It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.
— Dizzy Dean, pitcher
“I don’t think James liked you,” Suzanna said as Tim shoved the key card in the door of their suite ninety minutes later.
“Who?”
“James, Tim. The guy who sold you this rock I didn’t ask for but am very happy to be wearing.”
“Oh, you mean Jim. I didn’t notice,” he said, pushing open the door. “Wow! Would you look at this, Suze. You could bowl in here.”
Suzanna stayed where she was, entertaining thoughts of Tim carrying her over the threshold, then gave it up as another girlish dream that had bitten the dust. “Let’s see,” she said, walking past him, through the massive foyer, and into a huge round room with raised platforms, marble pillars, enough gilt to redo the dome at Notre Dame, and a sea of white couches. “You’re right. Wow.”
“The manager told me it’s usually reserved for high rollers,” Tim said, walking around, opening doors, peeking down hallways. “And how about that view?” he commented, pointing to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the city, all the way to the mountains.
“I’m speechless,” Suzanna said, trailing one hand over the back of a snow-white couch. “It’s a good thing we decided to have those steaks downstairs, I’d be afraid to eat in the middle of all this white.”
“Yeah, I remember. Suze the slob. You used to wear everything you ate. But you were okay downstairs, so I guess you grew out of that one, huh?”
“I still have lapses,” she admitted, heading for the windows and the view. There was a bedroom in here somewhere, probably more than one of them, and she was feeling distinctly nervous. Maybe she shouldn’t have said no to the wine Tim had wanted to order with their meal. “With chocolate ice cream, mostly. Mom used to beg me to try vanilla.”
That’s it, keep it light. A little joke, a little laugh, a little seltzer down your pants. Something like that.
Man, this wasn’t as easy sober.
She jumped slightly when Tim spoke from directly behind her. “Seen enough yet, Suze?” he asked, tickling her ear with his breath.
She nodded. Nodding was good, when a person was trying, without much success, to pry her stupid tongue off the roof of her mouth.
“Good, because I’ve found the bedroom.”
The next thing she knew, she was being held high in Tim’s arms, and he was heading toward one of the hallways. Her head buried against his chest, she tried to mentally explain to her heart that two hundred beats a minute was probably overdoing it, when Tim put her back on her feet, held her loosely locked inside his arms.
“Open your eyes, Suze,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You aren’t going to believe this.”
She already didn’t believe this, any of this, but she opened her eyes anyway, then gasped. She pulled free of his arms and began walking around the huge room.
Enormous round bed on a raised platform. Sheer draperies hanging all over the place. More gold-veined mirrors than she’d like to think about.
She stopped as far away from the bed as she could manage. “My god, Tim. This is like something out of the Arabian Nights. Or maybe Aladdin. Disney goes porno, I don’t know. Wow.”
She looked at him, and he had already stripped off his knit shirt, was smoothing down his hair as he grinned at her. Oh, lordy, but the man had a body...
“How about a nap?” he asked, walking over to the bed and yanking clown the bedspread in one strong pull, sending the pillows scattering.
“You slept on the plane,” she reminded him. He was working on his belt buckle now, and she wondered if there was any water in this suite, because her mouth had gone as dry as the desert.
She pressed her fingertips to her temples. What was the matter with her? They were married. Legally, if tackily married. And she was the one who had hinted that there had been a definite lack of romance about their marriage so far.
That was why they were here, in this movie set for Debauchers ‘R Us, instead of safely on the casino floor, betting Sam’s twenty bucks.
It was her fault. It was all her fault.
Hooboy, she thought, eying the bed once more. Every once in a while, Suze—for a woman who thinks she’s a practical, levelheaded, feet-on-the-ground sort—you bite off way mare than you can chew.
And then Tim was standing in front of her, his talented hands slipping her blouse buttons from their moorings, and he was asking her in that teasing way of his, “So, are you having fun yet?”
And she was answering, her voice low and—yes, definitely—sort of sexy, “I could be having more.”
Omigod, did I just say that? she thought, panicked. I couldn’t have just said that, could I? But I did, I said that. Shame on me. Shame, shame on...
Tim’s lips skimmed the side of her throat, his tongue doing these talented things to her skin, the lobe of her ear.
Shame, shame on...
His hands were kneading at her shoulders now, her bare shoulders, because her blouse was gone.
