Second Act

by Herkness, Nancy

  Jessica reeled it off and heard her phone ping with a text notification. It reminded her that she’d never read Hugh’s text message.

  “You’ve got my number now, too,” Pete said, rising from the couch to his impressive height. He came around the table and took her hand, enveloping it in the warmth of his. “I’m looking forward to Sunday,” he said with that perfect smile.

  A little shiver of attraction ran through her. Pete was so different from Hugh—so down-to-earth, solid, and Iowan, without any of her ex’s dark intensity—that her reaction surprised her. But maybe Pete would be exactly the right counterbalance to Hugh.

  While Aidan walked his friend to the door, Jessica picked up the empty beer bottles and carried them into the kitchen. She had plunked them in the sink to rinse when she heard Aidan’s footsteps heading up the stairs.

  “Aidan,” she called. He wasn’t going to get away without explaining his sudden unemployment—and his plans to remedy it.

  The speed of his steps accelerated.

  “Aidan James Quillen, get back down here right now,” she shouted as she marched into the living room.

  The footsteps stopped and then sounded again, but in the reverse direction.

  “Jeez, you sound just like Mom,” her brother said as he reached the bottom step. “And that’s not a compliment.”

  “We have to talk,” Jessica said, pointing to the chair where she’d been sitting.

  “Sure thing.” Aidan perched on the chair with a nonchalance that she saw right through. She had to admit that he looked good. His rangy frame had filled out, so that he appeared more man than boy now, even in faded jeans and a T-shirt with a beer logo on it. His tan brought out the slight tint of blue in his gray eyes, and his sun-streaked hair waved down to his shoulders. That and his unshaven scruff gave him the look of a model in an advertisement for outdoorsy living. However, that just ratcheted up her irritation with him.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said, sitting on the couch. “So I know the news is bad. What happened this time?”

  He shrugged. “I asked for time off to see a lunar eclipse at Machu Picchu with some friends, but my boss wouldn’t give it to me, even though I had the vacation days saved up.” He spread his arms wide. “It was an opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn’t turn it down.”

  “If you had the necessary vacation time, why wouldn’t your boss let you go?”

  “We had a big project that was behind schedule and he claimed that he needed me there to get it done. Which was total BS, because I wasn’t even working on that project.”

  Sympathy for the boss she’d never met flooded Jessica. “Maybe he needed you to take up the slack on your project so other people could focus on the big one.”

  Aidan wouldn’t meet her gaze. “He was just being a jerk. He didn’t like me.”

  Jessica could imagine why. Aidan was a wizard at programming when he was interested enough to focus on the job. But keeping his attention on a project long enough to complete it was a challenge.

  “Did you quit or just not show up?” Jessica asked.

  “I resigned in an e-mail from the airport,” Aidan said. “That’s more than he deserved.”

  “You can’t keep pulling this crap, Aidan. Pretty soon no one will want to hire you.”

  He gave her a complacent smile and tapped his temple with his index finger. “There’s pure tech genius in this brain. People beg me to come work for them.”

  Jessica shook her head. “Word gets around. You don’t want to become known for being unreliable.”

  Not to mention that Aidan had complained about the lower pay at the last two jobs he’d taken. She suspected that his reputation had preceded him at the higher-paying tech companies.

  “Don’t worry, sis, I won’t become a permanent resident here.” His tone was resentful.

  She gave him a long, steady look. “You know that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You’re concerned about my future, when I’m not so young anymore and need health insurance and a pension plan.” He gave her his little-brother grin. “But I’m young now and I want to enjoy life while I can. I’m not a workaholic like you.”

  His last words felt like a smack in the face. She wasn’t a workaholic. She put in long hours because her patients needed her, not because she preferred work over pleasure. In fact, her job gave her pleasure. Sucking in a deep breath, she counted to ten before she said in an even tone that she was proud of, “A job is called a job for a reason. You have to show up even when you don’t want to in order to get paid. If it were all fun and games, people would do it for free.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m twelve,” Aidan said, but his sulky expression made him appear about that age.

