Unravel Me (28 page)

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Authors: CHRISTIE RIDGWAY

BOOK: Unravel Me
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“The book’s publication was supposed to put the focus back on Wayne’s achievements,” she said. The dull knife in her heart took another turn.
“The book’s mentioned,” Jay pointed out, scrolling down. “Look, here’s a paragraph on the launch party being given by Helen Novack.”
Nikki leaned down to squint at the screen. “The launch party you were specifically asked
not
to attend?” She straightened, and her gaze swung around to Juliet. “Is that true?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t insist, how could I? And Noah was there beside me—”
“Which makes me wonder,” Nikki said. “Who would have tipped the gossips about your relationship with him? Did it come from this Helen?”
“It’s so unfair to Noah, too,” Juliet said, sick all over again. “None of this is anyone’s business.”
“Damn straight,” Nikki agreed.
But then Juliet remembered her argument with Noah, his ridiculous orders, the flare of her temper, and the way he’d marched out. “Especially when there’s nothing between us anymore anyway.”
Cassandra and Nikki exchanged glances, just as the door leading to the pool opened. Of course it could only be one man who was letting himself into her kitchen.
“I heard that,” Noah said. “We had a fight, that’s all. And now there’s ‘nothing’ between us?”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. She didn’t want to have to tell him about the dirty gossip soon to be hung on the public clothesline.
He came farther into the room and looked at her sisters and Jay. “She threw things at me.”
Juliet had to defend herself now. “I didn’t throw things
at
you. I just . . . threw things.”
Her sisters were staring at her as if she’d gone mad. Then Nikki laughed. “Imagine that. The lady in beige is getting her bitch on. Awesome.”
“Hey,” Juliet defended herself. “I happen to be dressed in blue at the moment.
Cassandra nodded. “It’s true, Nikki.”
“Well, she’s going to need her inner bitch in any case,” the younger woman insisted. “Read that, Noah, and tell me I’m not right.” Her hand indicated the open laptop.
Rubbing the pain in her chest, Juliet moved back so he could have a clear view of the screen while Jay filled him in on the how and the why of his sneak peek at the upcoming scandal sheets. Instead of watching him read it, she moved toward the windows and stared out at the pool.
Santa Fe? Seattle? Though she loved this house, she’d have to leave it, because there was at least one photographer who knew her address. Noah could stay if he wanted, though she supposed he’d distance himself from anything having to do with her ASAP.
God, why was he dragged into this ugliness? Cassandra and Nikki, too. She’d once called it infuriating, and it was, but now she felt a icier kind of anger building in her chest. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shivered.
Then heat enveloped her from behind. She was turned into Noah’s familiar, broad chest. He pulled her tight, ignoring her protests, and held her to him, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other circling her waist. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, tucking his cheek against hers. “I wish I could take it all away for you.”
“I’m going to do that myself,” she said, and when she stepped back, he let her go. “I figure if I leave town all this destructive gossip will leave with me.”
Nikki was shaking her head. “I already told you, running doesn’t do any good.”
“And, um, as your boss, I think I should point out that you have a job.” Cassandra passed her a cup of tea. “I’m expecting you at work tomorrow, and the day after that, and for every other shift that you’ve agreed to take.”
“There’s Thanksgiving, too,” Nikki added. She slid her arm around her fiancé’s waist. “Without you, we make Jay host and we’ll be forced to feast on beer and blackened steak.”
The man nodded. “It’s the only two things I do well.”
Noah stepped closer to brush Juliet’s hair from her face. “Don’t go.”
She whirled to him. “Of course I have to go! Don’t you see? I want this all to die down.”
“But you have commitments now,” he said. “Job, family, friends who are counting on you.”
Juliet huffed out a sigh. “None of you understand. I made a promise to myself about the book. I vowed I’d do what it takes to make it a success. The world doesn’t need to remember me right now, but the hero that Wayne was.”
“The kind of hero who wouldn’t flee from a fight,” Noah pointed out.
