One Last Kiss

by Susan Ward

  I take a deep breath and try to focus on what I’m doing. I thought we were past questions on this.

  “On and off since high school. He’s my BTN.”

  “BTN?”

  I reach for another square of gauze. I cut a strip of medical tape and tack it on the counter.

  I look up to find his eyes waiting expertly.

  “Are you going to tell me or not? What’s a BTN?”

  I shake my head as I put the gauze over his cut.

  “It’s just a stupid term girls use. It stands for better than nothing. The guy you hang out with when you don’t have a real boyfriend.”

  He stares at me gravely, but his expression has softened a little more.

  “I don’t want you ever seeing him again.” His tone has changed to soft, sensual.

  “I don’t think there is much of a chance of that after tonight.”

  “Good. He’s not someone you should be mixed up with.”

  I meet his gaze directly. “What do you care?”

  “I care, Linda.”

  His eyes darken.

  My breath hitches.

  I am suddenly too full of my own emotions.

  I step into his arms and kiss him on his chest.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ruined our lovely evening. I’m sorry you hurt your hand because of my crazy life. I make everything shitty. Everything a mess…”

  He stops me with a kiss and stands up from his stool wearing a predatory, hungry look.

  “Don’t apologize, Linda. Take me to bed and make up for it.”

  ~

  I wake alone in the bed, shrouded in moonlight. I sit up, rub my eyes, and check the clock. Four a.m. and Jack is no longer in the room.

  After we made love, things felt better between us, but there is still something off with Jack. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but instinct tells me something is wrong.

  I reach for the duvet to wrap around me and then change my mind. I drop to the floor beside the shopping bags and rummage through them for the pretty black silk nightie set that Jack slipped into the purchases without asking me.

  I pull the dainty shift with the beaded bodice over my head, slip into the robe, and then do a fast check of myself in the mirror.

  Wow, is that really me? I look so sexy and yet elegant in this.

  I pad down the hallway, checking rooms as I pass. Nothing. Maybe his hand is hurting or has started bleeding through the bandage.

  I head toward the kitchen.

  I flip on a lights. No Jack here. The only wing of the house left to search is where Maria and the kids’ bedrooms are.

  I really don’t want to go there. I don’t know how he lives in this house, knowing that his son died here. I would have moved the next day.

  I’m about to switch off the lights when something on the patio catches my attention. I lean up over the sink and stare out the wall of glass. The lawn lights are on and there he is.

  Jack is sitting on the patio staring out at the ocean. There is something in how he looks right now that makes my heart clench. Beautiful. Isolated. Alone.

  I slide open the French doors. Jack’s raised voice makes me halt one step out onto the patio. I hadn’t noticed the speaker phone on the table beside him.

  “I don’t care what you think, Walter. You are not taking my daughter away.”

  “She’s not doing well, Jack. I don’t know why you can’t see it. She won’t talk about that night. She needs to talk. You need to get her into counseling.”

  Jack rakes a frustrated hand through his tousled golden waves. “I know my daughter, Walter. When she’s ready to talk, she’ll let it out. She was very close to her brother. It is not in her interest to force her to relive his death. I won’t do that to my girl. We all deal with things differently.”

  An aggravated sigh. “I don’t want to fight you in court. You know that.”

  “Then stop, Walter. For all our sakes. Stop. Lena wouldn’t want this. It needs to stop.”

  “She’s my granddaughter. All I have left. I love her. I’m doing what I think is right.”

  “I know you love her, Walter. I know this isn’t about you and me. I know you want what’s best for Chrissie, but taking her to live with you isn’t the answer.”

  A long silence between them.

  “Will you at least consider boarding school instead of a private tutor at home?” says the voice through the phone in weary desperation. “It’s not good for her to be that isolated. It might help for her to be around other girls.”

  “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll consider it,” Jack says stiffly.

  “It would be better all around,” Walter says.

  Jack clicks off the phone.

  He glances up at the sky, his unfathomable blue eyes intense, and his expression is unreadable. But he is troubled, very troubled.

  He looks so vulnerable sitting there lost in his worries. He is a stunning man. Golden hair, broad shoulders, narrow hips and a tanned, well-muscled abdomen. But it is the emotions that flash in his eyes, never quite completely hidden, that is drawing me too quickly, too deeply into him.

  With the smile in his eyes there is always a ghost of sadness, a peaceful soul at war with a tortured one.

  “You’re a wonderful man,” I whisper. “There isn’t a court on earth who would take your daughter away from you.”

  He turns his head to look at me, a flash of surprise as if he’d been totally unaware of my presence, and then a frown flits across his face.

  “How would you know? You haven’t any idea what kind of father I am. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Linda.”

  I shrug. “Who hasn’t? But I know a good man from a bad man. I know a good father from a bad father. There is one thing I know, Jackson Parker. It’s men.”

  He pulls me down on the chaise in front of him, easing me back between his thighs as he drops a kiss on my head. It feels good to have his arms tightly wrapped around me, holding onto me in that way men do in crisis.

  And I’m doing what I do best. Just being here for troubled men. Being who they need me to be.

