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Authors: Jasmine Haynes

Mine Until Morning (25 page)

BOOK: Mine Until Morning
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Ah, but he’d gotten to know her over three years. She’d been burrowing deeper under his skin the whole time.

“You need to tell her,” Ma declared.

“No. That’s putting another burden on her. I’m not going to use love like some sort of bargaining chip.” Besides, being in love with her didn’t make a difference. He could not change the man he was. In fact, he wouldn’t change. He might never take another client for Isabel, but he would always feel the things he’d done were good for the women he’d been with. He’d helped them. He wouldn’t beg forgiveness for something he didn’t believe was wrong. That would have been another lie.

“Wow,” Ma said. “You’re way too self-sacrificing.”

He leaned forward, pointed his finger. “And don’t try to be my fairy godmother, either.”

She blew one of her raspberries. “You’re no fun.”

Probably not, but he wasn’t about to let her harass Cleo.

“Did you tell Cleo all this stuff just like you told me?” She rolled her eyes and nodded her head as if she heard a question he hadn’t asked. “Yeah, yeah, not about the love part, but everything else? Like how you make women feel good about themselves, and desirable, yadda yadda.”

“No. It wouldn’t have made a difference.” Nor had Cleo given him the chance.

“You’re an idiot.” Ma shook her head slowly. “Come to think of it, you’re both idiots. I wash my hands. Now, take me outside because I need a cigarette bad.”

SATURDAY MORNING, CLEO SLEPT LATE AFTER TOSSING AND TURNING

most of the night. When she came downstairs, she’d half expected Walker to be in the kitchen having coffee with Ma. Like he wasn’t going to take no for answer. Her stomach rolled over when he wasn’t there. God. She actually missed him, 161

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not just a man around the house, but him.

The coffee in the pot was overcooked and a note from Ma lay on the kitchen table. She was out getting a few groceries. Cleo pulled open the tins, but couldn’t find the cookies Ma had baked last night. Upset about Walker, maybe she’d thrown them out. Heidi wouldn’t be home until the afternoon. A reprieve. But Cleo had to plan what she’d tell Heidi about Walker. Jeez. Things were so complicated.

Her cell phone rang just as a fresh pot of coffee finished brewing. Her heart raced. Damn if she wasn’t hoping it was Walker. She picked up without even checking.

She really had to get over him. “Hello?”

“Yo, your car’s ready.”

It was Jimmy. Disappointment rumbled in her belly. An hour later, after she’d rushed through a shower and jumped on the bus, she found him in his shop under a car body. “Hey, Jimmy,” she said, bending to peer under.

His belly barely clearing the undercarriage, Jimmy rolled out flat on his back on a dolly. He grinned at her, his hands dirty and a streak of grease in his blond hair. “It’s as good as new,” he said. “Keys are on the counter, car’s parked around the corner.” He braced his feet to roll under the car again.

“Wait. I was wondering if it would be okay to do the installment thing like before.”

“Your boyfriend took care of that the other day.” He pushed off again, his head disappearing.

Her stomach started to squirm. She toed his leg. “What do you mean my boyfriend took care of it?”

Jimmy sighed, and spoke from under the car. “When I told him it’d be between five hundred and seven-fifty depending on how long it took, he said he’d give me the cash up front if I kept it to the five hundred.” Something kachunked under the body. “And you made out, honey, because it took me longer. Still had to finish it up this morning.”

Walker had paid for the car. Dammit. He hadn’t asked; he’d just done it, pushing his way into her life, making decisions for her. Goddammit. She had an arrangement with Jimmy, and now he’d gotten screwed. She dreaded finding someone else to work on the car, someone who might bilk her, because really, 162

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what the hell did she know about cars? “I’ll pay you the difference.”

Jimmy rolled back out. This time grease smeared his cheek, and he stared her down—despite the fact that she was up—with a blue-eyed gaze.

“Sweetheart, don’t be stupid.”

“I just—”

He cut her off. “Me and Walker worked it all out. I gambled and I lost, and I’m cool with it because it wasn’t that much of a difference, and I’d still rather have the money up front. Capiche?”

