by Janet Dailey
“Because a guy likes to pop the question, right?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re an adult, not a damsel in a fairy tale. Just talk to him. Maybe he never wants to get married. Wouldn’t that be good information to have? Or maybe he just needs to know that’s what you want, too. Either way, you’re better off speaking your mind.”
Marcy looked dazed. “You’re right. I’ve been acting as if Keith were Prince Charming.” She lifted and dropped her arms. “Why? The man needs to be nagged into doing everything from asking for a raise to clipping his toenails. Why have I been expecting him to show the initiative in proposing? For that matter, maybe I should propose to him.”
Her determination brought out Jane’s inner ditherer. “Oh, I don’t know if I’d go that far . . .”
“I do,” Marcy said, cutting her off. “In fact, I’m going to hunt him down right now and ask him.”
She pivoted and practically sprinted away. Jane watched her, torn. Part of her wanted to call her back.
But at least she’d struck a blow for plain speaking. For rationality over romanticism. And maybe in ten years Kaylie wouldn’t be writing crazy interviews for the newspaper about how Jane didn’t know what happened to the one big romance she’d had in her life.
Chapter Five
That night, an explosion of barking rousted Jane out of a nearly sound sleep. From the full-throated cries the dogs were unleashing at the door, she expected an intruder to come bursting through any second. She jammed her feet into scuffs, shushed the animals, and attempted to clear her head of sleep.
Then a spray of something hit the window in the living room. The dogs went nuts.
Jane grabbed her robe and sprinted into the next room to make sure the window was locked. Mesquite Creek prided itself on being the kind of place where you could still keep your windows open at night, although it was warm enough already that Jane had been using the air conditioner.
She pulled back a curtain to peek out just as another blast of rock hit the glass. Her bleat of surprise sent the cats racing to their safety spots. Jane squinted through the pane and spied someone pacing down below.
Roy.
She ran to the door, nearly tripping over Squeak. Once again she shushed the dogs before opening the door and stepping onto the landing. She peered down at Roy’s barely visible form in the darkness.
He raised an arm dramatically. “Hark, what—”
“What are you doing?” she said, cutting off the theatrics. “It’s after one!”
“I know—the night is young, and the town is dead. And there’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I saw this balcony the other day.”
“It’s not a balcony, it’s a staircase landing, and you can’t—”
But he could. He disappeared and she leaned over the railing, watching him trying to get purchase on the morning-glory trellis attached to the pole supporting the landing. “The stairs are so much easier,” she told him.
“That’s the trouble with you, Jane. No sense of—ouch!” Gasped curses floated up from below.
“What happened?” she said, squinting down at him.
“Splinter.”
“Would you please jump down?”
“Nope. I’ve come this far . . .” Grunting, he kept climbing until they were face-to-face. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Made it.”
And then something cracked, and he was gliding away from her—as was the entire top of the trellis. He reached out to grab the railing, missed, and clasped her arm instead. For a horrifying moment, she worried she was going to be yanked down with him. Instead, she dug in her heels, trying to ignore the cacophony of dogs and shrieking parakeet in the apartment behind her, and tugged as hard as she could, pulling him and the trellis back to the landing.
When he was close enough, Roy let go of her hands and clutched at the railing for dear life. She helped haul him over, and they collapsed against the door, which hadn’t latched properly and fell open unexpectedly. In the next moment, they tumbled in a heap on the floor of her apartment, laughing hysterically.
“That was really stupid,” Roy said, catching his breath.
“Yes.” She kicked the door closed. “And really not good for Luther’s nerves.” She would probably have a one-hundred-percent-bald bird by morning.
“Luther’s nerves?” he asked. “What about mine? I need a drink.”
“I’m guessing you’ve already had a few.” She stood.
“I mean, something to drink like water. I had three beers with the good doctor.”
“Which doctor?”
“Carl,” he said.
“You two were together this whole time?” She had waited around the Jam for them for a while but had finally given up and sought out Erin at the salon. They’d gone out for dinner and then returned to the gathering to listen to one of the later bands. But Roy had never shown up again. She’d just assumed he’d gone home to work on the project he’d been talking about.
“We went to the clinic so he could show me his sign idea,” Roy explained. “By the time we got back downtown, you must have already left.” He smiled, all innocence. Which made her suspicious. “Carl’s a really nice guy.”
She got up off the floor, opened the fridge, and grabbed the iced tea pitcher. What wasn’t he telling her? Plus, he was wearing different clothes than he had been this afternoon. Also . . .
She studied his head. “What’s in your hair?”
He looked up, his eyes almost crossing.
“You’ve got light green streaks in your hair,” she pointed out.
He laughed. “Oh. Probably from when I was doing touch-up work around the house.”
“And what were you and Carl up to that took so long?”
“We talked about all sorts of things.” He gave her a significant look. “Including you.”
She took a long swig of tea, forgetting that she’d poured it for Roy. She got another glass down for him.
“You know what conclusion I’ve drawn about the good doctor?” Roy asked, stretching out and scratching Buddy behind the ears.
