by Geri Krotow
The kitchen was empty; Jeb nowhere in sight. She walked into the conference room and immediately saw what he’d left on the plywood table.
The key.
* * * *
Jeb couldn’t let the rest of the night pass without talking to Jena. He’d completely fucked up. He’d had to get out of the kitchen, away from The Refuge, after they’d made love. It was too intense to face her before he processed whatever the fuck was going on in his head.
But fucking Jena…he’d never regret that. Especially because what had passed between them in the kitchen was new, something beyond what they’d normally shared before Paraguay.
A text or phone call seemed callous after the intense intimacy they’d shared, so he steeled himself to show up at her place. He’d visited the upgraded carriage house several times when they’d enjoyed their friends-with-bennies agreement. His car didn’t fit in the tiny space between hers and the red-brick house, so he left it on the tree-lined street. The original main house had been divided into several condos over the last decade, and the carriage house in the back of the property was its own condo. He knew Jena rented, and he also knew that she hoped to someday have a place like the one in which she’d grown up: in the city proper, with a huge backyard and property to spare for kids and dogs. He walked through the property to her place, and the myriad trees snapped his mind back to one particular tree on the Boudreauxes’ New Orleans property. Would that tree even still be there, after Katrina and the storms they’d suffered through since?
Funny that he hadn’t thought of the oak—the tree that he and Jena had deemed their oak—in years. Not when they’d dated in college, nor during their no-strings tumbles, nor in Paraguay. It was as if that part of his life and their relationship had been forgotten, or left dormant for a long, long while.
He reached her front porch, a tiny square of paved rocks, and knocked on the painted white wooden door. The house was so solidly built that he didn’t hear steps before she opened the door.
“What are you doing here?” Her face had that hopeful look on it again, goddamnit. Regret twisted his insides. She was in a set of pjs he’d never seen—or, if he had, it hadn’t mattered to him because all he’d thought about before was sex. And more sex. The top was a plain pink T-shirt, but on Jena it looked like spun silk. Her nipples poked through, and he forced his glance south, anywhere but on her breasts. The pj bottoms were shorts that revealed her long legs—the same legs that he’d lifted and wrapped around his waist while he’d plunged into her.
Jesus.
“Sorry to bother you after hours. We need to talk.” Her brows drew together, and he shook his head. “Sorry. Let me start over. I need to talk. I’m here because I can’t leave things where they’re at.”
She didn’t step aside to let him in, didn’t budge, in fact. Her arms came up to cross over her chest, taking away his view of her breasts. Fuck. She’d seen him look at her, and he knew she’d thought he’d stopped by for one of their usual get-togethers: the sexy kind.
“You made your thoughts pretty clear, I’d say. I found the key.” Her lower lip jutted out just slightly. No one else would have noticed, but he did.
“Yeah, about that—I had to get out of there, Jena. I totally blew it, and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you had sex with me?”
“I’ve never been sorry for being with you, Jena. But things are different now. I told you that I didn’t want to continue our relationship, and then I went back on my promise.”
“Your promise?” She laughed, but it wasn’t her naturally deep belly laugh at all. It was more like a sharp crack of lightning, a wake-up call. She was pissed.
“It wasn’t a promise, just the reality of where we’re at.” God, could he sound any fucking weaker? He squared his shoulders. “We had our fun. It was only a matter of time before we moved on. Your adventure in Asunción brought things to a head sooner.”
“Nice choice of words, Jeb.” Her lip curled. “You insist on always making it about sex between us. That’s fair—we never signed up for more than that. Paraguay, and my old job, complicated things for a bit. But that’s the point, Jeb. My reaching out to you when I thought I was about to be sliced and diced by a vicious drug cartel was a blip. If you look at the big-picture view of our relationship, we’ve never shared a whole lot more than good sex.”
He stared at her and forced his mouth closed. When had she turned into such a pragmatic person? Probably the minute she signed on with the CIA, jackass.
He opened his mouth again to speak, but a huge bug assaulted him, hitting his cheek with a loud buzz. He swatted it away and it hit the ground near his feet, its shiny brown shell intact as it scuttled off.
“Ugh! Motherfucker.” He detested palmetto bugs. They were ubiquitous in Louisiana, and natives took the giant cockroaches with wings in stride. But he’d never been able to. Since living with his mother in that rundown apartment, where the cockroaches coexisted with them, his stomach had always turned at the sight of them.
Pure humor echoed around him in the form of Jena’s laugh. Since they were kids she’d tormented him with bugs whenever the mood hit her, and especially if he’d done something to annoy her. After he recovered the composure his disgust had stolen, he couldn’t help it: he laughed with her. Like sex, laughing had always been a natural no-brainer for them. Their senses of humor were similar, on the same wavelength.
Relief eased the tension that he’d arrived with. Jena got it, got him. They might even be able to salvage their friendship this one last time after what had happened in The Refuge House’s kitchen. He’d move on, as he’d planned, and it wouldn’t be difficult.
Jena’s laughter faded and her eyes flashed with something completely foreign to the warmth they’d just shared. Anger, yes, but more. Disdain?
