Читать книгу Breaking Through - AM Hartnett - Страница 6

It’s not that the blowjob he’d gotten the evening before was that memorable, but as Simon Reeve settled down across from Michael Roe it was those lips wrapped around his erection that came to the forefront of his mind.

He recalled a conversation he’d once had while strolling down Bishop Street in Montréal almost twenty years ago. He’d been drunk, as had been his friends Jacques, Ryan and Nathan, and as they walked, Nathan had remarked philosophically that he wished there was a way he could press PAUSE on the best blowjobs.

‘For real, my friend, think about it,’ Ryan had slurred in French while Simon laughed and hoped his bladder held until they made it to the dorm room Ryan and Nathan shared. ‘Think about it: you’ve got a mouth like a Hoover wrapped around your dick, and you’re thinking to yourself, “This girl sucks like if she stops, God will kill a bunny rabbit or some shit.” No, no, listen. Listen. Stop laughing. Imagine if you could just press PAUSE right there and save the blowjob for when you really need it, like the middle of an exam when you need a mini-vacation to clear your head.’

That’s how Simon felt now as Roe ignored him while finishing his telephone conversation.

He was about to get his ass chewed, or at least gnawed. Once he left this office and got on the elevator and called Roe a dirty fucker in his head, he could use the kind of oral attention he’d received the day before.

Vanessa was back in Ottawa, otherwise he’d go for seconds in that waterfront hotel room she’d tried to coax him to the night before. So now all he was left with was his hand and the memory of flooding the communications staffer’s mouth.

Another woman sprang to the forefront of Simon’s thoughts, and he disguised his laugh as a cough into his hand.

The pixie with the foul mouth.

When he’d first caught her watching, he’d entertained the momentary notion that he was about to have a Penthouse moment with two women in the ladies’ room. He’d found their brief exchange afterwards far more entertaining than he should have. In fact, razzing her on the elevator later had been almost as satisfying as the blowjob.

He hoped he ran into her again, even if it was just to give her another pinch and watch her try to stop the corners of her mouth betraying her desire to either laugh or give him hell. These days he needed all the entertainment he could get.

Roe disconnected, and Simon quickly wiped the amusement from his face.

‘Simon,’ Roe said.

His tone was light and airy, but anyone who spent any amount of time with Roe knew better. When Simon had first taken the job, Roe’s speechwriter had warned him that the Member of Parliament for Halifax was like a Komodo dragon. He’d snap and retreat, snap and retreat, waiting for his poison to take effect before he went for the guts.

Simon settled back in his seat and tried to appear free and easy. He wasn’t about to let Roe think otherwise for a single second.

He offered Roe a wide smile that was about as genuine as a dollar-store diamond ring. ‘Nice view, Michael.’

Roe glanced back at the white wall of fog that obscured the harbour view. ‘I draw the goddamn curtains when the sun is shining. I can’t stand looking out at all the kitsch running up and down the waterfront. Goddamn tour buses.’

‘I take it you don’t have your heart set on Minister of State or Heritage.’

‘I won’t need an appointment if you do your job. I’ll be making the appointments.’ Roe folded his hands across his barrel chest.

Michael Roe was a trim man with dark hair that formed a widow’s peak above bold black brows, with a confident face that was made for campaign material. Simon imagined that Roe sometimes stood in front of the mirror and practised it, even in the rear-view at stoplights. He had to; in the time Simon had been acquainted with Roe, he’d become convinced that the man wasn’t capable of smiling naturally.

‘I have to say, you’re not living up to the reputation that preceded you … or maybe you are.’

He watched Simon carefully in the aftermath of his statement.

Snap and retreat.

Simon’s smile widened, even as the toxins began to sting in his veins.

‘I’m on the phone all day.’

‘I could say the same about my teenage daughter. Are you honestly going to sit here and tell me you have nothing on Matthew Murray?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’

Murray, Roe’s rival for the party leadership, might as well have been incubated in a lab and released upon the political world as the baby-faced candidate who was quickly winning hearts across the country. When Murray turned on that dimpled smile, he could change a voter’s colours from blue to red.

Roe looked dubious, and so Simon elaborated.

‘As far as I’ve been able to uncover, he’s been a model citizen his entire life. He was a good student all through school and university. He was consistently active in everything from food drives to young parliament. He’s a champion of the Buy Local movement in his home province, and he gets his hands dirty for more than just photo ops – he spent four days in the muck rounding up livestock that got loose during that big forest fire last summer.’

‘I don’t want to hear about his résumé in community activism,’ Roe snapped, and leaned forward in his seat. His dark eyes glittered and his lip curled. ‘If you haven’t gotten personal already, might I suggest you do so.’