“You made a psychological assessment?”
“No—just gut reaction. I like him.”
She went to hand him the glass, but he was surrounded by dogs who looked as if they might nose it right out of his hand. “You’ll never be able to drink in peace while you’re on the floor.”
He lifted his hand to her, and she pulled him up. He came to standing about an inch from her, so close that she could feel body heat coming off of him. She stepped a safer distance away and held out the glass.
“Of course you like Carl,” she said. “He’s a nice guy—always has been. Why do you think I came back to help out?”
He shrugged. “When Mom told me you’d moved back here after vet school, I just assumed that you wanted to be close to your family, to what was familiar.”
“Because I was unadventurous, or lacked imagination to do anything else,” she translated.
“I never said that.”
“I came back because when I talked to Carl he was so distraught, and he wanted to take a few months off to grieve for Maggie. And after that . . . well, so far I’ve just never found a good reason to leave.”
“He’s not grieving for Maggie now,” Roy said.
“No, I think he’s finally coming out of it. I’m glad.”
Roy moved closer to her again. “I guess what I’m saying is that I can see why you’d like him.” He swallowed. “Why you might love him, even.”
The words took a few moments to absorb. “I could see how some woman might love him,” she corrected. “But I don’t.”
“I know from talking to him that you two aren’t involved. But I don’t want to step in and ruin anything that might be brewing.”
She laughed. “Nothing is brewing, believe me.”
His eyes clouded, troubled. “I don’t know . . .”
What on earth had Carl said to him? Before she could voice the question, another oddity struck her full force.
“Wait a second . . . what do you mean by stepping in?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“By your antics on the trellis? All I gleaned from that is that your Romeo days are probably behind you.”
“Why do you think I’m in Mesquite Creek, Jane?”
She tried to ignore the huskiness in his voice. “To sell your mother’s house.”
“I could go back to Seattle and let Lou and Aunt Ona handle it. I stayed because I saw you and realized I didn’t want to leave without trying again. Because after the house is gone . . .”
He might not be back.
“All these years you would breeze in and out of town during your visits and you barely acknowledged me,” she said, surprised by the anger that bubbled up.
“I know. I felt stung when you decided to choose vet school here over me.”
“It was what I’d been working for all through school. Weren’t you paying attention?”
“You could have gone to school on the West Coast.”
“And you could have stayed—just waited two or three years for me to finish,” she said.
“Years!” He shut his mouth and shook his head. “Okay. We’re back in the old argument.”
“Exactly.”
He took her hands in his. “But things are different now for both of us. We’re both who we wanted to become. My pride was hurt when I left, but maybe it was good for me. And you were always in the back of my mind as the ideal, Jane. I swear. No one else has measured up.”
Even now, when every atom felt electrified as she stared into those gorgeous blues, a corner of her mind shouted at her to be sensible, not to make a misstep.
And then he was pulling her closer, wrapping his arms around her, and she sank against him, ignoring her inner good girl shrieking warnings. When Roy’s lips touched hers, it felt so right. He’d always been a great kisser, and now she remembered why. Men since had been too aggressive, or their technique too slurpy. Roy’s mouth fit perfectly against hers; his tongue felt natural, not like a probe. They had taught each other to kiss, and their bodies hadn’t forgotten. Whatever was between them felt instinctive now, almost primal.
Her hands roamed up his chest, twining around his nape. Where in the old days there had been more hair, there was now just a soft bristle of close-cut fuzz. She stroked it and he groaned, pulling her closer, hands roaming down her hips so that she could feel him pressing against her belly. A sharp yearning hit her, and she could feel them moving toward the Herculon couch, a place that knew them well.
Someone knocked at the door.
The dogs barked and Roy pulled back with a ragged curse. She swallowed, trying to still her heartbeat, to clear her thoughts.
“Were you expecting anyone?” he asked, almost in a whisper.
She shook her head. Could her mother have seen Roy and decided to come over and break up whatever was going on? It was so like her to jump to conclusions—
Another knock sounded. Of course, this time her mother’s conclusion would have been completely accurate.
She stumbled to the door, retying her robe and praying she looked somewhat composed. Prepared to face her mother, she was completely caught off guard to find Jared standing on her doorstep in his police uniform, one hand on his weapon.
He looked surprised, too—which was strange, since he had to know who lived here. Then she realized he wasn’t looking at her, but beyond her, at Roy. He stepped inside the apartment. “We had a call from one of your neighbors about a possible intruder . . . said there was a lot of barking.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Cora Philpott? She’s always complaining about the dogs. I don’t know how she can hear them when they’re inside.”
“She also said she saw some suspicious activity outside the apartment.”
“That was probably me,” Roy said, smiling.
Jared laughed. “Trying to make a big entrance?”
“Sort of. Though I swear I wasn’t going to break in.”
The policeman shrugged. “Well, don’t worry about it. If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have come rushing over.”
Jane frowned. “He’s been here twenty minutes. You couldn’t have been rushing too quickly.”
“It’s Jam weekend. We get lots of calls.” Jared put his hands on his hips. “Not to mention, I spent part of the evening with my sister, trying to deal with the fallout from all the trouble you started.”