It was his only warning before she slammed her door in his face.
* * * *
“Wow.” Robyn eyed Jena as if she were about to explode. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good.” She sank down next to Robyn on the sofa and grabbed her glass of pinot grigio. It’d gotten warm, so she poured more from the bottle they’d put on ice. “I wasn’t expecting that, though.”
Robyn, also in pjs for their first girls-night-in together, popped a chip into her mouth and thoughtfully chewed before she replied. “When you two are at work, there’s no sign of this, this depth of emotion. I mean, it’s obvious to me that you have sparks, and booty calls wouldn’t surprise me, but what just happened, Jena?” She gulped her wine.
Jena considered how much to tell Robyn. Their friendship was new, and she didn’t want to burden it with the heavier stuff she’d been through with Jeb. Of course, she couldn’t tell her about the ransom, about what had really happened in Paraguay. But she didn’t have to flat-out lie, either.
“We grew up together. Since my older brother Brandon brought him home, I thought he was also mine.”
“You have two older brothers, right?”
She nodded.
“Yeah. Henry is the oldest, the one who took over my dad’s law firm here in the city. He’s with Sonja, and they’re about to have their first baby.”
“You’re going to be an auntie!”
“Yes. I can’t wait.” And she couldn’t. But she didn’t have to like being around Henry and Sonja and seeing how good it could be between two people who were meant for one another. “And Brandon’s with Poppy, who you might have heard of as Amber—the stylist from New York.”
“OMG, you are totally killing me here! Amber Kaminsky is your sister-in-law?”
“Not yet, but yes, close to it. They haven’t said their vows yet. She’s left that life and says she’s found her place here with Brandon.”
“Tell me something, Jena.” Robyn pulled a slim leg up under her, settled back into the sofa. “Are your brothers super protective of you? Because you’re a girl and yo
u’re the youngest?”
“Yes and no. They think they know what’s best for me at all times. They thought I was stupid to join the Navy Reserves, for example.” And they would have had a shit fit if they’d known she’d really been with the CIA. “But they’ve always minded their own business when it comes to my personal life, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“My point is that if Jeb thinks he’s crossed a family line by being with you, he’s going to fight whatever he really feels, deep down. He won’t want to betray the male bonds.”
“You may be right. But it’s not that creepy, icky feeling about him being part of our family. I never looked at him as a brother. Ever.”
“What did you look at him as?”
“At first? My buddy, my friend. In high school I had a huge crush on him. We went to prom together, but it wasn’t over-the-top romantic or anything.” That had been in college, and was short lived because of her focus on her future as an undercover agent. A future that didn’t have room for a partner, and definitely not Jeb. He’d have fought her tooth and nail if he’d known then. “If anything, Jeb’s more protective of me than my brothers are.”
Robyn tilted her head. “It’d be totally natural for you two to be together. Have you ever thought of that? Instead of the friends-with-benefits deal you had?”
“Naw. We’re lifelong family friends. We just got off-kilter when we tried to make it more than that. I shouldn’t have agreed to our sexy-friends pact for as long as I did.”
“We haven’t known each other long, and while I have a good feeling that we’ll be good friends, I don’t want to overstep.” Robyn’s clear, straightforward manner was as refreshing in a social setting as it was when she presented a blueprint at work.
“But?” Jena grinned.
“What I’d want you to tell me, if I were you, is to think about why I stayed in the relationship for so long as it was. A friends-with-extras deal is okay for the short term, or once in a blue moon. But from what you’ve described, you saw one another regularly. Like, two, three times a week?” She waited for Jena to nod.
Jena groaned. “More like four or five.”
“Holy fuck, girlfriend. You had more of a sex-with-a-little-friendship-on-the-side agreement.”
Jena looked at Robyn, revelation dawning. “You’re absolutely right.”
“But again, the real question is why, Jena? Why did you allow yourself to be with only one man for that long, a man who made it clear he wasn’t interested in anything but sex? What’s keeping you from going out there and finding someone who wants everything you have to offer?”
Jena sipped her drink. “Let me ask a question.”
“Answer mine first.”
“Ouch. Okay. I suppose I’m a bit commitment-phobic. I don’t want what my parents have, or had. They’ve kind of gone through their own identity crisis, and now they’re the happy couple I thought a real relationship would be. But for most of my life they’ve been hot and cold, lots of bickering, too much work. Life is enough work, you know? I don’t want to come home after beating my butt only to have to struggle to find a comfortable zone with my partner.”
“Preach it. I totally get what you’re saying. But there’s usually another reason we don’t go looking for something new.”
“Yeah?”
Robyn nodded. “We’re either too afraid to break from our comfort zone, or…” She exaggerated her leading comment, waving her hand in a circular motion for Jena to jump in and finish the sentence.
“Or…hell, I don’t know, Robyn. Or what?”
Robyn grinned. “Or we’re happy where we are. You didn’t bother looking for anyone else because for you, there wasn’t anyone else. Jeb is it.”
