by Tawna Fenske
“Right, but Grant called Mac, and Mac’s been keeping a close eye on things, but I guess I didn’t realize how close, and—” Anna took a shuddery breath. “Anyway, Mac neutralized the threat.”
“He what?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t ask what that meant, exactly. All I know is that one minute this guy was on my tail, trying to get me to pull over, and the next minute this black car comes speeding from out of nowhere and forces the other car off the road and—well, I’m not sure what happened after that. Mac caught up to me at a Starbucks twenty minutes later and told me the threat had been neutralized.”
“Jesus.” Janelle’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked up to see Schwartz still standing beside her. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Don’t say that. I shouldn’t have driven by your apartment. I knew better than that.”
“So you didn’t talk to the guy who followed you?”
“No, but Mac did.”
Janelle shivered, wondering if Mac’s idea of having a talk with someone was the same as Schwartz’s. She glanced at Schwartz again and saw his hands balled into fists at his sides.
Probably.
“Did the guy tell Mac anything?” Janelle asked, looking down at her own hands with their chipped manicure and bark-scraped palms.
“Yeah, I guess so. He was one of Jacques’s men. They’re looking for you, honey. They’re not giving up.”
Janelle swallowed hard and gripped the edge of the table. She hated the fact that she’d put her sister in danger. She hated that she’d dragged Anna’s fiancé’s whole family into this mess. They’d been so good to her. So sweet and generous and kind.
She glanced up at Schwartz again. “Sweet” was not the first word that came to mind when she looked at him, but generous and kind were true.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, not sure if she was talking to her sister or to Schwartz.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault the guy you married turned out to be someone different than who you thought he was.”
Yes, it is, she thought. It is my fault. I should have known better. I should have sensed something was wrong. I should have picked better.
“My picker is broken,” she murmured.
On the other end of the line, Anna was quiet. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just something you said to me years ago. You were right.”
“Janelle, you can’t make this your fault.”
“It’s okay,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “How are you doing otherwise? I mean, aside from the fact that you were chased down by a homicidal maniac sent by a guy we once shared Thanksgiving dinner with?”
“Good. I miss talking to you every day.”
“Me, too.”
“Are things going okay with Schwartz?”
“Yeah.” She looked up at him again. He stood stone-faced beside her, probably trying to make sure she didn’t give anything away. About their whereabouts or plans or the fact that she’d thrown herself at him. All of that was top secret, but she hated keeping things from her sister.
“Schwartz is a good guy,” Janelle said at last. “Very honorable.”
He looked pained, but didn’t say anything. Janelle bit her lip. “Look, I probably shouldn’t talk anymore, okay? I don’t want to slip up and give away any detail about where I am.”
“I understand. Geez, I don’t even have a clue if you’re in a city or the country or on a farm somewhere. You could be on another planet for all I know.”
Janelle held Schwartz’s gaze, resisting the urge to look away. “Another planet,” she repeated. “Yeah. I kinda am.”
…
That night, Janelle lay back on her rollaway bed and stared at the ceiling. She couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes, terrified the nightmares would come roaring back in vivid color. She’d divorced Jacques more than a year ago. Why did he still own so much real estate in her life?
She rolled over and stretched a hand out to rub Sherman’s furry belly. Schwartz had dragged the dog bed into the office so Sherman could hang out while he worked earlier. When he’d started to move the bed back by the fireplace at the end of the evening, Janelle had stopped him.
“Let him stay?” she’d asked.
“What?”
“Let Sherman stay in my room for the night. I want the company.” She’d avoided his eyes, embarrassed to admit how frightened she was of being alone. Instead, she focused on scratching the sacred spot behind the big dog’s ear. “I don’t want to sleep by myself, and Sherman’s kinda grown on me the last few days.”
Schwartz had just nodded and stepped out of the room. “Yell if you need anything.”
She felt like yelling right now, but it wasn’t because she needed anything. Not the way Schwartz had meant it, anyway. She didn’t need medical attention or protection from the bad guys in her nightmares.
She needed him.
It’s not a need. It’s a want. There’s a difference.
Was there? Janelle wasn’t sure anymore.
Sherman groaned in the darkness and rolled over, and Janelle curled her fingers under to scratch his belly. The dog sighed his contentment, and Janelle relaxed a little. She’d talked Schwartz into letting her give the beast a bath after dinner, an endeavor she could tell he hadn’t expected her to succeed at.
But Sherman had been happy to comply and now he smelled like a sweet mix of rosemary and chamomile.
“God bless Avalon Organics volumizing shampoo with wheat protein,” she murmured, grateful she’d brought along a nice assortment of bath products that seemed usable for humans and canines alike.
Sherman grunted in reply and pawed her hand, so she intensified her scratching, making circles the way he liked. “Such a sweet, soft boy,” she murmured.
He groaned in agreement, letting his head loll to one side. She made a few more circles, then gave a soft pat to signal the end of the massage. She rolled over and grabbed the antibacterial hand sanitizer she’d stashed next to the rollaway.
