Tell Me No Lies (3 page)

Tess didn’t know why she’d said it. She
wanted
to say
something pleasant and neutral, like normal people would say. But what came out
was, “Yeah, I’ll bet Richard the starving artist has all sorts of plans for
remodeling the place. But who’s going to be making the payments?”

“
You’re my baby sister
,” she’d meant. “
I had to
raise you even though I didn’t know how, and what if I’ve raised you to make
terrible choices? You can’t be renovating lofts yet. We can’t be that far along
in our lives already! You and I are all that’s left of Mom, and I’m not ready
to let you or her go like this.
”

She hadn’t been to the spa since. And now Lindy and Richard
were engaged. Despite what she’d told Jake, despite her own concerns about
Richard’s character, Tess thought they seemed happy. Richard was one of those
men Tess had always avoided dating, a man she feared she might get lost in. He
reminded her of Jake in some ways, that same calm, steely core, that same
hidden edge she was tempted to test for sharpness. She knew she was probably
jealous of Lindy for having the ability to brave a relationship with a man like
that.

And Richard wasn’t really starving; in fact, he was gaining
a national reputation and the commissions were rolling in. He’d been a player
back in college but he seemed to have grown into a one-woman guy, with eyes
only for Tess’ sister.

Tess wanted Lindy to be happy, more than anything. Part of
her wished someone would call her out for the things she said, but Lindy rarely
did. Allison rarely did. They just looked at her, sometimes hurt but lately
more often resigned. Dismissive, even. They spent less and less time with her,
and she didn’t blame them one bit. She would avoid herself too if she could.

So why the hell am I alone with me in a one-bedroom house
in the middle of the woods
?

Chapter Three

Jake knocked on the door, shivering against the morning
frost. The temperature had dropped sharply overnight, and today promised to be
a good twenty degrees colder than yesterday. Tess’ moving company had
accidentally sent her stuff halfway to Idaho through a manifest mix-up, so a
week after her official move to the tiny cottage and she still didn’t have her
bed or extra blankets. No heavy coat either. None of the things she’d probably
need for the sudden chill.

Every day during the last week he’d invited her for dinner
or a drink, and every time he’d also offered to loan her at least a cot and
some sheets. She’d taken the food and wine but declined on the home goods, claiming
she enjoyed her distraction-free writing retreat. He knew she was lying,
because she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself at all. Tess was clearly
miserable about something, but she’d resisted his efforts to get her to talk
about it.

This morning, she might be regretting her choice to forego
material luxury and wallow in self-imposed starkness until her own things
arrived. He wondered if Tess knew how the wood stove in her cottage worked.

She opened the door wrapped in her sleeping bag, shivering
and looking extremely grumpy, which suggested she did not.

Whatever she’d planned to say, she did a double take at the
sight of what was in Jake’s hands and opened the door wide to admit him. The
temperature inside wasn’t much warmer than outside.

“Coffee, oh my god coffee, I love you so much!” She snatched
one Styrofoam cup from the cardboard carrier and hunched over it, cuddling it
to her chest inside the sleeping bag.

“I also brought donuts.”

“I love those too. But right now I
really
love
coffee, because coffee’s hot and it’s so f-f-fucking c-c-cold in here.”

“I can fix that too.”

Within a few minutes he had the fire burning, and Tess
groaned in blissful relief as she warmed her hands in front of the safety
panel.

Jake hesitated before pulling up the one chair to sit beside
her. He had intended to drop off the breakfast then leave, so he didn’t really
have a plan for what to do if he stayed. He preferred to have a plan. Also, a
gentleman would offer Tess the chair.

She was already sitting on the floor
, he told
himself.
If she’d wanted the chair, she would’ve taken it
.

It was too tempting to sit there though. He’d tried to avoid
fantasizing during those dinners and long conversations, but this was too much
to resist. Tess by his feet in her nest of padded down, her head leaning oh so
close to his knee. Close enough that he could stroke her hair, were he so
inclined. When she reached up to take the donut he offered, his fingers brushed
hers and concern replaced his daydreaming.

“Your hands are like ice. You should take a hot bath.”

“Can’t get the water heater going either,” she said, teeth
still chattering. “The pilot went out. I wasn’t even
that
cold until I
spent twenty minutes on the back porch trying to get the damn thing working.
And my warm coat’s halfway across the country in a moving van.”

He could have offered to take a look at the water heater
too, but instead he said, “I have hot water at my place.” When she cocked a
skeptical brow at him, he sweetened the lure. “Tankless electric heater.
Infinite hot water, as long as I’m not running the wash or something while the
shower’s going.”

