by Holly Jacobs
~~~
Jack sighed. When Carrie got like this there was no reasoning with her. She once refused to leave the house on a Friday the thirteenth because a black cat had crossed her path the day before. She was convinced it was an omen and had tried to talk Jack into staying home for the day, too.
He wouldn’t, and laughed at her for being so superstitious.
She ended up having the last laugh because Jack had wrecked his Ferrari, totaling it.
Only Carrie didn’t laugh. She said she was relieved that just the car was wrecked and not him.
Jack reached over and pried one of her hands off the armrest and held her trembling hand in his own. “It will be just fine.”
Carrie nodded her head stiffly and Jack watched for the flight attendant. “Could we have a drink when you have a moment?”
“Sure. What would you like?” the flight attendant asked with a smile.
“Fruit juice,” Carrie said.
“With a bunch of vodka,” Jack added.
“I don’t drink,” Carrie told him.
“Today you do. Remember you thought piña coladas were perfect for the beach? Well, vodka is the perfect drink for a turbulent plane.”
When the drinks came, Jack handed Carrie hers and said, “Drink it.”
“I don’t want—”
“You’ll never even taste the vodka and it will relax you. Drink it.”
With a slight grimace, Carrie took the drink and took a sip. “It’s not bad.”
“Finish it off.”
Ten minutes later they had a second round.
After that, a third.
Within half an hour Carrie was no longer white-knuckling her seat. Instead she was giggling.
“What’s so funny?” Jack asked. He was used to seeing Carrie in the middle of mishaps, and she was always sunny, but he’d never seen her silly.
He grinned as she giggled again.
He kind of liked it.
“Come on, what’s so funny?” he asked again.
“You,” she said.
“Me?”
“You.” She laughed as if it was the best joke she’d ever heard.
“Why am I so funny?” He smiled indulgently. A tipsy Carrie was preferable to a nervous, airsick one.
“Oh, you’re a man and that makes you funny. You didn’t even realize you’d been tricked into coming on this trip with me.”
“I realized it.” He’d realized she didn’t want someone else on this trip, that she’d wanted him on this vacation right from the start
Carrie enjoyed thinking she was manipulating him, and he was just friend enough to allow her to believe it. Most of the time he just put up resistance for the show.
This time...well, a vacation wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but he’d decided that maybe Carrie was right. Maybe he needed to get away from Erie, and his memories.
Sandy was gone. It was time he rebuilt his life. In fact it was well past time.
“No, you didn’t I fooled you.” She let out a delicate little hiccup and continued. “You know Ted didn’t buy those tickets, don’t you.”
“He didn’t?” While he might have known she’d manipulated him, he didn’t know she’d out-and-out lied.
She grinned a Cheshire-catlike grin and nodded. “I did. Eloise gave me a bonus. I’ve been bringing in a lot of special orders. This WNBA dress is the biggest, most vis...visible one. She’s making Carrington Rose Originals a sig...a sig...a signature of the store.”
“Why did you lie?” he asked.
“Because you would never have let me spend that kind of money on you, even though it was a special, because you’re too old...old...old-fashioned. But I knew you needed to get away. So when Eloise gave me the money and you finished your case, I knew it was a sign.”
She giggled again and waggled her finger in his face. “I know you don’t believe in signs, but you should. Remember, there was a time you didn’t believe in Friday the thirteenth, either. But you’ll never figure it out you’ve been tricked because you’re a man and I’m a woman, that means I’m tricky.”
Jack watched her giggling, she was so pleased with her trickiness, and something tightened in his chest.
She’d done this for him?
He thought back and couldn’t remember anyone ever doing something so generous for him. Certainly not Sandy.
Carrie gave a little sigh and leaned her tipsy head against his shoulder. “You’re going to have a good time, you know that?”
“Sure, Carrie,” he crooned, ready to agree with anything she said.
She’d done this for him.
He let the thought sink in.
“I’m going to remind you how to play. You’ve forgotten how. That nasty Sandy took that from you.”
“Whatever you say.”
Jack knew as sure as he was winging along the ocean coast that he’d do whatever she wanted. She’d had him wrapped around her little finger since they were kids and this newest revelation only tightened her hold.
He was going to have fun this week...even if it killed him.
Chapter Three
CARRIE WOKE UP with a groan.
Someone was killing a cat somewhere, she thought in a vague, sleepy way.
Why would someone want to murder a cat and why would they do it so noisily?
She pried open one eye, a difficult feat because the top lid appeared to be shellacked to the bottom one.
Light blinded her, but the noise drove her to ignore it. She pried open the other eye.
Where was she?
That was the first thing she needed to discover. And the second was who was making that horrible noise?
She looked around the garish room and remembered She was on vacation on Amore Island...
Which meant that the horrible noise could only be one thing. Actually one person—Jack.
If she had to make an educated guess she’d have to guess he was singing...well, sort of.
