“Quit trying to blow me off, Jenna. I haven’t seen you in ages!” Zane was starting to sound angry.
“Zane,” she sighed. “I’m not trying to blow you off. I’ve had this trip planned for months. Don’t you remember? I mentioned it a while back.” It was disturbing, in a way. Jenna wondered if Zane was under some extraordinary pressure out at Marah. It was the first time she had heard him sound anything but perfectly polite ever since he had left the city. Lilah walked back into view, leading Jimmy into the room. She snapped for Jenna’s attention and gestured his way before heading into the kitchen. Jenna waved Jimmy to the sofa and then turned back to her conversation.
“Just promise me you’ll find a way to get out here to Marah,” Zane pleaded. “I’m not going to be able to come back until the project finishes, and the opening date keeps getting pushed back.” His voice had softened, and he sounded more like himself. “I really miss you.”
Jenna bit her lip. He sounded so vulnerable. It had to have been awful to be cut off from all his friends and family and sent off to Marah with no way to see anyone unless they came to him. It was a very harsh sentence for his nanospeed mistake. Wouldn’t it make it harder for him to truly overcome any desire for the drug if he never even got visits from his friends?
“OK,” she relented. “I’ll ask Mr. Carter to let me do the next site visit. That way I can come without waiting for an extra day off.” She figured Mr. Carter would readily agree if she explained how unhappy Zane was with the situation. Carter was more than anxious to promote any kind of resurgence of her relationship with Zane.
She finally extricated herself from the conversation and turned to face Jimmy, tossing her flipcom on the sofa and collapsing next to him. He put an arm around her and drew her in. Instantly she felt that she would be able to get through this somehow. It was as if strength flowed directly from Jimmy’s skin to hers.
“Zane’s on the warpath, I hear,” he said sympathetically, giving her a squeeze and then sitting back.
Jenna nodded. “He’s upset that I’m going home to Dos Cientos for my long weekend. He wants me to come out to Marah.”
“Aren’t you going to a wedding?” Jimmy said breezily. “It’s not like you can say to the happy couple, ‘Hey, put off your big day for a few weeks, I’ve got to run out to the seashore and reassure my insecure ex-boyfriend.’” He grinned. Jenna managed a half-hearted chuckle.
“Oh, Zane said I should skip it altogether, since I’m not technically close to either the bride or the groom. But . . .” her voice trailed off. It was Casey and Jo’s wedding. In reality, she really would rather run off to Marah to avoid it, even if it meant she’d have to spend the entire weekend trying to evade Zane’s attempts to rekindle a romance without offending him.
“But?” prompted Jimmy.
“I promised my mom I would go with her. My sister’s best friend, Casey, is marrying one of her other friends. My mom is close to Casey’s mother and feels she needs to attend, but she can’t quite face it by herself. My dad was supposed to be attending too, which would take some of the pressure off me, but he had something important come up last minute.” All of this came out in a rush. Jenna’s chest constricted. She wasn’t sure she could face this either.
“Ah.” Jimmy studied her intently, all traces of levity vanished. “Lots of memories of your sister involved.”
“I thought Andie would marry Casey someday,” Jenna explained quietly. “Everyone thought so. They were inseparable for years.” She felt the tears welling up and tried to shove all her emotions tightly back into their box. She was not going to fall to pieces in front of Jimmy. She was not going to be weak!
“Does your mom still think your sister is alive?” Jimmy asked, his voice gentle.
“Yes.” Jenna closed her eyes, the tears leaking out. So much for her iron control. Her mother was still not coping well. “She says that if Andie were dead, she would know it. That we would have found something by now, skiff wreckage at the least. It’s been too long, though. I doubt they could even find any wreckage at this point—it’s probably completely overgrown by the jungle. Dad says I just need to give her more time, she’ll find a way to grieve eventually and let her go.” Jenna swiped at the tears and sniffed, pulling herself back together. Her mother might delude herself, but Jenna knew the truth. Andie was gone forever, just like Erik. There was nothing that could fix that now.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help,” Jimmy said. He was still so serious. It almost made Jenna uncomfortable to see him without his quirky grin. She decided to lighten the mood.
