Chapter Two
Even having to swab and dismantle three instruments, the little interlude with Julian, dropping off my stuff at home and walking to the bar, Rocky and I got to Nieman’s first. Well, Mishela had to take off stage makeup and get notes from Director Dumbass, a gruesome experience. That pancake’s nasty too.
I chatted with Rocky on autopilot, thinking about Glynn, or rather thinking about how to not think about Glynn, which is fairly screwed up if you consider it. But so far my separation tactic had tanked, and the only new one I’d come up with was to find some way to immunize myself against his attractiveness. You know, find something that made him less gorgeous, like maybe he picked his teeth with a knife or something. Yeah, pathetic.
Nieman’s barkeep, Buddy, had gotten new tables, those tall postage stamps where you have to jump to get up on the matching skyscraper chair. Or at least I did. We snagged a table in a dark corner and worked through our first sodas, discussing missed entrances and other fuckups. We expanded into other musicals we’d done. A brief diatribe on poorly erased parts segued into a friendly discussion about which were the best erasers (I favor Staedtler Mars plastic, not just because they’re made in Germany; Rocky prefers to photocopy her parts and physically cut and paste the cuts), which segued into, “Hey, Rocky. How do you get a pair of piccolos to play in unison?”
“Shoot one,” she said. “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“To get away from the sax recital. What’s the difference between a violin and a viola?”
“The viola burns longer. That one never gets old.” As she answered, a buzz hit my spine, immobilizing me. She raised her head, her eyeglasses flashing briefly. “They’re here.”
Teeth picked with knife. Okay, I could do this. I turned.
Mishela stood in the doorway, casual in jeans, baggy flannel and a ball cap to hold her loose hair.
Behind her…damn.
If Glynn had a knife, it wouldn’t be for teeth-picking. He hovered protectively over her, the epitome of big, dark and dangerous.
My bra and panties suddenly felt two sizes too small. Those cheekbones alone could have cut diamonds. I stuffed my lolling tongue back in my mouth, wished I could do the same to my drooling sex, stood and waved to Mishela.
She didn’t see me. Her hands were shoved deep in her pockets and her head was turtled. Intuition screamed that here was loneliness beyond simply being homesick.
Yeah, I’d had my head up my ass until now. Normally I’m very good at sizing up a stranger, knowing at a glance what kind of sausage he’s looking for—better yet, the kind of sausage he’ll fall in love with. And no, I’m not making sly sex jokes. I have some dignity. Mostly.
I looked at Mishela, really looked at her for the first time. Lonely. Sure, she had a guardian, and pseudobrother Glynn. But they were hovering men who’d love her, protect her and care for her—but wouldn’t understand her. I wondered how many real friends she had.
We all look for like-me’s. People we don’t have to explain ourselves to, who understand the raw us. It’s hard enough for average bell-curve humpers like me.
Artistic Mishela was way off the bell curve in a number of areas. Beautiful, brilliant—an uneasy combination even under normal circumstances. Add in gay and young, and top it off with her hovering males…well. She had to be one of the loneliest people on the planet. She’d be hungering for people like her. There wouldn’t be many.
I wasn’t one. Oh, I was nice looking, with Pop’s good German bones and Mom’s striking Italian coloring. And I was talented enough to play reed two in a dark pit. But I didn’t have Mishela’s grace and off-the-charts ability.
Still, I was close enough that I could understand her. Not a true meeting of minds, but I was like-enough, and maybe she’d sense that.
So even though I wasn’t all that sure of my immunity to Glynn, Mishela’s loneliness and need prodded me into brighter light (at least as bright as Nieman’s gets) and I waved again.
She saw me. The relief sagging her body, the way she fairly tripped back, made it clear that tonight, understanding would be good enough.
I’d done the right thing. My Good Deed.
Behind her, Glynn strode like a dark force of nature. It wasn’t until I pushed my tongue back in that I realized I’d started drooling again.
