Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [108]
Ronnie and Louie had moved back from the table, giving us room. I think they’d have left the room if they had been sure we wouldn’t come to blows. Jamil had set his coffee down as if he was getting ready to jump in and save us from ourselves. But it was too late to save us, far too late.
“You bastard,” I said. “It took us both to get where we are, Richard.”
“Three of us,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. My eyes were hot, my throat tight. “Maybe one good fuck would have done it. I don’t know. Do your high ideals keep you warm at night, Richard? Does your moral high ground make you less lonely?”
He took that last step that put us almost touching. His anger flowed over me like an electric current. “You cheated on me, but you have him in your bed, and I have no one.”
“Then find someone, Richard, find anyone, but let it go. Let it the fuck go.”
He stepped back so abruptly, it made me sway. He left the room striding, his rage trailing after him like the smell of disturbing perfume.
I stood there for a second, then said, “Get out, everyone out.”
The men left, but Ronnie stayed. I wouldn’t have cried, honest, but she touched my shoulders, hugged me from behind, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.” I could have withstood anything except sympathy.
I cried with my hands covering my face, still hiding, still hiding.
32
THE DOORBELL RANG. I moved as if to answer it, but Ronnie said, “Let someone else get it.”
Zane called from the living room. “I’ll get it.” Which made me wonder where Jamil and Louie were. Comforting Richard, maybe?
I pushed away from Ronnie, scrubbing at my face. “Who could it be out here? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Jamil and Louie were suddenly back in the room. Either they’d heard me, or they were just as suspicious as I was. I picked the machine gun off the floor and stood in the doorway with the gun held at my left side, out of sight. The Firestar was in my right hand, also out of sight. Louie and Jamil moved into the living room to either side.
“Don’t cross my line of sight,” I said.
They both moved a little farther apart. Ronnie said, “I didn’t bring my gun.”
“The Browning is in the coat on the floor.”
Her grey eyes were just a touch wide, her breathing just a little fast, but she nodded and went for the gun.
Zane was looking back at me with wide eyes. He looked a question at me, and I nodded. He checked the peephole. “Looks like a delivery guy with flowers.”
“Open it,” I said.
Zane did, blocking my view of the man. The man’s voice was too soft to hear. Zane turned back to me. “Says you have to sign for the flowers.”
“Who are they from?”
The man peered around Zane, raising his voice to say, “Jean-Claude.”
“Just a minute.” I laid the machine gun on the floor out of sight and kept the Firestar hidden behind my leg as I moved for the door. Jean-Claude kept me supplied with flowers, but he usually waited for the old ones to start to die, or at least fade. Of course, he had turned on the romantic overtime today.
He was a small man, holding the box of roses in his arm, his left hand on top of the box with a clipboard and a pencil with one of those strings on it.
Zane stepped away from the door to let me move up, but I got my first look in the little plastic window of the box. Yellow roses. I stopped moving forward and tried to smile. “You’ll need a tip. Wait there while I get my purse.”
The man’s eyes flicked around the room, watching Jamil move up to his left and Louie to his right. I stepped to one side trying not to be directly in front of him. He followed me with the box, with his hand under the box.
Jamil had the best angle. I made his name a question, “Jamil?”
“Yes,” was all he said, but it was enough.
“I don’t need a tip,” the man said, “but I’m running behind. Could you just sign for it so I could get going?”
“Sure,” I said. Jamil had picked up what was going on, but Zane was still looking puzzled. Ronnie was somewhere behind me. I didn’t dare look for her,