“I don’t even have a real towel here,” she confessed. “I
forgot to leave one out when I was packing boxes. I’ve been drying with the
little one from my gym bag.”

“Mine are Egyptian cotton.”

* * * * *

“I never should have come over here in the first place.”
Tess flipped her hair over and toweled it vigorously, loving the rosemary smell
of Jake’s conditioner and the hedonistic texture of his towel.

“Why not?”

She tossed her hair back and started brushing it. “Because
it makes my cozy getaway cottage in the woods look like a piece of crap, that’s
why.”

He chuckled and slid the bag from the donut shop toward her
across his kitchen table. “You still have a donut left.”

“I always forget how good these are.” She took a big bite
and sighed with pleasure at the familiar taste. The donut shop in the middle of
town still made them from scratch each morning using an old family recipe.
Nothing in the city ever tasted quite the same. “Napkin? Or I’ll get glaze in
my hair.”

Jake retrieved a paper towel and Tess finished brushing her
hair out, regretting her decision not to bring more of her styling products in
the “roughing it” kit. The air was dry and her hair promised to be a floating
nimbus of static electricity later on. But she was so happy to be warm again,
she didn’t care. She could’ve stayed in that magical shower another two hours
with no complaint.

“I should get one of those water heaters. I’m sure old
landlady Tarrant wouldn’t mind.”

“No need. I went over and got your own heater going while
you were in the shower. I could have probably fixed a dozen others during the
time you were in there.”

“I was really, really cold,” she said, not sorry at all.
“Thank you so much, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. Any time.”

“I just realized, even when my stuff gets here I’m going to
need a shower curtain. My old apartment had a glass shower door, so I don’t
have one. And I’m already tired of washing my hair under the faucet. I wonder
where the closest place is to buy a shower curtain where nobody will know me?”

“There’s a home store in Smithville. That’s about thirty
minutes away, you could probably risk it. Want to go for a drive? I’m playing
hooky from work this morning. Headache.”

She glanced at him for a second, checking his expression.
Cool, amused. He didn’t give much away these days. Not that he ever had. Even
in high school, when she’d been busy making sure he was firmly ensconced in the
Friend Zone, Jake had always looked like he knew something she didn’t. Tess had
had dreams about that look. Her very first hot dream, as a matter of fact, had
featured Jake Hogan’s subtle smile and his hands on her wrists, pinning her
down to her flowery purple comforter while all her stuffed animals looked on
from their shelf above the headboard.

Variations on that theme would be replayed in her dreams for
years to come. Wide variations, sometimes. But always the dark hair, the fair
skin, the too-blue eyes. Lean and long, with an easy, animal athleticism.
Pinning her, tying her, containing her. Holding her accountable. She’d been
trying not to think about those dreams this past week, but seeing him almost
every days had brought them back with a vengeance. She really wasn’t sure what
riding in a closed vehicle with him would do to her libido; it was way too much
like a date for comfort, and shopping together seemed intimate somehow.

In real life Tess usually dated blonds—sandy linebacker
types with eyelashes too pale to see, who worked out a bit too much and let her
get away with shit. None of them had ever suggested tying her down, probably
because they feared being laughed out of bed or kicked in the nuts. Her
dark-haired dream lover was always there when the dates were over. Like Fate.

“Sure, I’ll go for a drive.”

* * * * *

He teased her for her shower curtain choice—yellow duckies
in sailor hats—but offered to pay for lunch at a diner down the road from the
store. Tess accepted, but with a certain dawning suspicion.

“Are you trying to fatten me up?”

“Am I trying to fatten you up? That’s absurd.” But he
smirked as he held the door open to let her precede him.

“See, I can tell you’re lying because of all that psychology
stuff Allison studies. You repeated my question in your answer, which was also
a question. Total bullshit. You
are
trying to fatten me up. Every time
you see me you want to feed me.”

“That’s what Allison’s research is about?” He smiled at the
waitress, prompting a flare of unexpected, unreasonable jealousy from Tess.
“Two, please. Can we get a booth?”

“Yeah. Something to do with that and computer games. I don’t
know. It seems like she and Seth both get paid to sit around and play games a
lot of the time.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

“If you’re into playing games.”

“And are you?” he asked, as they slid into the booth and
accepted menus.

“Am I what? Coffee and a water, please,” she added, before
the waitress could ask.

“Same for me. And we’ll need a few minutes to decide.”

When the woman walked away to get their drinks, Jake’s
attention returned to Tess. “Are you into playing games?”

His voice curled around the phrase as if it was heavy with
subtext and needed some extra support. Or maybe Tess was supplying that subtext
on her own.

“On the computer? Not especially. You?”

