Raspberry Crush (40 page)

Chapter 30

Later, when they were lying together in her bed, with Pike Bishop lounging at the foot, they talked about everything that had happened. Pressing her head against Seth's chest, Billy murmured, "Poor Katie. She'll be devastated if her grandmother goes to prison."

"If they catch her," Seth said, remembering that the last they'd heard, the cops were sending out an APB on a little old lady with white hair. Something told him that Mrs. Tailor would slip away—disappear—just as she'd done thirty years before.

"So does this mean that Katie was related to Ted?" Seth asked now.

"No, no. After leaving her family, Mrs. Tailor—Gertrude—met Jeff Spiegal. She married him, but never took his name. He had a thirteen-year-old son when they got married."

"Katie's dad," Seth supplied with a nod.

"Right. Katie mentioned once that her grandfather, Jeff, died several years ago. I guess Gertrude won't be collecting his pension now that she's on the lam... but somehow she'll probably manage."

"Man," Seth said on a sigh, "what a night." After he ducked his head down to kiss her neck, he said, "Sorry, I need to shave."

"I like it," she said, smiling at the feel of his roughened cheek against the underside of her jaw. "You know, I still don't understand why Ted left Aunt Pen before he'd gotten any money off her. Do you think maybe he had an attack of conscience? Like maybe he saw how sweet and caring she was, and he couldn't go through with it?"

"Yeah, that's definitely possible," Seth said.

"And so he gave her his 'someone's after me' getaway line early?"

"Maybe," Seth said, looking into her eyes, smiling at her sweetness, her warmth, and how much she wanted to believe that. And hell, maybe it was the truth, but they'd never know now, and some wounds were best unopened. Most, in fact.

"I guess I should just let all this go," Billy said, as though realizing what Seth knew, too. The past was the past—the future was now. Cuddling closer, she tightened her arm around his stomach and sighed into his chest. "I love you so much," she whispered.

"I love you, too, baby," he said, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

When Billy got to Mark's apartment she didn't expect to find it vacant. She'd come here to tell him it was over, and in a bizarre way he'd stolen her thunder. "Hello?" she said, walking in slowly. Her voice echoed and boomeranged back to her. What the hell was going on? Did she have the wrong address? She'd been there only a couple of times, when they first started dating, but she was sure this was the place.

"Can I help you, miss?" She spun around and saw a short, balding man standing in the doorway. "I'm the landlord."

"Oh, yes. Do you know where the guy who lives here is? Mark Warner?"

"Right, Warner. Decent tenant. But he moved out over a month ago."

"He did?"

"Broke the lease, said he had insufficient funds."

What?
That was crazy. "Well... where did he go?" she asked.

"He left a forwarding address," he said. "Not sure what it is, offhand."

"Oh, please, it's really an emergency. I'm his girlfriend, sort of."

His eyebrow quirked up at that. A girlfriend who didn't know he moved. That smacked of psycho-ex syndrome. Still, she smiled sweetly at him. "Please?"

"Follow me," he said, and led her to his apartment on the first floor.

"I'll wait out here," Billy said, when he went inside, leaving the door open.

After rifling through some papers on his desk, he said, "Oh, here it is," and handed her a slip with an address in Natick.

The suburbs?

* * *

An hour later Billy sat parked in her parents' car in front of a pink house with a picket fence. A sickening feeling roiled in her stomach. Dear God—Mark was married.

Now she understood why he could hardly ever get together on weeknights. Why he never wanted her to come to his apartment—or the love nest that he'd had for show in the beginning of their relationship. She wasn't sure why he'd gotten rid of it, because obviously he couldn't really have had insufficient funds. Not with the fast-paced, lucrative position he always said he loved so much.

Just then a horrible thought popped into her mind. That time his cell wasn't working, and she'd called him at another number, another woman had answered. Oh, God, that had been his wife! She felt dirty, nauseous—fuming—but she pulled herself together, stormed out of the car, and charged up to the front door.

She rang the doorbell. It was Sunday, so Mark wouldn't be working.
Come on, open up, you bastard!