“You can! Come with me to the wedding. We can start all sorts of rumors and take my mom’s mind off Andie,” Jenna invited flippantly. Jimmy snorted. “I thought you had made a loud and unequivocal declaration of staying celibate forever. Nobody will be fooled.”
Jenna grinned. “No, they’ll be intrigued. Everyone will ask my mom about us. After all, I wouldn’t bring just a friend all the way from Omphalos for the weekend.”
That appealed to Jimmy’s mischievous side, she could tell. He cocked his head to the left, considering it. “What about Zane? Aren’t you concerned that those rumors might make their way to him—or your boss? That a gossip site will get the scoop again and you’ll put your job at risk?” Jenna turned to stare at Jimmy. Was that bitterness in his tone? He was smiling though, and his eyes were unreadable. Maybe she had imagined it.
“Come on, Jimmy, I don’t have to live my entire life around Zane,” she grumbled. “He’s not even my boyfriend anymore.”
“Could have fooled me,” Jimmy said. Jenna grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and smacked him with it repeatedly. “Ow, ow, all right, all right, I give in!” Jimmy howled in mock surrender. “I’ll go with you. But if your mom starts pressuring you for grandkids, on your head be it!”
Jenna didn’t think her mother would go the direction of even thinking about grandchildren; she was so wrapped up in her grief that she barely seemed to notice that she still had a living child. Her mother hadn’t commed her—even a text comm—for several months other than to ask her to come to the wedding. All Jenna’s communication home had been with her father. Even her plans to bring Jimmy to the wedding went through her father, so she was shocked when she and Jimmy stepped through the shuttleport gate at Dos Cientos and her mother was waiting for them.
“Jenna!” Her mother rushed forward and hugged her tightly. She clung to Jenna’s neck, her soft cheek pressed to her daughter’s. Jenna could smell the ginger-peach lotion her mother loved. She inhaled deeply. Maybe her mother was going to be OK.
“I couldn’t sleep,” her mother confessed, her eyes almost feverishly bright. “I worried all night that your shuttle might crash. I couldn’t relax until I knew you had made it safely.”
Or maybe not. Jenna extricated herself and stepped back a little. “We’re fine, Mom, of course. When’s the last time a shuttle crashed? I can’t even remember it happening.”
Her mother opened her mouth, probably to tell her exactly when the last shuttle had crashed and how they were due for another one. Jenna forestalled her by waving at Jimmy.
“Mom, this is James Forrest. He’s a good friend of mine. Jimmy, this is my mom,” she introduced.
Suddenly the agitated look left her mother’s eyes as she focused on Jimmy. Of course, Jenna had sent a comm to her mother to let her know she was bringing a friend as a wedding guest in her father’s place, but she hadn’t shared any details other than Jimmy’s name. Jenna could see her mother’s gaze travel from Jimmy’s unruly dark curls and his silky cuffed shirt to his Terran denim and his scuffed boots before riveting on his face. No doubt her mother would have no idea what to make of him. An offworlder who had a bizarre sense of style? A man who was used to getting his hands dirty but thought for once he should put on a nice shirt? A playboy who had so much money he didn’t care what other people thought?
“Nice to meet you, James,” her mother finally said. Her tone was cordial. Evidently she had not nailed Jimmy as a playboy.
“I’m glad to finally meet you too, Mrs. Donnell,” Jimmy returned pleasantly. He was doing an admirable job of behaving himself. Maybe he really had thrown himself into the role of starting rumors. After all, if there had been something serious going on between him and Jenna, he would have wanted to make a good first impression on her mother. Or maybe, Jenna thought with a small blush, remembering the Gloriana night, he was planning for their relationship to go further. Making a good impression on her mother mattered in that scenario too.
“I’m afraid we don’t have a lot of time before we need to leave again, or I’d invite you both back home,” her mother stated briskly. She had gotten herself under control, and now she was all business. “Do you already have everything you need for the wedding?” her mother questioned. Jimmy turned a puzzled gaze to Jenna, who in turn looked to her mother. “What do you mean?” Jenna asked, bewildered. “I thought you said the wedding was here at Dos Cientos.”
