Love Scars (20 page)

He lifted my chin and looked directly into my eyes. Little sparkles of pleasure fluttered through my body. My lower region tingled and swelled. Could everyone see that I was on fire?

“I’m finished with apologizing for who I am,” J.D. said. “I’m rich, Nora. It comes with the package. Can you handle that?”

“I…I don’t know.” Did he just say he wanted me?

“Well, answer this then: Do you care for me at all?”

Was he crazy?

“Do you think you could love me, Nora? Me, J.D. Reider. CEO of BlueMagick, yes, but I’m also just a guy who adores you utterly.”

“I could love you, J.D. I do—”

Before I could finish the sentence, his lips were crushing mine. His tongue pushed into my mouth eagerly, his hand on my neck. I felt him swell and harden. Again I was hating on the tuxedo.

“Great moves, J.D.,” Stacey said behind me as she and Mason danced by.

J.D. and I stopped kissing and got hold of ourselves. Figuratively. I was panting a little as he changed the subject. “I drove here in one of our hybrid demos, a white convertible.”

“That’s nice.” Yeah. I’d think of cars instead of J.D.’s rock hard body and my need to drag him into my bedroom. Right. This. Minute.

He pulled a keyless remote out of his pocket, showed it to me, and put it back. “It’s your new car. I’ll keep the keys for now, since there’s not a millimeter of storage space in that fabulous dress.”

“Thank you. I think. I mean for the compliment.”

“And for the car,” he said. “Say yes, darling Nora. It goes with the gig: billionaire’s girlfriend.”

What could I do? He’d taken over my will. “Yes.”

“Good girl. Tonight, I’m staying here with you, and in the morning we’ll talk about what comes next. Say yes, sweet Nora.”

“Yes.” I laid my head against his chest again and drifted, listening to the music.

“I love the way you look tonight, by the way,” J.D. said, echoing the song’s lyric. “Your hair is awesome.” He grinned and tweaked the silver hair picks.

“It’s comfortable, having it off my shoulders in the heat,” I said. “I got the idea from—that’s funny. I got the idea from her.”

The red-haired girl, Nicole who’d argued with Steve Heron, was at the side gate. She walked toward us, her eyes fixed on J.D. My stomach was suddenly in my throat. I knew that look. She was holding a gun. She glared at me, then back to J.D.

“J.D., you bastard,” she said. “You think you can just fuck me and pay me to go away?” The gun went off. Dirt and grass flew up from the ground near our feet.

I was frozen where I stood as Nicole fired again. Lisa screamed, and as I turned to her Frank stepped in front of her in slow motion. Surprise registered on his face, and a red color spread over his white shirt above his midnight blue cummerbund. “Frank, no!” Lisa screamed.

Everybody screamed.

I heard Stacey crying behind me, and something clicked inside me.
Not again.

I turned back toward Nicole and lunged for her, though it felt like I was moving through water. “Nora, no!” J.D.’s voice echoed in my mind as burning pain ripped into me. I hit Nicole—or did I fall against her?—and slid to the ground amidst the screaming.

Chapter 26

Orcas Island, the third week in August.

A month after the wedding, I felt better than I had a right to. Among the wounded, Brad had been shot. As soon as he was stabilized, J.D. had taken me away from Granite Bay to his mom’s house on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest. Somewhere I could recover and restore my peace of mind, with no painful associations.

He had a room on the top floor with a wall of windows facing west and a deck looking out over the ocean. We had our coffee there every morning. I was having an iced latte and watching the boats go by as I videochatted with Lisa. Who could believe the world was anything but beautiful and at peace?

“Cindy’s leaving the hospital today,” Lisa said. “Brad’s taking her home to make sure her apartment’s set up right.”

“That was fast,” I said. “I thought she’d be in another month.”

A bullet had severed the femoral artery in Cindy Slater’s left thigh. She would have bled out if Frank’s brother hadn’t been there. The surgical team at Sutter Memorial saved her leg, but she was going to need a lot of rehab.

