A Year of You (14 page)

Whatever he said was too slurred for Mattie to understand.
“’s go upstairs,” he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the condo high-rise.
Mattie’s head was spinning so badly she wasn’t sure if she could stand, much less make it up seventeen stories. “Your truck’s closher--closer.” The sand in her tank top itched. All she wanted was his hands back inside the stretchy fabric, manhandling her.

“I ain’t sleeping in my truck tonight.” He pulled her to her feet and held her until she steadied herself.

“Fine. Les’ just sit until we can walk better.”

West growled something and shook his head. He grimaced and groped for the low wall. “Why don’t we just sit here for a while?”

***

Tendrils of light had started to creep across the night sky when West’s eyes popped open. It took him a long, disoriented minute to recall why he was on the beach. The hot lump of flesh cuddled against his side groaned and stirred.

“Hey, Mat?”

The lump groaned again and swung herself into an upright position. “Damn, woman. You look like hell warmed over.”

“Bite me. I need to pee. Really bad.” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I still feel drunk.”

“You drank enough of that stuff last night!”


“Oh, shut up and find me a bathroom.”


“There’s a bush over there.”
She glared at him, her eyes hot enough to melt metal. She opened her mouth, no doubt to ream him, but the crunch of sandy footsteps on concrete interrupted her.
Emeline and a guy West didn’t recognize appeared around the curve of the path. Emeline stopped short and gasped, one hand going to her chest.

“What are you doing out here?” she demanded.


West got to his feet and hauled Mattie to hers. “Enjoying ourselves.”


The guy with Emeline was tall and wiry, with perfectly coiffed spiked hair topped with blonde. He had the smooth good looks of a gay boy-band member. West gave him the once-over. Jealousy reared its ugly head.

This skinny pretty-boy with the manicured hands didn’t have anything on him.
Mattie wavered on her feet. She leaned over the low concrete wall and puked.
A smug smile curved Emeline’s perfect lips. She shook her head. “That’s pathetic.”
Mattie spit a few times, swiping her hand across her mouth. She scrubbed her hand on her jeans.

“Don’t screw with me right now, Emeline.”


“Oh. I’m scared.”
“What’re you doing out here, Em?” West said abruptly, breaking the tension between the sisters.

“Enjoying myself.” She brushed against pretty-boy’s arms. He smiled at her, an adoring smile that West recognized as one he himself generally wore around Em.
He squelched the urge to deck the guy, to ruin that too-perfect smile. While he was mulling over things to do to pretty-boy, he missed whatever it was that Em said to Mattie.
Mattie launched herself at her sister, practically howling with rage. Pretty-boy scrambled away from the tangle of arms and legs and long blonde hair.


“Damn it, stop it!” West waded into the fray and hauled Mattie up by the back of her shirt. “I’m sick of breaking up you two.”


Emeline got up and brushed the sand from her clothes. “Bitch. I hate you. You don’t belong here!”


“It’s mutual, baby, trust me.” Mattie touched her cheek and viewed at the four stripes of blood crossing her palm with surprise that simmered into rage.

“West, can we go?”
He didn’t want to leave. Emeline had led him down this same path a couple of times. Ultimately, it was a straight path to Emeline’s bedroom. It struck him hard in the gut and left him hollow, knowing that another man was taking what had been his. Had it ever been his?

No. Never once had he felt like Em was only his.
For a moment he hated Mattie. He couldn’t even look at her. “Go get in the truck, Mattie.”
When she was gone around the bend in the path, he pushed between Em and her new toy. He reached out to brush her hair out of her face, but she turned away from his touch. It cut him to his core.

“Em?”


“Brant...no.”


“Emeline—”


“You’re getting married, Brant. You chose my sister--well, you chose the woman who
claims
to be my sister.” She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head. With a sigh, she put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, but this thing between us is over. I mean, there really wasn’t too much there.”

She reeked of insincerity. West backed away from her, shaking his head in disbelief. The alcohol still circulating through his system left him in a fog. Everything had a blurred, surreal edge. He gripped her arm. “Em, it doesn’t have to be over.”

She curled her upper lip in disgust. “You think I’m having anything to do with her sloppy seconds? Yeah, right.”

