Lee leaned against the wall and wrapped her arms around her middle. "I am curious as to why someone would spend so much time getting a doctorate in Chemistry only to become a third owner in a bar." She bent her knee and flattened her foot up against the wall.
Jake hefted another case onto the growing pile in the corner. "And I'm curious why you had to ever worry about getting off the streets. Care to enlighten me?"
She shook her head.
"Then we're even." He moved on to straighten a precarious stack of boxes.
Lee pursed her lips and stared at the floor. It appeared that they were at an impasse. A crossroads. A fork in the road. If she didn't tell him what he wanted to know, then whatever might happen between them might never happen.
She could keep the details of her past away from him and he could keep his from her. That would be the safest path. The no risk path. If she didn't tell him, their relationship might never evolve to its potential.
Then again, if she did tell him, their relationship might or might not move to the next logical step. And she wanted that next logical step. She wanted that next step badly.
What would Marilyn tell her to do? The answer popped into her head in an instant. Marilyn would say, "No pain, no gain." But Marilyn wasn't apprised of the details regarding Emily's past. Marilyn knew the details of Lee's past, but not Emily. Lee was the person she wanted the world to know. Not Emily.
"It's not what you think," Lee muttered.
Jake kept rearranging boxes and organizing. "I can imagine some pretty bad things, sweetheart."
"I left of my own free will."
"Left what?" He stacked the soda syrup boxes.
"Home."
"Why?" He kept his back to her, but stopped arranging.
"Because…," she trailed off and stared at his back. Her reasons for leaving home might sound juvenile to some, but they weren't juvenile. Not to her.
Emily hadn't run away—well, she had. She'd snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, but it had been for a good reason. She'd been trying to save her life. Or rather, she'd been trying to live it.
At least, that's what she'd told herself at the time.
"Why, Emily?" His question was soft and barely audible above the groan of music in the bar and the drone of the air conditioner.
Emily blinked and focused on Jake who had turned around and was watching her with concern. She hugged herself tighter and tried, without success, to relax the stiffening of her shoulders.
"Because I couldn't handle the way things were. And I sure as hell didn't want to stick around when the papers got wind of my mother's latest stunt."
"So you just ran away?"
The chip on her shoulder spoke for her. "No. I shimmied down the fire escape, then skipped merrily away."
"How old were you?"
Emily sent him a bitter smile. "One day away from the ripe old age of seventeen."
"And you lived on the streets," he stated more than asked.
The chip on her shoulder disintegrated. "There were a couple of half way houses, but not every town has a half way house. So, yes, I did sleep on a couple of street benches."
Jake cursed under his breath. "What about your parents?"
"What about them?" Emily pushed off angrily from the wall and paced. "My father died when I was two. My mother wasn't the greatest in the world. She had a little problem. No, I take that back. She had a big problem. And it had everything to do with a little white substance which could be inhaled for a quick buzz."
Jake's eyes narrowed and she couldn't bear the pity in his expression. She didn't want to be pitied. "Cocaine," he said.
"It's not like it's a huge secret. Every newspaper and magazine carried the story of my mother's little addiction and her attempted suicide. Oh, maybe I should mention just who my mother is. It's not like I'd expect you to recognize her name. I mean, it's not like you keep up with the names of every has-been fashion model."
"Your mother was a model?"
Emily nodded. "Her real name is Amelia Stafford. But she always went by Amé."
"Your mother is…?"
"Amé." Emily cursed the tears pooling in her eyes. It never failed that when she thought of the past that her emotions got the best of her. That's why she didn't like to talk about it.
Emily despised thinking about how her mother reacted when she was in need of a hit of something, a dose of anything which would make her forget about everything. Forget Nature taking its toll on her body. Forget the wrinkles showing up around her eyes. Forget eating. Forget… the days and the nights.
Forget everything.
Including her daughter.
Emily pivoted on her heel and stalked back in the other direction. "Take a guess how many times she almost missed a shoot because she was stoned out of her mind? Or how about how many times I had to pick her up off the bathroom floor and tuck her into bed? Or yell at her to eat something? How many times I had to hold her head over the toilet so she wouldn't—"
"Stop." Jake grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to turn and face him.
"Why should I? This is what you wanted to know." Emily was in full blown sarcastic mode and she refused to look up at him. She couldn't let him see how much talking about her past hurt her. How walking out on her mother had been the single worst moment of her life. Emily was lonely when she lived with her mother, but when she left home… she was alone. Loneliness was nothing compared to being alone in a big city and having no food or money or… no one to talk to.
Emily jerked out of his grasp and backed away from him. "You wanted to know why I let Mom ride alone in the ambulance, then shimmied right on down the fire escape and scampered away." She sniffled and clenched her eyes shut. Tears, fat hot tears, one right after the other rolled down her cheeks. "Dammit."
