by Nicole Baart
“Where else would she be?” Jenna seemed to think the question was ridiculous.
He stumbled. “I thought . . .”
“I know what you thought. You were wrong. If I were the type to say ‘I told you so,’ this would be the perfect time to break out a little victory dance.” Jenna did an off-balance pirouette and grabbed her coffee off the counter with a triumphant sweep of her hand. Taking a sip, she sucked in her breath as if scalded. Lucas interpreted the sound as reprimand.
“Where has she been? Why did she come back? How long is she going to stay?”
Jenna shrugged. “We’ve got lots of time to deal with the specifics. For now, all you need to know is that she showed up at my office last night. She heard about Jim and flew in from the West Coast.”
“The West Coast?”
“Yup.”
“But . . .”
“Tonight, okay? We’ll talk about it tonight. I’ve got to go.”
Lucas glanced back at the living room and shot his wife a desperate look. His mind was a snarl of shock and confusion, but there was one thing that he knew without a doubt. He did not want Angela Sparks staying under his roof. “Do you think it’s a good idea for her to be here?” he asked. “I mean, in our house . . . She’s a former client, after all.”
“I want her here,” Jenna whispered. She grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the mudroom attached to the kitchen. It was cool, and she pulled her coat off the hook beside the window and tugged it over her sweater and the strap of the bag she had crisscrossing her chest. “Look, she’s going to be here awhile and that’s just the way it has to be. Don’t make her feel uncomfortable. You two haven’t always had the best relationship.”
You don’t know the half of it, he thought. He wanted to say something in response, something keen and intelligent that would make her realize that having Angela in their house was not a good idea. Instead, one look at the fierce edge in Jenna’s eye and he deflated as if her words were pinpricks; they pierced the core of his intention and all his careful plans leaked out. The only remnant of his former conviction was a stone of tepid resignation, a hard and bitter fragment that reminded him of the distance between them. It was still there in spite of her irrepressible delight at seeing Angela again after all these years.
“Okay,” he said. “Fine.”
“Just fine?” She groaned and reached over his shoulder for her car keys. “You’re impossible. I can’t figure you out.”
“What do you mean?”
Rather than turning to leave, Jenna paused for an instant and looked at her husband. Really looked at him. Her eyes were clouded somehow, dark and unreadable beneath the fleeting thrill of having Angela in their home. Surprise rooted Lucas to the ground when she stood on tiptoe to kiss him full on the mouth. It was a fierce, selfish moment of contact, an intimate act that somehow felt analytical and detached. But Lucas leaned down anyway and tried to kiss her back even as she broke away from him and reached for the door.
“Jenna?” he called.
She glanced at him. “This is more than fine, Lucas. This is great. I’ve waited eight years for her to come back. Do you understand that? Eight years.”
The door was half open when Lucas caught her from behind. She spun easily in his hands, her waist small and familiar and lovely beneath his fingers. Something inside Lucas had fractured—the fine, strong vein of his self-control—and he lifted her off the ground. Kissed her again. Soft and sweet. Long. A kiss on his terms.
Jenna swayed a little when he set her down, but Lucas kept his hand on the small of her back. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and she groped for the door handle with her head tilted toward their feet. Lucas kissed the top of her head once and let her go.
When Jenna pulled out of the driveway and disappeared from sight, Lucas realized that his face was all but pressed to the glass in the back door, his nose an inch from the pane, the cold outside radiating through the thin window and nipping his skin with the hint of winter to come. A wry smile teased his mouth, and he took a deep breath, blowing it all out against the window so that a circle of condensation formed on the glass. He fanned his fingers and touched them to the spot, crowning the memory of where Jenna had been with the five-point blessing of his hand.
“Jim hated it when I did that.”
Lucas jerked around and saw Angela leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and living room. There was a careless, almost condescending smirk on her face, and from the casual way she propped one foot against the thick molding, it was easy to imagine that she had been standing there for ages. With her rumpled hair, bare legs, and sleepy eyes, she was an impression of beauty wrought by reckless hands.
“Excuse me?” Lucas sputtered.
“The glass thing,” she said, moving to stand in front of the sink. Her stride was graceful, unhurried; she seemed to move on tiptoe like a ballerina posing as an unexpected houseguest. “Where’re your cups? Same place they always were?”
“Yeah, the cupboard to your right,” Lucas responded automatically. “How long have you been standing there?”
Angela ignored the question and focused on filling a plastic cup with tap water. “Thanks for letting me crash on your couch last night,” she said between gulps. When the glass was drained, she passed the back of her hand over her mouth and looked Lucas over from head to toe and back again.