Damn. That hurt
.

“It’s me, Emeline. We’ve been together for three years. And before that you knew—”


“You were a perv? Yeah, I was like fifteen when you started liking me, and you were how old? Like, old.”


West stumbled backwards, devastated. “No, no. It was nothing like that, and you know it.” The look on her face was salt in the wounds. This was a game to her! She loved the drama of the whole thing. He knew her well enough to know that in a few hours, when pretty-boy was gone, she’d call him and act like nothing had happened.

“I don’t know what to say, Brant.” Emeline gave him a sugary sweet smile and flounced off down the path.

“Emeline!”


“Bye, Brant!”
He bit back his rude remark and stormed off toward the truck. Mattie was sprawled across the entire bench seat.
“We should probably go. I peed in the corner over there. Can’t get the door to shut,” she muttered, sitting up.


“Damn it, it’s not that hard.”


“Fuck you!” She glared daggers at him while he stomped around the truck and slammed her door. The sound ricocheted around the parking garage like a dozen gunshots, rattling his slightly inebriated brain. Mattie moaned and slumped down in her seat, eyes clenched shut.

***

“Where are we going?” Mattie mumbled.


“My place. You need to sleep this off before you get around anybody.”


“What the hell does that mean?”


“You’re a bitch when you’re on the other side of half-drunk. And you don’t have a key to McKendrick’s, do you? And I know for a fact he hates seeing people drunk.” She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, glowering at him. “It’s your fault for giving me that damn drink.”


“I didn’t force you to drink it.”


She willed her glare to skewer him, cut him in half. It only made her nauseous, so she clenched her eyes shut and rested her head against the window. She opened her eyes when he stopped the truck. “What?”

“I have to pee and we both need water.”

Mattie’s head ached too bad to spit out one of the nasty retorts on her tongue. All she wanted to do was sleep. Somehow she found the energy to slide out of the driver’s side and hobble into the gas station bathroom. Hovering over the nasty toilet, her bladder cramped so badly it made her whole stomach hurt. When she finally got relief, she felt a hundred times better.

Mattie emerged from the grimy little bathroom, scrubbing her damp, freshly washed hands on her pants. She rejoined West in the truck. He passed her a cold bottle of water. It was heaven on her cottony tongue, rapture to her irritable stomach.

She dozed off on the way to his place. The sun was just breaching the horizon when she opened her eyes. While her head seemed a little clearer, the lack of sleep and the nasty hangover were catching up with her.

“We’re here.” West shut off the truck. Mattie forced her eyes open again. The truck was parked in front of an aging single-wide trailer. The property directly around the house was surrounded by a sandy yard and scraggly woods. She hadn’t seen this part of his land the day he had shown her his business.

Emeline had enough contempt for West’s home to sink a ship. Mattie didn’t understand why. To her, it was cozy. She wouldn’t mind living here, not at all.

He led the way up the comfortable little porch and in through the front door. “Bedroom’s down the hall there. Make yourself comfortable.”
Mattie felt awkward stumbling through his house, but her head was beginning to pound, so she shoved those feelings away. The bedroom at the end of the hall was neat and tidy, the bed made up with a suede comforter.

He said to make herself comfortable. The last thing she wanted to do was sleep in sandy clothes and a pair of underwear she might have peed in just a little bit because she couldn’t get her pants down fast enough back at the garage. With her head aching too bad to feel uncertain about what she was doing, she plundered through the drawers until she found an old worn T-shirt and a pair of his boxers. She stripped and rolled her dirty clothes into a ball. She pulled the shirt over her head and stepped into the boxers. They were a little too snug to be entirely comfortable, but it was better than nothing. The shirt smelled like West.

She didn’t need to really fall for him. Either she would end up leaving, or K would take her away.

Oh, God. The bed! Her body screamed for it. When she plopped down on the perfect mattress, it felt like heaven. The soft suede comforter conformed to her body. It was a little chilly in the bedroom, but Mattie couldn’t move enough to slide under the comforter. She was asleep before she even knew it.

She woke for a brief moment when weight on the opposite side of the bed jostled her. “Hmm?”

“Just me. Couch isn’t real comfortable.”


