by Holly Jacobs
“There’s not a thing in the world wrong with my bones and I’m taking the floor.”
She raised her eyebrows in that maddening way of hers and gave him another one of those patronizing little smiles. “Well, suit yourself. You just go curl up and watch a movie on television. I’m sure there’s some documentary on somewhere. I’ll be quiet when I come in so I don’t wake you. And if I’m not in by the time you get up in the morning, well, I’ll be around later.”
“Just let me get my stupid shoes.”
“Jack, you’re so tense and I don’t understand it. You’re in paradise after all. And don’t bother getting your shoes. I’ve decided in your present mood you wouldn’t be good company anyway. I’m more than capable of entertaining myself. This might be a couples’ resort, but I’m sure some of the bartenders or other employees are single. And I’m betting one of them would be happy to do the karaoke thing with me.”
“I said I’m coming to the bar with you and I’m perfectly lovely company. Now just let me get my shoes.”
She’d done it again. She always won. He’d say no to something, and she’d agree that he shouldn’t do it. Then somehow he’d find himself doing it.
Jack shook his head and tried to puzzle it out, but he couldn’t.
Figuring out Carrington Rose Delany was going to take a smarter man than he.
Thinking of Carrie with another man did little to improve his mood.
He slammed his feet into his shoes and stomped toward the door.
“Are you ready?” he bellowed.
“I’m always ready before you are,” Carrie said. “I can’t figure out where the ugly rumor developed that women were always late. From what I can see, it’s generally the man who holds things up.”
She prattled on as they walked to the club. Jack half listened as he let himself relax and enjoy the cadence of her words. He felt good even though he’d lost another argument.
Being with Carrie was a rollercoaster ride. From annoyance to peace, then back again to annoyance. His emotions rose and fell suddenly and unexpectedly.
He’d been unsettled thinking of Carrie with someone else. But walking with her, listening to her familiar chatter, he simply felt happy that she was with him, not some other, fictional, man.
Things were changing between them. And though he hadn’t quite figured out what to do about the way their relationship was evolving, at this moment, walking next to her across a beach on a couples’ resort, Jack Templeton was simply content.
That contentment lasted exactly one hour and three beers.
“I said no,” Jack yelled.
He wasn’t yelling at her, but rather to be heard over the noise.
Of course, the fact that he was annoyed and that it felt good to be yelling was secondary.
“And,” he continued, on a roll, “I think that’s all the beer for you.”
He plucked the glass from her hand.
Carrie pouted. “I was right, you are old.”
Then she smiled the smile that meant things didn’t bode well for Jack...not at all. “I’ll switch to cola if you will”
“I said...” he started.
“Otherwise,” she yelled right over him. “Otherwise, I’m ordering a pitcher.”
“Could I win an argument just once?” he said more to himself than to her.
“Jack, we never fight, so there’s no winner.” She tugged at his arm, pulling him toward the stage.
If there was no winner, how did he manage to end up here?
Jack sighed as Carrie talked to the man running the machine. She came running back to center stage and thrust a mic in his hand.
“Come on, you know you want to.” Her grin said she believed it.
She took her own microphone in hand and nodded at the man to start the music.
“Carrie, I really don’t want to do this.”
The opening notes wafted through the speakers and Jack wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
“You didn’t?” he asked, though he knew she did.
“We needed a song we both knew the words to—it’s too hard to just get them off the screen. And I knew you knew these from past experience.” Her hips began to sway and Jack was mesmerized by the sight.
She kicked him when it was his turn to jump in.
Jack grimaced every time they missed a note. As if on cue, Carrie’s ponytail holder fell out and her hair whipped his shoulder as she shook her head.
She shimmied and swayed, singing her heart out and by the time the song was over, Jack had forgotten they were performing for an audience.
The sight of her totally undid him.
They trailed off the last few notes together as the crowd clapped.
“See, you remembered,” she said, beaming her approval.
How could he forget? They’d sung, “I’ve Got You, Babe,” after prom.
Carrie had gone with Matt Barker, one of his basketball friends and he’d gone with...what was her name? He couldn’t remember. All he could remember was threatening that he’d beat Matt within an inch of his life if he didn’t keep his hands off Carrie. She was too young. She was only a junior.
“Guess I’m not as old as you thought,” he muttered as they wove their way through the crowd and back to their table.
“I don’t know, one song can’t erase your stodginess,” she told him with a taunting grin.
“You enjoy this, don’t you?”
“What?” she asked, the picture of innocence.
“Tormenting me.”
“Tormenting you?” she repeated, sounding genuinely confused. “Why, that’s a fine how-do-you-do. I—”
“Jack and Carrie?” an attractive brunette asked, interrupting them.
Carrie looked up. “Yes?”
The woman grinned and turned to the balding man at her side.
“See, I told you, Herb,” she said and then turned back to the table. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Jack shook his head and Carrie admitted, “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Mrs. Richardson,” the woman said, as if that explained it all.
Carrie, who was generally good with names, continued to draw a blank.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a helpless shrug.
“Chemistry at Seneca High School. Jack, you were a senior and Carrie you were a junior in the senior class,” the woman prompted.