Her slacks had disappeared, too.
Her body felt cold, then hot, as he moved against her, pressed his hard body against her.
Man, he hadn’t been kidding. He was pretty good. She hadn’t even noticed when her bra and panties had bit the dust.
He caught her sigh with his mouth, and on contact, her body gave this small, involuntary convulsion of delight.
And sudden hunger.
She wrapped her arms around him, drew him closer, attempted to press her lower body even closer against his. Slipped one bare leg through his, raised it slightly, pressed again. Gloried in his arousal.
Shame, shame on... Oh, the hell with it.
They tumbled onto the bed together, his hands everywhere, hers mimicking his as she skimmed his body, learned his body, rejoiced in his body that fit so well with hers.
“You taste so good,” he said, then sluiced his tongue between her breasts, sucked lightly on the side of her throat. “And you smell good, too.”
She said something that disproved four straight years of A’s in vocabulary. “Uh-huh.” And then she ran her hands down his back, glorying in the ripple of his muscles as he shifted above her, brought his mouth to her breast again.
All things considered, with her body singing, her heart hammering, her breath catching in her throat, “Uh-huh” was pretty damn articulate.
He moved his hand lower, slid it over the flare of her hip, then concentrated for a moment on her navel, circling it with one finger even as he pressed his palm flat against her lower belly.
The pressure he created deep inside her made her swallow down hard on the low moan that threatened to escape her.
She moved her hips, raised them slightly as she braced her bent legs against the mattress, wordlessly pleading for more, more.
And then he was there, between her legs. His hand, his fingers, touching her, opening her, stroking her, giving all the proof she’d ever need that the man didn’t brag. He was more than good. He was very, very good. A master of his craft.
Her hips went on autopilot, moving on their own, pressing up against him each time he seemed to threaten to leave her, stop what he was doing.
Heat, deep inside her. Building, building. She clamped her teeth together hard, all her concentration on his hand, on what he was doing to her. On his mouth, how it suckled on her, how his tongue flicked at her nipple, sending wave after wild wave of tingling awareness from her breasts to her belly, tying her up in a huge knot that just had to be untied so that she could break free. Soar.
And here it was, coming toward her as she stood poised on the edge, waiting. Closer it came, that exquisite tightness, that glorious pressure that built and built and built. The hunger that consumed her.
A hunger she’d never known existed, until Tim. Never even imagined.
She beat on his back with her fists, unable to speak, unable to breathe, her heels digging into the mattress as she thrust her hips high, then held them there for him. Open to him, spread wide for him, eager for him.
More than eager.
Demanding.
No inhibitions, for he had teased them all away.
No shame, because he wouldn’t allow shame.
No second thoughts, because thinking was something to save for another time, another place.
“Yes,” she breathed at last, as the tension turned liquid. Turned blue and white behind her eyes. Flashed red, and deep purple. The colors of passion, exploding all around her. She was drowning in color, in sensation, in that tight coiling that at the very last, frightened her.
His thumb on her, he slipped two fingers inside her and drove them up, up.
“Yes!”
And it all came tumbling down, the mountain of need, of want, that he’d built inside her. Tumbling, tumbling down in a wild explosion of pulsing, rippling sensation.
She lowered her hips—her legs could no longer hold her, because she had gone all soft and liquid. But the need was still there, a different completion than he had given her, one that included them both.
The want clogged in her throat, the need to give.
Dragging her fingers down his back, she urged him with her body, pulled him toward her. Up and over her.
He sank between her legs, filling her even as his mouth claimed hers again, his tongue mimicking the thrusts of his lower body.
She broke free, gasping, biting on his ear. “More, more,” she urged him, wanting nothing else in this life than to give him everything he wanted, everything he might not even know he needed. “More, Tim. Faster. Deeper.”
“Oh, babe. Babe,” he said, and increased his tempo. Deep, hard, fast. And faster. And faster. Driving into her as she opened to him, gave him all she had.
All he probably would ever want....
* * *
“Nice,” Tim said, looking around after dropping her two suitcases on the floor of the small foyer of her Allentown apartment. “When did they build these?”
Suzanna deposited the case containing her laptop on the paisley-print chair just inside the living room. “Last year. That’s when I moved back home for good, sold the old homestead,” she told him, looking around the room that could have fit inside the bathroom of their Vegas hotel room. With room left over for a horse. A Clydesdale.