“’s your bed.”
More asleep than awake, she curled toward his body heat.

“Damn, woman, you’re freezing.” A moment later a blanket softer than chenille swept over her body. West’s arm slipped around her waist and pulled her backside firmly against his belly. Sighing sleepily, she cuddled into him even more and drifted back to dreamland.

Chapter Ten

Officially, she was Mrs. Brant West. Two weeks of angry deliberations between West and McKendrick, screaming matches and nasty tricks from Emeline, and no peace whatsoever, were finally over. She could start her search for Elaine soon.

Mattie twisted the delicate bracelet on her wrist and watched West smoke a cigarette outside on the concrete square that he called a patio. She was still in her wedding dress, a simple white empire- waisted affair that actually made her feel pretty.

West hadn’t noticed her. Even when they were saying their vows, his eyes wandered behind her to Emeline. Emeline, of course, wore something a prostitute might wear to a wedding. Short, tight, low- cut, the scrap of a dress didn’t leave much to the imagination. And it was white.

In her modest knee-length dress, Mattie knew she didn’t compare to Emeline, not in West’s eyes. Not in a million years.
He said it was over between them, but his eyes said he still had some trouble letting go.

The sliding glass doors led outside, but the steps that bridged the three-and-a-half-foot drop to the ground were broken, lying a few feet away. West had told her earlier it was a result of one of his ‘jam sessions.’ He’d admitted the sessions turned into drunken parties, more often than not.

Mattie leaned against the sharp doorframe and watched her new husband finish his smoke. He ground it out under the heel of his boot.

He turned around and flicked his longish hair out of his eyes. “Yeah?”

Startled, Mattie shrugged and shook her head. “Just standing here.” His eyes roved from her face to her bare stockinged feet.

“You don’t remember any of this?” he asked, cocking his head at her.

“No.” It was becoming too real for her. As time passed, it got harder and harder to separate all her identities. She was Evelyn Claire, she was Mattie, she was Elaine. Sometimes she even caught herself trying to recall an event or a person, things and people she had never had anything to do with.

She was way too involved. Hell, she was half in love with West.
“I wish I did,” she said.
He played with another cigarette, but ended up sticking it behind his ear, unlit.

“You look nice,” he said, quietly. “Very pretty.”
A warm feeling swarmed up Mattie’s toes to her belly to her heart. West thought she looked pretty! Giddiness warmed her belly and made her want to giggle like a teenager on prom night.
“Come out here and I’ll show you the place.”


Mattie felt a little curl of delight spiral up her spine. “Okay.” The nearest shoes were a pair of ragged flip-flops. She hiked her dress up and shoved down her pantyhose, kicking them off. West watched, one eyebrow raised slightly.


“What?”


He shrugged. “Nothing.”

She slipped her feet into the flip-flops and sat down, her legs dangling over the ‘patio.’ West stepped up and grabbed her by the waist, helping her down. “Thanks,” she told him. He held on for a second longer than necessary.

“Whatever. I don’t feel like driving you to the hospital with a broken ankle.”


“What, you don’t think I can handle a little jump like that?”


“I just think you have really bad luck. How many times have you fallen out of my truck? Remember falling off the seawall? Slipping up the stairs?”


“I told you. Somebody pushed me, and somebody put something on the stairs.”


“This isn’t a crappy romance story, Mattie. Nobody’s plotting to kill you or trying to hurt you in any way, and I sure the hell am not some white knight.”

“Well, obviously.” Miffed that he didn’t believe her, Mattie pulled away from him, walking a few steps to the side. She looked around warily for the dogs. She hated his mutts with a passion. He had a herd of them, mostly mutts and mixed breeds.

“Don’t worry. They’re in their pen.” West pointed in the direction of the chicken-wire-and- plywood dog pen. They walked around the trailer and across the front yard before heading through some low, thin scrub.

After stepping on yet another sandspur, Mattie protested. “West, where are you taking me?”


“Just through here.” He led her through a gap in the scrub.


“Oh.” Mattie found herself at the foot of an old dock that stretched out over a small pond. The edges of the little body of water were thick with water lilies and other vegetation. The remains of an anchored wooden raft drifted out in the middle of the water.