The Sugar Queen (21 page)

They were a lot like relationships that way.

"Let's start over, Clo," Jake said, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. "Let me call you up and ask you on a date. I'll knock on the door to your house. I'll have flowers. I'll be nervous. I'll wait until the third date to kiss you, though I'll think about it every second until I do. Then that night you finally let me stay over, I'll whisper promises, promises I'll always keep. I'll promise I will never, ever hurt you. I'll promise to die before I do."

The first time, they didn't have time for a conventional courtship. It had been very hot very fast. Could they really start over, and then do it the traditional way?

"Never do this to me again, Jake." She tried to say it harshly, but her voice shook.

"I won't."

She lifted her chin. "I have books."

"I know."

"A lot of books. And they're going to be around from now on. You have to accept that."

"I've never had a problem with your books, Clo. They're who you are."

Jake slowly leaned in. The closer he came, the stronger the draw, like food when you're hungry, or a bed when you're tired. He moved the pillow away and wrapped his arms around her. She found herself nuzzling him, hiding her face in his neck. She would always be desperate about him. Even now, breathing the scent of his skin, she could feel it. But she wasn't as disoriented as she used to be. She didn't feel that panic. She felt a strange sort of grounding, like she knew she wasn't going to lose her way anymore.

She turned her head on Jake's shoulder to look at
Finding Forgiveness
again.

But it was gone.

Josey kept looking back
at the apartment door as Adam led her down the stairs. "She'll be fine. You know they need to do this, or you wouldn't have called," Adam said.

"I called because I was worried that Chloe was sick," Josey said, nervous that Chloe might be angry with her. "I didn't ask you to bring Jake over."

"You didn't have to ask. It was obvious that's what needed to be done."

Josey pulled her hand out of his and jerked open the door at the bottom of the stairs. "I told you, I told you from the beginning of all this, that it wasn't our place to get in the middle of their relationship."

"Yes, you said that," Adam said calmly, following her out onto the cold sidewalk. She could see that he'd parked on the street. Her car was looming large around the corner in the parking lot. "And, as I recall, I didn't agree. Bringing them together tonight is good for them."

"How do you know? You have no idea what she went through tonight."

"Then why don't you tell me?"

She'd walked right into that one. "Chloe just had a bad night, that's all."

"In other words, you're not going to tell me."

Josey rubbed her arms, trying to close herself off from the cold. "It's not my secret to share."

Adam frowned. "Where is your coat?"

"At home. I left in a hurry."

He shrugged out of his yellow Thinsulate jacket. "Here," he said, holding it out for her. She slipped into it. "They're going to be fine. I promise. Do you want to go somewhere? Get something to eat, maybe?" He stared at her, his hands resting on her shoulders. She
almost
reached up to touch her mouth, even though she knew she hadn't eaten in hours. Old habits die hard. "Or we could go to my house," he said with a significance she couldn't ignore. "Jake and I just had a pizza delivered when you called. It might not be cold yet."

She felt her chest catch, setting off a wild array of racing shivers. This past week they'd upped the notch of intimacy every time they met. Short, desperate surges in the dark of her porch or his SUV after she'd sneaked out. No one could see. No one would know. It was a secret, like most everything else in her life. It was easier that way, easier to work around her fear instead of facing it, easier not to tell her mother. Now he was asking her to put it out in the open, and despite everything, despite wanting it more than she wanted her next breath, she hesitated. "I don't know."

He dropped his hands. "Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"But you're going to use this as an excuse not to come home with me."

She turned away from him and looked up at the brick firehouse. It was outlined in small white Christmas lights, making it look like gingerbread. "That's not fair."

"It is what it is. You're scared."

"So are you."

"But I asked anyway."

Josey closed her eyes. "What do you want me to say, Adam?"

"I want you to say yes."

"What are we really changing here? Nothing. We're still stuck in our same patterns. We're still stuck here. If I stay with you tonight, it will be all over town by tomorrow."