“Oh, no, we’re leaving together in a chartered ship from here,” Jenna’s mother explained distractedly as she dug through the bag slung over her shoulder. “Didn’t I send you the itinerary? It’s on the beach in Symphoria. Jo wanted a destination wedding, I guess.”
“Symphoria!” Jenna exclaimed. “How in the name of all the stars can Jo afford a wedding in Symphoria?” Symphoria was a small island in the Eastern Sea. It was famous for its beautiful beaches and exotic wildlife, probably about the most well-known romantic location on the planet Zenith. But it was not a cheap place to hold a wedding, and Jo and Casey were both children of Armada officers, not investment bankers or defense ministers. They were even still both attending the university, which made it even more unlikely they had much money to spare.
“I imagine Casey’s finally dipping into his trust fund. Or maybe his grandparents are paying for it. They are coming.” Jenna recalled that Casey’s father had been the son of some very wealthy Terrans. When he died he left his son a hefty trust fund, which Casey had been able to access for a few years now. His grandparents had little contact with him, though. Jenna dug through her memories for anything Andie had mentioned about Casey’s family. It seemed like they had not approved of the widowed Dr. Morten’s decision to emigrate to Zenith with their only grandson.
“Oh, his snobby Terran grandparents have condescended to travel to the backwater outpost?” Jenna remarked, without thinking. “No offense, Jimmy,” she added hastily.
Jimmy chuckled. “None taken. I’ve known plenty of Terran snobs, especially those snobbish toward frontier planets.”
“Oh, are you from Terra?” Jenna’s mom asked curiously. She had focused on Jimmy fully again, having withdrawn a printout of what Jenna could only assume were their travel instructions.
“Yep,” Jimmy confirmed. “I’ve been here for about a year now. I have to say, I much prefer Zenith to Terra. I’m hoping I’ll get to stay here permanently.”
Jenna’s mom smiled widely at that and was clearly about to interrogate him more (probably about his career and his family and anything else that would help her gauge his eligibility) when a voice called, “Marian!” across the waiting room. Her mom turned and left to greet someone wearing a full dress uniform who Jenna didn’t know.
Jenna nudged Jimmy. “You’re making too good of an impression,” she whispered.
“I’m just being polite, that’s all,” he said.
“Well, it’s working. I can see the wheels turning behind my mother’s eyes. She’s pairing us up as we speak.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Jimmy suggested unabashedly.
“Yes! No! I mean, not exactly,” she fumbled. “If it gets her mind off my sister for a few days, that’s fabulous. But I don’t want her to be disappointed later.” Trust Jimmy to force her off balance.
Jimmy cocked an eyebrow at her. “And how do you know she would be disappointed? She might get to know me and realize that I’m not quite good enough for her daughter?” His tone was playful, daring her to contradict him.
“Absolutely,” Jenna retorted glibly.
“But what if I hide my nefarious side so well that she is nothing but thrilled when we announce our engagement?” he teased.
Jenna blushed furiously. How was it that Jimmy had both the power to make her feel so comfortable around him and yet so unnerved at the same time? She’d never been flustered by a guy since she’d left school. Yet every so often Jimmy would say something like this, and her traitorous heart would pound.
Despite her resolution to never, ever fall in love, she couldn’t help imagining marrying Jimmy for just a split second. It made her strangely excited—hopeful, even. Spending her life with Jimmy would probably be an adventure, and chemistry was clearly not lacking between them, not to mention that he was probably the first man she had ever met who seemed to care about more than her pretty face. Jenna was completely free to be herself around Jimmy, which was refreshing after all the games she’d been forced to play and masks she’d had to wear. But . . . if she really let him in, that would be one more person fate would try to cut out of her life. She squelched her straying thoughts immediately.
Jenna’s mother was back. “We’re boarding soon. I’m bringing only a small bag, and I checked it in already. We should probably get your bags checked in too.” The checking-in process was duly accomplished; it was straightforward since they were going by charter. The group gathering around the loading dock grew, and Jenna found herself the subject of a very enthusiastic hug by Jo Cruz. “Jenna Donnell!” she exclaimed, stepping back and looking her up and down. “You are as gorgeous as ever. Clearly life in the fast lane is agreeing with you.”
