Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance

by Braden, Magdalen

  “Why does she drive you so crazy?” he asked.

  Elise was lying half on top of him, one leg still draped over his thighs. He loved her like that, her breasts delicious weights against his chest, her hair tickling his nose. She didn’t move, precisely, as she considered the question, but her body tensed just a bit. Then she relaxed just as imperceptibly.

  “I don’t know. Crisis mode, maybe. We’re like those old movies from the sixties where the two prisoners break out while still chained together. Only I’m free to fly back to Philadelphia long before the third reel when Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier finally learn to trust each other.”

  Jack let the cinematic mash-up go by. “So what’s happened this week—you’ve been chained to her too long?”

  Elise sighed. He stroked her hair, damp still from the exertion of sex.

  “I don’t know. I was doing okay and then you arrived—” She must have felt him tense up. “No, you aren’t the problem. I mean, sure, you’re the answer to every prayer she’s ever had about me getting…you know, me hooking up with some nice guy.”

  Jack suspected that Peggy would love for him to marry her daughter—and Elise would hate it if she thought he was conspiring with her mother.

  She went on, “I can see the problem is me. Maybe it’s Peggy too. Maybe she makes the situation worse. I’m pretty sure a jury would acquit her, though, if only for humanitarian reasons due to her health. I just know I’m cranky when I’m with her, and it’s that much harder with you in the room.”

  He continued to stroke Elise’s hair, using both hands now, hand over hand. He wanted to take her pain away, help her figure out whatever the issue was with her mother.

  “I love you,” he murmured, but she was snoring. That seemed to be his big contribution—a safe place for her to fall asleep.

  Jack’s flight back to Philadelphia was early enough on Sunday that they just stayed at the condo in the morning. Elise had told Peggy she’d stop by the hospital after taking Jack to the airport. If she was being honest with herself, Elise knew she didn’t want to see her mother again. What she really craved was to get on the plane with Jack and go back to her own home.

  “When do you think Peggy will be released?” Jack asked as they pulled out of the condo’s garage.

  “The doctors aren’t saying, but I get the impression it’s pretty soon. I’ve got a meeting with the aftercare coordinators tomorrow.” Elise made a tricky turn before continuing. “I want to get everything lined up so that as soon as she’s settled at home, I can fly east.”

  “Let me guess, you miss your job,” he teased.

  “Of course. And my house. I miss my house.”

  “Of course.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. She grinned in response.

  Happiness. That was what she was feeling. Sad that Jack was leaving, but happy he’d come. They’d actually spent more time together this weekend than they ever had in Philadelphia. Almost like another mini-vacation, like the trip to Eagles Mere.

  She got him talking about chambers, how his law clerks felt about the final months of their yearlong clerkships, how his secretary’s son was doing, and any courthouse gossip she could pry out of him. She just let his voice flow over her like hot fudge, soothing and yummy. When they got to the departures terminal, Elise pulled the car into a convenient slot and turned toward him.

  “I still don’t know why you came,” she began.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I gather it was because you—you wanted to make sure I was okay,” she said awkwardly.

  He still didn’t say anything.

  “You were right. I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay until you got here, and then I was.” She swiveled her torso as far to the right as she could. “Thank you, Jack. It’s meant a lot to me.”

  He put a hand over hers, resting on the cubby between the seats. “I wanted to be with you. That’s no surprise.”

  Elise considered that. “No, I guess not. The surprise was that you wanted to be with my mother as well.”

  Jack looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “I did. I was worried about her. I didn’t want you to face it alone.”

  She remembered suddenly. Jack’s mother had died when he was still young—high school or something. As rocky as her relationship was with Peggy, it would have been a lot worse if she’d died.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t have more time with your mother,” she muttered inadequately, looking at his knees and the perfect creases on his trousers.

  Silence. Then he said, “Thanks.”

  Elise caught sight of the airport official coming over to suggest they were nearing their three-minute limit. “We’d better move.” What she really wanted was to drive away with Jack still safely buckled in his seat, but kidnapping a federal judge probably carried a hefty penalty.

  When they were standing on the curb, she resisted the urge to throw herself into his arms. “Jack.” She hesitated.

  He smiled at her. He looked so good. All handsome and loving and familiar. She couldn’t quite get over the idea that he wanted to be with her. Yet here he was, on the wrong side of the country, battling jet lag just so that she wouldn’t be alone.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

  “Jack,” she began again. “It’s meant the world to have you here. I’m so grateful, I don’t know how to tell you—”

  “You’re doing a great job telling me.” His voice was gentle.

  She couldn’t resist any longer. She threw herself at him, knowing his arms would come around her and make her feel good.

  “I love you,” he crooned into her hair.

  “I know.” Her whisper got muffled by his jacket. She looked up at him and said it again. “I know.”

  She stared at his face, his somber eyes and loving smile. Her fingers tangled in the slightly longer black silky hair. Blackjack. Her judge. Look how far they’d come, from a crazy hearing last spring to this—lending support when she really needed it.

  Maybe it wasn’t just new-judge jitters? Maybe he had seen something when he’d looked at her. The weird thing was—she was pretty sure she loved him too.

