Mine Until Morning (17 page)

“What are you doing up, Ma? Is Heidi okay?”

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“Fine as far as I know.” Her voice gravelly with years of smoking, she stubbed out her cigarette. Her skin was like leather, her steel gray hair permed, and where once she’d been five foot two, she was now slightly under five.

“I thought you were smoking outside, Ma.”

“Not when it’s three in the morning, colder than a witch’s tit, and no one but me is inhaling.” She rose, leaning heavily on the table. Cleo could almost hear her bones creak.

At the sink, her mom filled the kettle, setting it on the stove. The range was harvest gold from the seventies with four burners, a griddle, and two ovens, the smaller one for warming. It was scratched, the clock didn’t always turn over, the self-cleaning no longer worked, but heck, everything else did. The imitation-brick linoleum was also seventies vintage, but it was clean and unmarked. Cleo had regrouted the yellow tile counter herself and repainted the white cabinets.

“Got a problem in the bathroom.” Her mom hooked a thumb over her shoulder.

There was a small half bath off the back hallway. Cleo got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her steps slow, her boots seemed to echo on the hall’s hardwood floor. She shoved open the door.

Oh shit.

Plaster had fallen from the ceiling, revealing bare pipes and floorboards above. The second bathroom, the one Cleo shared with Heidi, was situated right overhead. Water beaded, then dripped to the sodden plaster below. Good Lord, how long had that drip been going on? She couldn’t tell exactly where the water was coming from. It didn’t look as if the pipes had actually burst. The kettle whistled as she climbed the second-floor stairs. In the main bathroom, she knelt between the tub and toilet. She didn’t see any water, but when she pressed on the linoleum, the floorboards felt squishy underneath, worsening the closer she got to the toilet. She turned the water off at the wall valve, then went in to check Ma’s bathroom, which was on the other side of the wall. The flooring felt fine, thank God. But the three of them would have to share it until she could get the other two fixed.

God, she couldn’t afford this. Maybe the house insurance would cover the repairs.

Back downstairs, she checked the half bath again and found the drips had slowed. Maybe it was just the toilet and not the pipes themselves. The leak had 110

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probably been going on for a while and soaked through the plaster. How could she have missed that there was a problem like this? There must have been a mark on the ceiling, but she hadn’t paid much attention. What a freaking mess. Plaster covered the sink and stand, the floor, the toilet lid.

“Ma, I need the mop,” she called.

“It’s in the cupboard,” her mother yelled back. Cleo closed her eyes and sighed. Her mom had helped raise Heidi, cleaned more scraped knees and elbows than Cleo, wiped away more childhood tears. Ma married later in life than most women of her generation, and after Cleo, she couldn’t have any more children. Then Dad died of a heart attack when Cleo was in high school. Now Ma cooked and cleaned for Cleo and Heidi, did the laundry, the marketing, swept the leaves off the walkways, and weeded the garden. But she was slowing down and she refused to quit smoking. She said if she was going to get cancer, she damn well already had it. Her mom could be aggravatingly stubborn and obstreperous when she wanted to be, but she’d never let Cleo down when she needed her.

So Cleo got the bucket and mop herself while her mom filled two mugs from the kettle.

Her tea was cooling by the time she’d finished cleaning up the mess. The water had stopped dripping. Turning off the toilet had fixed that part of the problem, at least temporarily.

She pulled out a chair. “I’ll call a plumber on Monday. I think it’s the upstairs toilet leaking.”

“The ceiling made an awful racket when it fell, woke me up.” Her mom toyed with her cigarette pack, but didn’t light up. “Where were ya? You didn’t tell me you’d be out so late.”

She hadn’t told Ma much of anything when she’d dashed in earlier to change.

“I went to the movies.” She’d forgotten she needed to call Walker and let him know she was home.

Her mom snorted.

“Really.” Cleo smiled. “We saw The Day the Earth Stood Still, the old version.”

“Och.” Her mom waggled her eyebrows. “Michael Rennie was hot.”