Yeah, no Good Deed goes unpunished.
He was tucked up behind her like a Chicago cabbie, eyes cutting left/right, drilling the shadows like he expected trouble. I didn’t get that. At seventeen Mishela was almost an adult. She didn’t need a 24/7 chaperone, and she certainly didn’t need a babysitter.
Unless he really was her bodyguard.
Oh, right. She was a good actress, on her way to being great, but she wasn’t the Olsen twins or Emma Watson or anything. Why would anyone do a Godfather business maneuver and kidnap her? No profit to it.
Unless she really was someone’s heir.
She’d mentioned Mr. Elias. If that was the name of her legal guardian…if he was business mogul gazillionaire Kai Elias…in little Meiers Corners? Naw.
Mishela bopped up. “Hey, guys, thanks for inviting me out. I was going crazy with only gloomy Glynn as company.” She slid into the high chair next to Rocky.
“Our pleasure.” Rocky poured two more glasses. “Hope you like diet cola.”
Glynn made a face as he pulled out the remaining chair. I might not have understood his hovering, but that I did get. Business Truth #8 is “Be deliberate in your ordering”. Guys don’t like diet anything.
Yeah, I know that’s a whacking great stereotype. And if a guy wants to buy low-fat sausage, I’ll sell it to him. But for ninety-six percent of the male population, it’s true and I stock my shelves that way. So scold me for prejudice. We’re still in business.
He sat “beside” me. Could’ve been in the parking lot for as much airspace as he put between us. Considering the tiny table, it was almost insulting. Hey, I bathe regularly. He hadn’t looked at me once, which pissed me off because I was all too aware of him. That black hair, those deep blue eyes, that gorgeous skin… I shifted on my stool, trying not to squish as I did. So much for immunization.
I was irritated and set the conversation accordingly. “Mishela, love those silver slippers. Are they yours?”
Shoes. Next to diet cola, a guy’s worst nightmare.
“Oh yes. I have a whole closet of character shoes. I believe it builds the foundation of the character. I have high heels and flats and the cutest pair of strappy sandals…”
Glynn fidgeted, caught me looking, relaxed rather deliberately. He stretched out with a calculated-looking yawn. His feet touched mine.
I zapped straight, my feet jerking under me automatically.
“Of course, in the movie, the slippers were ruby. But for this version, the writer went back to the original Baum for some things.”
Rocky said, “So what about Broadway? Do you think the show stands a chance?”
“Sure.” Mishela sipped soda. “In fact, we would’ve opened there if it hadn’t been for the fire. It ruined the theater, burned up all the costumes and sets.”
“How horrible. Is that why you had to come to Meiers Corners?”
She nodded. “The backers wouldn’t put up extra money to rebuild and new backers were impossible to find. They took the fire as a sign of bad luck.”
I relaxed as she talked. My legs loosened from their tight hold on the stool…my bare legs rubbed denim…warm denim, hard muscles beneath… I jumped and quickly shimmied upright again.
“Your bad luck was our good luck,” Rocky said. “We’re getting a top-notch production to inaugurate the PAC.”
“The musicians’ good luck too.” I rejoined the conversation, determined to ignore warm denim. “If your stars hadn’t lobbied for quality musicians, your producer wouldn’t have cut the deal with Nixie to get us to New York.”
“Assuming we get to New York,” Mishela said. “A big backer is interested, but we have to impress him. More than put on a stellar show, I mean. Our audience will have to be standing room only, beyond SRO. Gene Roddenberry is tough to impress.”
I wondered momentarily why, if Mishela’s guardian was Kai Elias, he didn’t just fund the show. But I only said, “Not the Gene Roddenberry. He died decades ago.”
She smiled.
“So what was that thing with Steve before the second half? He took something of yours?”
“Yes.” She colored. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
So those were bikini panties I’d seen. I wondered if Steve had stolen them on a bet or if there was more to it.
