Logan hesitated, but then said gruffly, "That's right." He turned and spoke to Jenna. "She's got Jeb Leventhal as her surgeon. He's the best. She'll be fine."
Jenna gave him a smile that was probably as false as Lacey's. "That's good to hear."
Logan cleared his throat. "Well. I think it's time I was going."
"Yes." Lacey's eagerness was painful to see. "You'd better go."
Logan nodded at Mack again. And for the second time, Mack nodded back. Logan smiled at Jenna. She smiled in return.
Lord, this was awful. All four of them, smiling and nodding, their sentences trailing off into harrowing silences.
At last Logan turned and left them.
No one said a word until they heard the front door close. By then, Lacey's smile had slipped. She sighed.
Jenna went to her, brushed the soft, wild curls away from her face and placed a kiss at her temple. "Are you in pain? Is there anything I can get you?"
"No. I'm fine. I mean, it hurts, but I just took a codeine half an hour ago. I'm all right." She bit her lower lip. "Byron hasn't shown up yet."
"He will. Soon. I'm sure."
"I'm such a—"
"Lace. Ease up on yourself, will you?"
"I went ahead and slept down here." She indicated the convertible sofa a few feet away, which was folded out into a bed, the covers all tangled, testimony to an uneasy night. "It's just too hard to get up and down the stairs."
"We might as well move you into my room." Jenna had the master suite, on the ground floor at the front of the house.
"No. I'm okay here. I'll only feel more rotten if I kick you out of your own bed."
"Lacey, it's all right, really. There are three bedrooms upstairs. I can take one of them, no problem."
"Right. Maybe the one with the gaping, ragged hole in the ceiling."
"Stop it. A hole in the ceiling is not that big a deal."
"Keep your room. I mean it. And will you just quit fussing over me? Please?" Lacey cast a glance at Mack, who waited, arms folded across his chest, near the stairs that led to the upper floor. "Are you staying, Mack?"
"I am."
"Then tell my sister that she should help you bring in your suitcases or something, will you?"
One side of his mouth kicked up. "Jenna, you should help me bring in our suitcases. Or something."
Jenna sent an exasperated glance from her sister to Mack and then back to Lacey.
Lacey waved her hand again. "Go on. You two get your stuff inside. I'm fine." She picked up the phone from the TV tray at her side. "I'll just call Mira and tell her she won't have to ferry me to the hospital, after all."
"Give a yell if you—"
Lacey was already punching up numbers. "I will, I will. Now, go on. Please."
Jenna led Mack back to the front door. But once she had both bags in her hands, she just stood there, undecided.
Mack read her easily. "I'll share your room," he said. "And your bed. I doubt that your sister is going to be shocked if she finds out."
She turned and led him where he wanted to go, to the door halfway back down the central hall that opened onto her bed-sitting room and adjoining bath.
"I like this," he said, setting the suitcase down on the russet-and-saffron-colored rug and laying the garment bag over a chair. He glanced around approvingly at the dark furniture, the pale walls and the red velvet comforter on the wide four-poster bed.
Her heart was beating way too fast, knocking itself painfully against the wall of her chest.
Somehow, she felt so terribly … vulnerable, here, with him, in this particular room, the room that had once been her parents' room and later her mother's alone. The room that, for the past few years, had become her own private retreat.
Strange. She'd paraded before him in their Long Beach hotel suite without a stitch to cover herself and found it as easy and natural as breathing. But standing here with him now, fully clothed, their suitcases between them, she felt utterly naked and extremely uncomfortable about it.
"I'll … clear out a couple of drawers for you. And there's room in the closet, for whatever you need to hang up. Why don't you go on out and bring the rest of the bags in and I'll—"
"Jenna." His voice was like velvet. His eyes knew too much.
"I … what?"
He stepped around the suitcases and came up close. Too close. He lifted a hand and touched her, his finger burning a caress into the tender skin of her cheek. "Your upper lip is quivering."
