When Night Falls (23 page)

“I thought about it.”

“Dani said they were after you—some with marriage on their mind, and others who wanted to play.”

Shelly thought of Walter Whiteford exposing himself to her, as if she’d be hungry for the likes of him.

“I don’t owe you any explanations, Roman. I’ve got plenty to do without you interrupting me with talk all the time.” With that, she whipped another shirt out of the plastic bag and began fiercely ironing it.

“You sure don’t owe me anything,” Roman said softly as he stood watching her, his arms crossed. “But I’d like to help.”

She brushed away the tears burning her lids, her emotions frantically tumbling through her. She burned her hand and cried out, bringing the small wound to her mouth.

Then Roman took her hand, inspected it, and brought it to his chest. “I’m not much, Shelly, but I’m trying. I don’t know if the station is a go or not, but I’m not leaving this time—unless you tell me to.”

His eyes locked with hers and he brought her hand to his lips. The gesture was humble and honest. “That’s all it would take, Shell.”

When he turned and stood by the window, his hands braced against the countertop, his back stiff, she knew then that Roman probably needed redemption more than she needed her pride.

And she knew that she’d never stopped loving him
. “Thank you for the dishwasher,” she said quietly.

“Sure.”

Roman stared into the night and wished he could take back all the years, the bars and the women. He had absolutely nothing to give a woman who had paid so dearly.

But he’d work his heart out trying…

“H
ello, Everett. Nice night.” Taking care to let Rosy work her way up Uma’s front steps, Mitchell nodded to Everett. Uma’s ex-husband sat on the front porch; his oak rocker creaking on the painted wood. The glass of iced tea at his side said Uma had been hospitable; Mitchell wasn’t expecting any real welcome, yet he had to see Uma.

Images of her passionate anger at the garage stormed at him, generating an uneasiness that she would never speak to him again.

Whoever had tried to hurt Rosy had also served Uma a warning with that bullet; and he was definitely going to tuck Uma under his protection, too—if she accepted his apology or not. He wasn’t letting whoever prowled Madrid and knew the habits and lives of the city hurt Uma.
Who could it be?

Everett, as an unseated potential lover-husband, was a definite suspect to serve Uma a warning, but not to hurt her.

“Took you long enough. I thought you’d show up, and I wanted to be here when you did.” Everett flung into the hot, honeysuckle-sweet August night. His usually neat hair was standing out in peaks and he hadn’t shaved, his tie askew on his short-sleeved dress shirt. Mitchell recognized the omi
nous signs of Everett’s bad temper; on the other hand in the last three hours of mulling at his house, Mitchell had shaved and dressed carefully. While pasting toilet paper on the tiny shaving cuts caused by his concern for Uma, he’d practiced his apologies to the mirror, and tried to put a logical spin on his actions as he tried to explain to Rosy.

His logical spin was very important, because Uma had to understand that he took care of himself. He didn’t need a nurturer and a fixer; he needed Uma, his lover.

On the other hand, he’d hurt her. That was unforgivable, and he felt like a lowdown cur.

But then, a man had his pride. He couldn’t have a woman meddling in his life. Once the rules of who stepped where were established, Mitchell intended to share Uma’s bed every night. The segment in
The Smooth Moves List
on “Make-Up Sex” taunted him. He really needed to reach that bonding, to know that lovemaking with Uma had really happened.

The taste of her skin, her body swirled around him, those soft, hungry sounds had pursued him all day, contrasting with the pain in her expression when he’d ordered her to “get out.”

Then her anger at the garage had shocked him.

Mitchell frowned at his highly polished shoes. Women’s volatility and moods weren’t something that had mattered and he sensed that what preceded the make-up sex, referenced in her book, was very, very important. He wasn’t that easy to stun, and Uma the lover, Uma the hurt, and Uma the angry had battled across his mind all day. He’d snarled at Roman’s sensitivity lecture, Lonny’s silent accusations, and every time he looked at the dent in his pickup, smeared with Uma’s car’s red paint, he knew she had declared war.

By evening, Shelly’s jab and the ominous fruitcake-baking warning had made him see how badly Uma ached. When a woman resorted to making fruitcake, the circumstances might be critical.

He just wanted to hold Uma—and keep her safe. If she wouldn’t let him near her, he couldn’t protect her.

If she didn’t let him near her, he couldn’t make love with her.

Careful of the peacemaking bag of Chinese fortune cookies he’d brought and letting Rosy plop onto the front doormat as he held her leash, Mitchell eased into the rocking chair next to Everett. Mitchell felt like a schoolboy about to be lectured. He wasn’t certain how he liked that served by an ex-husband.

“I ought to beat you to a pulp,” Everett snarled. “She’s all worked up in there. You hurt her somehow. She’s a good woman and she says she has feelings for you. She told me so last night at Pearl’s.”