‘This isn’t the Eighties, Michael. It’s not as easy to out someone any more.’

Simon typically found that the best tactic when it came to impatient clients was to let them vent, but he knew Roe was going to come around to Murray’s sexuality and it annoyed him.

In his career as a professional dirt-digger, he’d come across a roster of sexual deviants and general fuckwads, but Matthew Murray was not one of them. Liking dick was barely a scandal when Simon started, let alone these days.

Roe bared his teeth. ‘Don’t give me that shit, and don’t expect me to believe you’ve developed some morals since you were sprung from rehab.’

Snap and retreat.

‘So, he’s got a boyfriend. So what?’ Roe went on. ‘I’ll tell you what: even though it’s been a decade since same-sex marriage became legal in this country, the tolerance for most only extends to ignorance. No one wants to think about what happens behind closed doors. What was that famous statement back in the Trudeau era? Something about government staying out of the nation’s bedrooms?’

‘Actually, it’s “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,”’ Simon interjected, only because it was an opportunity to show that he knew something that Roe didn’t, ‘and yes, I know that there’s still a certain “ick” factor amongst voters even when they say sexual orientation doesn’t matter.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that unless you want me to drive to Sussex and suck his dick, there’s no way to get any dirt on his sexual practices. What do you expect to do with it anyway? Send out a press release saying that Matthew Murray prefers anal beads over a plug?’

‘Don’t be crass,’ Roe grumbled, and grabbed a pen from the desktop. He tapped it against the surface obnoxiously, and Simon couldn’t tell whether it was to annoy him or just Roe looking for something to do with his hands. ‘I’m talking about the sort of thing that would put people off. If he’s so community minded, doesn’t it stand to reason that he’s active in other communities?’

Simon had to resist the urge to laugh. ‘Like what? BDSM communities? Partner swapping? In covered bridge country?’

‘You’re right, it’s almost as incredible as anonymous sex parties for the wealthy in Tatamagouche.’

Snap and retreat.

Out of Roe’s sight, Simon drummed his fingers on his knee, trying to beat out his annoyance over Roe’s reference to parts of Simon’s own life that had come to light recently. ‘Actually, it was closer to Shediac, in New Brunswick. Tatamagouche is in on the Nova Scotia side of the border.’

‘My point, and I’m disappointed that I have to make it to someone with your supposed calibre, is that the filthy details matter. You can sit there with that stupid smile on your face and pretend that you’re not some massive fuck-up with no skills beyond those I’m paying you to use, but the fact remains that I am paying you to destroy Murray’s chances of becoming the next leader of the party.’

If only you were half the candidate, half the man Matthew Murray is …

Simon didn’t lose his poise. He’d never been a hothead in his youth, but he’d rarely censored his sharp tongue until he started this less than illustrious career. In moments like this, when he came across a rotten prick like Michael Roe, he thought it might be easier to bite off his own tongue and swallow it.

‘Murray may have no reason to hide in the closet, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty,’ Roe went on. ‘Open it. Find something I can use against him, even if you do have to suck his cock to get it.’

Simon simmered inside, but he was calm. ‘That’ll cost you extra.’

‘Give me something that will knock the cocky look off of Murray’s face, we’ll talk Christmas bonuses.’

His tone said ‘get out’ but Simon didn’t move. Roe was his boss, but Simon wasn’t one to be dismissed. He waited a moment longer, unnecessarily adjusting the buttons on his cuffs. As rain began to patter against the window pane, he kept his gaze on the man on the other side of the desk.

Then he spoke.

‘There’s another component to the services I offer that you might want to consider.’

Roe barely spared Simon a glance. ‘Such as?’

‘In addition to digging things up, I’m also very good at burying them.’

The second look Roe gave him almost made Simon giddy, until the politician’s mouth twisted into an ugly smile.

‘I assume you’re referring to the late Senator Taureau’s many indiscretions.’

‘He never lived long enough to see his reputation fall apart,’ Simon replied.

‘But fall apart it did, and I intend to keep mine long after I’m in the ground.’

‘With all due respect, that’s what my last employer said.’

Roe raised a brow. ‘And with all due respect, Mr Reeve, you were stupid enough to take a job with the white-trash royalty of Scarborough.”

Snap and retreat.

Simon had had enough. He stood and draped his coat over one arm.

‘I’d think about it if I were you,’ he said casually, even as his throat burned. ‘Everyone thinks they’re bulletproof until someone comes along and shoots a big hole in the middle of their forehead – speaking from experience.’

He shot Roe a venomous smile and left the office.

