Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story Read online

  The old woman stood at the kitchen table, forming dough into tiny, crescent-shaped gnocchi. She lifted her head and when her gaze locked with his, Hank wanted to cross himself.

  If ever he’d seen an “evil eye,” this was it. Not that he didn’t deserve his mother-in-law’s contempt—but a man could only take so much.

  He looked away from her hot, dark gaze and noticed a separate pile of pieces of gnocchi dough—flattened, misshapen, poisonous little bites—and he knew instantly which pile she intended for his dinner.

  Gritting his teeth, he hissed in a breath and faced her again. “Enough, Maria,” he snapped, tossing his good shirt across a chair. The scorched imprint of an iron decorated the back of the pale blue fabric and just seeing it set his teeth on edge again. “Say what you have to say and get it over with.”

  She drew herself up to her less than impressive height, narrowed her eyes on him and looked about to spit fire. “You bastardo,” she accused, wagging one gnarled finger in his face. “Diavolo! You cheat on my Sylvia while she issa dying. Abbindolatore! Cheater! You have no heart. No soul. You are worse than a dog.”

  Bear, sleeping under the table, reacted by lifting his head and thumping his tail against the floor, before settling back down again.

  Hank tried to remember that this was his mother-in-law. That she had a right to her anger. To her pain. But damn it, he had a right to decent coffee he didn’t have to slice with a knife. To clothes that weren’t either burned by irons or mysteriously shredded in the washing machine. He wanted to eat food that wasn’t burned and stop looking over his shoulder for a cleaver-wielding Italian maniac to attack him when he least expected it.

  He took another breath, held it for as long as he could, then released it while he counted to ten. Then twenty.

  Then he gave it up.

  Throwing his hands wide, he said, “I know what I did was wrong. I can’t feel any worse about it. But I can’t change it, either. What would you have me do?”

  “Penance!” she shouted right back at him.

  “I do, Maria. Every day I pray that Sylvia will forgive me.”

  “She no forgive.” She lifted one hand and slammed it onto the table. “I no forgive.”

  All the air left him and Hank’s shoulders sagged. No matter what he said or did, nothing would ease Maria’s pain. Nothing would wipe away his sin. And in his heart, Hank knew that she was right. There was no forgiveness for him. Sometimes mistakes lived forever.

  “Fine. You no forgive. Torture me forever if it gives you peace.” He leaned down until they were eye to eye. “But what happened that summer—what I did—is between me and Sylvia. Not you. If she spits in my face when I see her again . . .” The thought of that broke his heart, but it was something he would just have to face when the time came. “If she can’t forgive me, then I’ll go to hell. I’ll pay there.”

  “She no forgive.” Maria’s deeply lined, aged face was set in stone but for her darkly burning eyes—a perfect sculpture of an avenging mother. And he couldn’t even blame her. Damn it.

  “Maybe not.” He picked up his former best shirt and crossed the room to toss it into the trash. Glancing at her again, he said, “If it makes you feel better to torture me, I understand.”

  Seconds ticked past and the only sound was Bear, snoring his morning away.

  Finally, though, Maria looked at him again. “It no bother you for me to make you pay?”

  “No,” he said, surrendering to the inevitable. “I deserve it. And more.”

  A stream of viciously muttered Italian left her as she gathered up the misshapen gnocchi and set about redoing them. “Iffa you no mind, it’sa no fun anymore. Bastardo.”

  Stunned, Hank took what he could get and left the kitchen quick—before Maria could change her mind.

  “How’s your hand?”

  Jo flexed her fingers, winced, then sighed with satisfaction. “Hurts like hell,” she admitted, then slanted him a glance. “But I’m betting Steve’s jaw hurts a lot more.”

  “You should’ve let me hit him for you.”

  “Not a chance,” Jo said, smiling at the scrapes on her knuckles as if they were medals won in glorious battle. “I had to do it myself. Though I wouldn’t put it past him to have me arrested for assault or something.”