Jane flinched. “Is something wrong with Marcy?”
“Wrong? She’s a wreck! Said you told her she ought to propose to Keith, which she did. Where did you come up with such a cockamamy idea? Scared the guy so much that he dumped her outright.”
Jane’s jaw dropped. “Dumped her?”
“Told her that since she was so antsy about getting married, he didn’t want to lead her on. Said he didn’t know she had expectations.”
“Oh no,” Jane said.
“Poor thing spent the whole night crying herself sick. You know how many times I’ve seen my little sister cry, besides funerals? Zero. If I weren’t an officer of the law, I’d kill him.”
“I’m sorry. That’s terrible for her.”
“If you’d just left well enough alone, Keith might have come around eventually. Guys don’t like to be cornered, you know?”
“I only meant for her to talk to him . . .”
“Well, mission accomplished.”
Footsteps clattered up the stairs, and in the next second her mother appeared in her short-sleeved terry cloth bathrobe. “What’s wrong? What happened to my trellis?”
“There was a little accident,” Jane said.
“An accident?” Her father, who’d come in on the heels of her mom, stood in his old plaid robe. He looked a little stooped, as he always did in the apartment, as if he feared his head would scrape the ceiling.
Roy stepped forward. “It was my fault,” he confessed. “I unintentionally damaged the trellis.”
Her mother blinked. “How?”
“By climbing on it.”
Her mother’s cheeks flooded with red, but it was her father who spoke. “Are you drunk?”
Jane tried to ease the tension with a chuckle. It was so ridiculous. She felt as if she was in high school again and had been caught out after curfew. “We were just horsing around.”
“Why were the police called?” her father asked.
Jared assured them, “Mrs. Philpott said it looked like breaking and entering, but it was just Roy.”
This only agitated her mother more. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! What do you—”
“Now, we can all talk about this tomorrow,” Jane’s father said, putting his hands on his wife’s shoulders to try to calm her. Jane could have hugged him. “For now, there’s probably no harm done that some staples and a little Gorilla Glue won’t set right.”
“Sure.” Jared shot a quick glare at Jane. “Well, except for poor Marcy. You can’t Gorilla Glue that right again.”
He turned and left.
Jane smiled weakly. “I gave someone at work a little bad advice,” she explained to her folks.
They nodded. Then they transferred their gazes from her to Roy.
Neither of them budged.
For Pete’s sake. Did they really intend to stand there all night and protect their little girl’s virtue?
Evidently.
Roy finally took the hint. “I should be going. Guess I’ve caused enough problems for one night.”
“Yes,” Brenda said.
“Mom . . .” Jane hurried after Roy to the porch.
Out of their hearing, he turned back to her, grinning. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can get together.”
“Great,” she said.
He took her hand and gave it a firm squeeze.
When Jane went back inside, her mother’s fierce, protective look had changed to a more searching gaze. She examined Jane’s face so intently that Jane drew back a little, disconcerted.
“What’s the matter?” Jane asked.
“I just thought I saw something,” her mother murmured.
Jane’s father seemed more amused than anything else. “Roy’s looking good, isn’t he?” he said. “I thought so the other day when we were touring the new auditorium at the school. He hasn’t changed a bit.”
“No, he hasn’t,” her mother grumbled. “Still acting like a teenager.”
Jane crossed her arms. “No, you’re still acting as if I’m a teenager—chasing my friends away as though I had a curfew.”
“Did you want him to stay all night?” her mother asked.
Did she ever.
Her father began to tug her mother toward the door. “Maybe we should leave this for tomorrow, Brenda. In the light of day, this will all seem like nothing. After all, Roy’s just going to be here a few more days. He told me himself that the only reason he was sticking around was for the opening of the auditorium.”
“When did he say this?” Jane asked.
He thought for a second. “Day before yesterday? Well, he’s giving a speech Thursday, so of course he’s going to stay. But after that . . .”
Of course. She’d even known about the auditorium dedication. And yet she’d fallen for Roy’s I’m-here-because-of-you patter—hook, line, and sinker.
Her father smiled encouragingly at Jane before they left the apartment. “Don’t worry. Incidents like this blow over. Soon, Roy will go back to Seattle, life will return to normal, and everyone will remember how sensible you are.” He winked. “Good night.”
When they were gone, Jane stumbled back to bed and flopped back against the mattress.
Maybe Roy had wanted to rekindle their romance. Why not? He was breezing through town, bored, avoiding work . . . Probably he was still feeling sad because of his mom. So he’d reached out to the old and familiar. Old, familiar Jane.
Damn.
And the saddest part? She wasn’t sure whether she cared if he was sincere or not.
Everything will get back to normal. That was supposed to be comforting. The trouble was, Roy had come back, and now normal seemed lackluster.
Chapter Six
On Sunday morning Jane waited for the promised call. During lunch with her parents, she stayed within grabbing distance of her phone, like a teen in an Annette Funicello movie. During the middle of the meal, she received a text from Roy.
