Exclusively Yours

by Shannon Stacey

He forced a laugh, but on the inside his heart was doing a little flip-flop. It was the first reference she’d made to the possibility of a relationship after the vacation was over and, even though she’d said it as a joke, he got a little hopeful. Maybe a long-distance romance would work until he could talk her into coming home where she belonged.

  He was saved from having to answer that by a knock on the door but, on the downside, he had to stop nibbling at her neck. “I knew they’d come after us eventually.”

  It was Brian, a little out of breath. “You guys have to come down now so the grown-ups can decide what we’re doing today.”

  “Tell them we’ll be right there,” he told the boy, who nodded and took off running again.

  He dug into his gym bag, looking for the small toiletry bag so he could clean up a little, too. Keri wasn’t the only one with morning and breakfast breath.

  “Have you seen the bug spray?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s right there on the…” It wasn’t there. “I thought it was on the table.”

  “I did, too. And there was an extra bottle in my bag. Oh…that bitch.”

  He stopped rummaging through the bags and looked up. Keri had her arms crossed and was literally tapping her foot.

  “Terry! She said she’d hide my bug spray if I had sex with you.”

  “Come on, babe. It’s not like she was sneaking around, listening at doors.”

  She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You were the one waving condoms at Kevin like a winning poker hand.”

  “Poke’er.” Heh. “Get it?”

  “Focus, Joe.”

  He was, just apparently on the wrong thing. “It’s probably in the cupholder of one of the chairs.”

  “All of it? Even the extra bottles and the repellant wipes I don’t bother using because the mosquitoes don’t seem to be at all deterred by natural tropical scents, which makes sense because why would mosquitoes be afraid of flowers?”

  “They’re probably not all in the cupholder, no.”

  “She snuck in here while we were at the restaurant and stole all my bug spray.”

  “Our bug spray. She took mine, too.”

  She crossed her arms and scowled at him. “You should write her into your book and do horrible things to her.”

  He chuckled. “I try not to do horrible things to people I know in my books. They get upset.”

  “Oh? What about Carrie Danielson?”

  Busted. “You were gone, presumably forever.”

  “Yeah, well now I’m back. And I have no freakin’ bug spray.”

  While he wasn’t stupid enough to say it out loud, she was awfully damn cute when she was pissed. “Let’s go clean up and then join the crowd. I’ll get your bug spray back.”

  “No.”

  “No what?” If they were going to hang out in the cabin all day, he was taking his clothes back off. And hers, too. Bacon breath be damned.

  “I’m not going out there. Everybody knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “That we had sex, Kowalski.”

  “They didn’t think I was a virgin, babe.”

  “No, they know you had sex with me. Because you told Kevin, who probably told everybody, which wasn’t supposed to happen. Your mother’s probably baking our wedding cake right now, for chrissake.”

  It was a punch to his gut, the immediate visual of Keri in a wedding dress, walking up the aisle toward him. It superimposed itself over the memory of her on prom night, when she’d worn a pretty navy blue thing with a long zipper he’d enjoyed pulling down one excruciatingly teasing inch at a time.

  Then high school Keri faded, leaving just the thought of the here-and-now Keri making her way toward the altar while his brothers fidgeted with their tuxes and their mothers sniffled into crumpled tissues.

  He didn’t know how the hell it had come to this, but yeah, he wanted that.

  Then she laughed at him. “Oh my God, I said wedding and you just totally shut down. You are such a guy, Kowalski.”

  Let her think that. It was better than confessing he’d been playing wedding planner in his mind. Maybe asking her opinion on a traditional carrot cake. “Nobody cares if we’re having sex.”

  “Tell that to the mosquitoes.”

  “Come on. Let’s go see what the family’s up to.”

  She shook her head, trying to stare him down. “I’m not going out there.”

  He shrugged and put his hand on the doorknob. “Okay. But you’re forfeiting a question.”

  “Oh, you bastard. You know you haven’t given me shit to work with already!”

  “You agreed to the terms by showing up, Daniels. You refuse to take part in an activity, you forfeit a question.”

  “Fine. But if I take a bunch of shit about last night, I’m wiping your hard drive.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” He held the door open and laughed when she slapped him in the stomach as she walked by.

  Keri didn’t think the bugs were too bad until she joined the family—minus Stephanie, who was probably off with Evan—on Mike and Lisa’s shady site. Mosquitoes apparently liked the shade, or maybe it was her minty fresh breath, and within seconds she was slapping herself like a one-woman Three Stooges impersonator.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Leo asked, his volume as always attracting everybody’s attention.“I hate mosquitoes.”

  “Then put on some bug spray, dumbass.”

  “Leo!” Mary barked. “Don’t call Joe’s girl a dumbass!”

  Joe’s girl. She couldn’t believe she’d called her that, or the way her stomach started to hurt. It had been a long time since she’d had occasion to remember how much she hated that.

  Leo threw his hands up in the air. “What? She can’t figure out mosquito repellant repels mosquitoes? That makes her a dumbass in my book.”

  “All of my bug spray mysteriously disappeared while Joe and I were out to breakfast,” she explained, casting an obviously accusing glare Terry’s way.

