Read 7 Days and 7 Nights Online

Authors: Wendy Wax

Tags: #Fiction

7 Days and 7 Nights (8 page)

BOOK: 7 Days and 7 Nights
4.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Listen, I hate to interrupt, but I'm back on in thirty seconds. Why don't you come on out and tell my listeners how you feel?”

His hand clamped around her wrist. “Come on. You can give Jason a piece of your mind and tell the world that you've never been on a raft naked in your life.”

Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And be sure to stand right in front of the camera so they can see the pretty pink and blue sheep on your jammies.”

The challenge in his eyes was unmistakable. He wanted her out there in her sheep pajamas trying to defend herself against a ridiculous teenage fantasy. Which was all the reason she needed not to.

“Good Lord, you piss me off.”

“I know.” He offered her a smug, lopsided smile that she wanted to rip right off his face. “It's one of my greatest assets.”

9

JoBeth waved goodbye to her daddy's La-Z-Boy recliner.

“We sure do appreciate the donation, JoBeth. This'll help make the group room a whole lot cozier.”

JoBeth watched the pickup back out of the driveway and make a right out of the small Lawrenceville neighborhood. She knew exactly what Horace Namey would have said about his prized possession serving out the rest of its usefulness under rear ends at the Union Mission Halfway House, and the thought of his outrage provided the first real smile she'd managed in days.

She walked back into the tiny house. The living room was empty except for the few pieces she'd claimed for herself. She ran a hand over the old pine sideboard that had belonged to her great-grandmother and let her gaze linger on the bun-footed curio cabinet that now held the best of her mother's Depression glass. Dropping into the rocker she'd dragged in from the front porch, she surveyed the beginnings of the room's transformation with pride.

The baseboards and trim gleamed under a fresh coat of white paint, and the corners and edges of the room's longest wall carried a first coat of apple green. She planned to finish painting the living room today and start on the kitchen tomorrow. JoBeth found comfort in the logical progression of the work and fully intended to deal with her inheritance the same way she'd learned to deal with her life—one day at a time.

Originally, she'd thought she was fixing up the house to sell and had imagined the proceeds as a kind of dowry she'd bring to her marriage to Dawg, her contribution to their life together. Now there would be no life together, and there was no reason to sell. She'd fix the house up for herself, get one of those home equity loans so that she could see some of the world or go to college full-time. She'd spent her twenties running around wild, and most of her thirties taking care of her parents. It was more than time to start looking after herself, like Dr. Olivia said.

JoBeth turned the baseball cap backward on her head to keep the brim out of her way and rolled up the bottoms of her overalls so they wouldn't end up apple green. The smell of fresh paint battled the old, more familiar smells of cigarette smoke and medicine, vanquishing them in the same way the pretty pastel green drowned out the dingy undercoat of white.

She moved the ladder onto the newspaper that lined the edges of the room, and hooked on the aluminum paint tray. After climbing the first few rungs, she dipped her roller into the paint.

As she reached for the wall, the screen door creaked open, then slammed shut. Before she could turn, boots clumped across the hardwood floor and came to a stop behind her. She recognized the footsteps even before she heard Dawg's voice.

“Hey, JoBeth.”

She didn't turn or pause in her painting. She just tapped the excess paint off the roller and began to apply it to the wall.

“Need a hand?”

She extended the roller smoothly upward, then brought it back down. “No, thanks.”

“I, uh, just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I'm fine.” She lifted the roller out of the pan, reached for the wall without tapping off the extra paint, and felt a glob land on her cheek. The back of her free hand found the glob and turned it into a smear.

“It looks a lot bigger here without all your folks' stuff in it.”

“Yep.” Hurt warred with anger, and JoBeth stoked the latter, afraid of what would happen if she showed the least bit of weakness. She needed Dawg out of here now, before she caved in and let him see just how miserable she was without him.

“Mind if I take a look around?”

“It's a free country.”

She heard his boots clump down the adjoining hallway, heard a door creak open, and heard the sound grow muffled by carpet. With an iron grip on the roller, she continued spreading paint on the wall, keeping her movements slow and controlled until Dawg clumped back and stopped directly behind her.

“You're sleeping on a mattress on the floor?”

“Um-hmm.”

“You'd rather sleep on the floor than stay with me?”

