The General Read online

  "Not with a little girl missing," he agreed, leaning over the counter to give Jazzy a quick kiss to the temple. "If I can't, one of the guys in uniform will be here to walk you two to your cars," he said.

  "Good luck," Gala called to him.

  "Tell Ms. Ericsson to have a Happy New Year," he said in parting.

  Feeling a weight lifted I hadn't realized was even there, I made my way out, stopping at my place for her surprise, then driving back to the house, seeing Lincoln come out to greet me, only shaking his head, not saying anything about being late.

  "Give me a hand," I demanded, pulling open the bed of the truck, handing him the bags and coffee so my hands were free to grab Jenny's gift.

  "Oh, fuck," Lincoln said, sighing.

  "What?" I asked, hauling the weight down.

  "You too?"

  "Me too what?"

  "First Quin, then Gunn..."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You are making shit for her. You're interested."

  "I didn't make it for her. I had it around. I am just giving it to her."

  "Right, because that distinction really makes a difference," he drawled, rolling his eyes.

  I chose to ignore that.

  "What is she up to?"

  "Last I saw her, she was trying to find something to wear that doesn't look like it cost a thousand dollars."

  "She's afraid to order new clothes," I told him, shaking my head. "Though, I got some good news. Lloyd seems to know. But told me no one else does, and he doesn't plan to follow through with it."

  "Fuck, seriously?"

  "He had to interview her back with the Mallick thing."

  "Ah, that explains it. Didn't see her myself, but a buddy of mine on the force said she was unrecognizable. Maybe you can convince her to pretend she has some death arrangements to do or something and pop by a store for some clothes."

  "Not a bad idea. Bertram is handling the arrangements, but she's going to need something to wear for the funeral. The staff will buy that."

  "How long until she can fire them?"

  "Couple weeks maybe."

  He looked almost disappointed for her, but shrugged it off. "Well, she's dealt with them this long. Before they shoved off, they actually talked shit about her looking worn down."

  "I had hopes for Lydia."

  "She just pretends better," he told me, putting down the bags and coffee, and helping me move the desk upstairs. Her pink room didn't have a dresser, but the room was designed to have one, so there was a whole wall that was unoccupied.

  Cue the long, thin table Lincoln and I were moving into space. There was plenty of room underneath to get one of those stacking organizers where she could separate all her supplies, then a ton of workspace on top where she could leave her projects out without worry.

  It was a small victory, but I had a feeling it would mean a lot to her.

  "So where are you heading?" I asked as we went back downstairs after closing the door, not wanting to spoil the surprise, selfishly needing to see her see it for the first time. "The city?"

  "Fuck no. Did that one year. All I got was frozen extremities and walking road rage. Got a girl who has an apartment over the river. We can watch the fireworks from sliding doors to her balcony. Naked."

  "Didn't need the visual," I said, shaking my head. "How long you been with this one?"

  "Few weeks," he said, shrugging.

  Lincoln was a bit of a romantic, always thinking the next girl could be the right girl. The one he could settle down with, build a home with. As such, he got into relationship after relationship before going through the process of actually getting to know someone, seeing if they were compatible. Which left him with a good few weeks - at most months - of great sex and a honeymoon phase before the inevitable happened. Everyone started showing their true colors, their baser selves. And someone rubbed the other the wrong way. Arguments. Unhappiness. A breakup. Shower, rinse, repeat. It was a never-ending cycle.

  I was starting to wonder if Lincoln would even know it when the right woman came along.

  Then again, what the hell did I know on the matter?

  "Well, have fun, man. Happy New Year."

  "You too. Tell me how she likes it," he said, heading out the door.

  I was reaching to lock it when I realized I wasn't alone.

  "She likes what?" Jenny's voice called.

  Called.

  She only did that when we were alone - let her voice carry. Even around the endless parade of women in her social circle, she was always lowering her voice, making herself smaller in just about every way possible. With the staff as well.

  It was only when no one else was around that you could hear her from clear across a room.