Rocky was paging through a copy of the program booklet. “Hey, Mishela. Your bio lists Juliet Capulet: The Musical at Ravinia. Do you know Barron Scarpia?”
Mishela nodded. “Sings like an angel and gropes like a schoolboy. Not as bad a pig as Lechnowsky, of course. He’d be screaming at you one minute and trying to get you in the sack the next.”
Rocky rolled her eyes. “Boy, that sounds like Carrion. He did a music clinic when I was in college and made a pass at me, but I think he’d try for anything wearing a bra, including some cars.”
Glynn gave a disgusted grunt. “Are all musicians philandering sex maniacs?”
“All of us,” I said just to needle him. Well hell, he got under my skin, so turnabout, right? “It’s the creative urge. I myself would screw anything in jeans and a jacket—” I bit my tongue.
He looked at me directly for the first time. His sapphire eyes were burning.
Burning at me?
Rocky’s eyes widened, picking up the hot man-sex vibes too. “Um, so.” She cleared her throat a couple times, focused exclusively on Mishela. “You’ve played New York and Canada and Illinois. What’s that like, being a glamorous traveling actor?”
“Glamorous.” Mishela laughed. “Complete with my ‘glamorous’ entourage of whichever nanny or warden Mr. Elias assigns to watch over me.”
“So you don’t jet?” Rocky asked. “Luxury hotels, oyster bars?”
“More like minivans and pizza.”
“I think I’m disappointed.”
“At least you get to travel,” I said. “See new places and new people. I envy that. I’ve lived in Meiers Corners my whole life.” I looked away. “A small life in an even smaller town.”
Glynn gave a disgusted grunt. I looked back, was surprised to find him glaring at me, all hunger gone from his eyes. “Your envy does you no credit. You are fortunate to have a home. Many do not.”
His condemnation hit me square in the guilt gland, strange because usually only my mother had such bull’s-eye aim. I glowered in return—and was confused by a shadow of pain in his dark blue eyes.
Then he hit me with, “You have no appreciation for what you have.”
What? “I’ve lived here my whole life. Don’t tell me I don’t have appreciation. Meiers Corners has all the amenities. Nosy neighbors, whipped-potato homogeneity—”
“Do you worry about bills? About being attacked? This is a true home, a place where you can feel secure, can be yourself.”
My jaw kicked up. “Be myself? Don’t make me laugh. I can be myself—as long as I’m a great shopkeeper with a strong sense of family and no other ambitions.”
He leaned in. “So you have a few obligations. Do you think living on this planet is rent-free?”
I leaned in too until we were nose to nose. “I pay rent by working for my parents for nothing. By making a deal so that when I do leave, they can hire a real replacement. This show’s taking me to New York, and when it does, I’m out of here so fast it’ll leave skid marks on the sidewalk.” Not true, but I was hyped.
“You are a willful, unappreciative—”
“I have plenty of appreciation—”
“Whoa.” Rocky leaped to her feet like a fire was raging instead of a mere argument. “Um, excuse me, but I have to go to the, um.” She blushed and gestured toward the back. “I have to go.”
Mishela jumped up too. “I’ll go with you.”
Rocky edged away from our table, not taking her eyes off Glynn and me until she was out of the blast radius. Then she turned and practically ran toward the restrooms.
Mishela wasn’t looking at us. Her gaze was on Rocky. As Mishela followed, there was a wistful tilt to her head, watching Rocky’s hips sway. Talk about tailing.
It hit me like an obvious bomb. Mishela was attracted to Rocky.
Well, hell. I’d been Meiers Corners blind, seeing the fading snapshots of persons past rather than the present. Rocky was beautiful, brilliantly talented and an even closer match to Mishela than I was. A possible soul mate.
Still, it was all innocent enough. Mishela was young and protected. Even if something budded, it would only be a crush. And though Rocky was incredibly hot, attracting both men and women, she didn’t have a clue. I turned to Glynn to say something of the sort—and fell into ocean-jeweled eyes and drowned.