Get out
. Mitchell’s words echoed in the night as the cat came to sit on the railing, yellow eyes studying the two men, tail twitching slowly as if watching a game to be played. Rosy snorted as if in agreement.

And within his home, Mitchell sensed that Lauren wasn’t happy, either. The house had a closed feel to it, as if she had shut him away for hurting Uma. Mitchell shook his head; dealing with Uma, all revved and angry, and the sensations that Lauren might possibly still be in the house and not happy with him were enough to make him take a bracing drink while getting ready. He’d managed tough boardrooms; he decided he could manage two women, one alive and one not, who somehow managed to make him feel like a guilty brute-clod.

The cat had pushed the glass off the counter, breaking it.

On Uma’s front porch, Mitchell stretched his taut neck within his collar. He had the uneasy sense that Lauren used the cat to transmit her feelings. Women and eerie sensations were enough to throw a man off-balance. That unsettling softness within him didn’t feel right, not like a man’s clear-cut emotions would feel.

When he walked into a board meeting, he was usually prepared with alternatives which would still get him what he
wanted. However, this wasn’t a business meeting. He’d wounded her and he’d have to apologize.

He had to apologize
delicately
, and yet firmly hold his line that she didn’t step into some areas of his life. With Uma, that balance might be impossible. Her weapons weren’t graphs and reports and surveys. Her actions all came from her heart.

“What’s this about Uma baking fruitcakes?” he asked Everett.

“It’s not good,” the other man replied flatly.

A screen door creaked at the MacDougals’ and Everett said, “Old Edgar is watering his wife’s roses. At least he has a wife. I’ve been waiting years for Uma to see that we belong together. Then
you
come into town, and you don’t have one damn intention of marrying her. I’ve waited twelve years since our divorce for her to realize that we are meant to be together.
Twelve years, and I don’t regret a minute of being her friend, but I am going to be her husband again
. I heard about today—how she ran you down. Lonny said she was hot-tempered. Uma never gets angry or frazzled; she’s a very safe driver, and Sissy said that Uma rounded the corner from Main to Maloney on two squealing tires. Someone has to protect her from you, and I’m that someone.”

Mitchell stared at the cat. Uma hadn’t exactly been in control last night—neither had he.

Apparently Everett was just getting worked up, his face tight with anger reflected by the rest of his body. Mitchell ran through the consequences of brawling with Everett—Uma’s lifelong friend. They were a couple; he was an outsider trying to get an edge…rather, possession of Uma.

Everett’s expression said he knew that Mitchell was determined to be a solid contender for Uma in round two. “You’re pure trouble, and everyone in town knows it.”

The door creaked open and from behind the screen Uma said, “Shoo. Get off my porch, both of you. The whole neighborhood is watching.”

Mitchell turned, with his best smile, and found Uma scowling at him, a streak of flour across her cheek. She was definitely still simmering.

“No,” Everett answered as the scent of baking cakes swirled out into the night. “I’m staying right here until I know you’re okay.
He
can leave.”

Mitchell wasn’t going anywhere until he saw Uma and spoke to her—privately. He’d handled this morning wrong and knew it, and he didn’t want Everett seeing him grovel. Uma was worth groveling over, though—but Everett was not included in the sorting-out mélée. “I could, but I won’t, not until I’ve talked to Uma.”

Uma stepped out from the screen door, holding it as if for protection. The circles beneath her eyes said she hadn’t rested, her skin pale as her eyes flashed gray steel at him. Had he done that to her? Made her afraid of being hurt?

She looked down at Rosy, who had refused to leave the comfortable doormat, and blocked the full opening of the door. “I’ll call Lonny.”

Mitchell took in the flour on her hair, that precious little topknot, the tendrils swirling around her flushed face. He watched that delectable pulse throb in her throat and traced the flour dust over her checkered shirt and jeans and sandals, over the curves he wanted to hold close to him. He knew instinctively that deep inside her was the warmth and oneness that he craved.

Oneness
. He wanted that all the time with her, not just sexual.

Not just sexual
, he repeated mentally. She’d ruined him for other women—of course it was sexual, but it was different, too. And he didn’t like being vulnerable. “You just do that. I’m sure the neighbors would like excitement.”

The cat twitched his tail, waiting and watching the two men.

The door slammed and silence circled the front porch;
Mitchell hoped she would offer him a glass of tea. He’d never wanted an indication of welcome so badly in his entire lifetime.

“I’ve loved her all my life,” Everett said slowly, fiercely. He reached to grab the sack of fortune cookies, dropped them to the porch, and stomped on them.

“Take it easy, Everett,” Mitchell warned softly as Rosy grunted and stood, happily rooting through the plastic sack to the crushed sweets.