  “Then don’t act like you are.” She held up her hand in apology. She didn’t want to fight with him any longer. “Sorry, I had a rough day.”

  “That’s why I brought Pete over,” Aidan said in a blatant redirection of the conversation. “I thought he would take your mind off things, cheer you up.”

  “You’re such an altruist,” Jessica said with heavy sarcasm, but she gave up on trying to drum a sense of responsibility into Aidan. He seemed to be impervious to the concept. He was good-looking, highly skilled, and charming. In the real, imperfect world, his combination of attributes meant he could always find a job, even if it wasn’t always a good one. He had skated happily through life that way—so far.

  “Hey, Pete’s a great guy. I’m glad you’re going out with him.” His expression shifted to concern, making him look entirely adult. “I worry about you, Jess. You may think I have too much fun, but I don’t think you have enough. Your clinic has kind of taken over your life.” He shook his head as she opened her mouth. “I know you do important work. I think that’s great. But you’ve got no balance.”

  Her irresponsible little brother was talking about balance? Yet she’d had the same thought yesterday and the sense that her life was becoming single focused had niggled at the back of her mind for the last couple of weeks. She’d ascribed it to the postholiday letdown when the once-pristine snow had frozen into gray, grit-filled heaps with no colorful decorations to distract the eye from them.

  “Maybe Pete won’t be the right guy,” Aidan continued. “But you have to get out there again. I mean it’s been eight years since you broke up with Hugh. How many guys have you dated between then and now?”

  He might as well have body-slammed her into the couch. Hugh had just shown up in her life again, and now her brother was insinuating that she was still pining after him. Yes, it had taken her a while to get over the end of their engagement, but she didn’t turn down other men because of that.

  “I’ve dated plenty.” Once, twice, three times at most. Maybe because it was impossible for them to measure up to a man who was now half the world’s romantic fantasy. The thought made her look at Aidan with a mix of respect and dismay. When had he become so perceptive about her love life?

  “But you haven’t let anyone stick around, or I would have known. Maybe you’re still hung up on Hugh.”

  She would have denied it if the memory of Hugh standing in her office doorway hadn’t risen up in her mind. She’d fought it down at the time, but for a moment she’d wanted to press herself up against him from knee to shoulder, inhale his scent of sandalwood and clean, intense masculinity, and feel his arms come around her to hold her as though she were the most incredible person he’d ever met.

  “It’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I’m doing fine,” she said. Aidan’s concern made her heart glow with a soft warmth. He’d definitely matured.

  “I think you’ll really like Pete.” Aidan’s stomach rumbled loudly, and he grinned as he flattened his palm over it. “Did you eat dinner yet? I thought I’d get some Chinese takeout.”

  “I’ll treat if you go pick it up.” She had no idea how much money Aidan had left after his trip to Machu Picchu, if any.

  When Aidan tr
amped off into the winter night to retrieve their dinner, Jessica stretched out on the sofa, felled by a combination of exhaustion and beer on an empty stomach. As she settled, her cell phone dug into her hip, so she fished it out of her pocket.

  Two text messages showed up as unread. She swiped open Pete’s, which read: Mexican, Brazilian, or Japanese? She liked his simple directness and being given a choice.

  Then she swiped on Hugh’s.

  I should have done better.

  She slapped her phone down on the sofa cushion with a growl of exasperation. Hugh had managed to phrase his message so it was almost, but not quite, an apology.

  Chapter 4

  Jessica admired the way the light from the pillar candle in the cut-crystal holder turned Pete’s hair to spun gold. They’d texted back and forth about the fact that Wellsburg, Iowa, had none of the choices of cuisine he’d offered her before they settled on Brazilian. She’d expected a small, casual place in Soho, but he’d taken her to a sophisticated midtown restaurant with modern twists on classic South American dishes. The napkins were heavy white linen, the roomy chairs upholstered in taupe leather, and the room sleekly modern.

