by Barbara Gee
When it ended, I opened my eyes to see his twinkling at me from only a few inches away.
“I like this together stuff, Ava,” he said softly.
“Yeah, so do I.” I looked down at the floor. “It’s been a long time for me. I haven’t been in a relationship since my first year of college.”
“How long did it last?” he asked curiously.
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out over my backyard. “Around a year.”
“Why did it end?” he wondered, coming up behind me. “Did you realize he was a jerk and didn’t deserve you?”
I laughed. “No. He was a really nice guy.”
“Then why?”
“I guess it was because he was much more a friend than a boyfriend.” I turned around to face him, forcing myself to meet his eyes even though I was feeling self-conscious. “I liked him a lot, but he didn’t make my breath stop or my heart pound.”
Jude’s hands found my waist. “No?” he asked softly.
I shook my head. “No. And I was pretty sure there should at least be some of that….you know, if he was my boyfriend.”
“I agree.”
I smiled. “You make my heart pound.”
“I know.” His lips curved as he pressed a finger to the pulse point he’d kissed earlier. “I felt it.”
“What about you?” I asked curiously.
A brow shot up. “Seriously, Ava? You don’t know what you do to me?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I hope I do. But that’s not what I meant.”
“Ahhh.” He tilted his head and looked down his nose. “You want to know about my last relationship?”
“Not details,” I said quickly, “just, you know, when it was and whether it was serious.”
He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “It was more than three years ago, and it was fairly serious for a little while. I thought it had potential. But then it didn’t.”
That made me nervous. What if Jude and I were the same? Serious for a while, and then he would lose interest.
“Why’d you break up?” I asked quietly.
He shrugged. “It was pretty much the opposite of you and your guy. For me, there was a certain physical attraction, and that can carry a new relationship for a while. As time went on, though, I realized I didn’t enjoy being with her as much as I should. I didn’t look forward to seeing her and found myself coming up with excuses not to. At that point, trying to keep things going wouldn’t have been fair to either one of us.”
I must have looked worried, because he smiled and took my head in his hands. “It’s different with us, Ava.”
“Different how?”
“For one thing, I enjoyed you more the first day we met than I ever did her.” He smiled. “She would’ve never let Lulu stay if it had been her kitchen she barged into.”
I grinned.
“And two,” he continued, “I may have thought I was attracted to her, but I’ve never, ever had to pray for restraint the way I do with you.”
My grin grew. “Have you ever gone official and exclusive in the space of one week before?”
He laughed. “Not even close. In fact, a week ago I would’ve said it could never happen.”
I hooked my hands over his forearms. “Yeah, me too. But, Jude?”
“Yes, Ava?”
“Promise to tell me if you ever start to dread seeing me?”
He kissed me gently. “I promise, but I’m telling you right now, it’s completely different with you. I’m not saying we’ll never have issues we need to work through, but getting tired of you isn’t going to be one of them.”
Then he just held me for a while. It was nice. I was able to enjoy the feel of him, revel in the closeness, without it taking a back seat to the fire of his kiss.
Eventually we finished the channel, and when I had all the cable stuffed inside and we snapped on the last front panel to cover it, we high-fived and looked around the room proudly.
“So much better than putting it on the ceiling,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re as far from an idiot as a person can be,” he countered. “Just a little stuck in a rut.”
I laughed. “I admit it. And now I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh yeah?” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Something I’ll like?”
I shook a finger at him. “Yes, but it’s not that. Come on.”
I took his hand and we went back downstairs to the kitchen where I opened the fridge and took out the pie I’d made him that morning.
“Is that…..is that what I think it is?” he asked, eyeing the meringue hungrily.
“If you think it’s coconut cream, then yes.” I set it on the counter. “I called Hannah to see what your favorite dessert is. Did you know she can’t stand coconut? I think talking about it literally made her nauseous, but that could be because she’s pregnant.”
“She has no taste,” Jude scoffed. “Did you actually make this?”
I nodded. “I found the recipe in Grandma’s binder, so it should be good. She never put any recipes in there without trying them first, and then only if they were higher than an eight out of ten on her taste scale.”
I cut him a slice and watched as he took a big bite. The man was even sexy when he ate.
“What’s your rating?” I asked hopefully. “On Grandma’s one to ten scale.”
He refused to tell me until his plate was empty. Then he said he needed another half a piece to be sure.
After which he told me it was a ten. A definite ten. And he kissed me to thank me for my trouble.
He tasted like coconut, but that wasn’t a problem. I like coconut just fine.
Chapter 16
Two days later I was finally ready to bite the bullet and call my mom. Jude and I had talked about it a couple of times, and when I got out of bed that morning, I’d decided today was the day.
I hadn’t seen Jude the day before because he had a work get-together in Mountain View—a dinner for his crew to celebrate being ahead of schedule on the school they were building. He told me their progress on this job was an especially big deal, considering it had to be open and ready for students in a month. Being ahead of the game was huge and worthy of reserving a private room at one of the nicest restaurants in the town.
