by Kim Boykin
“So you and Tara are—”
“Friends. I’m also her publicist.” Jake wished the dog would come back.
“Jim, Tara’s husband—.”
“I know who Jim is.”
The old guy shrugged. “I’ve known him for over twenty-five years.”
One of the women inside said something he couldn’t make out, and then Tara laughed, so hard, she snorted. He smiled. He knew that snort; she’d only done it a couple of times, but he loved it because it only made her laugh harder.
“It’s just that Jim is my best friend, and seeing you here with his wife—.” Please stop talking. “Well, it feels like a betrayal.”
What about what your friend did to Tara? Wasn’t that betrayal? Just shut up and drink your beer, man.
“Jim built a good life for her. Supported her before she got lucky at her hobby.” If this clown knew anything about Tara, he’d know her writing wasn’t a fucking hobby. Jake turned his beer up and drained it. “Want another?” the old guy asked.
“Thanks, I’ve had enough.” Jake stood up and headed toward the laughter. “Think I’ll switch to wine.”
The only thing that shut Marsha and Melissa up was when Jake walked into the kitchen, drawing a collective sigh from our girl parts. Jake charmed the heck out of my friends, telling them funny horror stories about the divas he’d taken out on tour. He didn’t name names, but Melissa and Marsha had fun trying to guess their identity and then begging Jake to spill.
“So, Jake, what do you think about our celebrity here?” Marsha giggled. “There’s no comparison.”
“You can stop right there, mister.” All the blood that had gushed south the minute Jake walked into the room was now streaking to my face. “We really should go now.”
“Hush, Tara. You’re not going anywhere.” Marsha refilled Jake’s wine glass. Melissa swirled the last little bit of martini around in her glass. “Jake, you were saying?”
He looked at me and grinned. “She’s great. The fans love her.”
“Did you hear that Melissa, she has fans,” Marsha gushed. “Tell us more, Jake.”
“She’s a good writer. Have you read her romances?”
“Poor Marsha suffered through a lot of really bad first drafts, Jake. Don’t make her relive it,” I said.
“Have you read her romances, Jake?” Melissa asked.
“Finished number four last night.”
“Phenomenon.” Marsha’s voice was all sing-songy.
“Please, stop, Marsha.” I was standing beside the junk drawer in the kitchen and was reasonably certain there was some duct tape in there. Two six-inch pieces might be my only hope of shutting Marsha and Melissa up.
“Phenomenon? Not sure I’d go that far, but Tara’s good,” he said.
I knew where this was going. “Jake, you haven’t seen the beach. The moon’s full, wanna take a quick walk before the tide gets so high?”
“Sure.” He laughed as I dragged him toward the back porch. “Ladies, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Don’t go,” Marsha whined.
I hugged Melissa and then her. “Thanks for having us, maybe we’ll see you around this weekend,”
Mike was noticeably absent when we left out the double doors and down the steps toward the beach. The ocean was so loud, I was sure there wouldn’t be any beach to walk on, but I knew if I’d stayed another minute, Marsha would embarrass me by explaining that whole Phenomenon thing.
Funny, I never thought of the film as a chick flick, but it was one of Marsha’s favorites during the mandatory annual getaway our group of girlfriends took every year to the beach. Four days of wine and food and nonstop movies. But it was another reminder of Jake’s and my age difference. Jim and I had been married for a year when the movie came out. We’d started trying for babies from the get-go. The movie just got to me, I cried so hard and was such a mess, we left the theater. Meanwhile, Jake was somewhere in Wisconsin and was probably, what? Fifteen? Sixteen at the most? I let go of his hand and walked a little faster on the path that was lined with brush and then opened onto the best beach ever.
“Wow. Thank you.” Jake stopped and pulled me close.
Normally, it’s pitch black on the beach, but the moon made the cloudless night look navy blue; the stars and planets were showing off. Thanks to the full moon, the light shimmered across the waves. The tide was higher than normal. Jake put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head.
