If You See Her (21 page)

“Is that a good thing or bad thing?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out.” She popped a bite into her mouth.

Remy gritted his teeth and had to spend the next thirty seconds that way as he waited for her to chew that bite and swallow. “What do you mean, you’re still trying to figure it out?”

She shrugged and reached for her tea. “Just that. I’m still trying to figure it out. But I think if it was an altogether bad thing, I wouldn’t have come in here and I wouldn’t be sitting here, either.” She took a drink from her tea and then, still staring into the glass, she said, “You make me nervous. I’m used to being nervous, but not like this.”

Nervous … hell. He could understand that. He opened his mouth, then closed it, entirely too uncertain with what he wanted to say, what he needed to say, what he thought she might want to hear and what might scare her to death.

He reached for his sandwich, although he was no longer at all hungry. “Would it make you feel any better if I told you that you make me pretty nervous, too?”

Hope snorted. “I don’t want lines, Remy.”

“That’s good, because I don’t waste my breath on them.” He took a bite of his sandwich and washed it down before it turned to sawdust in his throat. “I tend to avoid complications and you’ve got complication written all over you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He grinned. “And here I sit, trying to figure out the best way to convince you to go to the drive-in with me this weekend.”

“The drive-in?” A wide smile lit her face—one that damned near transformed it. She went from being pretty to … breathtaking. She literally stole his breath, sucked it right out of him.

He felt like he’d been sucker punched as she leaned forward, smiling at him. Her eyes, when they didn’t have all those sad, somber shadows, almost danced, he thought.

“Man, I haven’t been to a drive-in in years. Not since I was a kid. They tore down the one we had back home.”

“It’s the main form of entertainment we have around
here in the summer,” Remy said, forcing the words out. He wanted to kiss that smiling mouth—desperately. So bad he ached. “Double screens, double features every weekend. I’m thinking now might be a good time to ask you for that date.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to her sandwich. “If persistence really is necessary in your line of work, then I’d say you definitely picked the right career.”

“So, what do you think? You want to hit the drive-in with me?”

When she slipped out of the restaurant, and never once glanced around her, never once took in her surroundings, it made him smile.

The smile didn’t last, though.

She looked … happy.

Her hair was short, so fucking short. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. She knew better than to do that. Little bitch—he’d warned her. There was a lightness to her step, and she had a smile on her face. She looked easy, carefree.

He started to slip from the store, thinking about following her. But then she paused, looked back.

That was when he noticed she wasn’t alone.

A man came out of the café. She stared up at the other man, that small, shy smile on her face.

He brushed his fingers across her hair, said something.
Touching
her. Who in the hell was that bastard?

Whoever he was, he made Hope smile. Made her laugh.

Wasn’t acceptable.

H
OPE STARED AT THE MIRROR AND TRIED TO FIGURE
just
when
she had completely lost her mind.

Yeah, she knew things were sometimes touch and go for her, but she hadn’t ever really thought she’d completely fallen off her rocker.

Until now.

Well, three days ago, actually. Tuesday at lunchtime. When Remy had asked her out and she’d said yes.

She had said
yes
.

She could blame it on the strange, happy feeling of nostalgia that had flooded her when he’d mentioned drive-ins. When she was a kid, her parents had taken her and Law to the drive-in almost every weekend during the summer, right up until the year they closed it when she was thirteen.

Sure, she could blame it on that.

She could also pretend she’d done it just to get him to leave her alone, because certainly once Remy had taken her out once, twice at the most, he was going to realize she was pretty damn boring and just how messed up she was—the politely phrased “complicated” he’d used didn’t even touch it. Once he figured all of that out, he was going to beat a very fast retreat, she decided.

And there was also the very legit, if somewhat minor, reason she’d had for saying yes—although Joey wouldn’t ever know about it, it was a small, personal victory for her. A guy had asked her out, a decent, intelligent, and drop-dead gorgeous guy, the kind of guy who wouldn’t ever raise his hand to a woman—all the mental abuse that Joey had heaped on her way before he’d started hitting her, it had left deep, deep scars.

The way Remy looked at her, it somehow soothed some of those still healing wounds.

But in the end, Hope had to be honest with herself—she was done fooling herself, even with the good things.

She’d said yes for one reason alone.

The same reason she’d gone into the café and had lunch with him.

When he looked at her, everything else just seemed to stop existing.

She forgot about the fact that a few weeks ago, he’d been
this
close to having her arrested.

She forgot about the scars on her wrists.

She forgot about the woman who’d been found in Law’s workshop.

She forgot about the attack on Law, on herself.

And while that might not seem like the smartest thing, considering how she’d been living and breathing all of those things, she
needed
that escape.

It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life. Even those first few months with Joey, that first rush of young love hadn’t been like this.

Remy looked at her and made her feel like she was his focus—the center of everything.

Scowling, she studied her reflection and tried to figure out why.

She was short, too skinny, with next to no boobs and nonexistent hips, and she jumped at her own shadow.

She liked her hair, though. Sighing, she leaned closer
to the mirror and angled her head one way, then the other, studying the haircut—her angled bob. Hope ran her fingers through it and watched as the brown strands drifted back into place. It was easier to wash, and required hardly any attention, plus, her face looked better, she thought. Not quite so lost with all that hair.

She was pretty enough, even if teenage girls had better figures than she did.

But she couldn’t see whatever it was that held Remy’s attention so thoroughly.

She just saw herself and there wasn’t much special there.

She plucked at her shirt, the too-big T-shirt that covered the low-riding jeans. Suddenly, she wished she’d picked up something a little … prettier. Something sort of flirty, or dressy at least. Something even remotely
female
would have been nice.

Something other than another oversized T-shirt.

“Hey.”

