps
raising
on her arms, her nipples tightening against the wet fabric hugging her
body.  He swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from her.  His ideas
about slowly, gently coaxing Gwen out from behind the walls she'd built were
quickly being replaced by other, less sweet thoughts. 

“We should do dinner another night.”  He stepped around
her shivering body and made for the front door using every bit of strength he
had to stop himself from turning back.  To resist the temptation to pull
her against him and wrap her in his warmth.