by Heidi Betts
“When last we checked in on Jenna and Gage, dear viewers,” Grace murmured, bringing a curled hand to her mouth as though it held a microphone for her mocking narration, “they were shagging like howler monkeys and loving every minute of it. Let’s catch up, shall we?”
She thrust the invisible mike at Jenna, and Jenna laughed. “All right, all right. Well, at least until this afternoon, we were still shagging like…” She trailed off, not quite able to say it.
Grace, of course, had no such qualms. “Howler monkeys.”
“Yes.” Jenna licked her lips, eyes darting away for a moment in embarrassment. “I’m not sure why, since we both know it’s not going anywhere.”
“I know why,” Ronnie supplied, leaning back a couple of inches while the waitress placed a fresh drink in front of her. “It’s because Gage is a gorgeous hunk of man and you’ve never really gotten over him.”
“That’s not-” Jenna began. But, of course, it was true. She knew it, they knew it… heck, Gage probably knew it now that she’d jumped his bones six ways from Sunday.
Without the hope of getting pregnant, either, which had been her original goal and the whole point of molesting him to begin with. How telling was that?
“He insists we use a condom each and every time,” she confided, tucking her head and playing with the straw in her new cocktail, but not bothering to take a sip. “And first thing every morning, he makes me take one of those home pregnancy tests. They’ve all been negative, of course, but he doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell him it’s too soon to find out if I’m pregnant or not. He still insists I pee on those stupid sticks and wait for them not to turn blue.”
Ronnie made a hmmm sound low in her throat and both women’s brows rose.
“What?” Jenna looked from one to the other, confused by their responses. “Am I missing something?”
It was Ronnie’s turn to shrug. “I’m just wondering why a man who claims not to want kids is so obsessive about finding out whether or not you’re pregnant. I mean, if the thought of fathering a child is so repugnant to him, you’d think he’d have taken off like his tail was on fire the minute he woke up and realized you’d lured him into a little forced procreation.”
“Gage isn’t that kind of man,” she told them with a shake of her head. “I should have known better than to think he could just be a sperm donor. He would never abandon a child, even if its conception hadn’t been entirely mutual.”
“So what’s going to happen if you are pregnant?” Grace wanted to know. “Is he going to stick around and help you raise the child, or does he just want to know you’re pregnant before he takes off and leaves you to deal with it on your own?”
“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “We haven’t really discussed it. And I don’t see the point in worrying or making plans until we know there’s something to make plans for.”
A few brief seconds passed with only the sounds of the bar filling the silence-raised voices, clinking glasses, a baseball game playing on one television, mixed sports coverage playing on another.
Then Grace diplomatically put in, “All we’re saying is that you and Gage never truly wanted to split up in the first place, and neither of you have ever really gotten over each other. Even you’ve admitted that much.”
Jenna opened her mouth to protest, but once again her friends were speaking only the absolute truth, so what could she say that wouldn’t sound either ridiculous or like an out-and-out lie? Clamping her mouth shut, she waited quietly for them to continue.
“So maybe,” Ronnie said, taking over Grace’s point of view, “Gage is sticking around because he’s just as torn up over the divorce as you are.”
“And just as not over you as you are over him,” Grace added.
For several long moments, Jenna’s pulse pounded in her ears as she considered what her friends were saying. Personally, she thought they were a little off base.
Time and time again, Gage had made it perfectly, crystal, plate-glass clear that he did not want children. On top of that, he’d made no secret of the fact that he was thoroughly pissed that she’d tricked him into possibly getting her pregnant, and now that they were continuing to sleep together, he wasn’t taking any chances. If he could have wrapped them both in cellophane from head to foot and gotten the same tactile pleasure from the act, she suspected he would have done it.
The idea that he might be sticking around for more than frequent hot sex and to make sure she wasn’t pregnant was alien to her, and something she couldn’t quite stretch her mind around.
She was still mulling over what Grace and Ronnie had said later that night, on the ride back to Charlotte ’s.
Could they be right?
She cast a sideways glance at Gage, who was behind the wheel of her yellow bug. He hated the car, but seemingly hated being a passenger in the tiny Volkswagen even more. Apparently it was more masculine to drive a pint-size Beetle than be seen riding around in one.
Never mind that his legs were bent at an awkward angle, even with the seat pushed all the way back, or that the top of his head brushed the roof of the vehicle.
Jenna turned away, looking out the side window before she started laughing at his obvious discomfort and annoyance at being uncomfortable.
“Did Grace vandalize Zack’s Hummer?” he asked out of the blue.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t the size of her car that had his jaw locked and his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
Jenna licked her lips, debating how to answer. On the one hand, she had never lied to him, and just because they were no longer married and she didn’t technically owe him any allegiance, she didn’t want to start now. On the other, she felt a fierce need to be loyal to Grace and maintain her friend’s confidence.
She cocked her head to study Gage’s profile, and for the first time since they’d left the bar, he slowly turned his head to meet her gaze.
“I wasn’t there, and I don’t know the details, but yes,” she murmured barely above a whisper. It hurt to hear herself admit it, to betray a friend’s confidence. But almost as though she were possessed by a powerful, supernatural spirit, she felt compelled to tell Gage the truth, regardless of the consequences.