This close, I could see the sleek feathering of each eyebrow, the black velvet of his dilated pupils ringed by coronas of blue fire. The straight edge of his nose, the elegant flare of nostril, the perfect curl of upper lip, begging for a graze of my fingertip. My tongue throbbed to trace the full swell of his lower lip.
Our argument’s passion blew into runaway lust blasting between us.
“Junior. The way you look at me, your golden-brown eyes…” Glynn sat back abruptly. His eyes clenched. “Insane. I must have gone stark raving mad.” His eyes opened again, intent on mine, his stare as hot as if I were dressed in nothing but his favorite sausage. “I want to kiss you.”
I swallowed hard. I had a duty, and the last thing I needed was to get trapped in a relationship. This man, blistering-hot sexy, said complication the way gravity said down.
But blistering-hot sexy didn’t drop into Meiers Corners every day. I licked my lips.
His gaze fell precipitously to my mouth and sharpened. “Insane,” he repeated, reaching for me, snagging the base of my braid with strong fingers. “I’m not looking for involvement.”
“Perfect,” I breathed. “Neither am I.”
“All right then.” And his mouth found mine.
Even if our dark corner hadn’t cloaked us, that kiss would have driven any concern about being seen clear from my head. Hell, it drove out any thought whatsoever except for oh my.
Glynn didn’t kiss tentatively. Didn’t try to entice with tempting brushes or soft licks. His mouth covered mine, hot and demanding, pure power channeled into heat and thrust, passion and drive.
Or maybe he was just meeting me where I already was—midlust. My heart pumped hard, my tongue welcomed his heat. He tasted so right. I went straight from oh my to hell yes, as if I’d known him for years.
His hand tightened on my hair. His head slanted, mouth opening, tongue thrusting deep, opening me wide. Warm, wet, it explored me, dipping, cresting, diving again. A dark groan filled my mouth, his. “You taste like heaven.” Seizing my head with both hands, he took me with deeper thrusts of his tongue.
I clutched his arms to steady myself. My fingers dug past buttery-soft leather into biceps big and hard as boulders.
He growled, plunged his tongue so deep I choked, or maybe that was my throat constricting with need. To my embarrassment I opened wider, clutched harder, whimpered for more.
He hauled me into his arms, standing as he did so. Spinning us, he bent me back against the table and drove himself between my legs. His chest superheated my breasts, his abs burned my crotch, his mouth devoured mine and we were two seconds away from a public offense when I heard a horrified, “Glynn.”
My sight cleared to Mishela’s pale face just beyond Glynn’s leather-covered shoulder. Next to her was Rocky’s face, red. Mishela’s nostrils were flared like she smelled something shocking. Rocky just looked shocked.
Glynn stiffened. Then, with an apologetic glance at me, he stepped back. I slid onto trembling feet and nearly buckled. His hand shot out, steadying me until I could stand on my own. I swallowed but no words came.
Rocky cleared her throat. “Well. Um, I should be getting home. Being that it’s late. Being that it’s—” She glanced at her watch. “Wow. It really is late. Nearly one. Okay, well, see you all tomorrow.” Flushing and stammering, she turned toward the door.
I didn’t see Glynn move, but suddenly he blocked her path. “The night is dangerous. We all go together.” Snaring a wallet from his jacket, he dropped a twenty on the table. “Come.” He threaded his way out, started north on Fifth.
We followed like baby ducks, each lost in her own embarrassment. But walking brought a sense of normalcy back. Mishela, with the exuberance of youth, shrugged off the awkward moment first. She dropped back to walk with me. “Is Meiers Corners really dangerous? Or is the warden just being himself?”
“We have crime,” I said. “If you count lawn flamingos. And those fat-butt garden ornaments have to be at least a felony.”
Rocky, coming up alongside us, shot me a look.
“Hey,” I said. “They ought to be a crime.”
