Plain Jayne

by Laura Drewry

  “Morning.”

  “Hi.” Jayne smiled back at her as she moved slowly through the racks, running her fingers lightly over the different fabrics. Dress? Skirt? Pants maybe. Ugh—this is why she hated clothes shopping!

  “Can I help you find something or would you rather go at it alone?” The woman walked past her again, returning several of the boxes to the back, and laughed lightly. “Nothing worse than hovering salespeople.”

  “I’m fine,” Jayne started, then stopped and checked her phone for the time. “Actually, yeah, maybe you can help.”

  “Sure.” She set the boxes down and gave Jayne her full attention.

  “I need something for a date.”

  “Okay. First date, I’m-going-to-dump-you date, or I-hope-to-get-lucky date?”

  “I’m … what?” Laughter bubbled even though the woman seemed perfectly serious as she moved around the racks and started pulling things off.

  “Take a look.” She held up a modest knee-length coral-colored dress. “First-date dress. It says you’re a nice girl, not going to put out, and you’ve come fully prepared to pay your own way.”

  Next, she held up a pair of black pants with a neatly pressed white blouse. “This one says I’m all business, and first thing on tonight’s agenda is dumping you.”

  She hung the two outfits on a rack behind her and held up the third one; a super-short fuchsia number with a plunging lace-tipped neckline and thin little spaghetti straps.

  “This one,” she said with a sly grin, “screams ‘it’s on, baby.’ ”

  Jayne tried not to let her horror show. “It looks like lingerie.”

  “Exactly.” The woman’s eyes crinkled around the edges. “But by the look on your face, I’m guessing that’s not exactly what you’re looking for?”

  “Uh, no. Not even close.” Jayne laughed. “I just moved back to town and a friend of mine set me up on a blind date.”

  “Oooh. Yikes.”

  “Tell me about it.” Jayne sighed and waved her hands down the front of herself. “The most thought I put into my wardrobe is which T-shirt to wear with which jeans, and if I can get away with wearing flip-flops.”

  “Hmm.” She stood back a bit and eyed Jayne long enough to make her squirm. “Is there a color or style you’re looking for?”

  “Simple.”

  “Okay.” She started through the racks again, frowning at some, tipping her head at others. “You just moved back to town?”

  Jayne nodded. “My grandmother owned the old bookstore at the end of the street.”

  The woman stopped and looked up at Jayne. “So it’s true then. Regan said she ran into you at the Stomp.”

  “That’s right.” Jayne smiled. “Regan and I went to school together. I’m Jayne.”

  “Ellie. Nice to meet you. Do you know what you’re going to do with the store?” She snapped her fingers, turned in a half circle, and walked to the rack at the end of the store. “This is perfect.”

  A knee-length black dress with a square neckline and three-quarter-length sleeves. It was perfect, except for the fact that it looked like it was a size two.

  “I’m hoping to reopen it,” Jayne began, then stopped and laughed. “Please tell me you have that in a bigger size.”

  Ellie pulled two more of the exact same dress off the rack and held them out. “One of the joys of this dress is the ruching, which helps hide some of our trouble areas.”

  “So I won’t need to fight my way into Spanx?” Jayne followed her to the changing room and ducked inside.

  “Trust me, you can leave your Spanx at home.”

  Jayne peeled off her jeans and T-shirt and set them on the stool, then very carefully unzipped the larger of the two dresses off its hanger. It slipped on like silk and, if she did say so herself, looked pretty good.

  “I can help with the zipper,” Ellie called through the door, but as soon as she’d zipped it, Ellie shook her head. “Nope, take it off.”

  “What?” Jayne spun to look at her, and a moment later they were standing in front of the full-length mirror, with Ellie trying to show Jayne what was wrong.

  “It’s too loose.” She pinched the fabric on both sides of Jayne’s waist as though to prove her point.

  “Uh, no, it’s just fine.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, no. Go try on the other one.”

  “There’s no way that one’s going to fit!”

