Valentine's Child

by Nancy Bush

  As for love and desire, Jake couldn’t believe that anyone as cool and controlled as his mother had ever succumbed to even the briefest moment of passion.

  In Jake’s opinion, the possibility that his parents had sex more than once was a longshot.

  If Jake wasn’t such a carbon copy of his father, with the exception of Patrice’s uncompromising jaw, he would have given the idea of adoption more credence. As it was, his heritage was stamped all over him — and as the only Beckett male, his future was sealed.

  So, here he was, facing his mother, his own impassive expression mirroring hers as she put down her crossword puzzle, pulled her glasses from her nose and let her steely blue eyes rake her son from head to toe.

  He noticed, then, her trembling hand and watched as she folded one palm over the other to hide their shaking. She was under some inordinate amount of stress.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, stealing the words from his own lips.

  “I was just going to ask you the same thing. You look kind of — ”

  He cut himself off on a sharp breath. Sherry, he realized. Sherry had visited his mother. That was why Sherry had been on North Beach Road.

  With an effort, he hid his realization behind a clenched jaw. Sherry had talked to Patrice. On the intercom, he realized, his gaze darting to the switch on the desk. Patrice’s eyes followed his, then slid back to him her expression giving away nothing. A long moment passed between them while Jake speculated on what that conversation must have been like. Patrice positively loathed Sherry Sterling even to this day, and although Jake had put that portion of his past firmly behind him, his mother somehow never could.

  A vision of Sherry as he’d last seen her — startled eyes and pale white skin — floated through his mind. He swallowed, his nerves tightening.

  “You saw her,” Patrice accused icily.

  Jake nodded carefully. “Nearly ran into her.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  Her voice was quick and anxious. Jake sighed, confused as ever by his mother’s naked aversion to Sherry Sterling. “Not really.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I said …” He paused, drawing out each syllable, a parry to his mother’s thrust that irritated her to the roots of her silver hair. “I said, ‘Hey, Sherry, how ya doin’? Long time no see. Wanna come in and have a cup of coffee? I know my mother would love to see you.’”

  “Stop being facetious.”

  He snorted. “Have a sense of humor.”

  “I want the truth, J.J. What did you say to her?” Patrice insisted.

  “I asked her what she was doing, and she said …” Haunting the neighborhood.

  He cleared his throat, struck by that for reasons he couldn’t name. She’d plagued his thoughts for a long time, he realized. Maybe if she’d stuck around Oceantides it would have been different, but after that wild fall and the subsequent events of their senior year, she’d run as fast and as far as she could. He’d hurt her. And although he’d never admitted it to anyone — scarcely even to himself — she’d hurt him, too.

  “She said what?” Patrice prodded, her eyes flashing with growing alarm.

  “She said she was going to be in town for as short a time as possible.”

  “What is she doing here?”

  “Hell if I know.” He glanced away. He didn’t want to think about Sherry. It was surprising how long pain lasted. He hadn’t believed it was possible to feel anything for her except faint regret, but there was a sting inside him now — a sharp little seed that had the power to grow and swell and suddenly burst open and punch you in the solar plexus when you weren’t looking.

  “Well, I hope she leaves soon. She was nothing but trouble as a teenager and, though I know it sounds unkind, I don’t believe people change that much as adults.”

  Jake shrugged. “I’ve changed.”

  “You’re still the same.”

  She sounded so positive he almost laughed out loud. How the hell did she know? She hadn’t paid the least bit of attention to Jake Beckett, the person, ever. He was only a product to be molded; an extended part of herself to be used for the benefit of the Beckett clan as a whole, which to date consisted only of herself, him and sometimes Heather.

  And Caroline, whenever they found the time to get married, he reminded himself.

  As if discerning his thoughts, Patrice added casually, “Caroline called earlier. She said she could skip her last seminar and be back in Oceantides tonight.”

  “I thought this conference lasted through tomorrow.” Jake lifted an eyebrow. His mother — for all her manipulations — could be so transparent sometimes.

