by Helen Conrad
She looked away, hiding the pain that was an open wound now.
“Funerals are depressing.” She tried to keep her tone light, but she didn’t succeed very well. “I didn’t want to ruin my weekend.”
Couldn’t he tell she was lying? Couldn’t he hear the agony in her voice?
No, obviously not. He took her words quite literally, and despised her for them, while she tried hard not to care.
“So you ruined your parents’ lives instead.” He said it calmly, as though he really believed it.
Her pain was cutting like a knife in her chest, and she had to get him out of here. She swung her head up, glaring at him.
“Listen, Reid Carrington, what I do is really none of your business. Why don’t you just go back to your high-class friends and leave me where you found me?”
Barefooted, she faced him, positioning herself so that the light wasn’t blinding her any longer. He was only a few inches taller than she was, but he had the athletic build of a professional diver, with shoulders wide enough to hold up the sky and slim hips that seemed made especially to show off his beautifully made slacks. She wished she had the nerve to pull the shades from his face so that she could see his expression.
Damn those sunglasses anyway!
He was taking his time answering her, and he didn’t look like he was about to follow her angry advice. Disconcerted, she turned away and took hold of the zipper on her muddy jumpsuit, pulling it down the length of her body.
And then she wished she had waited until he’d gone. There he was, staring at her, while she began to peel the coverall away like a butterfly shedding a bulky cocoon. In no time she stood before him in the very brief denim shorts and skimpy tank top that she wore underneath.
This was how she dressed. She’d never thought twice about it before. But with Reid watching her, his gaze touching every inch of her, she suddenly felt almost naked. The breeze blew her curly hair across her eyes, and she sneaked another look at his face.
He was gazing at her steadily, and for one brief moment, she thought there’d been a softening about his mouth, as though he remembered how they’d once been—and remembered that she wasn’t a prodigal at heart. He took a step closer, though he didn’t touch her.
“Why did you do it, Jenny?” he asked at last, his voice low and husky. “Why did you run away? Why didn’t you ever come back?”
Inexplicably, her heart was thumping in her chest, and she put a hand over it as though to keep him from hearing. There was something in the low, velvet timbre of his voice that haunted her senses. Turning away, she remembered, belatedly, that it always had.
Suddenly his hand was on her upper arm, the fingers firm but gentle. “We all miss you, Jenny,” he said softly, looking into her dark brown eyes. “We want you back, if only for a visit. Come up to Destiny Bay with me. Come now.”
She closed her eyes. He didn’t know how impossible that was. He’d always been close to Tony, her older brother. Obviously, Tony hadn’t explained what had happened. But that didn’t surprise her. In fact, in some ways it reassured her. She wouldn’t have wanted him to know.
His fingers tightened on her arm.
“Tony wanted you to come back,” he said. “Just before he died, he asked me to try to bring you back. I haven’t done anything all these months because I didn’t know where to find you. But now ...”
So Tony had felt guilty at the end. No. She closed her eyes for just a second, sorry she’d thought that. Of course he felt guilty. It hadn’t really been his fault either. He’d been too weak to tell her parents the truth. But she’d never wanted him to, had she? It was a truth her parents wouldn’t have wanted to hear.
She lifted her head defiantly. “That’s all in the past,” she replied, frowning fiercely to hold back the memories. “I can’t go back. I’m living a whole new life now.”
“So I see.” His voice hardened again, and he made a sweeping movement, gesturing to all of the air sports going on around them—the sailplanes and the hang gliding and the skydiving. “Making a meaningful contribution to society, are you?”
A meaningful contribution to society. How that phrase brought back the days when they’d lain side by side on the beach and talked for hours. That had been their goal then. Doing something significant with their lives.
“Just as you said,” she responded breathlessly, “I still haven’t grown up.”
He still had hold of her arm, and his grip was no longer quite so gentle. “Then grow up, Jennifer,” he said, his voice like gravel. “Grow up and do something for someone else, instead of only thinking of yourself.”