  “Why don’t you come back to bed, Jack?”

  “Can we just sit here and wait for the dawn?”

  I nod.

  He buries his lips in my hair and I settle more comfortably against him.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” he whispers.

  I smile. “Wrong. I found you.”

  He laughs.

  Then I sense another change in his mood, back into sadness.

  “Don’t go back to LA yet. Without you, I wouldn’t be making it through this week half as well as I am.”

  “You want me to stay?”

  “More than you know.”

  “Then I’ll stay. As long as you need me to.”

  His hurts. His needs. I am the solace he is holding onto in this isolated bubble of brilliance and misery.

  I lean forward and kiss his forearm. But this time is different. I’m not staying only for Jack. This time I’m staying for me.

  I’ve crossed the line. I want Jack to be who I need him to be and I desperately wish there was a way never to face the inevitable reality that he won’t be.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Day 7…

  I hold the wicker basket and bounce off the edge of the table.

  “Can we go home now?” I ask, part exasperated and part amused.

  Jack looks up, startled. “What? I love Thursday afternoon farmer’s market.”

  I raise my brows.

  “Where do you think I get everything we’ve been eating?” he adds, smiling.

  I ease down the vegetable aisle as he moves on to the peppers. He smiles at absolutely everyone. He talks to anyone who approaches him. And he is unaware that the chemistry beneath the tent is super charged by him and that everyone is staring.

  I lean into him. “Doesn’t it make you feel uncomfortable to have everyone staring at you?” I whisper.

  “They are not staring at me. They’r
e staring at you.” He drops a kiss on my mouth. “You look beautiful today.”

  I flush, though I admit that my trendy blank pantsuit and stylish cork and Italian leather platforms are flattering.

  I lower my sunglasses to the tip of my nose.

  “Do you miss it?”

  Jack is focused on rummaging through the onions. I would never have believed this if I wasn’t here seeing it. The man does his own shopping.

  “Touring,” I add, catching his attention. “The music. The fans. Being adored by everyone.”

  “I’m still adored by everyone,” he says in a boyishly teasing way. “I perform. Just not as much as I used to. But my partying on a bus and being months on the road days are behind me. I have responsibilities now and there’s only me.”

  For some inexplicable reason, Jack putting his daughter before everything else makes me hurt. If only my dad had been this kind of man.

  I force a smile. “How long is your daughter gone?”

  “Chrissie comes back next week. She’s driving up from LA with the housekeeper.”

  He drops two onions into the basket.

  I suffer the feeling of time running out and the pressure of reality closing in. The daughter coming back means he won’t want me to stay.

  Jack frowns. “Are you OK?”

  I nod. “Just tired. Do you think we can leave?”

  He takes my hand. “We’ve pretty much got everything we need this week. Let’s get out of here.”

  I’m silent as we go back to the car. I open the door myself as he settles the basket behind the seat and I snap my seat belt into place.

  I stare out the window as we drive up the streets that are starting to become familiar to me. We have settled into a routine of living together that is deceptively comfortable. I’m running out of time. The daughter is returning. I need to ask him if he’ll help me find my dad.

  “Do you want to stop on the pier for a drink before we head back to the house?” he asks.

  “No. I just want to go home.”

  Home. I’ve lost perspective so quickly. I shake my head. Get on with it, Linda. Do it!

  I turn to angle my body in my seat so I am facing Jack.

  “Do you know a drummer name Brian Cray?”

  Jack laughs. “That’s a name you don’t hear very often in the real world. Of course I know him. Everyone in the industry knows Brian.” Jack’s eyes shift to my face. “Why?”

  I can feel the pulse in my wrist thumping up against my skin. The words are locked in my head. Just ask him, Linda. Ask if he knows how to contact him.

  I shrug. In the last few days, I’ve told Jack practically my entire life history. I don’t know why I can’t do this.

  “You’re not going to tell me you’ve been involved with him, are you?” Jack teases.

  Everything inside me freezes suddenly. I shake my head.

  “No. My name is Linda Cray,” I blurt out.

  Jack’s gaze sharpens. I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he pulls to the side of the road, the tires squealing as the car abruptly stops. He is studying me, those penetrating blues eyes probing, relentless, and I look away.

  Damn, why didn’t I wait? We’re less than a handful of miles from home. And instinct is telling me I don’t want this scene somewhere not private.

  “Of fuck. Is that why you’re with me? Is that what this is about?” he asks, his voice gritty and raw.

  I turn to lock eyes with his. I can’t speak. The emotions are flashing too quickly on his face for me to read any of them clearly.

  His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ, you’re his daughter, aren’t you?”

  I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate. I fumble for the door handle. “I need to get out. I need air.”

  He grabs my arm. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain every part of this to me.”

  My cheeks burn. “Explain what?”

  His eyes can dissect like a hawk hunting for prey. I grow even colder inside.

  “On the beach,” he says. I don’t at all like what’s in his tone. “Was that an accident or some kind of setup to get close to me? How long have you been playing me?”