Jake shrugged. “I have an Xbox.”

“I have a life.”

There it was, that extra bit too much that always popped up
and got her into trouble. The words flew out of her mouth and slapped Jake
smartly, making him blink a few times. Tess watched him, horrified at herself,
fascinated with the way Jake’s reaction played out across his face.

The waitress came back and they ordered, Tess picking at
random from the menu. She wasn’t hungry for any of it. Food tasted like
cardboard lately, and her digestion had grown temperamental.

When the waitress left and Jake finally responded, it wasn’t
what Tess expected. Not anger, not even his usual smug coolness.

“
Do
you, Tess? Have a life, I mean?”

As if he really wanted to know. He’d been hinting all week,
prodding ever so gently at the subject of what she’d been doing with herself
lately. Of
how
she was doing. She had sidestepped, talking about old
times or movies or anything other than her current state of mind.

“I was trying to write and work full time until a few weeks
ago. I was always on deadline for somebody. But in my spare forty-five seconds
each day, between work and making the
New York Times
bestseller list,
sure I had a life.” Once upon a time, she’d had exactly the life she’d set out
to achieve. She’d even enjoyed it for a while. Now, she didn’t know what she
had.

He almost frowned, then shrugged. “Congratulations. Been
meaning to tell you.”

“Thanks! It’s been very exciting.”

And it had, in a way. Tess had started writing detective
novels in her spare time while working a crime reporting spot. It seemed like
the thing to do; she’d always wanted to see if she had a novel in her, and half
the journalists she knew were writing something or other on the side. She
enjoyed it, looked forward to writing far more than her “real” work, but she’d
never kidded herself she was writing great literature. Nobody had been more
surprised than she when she’d secured an agent and then a four-book deal, based
on one book, one partially completed manuscript of a sequel and a sketchy
synopsis of the rest of the series.

It still startled her to see her name jumping off the glossy
book cover in the grocery store, even more so to see the prominent gold “
New
York Times
bestseller” star added on the latest printing.

If only Tess could write the actual remaining books, she’d
be in great shape…but she hadn’t written in months. That’s what the quiet was
supposed to do for her, let her focus on finishing the next book in time for
her deadline a few months away.

Unfortunately it still wasn’t quiet where it needed to be—in
her mind. What worried her even more was that panic hadn’t set in yet. It
should have by now, but it seemed her brain wasn’t up to that much effort.

“So you’re really going to write those full time now?
And…what, go on book tours? Whatever big-name authors do? Kind of a gamble.”

“You’re so supportive. I have some savings, advances were
great, and I’ve earned out on the first book already so royalties are coming
in. I’m doing okay. And the rent on Mrs. Tarrant’s cottage is a lot cheaper
than my place in the city.”

Jake nodded, shrugged again. “You were a good reporter,
Tess. A good journalist.”

“A better journalist than I am a novelist, you mean.” She
knew how he felt on the subject. He’d put a review of her first book in the
local paper, and most people read it as a glowing endorsement. Tess, knowing
Jake as long as she had, read between the lines and discerned that the praise
was all puffery, the equivalent of complimenting somebody’s shoes because you
can’t tell them their dress is awful. She hated that, deep down, she knew his
review was a fair one. “Sorry to disappoint, but I have a much larger
readership now that disagrees with you.”

“I’m not disappointed because it’s bad, Tess. I’m no snob,
and it’s a decent book. But I know you can do better. Reading it, it’s like
you’re holding something back. I wouldn’t say phoning it in, but some part of
your voice isn’t coming through the way I know it would if you were really
passionate about this.”

It had to happen sometime, this talk. Tess knew that. Jake
always had to try to get to the bottom of things. But she’d enjoyed just
talking about nothing with him all week, and she resented the hell out of his
pressing her into this serious conversation about very real issues she didn’t
want to discuss. Like her life and her work and what was going on in her head.
“What makes you qualified to judge that?”

“I’ve read everything you’ve ever written. Even some of the
stuff that was never published. Or have you forgotten?” His calm was more
infuriating than she could have imagined.

She regretted ever sharing that “stuff” with him, her
earliest stories and scribblings. Her fourth grade creative writing project
about a homeless squirrel, her appalling fan fiction attempts in middle school,
the teenage poems she’d never shown anybody else. He’d proofread all her high
school essays and school paper articles, and she’d proofread his, even after
Danny had found out and pitched a fit about it. All those afternoons turning
into late nights working on the yearbook and talking, sometimes about the
future but mostly about nothing. And then they’d both walked away, but they’d
been walking back toward each other ever since. Everybody knew it. Everybody
still teased them about it. Fate.