She stared up at him, wondering why he was taking such an intense interest in what she did or did not do. He’d never wanted to interfere before. She remembered the times she’d run to him, wanting a friend, wanting a shoulder to cry on, and he’d listened and sympathized, but he’d never taken sides. Why was he doing that now? Was it because Tony had asked him to? But before she could ask, Eddie arrived.
“Hey, Jennifer!” The shout was like a wave of ocean water dousing the tension between them. Jennifer turned to greet him, twisting out of Reid’s grasp.. “Hey, Jenny-baby!”
Eddie had finally found her, and he descended with his usual eager energy, racing up to sweep her into his arms.
“You did so great!” He whirled in place, holding her high against him. “I saw you below me, how you adjusted yourself. You’re a natural, sweetheart.” He put her down and laughed delightedly.
“Eddie,” she protested, trying to catch her balance, “give me a break! I landed in the pond.”
Eddie turned to glance at her limp parachute. “Yeah, well, you can’t win’em all. At least you landed, huh?” He grinned at them both. “Come on, there’s plenty of light left. What do you say we pack up these chutes and do it again?”
She laughed. “Speaking as the pond-diving champion of Southern California, I stand ready to teach you all my tricks in exchange for a quick rundown on some of yours. Like, why didn’t my shroud lines work right as I approached the ground?”
“Don’t worry about that stuff. I’ll give you a lesson before you jump again.” Eddie grinned. “You wanna?”
Jennifer glanced at Reid. “Why not?” she agreed impetuously. Right now the dangers of skydiving seemed a lot safer than anything Reid Carrington represented.
She noted that Reid’s jaw tightened as she spoke. “Why don’t you try it, too?” she suggested, her voice almost a taunt. “Have you ever jumped out of an airplane?”
“Not when it was moving,” he drawled sarcastically, his attention on her companion. “I was always taught to eat my vegetables, say my prayers, and fasten my seat belt.”
Eddie laughed. “The prayers you still need,” he told Reid. “But forget the rest. Half the fun in life is taking chances.”
“And the other half, I suppose, is recovering from them.”
Jennifer bit her lip. She heard the contempt in Reid’s tone. “Eddie, meet Reid Carrington, an old, old friend of mine. Reid, this is Fast Eddie”—she grinned at him—“my new friend.”
“Hiya, Reid.” Eddie stuck out his hand and shook Reid’s with enthusiasm. “You gonna try jumping with us?”
“Not a chance.”
His voice was condescending, and to Jennifer, it hurt. He’d always thought everything she did was silly. He’d always seemed so much older, so much more mature and in control of himself and his environment. Maybe that was why she always seemed to be all thumbs in front of him.
“Then why don’t you go back to your friends?” she asked, her voice soft but her eyes searching the black panes that hid his. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
His head went back. Her words cut into his composure. She’d always had a knack for getting under his skin, but it used to be a pleasantly provocative sensation when she teased him. This was barbed with acid.
“Not yet,” he said.
He hesitated for a moment, then very deliberately took her by the
arm again, looking down at where his fingers held her tanned flesh. She seemed so much the same . . . and yet so different. The adorable girl next door had grown up into a lovely woman, only it seemed she hadn’t realized that yet. It felt raw and rough to be lecturing her this way.
If only she would listen to reason. They’d been friends. Somehow he had to get back to that place again.
But first she had to understand how her careless attitude had hurt her family. She had to stop it.
He felt a tremendous responsibility toward Tony and her parents. They’d been there when his family had needed them. Now it was his turn to help them. And as far as he could see, getting their daughter back for them was about the best way to do that. Convincing her to give up her wild life was going to be the only problem.
“Let your friend take care of your parachute,” he told her. “I’ve got some things I want to say to you.”
She refused to budge, digging her heels into the soft dirt. “Then you can say them right here," she said brightly, pretending to smile. "Eddie and I are good friends. We don’t have many secrets.”
