Sweet as Sin (26 page)

“PJ, what are you doing here? Where’s your uncle?”

The little boy motioned over his shoulder.

Behind the shrubbery, Livvy spied one bent khaki-covered knee, a squirming Tyler perched on top. She smiled through wet eyes.

“Uncle John said I was supposed to tell you something.”

Squatting, Livvy brought herself to his level.

“What did Uncle John want you to say?”

“Um, first he’s sorry. Then he’s an idiot and then, um, oh yeah, he wants you to come back.

You promised we could make cookies, Livvy.

Can we make them tonight? And these are for you, but they stink.”

He thrust the four soft-stemmed roses at her.

She took the flowers and tweaked his nose.

“Thank you, PJ. Tell your uncle I said…tell him I said thank you.”

“’Kay.”

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His tennis shoes smacked the steps as he

thundered toward the bush. Livvy closed the door and Andrea mouthed “That was so cute.” Livvy nodded just as a tiny knock sounded. Livvy blew out a stuttering breath before she opened the door.

“Tyler! Hey, sweetie.”

Livvy stroked the preschooler’s cheek as he grinned at her, tiny white teeth shining. One finger popped in his mouth and he held out a single cream rose. “Fower, Wibby. Unca John gived it to me.”

“Is that for me?” He nodded and she held out her hand. “Can I have it?” Shaking his head, he clutched the rose tighter. From the corner of her eye, she saw a dark head bow and swore she heard him sigh.

“Okay, sweetie, you go back to Uncle John now.” She watched as Tyler climbed down her steps, still carrying his flower, before shutting the door.

Andrea grinned. “That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Once more a small knock sounded near her

hips. Livvy opened the door, eyes searching low.

She saw Tyler and PJ and their uncle’s pockets.

Swallowing her stomach, she slowly raised her face to his. The hard lines around his mouth stood out like incisions, yet his eyes were soft, filled with regret and determination.

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“That was sneaky, Murphy. Sending little boys to do a man’s job.”

“When the stakes are this high, I’ll use what I have to.” Tongue flicking out to wet his upper lip, he closed his eyes for a brief second. Tyler turned to run and John’s hand clamped down on the child’s head. PJ picked his nose. “I’m sorry, Liv. I screwed up.”

Tyler wiggled from under his hand and darted toward the road. John lunged off the porch with a curse, caught him by the back straps of his overalls and picked him up like a lunch pail. The child dangled from his hand as he turned back to her.

“Active little boogers, aren’t they?”

At that moment, her sister earned a halo by opening the door and asking who wanted

Popsicles. Both children stormed by Livvy. John didn’t blink and never took his eyes from her face.

He stepped to the porch edge and she met him there, her head only inches above his.

“I’m not your dad. You can’t blame me for shit he did.”

“You’re right. You didn’t deserve that. I just got wrapped up in old memories and… I’m

sorry.”

His hand crept along her hip. Livvy blinked against a blur of tears. That simple touch Inez Kelley

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grounded her and she wanted to jump into his arms.

“Old memories are a bitch, aren’t they? My word may not mean much right now, but I swear I wasn’t with another woman. You either believe me or you don’t. I don’t know how to make that happen.”

“I believe you.” Livvy nibbled her lip and forced herself to look straight at him. “What’s going on with us, Murphy? This is more than a summer fling.”

“I don’t know. Just, when you walked away…”

John’s eyes shifted to the side before bringing his face back to hers. His voice dropped. “I’ve never done this, Liv. I’ve had one-night-stands, and affairs, and friends with benefits, but not this. Not what we have, whatever this is. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m trying.”

Livvy fingered the rose petals to keep from reaching out and smoothing his hair back. “It scares me how much I…need you.”

“I know all about fear.” His voice was a low whisper. “I’m afraid I’m going to wake up and find out all this is just a dream. That I’m back in that hell I thought I’d crawled out of. That you…that you’re a dream.”

“Murphy, no. I’m real. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

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“Make you a deal. You don’t leave me and I promise I’ll never be like your father.”

