Kiss Me If You Can (19 page)

Ricky couldn't hear, nor did he care. He only wanted her to take the deal.

“Fine,” she said at last. “But we're holding you to it. No weaseling out, disappearing or taking what's ours.”

“Fine,” Ricky said. “Now untie me.”

“Wait. There's one more thing,” Sylvia said, glancing at Charlotte as she always used to do, for the okay.

Charlotte shrugged. “Okay, why not.”

“What's she talking about?” Ricky asked. “What'd you just agree to?” An uneasy feeling settled over him and while he was looking to Charlotte for answers, Sylvia kicked him again, harder this time.

“Oww!”

“Quit crying like a baby. And you'd better hold up your end or the next one'll be in the nuts,” Sylvia promised before grinning at Charlotte. “
Now
we can untie him.”

 

A
FTER ALL THE EXCITEMENT
of the day, Charlotte needed a nap. Unfortunately, she also needed to formulate a plan. How in the world would she get Coop
to give her the ring and agree to stop digging into the story? She doubted he'd do all that, even for love.

“Any ideas yet?” Sylvia asked.

“No, and stop talking. You're giving me a bigger headache than I already have. I need to think.”

They walked into Charlotte's apartment and before she could ask her friend to go home so she could sleep, Charlotte caught sight of a note on the kitchen table.

“It's from Lexie. I recognize the handwriting,” Charlotte said. She opened the folded paper and read aloud. “
We have your necklace. If you want to see it again, we want to see you.
There's an address below it,” Charlotte said, figuring it was Coop's apartment.

She fell into the nearest chair, feeling every one of her seventy-nine years.

“Oh, no!” Sylvia said. “Now what?”

“I don't know about you, but I'm taking two Tylenol and then a nap. I know my limits and I've reached them today.” She was exhausted; her brain was fried. And panic over what Lexie knew was threatening to overwhelm her. “We'll decide what to do when I wake up.”

Sylvia nodded. “I'm exhausted, too. Nobody ever told me getting old was so hard.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Sylvia always had been such a drama queen. “What do you say we meet up again later?” she asked over a yawn.

“Sounds good. By then maybe your brain cells will rejuvenate and you'll have a plan,” Sylvia said, rising from her chair.

She always had the utmost faith in Charlotte to get them out of any jam. In the past, Charlotte had enjoyed the leadership role. Today, though, she just felt tired.

And old.

 

L
EXIE SAT
,
LEGS CROSSED
, on the large windowsill, looking out Coop's window at the view of the city below. Lights flickered in the darkness and she wondered how many people walking the streets were as conflicted as she was.

Coop had been holed up in the bedroom since dinner, working on his laptop. She assumed he was writing and not tapping out an assignment, but who knew? He certainly wasn't talking. And she could pinpoint the exact moment his mood and behavior had changed.

After he'd said,
I more than like you,
and she'd bolted like a scared rabbit.

She'd tried to work, pushing thoughts of her love life aside. She'd registered Coop's domain name and gotten his okay on the proposed design for his site. He'd beamed with pride when she'd showed him her work, his book cover a prominent feature on the home page. She'd used his newspaper photo as
a placeholder, but he'd balked at the notion of having a professional photograph taken.

In fact, he'd sounded appalled. Lexie grinned, recalling the horrified expression on his face. But she wasn't finished trying to convince him. She'd spent some time accumulating Web site links of other famous authors who had causal photos on their pages. She planned to ambush him with them later. She could imagine readers seeing Coop's handsome face on his Web site. She knew she'd return over and over for a glimpse. He might not like that aspect of utilizing his photograph, but if it ultimately led to book sales based on his talent, then he ought to get used to it.

But once she'd focused on Coop and not just his Web site, she'd lost her concentration and found herself here at the window, staring out at the world, wondering why the emotional part of life had to be so complicated.

She was unable to sort out the waves of panic engulfing her at the thought of Coop developing real feelings for her. Was it that she couldn't trust in those feelings? Or was it that she was afraid those feelings would come with expectations for her to settle down? And would that be so bad? If Coop was the reason?

