Shocking Pink (21 page)

At Andie’s words, the fire drained out of the woman. “I know. They say the gun was in her hands…that she…that she shot him five times.”

“Because she feared for her life. Don’t forget that, Mrs. Turpin. It wasn’t murder, it was self-defense.”

The woman nodded, eyes bright with tears. “I will. Thank you.”

Andie drew a careful breath. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I suppose.”

“Did you know Edward was an abusive husband?”

The woman looked away. “Yes, I knew.”

“Did you urge your daughter to leave him?”

Rose Turpin shook her head. “No, I…” She spread her hands. “He was a good provider. An important man. I just thought, if she tried harder, if she… He would…stop.”

Andie counted to three before responding. She wasn’t in the judgment business. She was here to help and support. “Ed’s abuse,” she said softly, “was about
him,
Mrs. Turpin. Not about your daughter. Ed Pierpont was ill, and nothing your daughter did invited that kind of treatment.”

An awkward silence fell between them; Andie acknowledged that the time had come to go. She stood. “The tea was delicious, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Will you…come by again?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to look in on Patti. If she needs to talk in the meantime, here’s my card.” Andie dug one out of her purse and handed it to Rose. “You can reach me anytime, day or night. Don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you, Dr. Bennett.” Mrs. Turpin walked her to the door. There, Andie turned and met her eyes once more. “As far as you know, from what you observed, was Ed a good father?”

“I suppose so. He seemed like most fathers.”

“Was he ever abusive to Patti? Did Martha ever say?”

“I don’t think so,” she said after a moment. “I mean…no, I’m sure he wasn’t. Martha wouldn’t have stood for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. She wouldn’t allow it. She told me more than once that if Edward ever laid a hand on Patti, she would get Patti away from him. No matter the cost.”

Andie thanked the woman and walked away, wondering if that cost had been Edward Pierpont’s life.

“I
t’s awful, Andie. Just awful.” Julie bopped into Andie’s office, flopped onto the couch and gazed up at the ceiling. “That poor woman. From what I’ve heard, her husband deserved what he got.” She glanced over at Andie. “Raven thinks so, too.”

Andie shook her head. Julie had been doing that since they were kids, using Raven’s opinion to validate her own. “So she said.”

“It’s all anybody can talk about. Did you see? You’ve been mentioned in the paper every day. For the past week.”

“Don’t remind me, it hasn’t been great for business. Besides, the whole thing is too much like… Never mind.”

“What?” Julie eased onto her side and met Andie’s eyes. “Too much like the past?”

Julie said that so easily. But she hadn’t been here; she didn’t know what it had been like to be stared at and whispered about everywhere she went. Julie didn’t realize just how long the memories in Thistledown, Missouri, were. “Yeah, the past.”

“Well, I think it’s kind of cool.” Julie returned her gaze to the ceiling. “Is this where your patients tell you all their secrets?” She snuggled into the sumptuous leather. “I could live on a couch like this.”

“Some of my patients think they do.” Andie smiled, amused and charmed by her friend. It had been fun having Julie back in town. It had been like old times, the three of them acting more like teenagers than grown women with responsibilities.

Especially Julie. Of the three of them, Julie had changed the least in the past fifteen years. She had long ago exchanged her glasses for contacts, but other than that she seemed every bit the giddy teenager at thirty she had been at fifteen.

In her tight blue jeans and clingy T-shirt, her mane of long blond hair streaked and tousled, she looked the part, too.

But Andie knew the problems, and the pain, Julie’s flighty, devil-may-care exterior masked.

“How are you doing?” Andie asked her.

“Great. Fabulous.” Julie folded her arms behind her head. “Raven’s been a dream. She’s better to me than a mother.”

Coddling her. Clucking over her like a mother hen.
Fine for a while, Andie thought. But in the long run, it wasn’t an answer to Julie’s problems.

“I got an apartment, did you know? Raven helped me with that, too. I’m going to pay her back.”

“Really?”

“No, I am.” Julie sat up and swung her legs over the side of the couch. She fluffed her hair. “I have a job interview today. At the country club. The guy I talked with on the phone said that with my experience, I should have no problem being hired.”

“Waitress?”

“No, bartender at the club bar. He said they make great tips.” She laughed and fluffed her hair again. “At least the young, cute ones do. I think I still qualify, don’t you?”

Andie made a sound of concern. “The bar? Oh, Julie, I don’t know about that.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Andie. But I’ve given up men. I have. I’m a changed woman.”

“Julie, honey, you can’t just
give up
an addi…” Andie let the words trail off. What she wanted to tell her was, you couldn’t just give up an addiction. Even one you denied you had.

