Tell Me No Lies (2 page)

Pride kept her from jerking her chin away when Jake lifted
it with a finger. His deep-blue eyes studied her, and he seemed to be mulling
something over before he finally asked, “What’s wrong, Tess?”

Everything
.

“Nothing.”

His finger shifted, pressing briefly against her lips. He
looked at her sternly, shaking his head. “What’s wrong?”

When he lifted his finger, she hated herself a little for
wanting it back. It had been months since a man had touched her. Years since
she’d craved a man’s touch. But part of her had always wanted Jake that way,
even as she’d rejected the notion. Jake was a hometown boy, the easy road to
nowhere, and Tess was headed somewhere.

They had been like peas in a pod as little kids. But as they
grew up, Tess came to think of Jake as part of Cranston, part of the world she
wanted to leave behind. She didn’t want to be the quarterback’s girl, get
married out of high school, have babies who played with the babies of her high
school friends. Didn’t want to get lost in a man, as she surely would get lost
in Jake if she ever gave in to what she felt for him. So they’d remained just
friends. She wanted more, more. She wanted out. And she’d gotten out.

As it happened, so had Jake. He hadn’t been part of
Cranston, after all, but his own person with his own ambitions. He’d gone
farther than she had. Yet here they both were. Orbiting the black hole.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, suddenly exhausted by that
simple truth. She was so sick of not knowing what the fuck was wrong with her.
And nobody ever wanted to take
I don’t know
as an answer. “I just…I
needed some time to think. And not have to figure out all that wedding crap. If
I had to hear another word about some stupid shit like whether the guest book
placeholder ribbon should be merlot or aubergine, I was going to have to smack
someone.”

Not that she’d actually heard much of that. Allison turned
to Lindy for most of her color and style consultation needs, to Marielle for
wedding etiquette, to Seth for everything else.

She always forgot how tall Jake was when she hadn’t seen him
in a while. At least a head taller than Tess herself, and Tess was a good five
foot eight or thereabouts. He was standing close enough that she had to tip her
head to meet his gaze. She could smell a hint of aftershave and the leather
bomber jacket he was wearing.

Does his skin smell that way too? Leather and spice and
everything nice? If I licked him, what would he taste like?

“So you’re Allison’s maid of honor?”

“No. She didn’t want to choose between me and Lindy. It’s
some girl named Marielle she plays computer games with. A friend of hers and
Seth’s. Not a girl, I guess,” she corrected, air-quoting “girl”. “A math
professor. But she looks about twelve.”

“You don’t approve?” Jake guessed.

Tess shrugged, moving away to turn off the music player. “I
don’t really know her. Anyway, it’s Ally’s choice,” she said over her shoulder.
She told herself her cousin hadn’t wanted to hurt her or Lindy, Tess’ younger
sister, by choosing one over the other. But deep down, she thought Allison
preferred this new friend. Other than emails about wedding plans, Tess had
barely talked to her once-close cousin in months.

Or her little sister, for that matter. Lindy was too
occupied with her artwork and her burgeoning accessory-design career, and with
her new boyfriend Richard. Or rather, her fiancé, since they’d announced their
engagement at Halloween. Allison guessed Seth’s brother Drew would be next to
propose. They were dropping like flies. And they were all so horribly, horribly
happy.

“I thought all that planning business was the maid of
honor’s job.”

“It is. But you know, there’s always stuff that has to be
done locally. Ally doesn’t have a mom to do that for her. And Marielle’s stuck
in Dinsdale, teaching classes, so…” She gestured to herself, waved vaguely in
the direction of town. “I have all this free time on my hands.”

He scanned the room. “So I see. Hey, let’s talk about it
over at my place. I have chairs. And wine.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Is that the price I have to pay for
your silence?”

Jake quirked an eyebrow at her. Tess steeled herself to
ignore how that simple expression made her belly do strangely pleasant swimmy
things. “Blackmail. I like it. Yes, conversation’s the price.
For now
,”
he added mock-ominously.

She rolled her eyes at him, but she was already putting on
her boots.