“Yeah.” Installments meant he had to wait for his money too long. “But I want you to know I really appreciate that you’ve let me make payments in the past.”

“Cleo, I’m not getting on your case about paying me over a couple of months. Because you always pay me. I’ve had deadbeats who screw me over royally, like bouncing checks or cutting off a credit card payment. But I still like the money up front, so take the car and give Walker a big kiss, okay?” Then he slid back beneath the car’s underbelly, discussion over. Jimmy had always been sweet to her. Before her mom stopped driving, he’d fashioned a special plastic fitting to go over the gas cap because Ma, with her arthritis, had trouble undoing the factory-installed cap. He’d never quibbled about how Cleo had to pay him off. She’d always trusted him to tell her the truth about the car.

Yet she didn’t trust Walker once she’d started having sex with him. That was what he’d accused her of the night the car broke down. She’d actually intended to let the tow truck driver take her home, a man she’d never met. She didn’t have a problem with men in general. She had a problem with men she’d had sex with.

She didn’t like owing them, didn’t like letting them think she needed them, didn’t like giving them any kind of control. Maybe Ma was right, and she was blaming all the men she dated for the bad apples that had fallen into her life. Or maybe she just couldn’t trust her own judgment anymore. Walker had some good traits. He’d saved her money on the car, not just by paying the labor up front, but by finding the part in the first place. He was smart, funny, caring, respectful, generous, well mannered, and sexy as all get-out. He also slept with women for money. Honestly, no matter how much she liked him or how good he was to her, that was pretty much a fatal flaw. How she 163

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could overlook it?

But she still owed him five hundred bucks. God help her, despite what she knew was right, she actually wondered how many sexual favors it would take to pay it off.

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13

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WALKER’S NOT COMING BACK?”

Cleo groaned inwardly. She and Heidi were crowding Ma’s bathroom. It was just before five. Cleo had to shower, change, and grab a bite to eat before she headed to the restaurant for her Saturday night shift. Heidi had just returned from the sleepover and wanted to go to the movies with Viola, a childhood friend who lived three doors down.

God, she so did not need an argument with Heidi right now. So Cleo lied. She’d hate herself for that later. “He underestimated the amount of time it would take to do the bathroom, and he decided he can’t make the commitment.”

Heidi glared. A teenager’s glare could rival that of a rabid dog. “That is bull, Mom, and you know it.”

She should have reprimanded Heidi for talking back, but Cleo knew she was in the wrong. “All right. We had a fight. He’s not coming back. End of story.”

“That’s so not fair, Mom.”

Life had been hard before Walker; now it was harder after. She’d had one really good week. Didn’t anyone realize that she missed him, too? But she’d made a decision. She had to do what was right. “Heidi, you barely knew him.”

Thank God it hadn’t been long enough for Heidi to get attached. “You’ll forget all about him in a week.”

Heidi narrowed her eyes. Okay, wrong thing to say. Cleo just never knew what the right thing was.

“Why?” Heidi demanded.

Ma had asked the same thing. Cleo’s excuses were flimsy. The truth was worse. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It was because of me, wasn’t it?”

What? “You had nothing to do with it.”

“You just don’t want to tell me.”

She could only stare dumbfounded at her daughter. “It was about Walker and me, not you.”

“He said I hung around too much and that I was annoying him, and that’s why he’s not coming back.”

“Don’t be silly.” Cleo’s heart wrenched, and suddenly she wanted to tell Heidi 165

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the truth just so she wouldn’t think it was her fault. Where on earth had she gotten such a notion?

Heidi’s eyes shimmered. “Well, I know that’s why you don’t bring your dates home,” she snapped. “Because you’re ashamed of me, and you think I’ll drive them away.”

Cleo massaged a temple as she shook her head. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. The exact opposite is true. I don’t bring dates home because they’re not worthy of you.”

“Yeah, right.” Heidi sniffed. “Phil left because of me, and you”—she stabbed her finger at Cleo—“decided it wasn’t worth bringing anyone else home.”