“Junior. For your information, my mother has one of those.”
“She has a garden gnome too. That cancels out the fat butt. Garden gnomes are cool.”
“No way. Garden gnomes are creepy. They’re like weeping angels.” Rocky shivered. “Or mimes.”
“Or clowns,” Glynn said over his shoulder. When he caught my surprised look, he flushed slightly. “I’ve had to comfort children scared by clowns.”
The thought of big, protective Glynn, comforting children… I wasn’t looking for entanglement, but here might be a man worth it—no, no, no. That was exactly what had gotten my mother, once an operatic mezzo, limited to the small pond of Meiers Corners.
Mishela danced out in front of us. “So where do you live?” She said it to both of us, but her eyes made it clear it was Rocky she was asking.
Which Rocky totally missed. “Junior’s on Fourth and Jefferson, over her folks’ sausage shop. Across from Kalten’s Roller Rink. Well, it was Kalten’s before it burned down in November.”
“That’s nice.” Mishela smiled, waiting for what she really wanted to know.
I took pity on her. “Rocky lives on Eighth and Eisenhower.”
“Elena O’Rourke’s old apartment,” Rocky said. “Before she married Bo Strongwell. Then it was Nixie Schmeling’s before she married Julian Emerson, and Liese Schmetterling’s before she married Logan Steel…huh. I never realized that before.”
“What?”
“That so many women lived there just before they got married.”
I had. Nixie called it the Fucking Fangtastic Flat, but she had a strange sense of humor. “It’s not so odd, statistically speaking. Midtwenties is when most women get married.”
“Maybe you’re next, Rocky.” Mishela fell into step with her. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Subtle like a Hummer, but she was only seventeen. I waited to see if Rocky caught it, but where her own attractiveness is concerned, she’s dumber than a sack of hammers. She said, “Me? No. Both Junior and I are confirmed singles.”
“Right.” My eyes flickered to Glynn, skulking in the shadows ahead of us. The man even skulked like sex. “Confirmed.”
Mishela nudged Rocky. “Nobody you have the hots for?”
I blushed. I definitely got hot around Glynn.
Strangely, Rocky blushed too. “No boyfriends. Oh, look. Here’s Jefferson. We turn here.”
“I can do one block alone,” I said. “You don’t have to walk me to my door.”
Glynn spun, took me by the nape and steered me onto Jefferson.
I fought a shiver from the heat of his strong fingers. “What are you doing?”
“I said we’d walk you home.” He didn’t add the duh but I heard it anyway. Only in his accent, it would be a caressing deh.
“This is out of your way if you’re headed for Rocky’s. Or if you’re headed for where you’re staying—hey, where are you staying?”
“We keep together,” he replied, ignoring my question.
“And when Glynn speaks, you’d better listen,” Mishela said.
“Seriously, Meiers Corners is as safe as a tricycle with training wheels, pink flamingos aside,” I said. “It’s only one block. If something happens, I’ll yell and you can come running.”
“Trouble blows up quickly.” Glynn’s voice was low and rough, almost a growl.
“Glynn’s expecting a disaster,” Mishela said.
I muttered, “Something tells me Glynn’s always expecting a disaster.”
“That he is.” She chuckled. “Gloomy Glynn, sucking the joy out of everything.”
“Enough, Mishela.” His gruff tone was leavened by an affectionate note.
“You’re better than Mr. Elias. At least I can tease you.”
“Mr. Elias only wants you safe—” Glynn stopped abruptly, and since my neck was still in his long fingers, so did I.
Behind us, Mishela made a strange noise. Low, angry, almost a snarl. I tried to look, but my head was immobilized, Glynn’s fingers strong as a vise. I slanted my eyes back, which gave me a headache, but it was enough to see her eyes harden, her features sharpen and her stance turn distinctly threatening. Her hair furled in a sudden wind, snapping behind her like a cape.
Sharpened features, hawk-like eyes… I’d seen that look somewhere before. A book.
