Trouble Me: A Rosewood Novel

by Laura Moore

  “Yeah.” He sloshed some milk over the cereal, dug up a spoonful, and shoved it in his mouth, chewing vigorously.

  Okay, he had to stop overreacting.

  He could handle the idea of her seeing Topher at Rosewood. After all, Topher wouldn’t be so stupid as to try to stick his tongue down Jade’s throat with Travis Maher nearby. Swallowing, he gave her a teasing grin. “This is exceptionally tasty cereal.”

  “I know,” she said, beaming. “Cap’n Crunch is the best.”

  “The toast is delicious too.” He took another bite of jam-slathered toast.

  “Well, I can’t take the credit for that. It’s Ellie’s jam.”

  “No need for modesty,” he said. “You spread the butter.”

  She nodded happily, clearly relieved that they’d overcome the hurdle of Topher’s all-too-obvious interest. “I did, didn’t I?”

  For his part, Rob was pleased that he hadn’t ruined the goofy silliness of their breakfast. He hadn’t felt this lighthearted in many a morning.

  He leaned over and kissed her, savoring the taste of her, more delicious than any jam ever created. As their tongues mated, the heat between them flared. He smiled as she raised her arms to loop them about his neck and parted her lips wider, deepening their kiss.

  With a low growl of approval, he wrapped his arms about her waist and shifted back in his chair, lifting her onto his lap. The move allowed him full access to her neck, and as he dragged his mouth down its length, he breathed in her warm soap-scented skin. His head spun with memories of her in the shower, wielding the bar of soap all over their entwined bodies.

  Free to rove, his hands cupped her breasts, and a savage pleasure flooded him as her nipples grew pebble-hard against his palms. He knew if he opened the closure of her breeches and slid his hand inside her panties and touched her, she’d be hot and wet for him, as intensely aroused as he—and he wanted her with a force that left him shaking.

  “Jade,” he whispered as his hand closed about her breast, fondling it. “Let me take you back to bed.”

  Her eyes fluttered shut as she arched her supple body against his hand. “Mmm-mmm,” she moaned. Disappointment flooded him as she straightened. “I’d love to, but unfortunately even a quickie would take too long,” she said, regret in her voice. “I’m teaching the whole nepotic gang in a half hour, Neddy and Will included. They’ll be rolling in any minute.”

  How many women would give up their precious Sunday morning to teach their nephews and nieces? he wondered, floored anew by her energy and generosity.

  “Okay.” He gave her a final kiss, knowing he’d be remembering the sweetly wild taste of her for the rest of the day.

  His need unabated, he lowered his hands from the soft globes of her breasts and brought them to the relatively safer region of her back, stroking its silken length. Yet even there her response, a supple arch against the flat of his hand, like a sleek cat demanding to be stroked, had him wishing he could strip off her top and rain kisses down her spine to the sweet curve of her buttocks, while his fingers roamed and dipped—God, what had made him think touching her back would be “safe”? He could graze her pinkie, and desire would explode inside him.

  With an effort, he reined in his hunger. “I was thinking earlier, I’d like to reciprocate for this fine breakfast you served. Come to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Dinner?” Again, he glimpsed in Jade’s shy surprise a side of her she rarely revealed.

  “Yeah, with Hayley and me. We make a mean pizza.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea? Will Hayley—”

  “She’ll love it. She’s nuts about you, Jade. I want you to be with us.”

  “Well, okay, I—” Her answer was cut off by the peal of her phone. With an apologetic look, she leaned forward and grabbed it, glancing down at the screen.

  With the phone cradled in Jade’s hands, Rob could see the words PRIVATE CALLER displayed. At least it wasn’t Topher calling again, he thought. But when she pressed the on button and brought the phone to her ear, he was close enough to hear a man’s voice say, “Jade, it’s me, Greg.” He felt the instant stiffening of her body and saw the telling look of horror that crossed her face just before she slid off his lap to carry the phone out of earshot.

