Chapter 15
Cheri’s whole being flooded with raw sexual sensation, painful need, crazy jumbled feelings of love and desire and regret and hope, all while she felt J.J.’s hands tighten their grip on her ass.
His lips were hot, slippery, first rough then achingly tender, then back again. His lips were everything. The feel of his rock-solid waist clasped between her thighs was heaven. The taste of him. The smell of him—it was all just right. And the heat shooting from his body—it had burned through the layers of caution, questions, and common sense. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Cheri told herself she wasn’t being smart, that things weren’t unfolding the way she’d planned—not with J.J., or Tanyalee, or Viv and Granddaddy. Not with the paper. Not with the lake house. Not with the way her heart was cracking open with the force of this place, this little town in the mountains, its memories and ghosts.
By the time Cheri felt her body being laid upon the bed, she told herself she was no victim. This wasn’t all J.J.’s doing. This was something she’d agreed to—no, demanded—the second she’d grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his mouth down on hers.
She wouldn’t lie—she wanted this. She’d always wanted this. She’d always wanted J.J.
She’d always belonged to him.
“Cheri,” he mumbled as he dragged his lips up her cheek and over her ear, down her throat, and down into the valley between her breasts.
“Cheri,” he said again, just before he clamped his teeth on the nipple threatening to poke through the worn fabric of her camisole.
“Cheri,” he groaned, as his hands ran the length of her sides and over her hips and across her belly.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Oh, God, yesss. Please!”
“You like that, don’t you?” J.J. asked.
“Yes,” she groaned. “I like everything.”
She heard and felt J.J. chuckle. Soon he’d pulled himself up so that his face hovered over hers in the palest light. His fingertips pushed away a sliver of hair that had stuck to her damp cheek.
“You like it when I call you Cheri.” J.J.’s lips curled up when he made that statement—it sure wasn’t a question. “You like it because it reminds you of who you once were and who you are still—a sweet, fun, smart, beautiful, real young woman with a whole lifetime ahead of her.”
Cheri took a gasp of air. She blinked. She stared at J.J.’s face. There was no teasing there, no snarkiness. It was not the face of a man who was toying with her.
It was the face of a man who wanted her to know she was safe, that she could be herself in his company. That she was loved.
“You never answered my question, Jefferson Jackson,” she whispered, feeling her chest and belly tremble with the significance of what she was about to ask. She could hardly believe she had the guts to utter the words—not once, but twice in one night. “So … is it true?” Cheri waited, the breath she needed to ask the full question suddenly not available to her. “Did you—”
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“Absolutely not—I never stopped loving you. Ever.” J.J. ran his fingertips over her bottom lip, then leaned in and nipped that puffy lip with his teeth. “And I never will. You can count on it.”
It wasn’t what she wanted—in fact, she’d fought all night to stop it from happening—but Cheri felt a tear run sideways down her face.
“Ah, baby. You’re crying.”
“What? I am not! I don’t cry.”
J.J. chuckled, leaving a sweet kiss on her lips, then several more along the path taken by her stray tear, from the corner of her eye to her hairline.
“Nothing wrong with a good cry now and again. Cleans away the cobwebs in the heart.”
Cheri felt herself frowning. “You tellin’ me I got cobwebs in my heart?”
J.J. offered her a crooked smile. “Hell, yeah, you do. We all do sometimes.”
“And you’re gonna help me do some spring cleaning?”
J.J. leaned his head back and laughed. “Absolutely. And when we’re done with your heart we’ll get to this place—we’ll paint the walls and find you something to sit on and put your clothes in. It’s not too late to plant some annuals if you want. And you’ve already got a whole mess of irises coming up in the back. Did you see them?”
That’s when she just plain gave up. Cheri let the tears flow until she felt her back spasm and heard her own sobs. It was too much—that J.J. loved her was mind-blowing enough, but that he’d want her to be happy and help her paint and even noticed there were irises in the back? It was all too much.
His arms went around her and slipped under her back. She felt him roll so that she lay on top of him. Cheri buried her face in the crook of J.J.’s neck as he squeezed her tight.
He held her as she cried. Then cried some more.
* * *
“I said I’m not in the mood, babe.”
Tanyalee chuckled, nibbling his neck again. “But I know how to get you there real quick-like.”
Wim spun around in his home office chair. “Are you deaf? I said not tonight.”
“Well.” Tanyalee straightened and put her hands on her hips. Truly, she could not remember the last time Wim had said no to sex, and she didn’t much like it. Besides, saying no was her trump card. “Bad day at the office, honey?”
Wim released a half sigh, half laugh and shook his head. “Are you trying to be funny? Because I assure you, losing four contracts in one day is nothing to laugh at.”
She threw up her hands, disgusted that she’d showered, shaved, and reapplied her eyeliner for this crap. “Excuse me for bothering you.” She turned to go.
“Ah, shit, Tanyalee. Come back here.”
“No, that’s all right, honey,” she said, producing a sad little pout, which she accented with a sexy arch of her back nicely framed by the doorway. “I know how important business is to you, Wim.”
“Come back here.”
She shook her head sadly. “Really, I understand. I’ll just head on to bed.”
“Goddammit, Tanyalee.”
“Good night then, honey.”