“Mishela.” Glynn’s voice was cool, a warning. “We have company.”
She blinked a couple times. And just that quickly, the threat ebbed from her.
“Good. Stay here.” Glynn finally released me.
Only to disappear around the corner. Around the corner to…my home. “Hey wait!” I dashed after.
And yanked up like a dog on a chain when Mishela grabbed my wrist. For a slip of a girl, she was strong. “Glynn said to stay.” Her face was as stern as his.
“He’s your guard, not mine.” I tried to shake loose, but she had fingers like a concert pianist’s. And yeah, that’s superstrong. I tried a wrist-twist, but apparently she’d had training because she only shifted hands.
I shook my wrist again, gently, a nonverbal phooey. “That’s not fair.”
Her stern expression melted into a grin. “That’s what I always tell Glynn. Know what he says? ‘It isn’t, is it?’”
“Such sympathy. I’m not surprised you feel stifled.”
Vulnerability flashed across her face, just as suddenly hidden. She gave a little laugh. “Oh, it’s not so bad.” Her acting was perfect, but her tone was a quarter step off. “It’s like I have five big brothers. Lots of girls would love—”
A howl cut her off, followed by the roar of a lion. I froze as metal sang like the crossing of swords.
“What the—that’s from the store!” I leaped into motion, only to yank up short against her grip. “Let go!”
“Junior, I can’t.” Mishela’s eyes were sad, and far older than her seventeen years.
“I can,” Rocky said simply, and dashed around the corner onto Fourth Street.
With an anguished cry, Mishela released me to dart after her. “Rocky, no!”
I kicked after them both and—
Plowed straight into them. Mishela held Rocky, stroking her hair. Rocky didn’t seem to be aware of it. She clutched her instrument bag to her stomach and stared at the vacant street.
Totally empty. No lion, no swordplay.
No Glynn.
A light snapped on above us. The shoop of a window rising and a clap of shutters presaged a head poking from the second floor of the storefront. The face had my features but was tubby, older and male. A lick of silver hair winged out from under a striped nightcap, a cookie elf complete with the ruddy cheeks.
My dad.
“Junior! Was ist hier passiert?”
Just what I needed, family yelling in the street. And poor Rocky hated conflict. “English, please, Pop.” Meiers Corners was founded in the 1800s by German immigrants, and Pop, though second generation, was raised speaking it and still dreamed in it. Sometimes I had to remind him not everyone spoke fluent Deutsch.
“Ja, all right. Junior, what are you doing? Do you know what time it is?”
“After midnight, Pop.”
“Then get your heinie up here and get some sleep. The store opens at eight pünktlich—whether you are awake or not.”
“But Pop—”
“Bed, Junior. Sausage doesn’t sell itself.” The window banged closed.
Good ol’ Business Truth #1 on the Eightfold Business Path. Other kids got “Early to bed and early to rise” or “The early bird gets the worm”. I got sausage slogans.
I turned to say goodbye. Strangely, with all Pop’s yelling, Rocky was still shivering in Mishela’s arms, staring at the empty street. I frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing,” a deep voice answered.
Glynn glided toward us. His clothes were neat and clean, and not a bruise or scratch marred his hewn, stubbled jaw. If he’d been in a fight, it didn’t show.
He stopped so close to me I had to crane my neck. Damn, he was tall. I fell back a step.
His fingertips on my chin halted me. I hoped for a kiss. No, I didn’t. Yes, I—
“You saw nothing.” His murmur was soft, soothing, yet rang strangely in my head. “Neither of you saw anything.”
“But…but I did.” Rocky’s croak was far from her usual honeyed alto. “F…fighting.”
“You didn’t see fighting.” Glynn’s tone darkened, echoing. I shook my head.
“I did,” Rocky insisted. “You and someone…or something…”
Grimacing, Glynn flicked eyes to me. “Junior. You saw nothing.”