  Cash laughed and took the freeway exit for Chandler. “Are you kidding? He’d be too embarrassed to admit a woman clocked him. Besides, he can’t take the chance of your explaining to a cop why you hit him.”

  “There is that.” It was too late now to report him for the rapist he had been ten years ago. She had no proof. Only the memory of innocence lost. And it would be her word against Steve’s. Still . . . he wouldn’t risk her talking to the police.

  “I’m proud of you,” Cash was saying. “It took guts to face him down, but you did it.”

  “Thanks,” Jo said, smiling. “Took me ten years, but I’m pretty proud of me, too.”

  He drove slowly along the coast road, and on his left, Flower Fantasy spread across the meadow. Thousands of blooms, in every color imaginable, crowded the open field and filled the air with the heady scent of spring. Tourists flocked up and down the rows of booths and a carnival atmosphere clogged the main road into town. Cash slammed on the brake to avoid a Volkswagen that cut in front of him, and Jo rested her head against the seat back.

  “What’re you gonna do now?” he asked.

  “Go to Disneyland?” she quipped.

  “Funny.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I feel really . . . good. You want to help me celebrate?”

  “What’ve you got in mind?” He stepped on the gas again, cutting around a carload of gawkers that weren’t even pretending to be moving.

  “I was thinking we could go back to your place and—”

  Just like that, Cash’s features shut down. She watched him fist his hands on the steering wheel and the cab of the truck suddenly felt like a refrigerator.

  “Well, guess that answers my question.”

  “I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea, Josefina.”

  “Really? And just what idea is that?” Oh, she wished her hand didn’t hurt so bad, because she had the almost overpowering urge to use it again. On an even harder head.

  He didn’t answer for a long minute. Instead, he pulled the truck off the highway, into a scenic turnoff designed to give tourists a perfect Kodak Moment shot of the shoreline. He parked between two other cars, threw the truck into gear, cut the engine, and swiveled his head to glare at her.

  “You’re supposed to be gone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We had sex,” he reminded her. “You had an orgasm . . .”

  “Several . . .”

  “Exactly!” His shout startled a kid skateboarding along the sea wall, but Cash didn’t notice. He slammed both hands against the wheel. “So why the hell are you sticking around? That’s not how this works. We sleep together, you leave. That’s the deal.”

  Jo finally understood that old saying about “seeing red.” The edges of her vision went cloudy, grainy, and there was a decidedly red tinge to the whole thing. In fact, there was a ring of red around Cash’s face.

  Not unlike a target.

  “You’re serious.” Amazing. “You actually expected me to run off and join the circus? Or a convent or something? One night with you and I see the stars?” Of course, she had seen the stars, but that was beside the point.

  “Well,” he said, nodding. “Yeah.”

  Outside the truck, the ocean roared, seals barked at the tourists, demanding handouts, car horns blared and traffic staggered along the road. Inside the truck, Jo was looking directly into the eyes of an idiot.

  “You self-satisfied, egotistical—” Words failed her and she sputtered to a stop. The one time she most wanted to call down curses on a man’s head and she couldn’t think of anything low enough. Wouldn’t you know it?

  She unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle
. He stretched out and grabbed her hand first.

  “Move that hand or lose it, Cash.”

  “Damn it, Josefina—”

  She snapped him a look. “Don’t call me that. Never call me that again.”

  He let her go and eased back into his seat. “Why the hell are you so pissed off? You’ve been keeping me at arm’s length for a year. You never wanted this to be anything. God knows you told me that often enough.”

  True, all true. And when had that changed? When had she stopped looking at him as an annoyance? When had she started thinking of him as someone she could trust? Someone she could count on? God, he wasn’t the only idiot in the truck. “I changed my mind.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not doing this again, that’s why.”

  “Excuse me?” She pinned him with a look that should have fried him to the black leather seat. “When have we done this before?”

  “Not you and me,” he said, “me. I’m not doing this again.”

