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And Mom watched from the stove, a smile on her face.
“On whose authority?” she cried.
“Mine,” Jack said, grabbing an apple from a bowl on the counter that had sat empty for five years. “It’s my money, after all.”
She shook her head, anger and purpose filling her. She’d been outcast from her life, from her work long enough. “No more bed rest,” she snapped. “This is ridiculous.”
“I agree,” Jack said, taking a giant bite of the bright red fruit, juice dripping down his chin. He looked so earthy, so raw, it felt erotic just to look at him, to stand here and watch him eat.
She could barely blink for fear of missing something.
“Sandra?” He looked at her mother, “You got that box ready?”
“Here you go,” Sandra said and lifted a big box up onto the counter. “Try to have her home by midnight or she’ll turn into a pumpkin.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Mia asked.
“I’m taking you on a picnic,” he said.
A picnic? Her breath shook in her chest. Her heart got messy and missed a beat.
“Mom, what did you do?” Lucy asked from behind Mia. Mia couldn’t turn. She was riveted by Jack.
“I packed up some fried chicken and a couple of brownies for my daughter and her husband,” Sandra said, the word husband laced with dynamite.
“Sounds wonderful, Sandra,” Jack said with a charming smile, and Mom blushed.
“We’re here trying to help Mia,” Lucy said, but it all seemed so far away to Mia. The only thing she cared about, the thing she could touch, was Jack.
“Stay out of this Lucy,” Jack said. “This is between me and my wife.”
My wife? Was this really happening?
“Mia,” Lucy said, coming to stand beside her, tugging on her hand. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Lucy.” Walter’s voice boomed through the big room and everyone stopped. Except Lucy, who whirled on the old man.
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” Lucy asked.
Sandra threw her dishtowel over her shoulder and stepped out from behind the stove into the fray—and still Mia could not look away from Jack.
“A picnic,” he whispered, his eyes twinkling, his lips wet with juice. “Away from the maddening crowd.”
She knew it was a bad idea, just like she’d known going up on that roof in Santa Barbara had been a bad idea, but she was tired of resisting. Tired of being safe in her misery and loneliness. When he left, and he would, she wanted memories. She wanted something real to hold on to.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“The roof of the high school?” she asked a half hour later, staring up at the old fire escape that led to the air conditioning unit over the cafeteria.
“Only the finest,” he said, tucking Sandra’s picnic dinner into the old, beat-up knapsack he’d brought along. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d come with him. After days of pushing him away, that she was here seemed like a miracle.
A miracle he planned on taking full advantage of.
“You first,” he said, bowing slightly as if showing her the way to the best seat in the house.
She shot him a wry look. “Don’t stare at my butt,” she said, starting up the ladder.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, staring at her butt. Good lord, the woman’s curves had curves.
They climbed up the ladder, and from there they stepped to the top of the air conditioning unit and then chinned up onto the flat roof over the main part of the school.
She didn’t need his help, as ready as he was to give her a boost. Mia Alatore got where she wanted to go all by herself, and it was one of the things he most admired about her.
He wondered if she knew that.
How would she? he asked himself. You never bothered to tell her.
Calling a woman tough was hardly a love song. And Mia deserved whatever love songs he could give her.
Tar paper bit into his palms as he chinned himself up and onto the roof.
“Seems like some other people have found your hiding spot,” she said, kicking aside beer bottles and empty cans of spray paint. A filthy mattress crouched in the dark corner next to a big vent.
“They need to take down that ladder,” he said, saddened to see his old refuge so misused. “It’s too damn easy to get up here.”
“The view is still the same,” Mia said, looking out at the mountains, bathed in pink light from the setting sun. The small town of Wassau spread out in front of them for a couple of blocks in either direction.
A kingdom of split-level ranch houses and pickup trucks.
“I feel like a queen up here,” she said, laughing. She tucked her hands into the pockets of the zip-up red sweatshirt she wore and tilted her head back to the breeze.
How was it that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen? Dressed in a sweatshirt and cowboy boots, she beat every other woman by a mile.
