A Just Deception (11 page)

Holy shit. His mother just busted them about to have sex.

“Mom,” he yelled when he heard the door close, “Don’t take another step”

She skidded to a stop. “What is it?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Izzy slap her arms across her chest and try to bury herself deeper into the couch. He retrieved his shirt from the floor, tossed it to her and hauled ass to keep his mother from coming any closer.

“You
have
to stop walking in on me,” he said.

The twinkling blue of his mother’s eyes faded in confusion. “Why?”

Why?
He dropped his chin to his chest, saw his still raging hard-on tenting the thin material of his basketball shorts and burst out laughing.

This could not be happening.

“Hi, Mrs. Jessup,” Izzy said from behind him.

Going up on tiptoes to look over his shoulder, his mother’s smile immediately softened his angst. His mom liked Izzy.

“Hello, Isabelle. How are you, dear?”

Now they were going to exchange pleasantries while Monk Junior waved a white flag. Peter scrubbed his hands over his face. Could this get any worse? At least Izzy was clothed now.

“Oh my,” his mother said, angling from Izzy back to him, her face seeming to grow longer by the second. “Am I interrupting something?”

He cleared his throat. “Uh, sort of.”

The lightning bolt of realization flashed over her face. She focused on his bare chest and then, oh crap, her gaze dropped to his crotch.

Oh, no. Oh, Jesus.
His mother was staring at his engorged dick. Someone needed to plunge a dagger into his heart.
Right fucking now.
Death would be the only suitable escape.

How he could still be hard, he had no idea, but his shriveling intestines—at least
something
was shriveling—told him he’d just suffered a rare humiliating moment.

Mom slammed her eyes closed. Like that would wipe away the vision of her oldest son in flagrante delicto.

“I am
so
sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Like I said. You have to stop doing this.” Peter heard Izzy moving around behind him. “Iz, would you turn off the stove please? Before dinner goes up in flames.”

Like everything else.

He grabbed his mother’s wrists and squeezed before she stroked out. “Relax. It’s all right. Just knock next time. Please. If the door is locked, there’s a reason.”

Finally, she scrunched her nose and brought her gaze to his. He wanted to hug her, but with his current state of Señor Raging Hard-On there was no way he’d move any closer. Oh, damn, that had such an ick factor to it.

“I just wanted to see what you were doing for dinner,” his mother said. “Your father is working late and Marguerite is off tonight. I thought maybe we could go out.” She held up her hands, started for the door. “I didn’t know Isabelle was here. I only saw your car outside.”

“Uh, Peter?” Izzy said from behind him.

He grabbed his mother’s arm to keep her from running. “Yes?”

“Maybe your mom can join us?”

Now didn’t that just verge on the truly hysterical?
Gee, Mom, that’s a great idea. Why don’t you join me, Izzy and Monk Junior for some chow?
Yeah, it definitely just got worse.

“There’s plenty of chicken,” Izzy said giving him a wide-eyed, make-your-mother-happy look.

He spun back to his mom, whose pale cheeks suddenly morphed into a rosy slice of hope. “Great idea. I made Marg’s Chicken Limone. I just need to do some pasta and we’ll be ready to eat.”

Going to tiptoes again, his mother peered over his shoulder at Izzy. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” she said from behind him, and his heart nearly blew right out of his chest. If anything, Izzy, standing there in his T-shirt, should have been beside herself with embarrassment, yet she invited his mother to stay.

He could be in love.

After bobbing her head up and down, Mom angled toward the door. “I’ll just run up to the house and get a nice bottle of wine. It’ll give you two a minute to…uh…well, you know.”

Peter snorted a laugh. “Yeah, we know.”

He reached around and opened the door for her, but when she got outside, she whipped back to him and stepped closer.

“Peter?”

What now? He let out a breath. “Yes, Mother?”

She scooted even closer and pointed to his crotch. “You should use a condom, dear.”

He reeled back, the horror of the situation stomping around inside him. “Mom,” he shouted. “Knock it off. You’re freaking me out.”

She held up her hands. “Just a suggestion.”

He gritted his teeth, and the pressure nearly snapped his jaw. “Go. Get. The. Wine.”

Before I murder my own mother.

“I’m going to walk my mom up to the house,” Peter said when Isabelle picked up the last pot to be dried.

“Good night, Mrs.—uh—Lorraine.”

Lorraine grinned her approval at the use of her given name. Isabelle couldn’t help forgetting to use it. The woman was formidable and deserved the respect.

“Good night, Isabelle. Thank you for inviting me.”

A flush of heat burned Isabelle’s cheeks and she smiled. She’d done the right thing by suggesting dinner together, and she suspected, in some way, she brightened a lonely woman’s evening.