"Twitching, you mean."
"Twitching. Right. Nervous?"
"I … yes. For some reason I am."
"You never thought I'd be in this room with you, did you?"
That was true. She hadn't. Not ever.
But she had dreamed of him often while she slept beneath the red comforter. Dreams like the one where they floated on the white bed, naked without ever removing their clothes…
His hand trailed downward, over her jaw, tracing a heated line along the side of her throat.
"Mack…"
"What? Afraid I'll push you back on that nice, big bed and have my way with you right now?"
She caught his hand before it could go any farther, and then kissed it, a gesture they both recognized as placating. "It's just … it is strange. Having you here. You only came here with me that one other time, remember?"
"Our first Christmas together. We slept in that room upstairs, in the back."
"My room. Or it was until my mother died." She let go of his hand. "You hated Meadow Valley."
He didn't try to deny it. "I was afraid you were going to try to trap me here—and don't get that look. For me, at that time, moving here would have been a trap. And you kept dropping hints, remember? About how I could start my first law practice here, hang out a shingle over on Commercial Street
. It wasn't what I had in mind for myself."
"I know. You were headed for a partnership in a major big-city firm."
"And all you wanted was to come back to your hometown."
"That's right."
"And in the end, you did come back, didn't you?"
"Yes. I did."
"And something else is bothering you, beyond my being here in this room with you, beyond unhappy memories of the way we were. What is it?"
She leaned on the end of the bed and rested her cheek against one of the tall, carved posts. "I just feel strange about this whole thing, I guess. Coming back here, instead of going to Key West. Running into Logan again. And something's going on with Lacey, did you notice? Something other than her broken foot and Byron's disappearance."
He gave her a shrug and the slightest hint of a smile. She frowned at him. "What? You know something I don't?"
"It's only a guess."
"Tell me."
"It looks to me like your ex-fiancé has moved beyond the big-brother role with your little sister."
"Moved beyond the…?" Her mouth dropped open. She shut it. "You mean…? No. Not those two. Never in a million years. Lacey said she might check on him, you know, to see that he was all right, after you and I left town, but…"
"Looks to me like she checked on him but good. And I have to tell you, I think it's great. Whatever distracts the good doctor from his lifelong devotion to you is A-okay with me."
Jenna could not get her mind around such an idea. "But Mack … Logan and Lacey? I just can't see it."
Mack shrugged. "My other suitcase and your overnight case are still in the trunk. I'll get them."
Jenna stared rather blindly after him as he went out the door into the hall.
Imagine that. Logan and Lacey. Could it be true?
She'd have to ask Lacey … when the right opportunity presented itself, of course. After Lacey had made it through her surgery, sometime when the two of them were alone.
Jenna was still standing in the same spot when Mack returned with the rest of their bags. The sight of him got her moving. She went to the big bureau to empty a couple of drawers.
&nbs
p; * * *
Lacey's surgery went well. She had to stay in the hospital that night, but Dr. Leventhal promised she could go home Sunday morning.
Mack and Jenna left the hospital at a little after seven. At the house, Jenna found enough in the cupboards and refrigerator to fix them a simple meal of pasta and salad. She even had a nice bottle of red wine she'd been saving.
They cleaned up the kitchen together. And then they went to her bedroom.
By then, the feeling of strangeness at having Mack with her in the house where she'd grown up had passed. She found it all felt very natural between them again. Natural and right and more beautiful than ever. They made love slowly, making the pleasure last.
Afterward, they soaked in the claw-footed tub in her bathroom. She sat between his legs and leaned back against his chest.
"This is heaven." She sighed.
He murmured his agreement, his hands busy below the surface of the water, doing things that very soon had her moaning and calling his name.
Eventually they retired to the four-poster bed again and dropped off to sleep around midnight.
It was after two when Jenna woke. She lay staring at the ceiling, certain she had heard the low, rusty sound of Byron's peculiar meow.