Jude also told me that spouses and significant others were invited. He’d grinned and said that since we were official and exclusive now, that qualified me to go, if I wanted to.
I was thrilled that Jude was ready to introduce me to his crew, but I ended up declining the invitation. I knew he’d be busy making sure the evening was a good one for everyone there, and I didn’t want him to have to worry about making me feel comfortable. Plus, I was a little uneasy about meeting so many people all at once.
I’d confessed my unease, and he understood. He said I had to clear my schedule for him on Friday evening, though, because he didn’t want to go more than a day without seeing me.
The man was just the best and I loved knowing I’d see him this evening.
I’d spent the morning working, time getting away from me, as usual. Now it was late afternoon and I found myself wavering in my plan to make the call to Mom. As the days had passed, I wanted more and more to simply leave the camera incident in the past and let things get back to normal. If Abigail was the culprit, I was sure my move away from DC had put her mind at ease and eliminated her need to spy on me.
I also knew Jude didn’t share my certainty that the move to Hidden Creek had solved the problem. He believed that as long as Ian still had “a thing” for me, Abigail posed a threat. She’d already committed a serious crime with her hidden surveillance, and in his mind, that proved she wasn’t stable. He wasn’t comfortable letting her get away with it, thus giving her the chance to plan something else if she chose.
When he’d brought it up again last night on the phone after his dinner, I’d reluctantly agreed that we should probably keep trying to get to the bottom
of it. I knew I needed to follow through on that. If I made the call to Mom yet this afternoon, I could tell Jude whatever I found out this evening.
I stood up and stretched, raising my arms high, then bending over to press my palms to the floor. I’d been in my office since six that morning, as it was officially my first day back after my week off. The members of our team rarely took that many days off in a row, and I felt I needed to prove to them I was back in the saddle full force.
Three of us—not including Ian or Abigail—had been delving deep into a server that we were pretty sure had some malicious code hidden inside an otherwise innocuous piece of software. The problem was, we could only track it up to a certain point, and then it was just a lot of trial and error to figure out where it had taken up residence on the hard drive. In other words, good old-fashioned hard work and lots of hours.
I hesitated to tell the other two I was ready to knock off for the day, but if I didn’t call Mom soon, she’d be out for the evening at some kind of meeting or social event. Judith Milton was much in demand.
Before I could say anything, Desmond sent a message saying he had to take his little girl to ballet class, so he was signing off until the next morning. Todd said that sounded good to him, and I quickly chimed in my agreement, glad I hadn’t been the first to quit.
I shut things down and made my way downstairs for a glass of tea. After procrastinating for another twenty minutes, resulting in an online purchase of some clothes I didn’t need, I settled onto my couch and got down to business.
Mom asked a billion questions before I could get around to the reason for the call. She also informed me that she and my dad wanted to come visit in a few weeks and wondered if I’d have a room ready for them by then. I assured her I would, although I wondered how I could get by with keeping my office door closed and locked without them wanting to see what was behind it.
At my condo, they’d seen my office right when I moved in, before I’d invested in all my equipment and installed all the security options. They’d had no interest in seeing it again after that. Even with all the times my mother had watered my plants for me, she’d never asked about the locked door.
It would be different here. They’d want to see the whole house and what I’d done to it so far. Telling them they couldn’t see in that room wouldn’t go over well.
When she finally fell silent for two seconds, I launched into the discussion I’d been practicing in my head.
“Hey, Mom, do you remember a while back when one of the girls I work with had to get into my place when I was gone?” I’d decided to approach it that way, as if I knew about it, so that if she had let Abigail in, she wouldn’t get defensive thinking she’d done something wrong.
I gripped the phone tightly as I spoke, not exactly sure what I hoped her answer would be. I didn’t want Abigail—or anyone else I knew, for that matter—to be guilty, but I didn’t want to find myself back at square one, either.
“Yes, of course,” Mom said. “She caught me just as I was coming out after a plant watering visit. You needed her to get some kind of drive or card or something out of one of your computers and send it to you, so I gave her the security codes and told her to turn everything back on when she left.” She hesitated. “That was okay, right? I remembered her from a long time ago at that café. How could I forget her, you know? That hair, and all those tattoos. Plus, she showed me the texts from you saying she had to meet me there because it wouldn’t be secure for you to send her the actual codes. I don’t understand all that, but whatever. She really is an interesting-looking girl, isn’t she? Please don’t ever do that to yourself, Ava. You have such beautiful skin, it would be a shame to mar it that way.”
I let my head fall back against the couch as she rambled. There was no doubt about it now. Abigail Sutton had installed the cameras, or paid someone else to do it, and she’d been secretly watching me for over a year. I still didn’t understand what she’d hoped to see, but the invasion of privacy was a huge betrayal and I felt myself getting really angry. How dare she!
I struggled to get my mind back on the conversation, but not soon enough. Mom noticed my silence and asked again if it was okay that she’d let the girl in.