  “It does, but those seminars aren’t worth attending, or so Caroline says. She gave me a number for you to call.” Patrice made a big show of trying to remember where she’d placed the scrap of paper with Caroline’s hotel number, but Jake wasn’t fooled. Patrice wanted their marriage so badly she couldn’t help herself from playing all these coy games. Most of the time he was amused. After all, in the end she would have her way and, in this case, he was willing to play his part. He and Caroline were good for each other. They always had been.

  But once in a while, like tonight, a lick of fury ran through him, stirring sleeping embers.

  I could have had another life, he thought.

  Sherry jumped into his inner vision — beautiful, smart and sarcastic.

  And passionate.

  With an effort he took a deep breath and reminded himself that juvenile love affairs should be remembered with nostalgia, nothing more.

  “I’ll call her,” he promised, moving away.

  “J.J.?”

  He turned back, making eye contact. Patrice’s gaze searched his desperately. Silence stretched between them until he was compelled to glance away first, wondering what she was asking.

  He strode from the room and up the winding stairway to the suite of rooms at the back of the house that were his. He had his own place but Patrice kept his old rooms available and ready for him. Not that he ever stayed here. But sometimes he stood by the window and stared toward the beach, far below the headland. Other times he looked out at the decrepit tree house, but seeing it mostly stirred up old memories that he quickly squelched.

  He was drifting. Had been for years. Letting himself bob and sway on life’s waters as he used to bodysurf in the waves outside these windows.

  Now, he gazed down hard at the ocean’s feathery white-capped waves, black until they frothed against each other. Once, he’d dreamed of something else, something better. His jaw twitched and he remembered…

  She was just one of the girls in his class. Skinny. Studious. Nondescript except he couldn’t ever remember detesting her for being a tattletale or a shrieking idiot all through grade school. He’d detested every other girl — useless creatures who liked to laugh and whisper and slide looks at you. Jake had spent his youth certain that girls were some kind of punishment guys just had to endure for strange, mystical reasons that had begun with the dawn of the human race.

  She was a freshman before he took a second look. By then hormones were raging, and he spent half his time desperately trying to ignore girls, and the other half devoted to sports. Sports saved him, in fact, because they kept his mind focused and his body exhausted.

  But even sports couldn’t control his every waking moment, and it was to his everlasting joy and despair that girls found him attractive. He had his pick, really, and maybe because of that he chose no one.

  He remembered her in science class. Shoulder-length hair, clean and shining and straight. He watched the way light glinted off those brown strands shot with gold. Daydreaming was a dangerous occupation, however, and not just because Mr. Tindel glared at him when he lost track of the discussion. No, examining Sherry Sterling’s lush hair brought on other thoughts that played havoc with is body — an embarrassment he could really have done without.

  She wasn’t part of the popular crowd, but the popular crowd was fu
ll of well-scrubbed, bright faces and shallow dispositions that could easily disintegrate into downright meanness. The only girl in that group worth knowing was Caroline who seemed somehow impervious to the churning nastiness around her.

  He hung out with Caroline and the other groupies who seemed to constantly be circling around like maniac satellites, but he watched Sherry Sterling. He liked the way her eyebrows drew together when she was reading. He liked the curve of her cheekbone and the fullness of her lips. In fact, those lips drew him as much as her gold-streaked hair. She rarely wore lipstick. Maybe never. But she was a ChapStick freak and watching her slide the waxed tip over her lips was almost X-rated in Jake’s mind. He remembered groaning aloud once in class and his best buddy, Ryan Delmato, had asked him what was wrong. He’d blamed it on exhaustion and pretended to collapse on his desk.

  After that he fought even glancing Sherry’s way.

  He thought he would get over his physical attraction. Everybody else went through women like candy, and he certainly dated a few and made out with even more. But Sherry Sterling went from being just okay, with nice hair and lips, to outstanding with long, toned legs and breasts that clothes seemed to want to hug.