One he was in the elevator, he closed his eyes and tipped his head back.

Prick.

Then again, he knew Roe was a prick when he took this job. He knew right from the start that Roe was hell-bent on destroying Murray’s bid for the leadership – and any chance of him becoming the next leader of this country – at any cost.

Michael Roe was a bastard. It hardly made him an anomaly in politics, and usually the vote came down to one bastard or another, but every so often you’d get someone like Matthew Murray. Someone young and fresh and friendly who would make the entire country fall madly in love with him.

He undid the button of his jacket and, as it popped free, he burned with the reminder that it wasn’t the same size he wore a year ago, and neither was the flesh beneath it. He’d traded a steady diet of cocaine and whiskey for drive-thru in front of the television and kissed goodbye that dream of having washboard abs again.

A fucking snake in the grass for a bastard like Michael Roe, a black hole of debt that didn’t seem to be getting any smaller, and now to top it all off I’m getting a fat ass.

He sighed and forced himself to think about the task at hand.

Roe was right. No closet was empty, and with someone as young as Murray there wouldn’t be skeletons but fresh corpses. It would be easy to follow the stench of decay.

Simon Reeve had been a damn good bloodhound once. He still was, he told himself daily, ignoring the fact that the last year had watered down much of his bloodlust.

He’d get it back, he swore right there in the elevator. He’d get it back if he had to tear Matthew Murray apart with his bare hands.

* * *

‘No, damn it! You cocksucker!’

Miranda didn’t see any reason not to have a full-blown tantrum as the bus motored onto the overpass. The next bus wouldn’t be along for another half-hour and she’d run like hell from work to make it to the stop on the other side of the parking garage in time.

She was soaked through and through, and as she stamped her foot she felt the leftovers from the last three puddles squishing from the soles. Every filthy word she could conjure spewed out of her, burning a hole in the centre of her chest until nothing more came out.

For once she hadn’t been running late. For once she had felt in control and confident that she’d make it home in time to share a bite to eat with Juliet before her sister headed off to the pubs.

But no, because the goddamn buses in this city were apparently running on a clock set by the Mad Hatter. Miranda had lost count of the number of times she’d had to run for one that left too early, or sit and stew while the minutes ticked by as the driver played games on his bloody phone.

And there wasn’t even a shelter at this stop next to the parking garage. There was just a damn pole in the sidewalk and a view of the overpass. If it had been payday she might have given up and called a cab, but every cent left in her bank account was spoken for. She’d just have to wait it out, but she’d be damned if she did it in the rain.

As the wind picked up and whipped rain in her face, Miranda ran again, this time uphill, until she reached the entrance to the parking garage. She was frozen as she headed towards the side that overlooked the bus stop she’d run from, but at least she was spared the needle-sharp torrent that had stung her bare legs.

As she settled against a concrete ledge, she pulled her phone from the soggy depths of her bag and swore as the touchscreen did nothing. Her hands were too cold and too wet, and it took another minute of blowing on her fingers before she was able to punch in her passcode and get to her contacts.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Juliet answered, ‘you missed the bus.’

‘I missed the fucking bus and I’m soaked,’ Miranda growled. ‘I’ll be home by nine, but no pizza for me.’

‘Too late, I already ordered it. I’ll leave it in the oven for you.’

‘Did he get his bath?’

‘Yeah, I put him in a puddle in the driveway with a bar of soap. He loves it.’

Juliet laughed after she spoke, but there was a hint of acid to her words. Juliet was great with their toddler nephew and didn’t so much as flinch when it came to a shitty diaper or a vomit-soaked onesie, but she wasn’t the most reliable person when it came to remembering to bathe Eddie before putting him to bed. More than once Miranda had checked in on him to find his face and hands caked with whatever he’d been given for his supper, and had had to wipe him down while he squirmed and shrieked out his exhaustion.

Given some of the shenanigans Juliet had gotten up to these last few months, Miranda supposed she should consider the poor little bugger lucky that his other aunt remembered to feed him.

‘You want me to see if I can have someone pick you up?’

‘No, it’s only half an hour.’

‘Are you soaked?’

‘A little. My jacket seems to be keeping my tits from marinating.’

‘If you change your mind, call me back and I’ll see if Tim can pop up for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Miranda said and hung up, but made a face as she tucked her phone back in her purse. She’d rather walk home in a blizzard than get a ride with one of Juliet’s creepy friends. The last one who had picked her up had spent the entire ride talking into her tits and accenting every point he made by squeezing her thigh.

She shivered and looked towards the North End of the city. One of the two suspension bridges that crossed the harbour was barely visible in the rain that wrapped the entire downtown, and the fog devoured the second bridge and the city of Dartmouth on the opposite side.