  “Fine. You know what? I don’t even care what that means. I don’t want to know. You’re right,” she said, opening the truck door and climbing down. She swung her bag up over her shoulder and glared in at him. “This could never be anything. I spent the last ten years running scared, Cash. Now I’m finished. You’re still running.”

  He shifted his gaze out to the wide sweep of ocean in front of them before looking back at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think we both know I’m right about this.” She slammed the truck door hard enough to make him wince.

  “Jo—get in the damn car, let me take you home.”

  “You can’t take me anywhere I need to go, Cash,” she said, glaring in the window at him. “So why don’t you do us both a favor and just . . . go away?”

  She walked away from him and never looked back.

  Cash knew that for a fact, because he watched her until she disappeared into a crowd of tourists.

  Three days later, Cash still felt like shit. He worked with Jo, but she wouldn’t talk to him. Hell, she wouldn’t even look at him. And he missed her. Missed arguing with her, missed laughing with her. Missed having the right to touch her.

  His guts twisted, his heart ached, but he figured that was just the price he had to pay to protect himself from devastation later.

  What the hell did she want from him, anyway? She should be grateful, not pissed. He’d helped heal her, for God’s sake. He’d done her a damn favor and now he was letting her go. Couldn’t she see how goddamn noble he was being? Damn the woman!

  Grumbling, he ran his thumb over the smooth edge of the rocker he’d designed and built. Made of rich, dark walnut, the elegant yet comfortable rocker swayed under his touch and made a welcome sound in the stifling stillness.

  “That’s neat. Did’ya just finish it?”

  Cash turned around as Jack Marconi raced into the workshop. He hadn’t seen the boy since right after the fire. He’d made it a point not to.

  Running scared? Jo’s accusation rose up in his mind, but he shut it down fast.

  “What’re you doing here, Jack?”

  “I rode my bike over. Papa said I could if I was careful.”

  “Well, I’ve got work to do and—”

  Jack wasn’t listening. He swung his hair back out of his eyes. “ ’Cause this lady’s coming to the house and Papa said she wouldn’t want lots of people there and stuff, so he said I could come see you.”

  “What lady?” Curiosity. Meant nothing.

  Jack sat down in the rocker and gave it a push with both sneakered feet. He set his cast down on the left arm of the thing and looked up at him. “I don’t know her name or anything, but she’s been on TV and everything. Papa says her husband’s a senate or something.”

  “Senator?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” He gave the rocker another push. “This is great. It’s like so big and everything. Can you show me how to make one?”

  “Why’s she coming?”

  “Who?” Jack blinked at him.

  “The senator’s wife?”

  “I dunno. She wants to see Jo, I guess.” Jack sprang up from the rocker and grinned up at him. “You wanna sign my cast?”

  Steve Smith’s wife coming to see Jo? What for? What was the bastard up to? And why hadn’t Jo told him about this? Even if she was pissed, wasn’t he a part of this? Did she think she could shut him out? Damn hardheaded woman.

  He didn’t trust Steve Smith as far as Jo could throw him, and any woman stupid enough to marry the prick couldn’t be much better.

  “Your sister,” he murmured, “is a—”

  “What?”

  “Pain in the ass,” he wanted to say, but he couldn’t really say it to a ten-year-old. Damn it, if Jo thought he was going to stay away when she was still dealing with this shit, then she was headed for real disappointment. He was in this and he was staying in this, until Smith was a distant memory.

  Once Cash was sure she was safe—when he knew she’d be all right . . . then he’d let Jo go.

  “I’ll sign it later,” Cash said, steering the boy out of the workshop. He picked up the bicycle from where Jack had dropped it in the driveway, and then set it in the truck bed.

  “Where we goin’?” Jack asked.

  “Your house,” Cash answered.

  “Bastardo,” Nana muttered. “You are inna my way. Move over.”

  “Maria,” Hank whispered, “if you don’t be quiet, we won’t hear anything.”

  “I hear everything,” she warned, a steely look in her eye.