  "Ah, the cat's outta the bag. You want your surprise now or after we eat?"

  Her eyes lit at the word surprise, and I got the feeling her life hadn't been full of any good ones. Which only made me all the more excited to give one to her.

  "This is an unfair decision. Hot food or a fun surprise?"

  "The surprise will be quick. Food should still be hot."

  "Decision made then," she said, smiling. The real kind, the one she didn't show to anyone else, without any sadness behind her eyes. "Where is it hiding? Do I have to guess?"

  She was practically bouncing, and something in my heart swelled at seeing it.

  "Back upstairs."

  "I knew I heard someone out there!" she said, turning and running back up the stairs. I had to take them two at a time to keep up.

  "Alright," I said when we were standing outside the guest room door. "Close your eyes," I demanded, putting a hand on the door handle from behind her, suddenly noticing how close we were, that if I shifted even the slightest bit forward, her ass would cradle into my hips, her shoulders would press into my chest, her head onto my shoulder. And I never could have realized how much I wanted that.

  Wanted her.

  The realization was enough to have me pausing for long enough that Jenny let out a little squealing, excited noise.

  "Are they closed?" I clarified before pushing it open.

  "Yes!"

  I smiled - big, warm - because there was no one there to judge me for it, before pressing a hand into her hip, pretending like I needed to do so to push her forward when it wasn't necessary at all. Just an excuse to touch her. To feel the warmth of her skin in the sliver where her yoga pants didn't quite meet the silk tank top she had on under a long sweater that trailed behind her.

  It was probably just my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt a shiver course through her at the contact.

  Wishful thinking, surely.

  "Okay," I said, dropping my hand, moving from behind her to the side so I could see her face - the bruises all but gone. The scratches just little pink lines.

  Beautiful.

  The breathtaking kind.

  I knew it from the couples pictures plastered around the house - hard times hung on the walls. But it was completely different to see something in person.

  Her eyes opened, falling on the long mahogany table before her, lacquered to a high shine.

  "You got me a craft table?" she asked,smile going wide enough to make the skin around her eyes crinkle.

  "I, ah, I actually made it. Had it hanging around. When we talked about a craft space for you, I thought it would be perfect."

  She sent me a wide-eyed look before moving forward, sliding her long-boned fingers across the surface lovingly.

  A man would kill to be touched like that.

  "I can't use this for clay," she informed me, shaking her head.

  My heart sank. "Why not?"

  "It's too beautiful," she said, rolling her eyes. "Craft tables are old and junky. This belongs in an entryway or something," she declared, still running her fingers over the smooth surface.

  "It's nothing, really. I want you to use it for your jewelry."

  "Nothing?" she asked, quirking a brow up. "This is not nothing, Smith. D
o you do woodworking often?"

  "It's a stress reliever for me. Learned it from my old man. Him from his. Whenever things in the house were unmanageable, or they were in a tiff with their wives, they'd go out to the garage or shed, put on some music, get to sanding or cutting or staining."

  "That is a very productive way to manage stress."

  "Yeah. And there was always something to show for it. Maybe something as simple as a bird house. Maybe a desk or set of nightstands. Bookcases. Hell, my grandfather carved the headboard for the bed he and my grandma shared for fifty-one years."

  "That's amazing."

  "I have that bed now," I volunteered, not sure why I felt the need to share that. I liked the idea of her having some parts of me, as cheesy as that may have been. No one had that information, not anymore, not since my parents passed.

  "Wow. I love the idea of that. And this. I love this," she said, pressing a hand to the desk again.

  "We'll have to drag a chair in from..."

  "Right here," she told me, grabbing her armchair, pulling it out of the corner, and placing it in front of the table, smiling the whole time she did so. "And I can get some of those stackers to go under it as well," she added.

  "My thoughts exactly. Everything within reach when you need it."