She let the roses trail down his nose. “Deal.”

He leaped on the porch and wrapped his arms around her waist. His kiss was hard, too much emotion for one move, but she loved it. She loved him. “If I have to call you every ten minutes when I’m out of your sight, I will.”

“Once will be fine. And I’ll be waiting when you get back.” Something he said stuck in her mind and she backed away just enough to see his face. “You’ve never had a fight with a girlfriend?”

A dimple appeared with the grin he sent her.

“Technically, this is my first. I’m a fight virgin.

Be gentle with me.”

She laughed. His hands sank into her hair and cradled her head. The man who wanted no

promises bored one into her eyes. “Before, if women started arguing, I bailed. It wasn’t worth it.

They weren’t worth it. I’m not bailing on you.”

He loved her. She knew as surely as she knew how to make royal icing. He just couldn’t say it.

Suddenly, his whispers while making love last night took on new meaning and her toes curled.

She buried her face in his shoulder and held him tight. John squeezed, too much pressure to be comfortable, but she didn’t care if she ever drew another breath. She had him. The homegrown roses wafted their thick scent over her as her Inez Kelley

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heartbeat slowed to normal and she dried her eyes.

Livvy raised her head from his shoulder. The front of his hair fell over his eyes and she pushed it back playfully. “You need a haircut.”

“I need you.”

“You’ve got me, Murphy.”

One hand dipped into his pocket, his balled fist making it bulge. The other hand cupped her jaw, thumb tracing the apple of her cheek. “Livvy, what you said on the deck…no woman has ever said that to me.” His voice rasped, gravelly and rough. “Tell me again.”

“No.”

The single word made his hand fall and brows draw together. “You didn’t mean it?”

“I meant it, Murphy. I feel it with each beat of my heart. I want you to feel it in my every breath.

But I need to hear it, too. So if and when you can say it back, then I’ll repeat it.”

He looked above her head. He pulled his hand from his pocket and nodded. “Fair enough.”

Chapter Eleven

After taking a day off, Livvy was running behind schedule but she dove into her work, delegated a bit and simplified the week’s new selections. By one-thirty, she poured a cup of coffee and locked herself in her office. Her chair squeaked and her pounding heart jumped. The file Gina had given her lay on her desk, the embodiment of evil. Like a guilty would-be thief, she considered walking away, leaving the tale untold until, someday, maybe, John would tell her himself. He was doing that, tiny tidbit by tiny tidbit.

She’d been able to wait yesterday. The kids had demanded every second of her attention and she hadn’t wanted to risk being discovered so she’d left it tucked in her bag. After John and the boys had shown up on her porch, the day had gotten sweeter, her heart more settled and her mind more at ease. John loved her even if he couldn’t say it yet. He was worth the wait, she’d decided. He’d tell her in his own way, his own time.

Until late in the night, that decision changed.

Far after midnight, her arms wrapped around his waist, breasts pressed to his back, John’s Inez Kelley

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trembling had awakened her. Sound asleep and sweating like a field hand, his breath rasped in shallow pants and his head shook back and forth.

She tried to soothe him, stroking his back, but he bucked from her, bolting upright, a look of pure fear on his face.

He ignored her calling, thrust off the blankets and disappeared into the bathroom for a long time.

She stayed in bed, the cold spot that had been his haunting her. He hadn’t come back to bed. Rather, he went wordlessly to the study where the muted clang of the weight bench rang for hours. He’d shut her out.

For a long ten minutes, she stared at the faded green folder, wondering if she really wanted to discover his secrets this way. It felt like cheating.

But temptation dangled like a carrot before a rabbit. She reached instead for the phone, the short ring in her ear like the starting buzzer for a prize fight.

“Hello?”

“Miss me?” She forced cheer into her voice.

The low answering chuckle warmed her belly.

“Of course. What are you doing?”

She shifted an accounts receivable folder over the green one. “Oh, just looking at billing stuff. I thought I’d call and see how you were feeling.”

“Me? I’m fine.”

