Smashwords version Sweet Surrender (4 page)

“You’re going to have half a drink, hide in the corner and go home
early,” Viola predicted. Poppy shot her a dirty look and flounced back to the
office.

The most
annoying thing about Viola was how often she was right.
At the end of the day, Poppy’s skin felt greasy and she smelled
like flour and butter, so she headed up to her sister’s tiny studio apartment
for a quick shower.

She stripped out of her business suit and thought about Rafe’s
comments this morning on her clothing. Ha! She could dress sexy when she wanted
to. Not that she cared what he thought.

But just in case she saw him on the street as she walked to
O’Malley’s, she pulled on a silky black skirt with a tulip flare at the bottom,
a black lacy camisole, and a black silk jacket, with low heeled black pumps,
and let her hair flow freely over her shoulders.

As she emerged onto the street, the sun was sinking in the
horizon, a chill settled in the air, and she had the oddest feeling that she
was being watched. She glanced around, but the street was empty now, and across
from her was a row of silent buildings with windows like dark eyes which stared
down at her, unblinking.

She dug her hand into her purse and fished out her keychain with
the canister of mace on it. Glancing behind her, she walked quickly to
O’Malley’s, with her hand on the mace and unease rippling through her stomach.

Rafe had spent the day at his uncle’s office, writing reports and
itching to get out of there and back to the bakery.  He needed to explain
to Poppy; he wanted her to know that he wasn’t the kind of man who would flirt
with a woman if he was dating someone else. His father had raised him better
than that.

Of course, he barely knew Poppy, and it wasn’t as if he owed her
an explanation, but for some reason, her opinion of him mattered.

The bakery was closed up tight, but when he glanced at the window
of the apartment over the bakery, it was dark, which meant either that she’d
gone to bed at 7:30 at night, or she wasn’t home.

A whisper of unease nagged at him at how visible the apartment was
to the street. How vulnerable Poppy was. If he could see when she was home at
night, so could anyone else. He needed to talk to her about that too.

He had a good idea of where she might be tonight, at least. He’d
made an effort to get to know the business owners in the neighborhood, and he
knew about the Monday night business mixers at O’Malley’s. He was confident
that Chenowitch would have invited her to the mixer, given that she was female
and in possession of a magnificent set of mammaries.

He knew he shouldn’t get involved with her, at least not at this
point.  And yet, as he neared O’Malley’s, he found himself checking his
reflection in the mirrored window of a barber shop and running his fingers
through his rumpled hair.

Recon, he told himself.

Then he walked through the door into the crowded bar. This
neighborhood was most definitely getting more popular, he thought.

He walked in the door and scanned the room looking for her, and
then smiled when he spotted her in a corner, clutching a drink and backed up
against a wall by Henry Chenowith, who was talking to her cleavage.

He grinned. Good, he thought. I can be the knight in shining armor
rescuing her.

She’d changed out of her repressed-librarian costume and now she
was wearing a slinky black ensemble that flowed over her like liquid silk. Her
blond curls sprung out and flowed over her shoulders like a pre-Raphaelite
goddess, and when his eyes lighted on her red rosebud of a mouth, all the blood
left his head and rushed to his groin and he felt dizzy.

He started to shoulder his way through the crowd towards her, when
a slim brunette in a red cocktail dress walked over and pressed against him in
an overly familiar fashion. “I’m Karen,” she purred, looking him up and down
and clearly liking what she saw. “And you are?”

“I am busy right now,” he said, not looking at her as he slid past
her and continued pushing his way towards Poppy.

He lost sight of her for a minute, and when he broke through the
crowd, Poppy was gone and Henry was wandering away looking for new cleavage to
talk to.

Rafe scanned the room looking for her, but after several minutes
of slowly working his way through the crowd, he had to admit she was gone.
Where had she escaped to so quickly? There were several exits; had she slipped
out a side door? And why?

He wondered if she’d seen him talking to the brunette, and his
stomach twisted with unease.  If she’d seen that, she was probably forming
an opinion of him that was far from flattering.

A busty blonde wiggled up to him, and leaned forward, giving him a
generous view of her impressive cleavage.

“I’m Stacy,” she told him. “And you are?”

“I am leaving,” he sighed, and turned away gloomily, making his
way towards the door.

“Will
this never ending flow of customers ever stop?” Poppy shook her head in
amazement. It was 11 a.m. and there were half a dozen people drifting around
the store.

“Jeez, I hope not,” Viola said. “We’re supposed to be helping make
this place a success, if I remember correctly.”

“Oh, you do not want to help my sister. You just like handling
smutty pastry.”

“You got that right,” Viola said, heading over to a group of
giggling women who were pawing through the lingerie rack.

Poppy forced herself to smile and box up pastry, but she was tired
and irritable and couldn’t wait for the day to end.

Seeing Rafe at the bar last night with the skinny brunette draped
over him had stung, and it shouldn’t have.  She barely knew the man.
 Thank God she’d been right next to an exit door and managed to make her
escape before he spotted her.

For a minute when he first came in, she could have sworn he was
looking through the crowd for someone…and she let herself hope that he was
looking for her.

And when she looked again and saw the brunette hanging on his
shoulder, she thought for a moment that he’d looked annoyed. And she thought
about waiting to see if he’d shake off the brunette, and come over and talk to
her.

But then her mother’s whisky-soaked voice had rung through her
head, an ugly echo from long ago. “Men jusht don’t love fat women like ush,
Poppy. They jusht don’t. But thatsh okay, becaush we have eash other, don’t we,
baby?” That usually came right before her mother ran into the bathroom and
turned the water on full blast, which meant she was making herself throw up her
dinner. The water didn’t cover the retching sounds as well as she thought.