“I don’t see
how
to fight this.” She squeezed shut her eyes, trying to calm herself and think. Was there a way? An idea flickered. “Unless . . .”
“Unless?” Noah prompted.
She opened her eyes to look at him. “What was the date of Helen’s event?”
“The third week in November. That Saturday night.”
“Okay, then, what if I use my newly kindled notoriety to bring attention to
General Matters
?” Juliet mused. “Am I crazy to think I could throw my own book launch, the week before hers?”
“Helen won’t like it,” Noah warned, a grin ghosting his mouth.
“I know Helen Novack,” Jay put in. “She’s a snobby pain in the ass.”
“The man knows everybody,” Nikki said. “I told you that.”
Noah was nodding. “You put on your own party and tell the world about the general through your eyes, with your voice.”
“I’m certainly sick and tired of the press telling my side of things for me,” Juliet agreed. And a woman who didn’t flinch at breaking a few things in anger wouldn’t balk at facing down the media—and whoever else got in her way. “But would anyone come? And where would I have it? There’s not enough room or parking here, and—”
“Lucky for you, you have family that can help with the details,” Cassandra said. She’d found a paper napkin and had rolled it into a ring she was sliding on and off her thumb. “There’s plenty of space for people and for cars at Malibu & Ewe. If Nikki doesn’t have time to cater—”
“I’ll make time.”
“We can get Gabe to help out anyway.”
Juliet protested. “We don’t have to ask—”
“
I
can, and he needs reasons to emerge from his bat cave.”
“And I’ll put out the word,” Jay offered. “I can get the press there and we’ll distribute posters and flyers.”
Juliet nodded, determination growing. “And I’ve reconsidered doing that interview for
NYFM
.” She was nobody’s delicate daisy. “I have a few things to say.”
“I can have whatever those are online by as early as tomorrow,” Jay promised, and then was drawn into Cassandra and Nikki’s part of the planning
The room seemed to warm with all their positive energy. Juliet let the talk flow around and then surround her, until their support felt as palpable as the cup of tea she held between her palms.
Winter went away again, and she didn’t feel the cold night air, even as she walked her family—her
family,
how comforting was that?—out to their car. It was only when she walked back inside and faced Noah that she felt a renewed chill.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” she told him. “I want to protect you from all this.”
Noah smiled, that beautiful, lady-killer smile of his, and he crossed the floor to cup her face in his big hands. “Then maybe you can forgive me for what happened earlier tonight. I just want to protect you, too.”
Tears burned, but she hid them by closing her eyes as Noah’s kiss drifted over her mouth. This wasn’t the time for worries or regrets.
Right now, it was enough that he wanted her, and when they went into the bedroom, a different mood infused what before had been wild heat and needy passion.
I want to protect you.
I just want to protect you, too
.
Equal impulses. Twin urges. Matching motivations.
Skin to skin, and closer than ever before.
 
Marlys sensed it was Dean in the shop the instant the door closed, ruffling the curtain that separated the supply alcove from the retail space. She kept her back turned to that curtain, but she was aware when he swept it aside, too.
With a steadiness she didn’t feel, she kept to her crouch, continuing to unpack the box of holiday scarves that had arrived earlier that morning. “So . . . you’re here again,” she said.
“I told you I’d come back. In the note at your house that morning and in the messages I left here at the store. Funny how you were never available to talk to me. Funny how you never called back either. I left my cell number every time. I was here last week, just for the day, as I said in my message, but I still couldn’t get a response from you.”
“Been busy.”
Busy working like hell to forget you. Busy hoping like hell it wouldn’t be like this if you did come back.
Her hands were shaking and she had to fight herself not to jump up and bury herself against him.
“Stand up and let me touch you.”
God, he could still read her mind! She shook her head, rejecting the idea and rejecting her need to do the very thing he ordered. Marlys Marie Weston couldn’t want a man so much, because she remembered that whatever she’d wanted most she’d never gotten.