Sara had accused her of using travel to run away from problems at home. But Lexie couldn't imagine
giving up her many sojourns around the world, feeding her mind and her soul with different cultures, images, sights and smells. Losing that ability would stifle her. So how could something that brought her such joy really be an escape? Besides, Coop understood how important her travels were, so would he really expect her to give them up completely?

She was afraid to find out.

Afraid she'd have to choose.

Afraid of leaving him.

And afraid of being asked to stay.

Lexie let out a huge sigh, no closer to understanding her conflict or coming to a resolution, when suddenly she heard the sound of someone playing with the lock on the front door.

H
EART IN HER THROAT
, Lexie headed for the front door.

Coop had also been on guard and came up behind her.

“Why isn't she knocking?” Lexie asked softly.

“Good question. I left the bolt undone, so let's see what happens.” Coop paused a few feet away from the door, folded his arms across his chest and waited.

Lexie stood by his side.

After a few more minutes of listening to the sounds of someone playing with the lock, Coop reached out and yanked open the door.

A large, bald man stumbled into the apartment first, followed by Charlotte, then Sylvia. All three righted themselves and looked up, Charlotte and Sylvia with a guilty look in their eyes.

That was something, at least, Lexie thought. “Grandma, what's going on? And who is this man?”

“My guess is that his name is Ricky Burnett,” Coop said. “Am I right?”

“In the flesh.” The older man stuck out his hand in greeting.

Coop shook it, though he looked at Ricky as if he had a screw loose in his head. “Living room. Now,” Coop ordered the trio.

Lexie shook her head and followed them inside.

The visitors sat on the sofa, the two women on one side, Ricky Burnett on the other. Charlotte, to Lexie's relief, looked perfectly healthy, a glow in her cheeks.

“I want an explanation and I want it now,” Lexie told her grandmother. “Start at the beginning.” Lexie settled into Coop's recliner and steeled herself for whatever crazy story was sure to come.

Coop dragged a kitchen chair into the room, straddling it backwards. “And don't leave anything out.”

The three elders each let out a put-upon sigh, but no one stepped up to speak.

“Let's start with why you didn't just knock on the door,” Coop said.

When nobody answered, he turned his reporter's stare on Ricky. “Let me guess. You broke in once, figured it was so easy you'd do it again.”

Ricky looked down at his khaki pants. “You changed the lock,” the other man muttered.

Coop rolled his eyes. “Did you think I wouldn't? Better yet, did you really think we'd just leave the necklace out in plain sight so you could take it?” he asked, turning his pointed gaze on Charlotte.

“It was worth a shot,” Lexie's grandmother said, a bit too defensively, in Lexie's opinion. “I'm actually just retrieving my own property.”

That was open to debate. Her grandmother's audacity was not and Lexie clenched her jaw. “Let's not go there just yet.”

Coop nodded. “So now that we've confirmed who broke in the first time, let's go back to how you three met. That's a simple enough question for all of you to tackle.”

“I was born and raised in the Bronx, New York,” Charlotte began.

Lexie shot her a warning look.

“Okay, fine.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Sylvia and I grew up as neighbors in the Bronx, you know that.”

“But at the time in question, I was set up with Ricky on a blind date. Later he gave me a job at the jewelry store where he worked,” Sylvia said.

“I was the manager of the store,” Ricky added.

Lexie nodded. “Better.”

“It wasn't easy for women to get jobs back then. We were expected to marry and have babies.” Charlotte's mutinous expression said it all on that subject.

“True. It wasn't the we-can-have-it-all attitude women have today,” Sylvia added.

“And neither one of us was ready to settle down. There was just too much of the world to explore,
things to do, people to meet,” Charlotte said, her voice rising in excitement.

And sounding too much like Lexie, the world traveler, for Lexie's comfort, given the illegal, immoral detour the story was about to take.

“Go on,” she said tightly.

“Well.” Charlotte inclined her head. “Given that it wasn't easy for single women to find work at nontraditional jobs and sewing just wasn't my thing—I occasionally had to resort to…” Charlotte's voice trailed off, her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment.

“Stealing,” Lexie finished for her, her stomach cramping.

“It could have been worse. I vetoed prostitution,” her grandmother said.

“Oh, God,” Lexie said.