  “Just try it on.” She bustled Jayne back inside the changing room.

  This woman had to be off her nut if she thought Jayne was going to be able to squeeze into the smaller one, but at least the larger one would do, so why not give it a try?

  “Let’s see.” Ellie was waiting on the other side of the door, so Jayne opened it and let her zip it up. “Way better!”

  Jayne turned to the mirror and stared for a few seconds. Maybe if her hips weren’t so big and her stomach didn’t stick out like that.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is the dress.”

  Jayne turned slightly to get a different angle. Nope. “Thanks, Ellie, but I think I’ll take the other one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jayne nodded slowly and went back in to change into her jeans. She hung both dresses back on their hangers and handed them to Ellie, who left one on the rack, then carried Jayne’s to the counter where she folded it carefully and tucked it in a bag.

  “What about shoes?”

  “Yeah,” Jayne groaned. “I guess my flip-flops aren’t going to cut it, are they?”

  “Not with that dress,” Ellie laughed. “What size?”

  “Usually a seven.”

  Ellie walked straight to a display of shoes, picked up a pair of black platform open-toed pumps, and set them on the floor.

  “Uh, no.”

  Undaunted, Ellie crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. “Just try them.”

  Jayne slipped her feet in and took a few steps around the store. “Oh, my … I thought they’d be hard to walk in, but they’re …”

  “I know. Fun, right?” Ellie finished ringing up Jayne’s purchases and swiped her card through the machine. “And they’re on sale.”

  “Even better—thanks!” Jayne couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn high heels, but for certain she’d never worn shoes like this. She walked around some more, not wanting to take them off.

  Ellie handed Jayne the bag and grinned. “Good luck on Saturday.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for all your help.” Next stop: Regan’s salon.

  “Jayne! Come on in.” Regan shifted the basket of towels from one of the chairs and motioned for her to sit.

  “Thanks, but I have to get back. I was hoping you could squeeze me in on Saturday and do something with this.” She yanked off her cap and let her hair fall to her shoulders. “It’s a bit of a disaster.”

  “That’s okay. I specialize in disasters.” She moved over to the desk and ran her finger down the computer screen. “Katie’s coming in at two for a trim and a mani/pedi—why don’t you come with her?”

  “Sure.”

  Regan’s gaze moved back to Jayne’s hair. “We’ll tidy it up a bit, throw in a little color … it’ll be great.”

  “Color?” Jayne choked. “I’ve never colored my hair.”

  Regan’s green eyes bulged. “Are you kidding me? Then you’re in for a treat.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not going to dye it green, Jayne, just some highlights to perk up your natural color a bit. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

  “That’d be a first,” Jayne muttered. “Two o’clock. See you then.”

  As she turned to go, Regan called her back, pointing toward the bag from Pandora’s. “You’ve met Ellie.”

  “Yeah, she’s great.”

  Regan nodded. “We meet up on Tuesday nights down at Chalker’s if you want to join us. Sort of a girls’ night.”

  “Oh, I—” Jayne bit off the rest of her excuse. How long had it b
een since she went out for drinks with girlfriends? How long had it been since she wanted to? “Actually, yeah, that’d be great.”

  “Great. Six o’clock.”

  “Right. Okay. Thanks again.” Back outside, her stomach twisted in double time. A blind date on Saturday, drinks with a woman she’d seen once in a dozen years and another woman she’d just met. That was more socializing than she’d done in the last six months combined.

  During the couple years she’d been with Barry, she’d let the few friendships she’d built fade away because it was infinitely easier for her to settle into Barry’s world than it was to try and force him into hers. The last time she’d tried to do it was at Nick and Abby’s wedding.

  He hadn’t said or done anything that night that he’d never done before, but it was the first time she’d realized how ashamed she was for putting up with it. Gran had treated her the same way, but Jayne had no choice but to live with it. With Barry, she could have left sooner—she should have left sooner—but she’d been too afraid.

