Mine Until Morning (24 page)

“I want the truth.” She shook a crooked finger at him. “So I brought the cookies along to bribe you.”

“Okay.” He pulled into his drive wondering what version of the truth he’d give her. “Do you want some milk with your cookies?”

She snorted. “Milk gives me hot flashes.”

She was long past the hot-flash stage, but no way was he going to say that.

“I’ll come round and get your door for you.”

Ma stayed right where she was, then took his hand regally as he opened her door. “Coffee, then?” he suggested.

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She peered up at him, one eye squinted against the sun. “Only if you make it hair-of-the-dog strong.”

“Yup,” he said. In the kitchen, he busied himself with the pot. The island stood between them. “Nice house,” Ma said, unwrapping the Saran at the table in his breakfast nook. She’d removed her coat and flung it over the back of a chair. Beneath she wore a pretty blue dress with tiny white flowers. She’d dressed up for him. Previously he’d seen her only in faded but clean house-dresses.

“Thanks,” he said as the coffee began to drip. “Cream and sugar?” he asked, retrieving a couple of mugs from the cabinet.

She snorted. Hair-of-the-dog obviously meant no diluting. “You been married before?”

“No.”

She didn’t ask why he hadn’t, saying instead, “What do you need so much room and all that cookware for?”

The house had four bedrooms, three baths, living room, dining room, family room. He didn’t bring his dates here, but in days of old, when he was a stockbroker, he’d held a lot of business parties. Now the living and dining rooms did little more than gather dust. He used one of the extra bedrooms as an office. But the kitchen he spent a lot of time in. He liked to cook and had every gadget known to man.

He’d never told Cleo he’d wanted to make a gourmet meal for her.

“I like to cook. And I guess I had dreams of a family at one point.” If you didn’t push hard enough, you didn’t get what you wanted. He’d lived in the house more than fifteen years, but never stopped his climb to the top of the stock market long enough to find the right woman with whom to share the house.

The drip automatically stopped as he poured the first cup and put the pot back to continue filling.

“Well, you’re not getting any younger,” Ma quipped.

“No, I’m not,” he admitted, setting the mug down in front of her. He’d pictured Cleo here, but those fantasies had come three years too late. “The cookies look chewy,” he said to steer away the ache around his heart.

“Damn best,” she agreed without an ounce of humility. Enough for a second cup had dripped through, and he joined her at the table. 155

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The sun poured through the window, setting her hair to sparkling. Sipping her coffee, she screwed her face up. “Perfect.”

“So why are you really here, Ma?”

She pursed her lips, the skin wrinkling almost to her nose. “Here’s the thing.”

She paused, bit into a cookie, washed it down with the coffee. “Cleo’s got this whole trust issue going on.”

“I know.” Between three years of offhand comments and their brief relationship, he’d learned that.

“She’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Looking for that thing a man does that she can say aha”—she held up a finger—“I knew I shouldn’t trust him.”

Maybe that was Cleo’s modus operandi, but in this case, she’d been right. He had a secret, a very big one.

“Most of the time, it’s just crap stuff. She’s never going to find perfection. Her expectations are way too high.”

“Ma, she’s got a daughter to think of. She’s got to have high expectations.”

Ma blew a raspberry. “That’s bull. Heidi is an excuse to keep men away. She can just trot her kid out and tell some guy to go blow so Heidi won’t get hurt when he leaves.” She shook her head. “I’ve heard all her crap. She had a coupla really nice ones on the hook who would have been good for Heidi, but”—she rolled her eyes—“Cleo scared ’em off.”

“You’re not being fair.” He felt uncomfortable hearing Cleo’s personal business.

But Ma was on a roll. “Then she stops dating”—she fingerquoted—“but I’m no dummy. She’s just not bringing them home. And what does that say? She’s either ashamed of us or ashamed of them.”

“Ma. You’ve got it all wrong. Cleo is cautious. She loves Heidi to death. She’d do anything for her.”

Ma slapped the table. “Then she should bring a father home for her. Heidi wouldn’t have had so many problems at public school if she’d had a male influence in her life.”

She was being way too hard on Cleo. “She’s done a hell of a job raising Heidi. With your help,” he added.

“There’s nothing that replaces having a daddy.” She eyed him, then fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly. On Ma, it didn’t have quite the right effect. In fact, it 156

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was kind of scary. “You were real good. Heidi listened to you. You spent quality time with her.”

Yeah, for all of four days. Cleo had given Heidi a lifetime.

“I’m not the solution.”

She grimaced. “Yeah. Because Cleo scared you off.”

“She didn’t scare me off. We just had—”

“Differences.” Ma cut him off, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, I know.” She shook her head. “I’ve heard it all before.”

It pissed him off that she made everything Cleo’s fault. “Did you ever think that maybe Cleo was right, and the men she dated did turn out to be assholes?

You know we’re all on our best behavior until we get what we want.”

She tipped her head. “That true for you, too? You were pulling a snow job on me and Heidi just so you could get in Cleo’s pants, but you’re really an asshole at heart?”

His heart thudded in his chest. “No.”

“So tell me what you”—she pointed a bent finger—“did to screw it all up.”

She was so quick to blame Cleo. He knew families had history, and an outsider understood only part of the story, but Cleo obviously hadn’t told Ma the truth about him. He’d lied to Cleo. Maybe he didn’t believe what he’d done for the past three years was amoral. He’d enjoyed it, brought sweetness into the lives of lonely women, but a hell of a lot of society would disagree with him. Cleo had made a choice, but he was the one who hadn’t been honest in the first place. He deserved what he got.

He would not let Ma go on disparaging her daughter.

“I’m not an asshole,” he said. “But I do have a fault that Cleo couldn’t live with.”