“Sure,” Lucas muttered belatedly. What did one say to a woman who melted into thin air, leaving nothing but broken hearts and questions in her path? “Uh, welcome home.”
“This isn’t home.”
Angela hadn’t changed much in the years of her absence. True, she was older. She had softened, filled out. At twenty-six she still could still pass for eighteen, but to Lucas’s eyes she bore a lifetime of scars that seemed to hide just beneath the surface. Her arms were crossed in a stance of defensive aggression, the sort of passive position that betrayed her desire to both protect herself and also lash out if necessary. He remembered the posture well. It made Lucas tired just to look at her clinging to the balance as if her very life depended on making him believe she was tough.
With a sigh, he stepped up the two stairs that led back into the kitchen. Giving her wide berth, he opened the refrigerator and pretended to study its contents. But instead of respecting the tangible discomfort filling the space between them, Angela swept across the floor and came to stand beside him in the wan light of the refrigerator bulb.
“Got any soy milk?”
“No.”
The quick exhale of her breath warmed Lucas’s neck. He straightened up and tried to back away, bumping into her as he made a clumsy exit.
“Tofu? I like it scrambled with green peppers and soy sauce.”
“Pardon me?”
Angela turned to wink at him. “I’ll take that as a no. No soy milk, no tofu . . .” She bent to pull open the produce drawer and emerged triumphant with a slightly bruised apple. “I can make do with this. I won’t even ask if it’s organic.”
“It’s not.”
“I said I wouldn’t ask.”
“It was implied.”
Angela shut the refrigerator door with her hip and stood tall and willowy in the center of the kitchen, stately and imperious, and looking for all the world like she owned the place. She locked Lucas in a calculating gaze, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth so that a thin sliver of white shone between the curve of her lips with a sort of feline restraint. It wasn’t until she started shining the apple on the fabric of her nightshirt that Lucas realized that she was wearing one of his shirts. One of his favorites. It had been hanging in the laundry room, freshly washed and waiting to be ironed. He wondered if he would have to burn it now.
“So,” she said, taking her time to draw out the word. And then she didn’t say anything more.
“So what?”
Her laughter was sudden and bright, like a burst of something cool and sweet on Lucas’s tongue. Angela was utterly disarming. There was no way around it, a
nd Lucas finally gave in to discomfort, embracing the awkwardness as a way to hold her at a distance. He wouldn’t try for her. He wouldn’t let himself be cowed. Shrugging a little as if to dislodge the clinging hazard of her presence, Lucas grabbed a fat loaf wrapped in wax paper from the counter behind him and cut a thick slab of banana bread. Life as normal, he told himself. Just act normal and maybe she’ll buy it.
The polite thing to do was invite her to share the bread, but the first bite got lodged in his throat. So, instead of speaking, Lucas held up the crumbly loaf in a halfhearted offering and hoped with all his might that his eyes wouldn’t water in front of Angela.
Still smiling a secret smile, she shook her head, declining with a capricious flick of her attractively pointed chin. But instead of leaving the kitchen, as Lucas silently wished she would, Angela grabbed a chair from the table and poured herself into it in one fluid, elegant motion. She curled her legs beneath her and Lucas had to look at the ceiling to stop himself from noticing the long lines of her uncovered legs.
“I didn’t know Jenna baked,” Angela said.
“She doesn’t,” Lucas informed her. “This is from Minnie Van Egdom. She thinks that baked goods are better collateral than Medicare checks for her regular doctor’s visits.”
“And?”
Lucas chewed. “I’d take one of Minnie’s breads over cash any day of the week. Would you like some?”
“Do you know what’s in it?”
“I’m no professional, but I’m guessing bananas, eggs, flour . . .”
“Sugar, butter . . .” The tone of her voice made the ingredients sound downright poisonous.
“I hope so.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Your loss.”
They were quiet for a few moments as Lucas munched his breakfast and Angela turned the apple over and over in her hands. She studied it intently, appearing as if she was looking for just the perfect spot to taste the blushed, golden flesh. But from time to time she also glanced up at Lucas, and more than once she caught him looking at her. His eyes spun away, hers held firm.
“Ask me,” she demanded after Lucas finished his hasty breakfast and rinsed his fingers beneath the kitchen faucet.
“Ask you what?”
Angela rolled her eyes and finally took a bite from the apple that she had been spinning through her hands. It split beneath the pearl line of her teeth and sprayed a fine drop of fruit juice against the corner of her mouth, where it hung like a jewel. She wiped it with the tip of her pinky. “Ask me why I’m here,” she said, her mouth full.
Lucas sighed. “Why are you here?”
She swallowed, stood up.