“Nope. But Rocky did. Hey, what’s with the cave voice?”
“Bloody hell.” Mr. Grimace intensified, joined by his little brothers Glower and Hands-on-Hips. “Both of you are immune?”
“I had a flu shot,” I said. “Working in retail you come into contact with all sorts of double-nasties. What does that have to do with what Rocky saw?”
“Bollocks.” Glynn’s blue eyes took on a distinctly icy cast.
Mishela laid a slim hand on his sleeve. “Why don’t we call Mr. Elias? He can explain everything to Rocky.”
Their eyes met and an understanding passed between them.
Clearly they were close. I felt a moment’s yearning. My father was the only person I had a link like that with, via sausage. Ha ha.
Then their heads turned in tandem to look at me, and I got a weird shiver. Close? Or unnaturally attuned?
“Junior,” Mishela said. “You don’t need to stay.”
I considered that. Though shows make for a feeling of family, I’d only met Mishela and Glynn tonight. I didn’t really know them, especially Mr. BDD—big, dark and dangerous being the very definition of mystery.
Rocky was my friend, she’d seen fighting, and I’d heard strange things. Not cute-funny strange, but the howling and clanging metal kind. From the way Mishela and Glynn were acting, they knew about it.
They probably meant Rocky no harm, but I couldn’t count on it. “I’ll stay. I want to hear the explanation too.”
Mishela opened her mouth to argue, but Glynn said, “Let’s get this over with.” He flipped out a phone, hit speaker, then a speed dial. The phone rang once before the line clicked open.
“Rhys-Jenkins.”
I took a physical step back. The voice was that deep, that powerful. Like hearing the color black speak. Whoever this Elias was, he had some serious testosterone going.
“We had an encounter, sir,” Glynn said. “Mishela’s fine, but there’s a young woman here who needs a bit of an explanation. Her name is Rocky.”
“Put her on. Without speaker, if you would.”
“As you wish, sir. Thank you.” Glynn clicked off the speaker, offered the phone to Rocky.
She took it gingerly, put it to her ear. “H…hello?” She blinked. “Yes. Yes, sir.” She blinked several more times and added in a low whisper, “Raquel.”
Then there was only Elias’s murmur. Rocky’s eyes slid shut. The tension drained from her slowly, as if she were a candle melting. A moment later, she blinked like she was wakening, and smiled. “It’s all right.” She closed the phone and handed it to Glynn. “It was just a stray dog.”
“Excuse me?” I said. “Dogs don’t roar.”
“That was a howl. Mr. Elias explained everything. The dog is a wolf-husky mix, raised by an old man for protection. When its owner died, the poor thing was dumped near here. Glynn used to be a forest ranger, so the park service asked him to catch it.”
“A ranger.” If anyone could be a woodsman, it was Glynn, but that didn’t mean I believed word one. “So the howl was a wolf-dog, and Glynn was deputized to shag it?”
Glynn raised a single black brow.
I blushed. What about the man made everything coming out of my mouth sound dirty? “I mean catch it. Shag, meaning fetch. Um, did you? Catch it, that is?”
The brow made an arrogant arch. “Of course.”
“And caged it?” I made a show of looking around. “Huh, no cage. So did you spear it with your trusty sword?”
Both Glynn’s sleek black brows winged up.
“I meant…” I winced. “I heard metal. Ka-shing,” I added, lamely.
“Oh, certainly.” The brows came back down. “That was the tranquilizer dart.”
“O-kay.” That singing metal had not been a mere dart. “And the wolf is now where?”
“Someplace safe. Which is where you should be.” Glynn seized my hand and dragged me to my front door, his heat searing me.
I jerked away. “No! My entrance is in back.” Yikes. “I mean…” What was it about the man that made me vomit these glorious freaking double entendres? “The front door is for the store. The family entrance is around the side, back between buildings.”
“I see.” He took my arm, steered me to the walkway. “So this is your…private entrance?”