“When I was a kid, my parents never went anywhere. I’d never been to the ocean until I was in college.”
“My parents are gone now,” I said. “But when I was growing up, they taught high school. We spent every summer exploring.”
“That must have been fun.”
“It was. Most of the time. We went to every state except Hawaii and my dad would have driven there if it was possible. Even made it up to Alaska the summer I was seventeen. Of course I was sure I was going to die, being away from my friends for so long, but man, Alaska is gorgeous.” I smiled remembering that old Coleman camper, although there were times I wanted to burn it to the ground. “I’ve seen so many beautiful places, but this place? Does it for me every time.”
“Let’s walk,” Jake said, taking his flip flops off and tossing them on the dunes above the watermark.
“Might want to take those with you, the full moon will bring the tide in further than usual,” I said. “It’s so high, we’ll run out of beach soon.”
He picked up his shoes and fell in step beside me. “So, is there a reason you rushed me out of there?” His voice teasing. “You’re not pissed I downgraded you from phenom to really good writer are you?”
“Don’t know about that.” I laughed. “I just like having you all to myself, Jake Randall.”
He put his arm around me and we walked about a mile, the tide pushing us closer and closer to the dunes.
“I kind of got the feeling the three of you were speaking some kind of invented language. What’s the deal with Phenomenon?”
“Marsha was talking about the movie. Ever seen it?”
“Sort of. I was, in high school at an away swim meet. The whole team saw it, except for me and couple of other kids. We paired off and were in the back of the theater making out. I do remember the scene where John Travolta broke the mirror.” As the tide washed over our feet, Jake stopped, picked up a handful of broken Jingle shells and one by one started throwing them as far as he could into the ocean. “You gonna tell me what she was talking about or do I have to watch the movie?”
“It’s kind of stupid. And sad.”
“How so?”
“John Travolta is in love Kyra Sedgwick. She’s an artist, makes these really cool wood and vine chairs nobody wants. But he buys her chairs, tells her he’s selling them like hotcakes. Of course he’s lying to her. He’s buying them just to get closer to her.”
“I can see why the broken mirror thing stood out back then,” he laughed. “So what’s so stupid and sad about that?”
“Marsha knows Jim never read anything I wrote. Well, except for one book and we all know how that turned out.”
The tide tugged at my feet. Jake didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. He just put his arms around me, and my heart squeezed a little bit. Because it felt really good to have someone care enough about me to buy my chairs.
Chapter Twelve
‡
Everything was perfect until they got back to the house. The natural thing seemed to be to take Tara to bed, but not natural as in imminent. It felt like they’d been together a lot longer than just a few days.
If Jake weren’t her publicist, they would never have even made it next door. Hell, he’d probably still be back in the hotel room in Atlanta, learning her body, what she liked, hearing her say his name when she came. Instead, he was standing under what was supposed to be a cold shower, but it wasn’t cold enough.
As he toweled off, he wondered what she was wearing. Maybe she slept naked like he did. Or maybe she wa
sn’t in bed. He’d left the bedroom door open, the bathroom door slightly ajar. Maybe she was on her way up the stairs to take him up on his silent invitation. He’d like nothing better than to untie that little yellow halter dress he’d been dying to take off of her all night and lose himself in her. The thought made it painfully aware this was going to be a hell of a long night.
Between being raised on a farm and swimming, Jake was trained to be up before six. He pulled on his jammer, grabbed his phone, a towel, some goggles and headed downstairs. He stood just outside Tara’s door that was open halfway. She was asleep on her back. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, her lips that were slightly parted. So damn beautiful.
She had some kind of baby blue nightgown with thin straps; one of them had slipped down her shoulder. Move your ass, Randall, the moratorium on sex was your idea.
The sun was coming up as he took the same path to the ocean they’d taken last night. The beach was deserted; the tide was out. He hid his phone in his towel and stretched for about ten minutes before wading out far enough to dive into the small waves. The water was maybe seventy degrees; chilly, but bathwater by Wisconsin standards. Yanking his goggles on, he swam out about thirty yards toward the horizon, past where the waves were breaking. He stopped, surprised he could still touch the bottom, and looked back toward the shore.
