CRAVE - BAD BOY ROMANCE (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

I set
the letter aside, then picked it up and read it again. And a third time. She’d
signed it with the first initial of her name. Marie didn’t mean the dame thing
as Grandma to me, but then again, I didn’t think of her as a Grandmother
anyway…

In fact, I didn't know what to think
of her at all, but that hadn’t stopped the mercenary part of me from logging
into my online banking while my brain tried to process my Grandmother's words.
To be honest, I hadn't even been sure if she was still alive.

But she'd been telling the truth
about putting money in my account, at least. Right there, in big bold text on
the screen, my bank was happy to inform me that I'd had a deposit of two
thousand dollars three days prior, much more than enough to buy a plane ticket
to where she lived in Louisiana, not to mention pay enough bills to ensure the
rent was up to date and the lights were still on when I finally made it back.

But should I do as she asked? My
Grandmother been out of my life for so long after she basically threw me to the
wolves of the Michigan foster system at the only time that I'd ever truly
needed her. I'd wept back then, just like I was doing now, for far too many
nights to just give in and go back to her with open arms. Old woman or not,
whatever bridges she felt she needed to mend were hers and hers alone, and I
wasn't about to let myself be held hostage by her desires.

I clenched my fists, crumpling her
letter in them. I wasn’t about to let my Grandmother buy her way back into my
life, no matter how badly I needed the money. If she truly cared, she'd have
been able to find the time to send me a birthday card or a Christmas present at
least once in the last ten years.

But she hadn't…

Despite my intentions, I found myself
smoothing her letter out on my lap and reading it again. This time, all I could
see were the words of an old, desperate woman, at the end of her life and
looking for any way to give it just a little bit of meaning.

Should I help her do that? Or should
I let her just swing in the breeze, the same way she'd done to me for so long?

I wasn't sure. I didn't think it was
in me to simply take her money, maybe pay
all
of my bills and still have a little left over to fix the door or eat something
besides two minute noodles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for a change.
It was as much stealing as it would have been if I'd snuck into her purse and
swiped the money myself.

But I didn't want to see her either,
which meant I was more or less left with the rather annoying, not to mention extremely
uncomfortable, situation of staring at the money in my bank account, despite
how badly I needed it. Either that, or try and reverse the deposit somehow.

Neither option gave me any sort of satisfaction.

And then it hit me. The solution. The
perfect, I'll-do-exactly-what-you-say-Grandma answer to the whole stupid thing.

I'd buy the damn plane ticket just
like she wanted. And I'd fly out to her big house on the edge of the swamp,
rife with creepers and ivy and the terrifying, at least to the twelve-year-old
girl I’d been when I was last there, splashes of alligators in the murky water.

I'd march up to her front door and
tell her exactly what it had meant to my life when she'd abandoned me. Then I'd
climb back in my rental car, drive back to the airport, get back on the plane
and go right on living my life without her, just like I'd been forced to do for
so long.

Yes, it sounded mean. Yes, it was
probably even cruel. It was certainly not something I'd have expected myself to
do, but so what? Now that push was clearly coming to shove, maybe it was time
for dear old Granny to drop the Voodoo Queen facade for a few minutes and deal
with reality, even if it hurt like hell.

Happy for the first time in a long
time, I covered up my paints, set the easel and the picture of whoever he was
in the corner. I made sure he was facing the wall. There was something about
those eyes that I thought would find a way to stare through the wall at me, as
I went to bed.

Once I hit the mattress, I slipped
into a long, dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was easier than I thought it would
be to mentally force the painting I should be doing for my client to the back
of my mind. The company wasn't expecting to hear from me for at least a few more
weeks, and whatever plans I'd had of finishing early and getting the money had
been trumped by the gift that Grandma had plunked into my bank account. I paid
the bills and caught up on the rent, dodging Hillman’s questioning gaze and
assorted leers as I waited for him to write out a receipt for me.

Once that was done, I let some of my
neighbors know that I'd be gone for a few days, just in case whoever had kicked
in my door decided that the junk I owned might be worth a trip to any of the
dozen pawn shops in a five-mile radius.