No other cat meowed like her cat. He did it so seldom. It always came out rough and raspy, as if his vocal cords had forgotten how to make the right sound.
There it was again.
Jenna sat up in bed.
Mack turned over and squinted at her through the darkness. "Huh?"
"I thought I heard Byron. You know that meow he has? Kind of raspy and rough?"
He sat up beside her, instantly awake. "Where?"
She was already pushing back the covers. "I'm not sure. Outside the bedroom door, I think. In the hall."
The shirt Mack had been wearing the day before lay over a chair. She scooped it up and pulled it on. It covered her to the tops of her thighs. Hardly modest, but it was just the two of them—and maybe, if they were lucky, one raspy-voiced black cat.
Mack took a minute to yank on his boxer shorts. Then he followed her out into the hall.
Jenna switched on the light. Nothing.
"Could we just look around?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Why not?"
They searched the two parlors, the kitchen and laundry room, even the bathroom under the stairs.
"Let's go ahead and check upstairs," she suggested when they'd exhausted all the possibilities on the lower floor. Mack didn't argue, so she turned on the light at the foot of stairs and they started up. At the top, she crossed the landing and entered the front bed-room, Mack right behind her.
Jenna switched on the overhead light and they stood for a moment, looking up at the ragged hole in the ceiling where Lacey's poor foot had gone through. Jenna made a mental note to call around on Monday, see if she could find someone to fix the thing for her. The drywall would have to be patched and then retextured. She could manage the painting herself.
"Well?" Mack said.
"Just considering the repair bills. Let's look around."
They checked under the bed, in the closet, beneath the bureau and bed tables. Even in the bureau drawers. Nothing.
Mack stood in the middle of the room and looked up at the hole again. "Do you think he could be up there? Maybe Lacey really did hear him."
They decided to give it a shot. Jenna got a flashlight, then they climbed the small, dark set of stairs that went up from the landing. They scoured the cramped, low attic, pushing boxes and old furniture out of the way so they could see behind it, but they found no sign of Byron.
When they got back to the second floor, they went through the rest of the rooms there just in case—the other two bedrooms, the two bathrooms and the big closet on the landing.
When there was nowhere else to look, they trudged back down the stairs and into Jenna's bathroom. Jenna sat on the edge of the tub and rinsed the attic dust from her feet and hands, ending by splashing the clear, warm water on her face. Mack waited until she was finished, then rinsed the dust off himself, as well.
They returned to the bedroom and settled back down in bed. Mack pulled her close.
She laid her head on his chest. He stroked her arm tenderly and she listened to the strong, steady beating of his heart.
After a while, she whispered a confession. "I don't think I really heard him. I think I only wanted to." She felt Mack's lips against her hair and asked, "Do you think we'll ever find him?"
"Hell, Jenna. How would I know?"
She lifted her head, found his eyes through the darkness. "It doesn't matter if you know. Just say yes."
"All right. Yes." With his thumb he wiped away the two tears that had somehow managed to get away from her and trail down her cheeks.
She sniffed and laid her head back down. "I guess I can probably go to sleep now."
He spoke once more, his voice low and infinitely soft. "I love you, Jenna. I've always loved you."
"I know, Mack. I love you, too."
"Love wasn't enough before, was it?"
"No, Mack. It wasn't."
"Will it be enough now?" Something in his voice made her certain that he smiled then, though she still lay against his chest and could not see his face. "Now it's your turn to say yes, whether you really know the answer or not."
She lifted her head again. "Yes." He kissed the end of her nose. Then she asked cautiously, "Are you … ready to talk about it now? About the things each of us wants? About whether we could make our lives fit together again?"
He looked at her deeply. Then he settled her head back onto his chest. "Not now. We have a week and a day left of our original agreement. Let's make the most of it. We can work everything out at the end."
* * *
Chapter 14
« ^ »
They brought Lacey home the next day, Sunday. The doctor said it would be several weeks before she could walk without the aid of a crutch.