"Billy?" he said, obviously shocked when he swung open the front door. "W-what are you doing here?"

"Mark, what in the hell is going on here? I went to your apartment and found out you
moved
? A
month
ago? That
this
is where you live?"

"I can explain," he said quickly.

"Yeah, so can I. You're married."

That stopped him short. "No, I'm not," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"You're not? But then—"

"Mark, I'm not going to tell you again!" a woman's voice called from inside the house. "Pick up your clothes!"

"Okay, Mom!" he called back to her, his smile faltering as he braved a slow glance back at Billy. "I moved back in with my parents," he said.

"You did? But Mark, why would you keep that a secret from me? I don't understand this."

"I lost my job," he explained with a hapless shrug. "I ran out of money."

"When did you lose your job?"

"About a week after our first date."

Her eyes shot up. "But whenever I ask you about work, you say it's going great."

"Well, I like to stay positive." So he was a liar.

"But you always said work was the reason you could never do stuff on the weeknights, or sleep over at my place."

"Well, my curfew's eleven, but my mom really doesn't like me out on school nights." So he was a mama's boy, to boot. In fact, now she realized it had been his
mom
who'd answered the phone that night. "Billy, I'm sorry I lied. I just didn't want you to know that I lost my job and that I had to move back home. I didn't want
anyone
to know."

"But Mark, you could've told me. And you have so many friends—couldn't anyone help you out? Let you crash with them till you got back on your feet?"

He looked a little perplexed at that. And then Billy grasped the obvious: Just because he knew a thousand people didn't mean he was
close
to a thousand people. In fact, it almost guaranteed that he wasn't. Now it made sense why Mark had been so thrifty lately—especially the night he'd made them split fries and a soda from Burger King, then horded the free ketchup packets.

Shaking her head, she said, "Oh, wow... I never saw any of this coming."

"So I guess we're done, huh?" he asked plaintively. But he clearly saw the writing on the wall. There wasn't that much between them in the first place, and their relationship had been full of lies, anyway.

"Yeah, we're done," she agreed. "But I hope things work out for you."

"Thanks. You, too."

Before she turned to go, she reached into her wallet and pulled out Kip Belding's card. "Here, maybe this guy can help."

"Oh, thanks," he said, and took the card.

Sure.

On the way down the steps, she paused, then angled her head back. "By the way... how do you feel about hospitals?"

* * *

"Did you ever get the feeling that you've been going through life without paying attention?"

"What do you mean?" Seth asked, rubbing her shoulders, sitting behind her in his tub. They had a bottle of Shiraz and candlelight. Billy sank happily against him, feeling his erection pressed against her bottom, turning her on already.

She sighed. "I just mean, in just a couple weeks, I found out that half the people I know have been living a lie of some kind or another. Melissa, Mrs. Tailor, Mark. What's next? If I find out you are, I'll die," she threw in quickly, flashing him a small but hopeful smile.

Smiling back, he kissed her shoulder, then leaned his cheek against it. "I'm not. What you see is what you get, I swear." A thrilling anticipation bubbled inside her, because what she saw was already too much to hope for.

Epilogue

One year later

"Exactly how many times can we 'christen one desk?"

Seth laughed into her neck, kissed her gently there, then mumbled something into her naked shoulder.

"What?" Billy said, giggling and pushing him up so she could hear. She was lying on top of the desk with her robe open, and Seth was lying on top of her with his jeans undone.

"I said, its your fault for being all over me," he replied, grinning.

She let out a laugh. "I just came in to kiss you good morning!"

"Well, there you go."

"Seriously..." she said, pushing out from under him. "We've gotta get ready." Seth had gotten up early to work on putting Billy's studio together, as he had every morning for the last month. They'd transformed the guest room in the Churchill house into a studio for Billy, which had meant ripping up the carpet and carving out a larger window for more light. Seth had built her a large tilted desk for her to draw on, and bought her an easel for her to paint on.

