Читать книгу Make Me Lose Control - Christie Ridgway - Страница 12
ОглавлениеFOR A MOMENT, Jace thought he’d fallen, as he had weeks before in Qatar, and taken another blow to the head. The last time he’d been knocked out, but though he was surely still conscious, his world was rocked all the same. That...that inky-haired, more than half-grown human being was his daughter?
The last time he’d seen her she’d been a chubby-cheeked, irrepressible child, who wore pigtails and shirts with cartoon characters on them. In the intervening years he’d pictured the same, ribbons and Roadrunner, only taller. Never had he expected to find a teen wearing...wearing whatever you’d call that dark garb.
And just as unbelievable...
Birthday Girl.
Birthday Girl! She was standing behind the teenager, looking stunned. She reached out a hand and placed it on the girl’s shoulder. To steady which one of them?
“You’re...” the woman began.
“Jason Jennings. Jace.” He cut his gaze to the teen. “Her father.”
There must have been some question in his voice, because Birthday Girl nodded. “Yes. Right. And this is Om—”
“London,” the youngster interrupted. The black around her eyes and the heavy coating of the same color on her lashes was startling.
“I know your name,” he said. His ex-wife’s selection, of course, chosen after the city she’d run to upon leaving him when she was four months pregnant. Jace, tied financially and morally to the sick old man who’d given him a leg up and his very first job, had remained in the States, frustrated and confused and just beginning to realize that the woman he’d married might have never expected them to grow old together.
He looked at the auburn-haired female behind his daughter and felt his head spin again. It really was the woman from last night. Shit. From the first, he’d known regret would be the outcome of their encounter. Still, he had to carry on. “May I come in?” he asked, wincing at the sharp edge to his voice.
The two females stepped back.
“Of course,” Birthday Girl said—no, he recalled her real name now. Shay Walker. Or S. Walker, as she’d signed the succession of emails he’d finally managed to read last week when his head issues had cleared up at last.
At first he’d thought her talk of tango lessons and celebrity magazines was something his mind was misinterpreting. A few emails later, he’d realized she was either putting him on or was a terrible mentor for his kid.
It had been only one more reason to seethe at the delays—caused by injury, crappy means of communication and his isolated location—that had postponed his return. But he was here now, he told himself, and it was time to implement the simple plan he’d conceived when he’d learned of his daughter’s situation: a summer of getting to know her before school started in September.
He crossed over the threshold, then glanced around the massive foyer, with its thirty-foot ceiling. “Good God,” he said, staring up at the walls of unrelieved concrete. The staircase was more gray cement, with a tubular metal banister painted a janitorial blue. “Is this place butt ugly, or what?”
Both London and Birthday Girl stared at him like he’d sprouted another head. He lifted an eyebrow. “Problem?”
Birth— Shay met the eyes of his daughter then looked back at him. “Um, this is your house.”
“Yeah, but I never saw it before in my life. I needed something in So-Cal, somewhere quiet, I thought, and my man Leonard Case found it. I got it for a song.”
“Which must have been ‘Anchors Aweigh,’” Shay muttered, and his daughter snickered behind her hand.
The sound sliced at Jace’s conscience. She didn’t look like she laughed often. When he’d been told the fifteen-year-old had lost her mother, he’d felt sorrow for her loss and a deep uncertainty about what it would mean for him. Of course he was going to step up and do his duty, but he’d expected to find... He didn’t know.
Not this dark-clad teenager whose expression was near deadpan.
Quashing a rising sense of suffocating panic, he reminded himself he had a plan.
“Why don’t you show me around?” he asked London. “After I see my room, I’ll collect my luggage from the car.”
She glanced over at Shay, who nodded. “We’ll both show you,” the woman said. “Come this way.”
Foiled already, he thought, as he followed their lead. He’d hoped to get his daughter alone and determine exactly how things were with the tutor. Though, hell, didn’t he already know Shay—
No, he did not know Shay. The woman with whom he’d spent the night at the inn was someone else altogether. He’d left that person behind in the room, including his memories of her lithe body, her delicate fragrance and the softness of her skin beneath his lips. If he were going to follow through with his idea of taking this time with London, becoming acquainted with her even as she continued her studies, then he had to forget all about last night and see the tutor in a completely businesslike light.
He could do that. He’d always been a businessman first, after all.
They showed him around the downstairs area, which had an open floor plan containing some midcentury modern furniture that looked to be all angles and uncomfortable cushions. The kitchen was large enough to feed the navy and the best thing you could say about it beyond that was it was clean.
The view of the lake was stupendous, but even the sun streaming in the windows didn’t warm the atmosphere of the place.