She supposed that the weather forecast had predicted this soggy mess, but Eddie had had an upset stomach that morning and, between cleaning him up and shouting for Juliet to get her ass out of bed, Miranda didn’t give the weather a second thought until she heard it hit the window behind her cubicle.

She thought of that other Miranda, the one who lived in the future and had her shit together, who took coffee to work in an aluminium flask and wore heels to work instead of comfortable flats. Other Miranda would have tucked an umbrella in her huge purse and maybe owned a stylish raincoat and some cute rubber boots.

Then again, Other Miranda knew how to drive and rode a comfy sedan from her waterfront cottage in the country, and didn’t work in a call centre because she made a tidy living selling her paintings online.

In real life, Miranda wrung the moisture out of her hair and busied herself with braiding it into a long rope.

She jumped as the car nearest her chirped and flashed its lights, and moments later a figure followed the thump of footsteps on the pavement. Miranda kept her eyes on the view before her, but her body went on alert as the car’s owner appeared on the periphery. She reached into her purse and wrapped her fingers around her keys, something she often did when she shared a bus shelter in the dark, then relaxed as the slam of the car door echoed through the concrete shelter and moments later the vehicle coughed and hummed to life.

The momentary worry – that she’d end up a corpse in the trunk of that shiny silver sedan – having passed, Miranda resumed her mundane task, pulling her braid loose and starting again.

‘Hey, you need a ride somewhere?’ a man’s voice called out to her.

Miranda turned and prepared to make a grateful but firm refusal. Her stomach flopped as she saw who was in the driver’s seat.

Of course, it was the Bathroom Blowjob Guy.

Her spiel of thanks-but-I-have-someone-waiting-he-should-be-here-any-minute vanished, and when she spoke to him it was to say, ‘Are you serious?’

He stared back at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah, you got me. This is my thing. I ask women caught in the rain if they want to get into my fancy ride, and when they say yes I floor it and laugh like hell all the way home.’

She wasn’t sure if he was trying to be funny or merely sarcastic. Either way, his remark did nothing to change her mind.

‘Thanks,’ she said, her voice as flat as her humour, ‘but I have someone waiting. He should –’

‘If you did, you would have had him pick you up at the entrance.’

She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Why would I get in a car with a stranger?’

‘Well, if you want to get technical, we’re not exactly strangers.’

‘I can’t tell whether you’re referring to the fact that I caught you getting a blowjob in the ladies’ room, or the fact that you decided to brag about it to me later on. Either way, you’re not doing anything for your case. If you’re trolling for a handjob while you drive, you’re talking to the wrong woman.’

He chuckled, a sound that grated up one side of her and down the other. ‘Listen, darling, I know you have no reason to think I won’t stick my dick in any wet hole, but trust me when I tell you I can do better than a drenched rat with raccoon eyes.’

Miranda’s sense of vanity overcame her need to be a hard-ass. With a horrified squeak, she reached up to rub her fingers beneath her eyes.

The man produced a can-shaped package of moist towelettes. ‘By all means, walk around the city terrorising old people and small children while incubating a nasty cold if you would prefer that over my heated seats.’

Miranda knew that the last thing in the world she should do was accept a ride from a stranger, let alone this one, but the chill was setting into her ass and she could feel the heat radiating from the car.

She could practically hear her sister advising opportunistic imprudence: Don’t be such a pussy. Get in the car and let him stare at your tits for a few minutes if it gets you out of the cold.

Hell, Juliet would have talked this guy into buying her dinner in addition to the ride.

‘One second,’ she said, and strode to the back of the car. She dug into her bag and pulled out her phone, and as she snapped a picture she saw the man adjust the mirror.

She came back around to the driver’s side where he waited with a smirk and started to type on her phone. ‘I’m sending this to my sister. If I end up floating in the harbour, they’ll know who to look for.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said, and she heard the click of his power locks. He gestured to the trunk. ‘There’s an emergency kit in the back with a poncho inside. Lay it on the seat before you sit down. I’m trying to be chivalrous, but this car has less than twenty thousand kilometres on it and I’d rather you not fuck-up my upholstery.’

She’d accepted his ride, but she wasn’t about to dissolve into graciousness just yet. She plucked the plastic wrapper from the emergency kit, and once she was at the passenger side she didn’t drape the poncho over the seat but stripped off her wet denim jacket and covered herself with the poncho before getting inside.

‘I’m a little impressed,’ he said as she placed her plastic-wrapped ass on the seat. ‘I never thought of asking you to put it on.’