Then I bought a plane ticket to
Louisiana. I was due to leave the next day, which was just the way it had to
be. Now that I’d made my decision, I figured there was no point in trying to
give Grandma any warning. I doubted the old bird knew how an email address
worked, and I sure didn't have her phone number. If I sat down and wrote her a
letter the old-fashioned way and sent it today it may arrive in time, barely.
Even then, I’d have to send it express.

No way, I was finding that I rather liked the idea of showing
up on her doorstep completely unannounced. The hassle of the trip would be
worth it once I saw the startled look on her face. I was intensely curious to
see how she would react when her little '
Voodoo
Child
', as she'd insisted on calling me so often, gave her a piece of her
mind and told her to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Besides, I was beginning to think
that if I put the trip off any longer than a day or two I was in danger of the
mean streak I was nursing fading away to nothing, evaporating like the heat
from my apartment in the teeth of the bitter wind.

Because I knew the truth was there,
underneath my false bravado. I didn't
really
want to hurt her. Things were okay the way they are, and if she’d just leave me
alone we could both get back to happily forgetting the other existed.

I didn’t want to see her again, and I
sure didn't want to give her the chance to hurt me more than she already had.

But, I'd spent her money on the
ticket already, which meant that I was as morally committed to the trip as I
could possibly be. I wondered briefly if she'd know that I'd withdrawn the cash.
Could her lawyer somehow tell? Not normally, no. There had to be a slew of
privacy laws to protect my rights in a situation like this, but there was
always the chance that Grandma had gone both more crazy and more wealthy in the
intervening years since I'd seen her, and I was willing to bet that she could
look into my account if she were willing to grease the right palms to do it.

Whatever. It didn't matter. The
cereal client would get his painting on time, and in the mean time I'd make a
quick trip to break a little old lady's heart.

I tried to hold on to that last bit
like it was a good thing, but by the time I should have been getting into the
car and going to the airport, I knew I'd be the worst person in the world if I
went all that way just to throw all the terrible shit the years had thrown at
me back in her face.

Right before I got in the car to head
to the flight, I changed my mind for the hundredth time. I'd stay for a day.
Eat dinner. Talk about old times. Fake some smiles and lie about remembering
the things she wanted me to take away from all of this.

And then I'd leave, and I once I did
I swore to myself that I'd never look back.

Not ever. Not for anything.

CHAPTER FIVE

I have to admit, there
were a couple of minutes when I was sitting there on the plane as it waited on
the tarmac loaded down with however many people, each one of us trying to get
to where we needed to be and move on with the rest of our lives. They did, at
least. I just wanted nothing more than to turn around and head back to my
apartment. Getting off the plane before it took off would be embarrassing, sure,
but it wouldn't be
hard
. All I'd have
to do would be fake a panic attack and they'd open the doors, escort me out and
return my luggage to me in a flash. The money would probably be theirs to keep,
but it had never really been mine to begin with, anyway.

It would have been a coward's way
out, and I almost took it. Instead, I held on to the arm rests tightly and glanced
around the plane, watching the people around me go through the rituals of
departure. They endlessly checked the in-flight magazine, stowed whatever
snacks they'd smuggled on board for later consumption and fidgeted in their
seats.

And just about everyone was texting.
Everywhere I looked I saw people furiously sending message after message, and
now and then the cheery chime of a response rang through the cabin. It made
sense, I guess. After all, it wouldn't be long before the safety demonstration
started and we started rolling along the runway. Once we got to that part of
the flight, we'd all be forced to turn off our handheld devices, or whatever
nonsense it is the flight attendants tell you to do.

Maybe that was when it hit me… All of
these people, practically every single soul within my sight, were saying
goodbye to someone they were leaving or telling someone else that they were
about to take to the skies and that they'd see them soon.

They all had people who would miss
them, or were looking forward to being with them, or both.

But not me.

I didn't have anyone. I'd considered
that a measure of my personal strength for the longest time, my own private
super power. If I didn't lead a life full of strings and entanglements, there
wouldn't be any of that bullshit that I saw everyone else having to put up
with.

I mean, if you think about it, I was
immune to having to deal with calls in the middle of the night when someone
needed money or got angry about something I’d said and they’d misinterpreted. There
was nobody to cheat on, and nobody to make me hurt in the million other ways
that one person could force another person to go through hell.

