The Perfect Husband (8 page)

J. T. Dillon smirking down at her with coal-black eyes.

TESS WOKE UP harshly, the scream ripe on her lips, her heart pounding in her chest. She clutched her fist to her throat, gasping for breath. Sweat trickled down her cheeks like tears.

A pause, then she scampered out of the strange bed and turned on every light she could find. The room had hardly any lamps. She needed more light, lots and lots more to dispel the shadows lurking in the corners.

She found herself in front of the closet doors, securely blockaded by a chair.
Open the damn doors. Know that he's gone, that you won, you won
.

Suddenly with a cry of rage she kicked the chair away, grabbed the handle, and yanked the door open.

“Come on, where are you, you bastard?”

Only empty hangers stared back at her. She took a deep breath, then another, until her body stopped shaking.

You're in Arizona. You're safe. There is no blood on your hands.

It was a cow's heart. A cow's heart, linguine in olive oil, silk threads, and peeled grapes. Stuff from a grade-school haunted house.

“Look around you, Theresa,” Jim had said after he'd snapped on the basement light. “Look at what you're so terrified of. If you're willing to believe peeled grapes are eyeballs, no wonder you look at me and see a monster.”

She collapsed on the ground.

He squatted down until he was eye level. “I told you not to come into the basement, but you did. You're so determined to think I'm doing something wrong. Why do you think so little of your husband, Theresa? Why are you so determined to be afraid of me?”

She wasn't able to summon an answer.

“You know what I think? I think you have really low self-esteem, Theresa. I think your father and his abusive behavior taught you to think of yourself as nothing. And now you have this handsome, charming, decorated police officer who loves you and you just can't believe that, can you? Rather than accept that a good man loves you, you wonder what's wrong with me. You obsess that there must be something wrong with me. I suggest you stop focusing on my problems, Theresa, and spend a little bit more time contemplating yours.”

He left the basement.

She remained on the floor actually wondering why she questioned her perfect husband.

Jim had been that good.

Then other memories, other images overwhelmed her. Jim's hands around her throat, squeezing, releasing, caressing, soothing, choking. The baseball bat arching up, looking like a fairy's wand in the moon-light. Whistling down. Her thigh cracking…

She ran for the door, undid the lock, and made it to the bathroom just in time to be violently ill.

“Was it something I said?” J.T. stood in the doorway.

Her eyes squeezed shut. She remained hunched over the sink, her arms trembling, her legs shaky. She tasted bile. She tasted despair, by far a more savage flavor.

“Please go away,” she whispered.

“Sorry, but there isn't a Virginia man alive who can walk away from a puking woman. Consider it our southern charm.”

She heard the patter of his bare feet against the bathroom floor tiles and caught the faint odor of chlorine as he approached. His torso pressed against her. She stiffened and his chest rumbled with a growl of disapproval.

He said, “Just turning on the water. Tastes like the rusty pipe it uses to visit us all the way from Colorado, but last I checked, it was better than vomit.”

He stepped away. With a sigh she scooped the water over her face and neck, letting it pour through her mouth. It did taste metallic and rusty.

“Better?” he said after a moment.

She turned off the faucet and faced him. He wore nothing but a pair of swimming trunks, which rode too low on his hips, revealing a faint white line of untouched skin. Water trickled across his shoulders, down into the fine black hair on his flat belly.

He raised a half-filled beer bottle and looking straight into her eyes, polished it off.

“Take it.”

“What?”

“The towel,
chiquita
. You look like hell.”

Belatedly she saw the hand towel he was holding. She took it gingerly from him. He hadn't done anything, but she was scared anyway. In her experience, men — and particularly muscled men — were a clear threat to women. She couldn't picture her father without seeing his fleshy face turn beet red as he raised his thick fist. She couldn't picture her ex-husband without seeing his cold blue eyes dispassionately returning her stare as he fed her wedding gown to the flames.

But J.T. came highly recommended. Surely mercenaries didn't kill their clients. That had to be bad for business. What about a policeman murdering tax-payers? That was bad for business too.

But she'd been in J.T.'s house for forty-eight hours without incident. He fed her breakfast. He shielded her from the police. Surely if he had violent tendencies, she would've seen some indication.

