by Geri Krotow
Rip the Band-Aid off, man.
“Jeb. You didn’t even open your gift.” Her tone belied the gravity of what they’d experienced together, what they’d both destroyed for different reasons.
He turned, walked to where she stood in front of the sofa, and faced her again.
“I promise you’ll like it.” She cocked her head in her unconscious come-hither expression, making a part of him wonder what harm there’d be in one little lick. A last kiss. He stood still as she moved, not resisting when she shoved the freezer bag against his chest. It was the closest they’d been since he’d held her, bleeding, in the hospital. Careful not to touch her hands, he took the bag.
And saw again the thin line from the corner of her mouth to her cheekbone. Where the thug had cut her with his knife, intending to permanently maim her. She’d been left for dead. The rawness of the wound had faded, but the memory of his terror at whether she’d live or die remained a permanent resident in his mind.
The plastic surgeon had done a good job, leaving her with the smallest mark possible considering the dozens of stitches the cut had required. He’d held her hand in the Paraguayan hospital while they stitched it, staring into her eyes, willing her to stay with him, stay alive.
He stepped back so abruptly the back of his legs hit the sofa and he landed on his ass. Jena stared down at him with her bright eyes.
The reminder of her tie to his best friend hit Jeb in the gut. Why had he ever thought it was okay to play with fire, to have anything but a platonic, brotherly relationship with Jena? Worse, why had it taken him seeing her near death to realize it?
“What’s going on with you, Jeb?”
He swallowed. “Nothing.” He made a show of unzipping the bag and pulled out the container of ice cream.
“It’s your favorite. Butter pecan. I put some pralines in there, too, from downtown. Your favorites.” If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was nervous. Jena never stated the obvious but just had, twice.
“Thank you.” He remained on the sofa, grateful he’d showered and shoved into his jeans. She’d have to leave soon, wouldn’t she? Jena wasn’t one to miss subtlety, and he was being anything but. He wanted her gone.
“You’re welcome. Here, give it to me—I’ll put it in the freezer.” He handed it to her, and watched her move to the efficiency kitchen, then open and close the freezer. He saw her cast her gaze about the counter, the small table. “You don’t have a lot of food in here. Are you hurting for cash, Jeb? Until you get your next job?”
“I’m fine.” He’d be damned if he admitted his financial situation to her. Besides, he’d be taking one of the half dozen or so positions he’d been offered, all out of state, within a week. He didn’t need fresh groceries, not in NOLA.
“Thanks for stopping by, Jena.”
“Oh, I’m not done yet, Jeb.” She walked toward him and he remained pinned on the sofa, helpless to his body’s reaction to her. Their relationship was over, but their primal connection? Never.
* * * *
Jena had expected to feel some sadness, even regret, as she thanked Jeb and gave them both permission to move on from the hell she’d put him through. She hadn’t expected to feel like her insides were being ripped apart with a machete, though.
She sat on the opposite end of the sofa, facing Jeb but far enough away to assure him that she wasn’t looking for anything more than conversation.
The fact that her body trembled with want for him was beside the point. Hadn’t she just told herself she’d never control their sexual chemistry? Hormones didn’t have a thought process, which was why she had to make this quick, before she screwed up her last talk with Jeb.
“I came here to say thank you. Really. You saved my life, Jeb. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t put your life on the line to come save me.”
“No thanks needed. We’ve already been over this.”
“Have we? All I remember is being in bad shape, with morphine messing up my thoughts and words. I owe you my gratitude. I can never repay you, except to wish you the best.” She blinked, willing the tears not to fall, and grasped her hands together in her lap. In this moment, she knew what she’d pretended, what Jeb had already told her. They were over. For real.
He met her gaze and she saw the man he’d become. Unrelenting. Angry, but not willing to tell her why. Her own anger welled at how he’d cut her off so abruptly after Paraguay.
“I’m not ending our friendship, Jeb.” That was sacrosanct. They’d gotten one another through everything for the past twenty years, since she was eight and he was ten.