“It was really great of you to do this, Tim. Fly into ABE instead of Philly, and all of that. I’ll just be a minute;” she said nervously, heading for the door once more. “There’s soda in the fridge. That way,” she ended, pointing toward the kitchen.
Once outside her apartment, Suzanna leaned against the wall, took a few deep, steadying breaths. Other than her trips to the bathroom in the hotel and on the plane, and a brief moment with the frogs in the casino, this was the first time she’d been alone since saying hi to Tim. Ever since she’d gone temporarily insane, to be more precise.
But it was okay. She’d get used to this. Being married to Tim, the love of her life, a man who called her “babe” when they made love. Did he always do that? Just so he wouldn’t goof up, call somebody by the wrong name?
“Don’t think like that. Maybe he’s got a thing about Babe Ruth, that’s all. No, that’s just too weird,” she told herself, pushing away from the wall and heading across the square hall for 4B.
Mrs. Josephson opened the door as far as the security chain would allow, then smiled at Suzanna. “Oh, it’s you. Just a moment, dear.”
The door closed, then opened again, the security chain undone, and Suzanna stepped inside the apartment that always smelled like cinnamon sticks. “How are you, Mrs. Josephson?” she asked. “I got your message on my cell phone. I hope Margo wasn’t any trouble?”
“No, no, dear, Margo’s never any trouble. But when my sister called to tell me her husband fell and broke his hip, well, I knew you wouldn’t mind coming home to take Margo back. Stupid Walter. Tell me, what is a seventy-year-old man thinking, to climb up on a roof like that?”
“He fell off the roof?” Suzanna winced, then went to the corner of the room to pick up Margo, who had been sleeping on the floor in a patch of sunlight coming through the window. Margo wasn’t much on big welcome home celebrations.
“The lower roof, luckily. Putting up one of those satellite thingies, Mary said. Five thousand channels, Mary said, all of them sports, to hear her tell it. Well, I’ll be off,” she said, picking up an overnight bag. “I phoned for a cab when I saw you walking across the parking lot. I thought my cab had come early, but then I saw you get out of it.”
Suzanna buried her smile against Margo’s soft brown fur. That was Mrs. Josephson. The town crier. She waited for what would come next.
And here it came....
“Such a nice-looking young man, Suzanna,” Mrs. Josephson said, reaching for her huge handbag. “Anyone I should know about?”
“He’s an old friend, Mrs. J. Tim Trehan. The ball player?”
“Ballplayer? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, dear. Well, the cab will be here any minute now, and then there’s that long bus ride to Pittsburgh. I think I’ll be able to make the ten o’clock bus. I may be gone for a while, dear, but don’t you worry. I know how busy you are, so I’ve asked Mr. Horvath to water my plants for me and bring in my mail. He’d have taken Margo, too, if you had to go out of town again, except he’s allergic. Nosy old coot, grant you, but he’s sure to bring in my Social Security check next Monday.”
Suzanna held open the door for Mrs. Josephson, then waved her on her way before reentering her own apartment.
“Here she is,” she said, rather proudly, depositing a squirming Margo on the carpet. “One Princess Morgana Margret of Leeds, to be precise about the thing. But I call her Margo. I couldn’t resist her.”
The brown tabby Persian stretched out one back leg, then the other, before walking over to the couch where Tim sat. She sat on the floor in front of him for a few moments, examining him for flaws, then gracefully hopped up onto his lap.
“Pedigree, huh?” Tim said, scratching behind Margo’s ear. Suzanna could hear the cat purring from halfway across the room. Margo never did that. “You know, I have a cat, too. Lucky. Big black tomcat. He’s got muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I swear it.”
“No, I didn’t know you had a cat,” Suzanna said, watching Margo melt under Tim’s touch. She knew the feeling. “Who takes care of him when you’re on the road?”
Tim grinned at her. “Guess we’re finally getting around to talking, huh? I should have told you.”
“That’s okay. You didn’t know about Margo until I picked up my messages on our way to the airport.”
“True enough. Okay, you know I have a house here, right?”
She smiled. “Right.”