Isabelle knew loneliness and Peter’s mother was smothered in it like manure at a horse track. Oh, she did a good job of putting on a cheery face, but Isabelle sensed a gaping hole in this woman’s armor. She knew about that too.

Lorraine put up her finger when Peter held his arm to her. “One last thing.” She stepped closer to Isabelle, her eyes unwavering. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about this business with your cousin. It’s just horrible.”

Finally, the elephant on Isabelle’s back had lumbered away. Lorraine, dressed in her fine beige slacks and matching silk blouse had done well pretending the Kendrick issue didn’t exist, but they all knew better. Still, her eyes were warm and nonjudgmental, and the sudden gush of relief left Isabelle stunned by its force.

“Thank you,” she said. “It
is
horrible. And I’m sorry Peter got caught up in it.”

Lorraine reached for her son’s arm. “That’s unfortunate, but you couldn’t have a better supporter.”

He grinned at her. “It’ll be all right. The cops took the security tapes from the gate. They’ll see what time I got home and they’ll clear us both.”

For a few seconds the room and everything in it, including Lorraine faded to a whitewashed background and Isabelle and Peter were alone. Just the two of them. Together. He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and stroked gently while a voice deep inside her whispered,
Yes
.

What’s that about?

“Well, I should go,” Lorraine said, breaking the spell and bringing the room back to focus.

Peter glanced at Isabelle. “Be right back.”

Walking his mother home. How wonderful. She would be perfectly safe walking five hundred yards on her own property, but he wanted to be sure. A good man.

With the dinner dishes cleaned up, Isabelle flopped onto the sofa and stretched into the wide cushions—not too overstuffed—just enough for a weary body to sink into.

How they all enjoyed a meal after Mrs. Jessup—Lorraine—found them half naked proved a mystery. Of course, it didn’t hurt that everyone had their rightful clothes on. A giggle bubbled inside, an odd sensation of mischievous joy she’d never felt as a teenager.

Isabelle flipped to her stomach and inhaled the clean scent of the soft cotton. She closed her eyes.

She liked Peter’s mother.

She
liked
how the woman wore silk blouses and dress slacks for a simple dinner with her son. She
liked
how easily Lorraine recovered from awkward situations and the obvious affection she held for Peter, even if he didn’t always see it.

Yes, Lorraine Jessup was a living, breathing powerhouse.

How nice it would have been to grow up with a mother like that? One that would support her child during the ugly stuff. Mrs. Jessup had her issues, but the woman, regardless of the situation, would defend her family.

Isabelle sighed a little, the soft fabric abrading her cheek, just a gentle massage to help relieve the stress.
Sleep
. Right here. Her body begged for it.

A few minutes later, her mind and body drifting, she heard the door open and stuck her arm out to wave. She didn’t quite make the wave. It was more of a hand flop.

“Are you a sleepy girl?” Peter laughed softly and trailed his fingers over her head before scooping up her feet and planting himself under them.

“Probably the wine.” She rolled over so she could see him.

“What a crazy night,” he said. “A real bohica.”

“Bohica?”

“Bend over, here it comes again.”

She snorted. “My life seems to be a series of bohicas lately.”

He skimmed his fingers up her leg and she glanced at him, their eyes connecting for a second, sparking that same frenetic intensity between them.
Here we go again
. He made a move toward her, but shoving her bare foot against his chest stopped him cold. She wanted some answers before they got into another make-out session.

Over dinner, Lorraine had casually mentioned someone kept knocking over the bush in front of the house. She knew this because half the dirt was missing from the pot. During the conversation, Peter had grown quiet and Isabelle’s mind wandered back to the day he admitted his hatred of the bush.

“What’s up with you and the fiddle leaf fig?”

Shit
. Peter let his face settle into his best I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about look. “What?”

She nudged him with her foot. Well, maybe it was more like a kick. He rested his head against the cushion, staring at the ceiling.

“Spill it. I know it’s you knocking over that bush. I just can’t figure out why.”

Caught. Like a bear in a trap. He could blurt it out, no problem. He’d never been embarrassed to voice his thoughts, but this was different. Before now he never thought his head was fucked.

Then she aimed those Caribbean green lasers at him. “Oh, jeez.”

When she dug her heel into the crotch of his thin—extremely thin—basketball shorts, his eyes crossed.

Yow
.

With extreme care, he lifted her foot off his parts and started breathing again. “You don’t have to get mean about it.”

“Clearly, I do.”

The echo of his thumping heartbeat rattled in his head as her eyes drilled into him. Waiting.
Damn.
The quiet of the house folded in and his body stiffened. He had to say something. Something she’d believe, but he wouldn’t lie. Not to her.

He should just tell her. With all her demons, she’d understand.