“Uh, yeah.” My cheeks fired. A change of topic was prudent. “Thanks for the escort.”
We’d reached the door, small, unmarked and barely visible in the shadows between buildings. Glynn waited silently while I unlocked it (MC was safe, but we had neighbors who didn’t exactly appreciate us). He waited while I opened and entered, waited until I shut, even waited while I locked up. I didn’t see him, but I could practically feel his dark, hovering shadow.
I leaned against the closed door, caught my breath. Ordinarily after a rehearsal, I’d maybe have a beer with friends, then head home alone. I did not stay out late, I did not hear sword fights and animals howling, and I certainly did not kiss darkly sensual forest men. Ordinarily.
Tonight was seriously out of the ordinary orbit.
Yet according to Glynn, nothing had happened. Mr. Elias had “explained” things to Rocky. From my perspective, it had looked more like hypnosis. But hypnosis over the phone? None of this made sense.
I wanted to think. I pushed away from the door and ran up the stairs past my folks’ flat, straight to the small attic space that was my room.
My “room”. More of a crawl space really, its ceiling low even for my five-two. Some days it felt cozy, others it felt cramped. Rarely did it seem like the only safe place in a world gone insane.
When I was ten, I wanted to paint the walls dark purple. My parents had insisted on Realtor beige. To give the space color, I’d slapped up a poster of Times Square at night. Flowers blooming in the Mojave Desert came next. Then pictures of Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre. A map of Boston, and next to it a subway map. Eventually I had pictures, maps and posters from every corner of the world, covering every bit of beige. The latest addition was the colossal Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai.
My room, a cubby in the family homestead, was me being a dutiful daughter. My pictures were me wanting more.
I ran into my room, slowed. Touched a picture at random and dreamed of going to that place, of seeing its color and life. This was part of my going-to-bed ritual, as important as brushing my teeth.
Tonight my fingers caressed a London evening. Lights cascaded off the Thames, blues and violets slashing through rows and rows of gold. I’d take that image to bed with me, dream rainbow dreams…
But I’d come up here to think. Instead of crawling into bed, I went to my window.
My single window faced south. It was a reverse dormer notched into the roof. I opened sash and shutters to the warm May night, heard Rocky and Mishela’s voices fading away to my right, heading west on Jefferson. And with them, though I didn’t hear him, was Glynn. Big, silent Glynn.
I shimmied outside, into the small box of roof space that encased the window. Small for me even when I was a child, I now fit only with my knees drawn to my chin. But that was the best position for staring at the stars and thinking. I’d meant to mull on the weirdness that had happened, but somehow it didn’t seem nearly as important as the fact that Glynn had kissed me.
Glynn had kissed me, and I had responded to every big, dark, dangerous bit, lust igniting my very cells. I’d never known anything like it. Granted, I hadn’t experienced a lot because the store kept me sixty-hour busy, but I wondered if anything could have prepared me for the instant union I felt with him.
Glynn had kissed me. Was that normal, a guy going straight from “hi how are you” to locking lips? And then seem almost angry that he’d done it?
Glynn had kissed me. Why me, why not Rocky, who was a hundred and ten pounds of hot? Or one of the other pit or adult cast members? Hell, why not the flamboyant Director Dumbass, who was cute in a driven, psychotic sort of way?
A pounding came from below. My dad, hitting the ceiling with a broomstick. “Get to sleep! Work tomorrow.”
I sighed. What Pop lacked in subtlety, he made up for in volume.
But in this case, he was right. Worrying over Glynn’s inexplicable behavior wouldn’t make it into sense. The only way to deal was Business Truth #7, courtesy of Queen Elizabeth I. “Never decide today what you can put off until tomorrow.” It would either disappear or grow until the solution was obvious.
Tomorrow I’d work hard in the store, forget about Glynn kissed me—forget about all tonight’s crazy—by reminding myself where my duty really was. My parents, the store, my dreams.