  “Great. Super-Nana.” Hank forgot about his mother-in-law and focused his attention on the scene playing out in the backyard.

  “I had to see you.”

  Jo sat in one of four lawn chairs pulled up beneath the shade of an oak that had been standing in the Marconi yard since long before there was a house there. She leaned back into the green plastic chair with the wobbly front leg and studied the woman opposite her.

  Steve Smith’s wife, Melanie, was as pretty and soft as her name sounded. Her blond hair was cut into a feathery-looking do that left little wisps framing her pale face. Her green eyes looked huge under perfectly arched brows, and rose-colored lipstick gave her milky-white skin some color. She wore a cream-colored suit with beige heels and a beige bag.

  It was as if she were deliberately trying to be invisible.

  “How’d you find me?” Jo asked after a long minute.

  Melanie smiled uneasily from her perch on the edge of a matching lawn chair. “It wasn’t difficult. Linda—Steve’s assistant? She knew your name. Looked you up on the Internet.”

  Great. Thank you, Google.

  Across the yard, from inside the house, she knew her father and grandmother were posted at the windows, watching. She shouldn’t be glad they were such devoted snoops, but at least someone was going to be a witness to this.

  “Did Steve send you out here to—” She stopped, unsure just what his motive could possibly have been to send his wife out to see his rape victim.

  “No.” One word. Fast. Melanie jumped to her feet and clenched her hands together at her waist. “He doesn’t know I’m here. He can’t know I’m here.”

  “Okaaaayyy . . .”

  The agitated woman took a few short steps, her beige heels sinking into the Marconi lawn, before she turned around and came back again. “He hurt you, didn’t he?”

  “He raped me.” No easier to remember, but it was getting easier to say. What did that mean?

  “Oh God.” Melanie lifted her left hand to rub her forehead and her wide gold wedding band glinted dully in the sunlight. “I thought so. Linda said you . . . hit him and I—”

  It dawned on Jo finally that this visit wasn’t about her. It was about Melanie. Fear rippled off the woman in little sonic waves and Jo’s instinct to protect kicked in. “Are you all right?”

  She laughed. “No. No, I’m really not.”


  “What’s he done to you?”

  Melanie’s gaze shot to hers. “I didn’t say he—”

  “Relax,” Jo said, her voice low, soothing, as she stood up carefully, making no fast moves. She had the feeling that Melanie was already regretting her visit and was, in fact, on the verge of bolting. “You’re safe here.”

  “Jo?”

  “Damn it.” She saw Melanie flinch and tried a smile. It wasn’t easy.

  Cash Hunter came around the edge of the house from the driveway and his long legs were making short work of the distance separating them.

  “Who is that?” Melanie demanded.

  “A . . .” Good question. Just who the hell was Cash, anyway? Friend? Lover? Annoyance? “Long story,” she said finally, then added, “He’s okay. A pain in the ass, but okay. Trust me.”

  “Issa Cash.”

  “I can see that, Maria,” Hank snarled. “What’s he doing here?” He was still dealing with the fact that his daughter had taken Cash with her, instead of her papa, to face down the son of a bitch who’d raped her.

  “He’s a good boy,” Nana whispered in that throaty half-shout of hers. “Not cattolico, but good boy just the same.”

  Hank gritted his back teeth and squinted into the sun, trying to see past the light to the patch of shadows under the oak. “I don’t care if he’s Catholic, for God’s sake. And him being a ‘gooda’ boy doesn’t tell me why he’s here.”

  “He inna love with Josefina.”

  “What?”

  “Basta! He no know it yet.”

  Hank spared a glance for the old woman beside him. Crazy? Undoubtedly. Right? Who the hell knew?

  “What’s this about?” Cash asked as he stepped up to align himself with Jo. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine, go away.”

  He snorted. “Not likely, I’m in this. Right here with you.”

  Now Jo snorted, almost forgetting about the other woman as she sneered at Cash. “Sure you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.