He looked genuinely confused. "So?"

"You really don't understand, do you? I still hide. I still sneak out of my mother's house because I don't want her disapproval. I still worry about what people here think of me."

"Then let's leave," he said quietly.

She gaped at him. "You're not serious."

"I'm completely serious. I've met your mother, so I understand why you do it. But making you hide isn't fair to you, and it's not fair to me. Neither of us wants to be here. Let's go."

"You would leave?" she asked incredulously. "Really?"

"I would leave." He took a deep breath. "But only with you."

She couldn't believe what she did next.

She left, all right.

And ran home.

Helena met Josey
at the door. "Oldsey, bad thing leave tonight!" she said excitedly. "Leave when you leave! But it come back. It here now."

At least Della Lee had gotten home safely. "I know," Josey said tiredly. "It won't be long before she leaves for good, I promise. Good night."

"Wait. Oldgret want to see you." Helena made an apologetic face and pointed toward the light coming from the sitting room. "She wait up."

Oh, hell. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She'd just been worried about getting caught, and then suddenly she was. Her life was one big self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Oldsey?"

She opened her eyes and tried to smile. "It's okay. Thanks, Helena." Then she did the death march to the sitting room.

Margaret was in her nightgown, sitting in her favorite chair. She looked up and set aside her magazine. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "And whose jacket is that?"

Josey looked down. She'd forgotten she had it on. There was no use denying who it belonged to. "It's Adam's."

"I won't have you acting this way, do you hear me? I had enough of you embarrassing me when you were a child. Imagine my surprise when I got up to tell you something, only to find you gone. For days now I've suspected you've been sneaking out after I've taken my sleeping pill. Well, I didn't take one tonight. You're not a silly teenager, Josey. I won't have you acting like this."

"I'm sorry, Mother."

That was what she wanted, Josey thought. She wanted Josey cowed. She wasn't even trying to disguise it with false concern or backhanded compliments anymore. She stood up and said, less harshly, "I wanted to tell you to pick up pork tenderloins at the grocery store tomorrow. I left instructions with Helena on how to prepare them. Rawley Pelham will be dining with me tomorrow, and I remember he likes them. He's my guest and I would prefer if you would stay in your room when I'm with him. Also, I won't be needing you to drive me to my eye appointment tomorrow. I'll be taking a cab for the foreseeable future."

Josey watched her mother walk toward the door with her cane. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

"You're supposed to behave. Don't see that Finley girl or the mailman. And don't sneak out again. What would the neighbors think if they saw you? And what if I had needed you tonight?"

"You just said you
didn't
need me, Mother!" Josey laughed, but with an edge, very close to crying. She'd just run away from the man she loved because she couldn't let go of the faraway hope that, if she stayed long enough, one day Margaret would love her, accept her,
forgive her.
"When is it ever going to be enough? When are you ever going to forgive me? Why did you even have me? Was it really just to keep his money?"

Margaret set her jaw and walked past Josey. "I'm going to bed now."

Josey followed her and stood at the base of the steps as her mother walked up. "Was he really that bad?"

Margaret didn't answer until she reached the top of the steps. Then she stopped, her back to Josey. "Yes, he was," she finally said as she disappeared down the hallway. "And you look just like him."

Josey stared at the place her mother had been. It had taken her twenty-seven years to finally figure this out. Margaret wasn't going to be happy as long as Josey was there, but she would never tell her to leave. And Josey wasn't going to be happy until she left, but she wanted her mother to tell her to go.

This wasn't about forgiveness. It never had been.

This was about two women punishing themselves for no good reason.

And it was time for it to end.

Twenty minutes later,
Josey said, "Can I come in?"

Adam hesitated in his doorway, then stood back. "Of course."

She walked into the living room of his house. It was sparse, temporary. Secondhand furniture for the most part, an unusual blue couch with purple cushions, a 1970s-era orange reading chair, and some scarred end tables. The large leather recliner and flat-screen TV above the fireplace stood out. Those were deliberate purchases for comfort.

