Careful What You Kiss For (34 page)

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” His low growl penetrated her consciousness and she stopped, gulping for air.

“You.” She jabbed him in the ribs with a forefinger. “Me.” She turned the finger on herself. “And what’s wrong with this picture.” Her throat tightened. Here’s where he would get it, where she would turn and leave him standing, all alone, drowning in the guilty truth of her words. The thought rose and swirled through her foggy brain until one tiny practical cell pointed out that she only had on one shoe, making a grand exit tough.

So instead, she hiccupped.

“Done?” he demanded.

“Haven’t.” Hiccup. “Even begun.”

“You think it’s smart to be shoving a cop?”

“Wasn’t shoving a cop. I was shoving Max Hunter. Who needs to stop acting like a cop and try acting like a human being. What happened to you, anyway?”

“You want to know what happened to me, Tensley?” he demanded. “I grew up. I decided to be one of the good guys.”

“You always
were
one of the good guys, Max,” she shot back. “You just didn’t believe it.”

“Look who’s talking.”

She gulped.

“You think it didn’t tear me apart to see you with that creep? You think I don’t feel horrible for putting you in that situation? You think I don’t know that wasn’t really you? That none of what you did in there was you, but you did it because you have no fear, even when you should?”

“I have fear,” she answered, her heart racing.

“You have more courage than most people could ever even think of. You have a stronger sense of right and wrong. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re loyal, hell, you’re
kind
. And most people aren’t, not when it matters.”

She felt her chin tremble, her heart begin to pick up speed. “Max — ”

He wasn’t done. She could see his eyes begin to blaze, even in the harsh illumination of the streetlight. “But you let other people tell you what to think of yourself, Tensley. And even worse, you believe them.”

“That’s not true.”
Was it?

“Yeah? Then why do you think you ended up at Gary’s?”

“Because I have a record. Maybe you didn’t notice.” She only realized she had yelled it when a window somewhere nearby slammed shut.

He took a step toward her. “Everyone has something they’re not proud of.”

“Not you. Look at you.”

“I was the one responsible for you
getting
that record. If I hadn’t come up with that stupid plan — ” He broke off, raking a hand through his hair.

It was the guilt, the regret crossing his face that made her ask, “Is that why you went into police work, to make up for it?”

His answer was immediate, genuine. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Then maybe something good came of that whole thing.” She tried to keep her voice light, but could tell she’d failed miserably.

“It doesn’t matter what happened before or why. I don’t want to live in the past. It only matters who we are right here, right now. And what we do with that.”

He
hadn’t given up his past. A good job, an education, financial security. To live on what, tips tucked into a thong and minimum wage from a bookstore? With her only family a mother who couldn’t stand the sight of her because of what she did?

“You don’t understand,” she whispered.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

It happened so fast, she at first thought he grabbed her to push her against the car and throw shackles on her. But that wasn’t it.

Not it at all.

It was weird kissing an on-duty cop, some part of Tensley observed while the rest of her carried on, oblivious. The black jacket he wore over his T-shirt and the gun he had tucked into his waistband combined forces to assert a cold barrier of authority that tried to push her away even as she melted into him. Stay back, it warned.

He must have felt it, too, because he broke off the kiss and dropped his hands, looking down at her with a gaze that burned hot with questions she couldn’t read, let alone answer.

She wanted to tell him how incredibly proud she was of him, that he’d overcome all that had happened when he was young to find a career, and a life, as a respected officer of the law. A detective, no less.

She wanted to tell him she loved the confident way he carried himself now. That he was stronger than he’d ever been because of how gentle he’d become, at just the right times. That the grown-up Max was so much sexier than the teenager she’d known, who’d had rough-edged promise, but unrealized dreams.

She wanted to tell him that she’d never been in so deep and she was scared to death she’d never be able to get out again, never be able to find another man who saw the parts of her she couldn’t love herself. And accepted them.

That wasn’t a part of the past. That was now.