Ma snorted. “Yeah. You’re probably a serial killer or something.” She sipped from her mug and grabbed another cookie.

He smiled, though he didn’t feel it on the inside. “Actually, I sleep with women for money, and Cleo just didn’t think that was the kind of man she wanted to have around her teenage daughter.”

Ma spat out her coffee.

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12

“NO WAY.” MA LOOKED A LITTLE BUG-EYED.

“It’s true.” Admitting it to Cleo had broken something inside him. With Ma, he had no real stake. The lady could think of him whatever she wanted.

“How much money do you make?”

He laughed. Trust Ma. “Three to five thousand a date”—he seesawed his hand in the air—“give or take.”

Ma gaped. “Holy shit.”

This time when he smiled, he felt it. Somehow it was good to shock Ma. Maybe she’d begin appreciating Cleo a little more.

“How’d you get started?”

“I’d dated a few female courtesans myself.”

“Courtesans? Like from the old days?”

“It’s preferable to being called a whore.” The word had such a negative connotation, while he considered what Isabel’s agency provided a necessary service. In general, courtesans gave people their fantasies. Specifically, Walker empowered women.

To say that to Ma, however, sounded too much like justification.

“Aren’t you afraid of being arrested?”

“We’re very discreet. We only work with people recommended to the agency, and we only accept gifts. Payment isn’t required.” Though of course it was required, just never stated in such terms.

“So you’re tricky.”

He grinned. “Exactly.”

She started pestering him with questions. “How long have you been doing it?”

“About three years.”

“What did you do before?”

“I was a stockbroker.”

“Hah,” she cackled, “so you lost your shirt and now you have to sell yourself.”

“Actually, I got out at the height of the market.”

“Why’d you do that?”

He patted his heart. “I wanted to make it to fifty.”

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“So if you’re not doing it for the money ...” She trailed off, spreading her hands.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Ma. Maybe a freak-out to rival Cleo’s. He certainly hadn’t anticipated her curiosity, but he satisfied it. “I like making women feel desirable and good about themselves.”

Her face twisted. “Very admirable.”

“I didn’t say it was admirable. I simply enjoy it.”

Sitting back in her chair, she crossed her arms over her bony chest. “What about protection?”

“Always.”

She harrumphed, stared at him, her steely blue eyes working him over. “Well, at least you’re honest about it.”

He gave her a grim smile. “No. I wasn’t honest. Cleo didn’t know until last night.”

She arched one scraggly eyebrow. “Did she see you with one of them?”

“She’s always seen me with them.”

“Heh. At the restaurant,” she surmised. “She just didn’t know what was going on.”

“Correct.”

She leaned forward and dropped her voice to an avid, greedy pitch. “Then last night, she got jealous while you were wining and dining one of them, and totally went ballistic, so you had to tell her.”

“No. I haven’t been on a date since Cleo brought me home to meet you and Heidi.”

She made a noise in her throat. “She didn’t bring you home. You showed up.”

“I stand corrected.”

“And I do realize you’re trying very hard not to tell me exactly how Cleo figured it out last night.”

“Some things aren’t your business.”

“None of it’s my business.” Ma laughed heartily, then broke into a cough he worried about. He noticed she hadn’t asked to smoke in his house yet.

“Okay, so you’re not going to tell me,” she said. “But tell me this instead. How does a person get to be a courtesan with your so-called agency?”

“Recommendation. Then there’s an interview process. Training.”

Ma made a big round O of her lips. “Training,” she whispered. “That sounds 159

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like fun.”

He didn’t tell her it was a psychology seminar on reading people’s body language and interpreting nonverbal signals, all in the quest to figure out what a client needed if they weren’t able to articulate their desires. Isabel’s mission was to provide a client’s perfect fantasy.

Tapping a finger on the table, Ma waited several beats. “How about you recommend Cleo for a job?”

Thank God he hadn’t been drinking or he’d have spit it out just as Ma had done. “I don’t think so.”

“But she could pay for Heidi’s tuition. And we could fix the bathroom. And she could get a new car. And she wouldn’t have to work two jobs anymore.”

“She’d never be home at night.” Flabbergasted, it was the only excuse he could come up with.

“Oh yeah, right.” Then she brightened. “But I bet there are plenty of men who want a little afternoon nookie.”

He’d never met anyone like Ma. He expected her to freak, and instead she was offering up Cleo.

Though God help him, he had images of Cleo and him servicing a client’s needs together. It was a heady fantasy.

“Ma,” he said, “that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You know damn well she’d never do anything like that if she thought Heidi might figure it out.”

The little lady sighed. “You’re right. She’s a hard case.” Then she smiled. “But now that I know, I can make her see how what you do doesn’t really matter.”

“I’ve given up the life.” He’d lost his taste for it. Not because it was wrong or immoral, but it was paltry compared to what he’d shared with Cleo. He wanted unparalleled sex like that, with the emotion, the feeling. As cliché as it sounded, she’d ruined him for other women.

Ma clapped her hands. “Then it’s perfect. Since you’re not a gigolo anymore, it’s not a problem. I’ll get her to see the light, and you can come back.”

Ma didn’t get it. Things were either black or they were white, no shade in between. Cleo saw all the shades of gray. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t discuss this with Cleo.”

She gaped. “Why not?”

“She’s old enough to make up her own mind. And she’s done that. If she changes it, she has my number.”

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“Shit. You give up too easy, boy.” She cocked her head. “But you do care, right?”

His chest hurt, a slow burn beneath his ribs. He took too long to answer.

“My God, you really are in love with her.”

She made it sound like some sort of anomaly. “Cleo’s a very special woman,”

he said.

She huffed. “Well, I know that, but she usually doesn’t let a man get close enough for long enough to figure it out.”