  Mary didn’t miss it. “Theresa, did you hide Keri’s bug spray?”

  Put on the spot, she obviously didn’t dare lie. “Yup.”

  “Why?”

  Keri saw Lisa’s eyes get big and then she focused all her attention on giving Joe an I told you so look he couldn’t miss.

  “Because she…” Terry paused, then gave her mother a falsely sheepish grin. “It was a practical joke, Ma. That’s all.”

  “Go get it, then, before the mosquitoes eat her alive.”

  With the rather disappointing show over, everybody went back to talking about where they wanted to ride later, so Keri wandered over to the coffeepot and stole the last cold cup from the bottom. She turned to ask if she should make another pot, but a woman Keri didn’t recognize and a little boy were walking up to Lisa.

  “Hi, Bobby’s mom. I’m Sean’s mom.” Both women laughed, then launched into a discussion about Bobby going up to their campsite to play trucks for a little while.

  But Keri was barely aware of them. Hi, Terry’s mom. I’m Keri’s mom. It was happening again. Hadn’t Mary just called her Joe’s girl?

  She couldn’t remember how old she was when she realized her mother had no identity of her own. More than likely it was a long-growing awareness rather than a single moment.

  Keri’s mom. Ed’s wife. Mrs. Daniels. Her dad called her hon and Keri called her mom. She never heard anybody call her Janie. Oh, logically she knew people must have—Mrs. Kowalski, for one. They were friends so one could assume first names had come into play.

  For a while, Keri had even listened for it. And maybe that’s why, as they were filing into the gymnasium to “Pomp and Circumstance,” she’d been horrified to overhear a woman whisper, “That’s the valedictorian’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” her companion had responded. “I’d heard Ed’s daughter was Joe’s girl now.”

  She’d made the rest of that long, slow walk cataloguing the ways she’d been referred t
o lately. Ed’s daughter. The Daniels girl. Doll (her father’s pet name for her) and Peach (her mother’s). Joe’s girl. Babe.

  The index card taped to her folding metal chair read K. DANIELS.

  “Keri,” she had whispered to herself. And as she smoothed her gown and adjusted the mortar perched atop her big hair, she’d wondered if her mother had ever done the same.

  Keri wanted to see her name in lights. On a marquee. Or in an entertainment column. She’d made up her mind before Joe even started his speech—the world would see the name Keri Daniels somewhere.

  Now she was this close to seeing it on the masthead of a major weekly magazine.

  All she had to do was resharpen her focus—remember she was being granted unprecedented access to Joseph Kowalski.

  Flash. “Say cheese!”

  And his family.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Terry sat in her chair, not even pretending to read the book in her lap. From there she could see site four, where Stephanie was helping her father break down his tent.

  Other than sleeping, Steph had been with her father all weekend and, though she could see them when they were in the campground, Terry hadn’t joined in. There was everything and nothing to say and, since she couldn’t find the right words, she stayed away. It was his usual time with their daughter, anyway, though she didn’t usually have to watch it from a distance.On a more cheerful note, Keri hadn’t spoken to her since the bug spray incident the day before. She didn’t have anything to say to her, either. Nothing nice anyway.

  She’d been on her way to the cabin to deliver a few important emails she’d printed out for him from the store’s computer and then forgotten in the turmoil of Evan’s arrival, but Kevin had called to her from his tent site and intercepted her. While he hadn’t given her any specifics, his very pointed suggestion she leave Joe and Keri alone told her all she needed to know.

  The dumb son of a bitch had slept with her.

  Maybe it wasn’t really her business, but she was the one who’d gone off to UNH with Joe after Keri left and watched him start the slow slide into self-destruction. She couldn’t help but fear his being hurt by the same girl again would trigger the same coping behavior.

  Steph laughed, drawing her attention back to site four. Her husband was trying to stuff the haphazardly balled-up tent back into its storage bag, which would never happen unless he refolded the tent in a tight, methodical way.

  As soon as he was done, he’d be leaving and then they’d be right back where they started. Actually, no. They’d be worse off than when they started because now she knew they both wanted the marriage to succeed, but neither of them knew how to do it. Somehow that seemed worse than believing the marriage was over because he flat-out didn’t want to be married to her anymore.

  She should say something. Anything. Her sending him away with a cold shoulder would just make it harder for them to communicate when she got home. Before she could second-guess herself out of it, she stood up and started toward his site.

  “Mom!” Steph yelled when she saw her coming. “You totally have to help us with this. It’s never going to fit.”

  “It will. You just have to fold it—” she was going to say the right way, “—a different way.”

  When a smile tugged just a little at the corners of Evan’s mouth, she knew he hadn’t missed her self-correction. It wasn’t much—not nearly enough—but it was a start, maybe. How long would she last watching everything she said and did, though?

  Ten minutes later, the tent was properly packed away and there was nothing for him to do but strap his four-wheeler down and say goodbye.

  “Hey, Steph,” he said, “would you run down to the store and grab a Coke for me for the ride home?”

  He fished a dollar out of his pocket and then she was off, leaving them alone. Terry stuck her hands in her pockets and waited to see what her husband had to say to her he couldn’t say in front of their daughter.