  Hindsight being what it is, she didn’t know what she’d been so afraid of. It wasn’t like he’d ever laid a hand on her, he’d never threatened her, and he’d never yelled at her. Sometimes she wondered if it would have been easier to leave if he had. By the time she started over, all of her friends had moved on or away, and Jayne was too busy with her new job and her new apartment to spend time making new friends.

  She kept telling herself she’d do it, one day, but that day had never come. Maybe now it had.

  Nick pulled up just as she unlocked the front door. He grinned through the windshield at her, but his lips kept moving; must be on the Bluetooth again.

  “Everything okay?” she asked when he finally opened his door.

  “Yeah, Judy showed up and was giving Delmar the gears, but we got her calmed down again.” With both hands wrapped around a couple of iced coffees, he lifted his chin toward the bag in her hand. “What d’you got there?”

  “Ugh. I just dropped a small fortune on a dress for Saturday.” She hung the bag from a nail on the wall and reached for one of the drinks. “I hope you’re happy.”

  Nick took a long drink and wagged his brow at her. “Wear jeans if you want.”

  “Yeah, right,” she grunted. “Imagine that; me in jeans and Lisa showing up in a Vera Wang original.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.”

  * * *

  The last few days of warm weather had slipped behind blankets of clouds that hadn’t let loose yet, but the sudden change in temperature set into Nick’s knee, making him rub it absently as he drove to the job site.

  According to the time frame he’d given Judy and Ross, the house was still ahead of schedule, just not as much as he liked at this point. The time he’d spent at Jayne’s store put him behind a little, but that was information she didn’t need to know.

  After lunch, he left Kyle and Todd to finish the siding on the garage while he and Delmar finished up the last of the insulation inside. Nick would have normally subbed this out as well, but one of Judy’s quirks was that she wanted him to do as much of the work as possible. She’d even wanted him to do the electrical and plumbing, but that wasn’t an option.

  He and Delmar worked well together, always had. Delmar wasn’t much of a talker, which gave Nick’s mind plenty of time to wander.

  The dinner date he’d set up for tomorrow night loomed out there. All week he’d done pretty good to not think about it. The only reason he’d suggested the idea was to get Jayne out there, to maybe help her find a guy who wasn’t a complete asshole like the ones she usually dated. But with every passing hour, the idea sounded worse and worse.

  What if she didn’t like Martin? Crap. What if he didn’t like her?

  No, that wouldn’t happen. Jayne was pretty as hell, funny, easy to be with, and stronger than she ever gave herself credit for. She deserved someone who’d make her happy, someone who’d treat her the way she deserved to be treated instead of how she expected to be treated.

  Which brought him right back to where it all started—dinner tomorrow night with Martin. A tight knot twisted in Nick’s brain. Martin was a good guy, so why did Nick suddenly want to find something wrong with him? And why the hell was he suddenly pissed at the guy who hadn’t done anything other than agree to a blind date?

  Damn it. Nick tried to shake the whole mess from his head, but it lingered, picking away at him all afternoon.

  “Boss!”

  “Huh?” Nick snapped to attention. “What?”

  “Quittin’ time.” Delmar tapped his watch. “Come on.”

  Nick inhaled a long breath. He had until tomorrow to get his head on straight, but for right now, it was quitting time on Friday, and that meant the guys were already into their first beers. He cleaned up his mess, then joined them in the living room for a quick drink.

  “Who’s driving?” Before Nick finished his question, Todd’s right hand shot up, a can of Coke clutched in his fist.

  “My turn.”

  Next he turned to Kyle. “Just two.”

  “I know,” the kid groused.

  Kyle was legal—barely—and there was no doubt the kid tied one on every once in a while, but that didn’t mean Nick was about to let him do it on his job site.

  “All right.” Nick finished his beer and dropped his can in the box of empties. “I’m outta here. Get ’em home safe, Todd.”

  Delmar hoisted his bottle in salute. “Later, Boss.”

  He stepped outside but paused just to the side of the door to take a look at the job they’d done on the siding.

  “What’s with him?” Todd’s voice, though not loud, drifted out to Nick.