  "You won't be able to get me out of this room," she told me, shaking her head, shifting her feet, seeming to struggle with something. What, I wasn't sure for a moment. Not until she closed the few feet between us, hesitantly raising her thin arms, wrapping them around me, almost barely touching me, like she was afraid I might shrink away, reject her. Her life was full of nothing but pain, humiliation, and rejection. Of course that was what she might expect from men as a whole.

  She didn't bank on the fact that not a single part of me would ever reject her.

  My arms went up around her, slowly because I didn't want to surprise her, freak her out. When she didn't pull away, I wrapped her up tight, allowing myself to take a breath, breathe her in, feel the way her body melted against mine, her soft, subtle curves meeting my much harder lines.

  "Thank you," she said, her head turning toward my neck, her breath warm on my throat as she spoke.

  "You're welcome."

  She didn't pull away even though the moment was gone, the appropriate length of a thank you hug was long over.

  Her hands slid up my back before she realized what she was doing and they slid back down, slipping over my ribs then disappearing completely as she pulled away.

  "So, semi-hot Chinese?" I asked when her gaze met the floor, cheeks tinting the slightest bit pink, maybe embarrassed by the intimacy, the fact that she had initiated it.

  "Sounds perfect," she told me with a grateful smile as she turned to walk out of the room, going down the stairs.

  By the time I made it down, taking a long minute to try to remind myself that she was a client, that I couldn't be getting ideas about her, she was already snooping through the bags of snack foods.

  "You got party supplies?" she asked with a lopsided smile when she got to the last bag.

  "Just champagne and confetti poppers. Maritza has been scrubbing already clean rooms. Figure we can leave a little mess for her."

  "That's what she gets for coming in my room every morning without being invited," Jenny said, shaking her head, clearly annoyed about the invasion, but not comfortable enough yet to stand up for herself.

  "That's the spirit. We'll make sure we aim them at that thick ass carpet too. You'll be able to hear her cursing from half the house away."

  "I like the way you think," she told me, going into the kitchen to get plates and forks, grabbing us each a soda, and leading the way to the great room.

  I grabbed a couple of the bags - Chinese included - and followed her.

  The great room was amazing because while it had two sofas with a coffee table down the center, only one of those sofas had a good view of the TV when it was out of the cabinet.

  Knowing this, Jenny had pulled the coffee table to that one sofa. For us to share. Nearly shoulder to shoulder.

  Couldn't exactly say I wasn't looking forward to that.

  "The whole New Year's stuff won't start for a couple hours still. Movie?" she asked, looking down at the giant iPad thing that controlled everything in the room from the TV to the lights and the damn thermostat.

  "Sounds good. What are you in the mood for?" I asked, silently hoping it wasn't one of those sappy movies or - worse yet - a musical.

  "Something funny. But not stupid-funny, you know? Not supposedly funny because the main character is an idiot. Is smart-funny a thing?"

  "I'm sure we could find something."

  Twenty minutes later, we hadn't. But we settled on a funny cop movie and made the best of it. As if there could be anything bad about being on a couch with a woman eating Chinese food and feeling her body jiggle when she laughed at something on the screen.

  The food was mostly eaten by the time it was done, and we both got up to clean it up since Chinese food only smells good when you were hungry and while you are eating it. And a part of me worried that she might want to head to bed or go work on her crafts. But she made her way right back to the living room, a pile of pre-made chocolate brownies on a plate still in their plastic wrappers. When she caught me staring at it with a smirk, she looked down, shaking her head at herself. "the hostess habit is, apparently, a tough one to break."

  "Hey, those brownies they sell in lunchrooms across these United States for fifty cents look like they were made to sit on that bone China," I told her with false authority, making a snorting laugh escape her - a sound I only got to hear a few times, one that always seemed to surprise her as well. Like she wasn't aware she could make that noise.

  "This tea is great by the way," she told me, having had to reheat it while we put the leftovers away - a giant fuck you to Lydia which neither of us cared about - because she said it was impossible to enjoy tea with a meal. "I've never been to She's Bean Around."

  "Really? Why not? It's close to home."