He was on her in a flash, pressing her against the doorjamb and nuzzling her neck like a piglet looking for a teat. Sometimes, she just had to laugh at the man. It had been disgustingly easy to train Wim Wimbley. He was as complex as a road sign. As unpredictable as sunrise. Once she finally agreed to go out with him—after damn near a decade of his begging and pleading—it required about two minutes of effort on her part to figure him out. It took two days for him to offer her a job, two weeks to pledge his unwavering devotion, and two months to propose with a two-carat marquise-cut diamond. Obviously, a man like that wouldn’t be much of a challenge for a woman with her skills, but real property, interest-bearing investments, and cash on hand made up for a multitude of inadequacies.
“Oh, Wim,” she breathed, rubbing her left thigh against his chief inadequacy.
“Don’t be mad at me, baby,” he said, sticking his tongue in her ear.
Oh, she f*ckin’ hated when he did that, but she was stuck with it now, because on their second date he’d stuck his tongue in her ear and got so excited he nearly unloaded his ammo right then and there. “Do you like that, baby?” he’d cooed. “Oh, yes, Wim! Do it again!” she’d cried. And so here she was, four months down the road, his tongue still wiggling in her ear like a slug on the sidewalk.
“Are you mad, baby?”
“Of course not, Wim.”
“Good, because I have to get back to work.”
“What?”
“Sorry.” He kissed her cheek and patted her bottom before he headed back to his desk chair.
I can’t believe it.
“I’m so pissed at that f*ckin’ DeCourcy that I wouldn’t be any good for you tonight, anyway.”
Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. Tanyalee bit down on her tongue in an attempt to prevent the slightest escape of sound. Had that fool just admitted he wouldn’t be good in bed? And had he just mentioned himself, sex, and J.J. DeCourcy in the same sentence? God, but that was screamingly funny.
By the time Wim glanced over his shoulder to check her reaction, Tanyalee had assumed a position of sympathy—head tilted to the side, brow wrinkled, hands clasped demurely at her front. “What did J.J. do now, honey?”
“The same ole shit. The stories he’s running on that dead bitch are getting picked up by big-city newspapers and TV stations. Right in my target markets! Atlanta! Raleigh-Durham! Charleston! Charlotte!”
“That jerk.”
“I know! I’m spending a fortune marketing the fantasy of unspoiled Smoky Mountain retirement living to people sick of crime and rap music and urban decay and he’s blabbering to the world about our dead bodies and ghosts and murder mysteries! He’s hell-bent on ruining me!”
“He’s a lying, cheating loser, honey. Just ignore him.”
Wim swiveled around in his chair to face her again. “I damn sure wish you hadn’t f*cked it up with Garland the way you did. Maybe you’d be able to convince him to drop the subject, just stop covering the story altogether.”
Tanyalee had never been so close to whopping Weenie Wimbley upside his hair-sprayed head. “Really?” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “So it’s my fault that J.J. turned my own granddaddy against me? It’s my fault Granddaddy won’t listen to anything I tell him about J.J., and never will? It’s my fault that J.J. has convinced Granddaddy that he’s the Jesus of Journalism and not the cold-blooded bastard who ruined his favorite granddaughter’s life?”
Wim blinked in surprise, then chuckled. “Tanyalee, darlin’, you alienated your granddaddy all by yourself. He doesn’t trust you because of the shoplifting, the check kiting, the computer hacking, and how you forged his signature on that credit application. He pressed charges against you for that, remember?”
Tanyalee felt the heat flare up from her chest and spread over her neck and face. Oh, no, he did not just go there.
“Besides,” Wim said, letting his gaze roam up and down her body, stopping momentarily on the sparkler that adorned her left hand. “You look pretty well-heeled for a ‘ruined’ girl.”
Tanyalee’s mouth fell open in shock. Wim had never spoken to her in this manner. In the past, he’d always taken her side when it came to the Newberrys. Or J.J. Or the incompetent Sheriff Halliday. And the f*cked-up court system. And her idiot probation officer. And the whole Bigler rumor mill that had besmudged her good name. And now he was turning on her? Like everyone else?
“Oh.” She made her voice as small and vulnerable as possible. “I see how it is. Good night, Wim.”
By the time Tanyalee made it halfway down the hall, she realized Wim wasn’t going to call after her or beg for the chance to smooth things over. As she proceeded down the central staircase, her eyes began to sting, probably from the blinding light splashing off the Swarovski crystal chandelier. Sometimes this new house seemed too bright, too clean, too perfect, too big. Sometimes she hated it. Like she hated Wim. And every f*cking thing in her life.
Tanyalee grabbed her keys and purse from the foyer table. She got into her Mercedes coupe and started the engine.
Sometimes, the disgust and the rage got so hot inside her head that she felt like killing someone with her fists. Or running over somebody in the road. Or beating somebody’s face against a big ole tree trunk.
Her head began to throb. Her eyeballs felt like hard rocks. She wondered if this is what it felt like to have a stroke. Then about a mile down the road, it hit her—and she began to laugh uncontrollably.
Everything had been going just dandy last week! She was planning her wedding and honeymoon. She’d convinced Wim that a prenup wasn’t necessary. She’d smoothed over the prickly spots with Viv and Garland as best as she could. J.J. DeCourcy was nothing but a distant—albeit hot—memory. But most importantly, last week her damn sister was five hundred miles g-o-n-e.
Tanyalee took a right at Randall Road and headed up the hill. She wasn’t sure what she’d say to Cheri when she got there. There were so many options, of course. Tanyalee could remind Cheri that it was her fault their parents died. She could mention that Viv always loved her more. She could point out that Cheri’s money didn’t make her better than her sister, who, after all, would soon be rich herself. And she could remind Cheri which Newberry sister J.J. DeCourcy had married, and which sister had carried his child—if even temporarily.
Tanyalee Marie Newberry, that’s who.