J.D. had told me everything about Nicole, how they’d used each other for sex, but then she wanted more and snapped when he refused. He wasn’t proud of himself, but who was I to judge? I’d used men for sex. I could forget his past if he could forget mine.

“It’s great of Brad to keep an eye on Cindy,” I said. I was sure Cindy thought so too.

“You know Brad,” Lisa said. “He loves taking care of people.”

“Do I sense a smidgen of anxiety in your voice?”

“No, of course not,” Lisa said.

I didn’t believe her for a second, even if she was still mourning Frank. She had feelings for Brad, but I was afraid she’d let a dead man stand between them.

Despite being a terrible shot, Nicole had killed two people. Frank and Jane Marks were both hit by ricocheting bullets. Frank died instantly, they said. I’d seen his face. I knew that wasn’t exactly true, but there was no point in mentioning it.

I was hit in the shoulder, just a graze. The DJ had lost a little finger. Brad was hit in the chest and ended up losing part of a lung. He was the last person shot before Nicole’s gun jammed. After I impotently fell against her, J.D. had tackled her to the ground and wrenched the gun away.

“The preliminary hearing is next week,” Lisa said. “I’m not looking forward to testifying.”

“You’ll do fine,” I said. I was so relieved when the DA said she didn’t need me for the prelim, though I’d probably have to testify at the trial. “We’ll be back in time to give moral support.”

“I don’t know why Nicole doesn’t offer a plea bargain,” Lisa said.

“The DA won’t take one. She wants the death penalty,” I said. “She’s running for governor next year.”

“Good. I want to see Nicole fry,” Lisa said.

“Promise me you won’t put your life on hold waiting for it, Leese,” I said. The tattooed man was still years away from his dead man walk for murdering my family. Nicole hadn’t even been convicted yet.

“I won’t,” Lisa said. “Gotta go, hon. Brad’s on the other line.”

“Say hi to him for us.”

Us.
I smiled as I logged off. J.D. and I were “us.”

The past felt like a completely different life now. Someone else’s life. These last weeks, the change of scene had worked on me like medicine. I’d let so much go. J.D. had taken me to Butchart Gardens, a place I’d wanted to see all my life. Other than that, we’d stayed here on the island. We walked in the maze, had root beer floats at the marina, attended an art gallery opening, and went whale watching.

We made love. A lot. I’d started my birth control pills again, and J.D. had himself checked for STDs. He told me he’d always been fanatical about using condoms, but he wanted me to feel secure. So what could I do but have myself checked out too? It was all so clinical and grownup of us, but the worry-free lovemaking made it worth it.

J.D. emerged from the maze carrying a basket loaded with blooms. Except for not knowing an American Beauty was a red rose, he was pretty knowledgeable about flowers. He waved and disappeared as he reached the lanai. I left the deck to go down to meet him but stopped in the bedroom. I had a better idea. Let him come to me.

I stripped off my clothes and lay down and waited. The windows were open, and I listened to the surf and the seagulls. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. We didn’t get much sleep the night before. I pulled up the sheet and closed my eyes for a few minutes.

I must have fallen asleep. I felt the warm breeze on my bare skin…and something else. Soft little somethings all over me. I opened my eyes. J.D. had covered me in rose petals. 

“Well, hello there, Mr. Reider,” I said in what I hoped was a Mae West kind of voice.

He bent down and kissed me. His lips were warm, strong and soft at the same time. He set the basket aside and straddled me. He bent over me and kissed my neck and moved down to my shoulders and to the graze wound, already turning to scar tissue.

“Is it ugly?” I said.

“Never,” he murmured. “It’s a love scar. When I see it my heart contracts, and I think of how much I love you.”

“Oh, J.D. I love you too.”

He gripped my wrists and spread my arms wide and moved down to my breasts. He licked and teased a nipple and reached down between my legs. I was becoming so attuned to him that I was instantly on fire, wet and swollen with desire and need. I didn’t want to wait. I took hold of him and guided him into me, squirming with the pleasure of our bodies’ perfect fit. He drove into me, and I received him and quivered with heat and letting go.