“No offense,” she said. “You’re very clean. I just don’t want doggie dander in the bark scrapes on my hands.”
Sherman thumped his tail on the ground and curled himself into a doughnut shape, clearly not offended. Janelle finished cleaning her hands and set the sanitizer aside, still nowhere near sleepy.
“You’re a good dog, Sherman,” she said. “Thank you for keeping me company.”
A canine snore was the only response. Okay, so Sherman was out cold. Maybe she should try to sleep. Maybe she wouldn’t have the nightmare again. Maybe—
A buzzing ring jolted her from her thoughts. She glanced at the desk to see the little black throwaway phone Schwartz had lent her earlier. It rang again, buzzing itself across the desk as it trilled in the darkness.
A shiver of fear arced through her. Janelle held her breath, terrified. Had something happened to Anna? Had she given away some detail about her location? Had Jacques figured out where she was?
“Janelle?”
She gasped, yanking the covers up over her head.
It took her ten seconds to realize the voice wasn’t coming from the phone. It was Schwartz, and he was yelling from the next room.
“Yeah?” Her voice was muffled, since she was still hiding under the covers.
“You can answer that.”
“What?”
“The phone. Go ahead and answer.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s safe.”
She hesitated, still huddled under the covers. “How do you know that?”
“Because,” he yelled, “I’m the one calling.”
Chapter Seven
Janelle blinked in the darkness, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “You’re calling me from the next room?” she yelled through the wall.
“Yes.”
“On the telephone?”
“You’d prefer a telegraph?”
“No, I—”
“Pick
up the damn phone, Janelle.”
She scrambled off the rollaway bed, stepping carefully over Sherman’s slumbering body. Snatching the phone off the desk, she fumbled for the button to answer the call.
“Hello, who is this?”
“Cute. Very cute.”
She snuggled the phone up next to her ear and crawled back under the covers. It felt warmer than it had a few minutes ago, which probably just meant she’d gotten chilled walking from one side of the room to the other. It had nothing to do with the heat of Schwartz’s voice, or the thought of him lying in bed just ten feet away wearing nothing but a thin pair of boxer shorts.
“Why are you calling?” she asked.
“Because this is safer than talking to you in person.”
“What do you mean safe?”
He sighed. “You’re going to make me spell this out?”
“Please.”
“Fine. I want you. In case that’s not perfectly fucking obvious.”
Janelle flashed back to the scene in the bathroom earlier, to the way he’d practically run from her like she had cooties. “It wasn’t,” she said, “Obvious, I mean. The way you ran from the bathroom seemed more like horror than lust.”
“Sometimes they look the same.”
Janelle smiled and burrowed deeper into her pillow. One hand cupped the phone against her ear, while the other trailed under the covers, absently playing with the strap on her cami top.
“So you’re calling to apologize for shooting me down earlier?”
“Hell, no. I was smart to shoot you down.”
“Oh.”
“I mean—we can’t do that, Janelle. God knows I want to, but I can’t let my judgment get cloudy. I can’t risk screwing this mission up and disappointing my family or letting you get hurt. I just can’t do that, okay?”
“Okay,” she breathed, not totally sure what he was talking about. “I get it. I think. So why are you calling?”
“I heard you talking to the dog in there. Thin walls.”
“Right.”
“Didn’t want to ignore you if you’re having trouble sleeping.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
She waited a moment, not sure if that was the end of the call and he just wanted to hang up and be done with it. When he didn’t make a move to disconnect, she rolled onto her back and switched the phone to her other ear.
“So tell me a story.”
“Sorry, I left my copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the other room.”
She laughed. “Do you really own a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar?”
“No.”
“But you sent one to your sister,” she said, remembering the way Sheri’s twins had toddled up to the door carrying the matching plush caterpillars when Janelle and Anna dropped by for a wedding-planning meeting. “It was a collectors’ edition. Jackson and Jeffrey love that book. Sam reads it to them every night.”
“Huh.”
She wished she could see his face. She couldn’t tell anything at all from his monosyllabic reply. But she could tell a lot from the fact that he’d thought to send a gift to his twin nephews the week of their mother’s wedding.
“You’ve never met Sheri’s twins?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“You’d like them. They’re sweet little boys.”
“I’m not surprised. They take after their mom.”
She waited a few breaths, hoping he might volunteer something else. Hoping he might share more about why he’d stayed away from his family for so long.
But Schwartz stayed silent on the other end of the line. He wasn’t hanging up, though, so that seemed encouraging. Janelle slid her finger up and down the length of the strap on her cami top, fiddling with the elastic.
“Tell me a different kind of story,” she said. “Not The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Something else. Something about you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. We’re stuck here alone in this mountain cabin together. We might as well know some personal details about each other.”
He was quiet again, and Janelle wondered if she’d pushed too far. She held her breath, hoping she hadn’t offended him. Hoping he wouldn’t hang up on her.
“What do you want to know?”
She blinked, almost too surprised to respond. “I—I don’t know. Tell me something about your family.”