  The conversation lasted less than twenty seconds, but the obvious tension in Jade told Rob plenty. Greg was somebody important and Jade didn’t want Rob to know about him. He’d never seen her look so guilt-stricken—except perhaps the night he’d busted her at the Den with a fake ID.

  She’d been silent, listening intently. Then he heard her say, “Yes. I can do that.” Her gaze swung to his face, then skittered away. “Listen, I’ll call you back.”

  She hung up but remained standing by the entrance to the kitchen, staring into middle space.

  “Everything okay?”

  She started. “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Her voice was too casual.

  “Who’s Greg?”

  She looked at him. No, she looked through him. He might have been holding her in his arms minutes ago; right now it was as if she were a million miles away.

  “Greg? He’s a”—she hesitated, as if searching for some acceptable description—“a friend.”

  He told himself to ignore the jealousy that, like a snake, had uncoiled to slither cold and lethal through his insides. “I see. So about dinner Monday—”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m busy tomorrow.”

  He knew, as the snake struck and sank its fangs deep, that the reason she’d be busy was Greg. “What’s going on, Jade? A second ago we were discussing dinner with you, me, and Hayley, and from the sound of it you wanted to come.”

  Oh, God. Jade cast a desperate glance in the direction of the front door. Would that she had special powers; she’d will it to burst open and have Olivia and Max tear inside with their usual high spirits. Quick on their heels would be Georgiana and then Kate, who, like Jordan, was always so self-possessed. Only the kids’ chattering presence filling her small cottage would distract Rob and his too-perceptive gaze from uncovering her secrets.

  She struggled to maintain a calm façade, which Greg Hammond had blown to bits with these few words: I think I’ve found your TM, Jade. Are you free to meet me tomorrow?

  She didn’t know how successfully she’d hidden her reaction from Rob; she was still reeling from the aftershocks of Greg’s announcement.

  After all these years, the idea that she might learn the identity of her mother’s lover was nearly impossible to grasp. The news made her heart pound, less from excitement than from a strange sort of dread. The reaction was unexpected, and all she wanted right now was to have a moment alone to sort out her feelings, at the very least to pull herself together. Instead, she had to pretend that her world hadn’t altered dramatically because of Greg’s call.

  “Jade?” She heard the trace of impatience in his voice and realized she hadn’t answered his question.

  “What?” she asked, stalling. The kids really should be coming any second.… Please be on time.

  He crossed the kitchen to where she stood, though stalked might have been the better verb to describe the predatory grace with which Rob moved in his hunt for the truth.

  “Why am I getting the feeling that this guy Greg is someone I should know about? Exactly how close is your ‘friendship’?”

  His hands had settled over her elbows as she’d crossed her arms over her middle. She shook him off as sudden aggravation filled her. She didn’t like feeling cornered, didn’t like feeling guilty. Most of all, she didn’t like knowing that she was damaging her relationship with Rob—even though she wasn’t going make any attempt to fix it by explaining.

  Because what would he say if she revealed that Greg Hammond was a PI she’d hired? What would he say if she told him that once Greg gave her TM’s name, she had every intention of confronting the man?

  He’d try to stop her. Of course he would. Rob might be her lover, but he’d been a cop for a lot long
er. There was no way he’d approve of her actions.

  Freed from his grasp, she stepped back, refusing to waver when his expression turned bleak. “What makes you think that just because we’re sleeping together you have the right to know everything that goes on in my life?”

  Her comment had his mouth flattening in a grim line. “We’re not just sleeping together, Jade.”

  No, when he held her last night she’d felt cherished and protected. But he didn’t really know her. She wasn’t perfect or kind or sweet. In time he’d see that all too clearly. Would he want her in his and Hayley’s lives when he found how very unlike his wife, Becky, she was? She doubted it.

  “At this point that’s all we’re doing, and maybe I don’t want to go where you’re trying to push me. I don’t like feeling boxed in, and I really don’t like being interrogated about my every move. In fact, I hate it.” Even as she spoke, she knew she was hitting below the belt. Yet another reason she wasn’t good for him: She didn’t fight fair.