  Why wasn’t that better news?

  Chapter Seventeen

  She loved him.

  That was all Jack could think about on the short flight to Sea-Tac and the long flight back to Philadelphia. She loved him.

  Maybe she couldn’t tell him yet. Maybe she didn’t know herself. Jack knew. The look in her eyes as they parted had to mirror the expression on his face. He mattered to her, he comforted her, he showed up when she needed him.

  And she let him do all that for her. Miraculous.

  Not that he was grateful for Peggy Carroll’s heart attack. He’d have spared Elise that pain and worry. Still, Elise had appreciated his arrival in Eugene. He hadn’t done much more than provide a buffer between her and her mother, but maybe she needed that. A life of self-sufficiency was all very well, but facing a personal crisis like this could make anyone feel lonely.

  A friendly face, a soothing embrace—that meant a lot under the circumstances.

  And she’d let him love her, comfort her. Jack had felt ten feet tall at the airport when they’d parted. All the prickliness had gone. Elise had looked…well, happy. Happy that he loved her, happy that he’d come to Eugene, and shyly happy to love him back.

  Jack leaned back in his airplane seat, stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. He wanted to announce to the flight crew and passengers that Elise Carroll was in love with him.

  He smiled a little. Maybe they weren’t quite to the point of registering for wedding gifts, but he was pretty sure he saw how to get them there.

  When he got home, he called Elise to let her know his flight had been uneventful and to ask about Peggy’s progress.

  “You know how they say if the patient is well enough to complain, she’s on the road to recovery?” she asked him.

  “Okay.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure Peggy
’s on the autobahn to good health, the way she’s grousing about everything.”

  Jack looked out at his garden, shadowed except where the lights of the house fell on the pavers. Even at midnight, it was too muggy to open all the doors and windows, but there was no reason not sit out there in the humidity, smelling the plants and the city beyond.

  “What’s that noise?” Elise asked.

  “I’m going outside to sit on the patio,” he explained. “It’s about ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity, but at least it’s real air. I miss you.”

  Elise laughed. “Hmm. What’s the connection between you missing me and choosing to get hot and sweaty—? Oh, wait, I’m starting to see a pattern.”

  “So when do you think you’ll be back in Philly to get hot and sweaty with me?”

  “I talk to Mom’s team tomorrow. As long as she goes to a rehab facility every day, they’ll send her home. The infection seems to have cleared up—that’s why she’s been in the hospital so long.”

  “So next weekend, maybe?” Jack could hear the hope and neediness tightening his voice, but he didn’t care. The woman of his heart was three thousand miles away, which wasn’t right. For either of them.

  “Maybe sooner. Geoff’s been great—he texts me every day to say, and I quote, ‘Stay as long as you need to, but when will you be back?’ I have a feeling he’d like it to be sooner too.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to come back to you, of course.”

  “Elise—” Jack began.

  “I do, Jack. It was hard watching you leave today. I want to come back home and see how things look there.”

  “So I shouldn’t propose to you over the phone,” he joked. His heart was beating its way out of his chest, and the heavy, moist air wasn’t responsible for all of his sweat. He waited for her reply.

  “No. You shouldn’t.”

  Jack couldn’t tell what that breathless note in her voice was—Fear? Anxiety? Eagerness? Or she’d gotten winded running upstairs?

  “Then I won’t,” he said lightly.

  The conversation tapered off after that. As Jack went to bed, he thought about marrying Elise. They hadn’t talked about kids or whether she wanted a wedding right away or even if she thought she could be comfortable living in his house. Those were all details. The fundamental element was a future together. He wanted to know Elise was committed to a future with him. Everything else—even kids—was negotiable, provided he had her in his life.

  Elise clicked the off button on the handset and sat there, the phone pressed to her cheek. Jack was thinking about marriage. It really shouldn’t come as any surprise. She had no one to blame but herself for that development. What was a bit shocking was that she wasn’t hitting redial to break it off with him.

  He’d been so wonderful over the weekend, patient with Peggy in the hospital, easygoing on their rather haphazard tours of Eugene. Elise had even talked about her childhood a little, something she almost never did with anyone. If that was what marriage was about—sharing big things like a parent’s illness and little things like a silly story about learning how to ride a bike—then could it work?

  Elise thought it would be a bigger deal somehow. She wasn’t sure she loved him, although she really enjoyed being with him. Plus, she was still waiting to hear trumpets and a celestial choir proclaiming, “He’s the One and Now is the Time.”

  She got up to get herself a beer. The fridge had virtually no food in it—some milk for her cereal and coffee, some juice, some beer. The liquid diet. She flashed on Jack’s refrigerator the last time she’d stayed at his house. It had been filled with veggies, artisanal cheese, and a selection of bottles if he wanted a glass of wine. There’d been a Virginia ham carefully wrapped in the back, and a couple of leftovers in plastic-topped glass containers, the contents looking yummier than anything she had cooked for herself in months. The contrast with Peggy’s fridge was ludicrous. Hell, the contrast with her own fridge was bad enough.