Jake made a soothing noise, then reached for her and pulled her into his embrace. "Come here."
"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," Emily said.
"I wouldn't dream of it." He held her tight. "I'm sorry, sweetness."
Her arms slithered of their own accord around his waist and she clung to him for a warmth her battered soul desperately craved. "Don't be. I did what I had to. I survived. That's all that matters."
Jake said something she didn't hear and she felt him press a kiss to the crown of her head. "You did better than survive."
Emily laughed and burrowed deeper into his warmth. "I should have known you would be a card carrying optimist."
"I renewed my membership the moment I set eyes on you." His arms loosened and Jake pulled back, then tilted her chin up to look at him. His eyes were bright with anger, compassion, and so much emotion that it hurt to look at him. He blinked, shielding his thoughts from her, then guided her to a chair which needed its ripped seating repaired. "Have a seat."
She reluctantly did as he bid, then waited for him to speak.
Jake flipped an empty bucket upside down, then sat down in front of her. He caught her hands in his and massaged her palms. "What happened when you went home?"
"I didn't go back home."
"I don't suppose you went back home right away, but after you opened your business… what happened with your mother?"
"I bought her a condo, set her up with a fat bank account, and once a year I replenish her funds. That's it."
He opened his mouth, but she interrupted him. "Jake, my mother and I were never close. I call her on Christmas and leave a message. She doesn't worry about me and I don't worry about her."
"I can't believe that. She's your mother. Mother's worry. It's what mothers do."
"Maybe your mother, but not mine." Emily clenched her teeth as a fresh wave of tears threatened to fall. "Can we change the subject now? I really don't want to talk about this anymore."
Jake studied her face for a long time, then spoke. "After I got my degree, I realized that I didn't want to work in a lab. Sad thing was that I had more fun laying sheet rock than I did as post doc. The spark was gone. I spent eight years getting my degrees and once the parchment was in my hands… I could have cared less about Gas Chromatography, Mass Spectrometry, and even less about working for a pharmaceutical company making polymers out of thin air. I got the degree. I did my time. I pleased Dad by getting the degree, then told him he could keep it 'cause I'm getting the hell out of the lab and making a life for myself.
"Dad and I didn't talk for a while, but he got over it. Mom didn't like the idea of me being a bar owner, but she came around when she figured out that it was a place where she could come and, without making the old man jealous as hell, dance her fool heart out."
Emily had a feeling Jake was leaving something out, but she wasn't in the mood to question him.
Jake continued, "My sister is and has always been keen on the idea of me being a bar owner, because she can show up and get free drinks. What she doesn't like is that I cut her off after two. She'll probably come in tonight and bug the hell out us, thereby making a general nuisance of herself. Not to mention that I'll have to divide my time between playing over protective big brother, pouring beer for a bunch of drunks, and threatening to kill anyone who stares at you too long or asks you to dance."
Emily relaxed. "I could always join Marilyn and Booker for pizza, beer, and a Gerard Butler movie."
"You could, but that's not what I would want." His smile was more devil than angel as he pressed kisses to the pads of her fingers. The gold flecks in his gray eyes glowed with a heat which ignited the lava pit in her stomach.
"What do you want," she asked breathlessly. Her body pulsated with an acute awareness of his masculinity. Emily was amazed at the quickness of her transformation from emotionally frustrated to sexually frustrated. But she shouldn't have been. Jake was offering something Emily had never ached for before.
Physical love.
Marilyn was right when she'd called Jake Mister Right. It felt right when he touched her. It felt right when he kissed her. When Jake was near, Emily didn't feel the cold sting of loneliness as much.
It was as if he understood what she needed and gave it to her. Or let her take it. And Emily wanted to run her fingers through his thick, soft hair and ground her mouth against his in a hard, punishing, sensual kiss. And she needed, very badly, to feel his hands against her skin.
Heck, who was she fooling?
There was nothing philosophical about this relationship. Emily was a mare in season and she ached to mate. The mating wouldn't have to be tender or romantic, but fierce and primal and—she halted her thoughts and suppressed a deep, mewling groan.
Jake released her and planted his hands on either side of her seat. He leaned forward and, holding himself up by his arms, hovered over her. His mouth was centimeters from hers. "What do I want right now? Or for the future?"
"Right now."
His tongue traced her quivering bottom lip. "To kiss you."
"Oh," she gasped, then proceeded to do a little tasting of her own. "Patience is a highly over rated virtue."
"Not to mention a damned nuisance." Jake slipped his hands under her buttocks and hefted her onto his lap. "Straddle me. Ah, sweetheart, what you do to me." His fingers massaged her bottom and moved her against his blatant arousal. "I've wanted you since the first moment I saw you." He didn't give her a chance to respond, but slid a hand up her back, into her hair, and, cupping the back of her head, fused their mouths together.