He glanced at Eddie, who was watching curiously.
“All right.” His hand slid down her upper arm, the feeling more a caress than a threat, but still potent. “This is what I think, Jennifer. This is my advice to you." He took a deep breath. "You’ve had your fun. You’ve had your fling. Now it’s time you came home and took care of your responsibilities.”
Her responsibilities. What were those, exactly? If he only knew. But she could never tell him the truth about why she’d left. It was best to try to make him think she was nothing but an unrepentant runaway, just like so many of the young who littered the streets of Southern California. That way at least the questions might stop.
“Home?” she repeated bitterly. “What’s that? I don’t believe I ever had one of those.” A blatant lie, but in a way it had almost become true.
He swore softly, lips thinning. She could feel the anger building in him, but she’d started this tack. She had to finish it.
“Are you talking about that sweet little cottage by the sea where a dear little gray-haired couple waits for their only living child to return?” Tears were stinging the rims of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “Is that the home you’re talking about, Reid? Because you can take that cute little cottage and dump it into the ocean as far as I’m—“
Fury overcame Reid, and he grabbed her hard. Eddie was alarmed, moving forward and putting a restraining hand on Reid’s shoulder.
“Hey, man, take your hands off her!”
Reid turned on the other man, as though hoping to find an outlet for his anger, and suddenly, he looked twice as big as he had before.
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” he asked, his voice deceptively casual, steel gleaming beneath velvet, his hands still holding Jennifer in a viselike grip.
Eddie’s eyes widened, then shifted. “Just don’t hurt her, okay?” he said more mildly, dropping his hand away from Reid’s shoulder.
“Hurt her?” Reid snapped coldly, looking into her wide brown eyes. “There’s no way to hurt someone with skin this thick.” But his fingers loosened.
“I’ve been thinking about you for a long time, Jennifer,” he said evenly. “What you’re doing to your parents isn’t right. Now that Tony’s gone, they have nothing. They need you more than ever, and you’ve deserted them. You’ve got to face reality at some point in your life. Someone ought to make you come home and do just that.”
His attack had stunned her into uncharacteristic silence, but now she had her tongue back. She knew she had to cut him off or they were going to regret it. If he pushed too hard, the truth was likely to come out. And that was what she’d been dreading all these years.
“Someone like you?” she retorted as tauntingly as she was able, hoping to make him wash his hands of her once and for all. “Some brave Lone Ranger crusading for justice? Don’t make me laugh, Reid. You don’t know a thing about what happened between me and my parents—and you never will.”
Reid’s friends had come out across the field from the gallery, arriving uneasily, obviously as alarmed by Reid's uncharacteristic behavior as Eddie was.
“Say, Reid,” the neatly dressed auburn-haired man called over, “is there some problem here?”
Reid glanced their way, then looked back at Jennifer.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said softly.
“Reid”—one of the women, a tall, slender blonde with hair as smooth as silk and a face made for a magazine cover, called to him now—“it is getting late, darling. We’re due at the club for dinner.”
Jennifer glanced at her. She knew the type, only too well. It was a type she’d been expected to use as a pattern for her own life, only she’d never fit the mold.
“You’re late for the club, Reid,” she said with artificial cheerfulllness. “Don’t let your friends down." She smirked. "Making your own meaningful contribution to society, aren’t you?”
He swore softly just under his breath, shaking his head as he looked down at her, but he let her go. “I’ll be back, Jennifer,” he told her coldly. “Now that I know where to find you, I’ll be back.”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, just barely grazing the skin, then turned on his heel and strode toward his friends. The four of them walked quickly toward the parking lot. Jennifer watched them go, aware that she was shaking like a leaf but unable to do a thing to stop it.
“Are you sure that guy’s a friend of yours?” Eddie said, only half teasing. “Maybe you have him mixed up with some other guy. Someone actually friendly.”
