Cry Uncle Read Free Page B

sterling silver. She
wondered how he’d felt marching into a jewelry store and standing
in line for ear-piercing with a bunch of prepubescent girls. Maybe
he hadn’t gone to a jeweler. Maybe he’d done it himself—plunged a
needle into the heart of a flame and then into his own flesh.
    Maybe a former lover had
done it. Maybe a present lover had. This evening’s discussion was about
marriage, not about lovers past and present, or monogamy, or
fidelity, or anything like that.
    All right, so Joe had an earring and, for all
Pamela knew, hundreds of girlfriends. So he dressed like a bum. So
he wasn’t her style. Nothing about this encounter was her style.
For that matter, nothing about the recent progression of her life
was her style.
    Things had gotten out of control. She didn’t
have many options left. The essential thing was to stay alive. If
marrying a man with devastating blue eyes and a dimple and an
earring would provide the protection she needed, she’d be a fool
not to give his offer a fair hearing.
    “ So,” he said, his smile
flagging slightly as he studied her in the pool of white
light.
    It occurred to Pamela that he could be
judging her as harshly as she’d judged him. Perhaps he found her
wanting. Kitty had said he was desperate for a wife, but she hadn’t
said he was desperate enough to settle for a skinny, panic-stricken
architect from Seattle.
    He spread his legs, rested his elbows on his
knees and tapped his fingertips together. “I guess you’re wondering
why I called you all here tonight,” he joked, then flashed her a
smile that, for all its edginess, she found comforting. If nothing
else, they had their anxiety in common.
    The least she could do was help him out by
contributing to the conversation. “Kitty told me you need to get
married,” she said.
    He shrugged modestly. “That about sums it
up.”
    “ Forgive me...Joe?” she half
asked.
    He smacked himself in the forehead, evidently
disgusted by his lack of manners. “Jonas Brenner,” he said, prying
her fingers from their death-grip around the stem of the wineglass
and giving her a friendly handshake. “Everyone calls me Joe. And
you’re Pamela. Kitty didn’t mention your last name.”
    “ Hayes,” she said. “Pamela
Hayes.”
    “ Pleased to meet
you.”
    She smiled faintly. She couldn’t quite say
she was pleased to meet him, not yet. She wished he were a little
less disheveled, a little more genteel. She wished circumstances
hadn’t driven her to the opposite end of the continent, as far from
her home as it was possible to be without leaving the country.
    Wishes weren’t going to get her anywhere,
though, so she accepted his firm grip as he shook her hand, and
consoled herself with the thought that at least his fingernails
were clean. As soon as he released her, she took another long sip
of wine.
    He leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing
her. She felt exposed, like a job applicant unprepared for an
interview and doing everything wrong.
    “ Well,” he said, then fell
silent as a squadron of thundering motorcycles cruised down the
street nearby, riders hooting and mufflers roaring. When the night
air grew relatively tranquil once more, he began again. “The deal
is, I have this niece.”
    She nodded.
    “ I’ve had custody of her for
three years,” he explained. “When I first got her, I thought it was
just going to be for a few months, but when Lawton and Joyce—that’s
my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law and sister—”
    Pamela stopped nodding and held up her hand.
“Your brother-in-law’s brother-in-law?”
    Joe smiled apologetically. “Okay,” he
drawled, as if speaking more slowly would clarify everything. “See,
Lizard—that’s my niece—”
    “ Lizard ?”
    “ Elizabeth. But she likes to
be called Lizard.”
    “ Lizard,” Pamela echoed
quietly. If marrying Joe had seemed like an absurd idea before, it
seemed even more absurd now. How on earth could she take a man who
had a niece named Lizard