I'd spent so long pushing people away
that the fact that there was no one left to shun had been like some sick,
twisted badge of honor. But right now, it just opened up a wound that I didn’t
know how to either heal or ignore.

“Is everything okay, dear?” the old woman
beside me asked all of a sudden. I'd been requested a window seat, and had
spent the last few minutes being glad that I could just put on my headphones,
lean against the glass and tune out the rest of the world once the flight
began.

Except, I'd forgotten to start the
music, distracted as I was by watching everyone text messages to their loved
ones.

I nodded at her slowly, not sure why
she was asking and not interested in getting into a conversation that could
very well manage to drag on over the entire length of the flight. “I'm fine.
Just have my head off in the clouds, I suppose you could say.”

She smiled, and it wasn’t lost on me
that she was pretty close to my grandmother’s age. “I'd be lost in thought too,
if I had a man like that one on my mind. Your boyfriend?”

“Huh?”

She reached out and tapped the pad of
paper on my lap with her fingertip. Everywhere I went I carried something to
draw on and something to draw with. It was religious, almost. I was a firm
believer that one never knows where one will be when the lightning bolt of
inspiration will reach out and zap an image worth capturing into my head.

Besides, I'd always doodled, ever
since I was a little girl. I looked down now at where she was pointing and saw
the man I'd painted on the canvas in my apartment scrawled across the notepad.
He was a little bit closer to the viewer now, his eyes still shining with a
mixture of intensity and desire that set a string of fireworks off along my
spine.

“Um..., not really,” I said lamely. I
wasn't about to tell her the truth, that on two separate occasions now I'd
basically conjured the image of a sexy, shirtless man out of nowhere and compulsively
drawn it when I should most certainly have been doing something more productive
with my time.

Still, I couldn't argue with the end result.
I brought the pad up a little closer, inspecting the finer details; the rugged
line of his jaw, the broad sweep of his impressive shoulders. I may not know
who he was, but I sure as hell knew how to capture his essence.

It was just my luck that the two best
things I'd ever done were of a subject I couldn't make any money off of, but
once again I couldn't help but admire the skill required to make him come alive
on the paper the way I had. It was like I was someone other than just the
creator. I may not remember sketching him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t ready
and willing to drown in those mysterious eyes.

“He is a bit of a stud, though, isn't
he?” I asked her, not bothering to hide my smile.

She grinned back at me wickedly, and
I saw a flicker of the woman she would have been forty or fifty years ago. “Girl,
if that man isn't your boyfriend, you better get your butt in gear and do
something about it. Take it from me, if you’re too stubborn to listen to
instinct. Men like that don't last long before they get snapped up.”

I nodded absently.

Only that wasn’t enough to make her
leave me alone. No, she had a point to make and she’d be damned if she let it go
at that. “If you're not on your way to meet him dear, dare I ask what you're
headed to Louisiana for? I hope asking isn’t too rude, of course...”

I resisted the urge to slap the
notepad closed and drown out her voice with my headphones. “I'm on my way to
see my Grandmother,” I told her, feeling all of a sudden like a fool. It was a
silly thing for a grown woman to say, but it was the truth. Besides, I didn't
feel like playing games. With any luck, she'd accept the answer and go back to
her knitting.

But she didn't. Things were never
that easy. A big, warm smile spread across her face and she pointed at the
hoodie I was wearing over my t-shirt. I got cold on airplanes, and had thought
that morning that there was probably nothing in the morning more comfortable to
snuggle up in on a long flight than a hooded sweatshirt. “You're a regular
Little Red Riding Hood then, aren't you sweetie?”

I looked down at myself blankly,
until at last it dawned on me what the hell she was talking about. The hoodie
was indeed red. Between that and the visiting Grandma thing I’d clearly tickled
the old lady by reminding her of the fairy tale. “Yeah,” I whispered, so softly
that she needed to lean in to hear me properly. “I guess you're right.”

Except Little Red
Riding Hood didn't dread the sight of her grandmother, now did she? And she
didn’t make the trip purely out of guilt…

“Just be careful along the way,
dearie. What out for wolves along the way, won't you?”

“I will,” I said, feeling more than a
little relief when the old woman slid a sleeping mask out of her handbag and put
it in, settling in for what I hoped would be a sleep uninterrupted by more
conversation with me. “I promise.”