  “Playing you?” I frown and shuck in a few quick breaths of air. “I wasn’t playing you! Playing you for what?”

  “You are a beautiful woman. You can have any man you want,” he says in a whisper, but his expression is the opposite— enraged. “You’re only here with me because you want something from me. Isn’t that how girls like you work?”

  “Girls like me?” I choke out.

  His gaze sharpens. “Groupie. All the musicians you’ve been with. It’s almost your profession. Do you really attend USC, or is that just something to spice up your narrative?”

  He says it like a man solving a riddle: detached, cold.

  I can tell by how he’s watching me that there is no point in lying. He can read me too well, there is just the right amount of truth in his observations, that anything less than total honesty he will never believe.

  “How long have you been playing me?” he demands, his fingers clenching tighter on the steering wheel.

  I stare down at my hands, folded in my lap. “It didn’t start that way. Not in the beginning. I just found you on the beach. I didn’t even know for sure who you were until later…”

  “How much later?”

  I snap up my face to look at him. “Inside the house. When I saw Lily.”

  He sinks back into his seat, his limbs in a more open posture, his fingers slowly relaxing their grip of the steering wheel.

  “So you decided to stick around. Play attentive, accommodating girlfriend. You want me to tell you where your father is! You’ve been trading your body to find your father. Trading favors for help, so to speak?”

  That’s it. Without thought, I slap him. My hand instantly starts to burn, and I swivel in my seat, fighting to open the door.

  I stumble out of the car, barely managing to stay on my feet. I run through the tall weeds until my legs can no longer carry me and I sink onto the dirt, breathing heavily and trying to reign in my spinning thoughts and emotions.

  Furiously, I brush at my tears. There is nothing Jack said that should have offended me. It’s all true. But hearing him say the unvarnished truth hurt me so badly because—oh god—I love him. I’ve let myself be lured out of my safe zone far enough to fall in love with him.

  Goddammit, I let myself fall in love with Jackson Parker! How stupid can I be? This is not how this was supposed to go.

  A week-long affair and then neatly over. I’m supposed to have some fun. He’s supposed to be amused by me. I’m supposed to get from him the location of my father and he’s supposed to watch me leave.

  An encounter: beginning, middle and end, with no hurt hearts on either side. That’s how these flings go. They are not supposed to end with me loving him.

  As I hug my legs with my arms and try to hold my shaking limbs steady, I hear faint footsteps closing in on me. Fuck, he’s following me. It would have been better for us both if he just drove off and dumped me here.

  Now, I have to face him with the truth of my deception and the truth of my heart.

  From close behind me, I hear his husky, gentle voice say,

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me truth about everything?”

  I bury my face in my hands. The words bubble up and I can’t stop them.

  “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I didn’t play you. Well, not after the first day because everything changed. At least for me it changed. I’m in love with you, so if you’re going to tell me off, can you please do it quickly and go away?”

  I hear a heavy sigh and I can feel his stare. He’s moved to stand before me, and I haven’t yet looked at him.

  “If you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen,” he offers quietly.

  That’s it? That’s all he has to say to me after all the horrible things I’ve done?

>   “I don’t know if I want to tell you anything.”

  I sound just a touch pouty and I hate that. It makes me sound young and weak and I don’t want him to think that I’m either.

  He sinks down beside me on the dirt and takes me into his arms. At the first touch I melt against his chest and the tears return.

  He waits until the tears stop, then gives me a slight squeeze. “It’s going to be OK. Nothing is ever as terrible as we think it is.”

  Cautiously, I look up at him. “If you believe that, you’re lucky. Everything always proves to be more terrible than I think it is.”

  Jack laughs tenderly. “In all moments a wisecrack. It’s all going to be OK. You’ve got to start having faith in something at some point in your life. Why not now?”

  His gentleness, his affection for me, is reflected in his eyes. This is the biggest part of us that I don’t grasp. It’s illogical. It all makes it impossible for me to let down my guard enough to believe he’s giving me what I can see he is offering me.

  His eyes say he cares for me. My fragile heart says Why me? Why would the man who can have anyone, let me in and care for me?

  I sniffle and lay my cheek back against his shirt. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not. I may not like how we started, but I sure like where we are.”

  I don’t trust myself enough to speak. I nervously peek up at him. He smiles at me.

  “Why don’t we go home and figure this out together,” he murmurs.

  I curl back into his chest, hiding my face. “I’d rather go home to bed,” I tease softly.

  I peek up at him again.

  He raises his eyebrows slightly, looks a touched amused, and then shakes his head.

  “You haven’t figured out my code yet.” His voice is suggestive. “I didn’t say we’d start with figuring this out together.”

  I give a soggy laugh and he drops a kiss on the top of my head. He stands and holds out a hand to me.

  “Come.” Taking his hand, he helps guide me onto my feet.

  This contact, flesh to flesh, is everything I’ve ever dreamed of with a man. Normal and tender and intimate and kind.

  His arm slips protectively around my waist as we slug through the high weeds back to the car. I can’t reconcile this wonderful man being here with me, but maybe it’s time to stop fighting it.