“Jena, our friendship was over a long time ago. Way before Paraguay. Sex does not a relationship make.” He sounded resolute, tired. “You don’t want my friendship.”
She swallowed. “That’s not true.”
“Stop. For both our sakes, all right? You got what you needed—your life. Thank you for the ice cream.” He stood, and even dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans he looked as imperious as a general in full battle uniform. “I’ve got a lot to do. I’m leaving town next week.”
Pain pierced through her frustration. What was her problem? Relief was the more appropriate response, wasn’t it?
“Where—where are you going?”
“I’m not settled on a place yet. I have several job offers, and they start as soon as I decide.”
She forced a smile. “I’m glad. Really. I’m happy for you.” But she sounded deranged, even to herself. She was happy for him, wasn’t she?
“Right. Well.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. She felt like a bug who’d lost her way home. Unwanted here, for certain.
She stood. This was different, the extreme awkwardness. As was the way he’d completely ignored that awful text she’d sent after her request for help. The I love you text.
“Jeb, one more thing I want to be clear on. That text, the one I sent after I first contacted you—”
“I get it, Jena. It was in the heat of the moment. You didn’t mean it.” He shrugged, and the weight of her sudden fury made her fight to remain standing, to not sag to her knees. He’d so carelessly tossed away what had been her truth in that moment.
“No. No, I didn’t.” Where was the relief she’d expected?
“We’re adults, Jena. Let’s leave it at friends, if you must.” Had his face ever looked so grim, so done with her?
She didn’t bother to filter her emotions, her thoughts. She couldn’t. Her initial sadness morphed into unexpected anger.
“You’re kidding, right?” She motioned her hand between them. “Your first instinct is correct. There isn’t a friendship here, Jeb. We had an arrangement, and now we don’t.” She grabbed her bag and walked to the door, pausing only to throw him a last scathing glance before she slammed the door with all her might.
* * * *
Jena drove her coupe into Brandon’s sleek driveway and let an audible groan escape her. As much as she wanted to blame her bad attitude on Paraguay, her angst wasn’t from the mission gone bad, when she’d believed she’d never see the Spanish moss hanging on the Bayou trees again. Her discomfort wasn’t from feeling as though she had to rip herself out of bed to get up and out early enough to make Brandon’s brunch. And there was no question: she’d wanted to wallow in bed today after her last words with Jeb yesterday.
This pain ran deeper than any single event. It was the culmination of poor choices on her part. Decisions that had led to her life imploding last month.
Slamming the car door shut, she strode up the fancy half-circle drive, past her brothers’ cars, and mounted the contemporary home’s porch steps. Brandon hadn’t lost his home—thank God—even with his coffers emptied. He’d paid cash to have the house built and had a new job that paid the taxes. She should feel some relief at this; she hadn’t totally wrecked Brandon’s life, just his boat business.
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Guilt clung to her shoulders, weighed her every step. It was her constant companion since Jeb had risked life and limb to save her and gutted Brandon’s business in the process, and it hadn’t let up in the weeks since she’d returned.
The door flew open before she moved to open it. Brandon stood in front of her with a huge grin on his face. “Jena! Bring it in here, sis.”
She was engulfed in a trademark Brandon “Gus” Boudreaux hug and, damn it, she needed the affection more than she wanted to admit. Tears pricked her eyes and she sniffed.
“What’s this?” Brandon leaned back and looked at her. Before she answered, Henry, the eldest of them, walked up next to Brandon. They were all on the front porch, under a pergola draped with wisteria. She hugged her oldest brother, and noted that even the usually staid Henry seemed more demonstrative, his hug warmer.
“It’s so good to have you back, Jena.”
“Thanks.” She backed up and eyed her brothers. “What’s up with you two?”
They looked at one another, but it wasn’t with the usual “she wouldn’t understand because she’s a girl” glance she’d despised as a child.
“What’s wrong? Is it Mom, or Dad?” She’d always assumed her mother would take ill first. Of course she would—she was a drama queen to the highest degree.