“It was one of Mort’s ideas. Jack bought a house; I bought a house. Tax write-off, that sort of thing. I had been in a condo, but the bigger the house, the higher the taxes, the bigger the write-off. At least that’s what Mort and Aunt Sadie said.”
Suzanna’s smile widened. “Your Aunt Sadie. I remember her. She worked at a bank, didn’t she? Trust officer, something like that? Never married.”
“That’s Aunt Sadie, although she doesn’t work at the bank anymore. She, with some input from Mort, manages Jack’s and my finances now. Among other things.”
“Other things? Oh, you mean because she’s retired now? What does she do? Garden?”
“You wish. Last time I checked, she was auditioning for a project at some local theater,” Tim said, putting Margo to one side as he stood up, headed for the kitchen. “You want a soda?” he called back over his shoulder. “Then we’d better get moving, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, following him. “And I did know you built a new house last fall. Near Jack’s, right?”
He straightened after bending to grab two sodas from the bottom shelf, then looked at her overtop the refrigerator door. “Keeping tabs on me, huh?”
She shook her head. “Don’t get too puffed up, Tim. You remember Ron Laub? He did the tile work on your place.”
“Ronnie? You’re kidding.” He popped both tops, handed one can to her. “I haven’t seen him in years. He was going to join the navy, wasn’t he?”
“Until Babs told him she was pregnant, yes. Now he does tile work with his dad, and he and Babs have three kids. I saw them at the reunion you didn’t go to, remember? Now, just give me a minute to change my clothes, feed Margo, and we can go.”
“She’ll be all right here until tomorrow? Because I really want us to stay at my place in Philly tonight.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll leave her lots of water and dry food.”
“Or you could leave her with Lucky?”
Suzanna had taken three steps toward the hallway leading to her bedroom, but then stopped, turned back to look at him. “Yeah, how do you do that? Who takes care of Lucky for you when you’re on a road trip?”
He stepped out from behind the bar in the kitchen. “I guess the old Whitehall High rumor mill missed one, huh? But it’s simple enough. I have this huge house I’m barely ever in, and this cat, who really needs company.”
“And...?” Suzanna prodded.
“And so I asked Mrs. Butterworth to sort of move in, take care of Lucky for me.”
Suzanna put out one arm, steadied herself against the wall. “Mrs. Butterworth? Our Mrs. Butterworth? Our history teacher Mrs. Butterworth? That Mrs. Butterworth? You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Our Mrs. Butterworth. Her husband died, you know. Last year. They never had any kids, and she was all alone. Aunt Sadie told me about it. It was pretty sad, you know? So I asked her to be my housekeeper, move in, take care of Lucky for me. She lives in a small apartment attached to the garages, the same way Aunt Sadie lives in an apartment attached to Jack’s garages. It works out great, really.”
Suzanna looked at Tim for long moments. “When did you get Lucky?”
“Honey,” Tim drawled, dropping a kiss on her forehead as he walked past her, back into the living room. “I wuz born lucky.”
She followed after him. “No, seriously, Tim. When did you get Lucky—the cat Lucky? Before or after you heard about Mrs. Butterworth’s husband dying and her being left all alone in the world?”
He collapsed onto the couch, shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t remember. About the same time, I guess. It doesn’t matter. It worked out, right?”
“Right,” Suzanna said, then turned and headed down the hallway once more.
God. That great big goofy ball of marshmallow. He bought a cat just so he could convince Mrs. Butterworth he needed her to move in, where he could keep an eye on her.
How she loved this man. He tried never to show it, ever, but she knew. She’d always known. The guy had a heart as big as all—
She wheeled around, trotted back into the living room. “This cat. Lucky. You said something about muscles. Tomcat, right?”
Tim was once more scratching behind Mango’s ears, as that fawning feline sat on the arm of the couch. “Yeah,” he said, not looking at her.
“And he’s fixed?”
“He was never broken.”
“Funny,” she said, walking around to the front of the couch to glare at him. “And you know what I mean, Tim. He’s been—snipped?”
“Snipped?”
“You know. What do they call it? Castrated?”
“Now, there’s a word I try never to work into a conversation,” Tim said, scratching beneath Margo’s chin, so that she stuck out her neck, closed her big golden eyes in ecstasy.