Jenna snorted. “I don’t know that office drudgery five days a week can be called the fast lane.”
Jo grinned. “It must be those other two days then. I’ve seen you on the society feeds.” She turned to Jimmy. “Well, well, well . . . another familiar face from the society feeds. You must be James Forrest,” she said, her voice deeper and somehow inviting. “I’m so glad Jenna brought you along. Zenithian men make great hors d’oeuvres, but Terran men are the main course.” Jenna raised her eyebrows. Was Jo flirting with Jimmy? The day before her own wedding?
Jimmy chuckled. “I’m anything but a main course. Just a humble Terran immigrant.” Jo laughed and promised to talk to them later, then moved on with a cry of welcome to the group standing behind them. Jenna exhaled. Had Jo always been this way? She was the complete opposite of Jenna’s sister; she wondered what the two of them had talked about. Of course, Andie had been obsessed with becoming a pilot. Maybe they had bonded over girl talk about sexy pilot hors d’oeuvres?
“Are you off roaming the galaxy already, Jenna?” Jimmy interrupted her thoughts.
She forced a smile for him. “Just trying to find the gawky teen I once knew in the grown-up Jo. She’s stunning, isn’t she?”
“All brides are stunning,” Jimmy allowed. “But let’s hope that we are seated in the back for the ceremony, or it will be completely unfair to the bride. Everyone’s eyes will be on you instead!” Jenna shook her head in despair. Jimmy was as bad as Jo!
The shuttle trip to Symphoria was uneventful, though Jenna could feel her mother’s tension oozing across the seat back the entire time. She couldn’t decide if it was the shuttle trip itself or just the impending wedding that had her mother more on edge. They still hadn’t seen Casey. He was sequestered in a different compartment from the main party, a concession to Jo’s expressed desire that Casey not see her until the start of the first wedding event. When they arrived at the island, the whole party was whisked by tube from the tiny shuttleport to the resort Jo had chosen, where the guests had a few hours to rest and relax before the festivities began. Jenna convinced her mother to lie down and nap for a bit before collapsing on the other bed
in their small suite. Jimmy had gotten his own room—the room Jo had reserved for them was big enough for three people, but it had been intended for her parents and herself. It would have been very awkward indeed to share it with both her mother and Jimmy.
It was awkward enough as it was. It was impossible for her to think of Jo or Casey and not dwell on her sister.
When it was nearly time for the commitment reception, which was the first of the three-day wedding’s events, Jenna roused her mother. It didn’t take much to get ready. Jenna put on one of her shimmering, color-changing slimsuits. Supposedly the fabric changed color to match her aura, and Jenna didn’t know if that was true, but if it was, usually her aura was the most magnificent shade of royal purple. Occasionally the dress would migrate to a lavender or to a pale blue, and once it had very nearly gone magenta, but every time the shade had been extremely flattering to her skin tone. It was dressy enough for a wedding but unlikely to detract from the bride, which was the point. Like Jimmy said, it was Jo’s day to shine.
Jimmy’s eyes fixed on her, though, when they met him in the lobby with the rest of the guests. A small knot of pleasure fluttered in her stomach. “You look amazing,” he whispered. “Poor Jo. I’m going to have a hard time tearing my eyes off you.” Jenna accepted the compliment gracefully. For once, it didn’t annoy her that a man found her beautiful.
They followed the wedding director outside and onto a large garden patio, where there were rows of seats set up next to an arbor covered with trailing vines. An usher seated Jenna and her mother about halfway back, with Jimmy in between them. Jenna’s mother immediately took advantage of the opportunity to grill Jimmy about his family, his career, where he was living on Zenith, and what had brought him here. Jenna listened to Jimmy’s answers curiously. Most of what he told her mother Jenna knew already, and she heard him lie only once, when her mother asked if he had any other family on Zenith.
The Quintan Edge (Roran Curse Book 2) Page 13