  "It seems entirely too hip and trendy for me."

  "Nah. Everyone goes there. Jazzy and Gala take some getting used to, but they got the best coffee in the county. Definitely worth the long lines and ear-splitting music."

  "I will have to drop in someday."

  "Speaking of," I chimed in, happy for the segue. "What do you say to heading out tomorrow?"

  "Out? Where?"

  Even just the mention of it had her stiffening, her blue eyes filling with what I could only call worry.

  Worry about leaving the house? Why?

  "You need some hanging around the house clothes," I told her. "I thought we could disguise a trip for that by going to get a black dress."

  "Oh, right," she agreed, exhaling hard. "A dress."

  "That will be a quick thing," I assured her. "Go in, point, pay. Then we can go and have fun picking out some shit you actually want to wear."

  "I haven't owned a pair of jeans in over twelve years."

  "That's a fucking crime, sweetheart," I told her, shaking my head, but smiling a bit as the enthusiasm built in her system.

  "You don't mind?" she asked, knowing that, because we were putting on a show of private security, I had to go anywhere she went.

  "Nah. Shopping never bothered me. I think I spent so long in the service not doing it, that doing it now isn't really a chore."

  "Where would we even go? Malls don't really exist anymore, right?"

  Christ.

  For a grown ass woman, her life had been so dictated, so sheltered. The only shopping she knew was likely a strip of boutique places by the Tiffany store or hitting the city for designer shit.

  "Depends. Do you care what the brand is?"

  "God, no. I am sure my IQ has dropped by twenty points over the past several years just by having to listen to all the women in this social circle discuss one name versus another. As if any of it actually means anything. I had a pair of Payless heels that lasted me all t
hrough high school better than a pair of Manolos I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on."

  "Alright, so we'll hit Hollydell. They have a Target, Old Navy, Marshall's if you don't mind rummaging through shit. You can pick up the stacker things you need. And there are two craft stores there too if you want more supplies now that you have the space for it."

  "That might be testing your shopping-doesn't-bother-me limits."

  "We'll get me a big coffee before we go. I'll be just fine."

  "At She's Bean Around?" she asked, looking hopeful.

  "Absolutely," I agreed as she sat down next to me, her legs under her, cocked at an angle.

  Her smile was small, but sweet. "I think it sounds like fun," she admitted, eyes fluttering away as she found an excuse not to make eye-contact, turning the TV away from On-demand and back to live TV, catching the beginnings of the broadcast, the camera panning out over an endless sea of people in silly hats, brightly-colored glasses over their eyes with next years date on them. Air huffed from their noses and mouths. Noses and cheeks went pink - or red - with cold. And I had the distinct impression that all the woo-hooing and jumping around had less to do with actual enthusiasm and a helluva lot more to do with the fact that if they stayed still, they were risking serious frostbite.

  "They're crazy," Jenny decided. "I mean, I'm sure the energy of the crowd is contagious. But, I mean, bathrooms..."

  "Yeah, adult diapers aren't exactly my idea of a good time either. Lincoln has the right idea," I declared. She shot me a confused look. "His new girl has an apartment on the river. They can watch the fireworks from the sliding doors."

  "With heat. And bathrooms. Smart man."

  "What do you normally do for New Years?" I asked, immediately cursing myself when her eyes went a bit hollow.

  "Teddy always went to the club."

  "He didn't invite you?" As if the shithead needed more reasons for me to hate him. Even if he was already dead.

  "No. But I have never been a fan of the club anyway. I usually just, ah, watched the coverage in bed."

  Alone.

  Lonely.

  Probably fucking depressed.

  I couldn't claim to have had any great New Years stories. Before Quin, I was in the service, usually too busy to notice the passing of one year to the next. Since moving back to Navesink Bank, I was usually on a job. Or working in my shop. Or fucking sleeping. I wasn't sitting up watching everyone having the time of their lives on TV, kissing at midnight, partying until the sun came up... all alone in bed.