The Good Daughter (34 page)

Still holding the poetry book pressed to her chest, Kit walked to the window, where half the class was gathering again to watch the thick white flurries tumble down.

Delilah, she noticed, was one of the only ones at her desk, writing in her journal. The rest were at the windows, watching, talking, taking it all in.

Then the bell rang and the kids were tumbling to their feet, gathering their things, rushing off to the next class. As the last one left the room, Polly entered, holding a small, elegant square vase of white flowers—lilies, daisies, pom-poms, freesias. “You didn’t tell me you were still seeing Michael,” she said, placing the vase on Kit’s desk.

Kit’s skin began to crawl. “Did he bring them by the school himself?”

“No, they were delivered by a florist. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want them,” Kit said shortly. “He’s trying to buy me and I won’t be bought.”

“What are you talking about?”

“
Him.
Michael.” Kit crossed to the window, glanced out. The snow flurries had stopped. Outside, the world glittered brightly. The light dusting of white on the red-tiled roofs and hedges hadn’t yet melted, but for Kit, the magic was gone. She turned to face Polly. “But his name isn’t Michael. It’s Howard. Howard Dempsey.”

Polly stared blankly at her.

Kit folded her arms across her chest. “Delilah’s stepfather.”

Polly’s eyes opened wide, comprehension dawning. “Our Delilah.”

“Yes.”

“What’s he doing sending you flowers?”

“What’s he doing asking me out to dinner?”

“What a creep!” Polly’s voice sharpened. “What was he doing? Why would he pretend to be single? And then, why would he send his stepdaughter here, to school?”

“I don’t know. It’s weird. He’s weird. He’s all about games.”

“Have you told Sister?”

“No! Sister already doesn’t like him. Told me a couple weeks ago that she doesn’t trust him.”

“Good woman.”

“But I’m afraid to go to her because it’ll come back on Delilah, and she’s happy here—”

“Delilah, happy?”

“All right,
happier
here than she probably is at home.”

“Undoubtedly if she has a lying son of a bitch for a stepfather.” Polly reached into the flowers and extracted the small florist envelope. “Let’s see what dickhead said.” She opened the envelope, pulled out the card and read, “‘Time to finish what you started. Where and when? Jude.’”

“Jude?” Polly repeated, forehead wrinkling as she struggled to place the name, before her fair head snapped up. “Kit Brennan!”

Kit sat down on the counter. “Yes?”

“You haven’t. You didn’t. Oh, Kit! Tell me it’s not that Hells Angels guy.”

“He’s not a Hells Angel.”

Polly flung the card down on the desk. “First Michael, now Jude. Have you lost your mind?”

“You told me to go out with Michael—Howard—have to call him Howard. It pisses Jude off when I call him Michael—”

“How long have you been seeing Jude?”

Kit heard the way Polly said his name, as if it were something dirty and infinitely detestable. It would have been funny if she didn’t know Polly meant it. “Not really seeing him, Pol. Have just had coffee a couple of times this past week.”

“And you are going to sleep with him already?”

“I like him.”

“At least have him tested first! He’s probably rampant with every STD out there—”

“I’ll make sure he wears a condom, okay?”

Polly crossed the room, joining her at the window. “You’re really into this guy.”

Kit calmly met her gaze. “I am.”

“Wow. Your dad is going to flip his lid.”

“Here’s hoping he doesn’t find out.”

K
it texted Jude the address to her little Queen Anne house in Highland Park. He arrived at seven on his big burnt-orange bike, and even though he was wearing his usual leather and denim combination, he’d shaved for her and his hair was still damp from washing it. When he pulled her close to give her a kiss, he smelled like soap and aftershave and tasted like spearmint gum.

She liked it. Liked him. And even though he’d said the sex would be raw and hard and sweaty, it wasn’t anything like that.
He was sensual and physical and extremely patient in bed. He coaxed an orgasm from her when she was sure it wouldn’t happen, and not through tricks or toys or a skillful tongue, but the old-fashioned way—his body stretched out over her, hands holding hers down, his chest to her breast, rib to rib, hip to hip, with some seriously good moves and the ability to delay his own gratification.