“Ma.” Cleo sounded scandalized.

She shrugged. “Well, he was. And so tall.”

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“Hmm, Keanu Reeves”—Cleo flipped over one hand, then the other—“or Michael Rennie?”

“Definitely Rennie. Keanu is a pansy. I mean, honestly, his name says it all.”

Cleo laughed. “I love you, Ma. Now I gotta go to bed.” She rose, brushed a kiss across the top of her mom’s gray hair.

“What’ll we do about the toilet and the ceiling?” She held tight to Cleo’s hand a moment.

“I’m up for that promotion at work. We’ll manage.” She’d applied for an accounts payable position. It was a pay increase over receptionist. She wasn’t holding her breath, though, in case she turned blue and died. Luck didn’t come Cleo’s way.

But she wouldn’t tell her mom that.

“Okay, sweetie. Sleep tight.”

Climbing the stairs once more, she puffed out a breath. She could handle this; she could handle anything. Except the look of anger in Heidi’s eyes. It was so close to hate.

She slept in the same room she’d used all her life. Once upon a time, there had been a lavender bedspread with purple shag carpet and lots of frills. After Heidi was born, she’d ripped out the carpet, refinished the hardwood, and stitched together two sheets for a duvet over the comforter. She was suddenly so tired all she could do was toe out of her boots and let her skirt and sweater drop on the floor.

Jeez.

She’d forgotten about her panties. Having tea with Ma, and she hadn’t even been wearing her panties. How was it possible to forget? Funny. Being with Walker seemed more like a dream. This was her real life, broken toilets and the ceiling caving in. It reminded her of Chicken Little. After brushing her teeth, she crawled beneath the comforter.

It had been well over an hour. He’d have turned his phone off, but she called so she could say she had.

“Hello.”

Shit. He wasn’t supposed to answer. “Hi, it’s Cleo. I’m home safe and sound—thanks for a lovely evening.” She said it all in one breath.

“It was my pleasure. I’d like to see you again.”

“That’s not possible.” He was a dream. Expecting or even wanting anything 112

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more was stupid. She had too many obligations. The house was falling down, her car was on its last legs, and she needed every spare moment with Heidi to repair the damage to their relationship. Now was not the time to bring a new friend with benefits into her life.

“Anything is possible, Cleo.”

She snuggled under the covers. His voice. Over the phone, it was deeper. Though he was far away, it was as potent as the moment he’d buried himself inside her.

“I’m not ready for this right now, Walker.” But she wanted it. “You’re a sweet man.” Hot, sexy, hard, delicious, and she wished she’d tasted him. “But tonight was a mistake.” A mistake she could make over and over if she let herself. Suddenly, after one evening with Walker, she wasn’t exhausted anymore. He made her feel alive again. He made life fun.

“Cleo.”

God, the way he said her name, just that, nothing else, she was wet, burning up. “What?”

“We will fuck again, you know.”

She wanted to say he was wrong—she couldn’t afford him—but he wasn’t. 113

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5

“THANKS FOR EMBARRASSING ME BY BEING LATE.” HEIDI SLAMMED the car door, slouched down in her seat, and crossed her arms.

“Please don’t be rude.” Dammit, Cleo had overslept, a bad combination of a late night and good sex. See, you let a man step into your zone and things got all screwed up. Not to mention waking up at five a.m. worrying about the ceiling. Somewhere around the time the sun began to rise, Cleo had slept like the dead, having forgotten to set the alarm because it was Saturday morning. Thus she was late picking Heidi up from the sleepover at Cat’s.

“I’m not being rude,” Heidi snapped. “I’m trying to teach you about being punctual.”

If it wasn’t another one of those fights and another one of those mornings, Cleo would have laughed. As a child, Heidi had been precocious. Cleo remembered picking her up after school—Heidi would have been seven or so—

and she was babbling a mile a minute about the bunny that a girl had brought to class. One of the teachers stopped to speak to Cleo. After a few seconds, Heidi piped up, “Excuse me, but you interrupted. I haven’t finished yet.” It had been amusing, the teacher apologized, and Heidi finished her story. It was Heidi’s tone that had changed over the last year, the snappishness. Cleo had already apologized to Cat’s mom, and to Heidi, too. But Heidi kept on riding her.