  “So you’ll call when you get home?” he asked. “So we can set up a night to have dinner?”

  She nodded. “I think it’s best if we don’t say anything to anybody about it. Especially to Stephanie. I don’t want to get her hopes up.”

  “If that’s the way you want it.” He stepped closer to her and it was only then she realized they were hidden from view of the campground by his truck and the ATV in the bed of it. “I’ve got my hopes up, though.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, not wanting to admit it, but knowing the only way they could come out on the other side of this was to be honest.

  When he tipped her chin and up and pressed his lips to hers, her whole body shook. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him so tight he could never get away again, but she kept her hands in her pockets. Her heart was too bruised to give him anything more.

  He drew back and she heard the footsteps hurrying up the dirt road. Steph was back and Terry turned away to swipe at her eyes while Evan took his Coke and said goodbye to their daughter.

  “I’ll see you soon, Terry,” was all the goodbye she got, and then he climbed into his truck.

  She and Steph watched him drive away and pull out onto the main road, and then she draped her arm over her daughter’s shoulders. For once, Steph didn’t pull away.

  “Everybody’s going riding again,” Terry said. “Do you want to go or did riding with your dad tire you out?”

  Steph shrugged. “They have that new romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock in it for rent down at the store. We could get it and some ice cream and be lazy bums today.”

  Terry was more in the mood for pounding out some frustration on the trails, but she squeezed Steph’s shoulders. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  Joe wasn’t very happy about the fact Keri was in the wrong bed. With her back rested against her duffel bag with a pillow over it, she was scribbling away in her notebook on the bottom bunk, probably trying to recreate the conversation they’d had at the restaurant the day before and his lame answer to Thursday morning’s question about the team of professionals—editor, agent, publicist and more—involved in making his career a success.

  He was working, too, sitting on the big bed with his back against the wall and his laptop on his knees. They’d done almost forty miles on the four-wheelers so, while the family was lazing around recovering, they’d escaped to his cabin on the excuse of squeezing in a little bit of writing before supper.He’d pictured them snuggled up together on the bed, working side by side, but she’d settled herself on the bottom bunk before he’d even gotten his laptop fired up. Rather than let on how much he wanted to be close to her, he’d taken the big bed and set about trying to choreograph a fight scene in which one of the combatants was invisible. It was harder than he’d anticipated.

  A half-hour later, Keri set her steno pad and pencil on the nightstand between the beds, and then stretched out on her foam slab. “Totally off the record, between old friends, will you tell me why Lauren Huckins sued you for emotional distress?”

  Whoa, where had that come from? He kept his eyes on his computer screen so she couldn’t see how the question shook him. “I thought women didn’t like hearing about ex-girlfriends.”

  “No. New girlfriends don’t like hearing about ex-girlfriends.” She rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand. “I know you met her at a bookstore where she worked and you were signing. You started dating, did some splashy parties and events. Then something happened that made you pay her a rumored-to-be substantial amount of money and turn into a hermit.”

  “I’m not a hermit,” he protested, mostly to buy himself another minute to think.

  He didn’t like thinking about Lauren and he never, ever talked about her. The few people who needed to know the story, namely his family, already knew what happened. There was never any reason to bring it up, except for Terry’s recent crack about Keri being as bad as Lauren.

  “A media hermit, then. I can’t imagine you inflicting—reportedly—millions of dollars’ worth of
emotional damage on any woman. I…I’d really like to know.”

  A part of Joe wanted to tell her to shut up and leave it alone. It had been one of the more humiliating moments in his life, and definitely not one he wanted to share with the woman he was subtly trying to lure into a real relationship.

  But there was no telling what crazy scenarios Keri had built up in her head to explain the lawsuit. He’d rather she think him a sucker than a total asshole.

  “I retracted my proposal,” he finally said, staring up at the ceiling fan.

  “You paid Lauren Huckins a buttload of cash because you broke your engagement?”

  “Totally off the record?”

  “I swear, Joe. It’s a personal question, not a professional one.”

  He inhaled deeply and then blew out the breath. “Technically there was no engagement because I retracted the proposal before she accepted it. Or rejected it.”

  When he turned his head to look at her, he wasn’t surprised to see she was wearing her annoyed expression. “What…like some kind of practical joke?”

  “No.”

  “You lost me.”

  He sighed and resigned himself to telling the entire sordid story. “When we started dating, Lauren took quite an interest in my career. She’d been sorority sisters or something with a woman who owned a chain of trendy restaurants in New York and L.A., and she dragged me around, getting our picture taken and my name in the paper. Not really my scene, but whatever. Start hanging with the cool crowd and the world thinks you’re a cool kid.

  “After a while she started complaining about how much she hated being introduced as my girlfriend, which I took as a sign it was time to propose.”

  “How utterly romantic.”

  “I haven’t gotten to the romantic part yet. So anyway, I went ring-hunting. It took forever, but I finally found one that seemed just right. It had all kinds of fancy, delicate goldwork and a real sparkly stone. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be perfect for her.

  “So I did the whole romantic setting thing and gave her the box—”

  “Did you get down on one knee?”