She listened and started to make out some of the words. “Rhinestone Cowboy.” That was what he was attempting to sing. Unfortunately his attempt was…well, it was pitiful.
Then she smiled.
Jack singing, or at least doing his imitation of singing, could only mean one thing—he was relaxed. That’s why she’d gone through her elaborate scheme, to get him away from work and help him remember how to let loose.
It seemed that her plan was working.
She owed Ted, her nonfettuccine eating, bad-kissing ex-boyfriend, a debt of gratitude. He’d provided her with the excuse she needed.
She sat up and quickly sank back down.
What had Jack done to her?
She vaguely recalled the plane about to crash and Jack offering her a drink and.... Things got fuzzy after that.
Hazy pictures floated through her memory. The nice flight attendant, Jack...and Sandy? No, she must have been hallucinating that part.
She’d brought Jack to the island to forget Sandy.
Maybe the plane had really crashed and she was injured—that would explain the pounding in her head.
A concussion.
No. The pounding in her head had to be from the drinks Jack had plied her with. That would explain why her memories of their arrival at the resort were so fuzzy.
She thought she remembered a lobby with a waterfall.
Did they put waterfalls in lobbies or was that part of her alcoholic haze, too?
Carrie searched her memory. There was a blurry image of her being carried by Jack. His hands on her. Unbuttoning her blouse and....
Suddenly her headache increased ten thousand fold.
What had she done?
Better yet, what had Jack, the man she’d tried to save from himself, done to her while she was drunk?
She peeked under the covers and felt sick to her stomach.
She sank back and buried her head in the pillow with a groan. She’d let her best friend...well, not let. And certainly not her best friend anymore if he’d—she peeked under
the covers again—if he was responsible for her current lack of clothing.
The quasi-singing stopped and the object of her ire emerged from behind a door.
“You’re awake,” he said with a disarming grin.
“What did you do?” Carrie demanded.
Jack frowned. “What do you mean, what did I do?”
She peeked under the covers a third time just to make sure she was right.
“We agreed that we’d share the room, but not that we’d share the bed. Where are my clothes and what were you thinking when you...” She let the sentence trail off.
The idea of what they had done and the implication to their friendship…it was too horrible to voice.
“When I what, Carrie?” Jack asked.
She could feel herself blushing and couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Her embarrassment fueled her anger. “When you had your way with me.”
“I did no such thing,” Jack protested.
“You did, too. I remember you carrying me into the room and unbuttoning my blouse...” She stopped there because things sort of faded after that
“But you don’t remember screaming, I can undress myself as you proceeded to do just that?”
Glaring at him, she slowly shook her head.
“Or, me leaving the room while you did?”
Again she shook.
“Or my coming back a half hour later and taking the quilt onto the floor?”
Relief flooded through Carrie’s body. He hadn’t—they hadn’t.
She sank back into the pillows and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I woke up feeling like that darn airplane had landed on my head and everything was funny. Not ha-ha funny, but surreal funny. Then I peeked under the covers and saw that there was nothing under there but me and I...” She shrugged lamely.
“You’re forgiven,” Jack said easily, much too easily. “Now, why don’t you go take a shower and have the three aspirin I left on the counter for you. By the time you’re done, breakfast should be here.”
The thought of food made Carrie’s stomach experience turbulence worse than anything she’d felt yesterday in the plane. “I don’t think I can eat”
“Actually you’ll feel better after you have. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.”
Carrie doubted she would ever feel better again, but she didn’t argue with Jack. “You’ll have to turn your back while I run into the bathroom.”
“Okay,” he said, obliging her by staring at the ocean beyond the sliding glass doors.
“No peeking,” she warned, wrapping the sheet around her naked body and dragging it with her.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Jack said.
She hustled as quickly as her aching head would allow, unaware that he watched her reflection in the glass.
~~~
It probably wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing he’d ever done, but Jack hadn’t been able to help himself.
Carrie had been so trusting last night. She curled in his arms as he carried her from the taxi into the hotel. She’d felt good.
She’d felt right.
Jack had many thoughts about her over the years, but she’d always been a friend. A damsel he occasionally played white knight for as he rode to the rescue.
He’d never thought of her as a dateable woman before. He’d never realized how right she felt in his arms.
And now that he had, it was all he could think about.
~~~
An hour later the aspirin had kicked in and breakfast had gone down quite easily. Carrie was feeling remarkably revived.
“So, what are we doing today?” Jack asked.
Carrie was sitting at the table near the window. The view from the room was wonderful. Blue skies and even bluer water lapping against the sand. They had paradise at their disposal.
“The idea is we aren’t doing anything.”
Jack frowned “You can’t not do anything.”
“I can, too.” Carrie always felt she was a bit lacking. She had no grand aspirations, no drive to be a millionaire.
She loved designing dresses, even enjoyed sewing them, but she’d never longed to become a big designer in New York or Paris.
Establishing her own little niche in Erie was about as far as her aspirations went.