No wonder Tara loved this place. Calling it beautiful wasn’t any more adequate than calling her beautiful was. The current tugged at him, demanding he swim. Diving under, he surfaced, taking long slow strokes against the tide. He followed the shoreline, losing himself in the rhythm of each steady stroke. His mind always cleared when he swam, nothing but him and the water. It was probably why he still swam. After what felt like a couple of miles, he picked up the pace to avoid being pushed and pulled by the undercurrent.
The water wasn’t as clear as when he’d swum in the Caribbean or the lakes back home. He saw shadows of fish dart away from him, a stingray about the size of a Welcome mat.
When he turned and headed back toward Tara’s house with the tide, his brain suddenly kicked in. He wondered if she was asleep, if she was waiting for him to come to her bed, or maybe she was in his. When he got back, maybe he’d just say screw the moratorium. If it was just sex, he’d still be able make sure the tour was a success and Tara got through the theater gigs. But he had a feeling it wouldn’t be just sex for either of them.
He thought about his body surrounding hers, finally sliding into her. His long slow strokes turn choppy, and before he knew it, he was sprinting the last fifty meters. As he waded back to shore, his brain was screaming at him not to screw things up by rushing Tara. She’d been with the same guy forever, she’d been hurt. He’d made it clear he wanted her, but she would have to tell him when she was ready. He toweled off, shoved his feet into his flip flops and headed back to the house. Nothing on the itinerary today, but he needed to feel better so he scrolled through it just the same. With only twenty-four more days to go, it didn’t help much.
When Jake came through the door, I snapped my laptop shut, a habit I’d gotten into a long time ago whenever I was writing and Jim came around. Don’t know why I did that. Maybe it was because Jim wasn’t interested in reading anything I wrote for so many years, it was my way of shutting him out.
“Morning. Hiding something?” he teased, kissing me on the cheek. “Are you writing my boss to tell her you want another publicist?”
“Yeah, wanna hear my email?” I opened my laptop and pretended to read from the screen. “Dear Jake’s Boss. I hope you’re well and Erin’s crushed foot is healing nicely. Couple of things: As a full-fledge diva, I have some demands. I’d like to trade up to a new publicist, get a better looking one, one that actually puts out.” He raised his eyebrows. “And taller, definitely taller. He should also be an exceptional kisser, or at least better than J—.” He cut off the last word, kissing the stuffing out of me, and then pulled back with that sexy smirk that said he knew he was a god. “Good morning, Jake,” came out in a long breathy sigh.
“Something smells good.” He popped a shrimp in his mouth from the skillet on the stove and closed his eyes in approval. “Great. Love the spicy gravy stuff.” He took the lid off the pot on the stove.
“And grits,” I laughed.
“No.” He spooned over half of the shrimp mixture into a cereal bowl.
“They’re stone ground. I made them just for you. Besides the Lowcountry is famous world wide for their shrimp and grits.”
“And again. No.” He sat down at the bar, making an mmm sound. “God this is good.”
“Come on, Jake.” After five or six bites he was scraping the bowl. “Just one grit.”
“I’ll eat anything Southern you want me to try, but no grits. Christ, just the name. Grits.” He shook his head. “Anything but that.”
“Squirrel brains?”
“I’m a big guy; it would take a shit load of squirrels, but yes.”
“Fried pickles?”
“Are not as bad as you think.”
“Chitterlings.”
“Done.”
“Hog intestines.”
“They’re the same thing as chitterlings. Is this a test?”
I spooned some fluffy grits into a bowl, ladled a little of the shrimp over it, and gave Jake seconds before I sat on the barstool beside him.
“But this? Really good,” he said, running his finger over the empty bowl.
“Did you have a good swim?”