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“You didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Through the phone, she heard Tyler cry and PJ

swear he didn’t do it, but she didn’t hear John.

The silence hung and she let it.

Finally, he spoke. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Shut out again.
She pulled the green folder loose and thumbed its thick edge. “Murphy, I may end up working late, maybe very late. There’re some things I need to handle here.”

“You do what you have to, Liv. You know the door’s open, don’t you?”

“It could be an ungodly hour. I could just go home—”

“Liv, come here.”

His butter-rich tone bathed her soul.
God, I
love him. I have to do this.
“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t wait up.”

“I’ll be awake.”

Gulping her goodbye, she fumbled replacing the receiver. She pulled the file forward and flipped it open. The very first page made her sob.

The color photo of barely sixteen-year-old John had a hospital curtain in the background. The sickly green fabric highlighted his face. A full two-thirds was mottled and bruised. Both eyes were swollen tight and a row of black stitches crossed his brow. The next several pages held similar photos, of his battered back and chest, his blistered arm and a close-up of his stitched wrist.

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He had not been beaten. He had been mangled.

Before she’d read a word, Livvy wept.

Quickly discovering that writing and children did not mix, John improvised. He dug out his hated laptop and the garden hose and parked himself in a deck chair. Tyler and PJ ran through the sprinkler in the back yard and he cursed the smaller keys.

His monsters were not behaving. Nothing he wrote worked unless he let them speak for themselves. A groan leaked out as he deleted a full thirty-seven pages of text. John turned the story over to them and served purely as medium.

Before his mind’s eye, they came alive.

“Thorn’s dying.”

Jondi heard Andros but it seemed as

though his voice came from far, far away.

The hills and mountains of Gillimat rose in deep purple arches against the evening sky, pushing back the blanket of day for just a while longer. Night was rising, shifting the sky from pink to violet, and Jondi watched in silence.

“I know,” he whispered, tears dripping

down his throat. “So is Vory.”

“Yes.” White fur trailing like a veil,

Andros sat hunched at his workbench,

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bowls and beakers all around. Exhaustion

laced his voice. “I’m sorry, Jondi. I have tried everything I know. Nordrake’s magic is too strong. Whatever spell he’s cast, I can’t break it.”

“You have to!” Anger rushed through

him with a burning fire. He whirled around and screamed. “Don’t let them die. You’re the most powerful wizard in the world. You can save them, I know it.”

Andros shook his head slowly, sadly.

“White magic, Jondi. I only know white

magic. The dark spell is too strong.

Everything I’ve tried has failed. I have

failed.”

Jondi could not accept those words. Pain

and fear made him angrier and he banged

his fists on the scarred table.

“Don’t give up. You always tell me don’t

give up. There has to be something,

somewhere that can save them. And why

didn’t I get sick? I was in the Dell longer than Thorn. Why is he dying? Nordrake

hates me, he doesn’t know Vory, why her?

Why?”

“I don’t know why you didn’t get sick,

Jondi. There’s no reason to this spell, none.

It makes no sense. I just don’t know.”

Andros went to bury his head in his wide

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arms when he stopped, stared at the candle flame and gasped.

“What?” Hope touched Jondi like a fairy

wing, lightly, teasingly.

“It makes no sense. No rhyme nor reason.

But perhaps, if you don’t try and solve the riddle, the answer will come. Rather than cure the body, maybe you should cure the

spirit. And then maybe, the body will

follow.”

Jondi frowned as the wizard jumped up

and began gathering powders and herbs,

bowls and pestles. Andros muttered to

himself, snapping his fingers when a new

thought appeared. Jondi understood none of it. He just knew that time was running out and Andros was trying for a miracle.

Ground houndspaw, the tears of a

mermaid, and three sprigs of mint were

tossed in a

A
kerthunk
and PJ’s scream yanked John from his words and he pitched the laptop aside, jumping to the deck railing. Tyler lay flat on his stomach at the base of the wooden stairs, blood pooling around his head on the small concrete slab. Panic reached down his throat and ripped his heart from his chest with clawlike fingers.

“Tyler!”

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