“Mrs. Richardson? It can’t be, I mean she was old.” Carrie realized how that sounded and stopped herself. “I mean, she was a teacher and you don’t look old enough to have taught us,” she quickly backpedaled.
“I think you’re both old enough to call me Emma now,” Mrs. Richardson said. “And I’m not all that much older than you. I was... Hmm, I must have been in my mid-twenties when the two of you were in my class.”
Carrie tried to do the math and Mrs. Richardson—she would never be able to think of her former teacher as Emma—laughed.
“Which makes me forty-one,” Mrs. Richardson said with a laugh. “Herb and I are here celebrating our fifteenth anniversary. We left the kids with his mom and are rekindling that old flame.”
“Oh.” Jack, the coward, was silent and Carrie didn’t know what to say to this teacher who was no older than most of her friends.
“Would you mind if we joined you for a drink?” Mrs. Richardson asked, even as she took a seat and pulled Herb onto the neighboring one.
“So, how long are you here for?” Mrs. Richardson asked and without pausing she added, “We’re here until Wednesday, aren’t we, Herb?”
Herb nodded.
“We bought that five-day special Jodi’s Travel was running. Did you as well?”
“I added a couple extra days. We’re here until Friday,” Carrie said.
She was still trying to adjust to the idea that someone who taught her was not ancient.
Her teachers should be old.
They should all be white-haired and using canes by now.
Mrs. Richardson beamed.
“And did you two come celebrating something significant?”
“Just a vacation,” Jack said, even as Carrie said, “Well, yes, we’re celebrating.”
“Celebrating?” Mrs. Richardson said.
Jack kicked her, but Carrie continued, “Yes, you see Jack just finished a big case.”
“Case?”
“He’s a lawyer. Most of the time he’s stuck in an office working on boring contracts and other boring paperwork, but this time he was in court. Anyway, he won the case and we decided to get away and celebrate.”
Mrs. Richardson actually clapped her hands. “How wonderful.”
She turned to the silent Herb and said, “I always told you that Jack and Carrie were meant for each other, didn’t I, Herb?”
Dutifully Herb silently nodded. Mrs. Richardson gave him a smile that she might have bestowed upon a well-behaved student
“Why, I knew even before I walked into the classroom and caught you two.” She shook her fingers at them both, making Carrie feel as if she was back in school again. “You know, I should have given you both a detention for carrying on like that in class.”
“Like what?” Jack asked.
Carrie smiled. She knew exactly what incident Mrs. Richardson was referring to. She’d been right and now Jack would have to admit it.
There was nothing Carrie liked more than being right.
“Why, that time you and Carrie were kissing in the chemistry class. And with everyone watching to boot. That was really quite naughty of you, you know.”
“We weren’t kissing,” he said firmly.
“Jack, don’t you think you’re a little too old to lie to a teacher?” Carrie shot him a saccharine smile.
“We weren’t kissing,” he repeated.
Mrs. Richardson shook her finger at him again.
Jack’s voice rose, as if saying it louder would make his kiss turn into artificial respiration. “She blew up the lab, remember? I was just giving her mouth-to-mouth.”
“Oh, I’ll say you were giving her mouth-to-mouth. Why you had the girl flat on her back in the middle of the classroom floor, the entire class watching as you kissed her as if your life depended on it.” She nudged Herb. “It was so romantic I just couldn’t give them detentions.”
“Her life did depend on it. She’d blown up the lab and I was afraid she was dead.”
Almost fifteen years later, Jack could still remember the wave of fear that had swept through his body when he thought Carrie was dead. He’d felt an echo of it last night when he thought he’d lost her in the ocean.
“If you say so,” Mrs. Richardson commented in such a way that Jack, Carrie and even the silent Herb knew she didn’t believe a word of it. “And I guess it really doesn’t matter, because I knew you’d end up married and, why, here you are.”
“But we aren’t,” Jack felt obliged to point out.
Carrie kicked him and gave him the evil eye, but he ignored it, as usual. “We’re not married. We’re just—”
“You’re not married?” Mrs. Richardson asked. “After all these years you’re still just living together?” There was censure in her look.
“No, I mean, we’re not...” He gave Carrie a helpless look.
She didn’t know why he would think she would save him, but his look said he did. Carrie took pity on him and supplied, “What Jack means is that we’re not a couple. We’re just friends traveling together. You see, I was supposed to come here with Ted, he was my boyfriend.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Richardson said, patting Carrie’s hand. “Men are pigs. What did he do?”
“He ordered the fettuccine,” Carrie said, obviously warming to the subject. “And, he didn’t kiss as good as Jack, though Jack never kissed me again after that lab incident. You know I spent a perfectly good year practicing so I’d be a better kisser next time he kissed me, not that he ever did.”
Mrs. Richardson glared at him. “As I said, dear, men are pigs.”
Carrie nodded her agreement and poor Herb just shot Jack a helpless look.
“It wasn’t a kiss,” Jack said once more, though he didn’t believe either woman was listening.
