I’ve taken the moment of his absence to stand at the window across from the sofa and admire the view, something I wouldn’t allow myself with Lucas in the room. Nothing like being in someone’s home to level the playing field. Just a day before, I’d contemplated how well he and I might have gotten along if we didn’t have our separate loyalties standing between us. Something about his reserved sexiness appeals to me, surprising considering the self-imposed hiatus of my love life after that one night with Den.
Now I’m thinking it’s more than Lucas’s loyalty to Bobby Warren and mine to my aunt that stand between us. It’s the difference between this condo sanctuary of black leather and chrome, this island-dotted ocean view, and my home in the San Joaquin Valley. A nice-enough home, except for my crazy neighbor to the left, who uses his big black pickup as a living room, where he can be seen reading the newspaper every morning.
Exceptfor the 106-degree heat in the summer that would drive anyone but a native to saner climates.
Exceptfor my too-small backyard, which shrunk to postage-stamp status after I got a wild hair and planted it with tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapeños, which immediately took over.
Exceptfor the vacuum cleaner that stands like a greeter just inside my front door, and the piles of paper—bills, magazines, hand-written notes to myself for stories yet to happen.
Except for all of that, a nice-enough home. But what would Lucas think?
It’s flat-out depressing when you view your life through the eyes of a man you’re contemplating whether or not you should get to know better.
Besides, I haven’t thought about anyone like this since that disaster with Den, and I just can’t anymore. I learned the hard way that a man who requires too much thought, too many questions about yourself and your relationship, is like a boulder. There’s no way you can rise above the problems and complications of life when you’re hanging on to that big, all-consuming rock.
Why hasn’t Bobby Warren come down those stairs? Just when I’m ready to go up and find out for myself, I hear footsteps and turn to see Lucas. I can tell by his stem expression that he’s going to try to weasel the old man out of this interview. And I resolve to climb over him and his posh Italian leather sofa if that’s what it takes to get to what I was promised.
Then he tells me.
“Bobby’s really upset. Julie just called him. That’s where he’s been, talking to her on the phone.”
I sense a lie there, an omission, at least.
“Julie Larimore? You really expect me to believe that?”
Lucas shoots me a look so irate that I want to duck. Then his eyes change, and he looks like the other Lucas again. In a flash, I remember Hamilton’s words.Anger is a secondary emotion.Pain. Fear. Which one have I triggered?
“He believes it happened. He claims it was her voice, even though it was muffled.”
“Then, let me talk to him. Maybe I can help.”
“That’s impossible.” In a smooth couple of steps, he blocks my way to the staircase, and I realize for the first time how large he is.
“If Julie Larimore really did call him, we need to find out everything we can.”
I move closer. The stairs are my goal. Surely he won’t grab me if I maneuver around him, and I must. This is too important. No way am I going back to the motel until I hear what happened from Bobby himself.
“Don’t, Rikki.” Lucas blocks me again, stepping to the side just before I can skirt around him. I wanted to kiss this man just a few minutes ago. Now he’s ready to go to blows with me. “We’ll talk to you before we talk to anyone, but for now, a couple of hours at least, Bobby W and I need some time to discuss this. You understand, don’t you?”
Through his glasses, through his dark eyes, I see the truth. He is scared, and I—a woman whom moments before he made feel desirable for the first time in a long time—am suddenly his new worst enemy.
I move closer, try to make him hear me through the fear. “We don’t have the time for private meetings, Lucas. You don’t, and neither does Mr. Warren. If Julie Larimore was really on that phone tonight, she may not have much time, either. I have to go up there and talk to him.”
I see the resolve in his features, realize how he won those weightlifting titles. He simply doesn’t give; he’d drop before he did.
“I’m sorry. I really am. But if you don’t leave right now—”
“Cut the crap, Luke.”
At the top of the staircase, Bobby Warren, dressed in a sea-foam-green sweatsuit, stands erect as a monarch before his subjects.
“Mr. Warren,” I begin, but he interrupts me before I can continue.
“Get the hell up here,” he says. “You’re right about timing. We can’t help Jules if we sit on our butts around here all day. Isn’t that right, Luke?”
Lucas doesn’t reply. I don’t have to look at his eyes to feel the fury in them. But he steps back, almost sinking into the chrome rail.
By then, I’m already on the stairs, smelling Bobby Warren’s bourbon breath beneath his Obsession or whatever high-powered, upscale scent with which he’s doused himself, following him into the second bedroom that must serve as Luke’s office.