  The situation overwhelmed her. Too much was happening to her, and she couldn’t figure out how to handle it all. Yes, she’d fallen in love with Rob, but she was a rookie at being in love. In contrast, her need to discover the identity of TM was familiar. It had taken up residence in her heart the night she found her mom’s diary in the closet where Jordan had hidden it. She couldn’t abandon that need, not when she was on the verge of learning the truth.

  Yet if she told Rob what was going on and how Greg Hammond fit into her life and that she’d hired him to track down TM, she was convinced that was exactly what he’d ask of her. How would he feel when she refused, when she told him that she had every intention of confronting this TM?

  From where she stood, there didn’t seem to be any way she could avoid hurting Rob. And that reinforced her most fundamental fear: She might love Rob, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was a good enough person for him.

  And right now she doubted whether she ever could be. Her attempts at self-improvement, her hope to emulate Margot and Jordan, would end in failure. Deep down, she was too much like her mom. The proof was the pain in Rob’s eyes. She’d put it there.

  “Damn it, Jade!” His voice was a combination of frustration and hurt. “I’m not trying to box you in and I don’t want to interrogate you. What I want is for you to be a part of my life, but I need to be able to trust you if this relationship is going to have any chance.”

  Closing the distance between them, he clasped her shoulders. Though she could feel the tension in him, his hands were gentle. “Talk to me, Jade. Tell me what the deal is with this guy.”

  She looked up at him and then just as quickly looked away. “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t?” he asked in disbelief.

  “I can’t,” she repeated through clenched teeth.

  “You can’t or you won’t?” His voice had a sharp edge now.

  God, this was awful. As the tears welled up in her eyes, she fastened her gaze on the distant sofa in the living room. The sight of it had her recalling the night Rob told her that, for the first time in a long time, he felt something good and that she was the reason.

  And now she’d ruined things between them. Her throat tightened convulsively. She swallowed, then forced herself to say the words. “The answer is, I won’t tell you. So I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

  “You want to call it quits now? Over this? Jade, what the hell is going on?”

  She gave a tight shake of her head, remaining obstinately silent.

  His hands dropped away. “My mistake. I thought you recognized how special what we have between us is. That you wanted to see where it could go. I guess I was wrong about that. I guess I was wrong about you.” The words were like a cold blast, leaving her chilled and shaken. “Right. Well, since neither of us has anything left to say, there’s no point in my sticking around.”

  She forced herself to remain rooted as he walked away, his steps ringing on the wooden floor. But at the sharp slam of the front door, sobs overtook her. Raising her hands to her face, she wept.

  AT SCHOOL on Monday, she fought the pounding headache that had plagued her since Rob walked out her front door. The temptation to call in and request a substitute had been great. It had been years since she’d felt so sick at heart, so rotten to the depths of her soul.

  But getting a substitute for the substitute teacher would only make her feel more like a pathetic loser. Besides, missing school was the easy way out. In her state of self-loathing, she wasn’t going to permit anything to be easy. And she was supposed to be starting a new unit in social studies on the first Americans. Being absent for that introductory lesson would put the rest of the week in disarray.

  She hid her misery behind as carefree a demeanor as possible. For the most part she succeeded—except when Hayley raised her hand. Her usual cheerful self, Hayley and her intuitive comments widened the crack in Jade’s heart. More painful still was that Jade could now perceive so much of Rob in the little girl.

  How was she to survive seeing Hayley every day and knowing that she’d destroyed the chance to be with both father and daughter?

  Only the thought that at 3:15 P.M. she had a rendezvous with Greg Hammond kept her from picking up her cellphone during her free period to call Rob. But a tiny part of her held out the hope that maybe, just maybe, after she’d met TM face-to-face, she’d find a way to explain herself to Rob.

  And maybe he’d be able to forgive her.

