by Heidi Betts
As intended, the query drew Grace to a halt in the center of the room. Blond curls floated around her face as she turned on Jenna, eyes narrowed and blazing fire.
“Are you taking his side?” she demanded. “Do you think I’m making this up?”
If Jenna didn’t know better, she’d swear she was about to be on the wrong end of a rotisserie spear.
“Of course not,” she replied evenly, hoping to bring Grace’s level of rage down just a notch. “But I wasn’t there, so I don’t really know what happened. Can you fill me in?”
Behind Grace, Ronnie slowly straightened in her seat, bobbing her head up and down. Yes, yes, she mouthed, keep going.
“He’s a lying, cheating bastard,” Grace spat. But she didn’t move closer to the closet or back toward the balcony. “I went there to surprise him. Ronnie and I went there to surprise both of them.”
Anger tinged her words, but there was sadness there, too, and her eyes glistened with tears. “She was in his bed, half naked, and he was in the shower. What does that tell you?”
“That he’s a lying, cheating bastard,” Jenna agreed. And then a second later, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand and said, “Boy, it’s warm in here. Are you warm? I could use a drink, how about you?”
Grace blinked a few times, as though trying to follow the rapid switch in topics. No doubt she was so focused on her own misery that nothing else made much sense to her.
Jenna had been there a time or two herself. Not dealing with infidelity, but a betrayal all the same. When Gage had started pulling away and it had become clear divorce was in her future, she’d gone a little crazy, too.
For months, she’d walked around in a daze. She functioned, she communicated, she went to work and came home, went to her Wednesday-night knitting group and for drinks afterwards with her friends.
But the whole time, she’d felt removed from everyone and everything around her. Her entire focus, her every thought had been on Gage… how much she’d loved him, how much he’d disappointed her, the life they were supposed to have had together, and the life they now never would. Everything else was just white noise.
So she knew how Grace felt, knew what she was going through and the kinds of thoughts that were racing around in her brain.
She also knew that if she could just keep Grace distracted, she and Ronnie might be able to calm her down enough that she wouldn’t do anything stupid or make matters worse.
“I’m sure Zack has something in the fridge. Help yourself,” Grace told her distractedly.
Jenna gave a snort, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and cocking a hip. “No, thank you. I don’t want anything from that jerk-off. And you shouldn’t, either. You don’t even want to be here, do you? I mean, why give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt you? When he gets home and sees this place, he’ll realize how upset you were and probably get a kick out of it, asshole that he is.”
It took a second for Grace to absorb what Jenna was saying, but then her eyes narrowed, widened, and narrowed again.
“You’re right. Why am I even here?”
Behind her, Ronnie bounced to her feet, and Bruiser bounded up beside her.
“I’m better than this. I’m better than he is. He never deserved me.”
“No, he didn’t,” Jenna concurred, because she knew it was what Grace needed to hear. And heck, it was probably true.
“Let’s go somewhere else-your place or Ronnie’s. You can even come out to Aunt Charlotte’s and stay with me for a while, if you want.”
Grace shook her head. “I want to go home. I want to drink wine, and eat Oreos, and sleep until I’m old and gray.”
Both Jenna and Ronnie nodded, flanking their friend, each looping an arm through one of hers to lead her out of the bedroom.
“Sounds good to me,” Jenna said. “We’ll stop for massive quantities of wine and cookies on the way.”
They had Grace halfway across the living room when she stopped, muttered, “Wait,” and turned back toward the bedroom. Jenna and Ronnie raced after her, afraid of what she might be up to, but then gave mirrored sighs of relief when all she did was grab an old taped and battered hockey stick from the rear of Zack’s closet.
Grace returned a second later, stick in hand. “This is mine now,” she told them.
Jenna and Ronnie exchanged a glance, silently agreeing not to question or argue. They had Grace calmed down and moving in the right direction; that’s all that mattered. If she wanted to steal a single piece of hockey equipment in order to stick it-pun intended-to Zack, they weren’t going to fight her on it.
Gathering purses and jackets, they herded Grace toward the door, and Jenna made a point of getting there a split second before the others to frantically wave Gage away. Smart man that he was, he strolled a few yards down the hall and out of sight.
“Wait,” Grace said again when they had her halfway out the door.
Both women froze, afraid Grace had changed her mind and was about to go back on a rampage.
But instead, she merely snapped her fingers and called, “Here, Bruiser.”
The giant brown and white Saint Bernard, who had been only a couple steps behind them to begin with, padded straight to Grace, nudging her in the side with his nose and wet, panting tongue.
“He’s mine now, too,” she said to no one in particular, then turned on her heel and marched down the hall toward the elevator, the dog formerly known as Zack’s trailing along at her side.
Purl 10
Thanks to a lot of well-mimed signals and hand gestures, Gage got the hint that Jenna and Ronnie were carting an emotionally battered Grace off and away from causing any more damage at Zack’s apartment. He took the stairs to the lobby while they headed down in the elevator, then followed at a discreet distance as they made their way out of the building and along the sidewalk-at one point skirting piles of broken, torn, and otherwise bedraggled items that looked as though they’d once belonged to Zack-to the parking lot.