  She grabbed the beer and slammed the door shut. She and Jack lived so differently. And she liked her life. She liked being a beer-in-the-cheap-seats girl. Presumably he enjoyed his tuxedo-at-the-charity-event social life. In the short term it was great being with Jack, but over the long haul wouldn’t they make each other miserable?

  Elise plopped down on the sofa, clicked the TV remote without caring what was on, and crossed her ankles on the coffee table. She took a long, cold slide of the beer.

  Nope. She didn’t want a forever thing with Jack. She wanted the present arrangement, with dates on the weekend. It was perfect, it kept their lives separate, and yet allowed her to hang out with the best guy she’d ever met.

  Just for now—just for this particular crisis—she missed him with an intensity she couldn’t possibly have predicted. More than anything she wished he was still in Eugene, upstairs, brushing his teeth before standing at the top of the stairs, his pajama bottoms slung across his hip bones, looking at her in the living room, a silent question hanging between them. Coming to bed? And her answer—Hell yeah—just as obvious. She ached with memories of Jack in her bed, touching her, making her feel whole and loved.

  He loved her. He loved her body and soul. She had to admit this. She just didn’t see how that changed anything. How did love make the differences between them go away? He was Blackjack freakin’ McIntyre. She was a kid who’d grown up in Springfield, Oregon. She hadn’t fit in at Shaker Heights High School, but she’d survived it. She hadn’t been born into a classy family the way Jack had. She’d done well in college and law school, sure. It didn’t mean she wanted to hang out with the legacy students, kids who drove Beemers and summered in Maine. She didn’t even own an evening dress.

  Okay, maybe one evening dress.

  The voice at the back of her head tried to argue with these false distinctions. Surely it was more important that she and Jack had professional interests in common and enjoyed each other’s company, it said. She closed her ears to the counterargument.

  It wasn’t just the lifestyle or the clothes. The differences between her and Jack couldn’t be solved with a shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. She slumped against the cushions. She wasn’t right for him, and it was just a matter of time before he saw that for himself. She didn’t want some piece of paper tying them together when he figured it out. Keep it loose for now, and it could end amicably.

  She didn’t want it to end, so he’d better not insist on marriage. Because she didn’t know what would happen when she turned him down.

  “Tomorrow, huh?” Elise said. “Good thing I vacuumed the living room carpet.”

  Peggy pursed her lips. “Can’t happen soon enough. I’m tired of this place.”

  “Well, like you always said, hospitals are the worst places to be sick.” Elise smiled at her mother, who looked more like herself today. She was dressed, for one thing, and her hair was in a tidy French pleat, even if Elise had needed to secure the bobby pins when it hurt too much for Peggy to raise her arms above her head. Elise walked over to the window and stared out at the cars in the parking lot. She turned to go back toward the bed.

  “Sit down, Elise,” her mother admonished. “You’re pacing again.”

  “I’m anxious, I guess.”

  “You’re anxious to get home to Jack.”

  “Well, my job and my home, but then sure, I want to see Jack again.”

  “Are you serious about him?”

  Elise grinned. “You know I rarely joke about men.”

  “No, I don’t know that. You never talk about men, laughingly or otherwise.”

  Was that right? Did she really never talk about the men she had dated?

  Peggy continued, “Jack’s the first one I’ve met.”

  “You weren’t missing much.” Elise thought about Bart Mather, who might just be the nadir of her dating life.

  “Understood. Now back to Jack. Are you serious about him?”

  Elise slumped into the other armchair. She so didn�
�t want to have this conversation.

  “Because, he’s serious about you.”

  That old familiar grumpiness filled Elise. “No, he’s not. He just thinks he is.”

  Peggy frowned. “What’s the difference? In my book, if he thinks he’s serious, then he’s serious.”

  “It’s the thrill of the chase for him. As soon as I accede to his crazy notions, he’ll get bored with me and leave. And anyway, I’m not sure I want him to be serious about me. We’re not particularly compatible.”

  “Do you really think that? Because from where I’m sitting, he looks dead set on being with you. He flew here to be with you. He’s texted you at least twice today.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t look at my phone, do you?” Elise demanded.

  “No, but you do. It’s like a nervous habit—you pull out the phone every few minutes to check. And it’s not messages from your firm you’re waiting for, either. Your face falls when it’s from your boss or your secretary, but you light up like a kid at a fireworks display when it’s from Jack.” Peggy tilted her head. “I think he’s perfect for you. You should marry him and stop closing yourself off from happiness.”

  Elise just stared. Peggy was sitting comfortably in her chair, her hands layered in her lap, but the look on her face was that of a librarian shushing a patron.

  Elise was furious. “I don’t need to be married to be happy. I have a life, you know. Oh, wait, maybe you don’t know. Because when you hound Kim or Christine for news of me, it’s never about how work is going, or where I’ve traveled, or if I’m going to make partner. You have this regressive notion about what women need to be happy. Marriage, kids, domesticity, that kind of crap.”

  “Okay, so I don’t think being a lawyer is the be-all and end-all of a person’s life. You work too hard, you have these superficial relationships, you’re never home.” Peggy’s mouth soured, as though she’d just bit into a dill pickle. “I can’t want that for you. I simply can’t.”