  Eugene Harrison’s seat remained empty, but when she went to the office to inform Ted Guerra of his continued absence, Ted’s assistant, Dolores, told her that he was in a meeting. Jade wrote a note for him instead and dropped off a homework packet she’d put together for Eugene, so that he wouldn’t fall too far behind.

  When at last the bell rang for dismissal, she concentrated on saying goodbye to the students and reminding the boys to bring home the various jackets, baseball hats, and sweatshirts that had collected in their cubbies. Only after James Wessel left the classroom, trailing a plastic bag bulging with an assortment of clothes, did she let her gaze go to the window.

  She’d thought it would hurt too much if she caught a glimpse of Rob waiting outside to pick up Hayley. She hadn’t expected that not seeing him would be equally painful.

  The clock on the wall read five minutes past three. She moved quickly about the empty room, straightening chairs, checking that things were neatly stowed away. Grabbing her bag, she flicked off the classroom lights, shut the door, and hurried to her car.

  Greg had asked her to meet him in the parking lot of a coffee shop in Upperville. The drive took longer than usual because she ended up behind a school bus. Oddly, she welcomed the delay caused by the frequent stops; the eagerness she’d thought would seize her at being so close to learning TM’s identity was overshadowed by a heavy sense of loss.

  The breakup with Rob was the immediate cause, but there was an additional reason. This week would mark the anniversary of her parents’ deaths. Contemplating their last moments as her father’s Cessna lost altitude and plummeted toward the waters of the Chesapeake never got easier, and ever since finding her mother’s journal, other thoughts had plagued her. Had her dad been able to forgive her mother’s betrayal? In turn, had her mom regretted her actions or had she been thinking only of TM as she met her death? And had she even spared a thought for the teenage daughter she’d come to despise?

  For so long, Jade had told herself that discovering the identity of TM would offer her some sort of emotional closure. Now, however, she wondered whether it wouldn’t merely open the door to more anguish.

  Greg was waiting by his car. Standing with one leg crossed in front of the other, he was sipping coffee from a paper cup and had his cellphone pressed to his ear. Normally Jade would have been amused by how cleverly he managed to be invisible in plain sight. As it was, she was simply relieved she didn’t have to search for him. The two aspirin she’d swallowed to combat her headache were figh
ting a losing battle.

  Before climbing out of the Porsche, she slipped her sunglasses on. She needed protection—not so much from the weak afternoon sun as from Greg’s scrutiny.

  Unfortunately, they weren’t enough, for the first thing Greg said was, “Are you all right?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” Ever so casually, she adjusted the glasses a fraction higher on the bridge of her nose. With a nod at his paper cup, she said, “So I take it we’re not meeting TM in the coffee shop?”

  “No need to. We’re going to meet him at his office. It’s right over there.” He pointed across the parking lot to a nondescript, low-slung building made of concrete, with large windows that were tinted brown.

  As they walked toward the office complex, Jade tried to picture her beautiful and somewhat silly mother, a woman who’d been entranced by finery and everything deluxe, in such a banal setting. Impossible.

  She frowned. “Are you certain that this is the TM we’re looking for? Obviously they wouldn’t have met here, but I can’t imagine Mom even wanting to be with a person who worked in such a drab place.”

  “Yeah, he’s the one. I lucked out and managed to speak with him on the phone—his receptionist was out with the flu.”

  “How’d you find him? He’s not one of the TMs on the list, is he?” No one from the list worked in Upperville, she recalled.

  “No. When the list of possibles I gave you didn’t pan out, I decided that my previous thinking was taking me down the wrong path and that the person we were looking for didn’t necessarily come from your parents’ social set or—in the case of Tony Myers, the stylist at True Beauty—that he was someone who provided the more obvious services for your mother. I also read your mother’s journal again.”

  As always, the thought of the diary made Jade’s insides clench as if she’d ingested Drano.

  “But this time when I studied the entries, I made myself forget everything you’d told me, about how your father found the journal and your and your sisters’ reactions to it. That allowed me to consider other ideas about who TM might have been to your mother.”