But hard hands grasped her waist and hauled her up, even when she stuttered a protest. Dean turned her, brought her flush against him, kissed her mouth as if he’d thought about her every day, every minute he’d been gone.
No, that was her.
Panicked, she wrenched away, though he only let her go so far, his hands still linked at the small of her back. Her heart was slamming against her chest. His breath soughed in and out like he’d been running for days.
No, again, that was her.
Running from
this
. How could one person become so important so fast? She didn’t understand it. She could never trust it . . . could she?
He ran a thumb under her lower eyelashes. “Shadows, angel. You haven’t been sleeping?”
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was sharp, not cool as it should be, and she jerked out of his embrace. “I’m no angel.” God knew that was true, and she didn’t feel guilty about it either.
Regrets were for suckers. Same as this you’re-the-one certitude that was pumping from Dean and trying to invade her. That way lay madness.
Sadness.
As Marlys had been avoiding that very feeling for nearly a year, thank you very much, she was certainly not signing on for another potential source of the depressing emotion. Dean was going to Afghanistan, for heaven’s sake.
A danger zone.
A woman would have to be crazy to want him enough to risk having to worry about him.
But her body betrayed her. Her feet carried her close again, her hands lifted to warm her palms against his chest. His heart beat against her flesh and her body trembled in return. How could she ache for something she so badly needed to reject?
And as usual, he could read her like a book. His palms cupped her face. “I won’t hurt you.”
He’d said that before. And again, she didn’t want to give him the chance, but he was kissing her and she was letting him. More, she was reveling in giving over to him.
She wanted to give him everything, anything, all of her.
“Whoa.” It was Dean who separated them this time, but he was smiling as he held her away. “Is it just me, or is it smoking in here?”
She laughed, he made her that giddy, and then she reached over to flick off the clothes steamer they used to dewrinkle the merchandise. “Hate to break it to your ego, but the mist is machine-made.”
“Yeah? I think you should give this man another chance to prove himself.”
Oh, God, she wanted to. She was going to. Marlys felt as feminine as a pair of marabou-trimmed satin mules when he curled his muscled forearm around her hips and pulled her even tighter to him. His silvery eyes burned and she unconsciously licked her upper lip, gratified when he groaned at the instinctive, seductive signal.
She laughed again, a purr that she’d never heard herself make, and threw caution to the wind as she wrapped one arm around his neck and slid her other hand into the back pocket of his jeans. Paper rattled.
He halted halfway to her mouth. “Oh,” he said. “You make me forget everything.”
“That’s two of us,” she murmured, drawing his head closer. At the moment, she couldn’t care less about the condition. Another kiss would be worth a little amnesia.
But he broke from her hold to straighten and reach into his pocket himself. “I have something for you from Juliet. When I was restowing my gear in the guesthouse, she asked me to give it to you.”
Marlys covered the quick sting she felt at the sound of the other woman’s name. “Oh?” She shuffled back, then tucked her arms over her chest. “How is my evil stepmother?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, then he shrugged his shoulders as if dismissing an itch between the blades. “From what I understand, she’s troubled by the latest crap in the tabloids and on the gossip sites.”
Marlys didn’t blink. “I heard about that.”
“You know it isn’t true. I told you that’s not Noah.”
“I don’t really think that Keira Knightley made a baby with a martian, either, but they have a picture of it on the cover of
Gossip Universe
.”
“The scandal hurts your father’s reputation, too,” Dean said.
Marlys didn’t see it that way. “My father was a hero. He could have been President of the United States, but then he married
her
.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Dean cocked his head. “A canopy bed in the White House?”
“No! My point is, if he hadn’t married—”
“Marlys, he failed you long before he married his second wife.”
“How can you say that?” She tightened her arms around herself. “My father’s dead.”
“Death doesn’t make him a saint.”
Marlys turned away, not wanting him to stir the embers of the emotions she’d been banking from the day her mother dragged her away from the last base she’d lived on. “My father’s dead,” she mumbled again.

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