“Tim, Margo’s a pedigree animal. I mean, I don’t show her or anything like that; but she is pedigree, and I may want to have her mated one day, have kittens. Persian kittens, Tim, with another Persian cat. She’s nearly one now, and will be going into heat any day now. So I can’t leave Margo with Mrs. Butterworth unless you tell me Lucky’s been fixed. Now, did you have him fixed? Look at me, Tim. Is Lucky fixed?”
He looked straight at her. “Sure. The vet took care of all of that. Shots, flea stuff, you name it.”
Was he lying to her? Tim could lie with the best of them. She certainly knew that. But would he lie about something like this?
“Okay,” she said at last. “As long as he’s fixed. I’ll be right back, and then we can go drop Margo with Mrs. Butterworth. I’m dying to see her again.”
“That’s because you were always her pet,” Tim called after her.
“No,” she yelled back at him. “That’s because I wasn’t twins and never tried to pretend I was my own brother. Margo’s crate is in the hall closet. Load her up for me, okay?”
By the time she had brushed her teeth and changed into a denim skirt and soft pink summer sweater, Margo was safely locked into her carrier, and Tim had loaded dry cat food and two dishes into a clear plastic bag, along with two fuzzy toy mice and a packet of Margo’s favorite organic catnip.
“Small kitchen,” he said as she headed for her purse. “It was easy to find this stuff.”
“I know. I’m ready.” She carried, slung over her shoulder, a soft carry-on bag she’d found in her bedroom closet and quickly stuffed a few things into, and now picked up her overnight bag that held her toiletries.
“I hope you didn’t mind me opening cabinets, finding this stuff. I think Lucky eats another brand.”
“We’re married, Tim. Everything I have is yours.” She took the plastic bag from him anyway as he followed along, holding Margo’s carrier.
“Yeah,” he said, giving her a slight pat on the backside with his now free hand. “I like this part pretty well. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she told him, locking the dead bolt “Please.”
“And I like this part,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. “And this part...” he went on, lowering his head to kiss the bit of skin revealed by the vee in her sweater. “And this—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” she said, quickly stepping away from him. She was so nervous! “Here, carry my overnight bag. I think you need your hands occupied.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, looking about as innocent as a thirteen-year-old with a copy of his dad’s Playboy stuck between his mattress and box spring. “But everything I have is also yours, remember. What parts do you like best?”
She raised her eyebrows, lowered her eyelids, tried to look stern.
He grinned at her.
Oh, what the hell.
“Your eyes,” she admitted. “I’ve always been crazy about your eyes.”
“Really?” he said, following after her, out into the parking lot. “But they’re the same blue eyes Jack’s got. Same color, same eyes.”
She stopped, turned, handed him the car key she’d fished out of her purse. “No, they’re not. They’re not even close. How do you think I was always able to tell you apart? Now, come on. We’ve got to drop off Margo and get to Philly, before Sam Kizer puts out an APB for you.”
He trotted after her, to keep up. “We’ll talk about my eyes again, later? Because this is interesting, Suze. I mean, Jack and I are identical twins. So what is it about my eyes that’s different from Jack’s?”
She blew out a quick breath. “Okay, but only because you’re going to drive me crazy until I tell you. It’s the devil, Tim. He peeks out through your eyes. Jack got the angel, and you got the devil. Happy now?”
He sort of tipped his head from side to side, as if considering what she’d said. “Yeah, okay. I kind of like that. Ready to roll, babe?”
She sighed. Someday, in twenty years or so, maybe she’d tell him she hated when he called her babe.
For now, she’d just go with the flow....
* * *
Tim steered Suzanna’s late-model four-door sedan down the narrow macadam road, past Jack and Keely’s place and several other large homes built on three-acre lots sold to them by Jack, who pretty much owned this entire small mountain. They crossed over the small, one-lane bridge that spanned the narrow Coplay Creek that flowed in front of Tim’s property, then pulled into the long drive that led up to his own house.
“There’s no time to stop in, see Jack and his wife?”
Tim shook his head as he parked the car on the circular drive outside his mansion—his “pseudo Tudor” mansion his Aunt Sadie had informed him—with lots of brown brick, dark wood, and that stucco stuff. “We’ve got about ten minutes, tops, to see Mrs. Butterworth, drop off Margo, and get moving again. Come on, we’ll go through the house, out the kitchen, so you can see some of the place. But just look, don’t stop.”