“We had a problem with the upstairs toilet in the middle of the night.”

“I told you there was something wrong in there.”

For the life of her, Cleo couldn’t remember Heidi saying any such thing. But honestly, she couldn’t be sure. She had so much on her mind, and Heidi had taken up the habit of mumbling something, then walking away. I just can’t talk to you right now. Cleo wanted to say the words so badly, but they would only make things worse. She kept her mouth shut because anything she said would be wrong.

Back at the house, Heidi stomped up to her room. Fifteen minutes later she stomped back downstairs. “Misha asked if I could go to the mall with her. Can I go to the mall?”

Cleo was folding clothes in the laundry room. “Is your homework done?”

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Heidi rolled her eyes. “Yes. Would you like to check it?”

Part of her wanted to say yes. But while Heidi was sullen and uncommunicative, her grades were good. “Please be home at least half an hour before dinner.”

Please and thank you and I’m sorry. She said that a lot, whereas before it had always been implicit.

Heidi stomped out. She was home by four thirty, right when she was supposed to be. Yet everything was done with a sneer and a roll of her eyes. Cleo left the house early for her shift at the restaurant before she actually called her own daughter a bitch. With every altercation, the ache in Cleo’s heart grew larger.

God, she wished she had someone to talk with about it. Ma didn’t count. They had their own issues that would get in the way. Maybe another single mom. Someone to tell her she wasn’t just a bad mother who was too busy with her own life to give her daughter what she really needed. But Cleo didn’t have a lot of friends. At work, the receptionist was always someone you passed by on the way in or out, so she hadn’t managed to make friends. Despite three years at the restaurant, she’d failed to find a common ground there, too. Except for Walker.

For the first time on a Saturday night, Walker wasn’t at Bella’s. She had sex with him, then poof, just like that, he was gone. Despite what he’d said to her on the phone in the wee hours of the morning. Okay, she’d told him she didn’t have time for a man, and honestly, she didn’t. Bad timing all around.

Contrary to all that, she hadn’t expected him to vanish so quickly.

MONDAY, MIDMORNING, AFTER AN INTERESTING RIDE ON BART INTO the city, Walker sprawled in the chair and put his booted feet on Isabel’s desk. Mostly because he knew she’d hate it.

“Walker, you have your boots on my desk.” She didn’t smile, her gaze ice blue.

“Yes, Isabel, I know.” He suppressed a smile.

Her office was like the woman, elegant but with many facets. A grandfather clock in the corner, a pair of Cloisonné plates on the wall, an ornate Satsuma vase on a long cherrywood sideboard, a Meissen figurine, an eclectic mix that 115

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somehow went together seamlessly. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, as if she’d seen each piece at one time or another, fell in love with it, had to add it to the beauty she’d placed around her.

“You like pushing my buttons, don’t you,” she said evenly.

“Yeah.” Walker nodded. “I love it.”

He’d always found her attractive. Yet even when he was a client, he’d never slept with her, never asked. There was something about Isabel, polished and professional yet somehow aloof. He could have had sex with her, and it would have been great, just as it was with his clients. But she would be holding back. Walker didn’t want his women holding back. He enjoyed women who needed him. Isabel didn’t need anyone.

So he’d never asked.

He, did, however, enjoy putting his boots on her desk because she gave him that look, part blonde ice queen, part neat freak, part sexy, disapproving schoolteacher. He’d had a crush on Mrs. Winters in the fifth grade. He knew something else about Isabel. While she could admit she was wrong and apologize for it, she never backed down when she was pushed.

“I suppose,” he drawled, “that if I don’t get my feet off your desk, you won’t tell me why Estelle canceled on Friday.”