Poppy shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. She
might not be able to make herself as pretty as a fashion model, but there was
plenty she could do. She could help her sister. She could make order out of
chaos.

  
Sighing, she went back into the office and shut the door behind
her, looking forward  to a peaceful day of hiding out and organizing her
sister’s files.

Annoyingly, her mind kept drifting back to yesterday’s brief
interlude with Rafe. His handsome face smiling down at her, the glint in his
eyes when he looked at her, the curve of his lips…it was almost as if she could
hear his voice outside the office, saying her name.

Oh wait – he actually was outside her office. That was really his
voice.

She clutched the arms of her chair, suddenly feeling too wobbly to
stand.
“Listen, I need to talk to Poppy.  I think there was a
misunderstanding yesterday.”
Poppy forced herself to her feet and peered between the slats of
the venetian blind covering the office window.

Rafe was standing there, handsome as a Greek god, towering over
Viola.  

 
Viola glared up at him, a tiny terrier challenging a pit bull.
“You upset my friend, so you are not welcome here.”
“She’s a grown woman. I’d like to have this conversation with her,
not you.”
“Well, she’s gone for the day, and she’s not coming back tomorrow,
so you’re out of luck.” Oh, bless Viola and her forked little  tongue.
“Can you please tell her that the woman who came in here is my
future sister-in-law? I’m sorry about how Serafina behaved. She’s a little…”
Rafe grimaced, as if struggling to find a polite word. “Feisty.”
“Is feisty a synonym for total bitch?” Viola folded her arms across
her chest and glared at him.
“I apologize for Serafina. She’s just getting a little stressed
out with the wedding coming up, and a few of her bridesmaids have dropped out
so she’s having to do a lot of the wedding planning herself, and-“
“I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t be a bridesmaid for that harpy
either,” Viola snapped. “Now you can leave before your shins are black and
blue, or you can limp out of here with broken toes. Your choice.” She tapped
her heavy boot meaningfully on the travertine floor.
Poppy choked back a laugh, clapping her hand over her mouth. Viola
was small, but fierce. More than one would-be bully who’d try to elbow her out
of the way at a night club had found that out the hard way.
Still, as she heard his footsteps clunking away towards the front
door, she had to fight the urge to run after him.  Was it possible that he
was telling the truth about Serafina? Or was she just desperate to believe
that?
She was horribly tempted to fling open the office door and run out
after him, but just yesterday she’d lectured Viola on being strong and
independent and not taking any grief from a man. What kind of example would she
be setting?
Reluctantly, she sank back down behind her desk, ignoring the dull
ache in her chest, and resumed her filing. She found cleaning and organizing to
be hypnotically soothing. It was something that she could control.
Finally six o’clock rolled around, and they locked the front door,
and she dropped the last of the store’s cash into the floor safe.

The store did a surprisingly brisk business; apparently they were
in an excellent location with a lot of foot traffic.   Who knows,
maybe Penelope had finally picked a winner.
The thought made her feel guilty about confronting Penelope. Then
again, she let Penelope run roughshod over her far too many times without
saying a word, and it was never going to stop if she didn’t stand up for
herself. And being set up to work here was without warning was simply not cool.

“Penis pop for your thoughts,” Viola said, as Poppy walked her to
her car.
“I’m trying to decide what to say to Penelope when I go to the
hospital tonight.”
“I wish I could come with you. You always fold when she turns on
the waterworks.”
“I do not! Not always.”

Viola
rolled her eyes at her and climbed into the car. “Call me and let me know how
it goes.”
“Say hi to your aunt and the rug rats for me,” Poppy smiled.
“Will do.”

“And
don’t be a bad influence and let them watch Tim Burton movies and give them
goth makeovers.”

“Will
don’t. I will be breaking out Nightmare Before Christmas and my best black
lipstick as soon as Aunt May heads out the door.”

Poppy shot Viola’s back a disapproving look as she climbed into
her car, but she didn’t have the energy to work herself into a good snit-fit.
She had other things on her mind.

Sighing,
she walked upstairs to shower off the bakery smells that clung to her skin and
hair. She was tired and her feet hurt from running around the bakery all day
and she still had to make the drive to the hospital.

She
glanced around the little studio, mentally adding “Clean and organize
Penelope’s apartment” to her to-do list. Penelope’s clothes were draped
everywhere, newspapers and takeout menus were piled up on the desktop, there
wasn’t an uncluttered surface anywhere. Disorder tugged at her and made her
feel itchy.

All
right, the sooner she confronted Penelope, the sooner she could come back here
and start cleaning.

She’d already stripped out of her clothes, folded them neatly, and
stacked them on the fold-out couch, when she heard it.
A noise, coming from the kitchen window.
Had someone climbed up the fire escape? Good God, it sounded like
they were opening the window and climbing in.  She was standing there
barefoot, in her lacy black bra and underwear. She had set her purse with her
cell phone down on the kitchen counter, and she didn’t dare run in there and
try to grab it to call for help. Her keychain with the mace was in her purse.
She stood frozen in indecision, throat closing with terror.  She
was suddenly excruciatingly aware of how isolated she was in this little
apartment; she had no neighbors in the building, and nobody would hear her if
she screamed for help.
Suddenly she heard someone fall into the kitchen with a crash, and
an outraged male voice roared “Jezebel! Scarlet woman! Daughter of Satan!”,
 and she only had one choice. Heart pounding, choking back a sob of
terror, she turned and ran for the front door, flinging it open and barreling
down the stairs – only to run straight into the big, strong arms of Rafe McDaniel.