Jenna gently set her keys on the roof of her yellow VW Beetle, silently leaving them for him as she passed by and climbed into the back seat of Grace’s car with a much-worse-for-wear-looking Grace. Zack’s dog rode shotgun in the front beside Ronnie, strapped in and for all the world acting like the human he thought he was.
It was funny, he thought, as he squeezed himself into his ex-wife’s sorry excuse for a motor vehicle, that Jenna was suddenly leaving bread crumbs for him when only an hour before she’d been telling him off and insisting he wasn’t welcome at her aunt’s farm or to follow her back to town for this girlfriend crisis intervention.
But that was his Jenna. She might not want him around, but she would never abandon him downtown and without a viable mode of transportation, either.
Then again, she knew how much he hated riding around in her tiny tuna can with wheels. She was probably sitting in that back seat, laughing her ass off over the image of him stuffing himself inside. Steering wheel bumping his chin, knees pressed to his ears. He felt like he was driving a freaking clown car.
Despite his discomfort and wish for his bike, he followed behind Grace’s much larger, more sensible sleek silver Lexus halfway across town to her equally sleek apartment complex. Taking his time, he parked a few spaces away from them, then sat and watched as the foursome piled out of the car and trailed into the building.
As soon as they disappeared, he climbed out of the bug to stretch his legs… and arms and hips and back and neck. If he’d had a cigarette, he probably would have smoked one, but since he tried to limit them to his undercover work only, he leaned his arms on the roof of Jenna’s yellow jelly-bean car and tapped out a bored rhythm with the sides of his thumbs.
The thing about being a cop and working vice was that he was used to waiting. Nine times out of ten, his job involved sitting around doing not much of anything, watching for that one moment when he had enough evidence and the opening to make an arrest.
He used the time-most of it, anyway-t
o go back over the details of his cover and make sure there were no holes that might get him dead. Or to map out all the ways a bust might go down, also in hopes of minimizing casualties and not getting dead.
And sometimes, after he’d gone through all of that, he’d think about why the job was so important to him. The fact that he was making a difference and taking scum off the streets so they couldn’t hurt innocent people like Jenna.
The only problem was, the longer he worked undercover and the more immersed he became with society’s lowlifes, the more he came to think that what he was doing wasn’t really making that much of a difference, after all. No matter how many thieves, murderers, sex offenders, or drug dealers he took down, more seemed to crop up. They were like the mythical Hydras; sever one head and another-maybe even two more-grew in its place.
So what was the point? If he wasn’t really making a difference, if he wasn’t truly keeping the streets safe for his wife and citizens like her, then why bother?
It wasn’t that he didn’t like his job or being undercover. There were parts of it that were downright invigorating. The secrets and lies. The role-playing. The delicate web of deceit that had to be woven around the criminal element. The heightened anticipation of the chase and eventual take-down.
When Jenna filed for divorce, though, it had made him stop and analyze his life, his decisions. He’d thought he was protecting her, keeping her at arm’s length from what he did and the ugliness he saw on a daily basis.
But if what he was doing to keep her safe ended up pushing her away, then was any of it really worthwhile? It felt an awful lot like oiling the squeak in a hamster’s wheel after the animal had already gone paws-up.
And with Jenna no longer around, he couldn’t even be sure she was safe. He couldn’t know where she was or what she was doing.
Oh, he wasn’t one of those men. The possessive types who had to know where their women were every minute of every day for fear they might actually exchange a word or two with another human being. But he did like knowing that she never had any reason to wander into areas where she didn’t belong and could get seriously hurt.
And yeah, if he could have cocooned her inside their house while they were married, he would have. Not to keep her in, but to keep every bad, negative element out.
She’d never understood that about him; his almost obsessive need to protect her. She’d thought he was simply becoming sullen, distant… that he didn’t care enough.
Christ, could anything have been farther from the truth? He’d have taken a bullet for her. Still would.
What he wouldn’t do was bring a child into the world-a world he was all too familiar with-when there was no way for him to guarantee that child’s safety until he was old enough to take care of himself.
Smacking his palms flat on the roof of the Volkswagen, he muttered a short, colorful curse and took a step back.
But now Jenna very well may have taken that choice away from him.
A man should have the right to make his own decisions about whether or not he became a father. He shouldn’t be dosed, bound, and used for stud service.
He’d learned the hard way, however-and on more than one occasion-that people didn’t always get their way. What he did or didn’t want was moot at this point… or at least until they found out whether or not Jenna was pregnant.
Turning, Gage leaned his butt against the car, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides as renewed anger surged inside him.
He wasn’t happy. He might never be happy about Jenna’s actions and the way she’d used him, but that was water under the bridge, wasn’t it?
The same as he’d learned that life wasn’t always easy or fair, he’d also learned that you couldn’t undo what had already been done.
So if it turned out Jenna wasn’t pregnant, that would be great. Things could go back to the way they had been before she and her friends had hatched their devious little plan.
If she was pregnant… well, then he guessed he’d have to deal, just as he’d dealt with any number of other curve balls life had thrown at him.