‘I already look hideous with my mascara running down my face, I might as well look pathetic dressed like a gas-station sandwich.’

He handed over the towelettes and locked them in. ‘Where to?’

‘Agricola Street, just before you get to the brewery,’ she told him as she pulled down her visor and saw what he had seen.

He hadn’t been kidding about scaring small children and old people. She looked like the monster from a Japanese horror movie.

‘Is that in the South End?’

‘No,’ she said with a laugh and pulled out a towelette.

He glanced at her. ‘Isn’t that where all the students live?’

‘Yeah, but I’m not a student and I haven’t been for about five years. OK, you know where the grocery store is on Young Street?’

‘Nope.’

‘The television station?’

‘Sorry.’ He grinned at her as they neared the exit of the parking garage, but this time he looked sheepish. ‘I’ve only lived here for about a month. I know how to get to the office and I know how to get to the highway. Otherwise I have to Google everything.’

Her face less frightening, she crumpled the towelette in her hand and her gaze slid to the GPS device on the dash.

He laughed. ‘Broken. I ordered a new one but it hasn’t arrived yet.’

‘What are you, some kind of dinosaur?’

She grabbed his iPhone, docked next to the GPS. A few taps and a female voice announced that he should turn left onto Cogswell Street.

‘I never even thought of that,’ he admitted as she returned the phone to its cradle, then held out the hand closest to her. ‘Simon.’

‘Miranda,’ she replied, and gave him her clammy hand.

His was so warm that she wanted to take possession of it and tuck it against her, but instead she slipped her feet out of her flats and wriggled her toes under the heat coming from the vent.

‘So, Simon, I’m not one to ignore the white elephant in the room, but about getting sucked off in the bathroom …’

He let out a bark of laughter and followed the voice instructions to go straight through the intersection. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘What’s a grown man doing getting his dick sucked in a public washroom? I thought that was something a man grows out of once he gets over the bar scene.’

‘Getting sucked off is never something a man grows out of, and he’ll take his cock out wherever he can. When he’s in a nursing home pissing in a bag he’s still hoping some hot nurse will come along and wrap her lips around him.’

‘That’s really gross.’

‘It’s true. Look, I’m sorry you walked in on it and I’m even more sorry I was an asshole to you about it. It’ll never happen again, at least not in that bathroom.’

‘So, you do it often.’

‘You know, for someone who made it pretty clear she’s not interested in my dick, you’re doing a lot of talking about it.’

Miranda shrugged, the plastic around her shoulders crackling as she moved. ‘Like I said, I’m not one for ignoring the white elephant in the room. It just so happens that your dick is the white elephant in the room.’

‘Thank you for the comparison.’

He kept his eyes on the road as they reached the star-shaped intersection at the base of the hill that dominated the downtown, then shook his head.

‘What the fuck? Who designed these roads?’

‘You’re in the wrong lane,’ she said. He cursed with his merger and made a left. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Toronto.’ He shot her a sly look. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Go ahead and what?’

‘Make some comment about my being from Toronto. Everyone does it. You might as well get it out of your system.’

‘I don’t have anything against Toronto. Great shopping and great music scene.’

‘Unfortunately I didn’t get to do much of either. I travelled around a lot with my last job. I grew up in Montreal, though. Talk about a great music scene. Am I on the right street?’

‘Just keep going straight until you get to the bridge. Why are you here? Kind of a downgrade, isn’t it?’

He shook his head. ‘I needed the change. My last job was hell, and I’m too old to keep running across the country at the drop of a hat.’

‘Let me guess: you were a Bay Street trader falsely accused of white-collar crime, and now you’ve come out East to fulfil your dream of building a boathouse and retiring from the grind of daily life.’

Simon laughed. ‘That’s pretty good. About as far off the mark as you can get, but pretty creative. No, I work for Michael Roe. You know who he is?’

‘The MLA with his office on the top floor?’

‘That’s the one. What about you? Let me guess this time – you’re a graphic designer.’

‘What makes you think I’m a graphic designer?’ she asked, surprised that while he was off the mark in terms of her career, he had somehow intuited her creative streak.

‘You’ve got that way about you?’ He met her scowl with a grin. ‘Artistic types who spend all day in front of a computer have a thin filter when it comes to speaking their minds.’

‘Is that your way of calling me an asshole?’

‘No, not at all. I like it. I wouldn’t have asked if you wanted a ride if I didn’t think you’d be good company.’

Miranda hated to admit it, but she was enjoying his company as well. She liked that she could dish it and he’d dish it right back at her. And she liked that they’d been in the car together for almost ten minutes and he hadn’t tried anything funny.