But, when she wasn’t at the store, she not only managed doing nothing, but she reveled in it.
“So, where are we doing nothing at?” Jack asked his tone suggesting he still wasn’t taking her seriously.
“On the beach, of course. I mean, why come to an island paradise and do nothing in your room?”
Oh, yes, she was going to teach Jack Templeton a thing or two about doing nothing.
He’d practically worked himself to death since Sandy left.
Thinking of Sandy made Carrie frown.
Not only was Jack going to relax, but he was going to laugh again. She’d see to it
“Well, if we’re on the beach doing nothing then we are in actuality doing something.” Ever the lawyer, Jack was a pro at picking sentences apart. “You’ll be tanning and I’ll be reading—”
“You better tell me you’re planning to read some novel for fun, because if you think you’re going to go out there and read some thoroughly boring briefs, well, I can’t be responsible for my actions.” She glared at him for good measure.
The lawyer in him wouldn’t be put aside with ease. She had her work cut out for her.
“Want to give me a clue what those actions might be?” He grinned.
So did she. The man had no idea how hard she’d worked to pull this vacation together and he was going to enjoy himself even if it killed her.
“No work. I brought fun books, just as you ordered, ma’am.”
He was teasing her—grinning like a fool and picking on her as if they were still in school.
Carrie loved it. “You’re lucky.”
“I wouldn’t have dared disobey. You had that look in your eyes when you issued your orders.”
“I don’t issue orders. I just make suggestions— sometimes strong ones.” She paused. “What look?”
“That look that says you might very well scream if I tried to sneak my work on this vacation. Lucky for you I didn’t. I brought a few books.” He smiled as primly as an altar boy at mass on Sunday.
“Good for you. What kind of books?” she asked suspiciously.
“Westerns.” He pointed an imaginary gun in her direction and tipped an imaginary hat.
Carrie grinned. “By who?”
“John Legg. He’s always been my favorite. Even when he’s writing under a pseudonym, I try to find his stuff. I haven’t read anything but contracts and the like for the last few years, so I hunted up the books I’d missed.”
“There’s a lot you haven’t remembered to do the last few years, especially the last few months.” She realized she sounded like a mother scolding a wayward child and backed off.
“But we’re going to change all that this week.” She smiled, trying to soften the fact that she was ordering him around. Jack tended to get very defensive when he thought he’d lost control. “We’re going to have fun.”
“We are?”
“Oh, yeah. Consider it a course of study. Today’s lesson is called, How to do nothing and have a great time doing it.”
He gave her a mock frown. “Sounds complicated.”
“Nope. It requires a bottle of sunscreen, a couple good books and our towels.”
“How about suits or are they optional here?” he asked, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
She shook her head. “Even if they’re optional, we’re wearing them.”
“We are?” he asked, sounding disappointed.
“We are,” she assured him.
“You do know how to spoil a man’s good time,” he groused.
“Well, I’ve heard that a certain amount of mystery is good. You can ogle all the other women who walk up and down the beach.”
Carrie was delighted. Jack was teasing and h
e seemed relaxed. Her plan was working.
“So, you’re going to teach me how to play and we’re going to begin with me ogling women on the beach? Let me just tell you that I like the way this trip is looking.”
“I said ogle, not accost. Remember, this is a couples-only resort so all those legs—and whatever else you choose to ogle—are not only attached to a body, but that body is attached to another body.”
“Spoilsport.”
“I’m a realist.” She hadn’t always been a realist. There had been a time, back in high school, when she’d dreamed big dreams. But, over the years she’d learned that some dreams just weren’t meant to come true and so she’d learned to accept things the way they were.
Suddenly she thought of the small Carrington Rose label that would be waiting for her when this vacation ended.
Maybe some dreams could come true.
She glanced at the dark-haired man standing next to her. Maybe, just maybe when he’d healed from his break with Sandy, some other dreams stood a chance.
“Ha, you’re the least realistic person I’ve ever met,” Jack insisted.
“Am, too.” Realizing she was agreeing with him, she added, “A realist. I am, too, a realist.”
“Carrie, you don’t live in the real world, never have.”
She turned her back on him. There was no use arguing. Jack had always been of the opinion that Carrie was helpless and she doubted anything would ever change that view.
To be honest she had no wish to change it. Who was she to deny Jack the joy of playing the white knight?
She allowed him to rescue her. He’d never understood that simple fact and she wasn’t about to try to explain it at this late date. It was almost selfish. If he rescued her, he was at least in her life.
Sandy had made it clear to Carrie that she wasn’t woman enough to be a threat. Carrie knew that Jack had never viewed her as a woman. She was his buddy, someone to hang around with when Sandy was on one of her frequent trips out of town.
As much as his big brother attitude might annoy her at times, Carrie had learned to overlook it
Tearing herself away from serious thoughts, she pulled at his arm. “Come on. The day’s a wasting.”