Good God. Phil had left four years ago. Heidi had cried buckets over him. But Cleo had never told her daughter the things Phil said. Then again, she’d never been specific, and Heidi had made her own assumptions. She’d needed a reason.

“He just wasn’t in love with me.”

Heidi pursed her lips and puffed out a breath. “I heard you two fighting.”

Cleo’s stomach dropped to the floor. “You heard what exactly?”

“I heard what Phil said. He didn’t want me. He wanted his own kid.”

Her heart broke for her daughter. Heidi had never said a word. “He was an asshole, Heidi.” She reached, but Heidi stepped back.

“You’ve held it against me ever since.” Her bottom lip trembled and though her eyes glistened, the teardrops didn’t fall. She looked like the little girl Cleo missed so much.

“No, Heidi.”

“It’s true. I could never do anything right. You even yanked me out of public school because I wasn’t good enough.”

Cleo threw up her hands in defense. “Wait, wait, wait. Private school and my so-called boyfriends have nothing to do with each other. I just didn’t like your friends there.”

Heidi swiped at a tiny drop of moisture that tried to escape. “It started with Phil, and then you kept picking and picking. My friends weren’t right. My grades weren’t good enough. I didn’t study hard enough.”

Four years ago. No, no, everything had gone wrong with freshman year. They had been fine before that. Or had they? Maybe Heidi was right. Maybe she’d been picking on her daughter long before. Cleo put a hand over her mouth. God. She was a rotten mom, because honestly, she couldn’t remember. 166

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Both she and Heidi had taken a long time to get over Phil. Then she’d started the second job at the restaurant. And please, please, please don’t say she hadn’t noticed something was wrong or that she’d suddenly become hypercritical.

“I’m sorry if you felt like I was picking. It was never your fault about Phil. And Walker’s leaving isn’t because of you, either.”

“Then why?” Heidi whispered.

Cleo didn’t know what to say. Because I was fucking him, and then I found out he was fucking a bunch of women and getting paid for it. God, no. She couldn’t say that. It would kill her to say that, even if it was the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth. The problem wasn’t Walker’s morals; it was her jealousy. But what was she supposed to tell her daughter? A decent lie Heidi would believe just would not come to Cleo’s lips.

“See, I was right.” Heidi shoved her hair behind her ear. “You don’t even know what to say.” She stepped through the bathroom doorjamb. “Do I have permission to walk to Viola’s instead of having you drive me?”

She should have argued, but Cleo admitted she was beaten. After all, it was only three houses away. “Yes, you can go.”

She was the worst kind of mother. She’d let her daughter believe she wasn’t good enough without even realizing what she was doing. She had no clue how to fix it.

CLEO LEANED AGAINST THE KITCHEN COUNTER. THE YOGURT TASTED

sour. She knew it was her and not the yogurt. “How could she think I was ashamed of her?”

Ma shrugged as she ate her chicken pot pie at the dinner table. “Not too hard to understand. Boyfriend goes, you never bring another one home; ergo, you’re ashamed of her.”

“Has she talked to you about it?”

Her mother huffed. “If she had talked, you know I would have said something. She mumbles, and I don’t understand half of it. In one ear and out the other.”

Ma was no help. “I’m so tired,” Cleo said, feeling her body slump against the counter and not being able to stop it.

“Maybe you should just let Walker come back.” Ma waved her fork as if it were a magic wand. “Then Heidi would know he didn’t go because of her.”

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“It’s not that simple.”

Ma ignored her. “Plus we’d get the bathroom fixed.”

Cleo rinsed out the yogurt cup and tossed it in the recycle bin. “I’m not going to use him just to get the bathroom done.”

“Why not? Men love it when women use them.” Ma waggled her eyebrows. They needed plucking. “Especially if they get something out of it.”

Sexual favors. Cleo already owed him. “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t ask him to come back. There’s a lot of stuff you just don’t know and can’t understand.” And Cleo wasn’t telling.

BOOK: Mine Until Morning
5.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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