Chapter Two

Jake led the way to his house, almost glad that Tess was
behind him where he couldn’t see her. He had enough fantasies running in his
mind already without spending the ten-minute walk contemplating Tess’ ass in
tight, faded jeans. He couldn’t be entirely glad, of course. It would have been
a sweet form of torture.

If Tess knew the things he wanted to do to that ass, she
wouldn’t be walking in the woods alone with him in the gathering dusk.

She’s a brat
, he admonished himself,
and you don’t
do brats
.

“Oh wait!” Tess stage-whispered, and Jake turned to see her
pointing into the woods. A fleeting glimpse of tan, a rustling sound…a deer,
gone as soon as he spotted it.

She smiled at him then, and his heart ached as he smiled
back. How long since he’d seen her grin like that? She looked like a happy
little kid again for a few seconds. Then it faded, the smile slipping sideways,
growing cynical, her tough mask fitting itself back over her face.

He considered challenging her to a race, like he would’ve in
the old days. She’d light up every time then take off, sprinting as fast as the
deer. For a while when they were ten and eleven or so, Tess was taller and
could outrun him. She’d never stopped trying to get that edge back. Right now,
however, she looked too tired to leap at a challenge. He didn’t think he could
bear to see her fail to rise to such an occasion.

Jake sighed and started walking toward his house again.

The sight of his home never failed to cheer him up.
Especially approaching it as they did now, when it was getting dark and chilly
enough for the warmly lit windows to seem welcoming. He had admired the old
farmhouse as a kid, and had spent the last three years lovingly restoring and
modernizing it. There was still a lot to do, but the effort was paying off.

“Nice.” Tess followed him out of the woods and across his
back lawn, but paused at the foot of the steps leading up to his deck. Jake
wondered if there were some force field there he couldn’t sense, some threshold
she feared to cross. “This was the McGinnis place, right?”

He leaned on the rail, in no hurry to go in. The evening was
brisk but not yet truly cold. A faint hint of wood smoke carried on the breeze.
“Yeah. Mr. McGinnis died about four years ago. The place was sitting empty for
about a year before I bought it.”

“Looks like you’ve been busy.” She looked up at the house,
eyes scanning the roofline, the windows, all the way back down to the deck he’d
finished that summer. “She was my second-grade teacher.”

“Mine too. We were in the same class that year, remember?”
Then he fell silent, hesitant to say too much more about Mrs. McGinnis. She had
died within weeks of Tess and Lindy’s mother, also of cancer, the year Tess
turned thirteen. Tess didn’t discuss that. It was one of several topics Tess
didn’t discuss. “It’s a nice night. You want me to bring the wine out here or
are we going inside?”

She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Inside, I guess. It’s
chilly.”

“Come up the steps, Tess,” he suggested gently after another
few seconds of silence. “We can proceed from there to the door whenever you’re
ready. Enter freely, and of your own will.”

She snorted at the dumb vampire line and flung her silky
dark hair over her shoulder, taking the four steps in two jumps and striding
past him as if she had all the confidence in the world. In Jake’s experience,
that usually indicated Tess’ confidence was nowhere to be found. But she faked
it well, he had to give her that. She always had. She was a woman on a mission,
even when she didn’t know what the mission was.

Jake had put his bags of groceries on his kitchen table
during his brief stop home. He let Tess acclimate while he put away the food
and opened the wine.

“Go ahead and look around,” he said. “Make yourself at
home.”

She ventured out of the room and he could hear her
footsteps, light treads on the restored wooden floors. Lighter than he liked to
see her these days. She’d lost too much weight over the past year. He pictured
her padding through the house barefoot, naked except for a collar. Exploring
the way a pet would explore a new home. He’d want her to feel comfortable here,
if she were his. He’d want to feed her. Soften her edges.

Brat, brat, brat…

“Have you eaten dinner yet?” he called out.