“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it, Mom,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I’m just trying to figure out when that was, because I need to go back and look at some other stuff from that trip. I can’t remember if it was the time I came here to visit Grandma for a week or when Myla and I went to New York.”
I was aware that the reason I’d given her for asking was poor and didn’t make much sense. I was also aware that Mom wouldn’t realize it, just like it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder how Abigail had known exactly when to show up at my condo. She would’ve never suspected that Abigail had been lying in wait, probably for hours if not days. And Mom also hadn’t thought to question the texts giving permission to let Abigail in. Because if the text screen said Ava at the top, then obviously the texts had to be from me. Why would someone fake texts?
Of course, had the situation at hand been the creation of a guest list to a charity soiree, or deciding which hors d’oeuvres to serve for a dinner party, Mom would have scrutinized and questioned every single detail. Multiple times. Priorities, right?
“Oh, goodness, I don’t have any idea which trip it was,” Mom was saying. “I’ve watered your plants numerous times, you know. Who’s going to water them for you in Hidden Creek? Have you thought about that?”
“Probably my neigh—” I started to say, and then Mom interrupted.
“Wait, I do remember!” she crowed. “It was right after you’d gotten that awful battered up coffee table at the secondhand store. I banged my shin on it when I was watering your schefflera plant by the front window. I was still dabbing the blood when I ran into your tattooed friend.”
My eyes cut to that very coffee table which sported a weathered whitewashed finish that I loved.
“Please tell me you didn’t bother moving that table to Hidden Creek, Ava. I can’t think of any arrangement that piece would work with. Not even in that dated house of yours. It should have gone right in the trash.”
“I’m looking at it right now, Mom,” I said smugly. “It looks pretty good with Grandma’s wingback.” I knew the response that would get, and I wasn’t disappointed. Mom informed me that the wingback should have also been trashed. Preferably twenty years ago.
“Okay, Mom, whatever. It’s been nice talking, but I need to get going.”
I could practically see her ears twitching. “Oh? Do you have plans for the evening, Ava? Out with Myla, perhaps? Or have you made some new friends already?”
“Myla’s still in the army, Mom. She lives in Arizona. We’ll talk soon, okay? I have to go. Love you!”
I hung up, leaving her hanging. I also ignored the subsequent barrage of text messages seeking more information.
After all, she’d insulted my favorite table and chair. That justified leaving her in the dark for a while.
***
I told Jude about the phone call after we put in our orders at a Mexican restaurant located in the next town over. I expected an “I told you so” when I revealed that he’d been right about Abigail, but instead he reached across the table for my hand, his eyes sympathetic.
“I’m sorry, babe. I know you feel betrayed.”
I nodded. “That’s exactly how I feel. I never considered her a close friend, but we worked together for a couple years, you know? Our team might not all be physically in the same place, but we’re in constant communication, and we’re a tight group. Like today, I was on video with two of the guys for hours. That’s how it is. We don’t work at the same office, but we’re together all the time in a virtual sense. I would never dream of doing what she did to anyone, certainly not my teammates.”
“And you’re pretty sure she put the cameras in last summer?”
“Last May, which was a few months after she and Ian got together. I was here visiting Grandma.”
He sat back in his chair, his expression troubled. “I guess the motive still has to be Ian, but man, that’s a long time to spy on a person.”
I took a sip of water, wishing we didn’t have to talk about upsetting things on our date.
“What now?” he asked.
“I knew you were going to ask that,” I said on a sigh. “I don’t know, Jude. What do you suggest? Should I just show up at her house and call her out? Or call the cops on her? Or tell Ian what she was up to? Honestly, none of those options appeals to me in the least.”
“I’m not going to push you into anything. You know I don’t want to see her get away with it, but it’s your call. You’re the one who has to keep working with her.”
He was right. I had to work with her. Could I carry on as if nothing had changed?
“I’m going to have to think about it for a while,” I finally said. “I have to consider the team, too, not just me.”
“I’m here if you need me. If I can help in any way, all you have to do is ask.”
I looked at him, knowing my heart was in my eyes. “You’ve been great, Jude. I hate to even think about how I would’ve dealt with all this without you.”
“Then I’m glad I was around.”
I scooted forward in my chair until our knees bumped under the table. “Can we be done talking about Abigail for the rest of the evening?” I asked. “She’s already taken up too much of our time.”
“No complaints here,” he told me, his smile slow and easy.
“Good. I want to hear all about your dinner last night.”
We talked about that and other happier things while we ate fajitas and chimichangas and rice and beans. The only downside was that our server found an excuse to come to our table every five minutes so she could give Jude googly-eyed looks, as if I wasn’t even there.
We left the restaurant hand-in-hand, and he made sure I saw him throw away the receipt with “Laney’s” phone number written on it. Then he told me he had a surprise, and steered me across the street to a theater. Yes, an actual theater.
I gave him a disbelieving, narrow-eyed look. “But you hate movies.”