Feeling the crackle of his anger in the air about her, JoBeth set the roller in the pan and backed down the ladder. Once her feet touched the floor, she had no choice but to turn and meet his gaze. Schooling her paint-streaked features into a casual expression, she turned her face up to his. Dawg hadn't bothered to mask his feelings, so she was forced to stare into his storm cloud of a face, all dark and seething with disbelief.

He ran a ham-sized hand through his hair and then shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “I told you you could have my spare room until you got things taken care of here.”

“I don't need your spare room when I have a perfectly good house sitting right here.” She inhaled the rugged spice of his aftershave and felt herself drawn to the massive body she knew so well. Alarmed, she pushed by him and came to a halt a good foot and a half away, where resisting him would be easier.

“But what about us, JoBeth? How can you walk away from three years?”

“I'm not the one turning my back on what we've had, Dawg Rollins.”

“Aw, honey.” He reached out toward her, clearly intending to scoop her up into one of his big, brawny embraces, the kind that had always made her feel so safe and protected. If she let him get his hands on her, she knew she'd be lost.

“Look, I'm sorry about the pie thing yesterday. I didn't care for the way Emmylou was behaving, and I took it out on you. You have every right to rub up against anyone you want to.”

Dawg grunted and shook his head, but he didn't tell her he didn't want Emmylou, or that he was ready to settle down and get married.

“I'm too old to play games, Dawg. I love you, but I expect I'll get over it.” She felt a tear slide down the side of her cheek to mingle with the apple green paint, and before she could stop it, another one slid through the mess.

“Aw, hell, JoBeth.” Dawg drew her into his arms and cradled her against the soft cotton T-shirt that stretched across his rock-hard chest.

For all his great strength, his touch was remarkably gentle. As unwilling as he was to make a commitment, he'd never been shy about showing his affection. She closed her eyes to hold back the longing when he placed a kiss on the top of her baseball cap and used his big fingers to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Lord, but you are one hardheaded woman. I cannot for the life of me figure out why you are so hell-bent on getting married. It's just words and a piece of paper, JoBeth. And you are tossing everything away to get them.”

He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to his. She knew she must look ridiculous with the paint running down her face and the ugly tears welling out of her eyes, but she saw only tenderness reflected in his. When he joined his lips to hers, it was with a sweetness that made her heart ache inside her chest.

To JoBeth's way of thinking, you signed the piece of paper and spoke the words because the other person brought out the best in you; because you were more with them than you could ever be on your own. It proved you meant to stick when it would be easier to give up.

But she didn't know how to explain that to Dawg, any more than she could explain how important it was to make the commitment out of love and not the stifling sense of duty that had held her parents' marriage together.

She wanted to lift her arms up around Dawg's neck and whisper her love for him, but she couldn't give in now. Nor could she follow him back home with her tail between her legs, grateful for whatever scraps of commitment he was willing to toss her way.

He released her lips but held her gaze with his. “You know where to find me when you come to your senses, JoBeth.”

“And you know where to find me,” she countered. “But I really can't say for how long.”

Olivia prowled the apartment like a caged animal. From his seat at the kitchen table, Matt watched her pace off the confines of their prison, past the couch to peer out the French doors of the balcony, back to the tiny kitchen to stare out the postage-stamp window at the brick wall beyond.

For a while he just enjoyed the long-legged grace of her, the swirl of blonde hair teasing against slim shoulders, and the way the occasional ray of sunlight caught her hair and separated it into a hundred different shades of gold.

She ignored him as she paced, her gaze skimming over him, then moving away.

“It is a bit tight in here, isn't it?”

She continued to pace. “A bit tight? I have
clothes
bigger than this apartment.”

She turned her back on him and strode over to the television armoire, not even sparing a glance for the camera perched on top. “I'd give anything to head out for a run right now. Just a little one. I'd come back.”

“Yeah, I'll mention your idea to T.J. and Charles. Maybe they'll let me out after my show for a couple of drinks. I'd come back, too.”

Her snort of laughter was not at all flattering, but she did stop pacing. “Do you think it's possible to accrue time out for good behavior?”

Her desperation added a sparkle to her green eyes that Matt found oddly endearing.

“Or maybe we're just going to be stuck in here until we're so old it doesn't matter anymore.”