She parted her lips, with no idea what would come spilling out from them, but didn’t have a chance to say anything before she heard her name. Being shouted from a car across the street.

By her best friend, Kate. With the world’s most horrible timing.

“Tensley!” she called again, leaning out of the driver’s side. “We have to go!”

She turned back to Max.

He grasped her elbows. “What’s she talking about?”

Damn. Those eyes.
“I — I don’t know.” She tried to wave Kate away while she kept her gaze locked on Max. She had to know what had just happened here, what it meant.

Then she heard the slam of the car door. Kate was at her side before Tensley could summon the words to tell her to go away. Her friend pulled on her arm, still held by Max. “We have to
go
.”

“Why?” she and Max asked at the same time.

Kate addressed herself to Tensley. “Trust me.”

“I do, but — ”

“We have an appointment.” Kate’s eyes widened, obviously trying to convey some meaning Tensley wasn’t getting. “With someone named
Claire
?”

Ow.
It actually hurt a little when your heart skipped. “Are you kidding me?”

“How can you have an appointment with somebody at this time of night?” Max demanded.

Kate turned to him. “Good to see you again, Max. This has nothing to do with you.”

“The hell it doesn’t. We’re not done here, Tensley.”

Oh God Oh God Oh God.
She didn’t want to be done here. She didn’t want to leave him, not now, not when this streetlight was bringing out things she’d never heard before.

“
Claire
, Tensley. Remember you asked her about doing something for you? She says she will, but it has to be now.”

“Now?” Tensley asked, faintly.

“Right now.”

“You need to tell me what’s going on.” Max’s voice was terse.

“I can’t.” Tensley tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. She pushed him away from her, heading blindly for the car. “I have to go.”

“Again with pushing a cop,” she heard him call. “I could put you in jail for that.”

“You won’t,” Tensley said.

“He won’t,” Kate agreed.

He raised his voice to be heard over the engine of Kate’s car. “At least then I’d know where you were.”

Kate and Tensley stared straight ahead, neither saying a word. Kate steered the car out into the street and flicked on her turn signal. They had someplace to be, a psychic to see.

• • •

The first thing Tensley noticed about Madame Claire was that her hands were shaking. The second thing she noticed was that all pretense of an accent had again been dropped.

“Let’s get on with it,” the woman said. “I don’t have all night.”

“Not so fast,” Tensley said. “Kate said all you told her was that you figured out the right spell. How do you know for sure it’s the right one?”

Madame Claire adopted what might have been a serene expression if it hadn’t wobbled around the edges like a facelift about to fall. “I went through mamma’s things and found an emergency spell.” She pursed her lips. “One she never bothered to tell me about.”

“Seems as though there’s a lot she didn’t tell you,” Kate muttered.

Madame Claire narrowed her heavily lined eyes.

Tensley leaned forward. “How do you know for sure what’s going to happen this time? I can think of all kinds of possibilities.” And the more she did, the more worried she became. “I’m floating back and forth between two lives, never sure which one I’m in. Or I’m in some kind of horrible
Groundhog Day
situation.” She turned to Kate. “Have you seen that movie?”

Her friend shuddered. “That would be terrible.”

“Point is,” Tensley told Madame Claire, “this is my life you’re messing with. You’ve already screwed it up once. How do I know this emergency spell won’t screw it up again?”

The psychic shifted in her chair, not meeting the eyes of either woman. “Ah, well. That’s the thing.”

“What’s the thing?” Tensley and Kate exchanged alarmed looks.

“It’s not just your life. But all will be put back, as it should be. Before I attempted these ridiculous do-over spells.” Madame Claire’s hand, weighted with large rings, tried to flutter with some sort of reassurance.

Spells,
plural
. “Not just my life,” Tensley repeated, trying her best to absorb it. “You mean,” a quick glance at her best friend, “Kate, too?”

A nod, then Madame Claire stared down at her lap. “Thank God I’ve only done it twice.” She pointed, without looking up. “You and you.”