  Jake looked around at the other guys in his class and wondered why no one else saw it. Okay, she was still a little gawky, slower to develop than some. But he could almost watch her daily and predict what was going to happen. Beauty and unconscious sensuality were heading her way like a freight train.

  The coming transformation was enough to leave him weak at the knees.

  Yet she was still Sherry Sterling whose family was a source of head shaking and lip pursing to the adults. She had to be loose, he’d heard more than one old biddy pronounce. Father a drunk. Mother a weak and weary woman. No money. No family honor.

  It was a wonder Sherry had gotten as far as she had. For the remainder of his freshman year she circled his fantasies. Once, he seized an opportunity to talk to her. She was with her two friends, Jennifer and Julie, but Sherry seemed dissociated from them. There was a faraway look in her eyes, a haunted yearning from something that touched an answering chord inside Jake. He approached her as she was leaving school, her two friends chattering in her wake. They shut up as if someone had slammed a door in front of them as soon as Jake approached Sherry.

  “Hard to believe school’s almost out, huh?” he said, mouth dry. He heard his voice as if he were an outsider and cringed. As a pickup line it left much to be desired.

  She slid him a glance. Her eyes were deep purple blue and they shimmered with hostility. Jake was taken aback.

  “Hard to believe,” she agreed coolly.

  “I just meant it’s gone kind of fast. Freshman year.”

  “Yeah.”

  He’d been frozen out by girls before. Margot Agner had treated him like he had the plague when he dumped her after they’d made out in eighth grade at Caroline’s fourteenth birthday party. But Margot’s kind of freeze was different; she turned up her nose when she saw him, then cried gallons of tears to her friends and made sure he knew it. She’d been kind of fun to hang out with but he’d sensed a desperation beneath her cool-girl exterior and warning bells had sounded.

  But Sherry Sterling’s freeze-out was glacial — a whole new level.

  School let out for the summer and Jake spent his time surfing or bored to tears in his father’s real-estate office, learning the ropes. Thoughts of Sherry faded as those summer nights turned warmer. Tourists arrived, an influx of nubile girls with bodies just starting to curve. He lost his virginity the night before school started with a girl who possessed huge blue eyes and even huger breasts.

  Tina Phillips. A transferee from California who’d practically thrown him down in the sand and made love to him. Jake had gone through the motions, slightly detached, and then had suffered acute embarrassment and annoyance at himself. He tried to explain to her that he wasn’t interested in some kind of serious relationship, but Tina wouldn’t listen. She followed him around school, waited outside the gates of his house, broke into his BMW, called him incessantly.

  It was psychological hell, and Jake didn’t know what to do.

  Enter: Patrice. The ultimate Mother Bear.

  “Who is that girl?” she demanded, while Tina strolled along North Beach Road. “Did you give her a ride? You’ve barely got your license. You shouldn’t pick up strange girls.”

  “She’s not a strange girl.” Jake refused to talk about it with Patrice.

  No problem. His mother called up the school and talked to the teachers, counselors and principal. Then she phoned the Phillips and they packed up and moved back to California.

  Jake thought that would be the end of it, but his first conquest still called him from California three nights out of seven and started saying things like she would commit suicide if he didn’t love her. Patrice grabbed the phone and warned Tina that she would institute legal action if she didn’t stop harassing her son.

  Embarrassment. Humiliation. That one night of lovemaking became the talk of the school because Patrice made no secret of the fact that her son was desperately wanted by the feminine gender. It was some kind of badge of honor for her, like having him be the captain of the football team or pitcher on the baseball team.

  But worse was the fact that Jake was glad Patrice had stepped in. It sure as hell made things easier. Tina finally stopped calling. He’d wondered about her over the years and found, to his astonishment, that his mother knew all about her. She’d made it her business. To date, Tina had married twice, borne a child by each husband, and was currently fighting an alcohol problem.