“That,” she said later, when he held her wrapped in his arms, “was most impressive.”

He smiled. “I was beginning to think it might not be raw enough, or hard enough, for you.”

“Because it took me ten minutes to come?”

“Wasn’t ten minutes. Maybe six.”

She turned onto her side to look at him. “Did you mind working so hard?”

He smiled into her hair. “That wasn’t work, angel. That was fun.”

“No, but I know men don’t like it to take that long.”

“Says who?”

“Men.”

“Not this one.”

She lifted her head to better see his expression. “Can I tell you something?”

He smiled at her, smiling almost tenderly into her eyes. “I wish you would.”

“That was my first O, with someone, in four years.”

He wasn’t smiling any longer. “Don’t tell me that.”

She nodded, wrinkled her nose. “That’s why it was a lot of work for you.”

“Kit, it wasn’t a lot of work. Sex in general is fun, but with you…it’s amazing.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you.” He saw her expression and traced the fine arch of her eyebrow. “But just a little bit. So don’t go getting all
excited about a relationship. It’s not going to happen. I’m bad news…and still not boyfriend material.”

He was saying all the things he’d told her Sunday, except now his tone was gentle, almost teasing, and Kit wiggled closer, kissing him. It had been meant to be a sweet kiss, but all it took was him biting on her lower lip and sliding his hand up her side to cup her breast and she was ready for more.

“You’re a greedy little minx,” he said, rolling her under him. “And I think this time I can make you come in five.”

K
it saw Jude almost every night that week. He came to her house that first night, Tuesday, on his motorcycle, but the next two nights he arrived in a sedate blue sedan.

“Whose car is that?” she asked, standing on the porch Wednesday night and watching him head up her sidewalk, her insides full of butterflies. Jude was so damn hot, even climbing out of a late-model car.

“My mom’s.”

“You took your mom’s car?”

“It’s all right. I left her my bike.”

Kit laughed and entered the house, knowing Jude was close behind her. The moment the door shut, he locked it, and pulled her up against him, kissing her hard, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think and couldn’t protest when he slipped her sexiest pair of silk pajama pants off her body right there in the entry hall.

T
hursday night, Kit didn’t want Jude to leave. She never liked him leaving, but after three nights of amazing sex, she wanted more of him. More with him. She knew he’d said there wouldn’t be more, but would it be so wrong to ask?

“Don’t go,” she said as he climbed out of bed and stepped into his jeans.

“I have to go home. You know that.”

“Will you ever stay here with me all night?”

“I don’t sleep over.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t.”

She watched him pull on his gray thermal shirt and then another shirt and then he sat down on the edge of the bed to put on his socks and boots. “Do you do weekends away?”

He glanced at her, lifted an eyebrow.

She hadn’t drawn the curtains and the moonlight fell through the windowpanes of her upstairs bedroom, illuminating his firm features and strong profile.

“That’s not a no,” she said helpfully.

“Kit.”

“We could go to the beach house. In Capitola. No one’s there. You and me. Hang out for the weekend…eat, sleep, have sex…”

“I don’t do romance.”

“I know. And you don’t send flowers and you don’t make sure I climax before you do and you don’t make sure I get home safe every day from school.”

“You’re going to be disappointed, Kit—”

“Okay, fine. I will be. But I’m not disappointed yet, so…come to Capitola? I really want to sleep with you and play with you and hang out with you…”

“You’re making this a relationship.”

“I’m making this fun. And you’re having fun. So stop being such a hard-ass and all fierce and say, ‘Yes, Kit, I’d love to go to Capitola with you.’”

He pulled her onto his lap, kissed her. “Yes, Kit, I’d love to go to Capitola with you.”

“When? Next weekend.”

“Can’t next weekend.”

“How about this weekend? We could head down in my car, tomorrow, after I get out of school?”

He laughed softly. “Sure. Why not?”

T
he last time Kit had been to Capitola, it’d been mid-January and she’d gone with Polly for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, and she’d met Jude. Now it was the first weekend of March and she was going with Jude.