“Not hungry.” Her voice seemed to come from the bookcase
near the stairs. Jake stepped into the hallway and saw her kneeling there,
looking at titles on the bottom shelf. The sight drew him up short, and he took
a deep breath while the longing swept over him and lifted the tight lid off his
control. Even fully clothed and acerbic as hell, she could still do this to him
every time. His response to the least hint of submission from her was
automatic, uncontrollable. It was like an allergic reaction.

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” he said patiently. “I
asked if you had eaten dinner yet.”

The glare she shot him could’ve stripped paint. “No,
Dad
,
I have not.”

In his mind he stripped
her
bare, held a bunch of
grapes just out of reach, teased her until she begged for one juicy mouthful.
One taste. What might she do to earn it, if the motivation were strong enough?
What might he do to test her limits?

Perhaps something, some glint of his deeper nature, showed
in his eyes because Tess bit her lip and looked back down at the books. That
instinctive gesture from her, that simple flick of the eyes down and away, was
almost too much.

She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”

Jake prepared a tray with cheese and crackers, a few pears
and a bunch of seedless red grapes. The wine was a Bordeaux with complex layers
and a mellow finish. Tess sipped at the excellent vintage, rolling it in her
mouth. Then she reached for the grapes, pulling a heavily laden branchlet off
the bunch and tugging one of the plump fruits off with her teeth.

Jake coughed into his hand and put his wine down abruptly.
“Sorry. I’m fine. I swallowed the wrong way.”

“Oh I hate that.”

“So do I. ”

“Of course you do,” she said. “You hate anything
unpredictable.”

He shrugged and took up a pear and a knife, cutting a slice
off and offering it to her. “I wouldn’t say that. I like that life offers us
surprises now and then. But who likes swallowing the wrong way?”

Tess took the pear slice, tapered fingers plucking it from
him without touching. Her hands looked wrong, somehow. It took him a few more
minutes to realize what was missing.

Polish. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the
adult Tess without a manicure. Without, in fact, being groomed to within an
inch of her life. Lindy and Allison teased her about it, calling it a spa
addiction. The Homecoming Queen Sheen.

Now that he looked—as Tess made wry comments about his
literature selection—he saw other signs, subtle things he hadn’t noticed at
first glance. Her nails weren’t just unpolished, they were uneven and a few
looked bitten. Her hair, while still a gorgeous fall of bittersweet chocolate,
seemed ragged and wispy at the edges, as if she was long overdue for a cut and
hadn’t bothered to style it. And concealer couldn’t completely hide the dark
circles under gray eyes that looked fever-bright. Her wrists seemed as fragile
as bird wings, practically translucent.

“What?”

Her question brought him out of his reverie, and he blinked
at his guest in puzzlement. “Huh?”

“You were staring at me like I’d grown another head.”

“Sorry. Just thinking. Here, have some cheese and crackers.”
Once she was munching, listlessly but dutifully, he changed the subject. “So I
hear Lindy got engaged at Halloween?”

“Mmph!” She swallowed then swigged some wine to wash it
down. “Richard fucking D’Arco. God’s gift to women and the art world. After
sleeping with him for like two months. She’s out of her fucking mind. And you
want to know what pisses me off the most?”

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“I am! What pisses me off most is that I think the big
appeal for
him
is geographical convenience. She lives right across the
hall from him. All he had to do was open the door and crook his disgusting
slimeball finger at her.”

“Did it ever occur to you you’re not giving either of them
much credit?” he asked mildly. He knew Lindy and Richard had been close friends
for years before hooking up, but none of that time seemed to count for Tess.

For a split second he saw a panicked, uncertain expression
flick across Tess’ face. She shook it off and doubled down. “She’s naive, and
she’s going to get hurt. I only hope she doesn’t also get some nasty venereal
disease.”

“I hope so too.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on
his knees, noting that Tess shifted her posture to counter him. She pulled away
into a slump, one hand still holding a wineglass but the other arm folded
across her midsection. Guarding herself closely. “When was the last time you
talked to her?”

That look again. Like a camera shutter, opening and closing
so quickly that if he’d blinked, he’d have missed the misery. “About three
weeks ago, why?”