Mack carried her into the house from the car. She was groggy from the painkillers she'd been given and fell asleep shortly after Mack laid her on the sofa bed. Jenna and Mack tiptoed out, closing both sets of louvered doors, the one to the kitchen and the one to the central hall.
Lacey slept a lot the next couple of days. Jenna checked on her frequently, making sure she was comfortable, that she had everything she needed.
But Lacey had no use for coddling. She kept shooing Jenna away, insisting that she was fine. She knew how to use her crutches if she needed them. She could hobble to the bathroom and the kitchen well enough.
She tried to be upbeat, but Jenna could see the worry in her eyes. She'd planned to take a few weeks off, and then go back to Southern California and find herself another job. A few weeks now looked as if it might stretch into a few months. She'd had to call her L.A. roommate and tell her she'd better find someone else to help with the rent.
Also, Lacey had let her health insurance lapse after she'd lost her most recent waitress job. To pay for her surgery she'd had to dip into the money their mother had left her. Jenna offered to help out, but Lacey only shook her head and said she could and would pay her own bills.
Jenna tried not to worry about her. But the cheerful facade was such a very thin veneer. Lacey's blue eyes had circles under them. And she didn't put much effort into personal hygiene. Her gorgeous golden hair hung lank around her shoulders.
Twice, Jenna tried to bring up the subject of Logan. Both times, Lacey shook her head. "Let it be, Jenna," she said. "Just … leave it alone."
"If you ever want to talk about it, you know I'm here."
"Thanks, but there's nothing to talk about."
So Jenna left it alone. She fussed over her sister as much as Lacey would allow. And she checked on the shop daily, but let her clerks keep the schedules she had set for them during the time she was supposed to have been away. She had the ceiling of the upstairs room repaired and retextured and even bought the paint she needed to finish the job.
<
br /> Mack had business of his own to tend to. He went out Monday and returned with a carful of computer equipment. He set it all up in one of the spare rooms on the second floor. He spent a few hours a day in there, on the Internet, presumably trading stocks.
The majority of the time, though, Jenna and Mack managed to be together. They devoted a portion of that time to hunting for Byron.
Jenna called the local animal shelter and reported the cat missing. The woman at the shelter assured her that since the cat wore an identifying tag on his collar, Jenna would be notified immediately should the cat be brought in.
They had flyers made, with a picture of Byron, Jenna's name, address and phone number, the number on Byron's tag, and an offer of a reward. They tacked the flyers up all over the neighborhood, and even went around knocking on doors, asking people if they'd seen a shorthaired black cat with some gray around the neck and a blue studded collar. No one had.
After they'd put up the flyers and talked to the neighbors, they told each other that Byron would show up some time soon.
And they focused on enjoying themselves, on making the most of every moment they had. They drove down to Sacramento for a couple of evenings out, where they ate at good restaurants, went to a play one night and a movie the other. Then they rode back up to the foothills after midnight to enjoy what was left of the darkness in Jenna's bed.
Closer to home, they explored the local tourist attractions, climbing down into the cool, moist caves of hard-rock gold mines together, wandering the rooms of a couple of gingerbread-decked historic Victorian houses. On Wednesday they took a long drive up into the mountains, where the fall colors were already in full show.
They kept to the agreement they'd made, to work everything out when the two weeks were over. Sometimes Jenna wondered at their mutual reticence when it came to discussing the future. But she didn't allow herself to wonder too long or too deeply. This lovely time they shared was finite. She didn't want to waste a minute of it stewing over the differences that could push them apart.
On Thursday Lacey asked Jenna if she'd pick up a few art supplies for her, a couple of big sketch pads and some charcoals and pastels. Jenna took this as a good sign, that Lacey was ready to do more than read and watch TV and worry about the money she didn't have. Jenna and Mack drove down to Sacramento to the store Lacey had recommended.
THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED Page 14