“Bossy,” Suzanna said, opening her own car door as Tim reached in the back, removed Margo’s carrier.
When he joined her, she was standing very still, looking up at the house. “So? What do you think?”
“It’s big,” she said. “Very big.”
“I know. Aunt Sadie sent me all these books, with pictures in them, floor plans. We were out west, on a long road trip, and I didn’t have much else to do anyway, so I looked at the books. This is the one I liked best. I moved in just before Thanksgiving last year.”
“Henry the Eighth would have liked it, too,” she said, heading up the three brick steps that were fashioned in a huge semicircle around the front doors—two dark brown wooden things with leaded glass inserts. A battering ram couldn’t get through those doors.
He fished in his pocket for the key, then opened one of the doors, waved Suzanna in ahead of him, then waited for her reaction.
He liked his house, really liked it. Liked all the dark wood, the dark colors on the walls. Those things Keely had called “accent sconces” that were on the walls. The place might be almost new, but it looked as if it had been here forever.
“Keely decorated the place, top to bottom,” he told Suzanna as he pointed toward the rear of the house and the kitchen. “She’s really good.”
Suzanna nodded, and kept on walking. “It suits you, Tim. Like a great big cozy den for Tim the Tiger.” She stopped halfway down the hall. “Oh, wow, is that a real tapestry, or a reproduction?”
Tim looked at the wall hanging that stood at least eight feet high in the two-story foyer and fifteen feet wide. It was one of his favorite things in the whole house, and it pleased him that Suzanna had noticed it. “Keely got it from some place in New York. An auction house.”
“Sotheby’s?” Suzanna asked, her eyes wide as she looked at him. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I think that’s the place. I saw it in a catalog she had at the house, and told her I wanted it. All those great faces, all those people. The castle in the distance? I don’t know. I just liked it.”
“This from the man who had posters of Vanna White on his ceiling,” Suzanna said, shaking her head. “And the poster of that guy with the green tongue.”
“You remember that? That was during my professional wrestling fan phase. What were we? Ten, twelve years old? What was that guy’s name again? Oh, yeah. George ‘the Animal’ Steele. Hairy shoulders, green tongue and all. Remember the time Jack and I took you and Jan Overly to the Allentown Fairgrounds to see the wrestlers?”
Suzanna shuddered. “I remember sitting in the first row, wondering how flat I’d be if that Andre the Giant guy fell out of the ring and landed on me.”
Tim laughed, putting an arm around Suzanna’s shoulders. “So that’s why you and Jan spent most of the night in the ladies’ room?”
“You got it. It’s also why I practically fell on your dad’s neck in thanks when he showed up to drive us all home again,” she said, smiling with him. “Hey, we’re wasting time. Where’s the kitchen?”
“Back through here,” he told her, guiding her, “but don’t look. Keely really outdoes herself with kitchens, and if you’re anything like any other woman who’s seen this place—meaning Aunt Sadie and Mrs. Butterworth—you’ll start oohing and ahhing, and Sam will have a breakdown waiting for me.”
“Um, Tim?” Suzanna said as they walked through the huge kitchen—complete with fireplace—and out the back door. “Remember what a great cook my mom was?”
“Buttermilk pancakes with blueberries? Chocolate cake that was so moist it was almost black? Sunday afternoon and roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy? Oh, yeah, Suze, I remember.”
“Well, hold that thought, Tim. Because I can’t cook.” Tim stopped on the wide brick patio and stared at her. “Your mom never taught you?”
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I have all her recipes, packed away somewhere, but I’ve never tried any of them. I... I eat out. Or microwave stuff.”
Tim rubbed a hand over his chin. “Do you want to know how to cook? Because Keely’s a great cook, and if she had your mom’s recipes, she could, you know, teach you?”
One thing about Suzanna Trent, now Suzanna Trehan, that Tim remembered well. When she got mad, you knew it.
He knew it now.
It was simple, really. When they had been little, she’d punch him in the gut. When she got older, grew out of that punching business, she’d just tell him to go to hell.
She said it now: “Go to hell, Jack.”
“Knew it,” he said, tagging after her as she walked toward the large three-car garage, still carrying Margo.
They were doing all right, he and Suze. They would probably do better as time went on.
But he’d have to remember that temper....