“I keep thinking someone is hiding behind it.” He inched closer to watch for any sign of ridicule about to come his way. Nothing. Only a slight puckering of her lips.

“As in someone trying to do harm to your family?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, but made no other attempt to comfort him. Good, because he didn’t want to be poor-babied. All he needed was to get on his game and back to work.

“You told me about Roy,” she said. “Was his killer hiding behind something?”

“No.” He let out a sarcastic laugh. “I went crazy in a different way on that one.”

“How so?”

More questions. He shifted his eyes to her, then away again. Maybe if he stayed quiet she’d take the hint and leave him alone.

“Peter, what happened to you over there? Let me help you.”

That plan failed. She wanted to help. And why not? Somebody had to because, according to his friends, he was cracking up. He slouched into the sofa, misery caving his head in.

“I couldn’t sleep after Roy died. Well, I
could
sleep, but the nightmares were brutal, so I stayed awake.”

Her perfect eyebrows shot up on that one. “For how long?”

“Four days.”
Take that, baby
.

“Wow.”

“Yep. Then Billy, he’s one of the guys on my team. A real smart-ass. He started cracking jokes about me not sleeping. I went nuts and beat the hell out of him, which I now feel bad about, but he’s a prototypical pain in the ass. It was nothing unusual for him to mouth off and I couldn’t take it anymore. Before I knew it, word had gotten back to Vic and he put me on a plane home.”

“He convinced you to come home?”

“Hell no. He told me he had another assignment for me, and I was damned glad because I didn’t want to take a chance on killing Billy. The minute I got back to Chicago Vic put me on R&R.”

Isabelle nodded. “Okay. No potted plant issues on
that
one. How did Tiny die?”

Bingo. We have a winner.

“He got shot.”

“Was the shooter hiding behind a potted plant?”

He shook his head. “A crate of cereal boxes.”

She rocked forward, smacked him on the leg a few times. “There you go. You’re not crazy. You’ve lost two good friends in less than a year. You’re exhausted because you’ve been working yourself into the ground trying to forget about Tiny and—
bam!
—Roy dies. It’s not rocket science. You’re grieving. In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s something we mortals do.”

Another smart-ass. Flipping her off, as he’d done his brother, didn’t seem appropriate. He reached over and pinched her thigh just below the hem of her shorts. Not hard, but enough for her to know she’d hit a nerve. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. I’m not crazy, but that plant is driving me batshit.”

She shrugged. “Ask your mother to move it until you get beyond this initial stage of anxiety.”

“Oh, Lord. No way.
No way.
”

She slid over, snuggled in beside him, pulled his do-rag off and trailed her hand through his hair. “You can’t escape this. You’ve been trying for the better part of a year now and it’s catching up. You need to let yourself experience the pain so you can get past it.”

A blood rush seized him. He didn’t want to talk about this. Not now, not ever. He could escape it. He could. He just had to try harder.

He patted her leg. “Hey, we never did get that rumba lesson in.”

She didn’t move.

Shit.

He shook his head, huffed a breath. “I hear what you’re saying. And it makes sense. I don’t know how to give in to it.”

“News flash, Peter. No one does. You just have to let it be. When you’re pissed be pissed, don’t try to push it away. When you’re hurt, be hurt. Trust me, you cannot play hide and seek with your emotions. Just ask Creepy Izzy. You will fail miserably.”

She knew.

Maybe in a different way, but she understood running away wouldn’t work.

Besides that, unbeknownst to her, she’d started helping him the second his horny ass landed on that elevator with her. The nightmares didn’t happen as often. Now he dreamed of her and his list of sexual fantasies continued to grow at an alarming rate.

Plus, when they spent time together, he didn’t feel so useless.

“Thank you,” he said.

She cocked her head and twirled his hair around her finger. “You’ll get there if you give yourself a chance. Talk to your mother about the plant. She adores you. She’ll move it.”

He turned sideways, brushed his hand down her bare arm. The faded strawberry tank top she wore had some miles on it. He laughed. Izzy, outside of her top-notch lawyer clothes, sometimes dressed like a homeless person. They could look homeless together.

“My mother likes you,” he said.

Izzy grabbed his roaming hand and entwined her fingers with his. “You’re changing the subject.”

He grinned. “Yep.”

The lecture would begin at any minute. One, two, three seconds and…nothing. She leaned forward, her breast rubbing against his arm, and brushed her lips against his. The hair on his arm tingled and old one-eye woke from his slumber.

She moved closer, and smoothed her hand down the front of his T-shirt. “Hmm,” she said, still moving that hand up and down, up and down and—oh baby—his thoughts were definitely going south.

“Izzy?”

Her lips parted and—oh, man—he wanted to feast on them.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’d really like to fuck your brains out.”