Everett’s blue eyes blazed. “Just what’s going to be left of her pride when you decide to move on, Warren? You going to desert, are you? You don’t come from people who stick around.”

“Lay off,” Mitchell warned again. He’d heard enough about his mother. Also, Tessa’s eye-opening jolt this morning, combined with Uma’s hissy fit, were riffling his emotions. In a boardroom, he could close any discussion he wanted, if he wanted. Uma, on the other hand, acted because she cared with a nurturer’s instincts, and he would be that brute-clod if he didn’t find a way to negotiate an interaction with her—a oneness sort of discussion and an amenable finalization to the negotiations, which he hoped would end in make-up sex, concluding any more riffs in their alliance.

Everett lurched to his feet, the rocking chair he had vacated continued rocking and creaking. “Go away. The whole town is gossiping about how you were involved with Lauren’s death, yet you have the nerve to—”

Mitchell heard a warning trigger cock inside him. He stood slowly, facing Everett. “I had nothing to do with that.”

Everett’s fists clenched at his sides. “I was wrong to leave Uma when the baby was due, and wrong to be gone so much after Christina died. I understood how empty she felt later, how when her father had a heart attack she wanted to stay here—and I made a bad mistake. But I always knew that Uma and I were meant for each other. She knows it, too.
With her father away, I’ll take care of her. You’re not wanted here.”

“Let her tell me that.”

“Don’t you get it? She feels sorry for you,” Everett shot back, as Roman’s motorcycle purred to the sidewalk and Dani hopped off. Holding a small sack, she raced up the sidewalk and the steps.

“She’s out of brown sugar and eggs. Mom sent some over,” Dani panted as she glanced at the two men, facing each other. “Hi, Rosy,” she said, bending to scratch the pig’s head. She hurried into the house, and after nodding at the men, Roman looked up, suddenly interested in the stars.

Everett’s temper showed in the vein in his temple, and Mitchell knew his wasn’t far behind. Both men smiled tightly at Dani as she eased back out between them and hopped on Roman’s bike.

With a look that said Mitchell would have to handle his own hot-tempered woman problems and his mistakes, Roman eased the bike into the darkness.

“You’re leaving,” Everett said tightly, his fists balled at his sides. “Now.”

“Am I?” Mitchell smiled just enough to show that he wasn’t going anywhere until he was ready, until he’d had his say with Uma—to tell her that he’d try not to act so hard-nosed about his private life, but that it was his own.

He watched Everett draw back his fist, prepared to block it—and then saw Uma peering through the lace at window.

Mitchell took the punch and knew he deserved it as he held Rosy’s leash. He also hoped it would buy him some time with Uma. In bargaining negotiations, a loss could mean a good gain.

The connection stunned at first, and Mitchell allowed himself to waver just enough, before crumpling to the porch. He moved aside slightly because Rosy was rooting for more crumbs close to his face.

Uma was outside and Everett was hurriedly explaining—“Uma, I didn’t hit him hard enough to—”

“You can help me get him into the house and then you must leave, Everett,” she ordered primly.

Certain that his sacrifice had won him the prize—a few moments with Uma—Mitchell forced his pleased smile into an aching groan.

“I thought you might be pruning roses—when you’re like this,” Mitchell said warily as he sat in Uma’s kitchen with a washcloth filled with ice cubes on his jaw.

“Like this?” she challenged instantly. She was still angry with him, and because she wasn’t a vengeful kind of woman and because Mitchell had changed her, Uma frowned at him. Whatever Mitchell stirred in her, she wasn’t on the outside of life looking in—she was in the center of the storm and enjoying the battle.

“Looks like you’re working out a problem.”

“I am. A big one—you.” She had a computer full of work, a newspaper column due, stacks of paperwork, and because of Mitchell, she was baking fruitcake.

Several men in Madrid had chosen today to make themselves perfectly horrible. There was Mitchell’s “Get out,” and Everett’s firm argument that she needed his protection, and then there was Walter.

Pearl’s husband had decided that Uma needed his studly service—since it was apparently obvious to the entire town of Madrid that her years of abstaining from sex had ended.

Uma tore open a carton of mixed candied fruit and plopped it into a bowl, jabbing it with a wooden spoon. She’d managed for years to be retiring, helpful, and non-combative. Now she felt like taking up a sword and shield and issuing a Valkyrie call to announce that Mitchell had ended a sexual fast she didn’t even know she’d had. She had two choices: to explore the new Uma…or not.
Who was she?

After seeing her this morning, running back to her house and crying and wearing Mitchell’s too-large clothing, the neighbors had quickly spread the gossip. They had added, of course, that Mitchell’s former “painted woman” had come to claim him and that was what had hurt Uma after spending the night with him.