Both brothers shook their heads.
“Mom and Dad are fine. We need to know how you are, really. Not the ‘I’m fine’ crap you tell Mom and Dad. What can we do for you?” As Henry spoke, they both looked at her as if she were one of the frogs they’d catch as tweens and shove in front of her face, threatening to make her eat it raw.
“I’m good, really. I’m here, aren’t I? What are you two getting at?”
Brandon cleared his throat. “It’s just that you’ve been through so much, and it seems to us you’ve jumped right back into your job and life as if nothing happened.”
She looked Brandon in the eye. He was the only one who came close to knowing what she’d gone through. Her work with the CIA was so classified that her entire family had believed she was in the Navy Reserves for the past five years. The only person in the world outside of the agency who had a clue about what she’d really done was Jeb.
“What did Jeb tell you?” He’d had no time to return her texts, but he’d managed to spill the beans to her brothers?
“I told them nothing.” She jumped at the deep voice behind her and whirled to face the man who’d been her best friend since childhood, and who singularly had the ability to make her feel like a sexy seductress or a naive fool in the blink of one of his sapphire-blue eyes.
“Jeb! What a surprise.” She swallowed and struggled to remain composed. To not reveal how badly yesterday had hurt. Even knowing they were over, she wanted to jump him and remind him of what they’d shared with ease for the last two years, before Paraguay.
But she had to shove it all down into the little place she always stuffed it into, because her brothers had no clue about them—no one knew. As far as her family was concerned, she and Jeb were old family friends. She was Jeb’s best friend’s kid sister. Period.
“Jena.” He bent in and kissed her cheek, his scruff teasing her skin. Not turning her head to intercept his lips with hers was more difficult than surviving an extended round of waterboarding. Where had that impulse come from? Clearly her body still didn’t understand what her head and heart knew.
A fucking chaste kiss on the cheek. All that had passed between them came down to that. She had no ground upon which to stand her anger. They’d never revealed to her family what existed between them before, so why would Jeb act any differently now? She’d barely escaped with her life thanks to his quick acting, and now Jeb acted as if nothing catastrophic had happened between them. Tears threatened again, for the second time since she’d stepped into her brother’s home. She should run back out the door and drive until the hurt was behind her.
There wasn’t enough highway.
Chapter 2
“What are you doing here?” She hadn’t meant to sound so accusatory, but there it was.
“Brandon invited me.” Jeb didn’t meet her eyes, which stoked her anger. Since yesterday, the only feelings about him she’d allowed to surface were anger, anger, and anger.
“What did y’all want to tell me that was so important?” She pointedly addressed her brothers. Impatience tugged at her composure so near to Jeb. And why had Brandon invited him, anyway?
“We wanted to tell you a couple of things. First, as mentioned, there’s been a big change in Mom and Dad since you left.” Henry spoke up, taking charge.
“Yeah, my bet’s on Dad having had a nervous breakdown, or Mom going through the change, but whatever. They’ve somehow seen the err of their bigoted ways.” Brandon’s wisecracking didn’t hide his obvious bemusement at their parents’ change.
“Wait—you’re telling me Hudson and Gloria have admitted that they’re racist asses? They told Sonja as much?” She looked at her oldest brother.
Henry nodded. “Yes and yes. It’s true, Jena. They’ve come around.”
“Whoa, don’t go that far, bro. Dad’s still wearing his IZOD polos from 1985.” Brandon grinned.
“And Mom? How did she explain disowning you when you got engaged to Sonja?”
Henry’s brows rose. “She apologized to Sonja. They say they’re both determined to make it up to us. That’s all I care about. Although I do think the fact that they’re going to be grandparents made them figure things out sooner than later.” Henry shrugged.
“It’s still pretty damn late. And some things just aren’t forgivable.” She thought of the bitter arguments she’d had with her parents when they relocated to Baton Rouge after Katrina, abandoning their roots. And how as she’d grown up and realized they were racist she’d been so angry, so disappointed, so disgusted. “You’re telling me that Hudson and Gloria are no longer bigots.”