‘I’m not a graphic designer. I work at the call centre on the fourth floor, but I am an “artistic type” – I paint in my own time. I had a stall at the farmers’ market when I was just out of high school, but now I sell my stuff on the Internet.’

‘Good money in that?’

‘Did you miss the part where I said I work in a call centre?’ she retorted with a laugh. ‘It does make a difference, though. One day, hopefully before I’m dead, but right now it’s just a way to make a few bucks on the side.’

‘Beer money?’

‘Baby money.’ He looked to her with surprise, prompting a bubble of laughter from her. ‘Not mine. My sister’s. She died last year, and so my other sister and I are raising her son.’

He shook his head. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry, about your sister, and for thinking you were –’

‘Some vapid slut who would suck a dick in a public washroom if you bought me a beer?’

‘Here we go again.’

‘Maybe I am,’ she teased, earning herself another surprised look that tickled her. ‘Even vapid sluts have bills to pay when they’re not sucking dick. What are you doing?’

‘You said go straight until I got to the bridge. Now I’m going on the bridge.’

‘The bridge that will take us into a completely different city, you mean?’

‘Oh, hell, I thought the phone was supposed to tell me where I was supposed to go.’

‘It did, but you weren’t paying attention. Just get into the next lane and go down and now we’re on the bridge.’

‘See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about my dick any more.’ He laughed as they motored onto the bridge above the shipyards. ‘Sorry, I really am. I told you I don’t know the city. I’ll turn around as soon as I can. Can you fish toll money out of the console?’

‘I’ll pay it,’ she said, kissing her coffee money for tomorrow’s break goodbye, and shrugged. ‘It was kind of my fault with the shitty navigation, and you’re nice enough to drive me home in the rain.’

‘Will this make you late?’

‘No, my sister doesn’t leave for work until nine-thirty.’

‘Then have a cup of tea with me before I take you home?’ It was Miranda’s turn to look surprised. ‘You said no handjobs. You never said anything about asking you for tea.’

‘I don’t drink tea,’ she murmured, and immediately regretted it. She actually wanted to have a cup of tea with Bathroom Blowjob Guy, Simon, and so she shrugged inside that ugly poncho. ‘I can have something else.’

‘Good. Now let’s see if I can find us a real coffeehouse without ending up in the sticks.’

* * *

‘Have you even been here before?’ he asked as he shook his umbrella out on the welcome mat.

Miranda shook her head, then peered up at him with suspicion. In the last few minutes she’d begun to doubt that he had truly gotten lost. He’d found the seaside café almost immediately, and the parking spot in an empty church parking lot just as quickly. The unsexy poncho had been left in the car.

The arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders as they walked from the church lot to the café was supposedly to keep her close under his umbrella, but it had been such an easy sweep to get her nearer that she couldn’t help but think it was all part of a scheme.

It surprised her how little she minded. When the hostess offered to take their wet jackets, Miranda passed hers over to him and got a charge out of his quick-fire look down her body. Save for the hem of her shorts, the clothes she wore underneath her jacket had been spared from the rain, so she wasn’t giving him a show, but that look seemed to go deeper than the yellow T-shirt she wore.

She liked it.

He ordered a green tea and caught her crinkling her nose. ‘What?’

‘I thought you were an espresso kind of guy.’

He raised a brow. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I’ve seen you in the café at work.’

‘And noticed me?’

She grinned, not about to admit that she had been shit-talking him in her head. ‘You don’t strike me as a green tea and espresso kind of guy. You strike me as a black coffee and powdered doughnut kind of guy.’

‘Do I also strike you as a fedora and tommy-gun kind of guy?’

Miranda laughed and placed her order for a hot chocolate and a cranberry scone, then followed him to a table away from the window.

‘First things first, how old are you?’ he asked as he shrugged out of his blazer, then laughed as Miranda shot him a surprised look. ‘I’m going for about twenty-one, but it just occurred to me that you could be sixteen and I could be in for a hell of a lot of trouble.’

‘I’m twenty-three, and I have ID to prove it.’ She plucked her wallet from her back pocket and handed it over, then giggled as he peered at the government ID.

She had to hand it to Simon Reeve: he was charming as hell. Now that the blazer was slung on the back of his chair and he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal strong forearms with faint blond hair, now that he had loosened his tie, he was transformed.

‘See? You won’t end up on the evening news, though I have to admit, I’m comforted to know that you’re not into under-age girls.’

‘They weren’t worth tangling with when I was seventeen, and they’re sure as hell not worth it now that I’m pushing forty.’

‘You’re not forty.’

‘You want to see my ID?’

‘Of course.’