He wasn’t sure how, exactly, but he suspected it would take a hell of a lot of soul-searching and brain-melting mental contemplation. He’d have to pick up some parenting books, ask some friends on the force with families what to expect, what to do… how to feel. Because right now, he was fucking clueless.
Before he could work himself into too much more of a lather, Jenna appeared at the corner of the brick apartment building, moving swiftly in his direction. He straightened, but remained standing by the driver’s side door until she reached him.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Grace is sleeping. Not peacefully, and she’s got one arm wrapped around that hockey stick-which is apparently a beloved memento from Zack’s childhood-and the other wrapped around Bruiser’s neck, but at least she’s finally getting some rest.”
Careful not to touch him, she skirted past and opened the car door. “Ronnie’s going to stay, but said she’d call if they need anything.” She cocked her head, meeting his gaze. “I had visions of you standing out here all night, refusing to abandon your post, otherwise I’d still be up there with them, too.”
Sliding into the driver’s seat, she slammed the door and turned the key. Then, when she noticed he hadn’t moved to follow suit, she lowered her window to glare at him again.
“Aren’t you going to get in?” she asked. “I’d be happy to go home alone, but I don’t know what I’ll do with your bike once I get there, and it’s going to feel strange walking around without my shadow in tow.”
Face blank, he held her gaze a second longer, then started around the rear of the car. Only when he was sure she wouldn’t see him did he let the ghost of a smile play over his lips.
Good ol’ Jenna, always willing to take in a stray, even if that stray happened to be an overbearing, hulking, and thoroughly unwanted ex-husband.
It was the moans that woke him. Not sexy, encouraging moans like the last time he’d woken up in this narrow, less-than-comfortable bed in Charlotte Langan’s farm house. Instead, it sounded like someone was hurt or scared. And since the only other person in the house with him was Jenna…
He tended to be a light sleeper anyway, but given the weight of his thoughts these days, and the disturbing lack of noise out here in the middle of nowhere, he found himself tossing and turning more than usual. He’d never realized before how much the sounds of traffic several stories below, punctuated with the occasional siren or squeal of brakes, helped to lull him into unconsciousness.
Tossing off the single sheet that covered him, Gage padded barefoot down the hall, wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs. The well-traveled hardwood floor creaked as he made his way downstairs.
Stubborn woman that she was, Jenna had refused to sleep upstairs in a real bed. She didn’t want to encroach on Charlotte ’s personal space by sleeping in her aunt’s room. The only other guest room in the house was used mostly for storage and sported only a bedframe without a mattress, and he knew that much more than Hell would have to freeze over before she’d willingly spend the night with him in what had formerly been “her” room.
So she’d chosen to grab an extra set of sheets from the linen closet and sleep on the sofa in the sitting room. A sofa that had seen better days and looked about as comfortable as a bed of nails or pile of lumber.
He scratched a spot in the middle of his chest and shook his head. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand women… and he didn’t think he’d understand Jenna if he lived to be a thousand.
He’d have been happy to slide over and welcome her into the tiny twin bed with him. He couldn’t have promised it wouldn’t lead to anything, but he could promise that if it did, there would be condoms involved.
Stepping into what passed as Charlotte ’s living room, he saw Jenna stretched out on the red brocade settee. She’d kicked off the covers, revealing a pair of hot pink shortie pajamas with white
, dime-sized polka dots all over them. The cotton-and-spandex material molded to her petite frame like a second skin, and he couldn’t help but look his fill.
He remembered when she used to climb into bed naked and stay that way all night, but the PJs weren’t bad, either. They were both cute and sexy at the same time, showing off her feminine attributes to perfection.
Jenna had always been self-conscious about her figure, he knew. She thought she was too short, too thin, and that her breasts were too small.
Gage had never been nearly as critical. Yeah, she was petite, but he liked that. He liked the fact that he towered over her, and that when he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her close, she nearly disappeared. It made him feel big and strong and powerful, like he could take on the world and protect her from anything.
And her breasts might not be as large as those most often seen in men’s magazines, but he’d never had any complaints. They suited her, and had kept him plenty occupied when they made love.
Filed at the top of that invisible box of things he would never understand about women was the absolute perplexity that Jenna didn’t recognize how totally hot she was. Even now, after the divorce, the whole forced seduction/baby issue between them, and with her sound asleep and him still groggy, she turned him on. The evidence of that was making itself known in the tenting at the front of his underwear.
He was about to turn around and head back upstairs, reassured that Jenna was fine and apparently just mumbling in her sleep, when she moaned again and thrashed slightly on the sofa. Her arm flopped out to the side, nearly smacking into the edge of the coffee table. Her legs jerked, almost as though she were trying to run. And her head rolled back and forth on the pillow stuffed into the corner of the settee.
For a minute, he debated over waking her. It might put a halt to whatever bad dream she was having, but then she’d know she’d been crying out and that he’d heard her. He didn’t want her to be embarrassed, and he most certainly didn’t want her to notice the effect she had on him, even from a distance and while she was still asleep.
