Tempting Eden (19 page)

Bess, wearing a hardhat and a sundress, was bent over a set of plans and giving the foreman a piece of her mind. Eden cursed under her breath before getting a full head of steam and barreling ahead.

“You said it would be done early!”

“Ms. Rochester, I presume?” The foreman tipped his hard hat. I didn’t envy him, standing between two extremely pissed off control freaks.

I stayed put and watched the show.

“You bet your ass I am. And why the fuck aren’t the walls painted? Where are my fixtures? Where’s the bar? Where’s the granite and the chrome and the glass and the tile?”

The foreman hitched a thumb toward the side of the building. “There’s a flatbed out there with everything you mentioned loaded up and ready to go. If you two ladies think you can go out there and heft it in here any faster than we can, be my goddamn guests.”

Oh, shit.

Eden fisted her hands at her sides. “You son of a fucking bi—”

“Rochester!” Mr. Poole dashed in from what I presumed was the pool area and gave Eden a too-friendly hug. “Glad to see you. Coming along great, isn’t she? Frank here will have her finished in no time. Right, Frank?”

When he released her from his grip, I relaxed. I didn’t realize I’d tensed until that moment. He was touching what was mine. It was irrational to think Eden could ever be mine. She wasn’t meant for the likes of me. Not in this life. But I couldn’t stop the feeling, the possessiveness.

“A week is plenty of time. At least it would be if you got these two banshees out from under me.” Frank rubbed his potbelly, as if comforting his food baby.

Mr. Poole barked out a harsh laugh and clapped Frank on the back. “You know how women get. Can’t control the hysterics. They don’t understand how the real world works.”

A mental image of me slamming Poole onto the floor floated across my vision.

“You got that right.” Frank smirked at Bess and Eden before going back to bossing his painting crew.

Eden was on fire, and Bess wasn’t much better.

Mr. Poole slid his hand down Eden’s back and rested it at the top of her ass. Too familiar, too close. Eden wasn’t the only one whose blood was hot enough to boil at that moment.

She shot me a glance and stepped away to peruse Bess’ plans.

Mr. Poole took a long look at both women before walking toward me.

When he passed me, he gave me a saccharine smile and said low enough so only I could hear, “And that, Jackie boy, is called pussy control.”

I imagined myself knocking out his too-straight teeth. I met his gaze, staring down at him so intently I noticed the burst blood vessels along his nose and the slight yellowing of his eyes. I wanted to hurt him for touching what was mine and for what he’d said, either reason was plenty. My mask of cool indifference seemed to have faltered, because he took a step away from me.

He bristled. “Boy, what’s got into you?”

I could knock him flat before he even knew what hit him. Instead, I gave a slight nod, which he took as me seconding his earlier comment.

“That’s more like it. Team player, that’s what I like about you, Jackie boy.” He seemed as if he were going to clap me on the back, then thought better of it before retreating back the way he’d come.

I looked over to Eden and Bess and realized they’d been watching the entire exchange with bated breath.

I forced myself to cool down, to become still again. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Eden put her hands on her hips. “Don’t
worry
? This place is a disaster, and you looked like you were about to clock the developer. Everything is not fine!”

“I wish he would have,” Bess muttered before pretending to inspect her designs some more.

“You aren’t helping, Bess.” Eden pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where are our rooms? I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

We were staying on site now that the majority of the condos were finished. I’d chosen two of the fully furnished, unsold apartments just one floor down from the penthouse, though I hoped we’d only be using one of them.

I herded her to the glass elevator and to the room in a matter of moments. The driver had already deposited our luggage. She sat on the bed before throwing herself backwards in a particularly teenage move. She rolled over and buried her face in the duvet.

I sat next to her and rubbed her back with one hand. “Talk to me, Eden.”

A muffled reply.

“What was that?”

She rolled onto her back and draped her forearm over her eyes. “You can’t be looking at Gray like that, understand? You just can’t. This
has
to work.”

I was at once angry that she wasn’t taking my side and also sorry that I’d caused her even more stress. “Look, I’m sorry. The way he talked to you, I just… Anyway, it won’t happen again.”

“Gray is the key to this. This deal has to close. I
have
to get this sold.”

“You will.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I have faith.”

She threw her arm off her face and let it lay out beside her. I saw fear in her eyes. The kind I recognized.

I smoothed her hair from her face, brushing against her soft skin with my palm. “Hey now, what’s got you so worried?”

She blinked hard and turned her head out toward the dark expanse of the sea. “I just have to get it done, is all.”

We ordered dinner in that night—Eden, Bess, and I—and went over our game plan to make the lobby and the as-yet un-tiled and un-filled pool area a wonderland for potential buyers as we ate. We stayed up until the early hours, Bess talking and me sketching as she went. Eden’s eyes lit up at the many pages of ideas, the images in graphite of topiaries, flowers, lighting.