Andie had realized several years back that Julie was a sex addict. She had made her diagnosis during one of Julie’s between-marriage visits, when she had been home long enough for Andie to spend some time with her. Julie used men and sex the way other addicts used pills or booze. As a way to forget, to validate, to escape. And like many addicts, Julie wasn’t ready to admit she had a problem, not one that had a hold of her anyway.

Andie had been heartsick at the realization and had tried to talk to her friend about it. Julie had become defensive, she’d retreated deeply into denial and accused Andie of being jealous. Because Andie had never been married. Because men didn’t like Andie the way they liked her. Because Andie wasn’t as sexy, as open, as fun.

Her friend’s words had cut Andie to the core, and hard feelings had been between them for months. Andie had decided then and there that friendship and therapy didn’t mix. If Julie ever admitted she had a problem, Andie would be the first to try to help. She would recommend a therapist; she would even pay for her friend’s sessions. Until that time, however, she would look the other way, supporting Julie as best she could without enabling her addiction. And without having to push the issue.

“Good for you, Julie,” she said, forcing a smile. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I know you don’t think I can do it, but I can. I’m done with cruising.” She took a deep breath, excited, almost manic. “I’ve turned my life around, Andie. I’m here with you and Raven. You guys are all I need.”

At Andie’s silence, she laughed, undaunted. “Just you wait. I’ll show both of you. You’re looking at the brand-new Julie Cooper.”

T
he bar was empty. It usually was this time of day during the week, Julie had discovered. On weekdays, women populated the club early in the day and over the lunch hour, men in the late afternoon and early evening. The couples and the die-hard drinkers came in at night.

Julie’s favorite time of day was when the men started filtering in off the golf course. They were boisterous and raunchy; they made her laugh and left her great tips.

But it was so much more than that. She liked men, and they liked her. It had always been that way. Raven and Andie didn’t understand that. They didn’t understand what it was like for her. It was almost as if she were a lightbulb, men the switch. They lit her up, they turned her on. Around the opposite sex was the only time Julie felt special.

Of course, those late-afternoon hours offered her more of an opportunity to score. They would, anyway, if she was still doing that.

She wasn’t.

Annoyed with her thoughts, Julie grabbed the TV remote and started surfing. Talk show. Talk show. Cartoons. Bad soap. She muttered an oath and switched off the TV.

Nothing to take her mind off sex.

Or rather, her current lack of it.

Julie breathed deeply through her nose, a jittery, nervous sensation in the pit of her stomach. It had been five weeks since she’d had a man. Five weeks without the mindless, exhilarating rush she got from scoring. She was going crazy. She couldn’t eat or sleep, she thought about sex constantly. She thought about doing it with every man who came into the bar, even the fat, bald ones.

She was almost out of control.

No, she wasn’t. Julie squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t acted on her thoughts. That meant she was in control. All she had to do was keep saying no, keep focusing on Raven and Andie and the promises she had made to them both.

She could do this. Raven said she could. And Raven knew everything; she always had. All Julie had to do was lean on her friend, and everything would be all right.

“Hi. You open for business?”

Julie opened her eyes. A man, tall, dark-haired and stunningly handsome in his tennis whites, sauntered into the bar. Julie smiled, the jittery sensation moving straight south. “Sure am.” She set a coaster in front of him. “What would you like?”

The man—she guessed him to be somewhere in his mid-forties—returned her smile, his gaze sliding from her eyes to her chest. “That’s a rather loaded question.”

She laughed and flipped her hair over her shoulder, knowing she was coming on to him but helpless to stop herself. “To drink, I mean. What can I get you?”

“A beer’s good,” he murmured, bringing his gaze back to hers. “Draft.”

“You got it.” She took a mug from the freezer, filled it and set the foaming beverage in front of him. As she did, she looked him directly in the eyes. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Maybe.” His smile promised heaven on earth. Julie found herself mesmerized by it and by his hypnotic blue gaze. “You’re new here.”

She leaned against the bar, a telltale twitch of awareness between her legs. “Just started a few days ago. Everybody’s been real friendly.”

“That’s us. Given the opportunity, we can be real friendly.” He looked at her name tag. “So, where you from, Julie?”

“Most recently, California. Originally, Thistledown.”

“Came running home to mama?”

“No.” She shifted slightly and the crotch of her jeans rubbed against her clitoris. The sensation all but took her breath. “I burned out on the California scene, and I have friends here.”

Just then a group of men entered the bar. They caught sight of the man and howled. “David,” one roared, “you wuss! Should have known you’d be in here, dressed in your pretty whites, instead of out with the real men on the course.”

