Lynnette Kent - Now That You're Here

Tommy shook his head. “Falcon pulled some of that shit on us, remember? Gave us money, then tried to push rehab. I’m not going that route no more. I’m thinking it’s too big a pain, just avoiding him.”

“Then you’re not hungry enough.” Harlow looked at Ryan. “What do you think? You up for some decent meals?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a good deal.” He smiled, a sweet little boy’s smile that reminded Harlow of his younger brother at home. “But what do I eat in the meantime?”

His eyes were big circles of brown with tiny black dots in the middle, his face white and dirty and sick-looking. He would need another hit in an hour or so. That would use up their last ten bucks.

Time for a couple hours of spanging. Hanging out near the financial district downtown, asking the suits for spare change, they always got enough for a burger or two each. Harlow put his arm around Ry’s shoulders and gave Tommy a punch on the shoulder. “Like always, I got the answer to that, my man. You just stick with me.”

JIMMY HADN’T FAILED to notice that Emma was keeping to her promise, as far as their working together was concerned. She spoke and laughed with him if he came into the kitchen, said a friendly good-night when he walked her out to the cab he made sure was waiting when the club closed. Just as she’d predicted, they had developed a polite, uninvolved employer-employee relationship.

Too bad he had to work so damn hard to keep it that way.

Sunday night’s crowd was thin and not very hungry. Jimmy leaned back against the bar a little after midnight, listening to the music, thinking about closing up early. Then Emma stepped up beside him.

“This band is quite good.”

He nodded, trying not to take too deep a breath, needing to avoid getting caught by that scent she used. “There’s a recording contract in the near future. Another year, and they’ll be too busy to play here.”

“You had something to do with that, I think.”

“I made a phone call. The music did the rest.”

She glanced at him, moved a step closer. “You must know some very influential people in the recording business.”

Easing back, he shrugged. “I played drums for a year or so with a band that wasn’t very good. After we broke up, one of the guys went back to the family business…which happens to be producing and recording. I let him know when something sounds good, he comes out from L.A. and we have a few drinks together while he listens. Not a big deal.”

The band moved into a slow number, showcasing the piano’s heavy chords and the sax’s sweet wail. Two couples at a nearby table got up to dance. Emma stirred, swayed slightly to the beat.

No. Jimmy threw himself a mental punch. The last thing you want to do is dance. Get a drink, tell a joke. Just walk off.

But he found himself looking at her when she turned his way. “Want to dance, Emma?” As soon as the words were out, he cursed himself for a fool.

She stared at him with caution in her eyes. Damned if he did or if he didn’t at this point, Jimmy grinned. “No strings. Just a friendly employer-employee conference…out on the floor.”

“Will it bother your hip?”

He took her hand and pulled her with him onto the small parquet square in front of the stage. “No.” Only a minor lie. He could handle anything from Emma Garrett except pity. “Let’s dance.”

Graceful they weren’t. His stiff hip threw their rhythm off. After one brush with Emma’s knees and thighs and breasts, Jimmy kept air between their bodies. His reaction to her softness was an echo of urges twenty years past.

And yet…completely in the present. Emma at eighteen had been a tall, thin, pale-skinned girl with unruly red hair, totally different from anyone he’d ever known. That uniqueness alone had been fascinating.

Emma at thirty-eight was a full-bodied temptress whose creamy skin and gold-red hair glowed, even under the harsh fluorescent lights in the kitchen. He’d met enough women in the past twenty years to make comparisons—she was still unique. And still fascinating.

Holding her away from him allowed them to talk. Jimmy went with the flow of his thoughts. “So what’s happened to you in two decades, Emma? You got your degree. And then?”

“Another degree. And another. Academic life is addictive.”

“If you say so.” High school had been more than he could take, though he’d stayed in long enough to graduate. Because Emma had wanted him to. “What’d you study?”

“History—British colonial history, actually, with an emphasis on relations between the Crown and the indigenous peoples of America.”

“Indians, you mean?” He grinned at her raised eyebrow. “I don’t have to be politically correct. You said you taught college. In England?”

“At Cambridge, yes, then Edinburgh and Toronto. I spent two years at Harvard on a fellowship.”

That hit him in the chest. “I’ve got a Harvard professor cooking in my kitchen?”

She looked away, toward the band. “An ex-professor.” Her freckles darkened over a sweet rose blush. “I…um…was sacked about six months ago. Dismissed.” The rose deepened to a splotched red.

His mind took a second to catch up. “You mean fired?” Emma nodded. “Why?”

With a soft glissando on the piano, the music ended. The bandleader said good-night, and the couples around them began to leave. Emma stepped back, needing to get away. Needing to avoid Jimmy’s very reasonable, completely unanswerable question.

He kept hold of her arms, drawing her close again. “Why did you get fired, Emma? Too many parties? You couldn’t get up in time for your eight-o’clock classes?”

Without looking at him, she pushed against his chest, against the solid muscles under a deceptively soft black shirt. His hands retained their strong grip on her elbows.

“I wrote a paper,” she said softly, desperately. “Had it accepted for publication in a major journal, was getting ready to be promoted to department head at an exclusive New England school. Just before I was to present the findings at a conference, the truth came out.”

“Truth?”

“The central conclusions of my paper, the most important parts of the entire project, were based on a recently recovered set of letters, written from the colonies to England in the eighteenth century. I’d been reading for information about native cooperation with the English, but I discovered a remarkable peripheral thread.”

“Yeah?”

“The letters revealed a traitor on the English military staff during the French and Indian war. The spy kept the opposing armies apprised of the movements of English troops. The fact that he was connected to some very highly placed figures in the governments of England and France widened the conspiracy. Or so I thought. The truly vital letters were found to be…to be…” She dragged in a breath. “Forged.”

After a few moments of silence, Jimmy’s hands softened. “Who did it?”

She threw her head back to stare at him. “The presumption is that I did, of course.”

His grin was cynical, knowing. “Sure. But who really did the forging?”

Now she couldn’t look at him at all. “That’s the truly pitiful part. The forgery was discovered by Eric Jeffries, my…my colleague on th-the project. And…” Her voice did not want to work. “And my fiancé.”

Jimmy muttered something under his breath.

When she pulled this time, he let her go. “It doesn’t really matter who forged the letters. As a historian, I should have been certain of the evidence and its provenance. I didn’t check deeply enough, and for that mistake alone I deserved to lose my post.”

He followed her into the kitchen. “Everybody makes a mistake once in a while. Some of us make more than one.”