“Kate.” Tensley grabbed her friend’s hand. “I can’t do that to you.”

Her friend’s eyes had filled with tears, which she tried blinking away. “What, are you kidding? Look what I did to you. This whole thing is my fault.”

“You were trying to help me.”

“The way things were going, I thought you’d never trust yourself enough to get over everything that’s happened, to be who you should be.”

“But you — Can’t go back to where you were before. You didn’t finish school. You weren’t a vet. You were miserable.”

“So I’ll make sure I pull myself out of that dark place this time.”

Tensley turned to Madame Claire. “Will she remember this happened?” she demanded.

“Uh, well — ” The woman avoided their eyes. “No,” she said finally. “This will put everything back like it was.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” the psychic snapped. “You know, you might think to thank me a little for the adventure you’ve been on. It’s not as though you would have had it, any of it, without me.”

Unbelievable
. “You are out of your mind,” Tensley told her, shaking her head. “I should report you to the police.”

Madame Claire sniffed, feigning hurt.

Police. Max.
If everything was undone, he might not have felt guilty about what had happened with Tensley striking Rhonda and instead kept going down the path in life he’d been on. Who knew what he would end up as? But it probably wouldn’t be good.

She stood and began pacing back and forth, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath her. “This is crazy. It’s an impossible choice.” To get her real life back, she’d have to potentially ruin two others. The lives of people who meant everything to her.

“There isn’t a choice, Tensley,” Kate said. “You just have her undo it. That’s all.”

“It’s not that simple.” Why, oh why, couldn’t anything be simple anymore? Why couldn’t somebody else make this decision? Kate was right. Max was right. She couldn’t trust herself to know what to do; she never had been able to. For God’s sake, she’d thought she was in love with Bryan-with-a-y-not-a-i. When given half a chance, she’d punched Rhonda the Skank and then tried to run from the cops.

She was a walking train wreck when it came to making good decisions.

Just ask her mother.

Tensley walked to a window, laying her fingers on the glass, and staring out into the sleeping city. When Patsy the bookstore owner had asked her favorite quote, she hadn’t hesitated, coming right up with the words of heroine Fanny Price in
Mansfield Park
: “We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

Fanny had said the words with such certainty. Tensley wondered now if the reason she loved that quote so much was because she hadn’t ever lived it. It must be wonderful to know you could rely on yourself to do the right thing, to get through life, if not unscathed, at least not totally undone.

Max had told her she had a strong sense of right and wrong. She did, especially when it came to other people. But when it came to herself, things were a lot less clear. Every time she thought she knew what to do, and went after it, she spent all her time second-guessing herself, until by the time she’d done the thing, she’d was already telling herself how wrong she’d been. Before anyone else could say it.

“Tensley?” Kate asked from across the room.

“I don’t have all night,” Madame Claire chimed in.

Tensley turned, letting her gaze go from Kate to Madame Claire and back again. “We’re not doing this.”
What
?

“Wha-at?” Kate stuttered.

“What?” the psychic demanded. “Do you know how much time it took me to go through all of that old crap?”

Tensley nearly didn’t recognize her voice when she heard it, level, confident, leaving no room for argument. “Something tells me you’ll need an emergency spell again,” she said to Madame Claire. “So the time wasn’t wasted.” To Kate, she said, “If you’re okay with it, I’m going to stay with you a little longer. Until I save enough money to get my own apartment.”

Kate looked stricken. “You’re going back to that place?”

“Not to Gary’s, no. Never again. But I do have another job. At a bookstore.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing … ” Kate’s voice trailed off.

“I think I do, actually,” Tensley disagreed. “Maybe for the first time ever.” She pulled the business card Max had given her from her pocket and clutched it in her hand.

Madame Claire’s eyebrows rose to the ceiling. “My fee, if you please,” she shot at Kate.

“Do not give her a penny.” Tensley strode to the door. “I’ll be in the car.” Her heart pounded; her mouth had gone dry. This had been the biggest decision of her life. Either one.