Jena quickly picked up a decorative pillow emblazoned with a French bulldog and tossed it at Robyn. “You’re right, we’re still in the beginning stages of our bonding process.” And she refused to consider Robyn’s theory. She couldn’t. It was too hard to look at anything about her and Jeb without immediately feeling the unique mixture of befuddlement and hurt that only happened when she thought of him.
But her heart heard, and it whispered its own reply.
Maybe.
* * * *
Jeb hadn’t seen red like he did when Jena’s door shut with a bang in a very long time. With the exception of the Paraguay deal, where all bets were off, Jeb considered himself level-headed, a calming factor in most situations. Cool and calculated were in his job description as a CPA and CFO.
He ran along the paved river embankment, relishing the early morning quiet. New Orleans was a 24-7 city, but sunrise was sacred to him. As a boy, sunup had meant he’d survived another night of his parents’ drinking and fighting. They’d be passed out and he was free to move about the house, get something to eat if there was cereal in the cupboard, and play outside on the stoop.
In college he’d earned the nickname “Sunny” because he was up before the sun, studying while his roommates slept in. The full ride scholarship—thanks to the track and field program—had demanded his devotion to daily practice, which often meant two training sessions a day, one at dawn.
His body stretched, reached, and pounded the pavement. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he swiped it away. He was near the end of his run, and the finish usually left him in a better spot mentally than when he’d started.
But ever since he’d been back in the country, nothing cleared his mind.
He slowed to a walk a half a mile before his favorite smoothie shop, needing the cool down—and more thinking time. He’d agreed to meet Brandon, and he had another five minutes.
“Hey, sunshine, get in!” Brandon’s car pulled up alongside him, and his cheerful smile as he leaned toward the open passenger window mocked Jeb’s inner turmoil.
“I’m all sweaty.”
“Do I look like I care?” Brandon held up an old beach towel. “That’s what this is for.”
Jeb opened the passenger door, shook the towel out over the seat, and got in. Brandon had the air cranked up, so he shut the vents.
“Sorry about that. We can go with the outside temps.” Brandon clicked off the air conditioning and opened the windows and sunroof. Brackish air filled the front seat and Jeb let his legs savor the break from the concrete. “How far did you go today?”
“Eight.”
“Eight miles. Man, you’re a stud!” Brandon made a left onto the street where the café sat amongst several other restaurants. “Would you rather we blow off the healthy stuff and go get beignets? You’ve certainly burned the calories for them.”
“No way. I’ve been craving a strawberry banana smoothie the entire run.”
“Okay, just asking.”
“You still have your sweet tooth.”
“I do. So does Poppy—you should see the ice cream and chocolate she brings into the house.”
“She doesn’t look like she eats a lot of junk.”
“She doesn’t, not all the time. She’s helped me get better about my eating habits, and she’s very disciplined about working out. But if she’s feeling blue she tends to crank up the chocolate consumption. It lets me know that I either need to try to get her to talk it out, or stay the hell out of her way!”
Jeb wondered if that’s where he’d gone wrong last night. Maybe he should have stayed out of Jena’s way.
Brandon pulled into a spot in front of the smoothie shop and they got out. “Thanks for the lift. I was going to go home and change before we met, but then I decided I needed the extra few miles instead.”
“I don’t care how you’re dressed.” Brandon wore similar gear, but instead of Jeb’s cargo-type running shorts, he had on basketball shorts. “I’m headed to the gym after this.”
They ordered their drinks and took them outside where, while hot, it wasn’t as oppressive as the heat the day was bound to bring. August in New O
rleans was both Jeb’s favorite and most hated time. He much preferred the cooler months of winter and early spring, but he also liked that the tourists stayed away during the dog days of summer. Except lately, he’d noticed there didn’t seem to be a lighter season.
“It gets busier down here each year, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Used to be August was low season, but with COOLinary going on, forget it. Food’s half the reason most people visit here.” People came for the restaurant festival, but they also came for the party atmosphere of the French Quarter: a combination of continual live music and free-flowing booze.
“How’s work at The Refuge going?”
“Fine. We’ve got the rooms walled in, and we’re looking to be done with the kitchen next week.”
“That’s quick, just like you thought it would be.”
“Stop trying to play it cool. It’s not your strong suit.”
Brandon laughed. “You can’t blame me for trying.”
Jeb looked at his friend, and regret swamped him. “It’d never be the same, Gus.”
“I’m not looking for the same. We already did that. We’ve both gone through a lot, both changed since you took the ransom money for Jena.”
“What you’ve been through is on me.”
“Not really. What we’ve all been through—you, me, and mostly Jena—is because of a horrible event halfway around the world. Drug cartels aren’t known for logic or compassion. You were the freaking bomb in how you acted. I have to be honest: I would have fucked it up.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You’d have gotten the text like I did, and you would have headed out of town on the next plane.”
Brandon slurped the rest of his smoothie through his straw. “Nope. I would have called the police, or the FBI. Probably both. And I’d have been too late.”
Jeb had no reply. They’d already talked about it, and they both got it—Jena would have been killed.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s safe. I keep reminding myself of that whenever I feel the panic of those days, that long week, creep in.”
“That’s why you’re running the longer distances again, isn’t it?”