“Your parents wouldn't help?” Coop asked gently.

Of course, he didn't feel the same sense of betrayal that was coursing through Lexie at the moment. No question, her grandmother had made bad choices in her life and maybe she'd had her reasons. They'd find out. But to think Charlotte had lied to Lexie, of all people…it hurt worse than discovering there was no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. And hadn't Charlotte been the one to keep those illusions going as long as possible?

“Lexie, you have to understand, the world was
much different then. It's one thing for you not to conform to your father's exacting standards. You can still go out and make your way, head held high. My parents washed their hands of me when I wouldn't conform to the standards of
society
. And that left me all alone,” Charlotte explained.

Lexie met her grandmother's gaze, knowing how much Charlotte needed her to understand. It wasn't easy, but she nodded slowly, trying to imagine herself as an eighteen-year-old in not just an unforgiving family but an unforgiving society.

“My parents did the same,” Sylvia said sadly.

“When all options run out, when you're hungry, you'll do just about anything,” Charlotte said, her old eyes filled with the same determination she must have had back then.

“So what did you do?” Coop asked, filling in the silent void.

“I began to clean apartments. From there, wealthy families would offer me work serving during lavish dinner parties. I was grateful and it helped pay the rent on the hellhole of an apartment Sylvia and I shared.”

“While I was lucky enough to have had Ricky hire me at the jewelry store,” Sylvia said.

“See? I'm the good guy in this scenario,” the other man said, puffing out his chest.

“Shut up!” Charlotte and Sylvia yelled at him in unison.

Lexie and Coop stared at each other, surprised.

Sylvia cleared her throat. “It was Ricky's idea for the three of us to use Charlotte's cleaning connections to vandalize big parties. He was also the one who made sure we spaced out the jobs so people wouldn't get suspicious. Does that sound like a good guy to you?” she asked.

Ricky frowned. “Isn't that just like a woman to shift the blame?”

The older women glared at him.

“Did Grandpa know about this?” Lexie asked, trying to put together the time line of her grandmother's life.

Charlotte shook her head. “Oh, no. No. You see, all the original jobs took place when I was eighteen, before I met your grandfather,” Charlotte said. “Then the three of us, we…umm…”

“We broke up for a while,” Sylvia supplied helpfully. “And your grandmother and I lost touch.”

Lexie narrowed her gaze. She'd never heard about Charlotte and Sylvia losing touch with each other, but then again she hadn't known her grandmother had been disowned by her family or had worked cleaning houses, either.

“I met your grandfather a short time later, we fell in love and I accepted the traditional role I'd initially turned my back on,” Charlotte explained. “But then Henry was drafted and I didn't have many friends.
I was terribly lonely. Sylvia and I reconnected and that helped. But then this bozo contacted Sylvia for one last job.” Her grandmother jerked her thumb toward Ricky.

“Hey, I needed the money!” Ricky exclaimed.

“And we were bored, I'm ashamed to admit.” Charlotte glanced toward the wall, unable to meet Lexie's stare. The beginning robberies were because they'd needed money to live. This last one was pure fun and games, at least for the women. And that disappointed Lexie to no end.

Coop leaned forward, his arm braced on the chair. “How did you pick the Lancasters?” he asked.

“My dear Henry worked for them as a chauffeur. That much was true. But they were a pretentious family and didn't treat your grandfather well at all. He had told me about their eclectic jewelry collection, and how during various times he drove for them, the matriarch, as she liked to call herself, used to brag to her friends about how she didn't need a safe. She just spread the items throughout her various closets. So I suggested we find a way to hit their home. But that was the last job. I swear. Your grandfather came home and we lived happily ever after!”

Lexie closed her eyes and groaned. When she opened them, she snuck a glance at Coop, gauging his reaction to the story. He stared at the trio, clearly
fascinated by the dynamic, the byplay, the history and reasoning behind it all.

“So now that you know everything, can I have my necklace back?” Charlotte asked hopefully.

“And what are you going to do with this information?” Ricky asked.

“Wait just a minute. I have a question first. We took the necklace because you've been avoiding me and any questions I had, but why did all three of you show up here now?” Lexie asked.