Her business was still brand-new, but it was growing quickly in Churchill, especially with Greg Dappaport's connections. She'd done portraits for the polo club, and afterward members of the yacht club had wanted to commission her, too. Apparently they all had the same self-aggrandizing flair for interior design—but hey, it worked for her.

Seth had helped her lease an empty shop on Main Street, where she sold landscape paintings she'd done, framed in all sizes, and painted portraits upon arrangement. The local junior high had called her last week and asked if she'd come in and do a painting workshop for the kids. Things were definitely coming along. Plus, Seth had assured her that come summertime, the tourist trade would give her shop a jolt into the black.

And she trusted his judgment, of course, because he was still a savvy business consultant, even though he'd sold his Seattle firm to come back to Churchill. In fact, right now he was laying the groundwork for a new company based in Massachusetts. Honestly, Billy didn't know how he did it all... or how she'd gotten so lucky.

Sometimes she missed her job at Bella Donna, but she still stopped in. In fact, she'd ordered her wedding cake last week. While she was there, she'd chatted with Katie—who still claimed that she didn't know where her grandma was. (Nobody truly believed that.)

"Come on; let's hurry," she said, smacking his butt now, and looking ultrainnocent when he glanced back at her. They were meeting Corryn and Joe at the Churchill Art Gallery, where Dappaport was unveiling Billy's newest mural, on the side of the building that faced the water. Her first one had gotten such great reception that she couldn't pass up the chance to work for Dappaport again. She always remembered how Dappaport saw something in her—believed in her—before he really had any reason to, and she couldn't help thinking that underneath his silk neckerchiefs and fake accents, he was actually one of the most genuine people she'd ever met.

"Okay, I'm almost ready," Seth said, and he zipped up his jeans and tossed his shirt back on. "Let me just finish sanding the drawing table."

Billy knew it was futile to argue, so she came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed a kiss to his back, feeling the heat through his T-shirt. "I love you," she whispered. But he didn't hear her over the rasping of the sander, and anyway, it was just as well, because if he looked at her now, she might start to cry—and for no other reason except she was happy.

Loving Seth was better the second time around. And to think it all began with just a little crush.

The End

Page forward for more by Jill Winters

Excerpt from

Plum Girl

by

Jill Winters

Chapter 1

"The punk is
begging
for it."

"What'd he say?" Peach asked.

Before Lonnie answered, she hooked the phone on her shoulder and looked around the corner, where her boss, Beauregard Twit, had just turned. When she was sure he was out of earshot, she slid the receiver back in place and said, "Sorry. I just had to make sure he was gone before I finished bitching to you."

"No problem," Peach said, chomping her gum cheerfully on the other end. "So, what did the Twit do today? Beat his top score in Minesweeper and make you take minutes?"

"Good guess, but no," Lonnie answered, pushing some of her long, dark hair behind her ear, and resting her elbow on her overly cluttered desk. "You know how I was put in charge of planning the holiday party?"

Peach replied, "Uh-huh. The one you're taking me to next week, so Mom can sit home in ecstasy thinking about all the so-called eligible lawyers I'll be meeting? Right, go on."

"Yeah, well, Twit just told me to change the menu to a, quote, Chinese theme."

"Why?"

Lonnie shrugged for nobody's benefit, and said, "I can only assume it's because he's been trying to court Lyn Tang for months and he thinks this will help win her over."

"Why, just because she's Chinese? Isn't that ploy a little obvious? Not to mention idiotic."

"I'm not clear on your point."

Peach asked, "Wait, if Lyn Tang hasn't joined the firm yet, why would she be going to the party?"

"Oh, the party's not just for the firm. There's a whole list of 'exclusive guests,' too. Twit's already invited three district court judges and two city councilmen. You know, it's all a PR thing."

"I've never understood why kissing ass is called 'PR.' What's wrong with 'KA'?"

"True," Lonnie conceded sarcastically. "Anyway, I booked the caterer over a month ago. But, of course, as soon as I tried to explain that, he just cut me off with: 'No arguments. Remember, there's no I in team.'" Lately, Beauregard Twit's use of tired corporate mantras reigned among Lonnie's top pet peeves.