He pulled out his wallet and tossed the laminated card towards her.

Simon P. Reeve.

She looked from the terrible photo to the man, and thought there was something odd in his expression, but it was gone as soon as she caught a glimpse of it.

‘So you weren’t lying when you said you were new in town. You still have your Ontario driver’s licence.’

‘Another thing on my to-do list. See? Almost forty.’

‘Thirty-eight, actually. You still have a year and seven months to go.’ She tossed the ID back to him, and once he had replaced it in his wallet she mirrored his pose by cupping both hands around her cup. ‘So, Mr Reeve, what exactly do you do for that politician upstairs?’

He hesitated, drumming his fingertips against the teacup as he pursed his lips.

Miranda leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘Are you the guy who gets the hookers and blow for rich donors?’

Simon laughed and shook his head. ‘Do you think about your words before you let them out?’

‘You have no right whatsoever to act shocked by that question.’

‘I’m not shocked, and without giving too much away I don’t get “hookers” and “blow” for rich donors, but if they’re involved in anything like that I’m the guy who finds out about it. I’m the guy who is paid to know everything there is to know about everyone.’

‘You dig up dirt.’

He didn’t confirm this, but he didn’t deny it either. He simply raised his cup and took a sip of the yellowish-brown brew.

‘I never would have thought local politics would need a man like you,’ she said.

‘Every level of government, no matter how small, uses men like me. Roe is going for the federal party leadership at the end of the summer. He’s got such a reputation as an MLA that up until recently the seat was pretty much his, but the competition is heating up for the leadership. I need to make sure he comes out of the wash squeaky clean.’

‘And make sure his competition doesn’t come out so clean.’ Again, he didn’t answer, and Miranda laughed. ‘All right. I get it. We won’t talk about your job, which I have to admit makes you sound like a Jacobean villain.’

‘Let’s talk about you,’ he said, giving her a look that suggested he was already trying to work out who she was. ‘So far all I have is that you’re twenty-three, you sell insurance, you like to paint and you’re raising your sister’s baby.’

She swirled the frothy contents of her mug, then tore off a piece of her scone. ‘Sadly, that’s pretty much the gist of who I am.’

‘Did you grow up here?’

She gave him her life in point-form, how she and her sisters had been latchkey kids while their mother worked the jewellery counter in a department store, how her father had been a truck-driver nearly 25 years her mother’s senior and had suffered a massive heart attack in a motel room in Virginia. She told him about Juliet moving to the West Coast, about Des getting pregnant and the father up and leaving for Alberta with the promise of sending her money, only to get there and announce he was marrying someone else. She recounted Des’s shocking and sudden death by heart attack at 24, just two months after giving birth to Eddie. She told him of her mother’s return to her Cape Breton home, where she found comfort in her big family in the aftermath of Des’s death, and the last year living in the Agricola Street house with Eddie.

She told him too much, she thought, but she found herself unable to stop. Maybe it was because for all the talking she did during the day, she rarely got to talk about herself, and he didn’t seem to mind.

The whole time, Simon listened with his chin perched on the heel of his hand, saying nothing as she unfolded her life’s story. Then she prompted him for his own past.

Once more, a moment’s discomfort passed over him but he seemed to swat it away with a hand in front of his face.

‘I was born in Ottawa and moved to Montreal when I was a kid. I lived there until I went to the University of British Columbia. I was there for one semester before I transferred back to Quebec. I just screwed around and sponged after I dropped out. I got into this line of work in my late twenties after finally finishing my degree.’

‘Bored or broke?’

‘Both, and tired. I had a friend offer me a job working for his company, sort of as his personal assistant. How sad is it that I was nearly thirty before I actually worked for a living?’

‘You should talk to my sister,’ she grumbled. ‘She’s a temp – sometimes – but if you ask her she’ll tell you that she’s a musician. In all fairness she made more money with her music in the last six months, but that’s only because she hasn’t taken an office job and doesn’t have to get up in the morning. Too bad she blows about half of it on herself.’

‘So how do you support yourself and a baby?’

The place was too nice and the food too good to indulge any further talk about disappointment, so Miranda shook her head and told him she was changing the subject.

‘I want the truth: why did you pick me up? And don’t give me your bullshit about chivalry.’

‘There’s some truth to that,’ he said with a sheepish look. ‘You looked so sad and pathetic standing there, I couldn’t bear it.’

‘But?’

‘But …’

He lifted his cup and took a sip, and he didn’t need to say anything more. His hazel eyes told her the answer to her question, and the quiet hunger that radiated back at her made her feverish all of a sudden.