“No reason. So when is all your stuff supposed to get here?
Do you need to borrow anything in the meantime?”

“Day after tomorrow.” She relaxed a little. “And no thanks,
but that’s right neighborly of ya.”

He grinned and tipped an imaginary hat, soaking in her swift
smile as a reward and wondering why on earth he was even letting his mind move
in this dangerous direction. Picturing her in his house, imagining things that
might happen between them. It couldn’t end well. But with Tess here, in front
of him, he felt a compulsion.

She’s not a brat, she’s the walking wounded and she’s
falling apart. You don’t do that either. Sex doesn’t fix people who are broken.

But it’s Tess
.

And somewhere under there, under the layers of unresolved
grief and anger and defensiveness, the makeup and nail polish she usually wore
and the giant chip on her shoulder…he could still see Tess. The Tess he’d known
for so long, the one he’d always wanted. The one he’d always
liked
, when
she wasn’t putting up a wall of protective hostility.

If her hard shell was finally crumbling—her world falling
apart as the people she’d grown up taking care of found lives of their own
without her—he wanted to be first in line when the Tess he knew finally broke
free. Wanted to help her push her way out of that shell, preferably with a
flogger, a paddle, a bamboo cane and his rock-hard penis.

The only difficult part would be getting Tess to let him.

* * * * *

Jake walked her home in the dark after they killed the
bottle. Opened the door for her and glanced through the rooms to check for
monsters before he finally left with a reminder to lock up behind him. Tess was
full, sleepy and more content than she could remember feeling in years. Sitting
around and talking with a friend—one who wasn’t interested in discussing
wedding plans—had done wonders.

Her contentment lasted only until she checked her email.

From: Allison Moore

To: Tess Moore

Subject: Where the hell are you???!!!

Hey Tess, You didn’t answer my last email. I’ve tried
calling your cell and I keep getting that “unavailable” message. Is it working?
Wish you hadn’t had to give up your work number already. Rotten timing! I know
you’re finishing up stuff there, but do you think you could let me know if
Mikey still wants to be an usher? I don’t have his email address. We’d love to
have him! We need to add a boutonniere to the order if he’s going to do it (if
Jan’s Flowers can even swing a last-minute change like that). It doesn’t have
to match the orchid ones, a red rosebud or something would be fine. Or should
we then do roses for ALL the ushers? Ugh. Too complicated. Whatever. Make sure
if he’s going to do it, we know, so he has a flower. Okay?

OMG getting so excited! Can’t wait to see you, it seems like
ages since we’ve talked. We need to work in a spa day during “prep week”. Oh
wait…no spa in Cranston :-( LOL We’ll figure something out though.

Love, Ally

P.S. Make sure Mike and your dad take their suits to the
cleaners! Does Mikey
have
a suit?

Allison was not a bride from hell, Tess reminded herself.
She was actually a pretty easygoing bride. Her excitement and one-track mind
were only to be expected. But was it seemly for a college professor to use
terms like LOL and OMG, even in an email to a cousin? And so many exclamation
points…

She shot back a brief reply, unwilling to promise anything
immediate but including her little brother’s email address. As she typed, and
thought how one might approximate a spa day in Cranston, she noticed her ragged
nails. Her hands looked like a stranger’s. She tried to recall when her last
manicure had been, but couldn’t bring up anything more recent than summer.

Then she remembered, and fought back a wave of emotions she
didn’t want to examine.

She’d been with her sister Lindy that day—Lindy, who had
never cared about that sort of thing before sleeping with Richard d’Arco, but
now seemed quite the regular at her local day spa. Lindy had told her, with
giddy enthusiasm, all about the plan she and Richard had come up with to buy
their lofts now that their building was going condo, and remodel them into one
big apartment.

“We might as well,” Lindy pointed out, “since we’re back and
forth between the two places all day anyway. And this way we could do a bigger
kitchen and enlarge both our workspaces. All industrial style. Richard thinks
he can get a lot of materials at a salvage place he knows. He’s planning this
amazing sculpture around one of the columns.”