"I think I'm scared of your furniture," she said, trying to smile but it made her lips tremble, so she stopped.

"I was living day by day here at first, not sure what I should do, just that I wanted to be still. I bought a bed, the recliner and the television. All I thought I needed. Then, every once in a while, someone at work would say they were getting rid of something, and I asked if I could have it. This is what happens when bad furniture happens to good people. I do actually have some great furniture, but it's all stored in my brother's basement in Chicago."

She turned her back on him to look around some more. The television was on and she pretended to watch it. He came up behind her and took off her jacket. His jacket. She jumped a little and turned to face him. They stared at each other for a moment.

"Why are you here, Josey?"

She took a deep breath. She'd thought of things she would say to him on the drive over here, elegant things about fear and love and pithy things about both running to him and running away. But what she ended up saying was, simply, "You go, I go."

He dropped the jacket and in one step he was in front of her, his hands on her face, kissing her. There was no lead-up. It was all at once frantic, hands everywhere. Still kissing, he backed her to the couch then pushed her down to the cushions, angling his body over hers. His kiss was deeper this way, hungry, like she was candy. He
feasted
on her. His hands went to the sides of her sweater and slowly brought it up. Her muscles quivered and her skin prickled. He broke their kiss to pull the sweater over her head. Her nipples tightened as he looked down at her, breathing heavily.

He hovered above her, his curly blond hair falling across his forehead.

"What?" she asked in response to his stare.

"I was afraid I'd pushed you away for good tonight. It was all about speed with me. I've always gone too fast."

"But that's exactly what I need, Adam."

"You go, I go," he whispered as he undid the buttons on his shirt and shrugged out of it. There was a thick white scar on the left side of his chest, just under his rib cage.

She nodded and reached out to touch his scar. He kissed her again, urgently, their skin-on-skin friction electric. His hands went up to cup her breasts through her bra. She thought she was going to faint. But no, she couldn't faint. Then she would miss this.

She didn't realize that she had squeezed her eyes shut and was taking deep breaths through her nose until Adam broke their kiss and looked down at her. "Josey?"

"I'm here," she said, putting her hands in his hair and bringing his head back down. "I'm here."

She was distantly aware that the eleven o'clock news had just come on, and the lead story was the body that had been found in the Green Cove River that morning. Not breaking their kiss, Adam stretched one hand above her and reached for the remote control on the end table.

The news anchor started the broadcast by saying, "We are now able to confirm identification of the body as that of thirty-seven-year-old Della Lee Baker of Bald Slope."

Josey suddenly sat up, so fast she knocked heads with Adam. "Wait. Stop," she said, putting her hand on his and lowering it so he couldn't use the remote. She turned to the television.

"Baker's abandoned car was found in a grassy area this afternoon near the Green Cove Bridge, where officials also discovered what appears to be a suicide note. Baker had a long criminal record that included assault, solicitation, DWI convictions and shoplifting." They showed an arrest photo of Della Lee. She was smiling, like she wanted it to be a pretty picture of her. "In breaking news, we've also learned that her live-in boyfriend, Julian Wallace, also of Bald Slope, was arrested tonight on unrelated charges—assaulting an officer who was responding to a disturbing-t he-peace call at the home the couple shared. Wallace confirmed to police that Baker has been missing for weeks, which supports the coroner's initial findings that the body appears to have been in the water for an extended period. At this time, officials do not suspect foul play. We'll have more on our morning broadcast, including an interview with the jogger who found the body."

"Josey, what's wrong?" Adam said, threading his hands in her hair, trying to get her to look at him. But her eyes were fixed on the screen. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

That made her turn to him. Suddenly her chest hurt. She couldn't breathe. She quickly stood, disengaging herself from him in a tangle of arms and legs, pinches and pulls. She grabbed her sweater from the floor. "I've got to go home."