J.D. shuddered and released himself to me. I squeezed my muscles around him and buried my face against his chest. “Oh, Nora.” He collapsed on me. I wrapped my arms around him. We lay there in silence, and I played with his hair as he fondled my breast. I was happy.

“Marry me, Nora,” he said. I wasn’t sure I heard him right, but he said it again. “Marry me now.”

“Now, this minute?” I started to make a joke—but J.D. wasn’t kidding.

“I thought you wouldn’t want a big wedding, not so soon after…..”

“You thought right.”

“We just need to be married. We can do it in Nevada. Tahoe. South Shore.” The more he talked, the more excited he got. He jumped up from the bed. “I’ll call Jennings. We can be in the air in an hour. Brad and Lisa can drive up I-50 with Stacey and meet us.”

“Why, Mr. Reider, this is so sudden.”

“I need you, Nora. I need you to be mine, and I need to be yours. I don’t want to live another day and not be your husband.”

I propped my head on an elbow while he hopped around, pulling on his pants. He stopped mid hop. “You said yes, right?”

“On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“When we get up in the air, you make me a member of the Mile High Club.”

He stood there with one foot in his pants and a big grin on his face. “Deal.”

Brad and Lisa and Stacey came up to Lake Tahoe to be our witnesses. Lisa was still on bereavement leave, and with the money from the house Stacey had quit work to get ready for school.

After we were married, J.D. and I stayed in Tahoe another week. One night I lost three thousand dollars at the blackjack tables, and J.D. didn’t blink.

“You’re Mrs. J.D. Reider, my love.” He motioned the pit boss over for another marker. “You could lose three hundred thousand, and it wouldn’t make a dent.”

“I hate that,” I said. “It’s wrong to have too much when so many don’t have enough.”

“Maybe you’ve discovered what you want to do with your life,” he said. “Use our money to make the world a better place.”

I loved him for saying
our
money, but I didn’t want to gamble anymore. It suddenly seemed stupid. “I want to go home, J.D.”

“As you wish.”

We planned to stay at his house until we found another place. I was glad he wanted to move. His house was huge and gorgeous, and I hated it. It had no soul. The first morning we were there, he brought me coffee in bed.

“No breakfast,” he said. “I know I promised we’d stay in for the rest of our honeymoon.”

“But?”

“But I want to take one short trip, just this morning, to give you your wedding present.”

“J.D., you’ve already given me more than enough.”

“This is the last one, I promise. It’s kind of a wedding breakfast.”

“You promise to not give me any more presents,” I said. “Why do I not believe you?”

“No more wedding presents,” he said. “In the future, they’ll be marriage presents.”

“You’re a romantic.”

“Get dressed. We’re going.”

When I got into his Range Rover, he held up a scarf and started toward my face. I backed away. “What the what?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “The present. I need to cover your eyes. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” I said. And it was true.

We only drove a few minutes before he stopped. “Leave it on.” He came around to my side to help me out. He held my arm and guided me along a gravel path. I heard music playing,
Say Ahh!
by the Merchants of Venus. People were laughing, and could swear I smelled barbecue.

We went through a gate, and then J.D. kissed me and removed the scarf.

“Surprise!” Stacey yelled, along with Mason Brewer and Brad and Lisa and Cindy and a bunch of other people.

“Welcome home!” Lisa came down the deck stairs and gave me a hug.

We were at my house. A big hand-painted sign on the back wall said: TO THE HAPPY COUPLE! <3

“For you, Nora,” J.D. said. “I’ll always have you covered.” He handed me a deed to the house—my house—with my name on it: Nora Deven Reider, a married woman.

The next morning, I woke up in my own bed, in my own house, alone. Outside the birdies were going cheep cheep cheep, and I could hear my husband puttering in the kitchen.

My husband.
I stretched and smiled and reached over the edge of the bed, looking for my piranha pajamas that had gone missing sometime in the night.