She glanced up, saw Law’s reflection join hers. “Hi.”

“You ready for your date?”

He had a wide grin on his face and she rolled her eyes, tried to pretend she wasn’t nervous. Not that it mattered with him. Nobody knew her the way he did, and he knew she was nervous.

“Yeah, I guess,” she muttered, once more plucking at her shirt and giving it a look of acute dislike.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

Hope snorted. “I’m just irritated. I don’t have much of anything decent to wear, and it’s not like it really matters all that much, right? I mean, he didn’t care much what I was wearing when he asked me out, so does it matter tonight?”

Law shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to him. But it does to you … so here.”

He tossed something at her. Something green.

She caught it and the silk almost slipped through her fingers. Jerking her eyes up, she stared at Law for a second before lowering her gaze to the halter top.

“Since when are you into women’s fashion, Law?” she asked, holding it up.

“I’ll have you know I’m a man of many talents,” he said, catching her ear and tugging on it. “Will it fit?”

She held it up and looked at the mirror. “I think so, but …” She winced. “Law, this is a halter top. It’s going to need a certain kind of …”

He dropped a bag on her dresser. “No, I haven’t gone through your underwear drawer,” he said and his cheeks were as red as hers as she peeked inside and saw what was in the bag. “I was in town earlier, saw the shirt in the window at the women’s boutique on the square. Went inside to buy it and Molly, the store owner, said you’d need the right kind of bra. You two are about the same size, so there you go. If it doesn’t fit, then don’t wear it.” Then he stroked a hand over her hair and said, “But stop worrying about it so much, honey, because he’s not thinking about your clothes.”

The bra did fit.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror and tried not to think about the last time she’d worn something pretty. Ever since she’d left Clinton, she’d done her damnedest to
not
wear pretty things—it had been another way to break Joey’s hold over her. He’d all but dressed her as his own little doll.

She’d left every damn thing she owned behind when she left, just picking up what she needed here and there, usually from thrift stores. Baggy jeans, worn T-shirts, and the like.

But she was tired of letting that much
fear
control her. If she wanted to wear a pretty blouse, she could, right?

And if she felt a little weird wearing something Law
had bought, she just had to look in the mirror and think about how much better she looked wearing the blouse than she had in her oversized T-shirt. Self-consciously, she glanced at her scarred wrists as she started down the steps, but there wasn’t anything she could do about those unless she wanted to wear long sleeves the rest of her life.

She was tired of hiding, so tired of it.

“I guess everything fit.”

Law was sitting at the foot of the steps, a bottle of beer in his left hand. His right arm was still in a cast that went almost up to his elbow. The bruises on his face were mostly gone, but Hope knew she’d be seeing them in her memory for a good long time—maybe the rest of her life.

Sinking down on the stair just above him, she nervously smoothed the silk down and said, “Yeah. It fits. How does it look?”

“Shirt looks fine. You look beautiful.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “If I wouldn’t feel like a lecher for saying it, I’d say that maybe you and me should really consider trying to get something going between us.”

She kicked at his ankle. “Whatever.” Wrapping her arms around her legs, she stared at the clock. “I don’t have any makeup. I haven’t worn any since … well. Never mind. But I don’t have any. Maybe I should have bought some.”

“He doesn’t care.” Law rolled his eyes. “For crying out loud, Hope. Relax.”

“I can’t,” she snapped. She surged to her feet and hopped over him to the floor to pace. “I haven’t been out on a
date
since high school. And then it was always with Joey. Shit, after the first few months, he didn’t even ask me out. It was the thing—I’d be ready on Fridays and Saturdays at seven. Fridays were a movie night and Saturdays were dinner at the country club with his parents.
When it’s like that, is it even
dating
? It’s not a date, then. It’s just routine.”

Law didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took a drink from his beer and then he stood up. As she paced by him, he caught her arm, bringing her to a stop. “Hope, I’m going to make a couple of suggestions—one … again,
relax
. It’s a movie. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a movie. Treat him as a friend if you’re too nervous thinking about anything more. And two? Sweetheart, do
not
keep thinking about everything that went wrong with Joey while you’re out tonight.
You
deserve better, and so does Remy. That part of your life is over and done—don’t let it ruin something you might have going here.”

Blowing out a breath, Hope said, “That’s easier said than done.”

“I know.” He slung an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close, pressing his lips to her brow. “But you need to do it. You kicked him to the curb and I know that was harder than hell. Do the same with his memory. Stop letting it choke you … at least for tonight. See where it takes you.”

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Yeah.” She’d kicked him to the curb, and that was what she needed to do with his memory as well.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, snaking an arm around his waist to hug him.

“For what?”

She squeezed him and stepped back. “For everything. You’ve always been there, you know. Always. I know you don’t want thanks, but …”

Law went red and looked away. “Where else would I be? We’re friends. That’s what we do.”

“Yeah.” She might have said something else, but the phone rang. Sighing, she turned away to answer it.

But the second she lifted it to her ear, the line went dead.

He almost brought flowers.

Remy liked romancing a woman.

There was something uniquely pleasurable about it, and each woman was different.

But his gut told him he needed to move slow—as in glacially slow—with Hope.

So no flowers.

But as he stood on the porch and waited for Law to move his lazy ass and open the damn door, Remy wished he’d bought the fricking flowers. Would have given him something to do with his hands. He tucked them into his pockets. Counted to five. Rang the doorbell again. Nobody answered.

Rang it again. Dread curled through him and his mind, usually so logical and calm, started working overtime. His hands curled into fists and he found himself thinking about what had happened here just a few weeks ago—

But just as he’d worked himself up to take the door down, Law opened it.

Blowing out a breath, he scowled at the other man.

“Nice to see you, too, Jennings,” Law said, smirking.