“This is really going to blow the lid off this place.” Eden lay back against the sofa and finally closed her eyes.

Bess rose from the floor and stretched, her lithe dancer’s figure unfurling before my eyes. “I’m going to take this opportunity to actually sleep. But I intend to be on the foreman first thing and drive him hard.”

“That’s my girl,” Eden said, her voice already cloaked with sleep.

I followed Bess out into the hallway, pretending to go to my room.

She trailed her fingers along my upper arm and down to my elbow. “Changed your mind yet?”

“Tempting, but no. Sorry.”

She smiled up at me, weariness weighing down her usual sparkle. “I’m just busting your balls.”

I laughed. She was growing on me by the second.

She hit the elevator button as I swiped my key card.

“See you two lovebirds in the morning,” she called before the doors shut.

So, Bess knew. No real surprise there. I dropped the pretense and went back to Eden’s room. She was snoring lightly on the couch. I picked her up and carried her to the king size bed before undressing her.

Her eyes fluttered half open. “Now this is what I call service.”

“You know me. I live to serve.” I tucked her under the covers, though I was sad to lose the sight of her pale skin, pink in all the right places.

I stripped and slid in next to her, the brand new sheets cool and smooth against my skin.

She scooted over to me and lay her head on my chest. “I’m glad you’re staying.”

She sighed, half sleepy, half sexy. I wanted her, but doused the thought, giving way to what she needed. At that moment, she needed sleep.

I turned over and pulled her into my arms. “Me too.”

The sun had barely risen when my phone rang. I reached for it, knocking it onto the floor and under the bed. Eden grunted and threw the duvet over her head as I disentangled myself from her. She turned into an octopus in her sleep, arms and legs slung this way and that over me.

The ringing stopped before I could answer. I finally found the phone and stared at the screen, my eyes taking more than a few seconds to focus. It wasn’t Ms. Temple’s ringtone, so I wasn’t worried. The number had a Birmingham area code. The phone rang in my hand. Same number calling.

“Hello?”

“Is this Jack England?”

“Yes, who’s speaking?” Sleep thickened my words.

“I’m Lydia Gibson. I’m a nurse in Birmingham. I do hospice care. My patient has been asking for you nonstop for the past two days. I’ve only now tracked you down.”

My mind began to sharpen, sleep draining away. “Who? Who’s your patient?”

“Sarah Reed. Well, everybody calls her Mama Reed. She says she was your mother?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “No, she’s not my mother.” It came out gruffer than I intended.

Eden smoothed a hand over my back. She was wide-awake now, her auburn hair mussed and the hazel flecks in her eyes warm in the morning light.

“Oh, well, I meant your foster mother.”

“Right.”

The woman cleared her throat. “Well, like I said, she’s been asking. The doctors don’t think she has more than a week left. I don’t think she’s got but three days, honestly. So…” She trailed off.

“Why does she want to see me?” I hadn’t seen Mama Reed since the day I shot her husband. She never came to visit me, never even came to my sentencing to speak for or against me. She just disappeared.

“She hasn’t really said. But she hasn’t asked for anyone else. Just you.”

I could imagine her accusing me of murdering her husband in cold blood, maybe going apoplectic at the sight of me. Or maybe she would forgive me? I could imagine the former far easier than the latter.

I looked at Eden. She must have heard the conversation through the speaker because she raised her eyebrows and whispered, “What could it hurt to see her?”

A lot. It could hurt a lot. Reopening the wound her husband had made didn’t seem like a particularly rosy scenario for me to walk into. I couldn’t relive it, wouldn’t. Helen’s death had already broken me once.

“Are you there?” Her voice wavered.

“Yes, Lydia did you say?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea. We have a past, and it’s not a good one.”

Lydia lowered her voice. “I know. She told me about it. About you. But I’ve seen these types of cases time and again. She’s dying. You hear? Really dying. And if she isn’t able to get whatever it is off her chest, she won’t go easy. It’ll pain her to the last.”

Shit.
My past was my past. I rubbed the inked bars along my ribs. But if Lydia was right, and I stole peace from a dying woman, I knew it would never sit right with me, even if that woman was Mama Reed.

“Fine. Give me the address.”

“Come back as soon as you can.”

“I will.”

“And don’t stay too long.”

I smiled down at Eden. She’d driven me to the airfield. She chewed her pinky nail the whole way, nerves getting to her. I wondered if she was more nervous for me or for the project.

“I think you already covered that.”

“Right. Well, just, call if you need me. I’ll be here. Working.”

“You mean bitching out Frank?”

She finally gave me a small smile. “That’s what I meant when I said ‘working.’”

“Better him than me.”

Tom stashed my small bag and pulled down the now-familiar steps for me. Then he turned his back to us, giving us some privacy out in the middle of the wide expanse of runways.