Without much optimism, he mounted the stairs. The top landing opened into a large gallery that contained a long center table. Textbooks sat in neat stacks on it, as well as a desktop and a laptop computer. “This is where London studies,” Shay said.
The girl was already at a computer, drawn to it like a magnet, and as the screen powered on, its pale light washed onto her face, making the darkness surrounding her eyes even more stark. Jace shoved a hand through his hair, keenly aware of being out of his element. Panic tried digging its claws in him again.
Feeling a gaze on him, he glanced over at Shay. She was staring, and when she noticed he noticed, her face colored and she looked away. “What do you know about website building?” she asked, then hurried toward the table without waiting for his answer. “London, why don’t you show your dad what you’re working on?”
The girl’s frozen expression didn’t animate, but she obligingly moved her fingers on the keyboard. Color splashed onto the screen, brilliant-colored flowers and the words Build a Bouquet.
“It’s a multidisciplinary project,” Shay explained. “She’s developing a website for a pretend florist business. Visitors to the site are able to select flowers and greenery to custom-design a floral arrangement. She’s setting it up for three disparate locations throughout the country, so she’s had to research local flora and seasonal availability along with the computer programming aspect.”
Shay reached around the teen to hit a key. The screen switched from bright photography to rows of incomprehensible—to Jace anyway—letters, numbers and symbols. “This is the language for creating web pages,” she explained, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“Impressive,” he murmured. “But a lot to accomplish between tango lessons, isn’t it?”
Shay’s face flushed again. “Um...”
“Tango?” London asked, looking between the two of them while still managing to convey that their conversation didn’t interest her in the slightest.
“Never mind,” her tutor said. “Why don’t we show your father around upstairs?”
Again the girl obliged in a long-suffering manner. Ennui oozed out of her as she slowly moved from the computer and then led their small party down the hallway. Jace glanced into her bedroom and several empty ones, then another that appeared occupied. The bed linens were pure white and it smelled of Shay’s scent, causing him to stride past quickly in an attempt not to remember how that particular fragrance had risen from his own skin in the steam of the shower just a few hours before.
They had a business relationship now, remember?
London guided him along the catwalk that was open to the foyer and living room below. At the other side of the house, she gestured to double doors standing open.
Shay spoke up. “The master suite.”
He stepped inside, winced again. More gunmetal-gray walls accented with industrial lighting. Though the bed was huge, the mattress was perched on a wooden platform that hung from the ceiling using thick iron chains. A sitting room wasn’t any more hospitable. The attached bath, while spacious, was as welcoming as an operating room.
Maybe the inhospitable environs would serve a good purpose, he decided. Under the circumstances, he’d be better off thinking like a monk, not a man.
Ignoring the headache beginning to throb at the base of his skull, Jace exited the room and addressed the hovering females. “I’m going to bring in my things,” he said.
Shay appeared uneasy at the news. His daughter appeared unaffected. He might have said his hair was on fire or there was a snake in the shower and he’d bet she’d wear the same nonexpression expression.
It didn’t help that he had no one to blame for that but himself. Fifteen years was a long time to go without having a relationship with your father.
When he’d learned of London’s mother’s death, he’d been in Qatar’s capital city of Doha. Though he’d instantly called, she’d been mostly nonresponsive to his assurances that they’d both be back in the States soon. That then they’d sort out the future.
Not once had he considered bringing her to him. His work in the Arab country sent him to remote, primitive locations that made her presence impractical. To underscore that point, not a short while later he’d been in an earthmover accident, miles from the nearest village. One of the workers with medical training had tended to his injuries, but when his wits had finally unscrambled, he’d lost weeks of time and further opportunities to connect with his daughter.
It took him a few trips to haul all his gear from the car. He refused Shay’s help and London drifted back to her computer. As he passed her, he noted she was modifying those lines of gibberish on the screen.
The truth couldn’t have hit him harder. They were two people, he thought, who didn’t know the same language.
Dumping his bags on the floor of his room, he battled the urge to punch something—the wall, himself for his own ineffectiveness as a parent, the memory of his effing unfeeling martinet of a father who hadn’t given Jace a clue as how to proceed.
Each moment that passed only made it clearer that he’d never have a chance with London.
Or that maybe he didn’t deserve one, because a lone wolf couldn’t change its ways.
A soft footstep sounded behind him. The air suddenly charged and his next breath brought with it a faint note of sweetness. The nape of his neck itched. Shay.
His daughter’s tutor. His employee.
“Dinner’s at six thirty,” she said to his back. “Can I get you anything before then?”
He turned, and at the sight of her warm beauty, memories of the night before slammed into his chest. Blood rushed to his groin as he recalled her fingers wrapped around him, the taste of her pale nipples as they hardened beneath his tongue, the quiet, low sound she’d made when he’d entered her. Jace’s breath felt trapped in his lungs.