“No.”
Ooo-kay.
“Not right now,” he added, not that it explained anything.
“I’m not fishing for dirt, Schwartz. I just want to know what you were like growing up.”
“Did you watch Sesame Street as a kid?”
“Yes.” She smiled at the memory of curling up with Anna in a blanket fort while their mother slipped mugs of cocoa through the door they’d constructed out of pillows. “I loved that show. Did you?”
“Yeah. Do you remember that song, ‘One of These Things (Is Not Like the Other)’?”
“Of course. And you had to figure out which thing didn’t belong with a group of things that fit together?”
“Exactly. That was me.”
She frowned, trying to understand. “Oh. I—um—I’m so sorry.”
“No, that’s not it. That wasn’t some ‘poor little Schwartz’ story that’s supposed to make you feel sorry for me because I didn’t fit in with the rest of my family. It was fine. I was okay being different.”
“Is that why you joined the army when everyone else in your family was a marine?”
He didn’t answer right away, and Janelle closed her eyes and wished she could take the words back. She was pretty sure she’d just stepped on a land mine with that question, though she had no idea what it was.
“Never mind, forget I asked,” she said at the same time he murmured, “It’s okay.”
There was another awkward silence, and Janelle waited. Did that mean he was okay sharing more about his military history, or had he just been assuring her it was all right that she’d asked? Where was the damn rule book when she needed it?
“Look, let’s try a more neutral topic,” she said. “Tell me about your first car.”
“My first car?”
“Sure, when you were a teenager. What did you drive?”
“I didn’t drive a car.”
“Oh.”
“I drove a truck.”
She smiled, nodding a little to herself as she tugged at the strap again, absently hooking a thumbnail beneath it. “That fits.”
“It was a 1976 Ford F-250 with alloy wheels and a V8.”
“The only word I understood there was ‘wheels.’”
“A classic. Used to belong to my grandfather. Grant and I worked together to fix it up, and we both had after-school jobs to pay for gas and parts.”
“So the two of you shared it?”
“Yeah. Our parents helped a little with insurance, but it was ours.”
“How’d you decide who got to drive it?”
“It wasn’t as much of a pain in the ass as you’d expect. Grant and I were pretty tight, so we were usually going the same places anyway. It only got tricky when we both had a date.”
Janelle smiled, trying to imagine a teenage version of Schwartz with a fresh shaving cut on his chin and twenty dollars in his wallet. She pictured him youthful and hopeful and full of excitement about his future. She let go of the strap on her cami top and began fiddling with the neckline instead.
“Did you date a lot in high school?” she asked.
“I guess so. I was eleven months older than Grant, so I got dibs on the truck more often. Took Ashley Orion to the prom in that truck.”
The thought of Schwartz in a bow tie and cummerbund made her smile again. Then her brain veered to an imaginary image of a grown-up Schwartz looking dangerous and drop-dead sexy in a tuxedo, and she caught herself sliding her hand down the front of her top. Her fingertips brushed her nipple, and she sucked in a breath.
“So Ashley Orion, huh?” Janelle asked, struggling to keep her voice ca
sual as she circled her nipple with the pad of her thumb. “Was that a steady girlfriend or just a prom date?”
“Somewhere in between. Grant dated her cousin, so we had to work out this complicated schedule for planning dates and who got the truck on a Friday or Saturday. It got a little dicey at one point.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, since our parents helped with insurance, they used the truck sometimes, too. This one time our mom borrowed it to pick up lumber at Home Depot. As soon as she got home, she marched us outside to look in the ashtray.”
“The ashtray? Did you guys smoke?”
“Nope.” Schwartz cleared his throat. “There was a condom in it. A used condom. Stella—our mom—found it when she went looking for change.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. She stood there in the driveway and gave Grant and me this long lecture on personal responsibility and self-respect and public decency laws.”
“Wasn’t she at least glad to know you were practicing safe sex?”
“Yeah, we got bonus points for that. Her gripe was more about disrespecting women. About making a partner feel shady or ashamed or unvalued with a quick screw in a truck instead of something more meaningful. She talked a lot about the importance of being sensitive to a woman’s needs.”
“Right,” Janelle said, her thumb circling her nipple as her brain echoed the words “a woman’s needs.” Her nipple tightened pleasantly under the pad of her thumb, so she kept circling, keeping her touch light and her voice casual. “So what happened?”
“I took the rap for the condom.”
“It was yours?”
“Nope. But I didn’t want Grant to get busted. He’d gotten in trouble earlier that week for his grades, and Mom had threatened not to let him play in the big game that weekend if he didn’t shape up.”
“Wow. I hope he appreciated that.”
“Nope. He called me a liar.”
“What?”
Schwartz laughed, his voice warmer now than it had been ten minutes ago. “Yeah. He thanked me for trying to cover his ass, but said I shouldn’t take the blame for it. Mom was threatening not to let me go on this big school trip I’d been talking about for weeks, and Grant said I shouldn’t give that up to take the rap for something he did.”
