Sucker Punch (2 page)

“Can we at least scale back a little?”

“I like it,” Karen said stubbornly. “And the only reason you don’t is because you’re still bitter over your divorce. I understand that Roger hurt you, and I know you’ve had issues with the idea of falling in love again, but your attitude toward love is cynical and unnatural, especially for someone who does what
you
do for a living.”

Her observations stung, and cousin or not, she’d stepped across the line. “My attitude has nothing to do with Roger,” I snapped. Maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t going to get into a discussion about my ex-husband, his new wife, or the havoc that coming home from work to find them rolling around on my bedroom floor had inflicted on my psyche.

I could tell by the scowl on Karen’s narrow face that she didn’t believe me. She’s one of those people who seem to know everything about everything. Want to know how to treat psoriasis, the definition of “a jiffy,” or how to keep rubber bands like new? Call my cousin.

Karen knows where to find the best price on everything, from aspirin to zucchini, and can tell you without pausing to think who fits where in any family tree. She also has a serious sugar addiction, but you’d never know it because she’s rail thin—something
I
think is “unnatural” in a candymaker.

So when her eyes widened and her face took on an “aha” expression, I knew I was in trouble.

I had someone new in my life. And if Detective Pine Jawarski and I weren’t exactly ready to commit to a life together, at least we were inching in that direction. Karen’s expression warned me that her thoughts had moved in the same direction as mine. “Does Jawarski know you feel this way?”

We were in dangerous territory now, and I knew I had to nip this conversation in the bud. “Jawarski and I don’t talk about it. Why don’t you stand there and I’ll hand you the boxes. The least we can do is get the mess off the floor.”

Karen was too busy gaping at me to move. “You haven’t talked about what you’re going to do for Valentine’s Day this year?”

“He hasn’t brought it up, and neither have I.” I picked up a few boxes and held them out to her. When she made no move to take them, I caved. “It’s no big deal. He’ll probably be working. And I’ll be breaking my neck that whole week to keep up around here. I’ll probably just want to crash.”

Karen took the boxes reluctantly and said something I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear.

I’d finally reached the point in my relationship with Jawarski where I could actually call it a relationship. I’d adjusted to the fact that most everyone in Paradise considered us a couple. I’d even adjusted to the fact that we spent most weekends together as a matter of course. They were huge concessions for me, and I thought they might make up for the fact that Jawarski’s growing importance in my life made me feel weak and vulnerable—and the fact that I don’t like feeling weak and vulnerable.

Karen stacked the boxes on the shelf and turned back for more. “All I’m saying is you’d better start thinking about what you’re going to do that night. Valentine’s Day is only two weeks away, and Paradise isn’t the quiet little town it used to be. If you don’t have a reservation for dinner, you’ll be scraping something together out of the cupboard.”

I thought about my kitchen in the apartment upstairs and made a mental note to pick up a frozen dinner, just in case. Make that two. “Thanks for the warning,” I said. “What time is Liberty coming in today?”

Karen shot a look over her shoulder. “In about fifteen minutes. So is that it? ‘Thanks for the warning,’ now mind your own business?”

“Something like that.”

She stopped working and turned to face me, hands on hips. “You’re going to lose him, you know. With that attitude.”

“Just because I don’t want to agonize over Jawarski all night and day doesn’t mean I don’t care about him. Maybe what we have isn’t what you’d want, but it works for us, so leave it alone, okay?”

“Does it work? Are you sure?”

She was really fighting dirty today. Karen isn’t usually like that. She’s not mean or vicious, so why did she keep aiming at my weakest spots? “Are you trying to make me insecure?”

“Of course not.” She sounded hurt that I’d even suggest such a thing. “I’m just trying to help.”

Some help.
I’d never had self-esteem issues until the day I’d discovered the truth about my marriage. Twenty years of blind trust had been blown away in an instant, and the blast had been the emotional equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Try as I might, I couldn’t just flip a switch and get over it.

Not even for Jawarski.

I knew there were times when he felt impatient with me, but I didn’t think I was in danger of losing him. But what did I know? I hadn’t known I was in danger of losing Roger, either. “It works for us,” I said again. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Just don’t blame me—”

“I mean it, Karen. Drop it, okay?”

She clamped her mouth shut and turned back to the supply cupboard. A strained silence stretched between us as we each pretended to concentrate on the task at hand. Only the steady slap of boxes hitting the shelves broke the unnatural quiet.

When the bell over the front door jangled to signal a customer, both of us turned toward it gratefully. My eagerness turned to dread when I saw Jawarski come into the shop. Karen beamed as if she’d personally arranged for his arrival.

While he scraped snow from his boots, I tossed off a desperate prayer that he hadn’t come to talk about Valentine’s Day or anything else remotely related to our relationship. That was one hassle I didn’t need.

Blissfully unaware of the tension between Karen and me, Jawarski came toward the counter, a smile on his solid face, a key dangling from one finger. He’s in his mid-forties, tall, dark, and, yeah, handsome. He’s also in fantastic shape thanks to his job as a detective with the Paradise Police Department.

“Hey there, good-looking,” he said. “Got a minute?”

I’ve almost grown accustomed to the little
zing
of pleasure I get when I see him. Any woman would get a little
zing
watching him walk toward her. But there was no
zing
today, only a growing sense of panic.

With Karen’s predictions ringing in my ears, I made sure I sounded happy to see him when I answered. “For you? Sure.” I nodded toward the key. “What’s that?”

“What do you think it is?”