Hell. Damn. Shit.
Anger rose from the depths of his belly. How could this have happened?
How could one woman and one night so tangle his simple plan? But she had. It did.
Everything was turning into knots and snarls.
Not only was he certain he was fighting an uphill battle in forging some kind of understanding—if not a relationship—with his kid, but his notion of retaining a businesslike attitude also already felt as if it were failing.
His daughter was an enigma.
Having the hots for her teacher was no help at all.
* * *
LONDON JENNINGS KNEW she was a freak.
After a day like today, the knowledge weighed heavy as she slipped out of the house and into the lake-scented darkness. Though Shay usually insisted on having help with the dinner dishes, tonight she’d shooed London from the kitchen. Due to pity, probably.
Not every teenager had a dead mother.
Not every teenager had a father who’d arrived years too late.
Hunching her shoulders, she tried shrugging off thoughts of Elsa as she headed toward the water. In their first week at Blue Arrow Lake, Shay had assigned her to read The Great Gatsby. In Daisy Buchanan, London had seen her mother. Beautiful, careless, childish. Elsa had been effusive some days and distant others. She’d followed boyfriends to foreign cities for weeks at a time, leaving London behind with their housekeeper, Opal, who was near a million years old and hailed from Boise, Idaho.
When Opal had needed to return to the States to take care of her sick sister, Elsa had been forced to cut short her latest trip. Between Budapest and their flat in Kensington, a train accident had taken her life.
And brought Jason Jennings into London’s.
She hunched her shoulders once more as she followed the shoreline, leaving behind their dock and the bobbing powerboat that Shay sometimes piloted. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the silty sand. It was midweek, and most of the houses along the lake were dark except for security lights. There wasn’t another person in sight.
Still, London had a more private destination in mind.
Three estates away, a dilapidated boathouse sat beside an equally run-down dock. Brand-new structures were located fifty feet from them, and on a morning walk, Shay had speculated that the old ones would be cleared away soon.
Before that happened, London wanted to spend more time inside the damp-smelling walls of the small, square building. Though her tutor likely wouldn’t approve, London had been hanging there for an hour or so almost every day. The padlock was broken and there were signs that she wasn’t the only visitor to the place.
It was those signs that fascinated her most.
The evidence of other teenagers, she was sure of it.
With a push of her hand, London swung open the door and peered into the dark interior. Before, she’d only visited during the day. In the gloom she could barely make out the usual litter: empty cans of Red Bull, Snickers candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a few moldy copies of GamerNews and People magazine. Seating choices consisted of various mismatched cushions that leaked stuffing and had been tossed onto the ragged indoor/outdoor carpeting.
Merely being around the debris of American kids made her feel closer to them. It was as if breathing in air they’d also shared could gain her entry into their world.
Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on.
On a breathless squeak, London jolted back, nearly falling. Regaining her balance, she saw the yellow circle of light jump along the walls as the figure wielding the instrument clambered to its feet.
His feet.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” a male voice said. Then the beam shifted, illuminating a face.
Everything inside London went still: her heart, her breath, the coursing of the blood beneath her skin. She knew that face. That tall, lean body. It was a boy she’d seen around town, always with a pack of other kids, always in a casual pose, comfortable with himself.
Who wouldn’t be comfortable with his tanned skin and his shock of dirty blond hair and with those very white teeth that seemed to be glowing like neon even in the darkness?
London swallowed. “I’m not scared,” she said.
She saw his head tilt, like a curious animal trying to figure out something new. “You have an accent.”
Not hardly! At least, she didn’t want to have one. The British kids she’d run into once in a blue moon said she didn’t sound like them. When she’d gone to school—and it was true that Elsa had not always been consistent on getting her to class—she’d attended an all-girl American school with American teachers.
Since she was twelve, she’d exclusively watched American television, determined to become what she considered the epitome of confidence and cool—the typical American teen.
“Cat got your tongue, England?” the boy asked.
“It’s London,” she was forced to admit. “It’s my name...and also where I’ve been living.” Since coming to Blue Arrow she’d been trying out different city names—US city names—to replace her own, as if selecting a new one would obliterate her otherness. But the minute Shay had started to explain that to her father today, it had seemed foolish. Babyish. Like believing in Santa or expecting visits from the Tooth Fairy.
Elsa had cleared up those misconceptions right away, despite Opal’s protests.
“Huh,” the handsome guy said now. “London...I like it.”
Emboldened by the compliment—giddy!—she voiced a question of her own. “And you are...?”
“Colton. Colton Halliday.”