If Polly knew, she’d freak out.

Kit shuffled her feet where they were resting up on the dash, feeling close to freaking out herself. This is crazy, she thought, glancing at Jude, who was behind the wheel of her Prius. He looked rather ridiculous in the car. It was like having a werewolf drive a VW bug. Just didn’t work, didn’t make sense.

“You are so wiggly,” he drawled, stretching an arm out to play with her ponytail. “You’re like a little girl.”

Her feet did another nervous, excited shuffle. “Feel like a little girl,” she said, wondering what he’d do if she burst into song, singing Madonna’s eighties hit “Like a Virgin.” “This is crazy. I don’t do things like this.”

He looked amused. “I know.”

She liked how he touched her, his fingers sliding through her hair. It was sexy. But then he was sexy. And sex with him was, well, really sexy. She shifted again, pressing her knees together, trying to stay calm. It was almost impossible because everything about him turned her on.

Kit hadn’t thought it was even possible to be this physically attracted to someone. Jude did it for her. In a big, big way.

Her gaze slid from his left hand, where it rested on the steering wheel, to his thigh, and the way his worn jeans outlined the shape of his muscular quadriceps. “You’re perfectly welcome to touch me,” he drawled.

Kit blushed, shook her head, looked out the window. Traffic was barely crawling along. She hoped it’d ease up soon. She’d made dinner reservations for them at Cafe Sparrow in Aptos Village. She’d gone there with her sisters a couple of years ago on one of their Brennan Girls’ Getaways and she’d loved the food, and the setting—the building was historic, used to be the old post office. Its cozy two-room interior seemed so romantic that she’d vowed that one day she’d return with someone she felt romantic about. Interesting that she’d never taken Richard, but she couldn’t wait to go with Jude.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

She turned her head and looked at him. He was everything she shouldn’t want but did. “I’m just happy.”

“And why are you so happy, angel?”

She couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m with you.”

T
hey’d finished dinner and had driven back to the Capitola cottage, but after parking the Prius, decided to go for a walk along the beach. It was cold and a little windy but Jude had his arm around her and was keeping her tucked close to his side.

“I don’t understand why you’re still single, Kit Kat. I would have thought you’d be snatched up and married years ago.”

“It’s my own fault I’m still single. As my sister Meg used to say to me, it’s hard to meet the right man when you’re with the wrong one, and I was with the wrong one for a long, long time.”

“How long?”

“Ten years.”

“Were you married?”

“No. But we lived together. I moved in with him when I was almost thirty, moved out when I was almost forty. Talk about a decade of missed opportunities!” She was trying to be funny but instead it came out rather pathetic. “I wanted to get married, have kids…he didn’t.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“In the beginning.”

“And you still moved in with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I thought I could change him.”

Jude didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.

B
ut the next morning, after he had woken her up doing wickedly pleasurable things to her when she could put up absolutely no resistance, Jude wanted to talk about her relationship with Richard some more. “Ten years, Kit. That’s forever.”

“I know.”

“And the whole time you knew he had no intention of getting married?”

She pulled the covers up over her breasts, feeling exposed. “I guess I hoped he’d realize how much he loved me and change his mind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand either. It’s not something I’m proud of—”

“Was he rich? Powerful? Great-looking? A stud in bed?”

“None of the above.”

“So what was it?”

“Stability?”

Jude said nothing, so Kit pressed on, trying to explain. “Richard was an engineer. He had a good job and was smart and solid and I thought that was marriage material.”

“And yet he didn’t want to marry you.”

Kit bit into her lower lip. “No.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

She shrugged, looked away. “Because I did.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’re a smart woman. A very smart woman. Why would you spend ten years with someone who couldn’t—wouldn’t—give you what you wanted? What you needed?”

A lump filled her throat. Her eyes burned. “I should have moved out. I should have. But I felt like I’d invested so much…risked so much…so I stayed, hoping things would change. They didn’t.”

“That’s such a chickenshit way to live, angel.”

Kit blinked, clearing her vision. “I know.”

She stayed in bed another few minutes before throwing back the covers and heading into the bathroom to shower.