  “He’s busy.”

  “So busy he skips out on us a couple weeks ago and only hangs around for one beer?” There was an edge to Todd’s voice. “I bet that chick of his is givin’ him the gears.”

  For half a second, Nick almost went back inside, but what good would it do? It wasn’t like Todd was right, but he wasn’t far wrong, either. Four o’clock Friday afternoon was downtime for him and his crew. In all the years he’d been doing this job, nothing had ever kept him from it, and even after he lost Abby, he’d gone right back to the old routine of two beers with his crew, hoping it would help put things back to normal.

  It hadn’t, but he kept it up anyway.

  Nick fired up his truck and headed for home with one clear thought making him smile: Jayne would be there. She still thought their living together was weird, but he liked having her there when he got home. In fact, knowing she’d be there was enough to make him drive faster. It was hard enough juggling their time with him dating Lisa, but if Jayne and Martin hooked up, that was going to cut into more of their time together, so Nick was going to have to get in as much as he could while he had the chance.

  He found her just inside the front door, tying up her running shoes.

  “You going out?” he asked, swallowing a mouthful of disappointment.

  “Just going for a walk.” She stood up, tugged her ponytail through the back of her ball cap, and grinned up at him. “I thought you were meeting Lisa.”

  “Not till six, so hang on, I’ll go with you.” He traded his work boots for running shoes and grabbed Duke’s leash. “Let’s go.”

  They cut between the two houses and the end of the cul-de-sac and pushed through the trees until they found the trail that led around the edge of the golf course.

  “Knee’s bad today, huh?”

  “Hmm? Yeah, no, I’m good.”

  “Liar.”

  Nick stuffed his left hand in his pocket and let Duke’s leash dangle from his right as he tried to force his knee to behave; it would be better once he had a hot shower. Jayne was still watching his limp when Nick shot his arm out and stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “Look at that.”

  Jayne’s gaze followed his line of sight as Duke stuck his nose in the air and sniffed, slowly at first, then with increased int
erest. A huge black bear lumbered over the rolling green of the seventeenth hole, followed by two chubby little cubs, who couldn’t seem to decide if they wanted to keep up with Mama or just roll around on the fairway.

  Jayne’s breath caught; she didn’t move, but Nick knew it wasn’t because he held her back, and it wasn’t because she was scared. There was something amazing about seeing bears wandering around like that, and no matter how often he saw it, it still amazed him. Jayne obviously felt the same.

  They stood stock-still as the mother bear swung her head around and stared straight at them. He felt Jayne’s hand curl around his forearm just as Duke finally locked in on the scent. His low growl grew steadily into a long, mournful howl that did little to scare off the big bear.

  After a few seconds, she swung her head forward and continued to plod along the course until she and her cubs disappeared into the surrounding trees.

  “That was …” Jayne stopped, exhaled, and blinked a few times. “Wow.”

  “Lucky,” Nick snickered. “If we’d been a few minutes earlier, she might not have been quite so friendly.”

  A slow smile curved against Jayne’s lips and crinkled around her eyes. He’d seen that smile thousands of times before, but this was the first time it zinged through him like that.

  Like lightning.

  “You know what they say,” she laughed. “You don’t have to be fast, you just have to be faster. And with that knee of yours …”

  Nick did his best to shake off what her smile did to him and tried to look hurt. “You’d leave me and Duke here to fight off a bear?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d never leave Duke.” Her hand fell away from his arm but it took him a couple seconds to move.

  “Nice.” He chuckled slowly. “Come on, let’s go this way.”

  They headed back the way they’d come, following the trail in the opposite direction. Better safe than sorry.

  “What’s the matter?” Her voice sounded wary. “And don’t say nothing, because you have your worried eyes on.”

  “I don’t have—”

  “Nick.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged slowly. “I was thinking about tomorrow night. What if you hate this guy?”

  “Why would I hate him?” Something just short of panic filled her voice. “What’s wrong with him? Is he a jerk?”