Colton Halliday. London repeated the name in her head. It sounded like the name of a cowboy or a Wild West gunslinger. Very American and maybe even a tiny bit dangerous.
Though she didn’t feel afraid around him, she’d been truthful about that. Just warm and excited and like she was poised to begin the life she’d been waiting for. Until this moment, she’d been the victim of everyone else’s whims—her mother taking her to Europe, her father sending her to Blue Arrow Lake, Shay insisting on Gatsby and Shakespeare and that boring history book about Western civilization.
Colton slid down the wall so he was seated again. He set the flashlight beside him so its beam washed up the dingy wall and cast half his face in light, half in shadow. “What are you doing out here?”
She took one small step inside. “I live back that way.” She made a vague gesture. “You?”
“Promise you won’t tell?” he asked, though he didn’t sound too worried either way.
“Sure.”
“We local kids, you know, full-timers on the mountain, we have a few places, hideouts I’d guess you’d call them, where we go to chill. This is one of them.”
Hideouts. London nodded, pretending a teen-only retreat wasn’t completely beyond her previous sheltered—okay, freak—existence. “Just you tonight?”
“I had to get away from the parental units for a little while. They can be a pain in the ass, right?”
“Right.” London dug her toe into the worn carpeting. “My mother’s dead.” Her hand clapped over her mouth. What was wrong with her?
“God.” He twitched, then was silent a moment. “God, I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s okay. I...” Miserably embarrassed, she stepped back again.
“Don’t go,” Colton said. “I shouldn’t have...”
His discomfort only made her feel worse. “It’s okay.”
“Come back in, I don’t bite. You probably need a little downtime, too.”
Dueling desires warred within her. To go, to stay, to allow him to bite her. Goose bumps burst in hot prickles all over her skin at the thought. Biting! She’d never even been kissed. Yeah, at fifteen, she was unkissed.
Total freak.
“So, you go to school down the hill or something?”
Down the hill encompassed every place that wasn’t the surrounding mountains. London had learned that from Shay. “No,” she said, coming inside so she could make her own slide along the wall. They were propped on opposite sides of the small structure, London situated closest to the still-open door. “I’m sort of being homeschooled at the moment. I have a live-in tutor.”
Colton released a low whistle as he drew up his knees and draped his wrists over them. In the low illumination from the flashlight, she stared at his hands. They were long-fingered and bony-looking. Not like a skeleton, just...bony like a boy’s hands. Like a boy’s hands should be.
“How’s that?” he asked. “A live-in tutor? No dozing off during class, I suppose.”
“No.” If pressed, she’d probably admit she liked Shay. Yes, there was the dusting and the vacuuming and the Western civ book, but the woman had also been tolerant of her name experiments—which seemed even stupider now that Colton Halliday said he liked London.
Shay paid attention, too. She was the only one to ever notice that when it came to bubbling test answers, London had a peculiar technique. The first time she’d turned in a score sheet, Shay had taken one look at the paper then tossed it back. “Love the long-stemmed rose,” she’d said drily, noting the pattern London had made with her No. 2. “Now put your efforts into answers, not illustrations.”
“Finals are coming up at the high school,” Colton said. “That’s what my parents are on my case about. Studying. Hell, I can’t wait for summer.”
“What will you do then?”
“Hang with friends, swim, hike. I have a part-time job scooping ice cream, too. Gotta save for college...only a year away.”
Meaning he was going to be a senior next year. That seemed way older than her.
“What about you, England?”
“I’m—” She stopped herself from blurting out fifteen.
“Hey, I thought you liked London?”
His grin glowed again, seeming to light up the whole room. “I like ‘England,’ too, since I came up with it. My special name for you.”
Another riot of goose bumps bloomed over her body. “That’s all right, I guess.” It was better than all right!
“So...are you going to be around this summer?”
She shrugged, trying to play it casual. “Sure.”
“Then maybe we’ll see each other again.” Colton rose to his feet. “I gotta go now. Chemistry homework due tomorrow.”
London stood, too, pressing her shoulder blades against the wall to hold herself up because her knees felt wobbly as he drew near. “See you around, then,” she said as he passed through the doorway.
“Yeah, see you.” He turned, walking backward as he looked at her, the moonlight silvering his hair. “How old are you, England?”
“Seventeen,” she replied, without a single betraying quaver in her voice. It didn’t matter that it was a lie; it was her next foray into the life she’d been waiting to begin.
Fifteen-year-old London, who’d lost her mother and only just met her father, was an outcast, that freak she’d always felt like. But London, nicknamed “England” by a handsome, soon-to-be high school senior, was the master of her fate and the captain of her soul.
And surely, surely seventeen.