His eyes were sort of sleepy and sexy, and I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Looks like a key to me.”

He leaned on the counter and ran those sexy blue eyes up and down my body. “As a matter of fact, it’s a key to my place. What do you say? You interested?”

“A key? To your house?” I could feel Karen watching us, but I refused to make eye contact with her. I already knew what I’d see if I did. “You’re kidding, right? You’re giving me a key? Just like that?”

Jawarski’s smile dimmed. “You don’t want it?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might want to talk about this first? In
private
?”

“Whoa! Hold on. Relax, slick. It’s not what you think.”

He tossed the key onto the counter where it clattered, metal on glass. “I have to leave town for a couple of weeks. I just came by to ask if you’d mind taking in my mail while I’m gone.”

Embarrassment came hard on the heels of anger, and I shot Karen a look that might have killed a weaker woman. “Your mail?”

“Yeah. Do you mind? I can put in a delivery hold at the post office if you don’t want to.”

I waved away his last suggestion and managed a thin smile. “Don’t be silly. Of course I can take in your mail. Is that all?”

He shrugged. “No plants. No pets.” As if I didn’t know that already. “Mail’s it.”

I tucked the key into my pocket and tried for a genuine smile this time. “That should be easy enough. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.” He eyed me cautiously, as if he expected me to wig out or something. “I know it’s short notice, but it’s really a last-minute thing.”

This is the beauty of an uncommitted relationship
, I told myself. There’s no pressure. One partner can flit off at a moment’s notice and the other one is just fine with it. No drama. No hysterics. No jealousy. I shot an I-told-you-so look at Karen and practically beamed at Jawarski. “I think it sounds wonderful. Where are you going?”

“Montana. Ridge’s birthday is next week, and Bree called last night to suggest I come up there. She thought I might like to spend some time with the kids.”

All those ugly insecurities bashed me, and my smile grew brittle. One whack with a kitchen mallet and it would have shattered into a hundred pieces. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t begrudge him a visit with his kids. But the one time I’d met Cheyenne and Ridge had been a total disaster. He wasn’t ready for me to be part of their lives, so every time he slipped into dad mode, I was left out. Some day I might become a part of their special triumvirate, but I wasn’t yet.

But that wasn’t what made my nerve endings tingle. Somewhere along the way I’d developed a case of ex-wife-itis—probably because Jawarski mentioned his ex so rarely, I was never certain where things stood between them.

It was hard to ignore the smug look Karen flung at me, but I did my best. “The trip was your ex-wife’s idea?”

Jawarski nodded as if dropping everything to accept an invitation from the ex was the most natural thing in the world. “I haven’t seen the kids in a few months, and I have a couple of weeks of vacation saved up.”

Jealous girlfriend questions rose in my throat, but I bit them all back. My reaction had nothing to do with Jawarski and everything to do with Roger. Karen’s earlier comments had just made me more susceptible to doubt, that’s all.

“What a great idea,” I said, trying very hard to mean it. “I’ll bet the kids are excited.”

Jawarski smiled, relief evident in every line on his face. “They seem to be.”

See? We were fine. And Jawarski leaving for two weeks should prove, even to Karen, that there are some couples who are just fine without hearts and flowers . . . and even candy.

Apparently satisfied that I wasn’t angry with him, Jawarski leaned across the counter and kissed me briefly. “Listen, I’ve gotta run. There’s some kind of trouble over at the theater and I need to check on it. But I’ll call you while I’m gone. And I should be back by Valentine’s Day, so think about what you want to do that night.” He walked backward for a couple of steps and spread his arms wide. “I’m all yours, babe. Just name it.”

It was a good thing he left when he did, because if I’d named it right then, we’d probably both have been sorry.

 

 

The door had barely closed behind Jawarski when the bell tinkled to signal another customer. We get a fair amount of walk-in traffic since we’re situated in a prime location, one I could never afford if I were trying to set up a business today. Paradise is growing rapidly, and in the tourist season we get a lot of spillover from Aspen and Vail. So it’s not unusual for someone I don’t recognize to walk into Divinity.

It
is
unusual for that someone to be barking into a cell phone so intently he doesn’t pay any attention to where he’s walking. The customer, a twig of a man with reddish hair and hard blue eyes, plowed into a display table loaded with old-fashioned candy sticks and sent half of them crashing to the floor. He glared at them as if they’d bashed into him and shifted his cell phone to his other ear.

“No, no, no. I said today. It
has
to be here today. Which part of that word do you have trouble understanding?”

Karen was still busy with the boxes and Liberty wasn’t in yet, so guess who got to wait on him.
Lucky me.

I pasted on a bland smile—the best I could do considering what he’d just done to half my stock of candy sticks—and waited for him to acknowledge me. He plowed across the mess he’d made, crunching candy underfoot. I swear, I could smell money burning.

“If you can’t do it, say so now,” he snarled into his phone. “I’ll find someone who can.” An ugly smile curved his thin lips as he listened to the response. “That’s what I thought. The Summit Lodge, no later than five. Got that?” He snapped his phone shut and fixed his hard little eyes on me. “How soon can you deliver a two-pound box of candy across town?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, making my best effort to look sincere, “but delivery isn’t one of our services.” Unless you placed a really big special order or I liked you. Which left this guy out in the cold. “We do offer gift wrapping though, and you can handpick the chocolates you want to include in your selection.”

He wagged his narrow head from side to side and let out his breath in an irritated huff. “You’ve got to be kidding, right? What kind of Podunk town is this? Do you know who I am?”