“I’ve witnessed a lot of kisses and participated in even more, and let me tell you, it was a kiss,” Mrs. Richardson said in her most teacherish voice.
That was it, Jack thought.
He was a patient man—he had to be a patient man to put up with Carrie—but even a patient man had his breaking point
“I’m telling you both, that wasn’t a kiss, but this is.”
Jack reached over to the seat next to him, gave Carrie a little tug and pulled her into his arms.
Chapter Five
THE MINUTE HIS LIPS touched Carrie’s, Jack realized he’d made a mistake.
He hadn’t kissed anyone other than Sandy for a very long time, and when they broke up, he couldn’t even imagine kissing another woman.
But, from what he remembered, it was natural to have things stirring when he kissed a woman. But what stirred this time had very little to do with sex. Okay, what was stirring had a lot to do with sex, but kissing Carrie also stirred something else.
He felt like a romance novel even as he thought that in addition to sex, kissing Carrie stirred something in his heart.
That was the part that had been missing when he kissed Sandy.
Finding his heart was involved while he kissed Carrie was a shock.
Jack lost himself so completely in the kiss that he realized he’d never truly be free again.
When Carrie wrapped her arms around him and deepened the kiss, Jack knew the absolute truth of it—he wanted her.
The sound of someone clearing a throat shook Jack out of the land of possibilities and back into the karaoke bar.
“I beg your pardon, Jack. The chem lab was mouth-to-mouth,” said a very humbled Mrs. Richardson.
“Wow,” Carrie said.
She shifted out of his arms and scooted her chair as far from him as she could, until she was practically sitting in Herb’s lap. “I owe you an apology, too, Jack. Mrs. Richardson was right, either the chem lab was mouth-to-mouth, or you’ve been doing some practicing since our lips last met.”
Then she said to Mrs. Richardson, “Could I borrow your husband for a dance?” Her eyes practically begged for permission to escape.
“Herb would love it,” Mrs. Richardson said.
As Carrie used Herb to make her escape, Mrs. Richardson leaned over and said to him, “I might have been wrong about the chem lab, but if you think you and Carrie are just friends, you’d better think again.”
Jack watched Carrie swaying in Herb’s arms on the dance floor and couldn’t have agreed more.
Carrie on the other hand, studiously practiced not looking at Jack. Dancing with the still-silent Herb was a big plus, she didn’t have to make social chatter, but could use the time to think.
One of them needed to think. And because it was obvious Jack hadn’t been thinking, it would have to be Carrie this once.
Only, Carrie didn’t know what to think.
Nor could Carrie really concentrate for the rest of the evening as she conversed with the overly talkative Mrs. Richardson. The woman was as much of a blessing as her husband was, and it was with a heavy heart that Carrie bid them both good night.
Jack and Carrie were silent as they walked to their room. “Carrie,” Jack said while he opened the door.
“Sorry,” she blurted. “When a girl’s got to go, a girl’s got to go.” She practically ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.
“You’re going to have to talk to me at some point,” Jack bellowed.
Carrie just turned on the tap for a bath. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the water. We’ll have to discuss it later. Why don’t you just go to bed?”
Silence was her only answer. Maybe she’d manage to avoid him for tonight. There was tomorrow, of course, but she was going to let tomorrow take care of itself and just thank her lucky stars for the reprieve, no matter how
short-lived it might be.
~~~
After hearing the tub being filled for a second time, Jack called, “I’m still waiting.”
“Okay,” Carrie yelled through the closed door.
Okay?
Nothing was okay about this evening.
He’d kissed Carrie. Not some friendly little peck on the cheek. Not some indulgent big-brother type kiss. No. The kiss was carnal and wild. A kiss he’d like to repeat...if he could repeat it with anyone but Carrie.
She wasn’t the type of woman he fantasized about.
And she certainly wasn’t someone he kissed, not like that.
No one kissed a friend like that.
But he had.
And even worse than that, he’d liked it.
A lot.
So now what?
Did he apologize?
Or did he repeat it?
Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so confused. And if the fact Carrie was hiding out in the bathroom was any indication, she was just as confused as he was. They had to work this out.
“Carrie, I’m not going to give up and go away so you can quit stalling.”
Carrie sighed, looking very prunish. Even though the bathroom door was locked and Jack couldn’t see a thing, she sank a little deeper in the tub.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hollered back. “I’m just taking a bath.”
“Come on, Carrie. It’s three o’clock in the morning. Come out here and talk to me.”
“I will when I’m done,” she called, then swished the tepid water with her foot.
If she was lucky, when she pulled the plug to drain the water she’d go down with it. A burial at sea was preferable to facing Jack. She’d taunted him about their high school kiss…no, mouth-to-mouth. She challenged him, which is why he’d kissed her.
A kiss she’d deepened.
She was horrible.
The situation couldn’t be any worse.
She’d kissed her best friend with all the pent-up frustrations of a woman who wanted him in a decidedly, unfriendly sort of way.
He knew now. There was no way he couldn’t know.
When Sandy had walked out, Carrie had watched Jack grieve and throw himself into his job. He’d not only lost weight, but seemed to have lost himself as well.