Of course, it had taken her two years to recognize the violence in Jim.

Her hands came up and rubbed her forehead. She wanted to own herself, she wanted to trust herself. Two and a half years after putting Jim in prison, she still wasn't sure that had happened. She was stuck somewhere between the old Theresa Beckett and the new Tess Williams.

“Rough night for the
Better Homes & Garden
lady?”

“It's that knit one purl two,” she murmured. “I keep having nightmares of dropping the stitch.”

“Yeah? And here I keep dreaming of blowing up churches. Come outside, the cool air does a body good.”

He turned and she realized that he expected her to follow. She looked down at her legs uncovered by her purple Williams College T-shirt. Generally she didn't follow half-naked men around while wearing only a T-shirt. Her mother had had strong feelings about women showing too much flesh. Only bad women did that, and they went straight to hell, where little devils did horrible things to them every night to punish them for being so wanton.

The image of herself as a wanton was so absurd, she had to smile. She'd never been a femme fatale, never sparked hidden flames. She'd been the dutiful, confused wife. Now she was the scared, emaciated mother. All signs indicated that J.T. found her about as attractive as an animated skeleton. She was fine with that. She just wanted him for his semiautomatics.

She followed him out to the deck, shivering as the night air hit her. J.T. didn't seem to notice. He plopped down on one of the chairs and picked up a gold cigarette case. A six-pack sat on the glass table.

Her arms wrapped around her middle as she stared up at a rich blue sky dotted with stars. The nights in Williamstown would be cool and clear by now, but the air would be scented with the rich, musty odor of drying leaves and aging pine, the refreshing tang of wind sweeping down from the Berkshires. She wondered what her daughter was doing just then. Probably fast asleep, tucked in bed with her pink flannel nightgown and her favorite talking doll. If she closed her eyes, she could almost capture the scent of No More Tears shampoo and baby powder.

Baby, I love you.

“You eavesdropped, didn't you?” J.T. asked.

“Yes.”

J.T. flipped open the slim cigarette case, banged out a cigarette, and lit it. He stared at her as he dragged deeply. “Filthy habit. Would you like one?”

He held out the case, then snatched it back. “Wait, I forgot. You can barely walk as it is — no cigarettes for you.”

He exhaled, leaning back and crossing his ankles.

“I didn't know you smoked.”

“I'd quit.”

“You went out in the middle of the night to buy cigarettes so you could start again?”

“Nope. I stole Marion's cigarettes. I was the one who taught her how to smoke, you know.” His lips twisted. “At least that's what I recall. You'll have to ask her what she remembers.”

“There seems to be little love lost between you and your sister.”

“I've never been a fan of revisionist history.”

Keeping her voice neutral, she asked, “She's really an FBI agent?”

“Yes.” Briefly his chest puffed out. “A damn good one.”

“I heard her say she's staying for a week.”

“She is. So if you are a crook, don't tell her. She'll drag you in.”

“And you would let her?”

“If you're a crook.”

“Very good,” she acknowledged. “You've covered all the bases. If I stay, I must be legal. If I'm gone in the morning, well, I've saved you a bunch of trouble.”

“Don't let my good looks fool you, sweetheart — I'm no dumb bunny.”

She nodded, her gaze returning to the night sky. She was cold. She wanted to go inside and sleep. She was terrified of the nightmares that would find her again.

“One month of training,” J.T. said all of a sudden. “I'll do it.”

“I know.”

“Don't be so smug. We start first thing in the morning, oh-six-hundred. Physical fitness, self-defense, small firearms, the works. I'll burn your butt into the ground and turn you into a whole new woman.”

“All right.”

“Do you want to know why I changed my mind?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“But it does matter, Angela. It matters to me.” He waved his hand around the villa, the garden, the pool. “I don't own this. Not really. Every square inch of this place, every pebble, every cactus, was paid for by my father. You could say I'm still on allowance. I can keep this, I can live this way forever in return for only two things. The first doesn't concern you. The second is that I never return to ‘the business.' I take you on, I train you, I lose all this. Do you think I should do that for you, Angela?”