His eyes stayed locked with hers for a heartbeat longer before he gave a sharp, brief nod and returned his attention to the road.
The silence that followed made Jenna’s skin hurt. She felt dizzy from lack of oxygen and her vision blurred with near-panic.
“Are you going to arrest her?” she asked desperately, chest heaving in the beginning stages of hyperventilation. “Or tell Zack so he can have her arrested?”
It seemed like an eternity until he answered, but finally he said, “Nah. Zack has more money than God. He can buy a dozen Hummers to replace that one, if he wants. And if he really did cheat on Grace, then I don’t feel particularly sorry for him.”
Jenna let her head fall against the cool glass of the passenger-side window, sucking air into her abused lungs.
After another couple of miles passed in silence and her brain was able to process the tail end of his reply, she turned back. “Did he cheat on her?”
Once again, he was slow to respond. Rolling his shoulders beneath his tight black T-shirt, he said, “He says no. Swears that woman wasn’t in his room when he went for a shower, and he doesn’t know how she got in. He didn’t even know she was there until Grace showed up and discovered her.”
“Do you believe him?”
“There’s no reason not to. He’s never lied to me before, as far as I know, and he wouldn’t need to lie to me about this. I’m not his mother or his wife or his priest. It’s not my place to judge him. What he does in his private life is his business, whether I approve of it or not. He also knows that no matter what he tells me, I wouldn’t repeat it to anyone else.”
Which only made Jenna feel like more of a heel for having repeated something about her best friend that was meant to be kept in confidence. She nearly groaned as remorse
pooled in her gut and threatened to swamp her.
“He’s really torn up over it,” Gage continued as they pulled into the gravel drive beside Charlotte ’s big, white farm house. He cut the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. Instead, he shifted to face her, lifting an arm to rest on the back of the seats. His hand dangled near her face and his fingers toyed with the ends of her hair.
“He’s called Grace a thousand times, at least, but she won’t answer-not even when he tries to fool the caller ID by using different phones. The doorman at her building won’t let him in, and the guards at the television studio have strict orders to call the police if he sets foot on the property. That’s why I thought it was a good idea for him to go over to The Yarn Barn tonight. I was hoping Grace would give him a chance to explain, at least listen to his side before she cut him off at the knees.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Jenna murmured, “Grace isn’t exactly the magnanimous type. Not when she’s hurting and feels so strongly that she’s been wronged.”
He huffed out a breath. “Tell me about it.”
Rather than lowering the level of tension in the tiny vehicle, the revelation that Zack may not have cheated on Grace after all only seemed to ratchet it up several notches. Jenna’s chest felt tight and she could feel tightly constrained emotion radiating from Gage in an ever-growing ripple effect.
Rubbing her palms nervously along the outside of her thighs, she licked her lips and softly asked, “Are you angry with me?”
One, two, three seconds passed without a response. Then, just as quietly, he said, “Why would I be angry?”
For a moment, she thought about keeping her mouth shut. If he wasn’t upset, maybe she shouldn’t have drawn attention to the fact that he seemed to be. And if he was-well, it probably would have been smarter to pretend she hadn’t noticed.
But the stiff jut of his chin told her something was wrong, and she would just as soon get to the bottom of it before they went in the house. Their relationship was stressful enough these days, there was no use tossing added kindling to the pile.
“Because of what happened at The Yarn Barn with Zack and Grace. Because I knew what she’d done, but didn’t tell you.”
“Why would I be mad about that?” he asked carefully.
“Well, it was a lie of omission,” she admitted, “and I know how you feel about that sort of thing.”
He mulled that over for a second before the flat line of his mouth relaxed a fraction.
“I understand why you did it. I don’t even blame you; you were just protecting a friend. If Zack had admitted to an affair, I probably wouldn’t have told you, either. But it did make me wonder…” His words trailed off for a moment and he shrugged. “Things between us were so ugly there at the end, the thought crossed my mind that this might not have been the first time you lied to me-by omission or otherwise.”
Jenna’s heart pounded against her ribcage like a jungle drum and a lump formed in her throat. She knew how he felt about liars. On his top ten list of sins that would send you to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass Go and do not collect two hundred dollars, it was right up there with child sex offenders and people who talked in the theatre.
Swallowing hard in an effort to dislodge the knot in her chest, she thought back to everything that had passed between them over the years. Had she ever lied to him, be it a little white lie or a big, honking black one?
After a brief silence, she nodded and looked him directly in the eye as she murmured, “I have lied to you.”
His already tense body tautened even more at her admission, every muscle going tight and a tic starting at the back of his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “Do I want to know?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a pretty big one.”
Gage’s eyes slid closed, almost as though what she was about to say might be too much for him to handle. When his eyes opened again to settle on her, his mouth twisted into a grim line and he said, “All right, I’m ready. Tell me.”
The confession wasn’t easy to get out, and it took her a minute. A minute to form the words. A minute to decide if this was truly a wound she wanted to open, a part of her heart she wanted to bare and leave vulnerable.