She pushed her damp hair off her hot neck, and her pulse fluttered in her veins as he lowered his cup. The corners of his mouth quirked, telling her that he knew exactly what he had just done to her.

‘You’re not my type,’ she told him, seeing no point in beating around the bush, ‘not even a bit, and that whole bathroom thing was a bit of a turn-off.’

‘Right.’ The laughter that shook his voice irritated her and at the same time amused her, and she couldn’t hold back a smile.

‘But you did buy me a four-dollar scone, so I suppose you’re all right.’

‘Oh, is that all it takes?’

‘To get me on my back?’ She shook her head and giggled. ‘No, but it’s a start – and you haven’t tried to bullshit me yet, so I like that.’

Simon frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘I just asked you pretty much point-blank if you wanted to get in my panties, and you didn’t try and act like it never crossed your mind. If you were trying to bullshit me, you’d be spoon-feeding me some crap about how you’re not that kind type of guy and then try and win me over by telling me about how your job makes it so hard to meet women. If you were bullshitting me, you’d have spun that whole bathroom thing into your tale of woe somehow, expecting me to sit here and go, “Poor baby, so sensitive and sad – how can I not sleep with him?”’

‘I sincerely hope you’ve never fallen for that.’

He finished his tea, tore off a piece of her scone and popped it into his mouth as she studied him. After a moment under her scrutiny, he slung his arm over the back of the chair and sprawled out, legs bumping hers under the table.

She didn’t pull away. She let him settle with his knee resting against hers, and enjoyed how the warmth crawled along the inside of her thigh, reaching for a more intimate shelter.

‘Why did you get in my car?’ he asked.

‘I was sad and pathetic,’ she countered.

Simon cocked his head. ‘And?’

‘And, honestly? That’s it. I just wanted a ride home, but now I’m having a good time.’ She met his gaze with a nod. ‘I think I can overlook the whole bathroom thing.’

He groaned. ‘Can we please drop that once and for all?’

‘Are you embarrassed by it?’

‘I’ve gone from embarrassed to mortified.’

‘I’m thrilled that you’re mortified, and yes, I’ll drop it now, but I might need a cookie to make up for taking away the one thing I have to hold over your head.’

‘I’ll get you two cookies if I can get your phone number.’

The line of communication they had been weaving back and forth between them drew taut with his request and pulled her closer to him even though she didn’t move a muscle. Miranda found it hard to speak.

She still didn’t understand why he would want to sit and have coffee with her, and she didn’t understand why he wanted her number now. Picking her up with the purpose of getting her into bed – that she understood, but this reaching out threw her. He wasn’t her type, and she’d bet money she sure as hell wasn’t his.

It’s not that he had charmed the memory of the event in the bathroom from her mind. In fact, it was at the forefront of her thoughts. In that silence, she couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

He took a slow sip of his tea, and the throaty sound of his swallowing it reminded her of the one he’d made as he went deeper into the woman’s throat. That sound rattled around inside Miranda’s head, and as he rubbed his thumb around the rim of his mug she couldn’t help imagining the same motion stroking her through her bra.

‘I don’t –’

She started to tell him she didn’t think it was a good idea, that one cup of coffee wasn’t enough to convince her that he could aspire to be her type, but that’s not what came out. Her arousal had rattled the words right back down her throat.

‘I don’t have any evenings free,’ she finally said. ‘I work from two until eight, six days a week, and go right home because my sister goes on stage at ten.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said easily, but she wasn’t finished.

‘And I have an eighteen-month-old in the mornings, so even breakfast is out. Lunch is debatable, depending on whether you like kids and having carrot sticks thrown at you.’

‘What is it you’re trying to do here?’ he asked her with a chuckle.

‘I’m just saying, I don’t know what you’re looking for but you might not get it from me.’

Simon leaned forward and grinned. ‘I’m just looking for your phone number.’

Miranda couldn’t think of an argument against that, and, with him looking so devilish and boyish at once, she didn’t want to give him one, so she told him her number and watched him type it into his phone.

‘I should get your cookies and get you home,’ he said with a satisfied air.

‘Are you going to get me lost again?’

‘I make no guarantees, but if I do I’ll pay for you to take a cab to where you need to be in time.’

As they reached the entrance and he shook out his umbrella, Miranda gave his jacket a tug. ‘Did you seriously get lost, or was this the long way of getting my phone number?’

He placed his hand over his heart. ‘I swear, may God strike me dead, I didn’t mean to take that wrong turn. It’s not my first, either. Last week I went to get my car detailed, and at the intersection right in front of the shop I went the wrong way and ended up on the highway.’

Miranda crooked a brow at him. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but if he was lying, she liked the way he lied.