“Ah, ah, ah.” He wagged his finger at her. “I believe you're allowing your glass to become half empty rather than half full. It's just a week out of your life, Olivia.”

“At the end of which, one of us, preferably you, will be out of a show.”

Matt shrugged and stood. “You have to admit it does add a certain . . . piquancy to the whole situation.”

He walked around the table to stand beside her. He moved a little closer, intentionally invading her space, and watched her eyes glaze over. It was obvious Olivia wanted to step back and put more space between them, but she held her ground. “You'll forgive me for saying so, but you seem a little tense.”

She averted her gaze. “Tense? Me?” She shook her head and offered what he supposed was meant to be a smile.

“Turn around.” He took hold of her shoulders and spun her around. Without asking permission, he began to massage her neck. When she tried to pull away, he pulled out his trump card. “You don't want our viewers to think you're afraid of me, do you, Liv?”

Olivia stopped struggling, but she didn't relax.

He worked his way down the graceful column of her neck. “Jesus, Olivia, you feel stiff enough to break in half.”
Who said they had nothing in common
? “This much physical tension is not good for a person.”

A quick glance up at the monitor told him that, once again, he and Olivia looked decidedly cozy. But then the viewing audience couldn't feel what he felt beneath his constantly moving hands. Olivia was as tightly strung as a bow, and he knew it was only pride that kept her from jerking away. Working his way down her throat one last time, Matt brought his hands to rest on the nape of her neck and thought about making her quiver.

With strong fingers, he kneaded her warm, taut flesh. And suddenly he was remembering details he'd put out of his mind long ago: the feel of her supple body shifting under his, the delicious length of her thighs wrapping around him, her hands on his buttocks urging him inside.

Olivia didn't relax under his ministrations, but she
did
respond.

And, damn it, so did he. He willed himself into submission, offered himself some very direct words of discouragement, but crucial body parts didn't seem to be listening. In fact, he seemed to have gone completely deaf below the waist.

If there was one thing he'd always been able to count on, it was his self-control. Not that he'd needed to call on it all that often, of course, but it had always been there at the ready. He was fairly certain of this.

Now he was the one taking a step back, carefully separating his front from Olivia's behind before she encountered the evidence of what touching her did to him. It would never do to let her hold it against him the way he'd been planning to hold it against her.

He turned Olivia around to face him and saw her eyes narrow with suspicion. “What are you doing?”

“Just trying to help you relax.”

“You want to help me relax?”

“Um-hmm.”
Relaxed and sloppy and no longer in control
would be just about perfect. As long as he didn't find himself in the
same condition.
He nodded toward the couch. “Of course, it's easier to do that horizontally than vertically.”

“Gee, how tempting. I've always dreamed of performing nude before a national audience.”

“I'm here, Livvy. Willing and able to make that dream come true.”

“An incredibly generous offer, Matt. But I don't think I need to be quite that relaxed. Any other ideas?”

“Feel like hitting something?”

She tilted her head at him and cocked an eyebrow. “Absolutely. Are you volunteering?”

“In a way.” He pulled the punching bag away from the wall and dragged it to the patch of space between the dining and living areas. “It's not quite as effective as sex, but it will release some of the same, er, energy.”

The caricature of his face stared out at them from the side of the bag. Beneath it were the words PLACE FIST HERE.

Olivia smiled. “Great target. Very motivating.”

Matt worked the gloves onto her hands, careful to keep his distance as he laced them up.

“Right.” He aimed her at the bag and pulled the gloves up in front of her face, the right slightly above the left, in the classic fighter's stance. “I hope this won't be too complicated for you.”

“Why don't you use real small words like you do on your show while I listen real carefully? Maybe we'll get lucky.”


Touché
.” He moved beside her and raised her gloves. “Okay. First you're going to jab with your right hand, but you want to keep your left up where it is in a defensive position.”

BOOK: 7 Days and 7 Nights
4.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Evans Above by Rhys Bowen
Plague Of The Revenants by Chilvers, Edward
Adaptation by Malinda Lo
Mira's Diary by Marissa Moss
To Marry a Marquess by Teresa McCarthy
Fractured Truth by Rachel McClellan
The Fire Artist by Whitney, Daisy