“Yeah. You wanna tell me what you didn’t want me to see?”
“I started something new.”
“Good. Fiction or nonfiction?”
“Another romance. Single title.”
“And you don’t want me to read it?” Did I? He worked for Penguin for God’s sake, I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time he looked at someone’s shitty first draft, probably his great aunt’s neighbor who always wanted to publish. But I was stuck, trying to find the right beginning. Once I got going, I knew the story would take off like it always did.
“I’m not ready yet, Jake.”
He nodded and plucked a shrimp out of my bowl. “Okay then, get back to work.”
The rest of the weekend, I worked. Jake practiced being a beach bum and came back to the house looking deliciously tanned. We went to Poe’s Tavern on Sullivans Island for dinner because Jake had never been to the center of the universe. After two of the best burgers on the planet, incomparable fries, and a couple of Lowcountry crafted beers, he was a very happy guy.
Poe’s isn’t exactly the place for intimate conversation. It’s loud and friendly and wonderful. So we didn’t talk a lot, except to a young couple sitting at one of the community tables. We asked if we could share their table; turned out they were from Madison, Wisconsin. And they were horse people and knew of Jake’s parents’ farm. Since this was their first trip to the Lowcountry, I gave them a long list of must see places and an even longer list of great restaurants, and by the time we left, we’d exchanged business cards and promised to keep in touch with Randa and Dave.
It was dark by the time we got back from Poe’s. We ended up sharing a bottle of wine on the deck, listening to the ocean. Laughing that Mike Lemieux kept walking by his window, giving us the eye like we were teenagers. We weren’t doing anything, just talking, and, while doing something with Jake was extremely appealing, talking was good too.
“I got a lot done today.”
“Good. So did I.” He brushed his hand across my knuckles and then laced his fingers in mine. “Thanks, Tara. I really needed this. Today was pretty perfect, with one notable exception.”
“Yeah?”
“Next time, I hope you’ll be on the beach with me.”
Next time? Jake Randall was thinking beyond the next twenty-three days. Next time.
We drove back to Atlanta earlier Sunday morning. I’d offered to pay the fees to change our tickets so we could fly out of the Charleston Airport. Jake said it was better to stick with our
itinerary, but I don’t think that was the real reason. I hadn’t stopped to think how our being together might affect him or his career. At the very least, his boss would have his head, or maybe even his job.
Getting on a plane after driving five hours in a car wasn’t ideal, but it gave me some time to think. As much as Jake had bitched about needing a vacation in the beginning, I knew he loved being a publicist and he was good at it. If it helped him keep the job he loved, I could wait to claim him in public; at least I thought I could.
The flight attendant had already told Jake once to power off his iPad, but we were sitting on the runway, nineteenth in line to take off, according to the captain. “I think that woman is going to hurt you if you don’t turn that thing off.”
He obliged and stuffed it in the seat pocket in front of him. “I need to get a picture from you,” he whispered like the flight attendant had told him not to talk too.
I knew how important it was to keep my distance from Jake in public, but I couldn’t resist nipping at his ear. “What kind of picture?”
“If I tell you, you might stop the flirting, and I have to say I really like it.”
“Try me.”
He pulled back so that I could revisit Serious Jake. “I need a picture of Jim to give to Janzen’s head of security. I started to take one out of the frame at the beach house, but I didn’t know what was current and what wasn’t. And I thought it was better to ask you than just do it.”
I nodded. “Do you really think he’ll show up?”
“I don’t know. I just want to be prepared.”
I spent the rest of the flight worrying about Jim having had so much fun wrecking my old life, he thought he’d give my new life a go. But if he was really as humiliated and embarrassed as Marsha said he was, why would he bother? Between my small advance and our investments, he had a little over a million dollars cash he’d stolen, albeit legally. He’d taken everything, for now at least, and if he screwed this tour up, when we did divorce, he’d get half of nothing. No, Jim Jordan was playing golf on a very expensive golf course somewhere at that very moment. I was sure of it.