“What real men?” he shot back, laughing, unperturbed.

The rowdy group, several of whom she already recognized both as regulars and heavy drinkers, took a table in the corner. They had, obviously, been drinking for some time already.

“Julie—” one motioned the table “—beers all around, babe.”

“Coming right up, guys.” She looked apologetically at David. “Duty calls.”

He leaned toward her, eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. “Uncivilized beasts, aren’t they?”

She wetted her lips. “Uncivilized can be good. Depending on the time and place.”

He slid his gaze to her breasts again, then lower, to the vee of her thighs, outlined clearly in her tight white jeans. She caught her breath, immediately on fire. Aching. Wet.

He leaned toward her. “Uncivilized can be dangerous, Julie. You like it dangerous?”

“Come on, babe,” one of the guys from the corner table called. “We’re dying of thirst here. And, David, man, get your ass over here. You’re keeping Julie from her work.”

He shot her a quick smile, then started toward the men.

She watched him go, then busied herself getting beers for the table, cursing herself as she did. Why had she said those things? She had all but offered herself to him right there.

What was wrong with her? She wasn’t doing that anymore. She wasn’t.

She brought the tray of beers to the table, then stood and talked to the guys a while, laughing and flirting, the whole time focused on David’s silence, his speculative gaze on her, on the electricity that seemed to crackle between them.

Talk at the table died an awkward death. It was as if the other men had suddenly noticed the current between her and David. Her cheeks flamed, and she took a step backward, mumbling something about needing to get set up for the evening crowd.

She walked back to the bar, aware of the men’s gazes on her ass as she did. Aware of David’s gaze. She swallowed hard, excited, feeling about to burn up. She had promised Raven she was finished with her previous life. She had promised Andie she would be careful, that she would think before she got involved with another man.

She was the new, improved Julie Cooper. She had made it five weeks. She couldn’t give in now; the hardest part was behind her.

She wanted the hardest part inside her.

Julie began to sweat and grabbed a rag and began wiping down the bar. No more men, she told herself sternly. No cruising for sex. No more.

From the corner table came a burst of laughter. She could pick out David’s laugh, could feel it. It rippled along her nerve endings, deep, exciting. Full of promise.

She pressed herself against the corner of the bar well; if she moved just so, the top of a bottle brushed against her crotch. She imagined it was David’s hand, David’s finger. She imagined it was his nose as he buried his tongue deep inside her.

She thought of her friends, her promise to them. Her throat tightened with tears, despair. She could do it. Raven said so. Raven said this was her chance to turn her life around. All she had to do was try. All she had to do was say no.

Even as she told herself not to, she glanced at the men, at David. He was different, she thought. Special. She didn’t know why, but he was. Call it instinct or a premonition. But she had a feeling about him. That they were connected somehow, that they were meant to meet.

That he would change her life.

She struggled to breathe evenly. She had told herself that before, Julie reminded herself. Hadn’t she? With husband number one, two and three, with countless men in between.

She turned her back to the group, pretending to be straightening the bottles of liqueurs. She reminded herself of her failed marriages. She called herself the names she had been called by countless others, starting with her father. Whore. Slut. Jezebel. Cunt.

The words hurt. She hated them, hated that they were true.

And they were true. She knew it, so why fight what she was? She would never win, never be anything better than what she was.

Julie turned and looked at the table of men again. As if sensing her gaze, David looked up. Even as she told herself to look the other way, she smiled—her “yes” smile, the one that left no question about what she wanted.

“I have to visit the stockroom,” she announced, dragging her gaze from David’s and directing it to the entire table, her words sounding forced and false even to her own ears. “Anybody need anything? I’ll be a few minutes.”

They didn’t and she exited the bar, counting every step, her legs feeling at once leaden and featherlight. She reached the stockroom, unlocked it and went inside, leaving the door ajar.

As she had hoped he would, David followed her. She turned and faced him, breathing hard, a feeling of fate, of inevitability, rolling over her like thunder.

He closed and bolted the door behind him. “So, little Julie,” he said softly, “tell me now. Do you like it dangerous?”

She took a step toward him, sweat beading on her upper lip, rolling between her breasts. She brought her hands to the waistband of his shorts, first to the button, then the zipper. As she brought herself to her knees, she lifted her gaze to his. “What do you think?”

A moment later, at nothing more than the feel of him in her mouth, she came violently. In that moment, she remembered what it was to be alive, vibrantly, exhilaratingly alive.

And she remembered what it was like to be dead.

Julie Cooper was a dead woman.