“Let’s say they’re working on it.” Brandon’s tone mirrored her skepticism.
She angled herself to face all three of them. “Are you hiding Mom and Dad in the kitchen, too?”
“No. This is just us. Mom and Dad can pound sand in Baton Rouge for a while.” Brandon spoke quietly and Henry gave a quick nod.
“Yeah, as much as they’re trying to suck up to me, and especially Sonja, we all need a break.”
Jena laughed and let the love her brothers always gave her buoy her heavy heart. “I agree. We need family time away from them right now.”
Jeb remained silent, as he always did when it came to Boudreaux family matters, even though the three of them considered him family. Or at least, she had—until Paraguay, underscored by yesterday’s discussion with him.
“The second thing we wanted you to know is that we’re here for you, Jena. That’s all.” Henry played the oldest-brother role to perfection.
“What Henry said.” Brandon hitched his thumb at Henry.
“Wait a minute.” She looked at Jeb. “What did you tell them?”
He shook his head, but remained silent.
“Jeb’s telling the truth, Jena. He didn’t tell us anything, except that you were in a lot of trouble, getting kidnapped and all down in South America.” Brandon spoke up.
Jeb shrugged. “I had to let them in on some of it, Jena. Your Navy mission got you in trouble with the drug cartel.” Relief cut through her. He hadn’t told them too much. Brandon knew more, of course—he’d had to be cut in, as he’d been briefed by the FBI on why Jeb had left the country. But Henry and her parents still believed she’d been a victim of circumstance, caught up in random drug cartel drama while she walked the streets of Asunción during her off-duty hours.
“I used Brandon’s funds to get you back; that’s not something you can expect to remain a secret, Jena.” Jeb’s calm demeanor stoked her resentment over being ghosted by him since she’d come back to
the States, adding to his flat-out rejection of their friendship.
“No, but I’m having a hard time with how casual you’re both being about it. My situation wiped out your business, and I’m sure you’ll never trust Jeb again.” The summer heat had only recently begun to let up, but it was hot enough to make sweat trickle between her shoulder blades. She pulled at her lightweight top, tried to will the stony fortitude she’d developed as a CIA agent to help her stay composed. Where was the thick skin that had been her trademark?
“That’s not important right now.” Brandon spoke as if they were still kids, figuring out whose turn it was to go first in a backyard game of kickball. Typical of Brandon to act so casual about something so huge. “I’ve got a new job, and I had some funds stashed away that Jeb couldn’t touch. I’m good.” Only Brandon smiled—Henry and Jeb looked as pained about it as Jena felt.
“Brandon, Jeb’s right. Without Boats by Gus and your money, I wouldn’t be here.” She wasn’t in the mood to deal with her brother acting all saintly. Especially when it was her mess that had caused him to lose his life’s earnings. His entire business. His life, for fuck’s sake.
“Hold on. No one told me to take the money. It was my decision to head out without telling Brandon what I was doing.” Jeb spoke succinctly, putting any chance of Jena blaming herself for her brother’s mess to rest.
“Jeb and I are cool, Jena. And frankly, it’s none of your business.” Brandon’s lack of regret stymied her.
“You’re good on fifteen million dollars being gone in a flash?”
“Of course I am. It saved your life—small price. And it led me to a new life, one I never envisioned for myself.” Without hesitation, Brandon confirmed what Jena suspected the minute she’d met her brother’s girlfriend Poppy two weeks ago. Her brother had met his match, and he had no regrets. But Jena did.
“I know, you met Poppy. And I’m happy for you. But you were going to meet her no matter what, Brandon.” And he’d have had a helluva lot more to offer her had Jena not screwed up so royally and allowed the cartel to get the better of her. She’d only had to wait another seventy-two hours and her CIA colleagues would have rescued her. But she hadn’t known it at the time, hadn’t seen past what she’d believed were her last hours on the planet.