“Well, these old bats tied me up and demanded some goods back they think I still have,” Ricky said before anyone else could answer. “I told 'em I'd give them what they wanted as long as they made
this
all go away. I can't afford for my past to get out. It'll ruin my business and destroy my daughter.”

“Since when do you care about anyone but yourself?” Sylvia asked.

“People can change. I returned your laptop, didn't I?” he asked Coop.

Coop nodded. “You did. But you stole it first.”

“It was a distraction, nothing more. I didn't want you to put two and two together and come up with the ring!” Ricky explained. “So what's it gonna be? Charlotte says you'll keep the past buried because you're in love with her granddaughter. That true, Mr. Reporter? If so, I'll give these two pains in the ass the pieces they're looking for.”

Lexie's jaw dropped.

Coop's mouth ran dry. How the hell had this man verbalized something he'd never said aloud? How had Charlotte pegged his feelings when he'd only just admitted them to himself?

He glanced at Lexie who looked like she was about to faint. Considering the mere hint of him
more than liking her
had sent her running, he could only imagine what this declaration would do. If he chose to confirm it.

He didn't—at least not yet—and decided a good offense was the best defense. “What pieces would that be?” he asked Ricky, avoiding the statement altogether.

“He's had my wedding ring for the last half century!” Charlotte said on a wail. “Your poor grandfather died thinking I'd accidentally flushed it down the toilet while he was overseas fighting for his country.” She sniffed, the exaggerated gesture not lost on anyone in the room.

“Hey! It's not like you're the queen of England. The damn thing isn't worth more than a washer.”

“But it's
my
washer and I want it back!” Charlotte's voice rose.

“Grandma, calm down. It's not good for your blood pressure,” Lexie urged the older woman.

Without warning, Sylvia stood, strode up to Ricky and kicked him in the shin. “That's for upset
ting my friend. Oh. And did I mention I want my bracelet back? If Charlotte gets her Lancaster necklace, I want my bracelet from the same job.” She adjusted her polyester shirt and reseated herself in her chair, crossing her ankles like a lady.

Coop couldn't write anything like the dynamic between these three older people. They were priceless, shameless and yet endearing all at the same time. The stuff of fabulous, fantastic fiction, he thought.

Coop glanced at Lexie. Even behind her glasses, he caught the little furrows in between her eyes and the concerned expression on her face. She obviously knew exactly what he was thinking. Or thought she did.

“Ricky, are you saying you have both ladies' items?” Coop asked.

“Maybe.”

Lexie jumped up from her seat. “I've had enough. Do any of you remember that these items are
stolen?
Stolen. As in—aside from my grandmother's wedding ring—the necklace, Coop's ring and the bracelet don't belong to you!” She paced back and forth in front of the trio, chastising them under her breath until she finally paused. “Sylvia, you've been taking computer lessons, right?”

Sylvia nodded. “Yes, ma'am, and I'm pretty darn good!”

“And, Grandma, something tells me that you already know more than you've let on to me, correct?”

Charlotte glanced away. “Maybe.”

“She's been coming to the Apple Store with me. But she loved the time you spent teaching her, and she didn't want to insult you by saying she didn't need your help,” Sylvia said helpfully.

“I love our time together, too,” Lexie said, her voice softening. “But we can spend it doing other things instead of you pretending not to understand my instructions.”

Charlotte nodded, looking at her granddaughter with love.

“Okay, this is how it's going to be. You two computer-literate women are going to do research. You're going to find out who's still living in the Lancaster family, return the jewels and hope they won't press charges against an almost octogenarian and her cohorts who have learned their lesson. Right?” Lexie stared at each of them in turn.

They grumbled, but no one committed to returning anything. They did, however, focus on the last part of Lexie's statement.

“I'm not going to jail!” Charlotte cried out, grabbing her chest.

“Calm down,” Coop said, recognizing the ploy.

“No more faking when it comes to your health!” Lexie exploded at her grandmother.

Coop rose and placed a calming arm around Lexie's shoulder. He admired the way she had held on to her temper and her emotions through this entire ordeal and he was about to make it even easier on her. “It's okay. I've actually done the research already and there's good news. First, the statute of limitations has run out and they can't be charged.”