  Obsession. He swore to himself he would be more careful in the future. And when one night he discovered one of the most outrageous, on-the-edge senior girls in his bedroom, he nearly froze with inner panic. It was all he could do to maintain his cool and pretend the reason he wasn’t interested in a little recreational sex was because Mom and Dad were right downstairs.

  When Jake complained about the girls, his friend Ryan spoke plainly. “You’ve got it all, buddy. Money, looks and athletics. My dad always said it’d be a problem someday.”

  “Yeah, some problem,” Matt Hudson snorted. “Oh, J.J.,” he said in a falsetto, clasping his hands and batting his eyes. “You must do me right now or I’ll kill myself!” And he and Ryan both howled with laughter and envy.

  Jake gave up confiding in them, but the situation nearly scared him off girls entirely. He spent most of his time hanging out with Caroline and her wholesome friends. He grew to appreciate Caroline in a way he hadn’t before, and he became aware that her fondness for him was blossoming into romance and better yet, sexual desire. But his previous experience had made him cautious. Fooling around with Caroline would be prime disaster.

  Wasn’t there any girl who just wanted a good time, no strings attached?

  He was pondering that very issue in biology class one afternoon and when the bell rang he was so turned on he could scarcely think. His flock of admirers waited outside the door but they just made him feel tired and frustrated. Any one of them could be another Tina Phillips.

  He wanted something else, something fresh and exciting. Something to think about while he lay on his bed at night. Something to look forward to every morning and let his thoughts touch on throughout the day.

  His group walked with him down the hall, chattering like magpies and grabbing his arm and letterman’s jacket, generally being a royal pain in the butt. Briefly he flirted with the idea of taking one of them to bed, but no, that was disaster in the making. He couldn’t just blow them off, however; it wasn’t in his nature. So, he put up with their attention.

  And then he saw Sherry Sterling by her locker.

  Every time he noticed her, he’d been subjected to a frigidity that could have ended global warming for all time. She clearly hated him. And she’d come out of her shy cocoon to zing him with some sharp remarks that had left him feeling confused and angry and certain he was missing something. This time
was no different. She made some remark about the way he spoke.

  What the hell was her problem, anyway? He turned to stare at her in surprise. This was the first time she’d dared to challenge him overtly. His admirers glared at her and made rude remarks, but she kept packing up her bags with unhurried regality and suddenly he wanted to crack that icy façade once and for all.

  Before he had time to think, he was in front of her, crowding her space, and although a hundred comments flashed through his mind he said only, “My dad and I are going to Pullman tomorrow to a Cougars game.”

  In fascination he watched the flush creep up her slim neck and burn her face. She wouldn’t look at him, however, so he stayed where he was, waiting, secretly glad this moment of confrontation had arrived. He’d been longing for it, he realized then. Biding his time. Hoping for an opportunity.

  The other girls faded from the site as if they’d magically disappeared. He saw no one but Sherry. Her head was dipped down, her eyes focused with studied concentration on the pile of books she’d stuffed into her bag. Eventually she half turned, lifting those clear, vulnerable eyes to meet his gaze.

  He couldn’t remember the rest of the conversation. He accused her of always making snide remarks, or something, but all he saw and felt was her — those eyes, that slightly freckled nose, that lustrous skin.

  For an instant they connected. He felt it viscerally, breathlessly. It startled him but he managed to keep it hidden. At least he hoped he did, but then she slammed her locker and tried to leave but the stitching on her bag gave way and books flew everywhere.

  Automatically he bent to help her, his arm brushing hers. It felt like the proverbial electric current and he barely had time to marvel at this when she jerked away, nearly over balancing herself. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

  It seemed so perfect. He wanted her like none other and now he was holding her and, well, his own youthful cockiness rose to his rescue. He was, after all, J.J. Beckett, and heretofore women were as available as the air he breathed. Smiling, he simply waited for her to recognize that they had something here — chemistry or Karma or just plain old sexual energy. He forgot all his reservations about getting too involved with a girl. He would sleep with her.