  In a way, she was disappointed in his choice. She would have preferred him to act more like the solid, uncomplicated Iowan farmer she had assumed he would grow up to be. This was the kind of restaurant she could picture Hugh frequenting, and she wanted Pete to offer a counterweight to her ex-fiancé’s unwelcome pull on her.

  Of course, she might have been tipped off when Pete had come to pick her up in a dark-green Range Rover. Aside from the cost of the high-end vehicle itself, keeping a car in the city was expensive. Keeping a big car was even more so.

  She also noticed how at ease Pete was in the urbane setting. Although his attire wasn’t on the level of Hugh’s custom-tailored suit, Pete looked downright elegant in a subtle blue windowpane plaid blazer, gray trousers, and a blue-and-white-striped shirt.

  It was becoming harder and harder to think of him as her brother’s high school friend. Which made Jessica glad she’d worn slim-fitting black pants, a lavender cashmere sweater, and kitten-heeled ankle boots. It was her go-to outfit for dress-up dinners out. As she had torn the dry cleaner’s plastic off the trousers, she realized she hadn’t worn them in at least four months. Maybe Aidan was right. Maybe she needed to get out more.

  “I recommend the moqueca capixaba,” Pete said, looking up from the menu to catch her watching him. The corners of his mouth kicked up in a slight smile. “The broth has a nice combination of curry and coconut milk.”

  “You eat here often?”

  “It’s near my office, so I sometimes bring business colleagues here.” He scanned around the room. “I like the place, and the food is dynamite.”

  The waiter glided up to take their order. Jessica took Pete’s recommendation about the fish stew, so he ordered white wine for both of them, his choice making the waiter nod in approval.

  “How did you end up in Silicon Valley before this?” she asked when the waiter left.

  He smiled full-on, sending a little slide of heat through her. “You inspired me.”

  “Me? How?” Other than that miscalculated kiss in high school, she and Pete had been mere acquaintances through Aidan.

  He twirled an empty wineglass on the tablecloth. “You were so focused on getting into college so you could become a veterinarian. I’d never really thought of school as a means to an end. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to college. But you changed my thinking.”

  “Wow, I had no idea I was ever a good influence on anyone,” she joked, but with a glow of satisfaction. She’d certainly never been able to exert any sway over Aidan.

  “In my opinion, you’re a pretty damn good person.”

  “Um, thank you. That’s really nice.”

  He must have sensed her discomfort and went back to his story. “You—and Aidan, if truth be told—also got me looking beyond Wellsburg, Iowa,” he said. “So I went to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.”

  “When you decide to look farther afield, you go for it,” Jessica said. Underneath his easygoing facade, Pete must have a pretty powerful drive, since it had gotten him all the way to a top-shelf college in Pennsylvania. The realization both impressed and unsettled her. Hugh’s overwhelming desire to succeed was what had driven them apart.

  “I got a scholarship,” he said with a shrug. “The place seemed like a foreign country, but their business school was famous for its accounting major. And that’s what I wanted to study.”

  “Then you continued to broaden your horizons by moving to Silicon Valley?”

  “I got recruited, and California sounded even more foreign than Pennsylvania.” He shook his head. “Silicon Valley sure was, too.”

  “More exotic than Manhattan?” Jessica had followed a similar geographical path, now that she thought about it.

  “Oh, yeah. At least it snows here.” He winked just as the waiter arrived with the wine.

  She was no longer surprised when Pete tasted it with the expertise of a connoisseur. Once the waiter had filled both their glasses, Pete raised his. “To Iowans with broad horizons.”

  They touched glasses with a muted clink. The wine was delicious, but she’d expected that. “How broad are yours?” Jessica asked. She held up the wine. “Have you been to Brazil?”

  “A couple of times, although most of my days there were spent in conference rooms.” Pete grimaced before he entertained her with a few stories of his journeys to various foreign locales. He’d traveled far more widely than a couple of trips to Rio.

  “How about you?” he asked. “Where have you been?”

  “Edinburgh, to the veterinary school for some postgrad work.” She’d loved wandering around the historic city where almost everything was older than Iowa.