“No,” she told him honestly.

“Then we agree. I'm doing it for me. Because I want to. Because I've got the worst case of orphan envy in the whole wide world.”

He grabbed a beer, climbed off the chair, and walked toward her.

She could feel the tension in him. He was not a man who played by the rules — he probably
had
blown up churches. He had anger and dark moods she didn't understand. He was unpredictable, raw around the edges. When he moved, he didn't make any sound. And after the marble-smooth facade of Jim, he seemed unbelievably real. If this man had a problem with you, he wouldn't poison your dog or burn down your garage. He'd tell you about it in your face. He'd let you know. If he discovered a father beating his daughter, he wouldn't rig a stockroom ladder to fall, breaking the father's leg. He'd walk up to the man and slam a fist through his face.

He stopped so close, she could feel the faint heat of the cigarette.

“You dreaming about him, Angela?”

“Sometimes.”

“When was the last time you slept through the night?”

“I… I don't know.”

“Fixed yourself a good meal?”

“A long time.”

“Well, stop it.” He ran a finger down her arm. She flinched and he shook his head. “There's nothing to you, Angela. You've let yourself go. Now you're just bones with shadows rimming your eyes. A good stiff wind could blow you over.”

“It's hard,” she said. “We've… we've been on the run. There are problems—”

“Tough. You have to learn to compartmentalize. From here on out, you separate. You're scared, sleep anyway. You're anxious, eat fruits and vegetables. Get some mass on those bones, then we'll talk muscle. And stop shredding your nails. If you won't take your body seriously, how is anyone else supposed to?”

“Strange advice coming from you.”

“I just preach, never practice.” His fingers lingered on her arm. The pads of his fingertips were rough and warm. He doodled a lazy pattern she felt down to her toes. She stepped back.

“You don't like that?”

“I… no, I don't.”

He chuckled. “Liar.”

“I'm looking for a teacher, not another mistake.”

“Ah, and that's how you see men.” He tapped the beer bottle against his forearm, then lifted it for a deep swig.

“We'll start in the pool,” he said. “Try to get you in shape without hurting anything.”

“I'm not a good swimmer.”

“I thought you said you didn't whine.”

She brought up her chin in defiance and he laughed. “You're good. You have spirit.”

“Oh, that's me,” she muttered. “I'm just plain
spunky
.”

He chuckled again, then his gaze grew speculative, caressing her cheek. He raised the cigarette. The end glowed red as he inhaled. Several seconds passed before he released the smoke.

She found herself watching the small O formed by his whiskered lips. She watched the long strands of his silky black hair brush his collarbone. The porch light flickered over him. She wanted to touch his skin, see if it felt as warm as it looked.

She glanced down immediately, caught off guard by her own reaction.

“Scared?” he murmured huskily, his voice too knowing.

“No,” she said instantly.

“You're shaking in your boots. And I haven't even tried anything. Yet.”

“I'm not scared!” But she was, and they both knew it. She was uncomfortable, and her thoughts were muddled. Should she trust him, should she not trust him? Should she run, should she play it tough? Should she step closer, should she step away? She was sick of the doubt.

She made her decision. Before she lost her courage, she grabbed the beer bottle and yanked it from his grasp. She crossed to the white gravel bed bordering the cactus garden and dumped the beer out.

“No more. I hired you. I want you sober.”

“A marine shoots better drunk,” he said curtly, no longer amused.

“Well, J.T., you're
not
a marine.”

“Big mistake, Angela. Big mistake.” He stalked toward her.

She stood her ground. “You getting mean?” she said haughtily. “Do you miss the beer that much already?”

“Not the beer. Sex.” His arm whipped out, faster than she could have imagined. One hand palmed her head, his fingertips rubbing her scalp.

“You still haven't moved. Maybe you want to kiss me. If you do something that dangerous, will you feel strong?”

He bent over her. This close she could see the feral gleam in his eyes, could see the individual hairs of his twenty-four-hour beard.

Facial hair. Genuine facial hair to go with the hair on his chest. He had no idea what those things meant to her. No idea what it was like to be confronted by a man who was anything but cold.