Jennifer pulled her arms in tightly over her chest, shuddering.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asked anxiously. “What was wrong with that creep, anyway?”
“Creep?” Jennifer felt a thread of hysteria in her forced laugh. “That’s probably the first time Reid Carrington was ever called anything like that,” she mused, more to herself than to Eddie. “But maybe that’s part of his problem.”
“All I know is, that guy was hardcore. I thought he was going to throw you over his shoulder and go find a cave somewhere.”
She turned her face away so that he wouldn’t see how red her cheeks had gone from his obviously sex-filled allusion. Suddenly, she was breathless and not sure why.
She bent to scoop up her soggy boots and looked tiredly at her wet parachute. “Sorry, Eddie. But I don’t think I’ve got the energy for another jump today.”
“You go on,” he said gently, grinning at her with obvious affection. “I’ll take care of this.”
She smiled her gratitude. “Thanks.” Waving to Martha, another friend who was coming out to help Eddie, she started the long trek back to the preparation room.
Reid stood by his car. He watched her walk away and felt the knot tighten in his throat. She was laughing back at Eddie. Her legs were as long as a dancer’s, her hair a shower of curls that caught the light and turned it into sparkling stars.
He assumed she was preparing to jump again, and he wanted to go back to her, to stop her. She was always poking at fate with a sharp stick. One of these days, fate was going to strike back. Why couldn’t he protect her from that? If he could only take her in his arms and hold her ...
He smiled ruefully, his gaze still following her progress. He’d never been able to catch her. She was always dancing just out of reach. Trying to take her in his hand would be like trying to catch a sunbeam.
She disappeared into a building, and he slumped down against the car, impressed with his own analogy. That’s just what she’s like, he thought. A sunbeam. You could bask in her warmth when you were lucky enough to find it, but there was no way to capture her, to hold her down. And any other light seemed strained and artificial. Until he’d seen her, mud-spattered and beautiful, he’d forgotten how important she had been in his life.
“Reid, are you coming or not?”
He looked up, startled. He’d forgott
en the others. They were waiting, already seated in the car.
“Yes, I’m coming,” he said, slowly straightening and pulling away from where he’d been leaning. Despite the aching longing seeing her had set up in his chest, he wasn’t going to stay to watch her challenge the sky again.
Jennifer came out of the building, glanced toward the road, and noted the sleek silver Mercedes gliding out of the parking lot and heading for the highway. “Now that I know where to find you, I’ll be back,” he’d said.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a second, “I hope he didn’t mean it.”
CHAPTER TWO:
Picnic in the Park
Jennifer was almost able to lull herself into believing his words had been a bluff. As the days went by, the chances that he meant what he’d said seemed to grow smaller. After all, Destiny Bay wasn’t all that far from where she lived in Los Angeles. A two hour drive and he’d almost be there. If he’d really meant to come, he’d have done it by now.
So she tried to tell herself as she went about her daily business. She’d gone to work on Monday expecting to see him around every corner, but when Friday rolled around and he still hadn’t made an appearance, she began to relax.
After all, knowing she was in the LA area wasn’t the same as knowing where she lived. He probably still couldn’t find her.
Working helped. She wondered if he realized she had a job. He seemed to have some idea that she spent all her time playing. She did her share, but work was just as important to her.
Work meant The Magnificent Munch, a gourmet food shop she’d started three years before with Eddie and another friend, Martha Barnes. They’d all been working at Sheffield Gourmet, a ritzy place on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, when they’d had the idea of a gourmet shop for regular people.
“We won’t tack on the markup that most of these places charge,” she’d argued successfully to Eddie and Martha. “We won’t make as much profit, but we’ll have a lot of fun.”
They’d found a little hole-in-the-wall on Melrose just at the start of the New Wave clothing boom, and before they knew what was happening, they were part of what was “in” with the young people of the area. Even without the huge markup, they were doing very well. They specialized in providing interesting, unusual foods with knowledgeable service at a bargain-basement price.