  Pete smiled. “I spent a few days there once. Great city. Then I got the crazy idea that since I was in Scotland, I should play golf, so I drove over to St. Andrews. I thought I was a decent golfer until I landed in one of their pot bunkers. There’s one called Hell, and that’s exactly what it felt like.”

  Jessica liked his self-deprecation. The conversation flowed easily through the appetizers and the main course as they traded memories of their hometown and the people in it.

  When the waiter offered them dessert menus, Pete checked his watch before he gave her a glinting smile. “I think we can have one more course before I have to take you home.”

  The pleasure of Pete’s company had made Jessica forget all about her self-imposed curfew. “My fairy godmother will probably cut me a break just this once,” she said, taking the heavy vellum menu. “After all, the whole point of eating dinner is to get to dessert.”

  “That wasn’t my point in having dinner with you,” Pete said, his smile changing to something less playful and more intent.

  A flush crept up her cheeks. Torn between being flattered and being uncertain of where she wanted this to go, she dropped her gaze to the list of sweets. “What is a brigadeiro?” she asked.

  “It’s a classic Brazilian treat,” Pete said. “Sort of like soft chocolate fudge, only here they serve it in a glass with a spoon.”

  “Well, it’s chocolate, so I’m going with that.” She put her menu down.

  Pete ordered a cheese platter. “And a Sandeman forty-year-old tawny port for each of us,” he added. “You appear to have a sweet tooth, so it seems like the right after-dinner drink.”

  After the waiter departed, Pete lounged back in his chair. “You can tell me that it’s none of my business, but Aidan says that you were once engaged to Hugh Baker.”

  Jessica almost choked on her last swallow of wine. Why the hell would Aidan share that with Pete? “Did he also tell you that it was a long time ago?”

  “He did, but I don’t imagine you forget someone that famous. I’m surprised no one in Wellsburg ever mentioned it.”

  “Hugh wasn’t Julian Best back then, so it wasn’t big news.” His casting as the sup
er spy had brought the problems in their engagement to a crisis point, in fact. “It also didn’t last long.” Their entire relationship had been seventeen months of first heaven and then torment. She wished she didn’t remember both so vividly.

  The waiter presented them with two tulip-shaped glasses filled with a tawny liquid. Glad of the interruption, Jessica took a sip and savored the sweet burn on her tongue and the smooth slide down her throat. “Nice.”

  He acknowledged her compliment with a pleased nod. “Kind of hard to compete with Julian Best, though.”

  She decided to address the easy part rather than the implication that Pete considered himself in competition with her ex-fiancé. “Everyone gets that wrong. In real life, Hugh isn’t a suave, dangerous, tuxedo-wearing secret agent. He’s an actor who takes on a persona on the set. At home, he’s just a regular guy with morning breath, poor taste in neckties, and an addiction to cheese puffs. The only thing not normal about Hugh is that he’s never had a bad hair day in his life. I hated that about him.”

  Pete swirled his port in the glass. “Good to know that he’s almost human.”

  Hugh had been quite human when they’d met on the set of a low-budget indie movie he was starring in. Starring was a loose term, because the focus of the movie was a pack of dogs, one of whom had died during filming. That was where Jessica had come in. She’d been fresh out of vet school, working at the big, cutting-edge veterinary hospital in Los Angeles where they treated everything from dogs with gunshot wounds to a king cobra with pneumonia. When the movie got some bad press for allegedly working the dog to death, the director contracted with the animal hospital for a vet to be on set all the time. Since Jessica was the newest and therefore least valuable member of the staff, she’d gotten the job.

  Turned out the dog had died because it had a heart defect, not because the director was inhumane, so her job was easy. When the dogs weren’t required for shooting, she kept them hydrated and in the shade of a canopy set up especially for the canine actors. When the dogs were in action, she helped the grateful dog trainer wrangle them for the cameras. She’d been so focused on the dogs for the first couple of days that she had paid no attention to the human actors.