But he was waiting, and looking so earnest, she couldn’t find it in her to back out now. Not just because her pulse was pounding in her throat or her stomach was doing handsprings at the speed of light.
“I lied,” she began in a voice so low and shaky, she wasn’t even sure he could hear her, “when I told you I wanted a divorce.”
For a moment, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of her tiny Volkswagen bug. Neither of them moved, and Gage held himself so rigid, she wasn’t certain he was still breathing. But she’d already started to tell him the truth, so she might as well finish it.
“A divorce was the last thing I wanted, but you weren’t talking to me, were starting to shut me out, and I didn’t know how to reach you. Nothing else I tried had worked, so I thought maybe demanding a divorce would shock you into realizing how much you’d changed since we got married.”
Her gaze dropped to stare at her hands where they were clasped tightly in her lap, and if possible her voice grew even softer, more pained. “I expected you to say No way in hell and agree to counseling or something to work out our problems… not to nod and move out of the house, then sign the papers without a single argument when they arrived.”
She hadn’t intended to cry, had deemed herself well past the point of breaking down every time she thought about that period of her life and how much it had hurt to not only lose her husband, but to have him walk away as though their marriage was no more important to him than a piece of junk mail or an old pair of shoes. But that didn’t stop tears from gathering at her lashes and spilling down her cheeks.
“Why didn’t you fight for me?” she asked, then turned her head to face him full on. “Why didn’t you fight for us?”
Knit 15
The ache in Jenna’s voice, the sadness on her face, squeezed Gage’s heart and tore it into a million tiny pieces. He would rather take a sucker punch to the ribcage than see that expression on her face.
And he’d rather get kicked in the crotch a thousand times than be the cause of it.
But here he was, the main source of her grief and despair, of the tears pouring down her face.
What could he say? How could he explain that leaving her had been the single hardest thing he’d ever done in his life? That it had ripped his guts out and in many ways left him a shell of a man. Or that he’d had to get blind, stinking drunk before he could bring himself to put his John Hancock on those divorce papers.
He couldn’t. Because if he tried, she’d wonder why he hadn’t stayed instead, hadn’t fought the way he now knew she’d hoped and expected him to, and he couldn’t explain the driving force behind that decision, either.
So he did the only thing he knew he wouldn’t screw up. He hooked a hand around the back of her neck, yanked her forward as far as their seatbelts and the miniscule automobile would allow, and kissed her. With his lips and tongue and body, he tried to tell her what he couldn’t put into words.
Jenna’s nails dug into the muscles of his upper arms and she made small, desperate mewling sounds at the back of her throat. Sounds he answered with low groans of his own.
He shifted, trying to get closer, trying to draw her farther across the seat, but the damn seatbelt dug into his chest, his elbow hit the steering wheel, and the gearshift nearly cut off the circulation in his leg.
With a muffled curse, he pulled back, releasing Jenna-and smacked his head into the roof of the car.
“Fucking damn Volkswagen,” he muttered, breathing heavily and rubbing the sore spots on his thigh and skull at the same time. “Why couldn’t you buy a decent American car instead of this tuna can on wheels? I feel like freaking Frankenstein stuffed into a jelly jar.”
Though her cheeks were still flushed with passion and damp from he
r tears, the tension of a moment ago seemed to have passed and Jenna’s mouth curved just before she broke out laughing.
“It’s Frankenstein’s monster,” she corrected in typical schoolmarm fashion, “but you’re right, that is sort of what you look like. Minus the bolts in your neck, of course. And this is a perfectly good car,” she added staunchly, defending her bug like a mama dolphin defending her young, “just maybe not for a man the size of a grizzly bear.”
His own lips twisted, and he had no choice but to chuckle along with her. After a minute, he unsnapped his seatbelt and pushed the driver’s-side door open. “So let’s get out of here before I start to cramp up and somebody has to chop off my limbs to get me free.”
Rounding the hood of the car, he waited for her to collect her purse and knitting tote-a dark blue one with a sunflower on the front that she’d made herself-then took her hand as they walked to the house. Gage was glad she was no longer peppering him with questions about his state of mind when they separated, but he could have stood a few more hours of heavy petting in her front seat… even if it made him feel like a horny sardine.
She fitted the key into the lock, then opened the door and preceded him inside. One by one, she flipped on the lights, laying her bags on the table as she made her way to the kitchen.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, pulling open the refrigerator door and studying its contents.
Gage didn’t know what he wanted. He wasn’t thirsty, but a couple good stiff shots of Johnny Walker Black might help to numb the prickles of memory stemming to life low in his belly. Memories he didn’t want to think about, and certainly didn’t want to relive.
“No, thanks,” he said, dropping into a straightback chair beside the table and resting his arm along the solid oak surface. He drummed his fingers for a second, then reached almost distractedly for her knitting tote.
A snowball-sized clump of bright purple yarn was sticking out of the top and he grasped it, slowly drawing the length of half-completed boa toward him. She’d completed two or three feet of the thing, but he knew from her burgeoning collection of homemade boas that she tended to like them quite a bit longer.
