“You fucking bastard! Shut the fuck up!” John whacked his hand across Jack’s face.
Vivi used that brief instant of distraction to snap the pendant up, slashing it into John’s face. He shrieked, jerked back. Jack twisted—
Bam, bam, bam. The pistol blasts were deafening in the small car.
The force of the bullets punched John back against the corner of the backseat. His big, heavy face went slack. Eyes blank.
His head tipped, slowly and heavily to the side. Mouth slack.
They waited, several heartbeats. Jack reached back, gingerly, and pressed his finger to John’s carotid artery, for a long, cautious moment.
“Gone,” he said, his voice hoarse and exhausted. The gun slid from his hand, thudded to the floor. He sagged, breathing hard.
“Oh, Jack.” She lunged for him.
They rocked together, in a tight, trembling embrace. It was over.
It was several hours later, after a long, complicated, emotional stint at the police station, before Jack and Vivi managed to get to their hotel. They’d scrounged yet another car from Vivi’s long-suffering family, since the blood-drenched Jetta had been sequestered, and it was long past dawn by the time they checked into their room.
Vivi’s sisters had begged for her to come back to stay with them in Hempton, but Vivi quietly insisted on some time alone with him. Thank God. He was pathetically grateful for that small grace. Her sisters were lovely and great, and he liked them fine, but the conversation he needed to have with Vivi required privacy. No winking, nudging, or giggling.
Vivi flipped on the light, dropped her bags by the door and leaving blackout curtains closed against the morning sunshine. She sat on the bed, big eyed and solemn. She looked like a girl from another century, hair tangled and soft around her like a red cape. She wore a blue print dress that one of her sisters had lent her, but it was too big for her. The neckline drooped low over her bosom, showing off her tattoo. She followed his eyes, and smiled.
“Hey. You’re staring at my Eranthis hyemalis, buddy,” she said.
“Does it make you nervous?” he asked.
She reached up to touch the little yellow flower on her bosom, giving him a smile that made his crotch tighten. “Not in the least.”
He fought his surging sexual hormones down, and sank to his knees in front of her. It seemed appropriate, considering.
“You promised me that if the axe got lifted, we could have this conversation,” he said. “About us. And our future.”
“So I did,” she said demurely. “The axe is gone. And here we are.”
He stared searchingly into her face. “Why were you such a hard-ass, Viv? Were you punishing me for being a dickhead before?”
She shook her head, and stroked his jaw. “Hell no,” she whispered. “I was just trying to be a grown-up. How could you hook up with a woman who was nothing but a black hole of problems? What kind of a future could you possibly plan with a woman like that?”
He laughed, unbelieving. “I don’t care. I’d marry you anyway. I’d marry you if those fuckers were banging on the door this very minute.”
She pulled him closer, between her knees. He leaned forward against the swag of her full skirt, seeking more contact.
“I thought it would be better not to make plans, or get attached to the future,” she said. “Since I thought I might not even have a future. Better to stay in the moment. Since you’d already taught me how.”
“Ouch,” he grumbled. “Would you stop with that?”
“I don’t mean it as a judgment.” There was a smile in her voice.
“The hell you don’t.” His arms slid around her waist, and he nuzzled her solar plexus, dragging in a deep lungful of her sweet scent, rubbing his cheek against a glossy lock of dangling hair. “This is the thing, about staying in the moment,” he said, carefully. “There’s a lot to be said for it, but certain things require a larger arc of time. Like planting a flower garden. You plant, you wait, you weed, you water, you enjoy. Takes months. Or waiting for those Eranthis hyemalis seedlings to take root and spread into a floral carpet. That takes time. That’s not a momentary thing. They won’t even bloom until February. Understand?”
“Oh, yeah,” she whispered, her mouth touching his ear.
He was shaking, deep inside, in his core. “Or opening a gallery shop of wearable, usable art, for example,” he went on, doggedly. “Or, uh, making a baby. Although I don’t know. Now that you’re a megazillionaire, things might be different. You might want to live a glamorous, jet-setting sort of life. What the fuck do I know.”
“Megazillionaire, my ass.” She tilted up her face, and shook her head. “If I ever do see money from that mess, the only difference it’ll make to me is that I’ll be able to hire a girl to spell me at the shop. So that I can have time to work on my art. And, ah, the baby. Of course.”
He was grinning. Like a fool. He wanted to roll over backward for joy, wave his legs in the air. He controlled the impulse, with some difficulty. A proposal of marriage should be dignified, goddammit.
She slid both hands into the hair on the back of his head, leaned her forehead against his. Her hair fell down, fragrant against his cheek.
“You told me a few weeks ago that I’d pack up my van and drive away as soon as I realized what it meant to look at the same place, day in and day out. Or the same person,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” He nuzzled that fragrant hank of hair. “I was a dick.”
“No, no. I wasn’t roasting you. Let me finish. I just wanted to say that, um, I think I’ve definitely realized what it means, now.”
He pulled away, gazing at her with narrowed eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yours is the face I want to look at for the rest of my life,” she said quietly. “Day in and day out. And I want to see it in my children’s faces, if we get lucky that way. While seasons turn. Rain and snow and wind and sun. While flowers bud and bloom and go to seed around us. While seedling trees grow way up into the sky. A big arc of time. Decade after decade. As long as fate gives us.”
He hid his shaking face against her chest again, letting secret tears soak into her dress. “Just one more question, Viv,” he ventured.
She smiled, against his silky hair. “And what’s that?”
“What the hell was that thing you had to stop at Lucia’s house to pick up last night? The suspense is killing me.”
She froze, and then burst into startled laughter. “Oh! I forgot all about that! I’ll show you.” She retrieved the plastic bag from where she’d left it by the door and gave him an embarrassed look. “This makes me a little shy.”
“Out with it,” he prodded. “Don’t make me wait.”
“Thigh-high black lace-up boots,” she said, whipping them out of the bag. “You said you wanted to see them. So, um…here they are.”
He stared at them. He started to laugh. His tension started to unwind, into shaking convulsions. “Oh, God. I can’t believe it.”
“I no longer have the ripped fishnet stockings at the moment, unfortunately,” she said. “I’ll have to go shopping to complete the ensemble.”
He wiped his eyes. “They’re fine all by themselves,” he assured her. “They’re perfect. Put them on right now. I’ll show you.”
And he did.
BRAVA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2009 Shannon McKenna
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 0-7582-4355-3