His back stiffened, his fingers went numb. In the instant her feet found the floor, the clock wound back eight long years and an old but familiar sinking sensation burrowed deep through his heart and beyond. Angela hadn’t changed much at all in the time she was gone; her eyes were maybe a little harder, cold and shiny as they reflected his own torn face back to him. But she was still the same Angela; that much was apparent. And he thought she would do it again. That she would extend the double-edged gift of her so-called friendship.
Back then, Angela was a constant presence in their lives, an honorary Hudson. Jenna had been working with her for nearly four years running, and the young woman had impressed herself upon Jenna’s heart and mind so completely that she broke all her own rules and let Angela in on a personal level. It was risky and draped with potential problems. But he’d let it go on, because Jenna’s desire to help was so tangled in every bit of who she was that he feared tampering with any frayed edge of her motivation would unravel her from the inside out.
None of that changed the fact that he was acutely uncomfortable around Angela. As she got older, she radiated a kind of latent lust, an almost predatory sensuality that wafted off her like a heady perfume. Lucas was grateful every day that she never acted on the impulses that seemed as natural to her as breathing. At least, she never acted on them until a month before she disappeared.
Angela had been spending the odd night on their couch, crashing there when her father’s drinking or some other unspeakable, and unspoken, reason drove her from home and into the only place in Blackhawk that she claimed she felt comfortable. When she arrived that night, Jenna and Lucas were on their way out the door for a bike ride. It was late to be out, but a vicious storm had raged for hours, and as the last remaining clouds scurried across the sky, they left stars like diamonds sparkling wet and lovely in their wake. It was breathtaking, and Lucas was just lacing up his tennis shoes when a frantic fall of knuckles against their back door split the night.
“We can’t leave her alone,” Jenna sighed after Angela was safe and settled in the living room.
“Why not?”
Jenna sighed. “Go ahead without me.” She began to unzip her windbreaker, but Lucas put his hand on the pull and tugged it back up. He traced his wife’s face with his fingertips and absorbed the weary downturn of her mouth. He tried to erase the frown with his thumbs, and when that didn’t work, he sprinkled her lips with gentle kisses until she gave in and kissed him with equal relish. She pulled away and smiled at him for real.
“You’ll stay with her?” Jenna asked. “Just this once? I know you’ve never been alone with her before, but hasn’t she been a part of our lives for long enough? She’s practically our daughter.”
Jenna had never even hinted at that sort of sentiment before, and it caught Lucas off guard. He wanted to argue, but Jenna looked so happy and hopeful he said instead, “Fine, but promise me you’ll be careful.”
Jenna crossed her heart with a slender finger and slipped out the door before he could change his mind.
In the living room, Angela was watching a show on HGTV. A boyish-looking man with tousled hair held his pretty wife’s hand and pointed out the arching soffits around the windows in a house that looked too expensive for a couple who couldn’t be a day over twenty-five. But Lucas didn’t watch the television. His eyes were riveted to Angela as she stared at the screen, her jaw soft and open in the sort of wistful admiration that made Lucas believe she had sighed in the moment before he stepped into the room. She looked so fragile sitting there, with hope so naked and desperate in her beautiful face that Lucas almost put his hand to her shoulder in a show of solidarity. Almost.
He was glad that he didn’t.
As soon as Angela caught sight of him in the room, her demeanor underwent a change so quick and complete, it was as if a switch was flipped in her psyche. A different person emerged and peered at him from beneath seductively lowered lashes.
She was eighteen years old, but she didn’t seem like a high school senior. There was a wisdom in her eyes that made Lucas feel inept, as if this girl had experienced more in her short, sheltered lifetime than he could ever hope to know. And her maturity didn’t end there. When she smiled at him, Lucas felt the full impact of her intentions as if she had whispered her desires in his ear. But with Angela, you never could tell. Was she teasing him? Or did she really want him in the way her eyes confessed?
Lucas was afraid of Angela. The realization overtook him as he sat opposite her in a rocking chair that creaked his fears in an uneven staccato of high-pitched cries. She was dangerous. She stood poised to topple his world with one flick of her perfectly shaped wrist. Nothing good could come from being alone with her, even for a half hour.
So he tried to make small talk. He tried to hold her at bay by talking about every inconsequential thing that popped uncensored into his mind. It worked until he asked the wrong question.
“So, who do you hang out with on weekends?”
“I don’t really have friends,” she murmured, somehow making the admission seem mysterious, desirable. Friends? Beauty queens fit for the pages of magazines don’t trifle with such trivialities.
“Come on,” Lucas pressed. “A girl like you? No friends? Boyfriends?”
Angela glanced at her lap, and when she looked up he couldn’t tell
if her gaze was teasing or insistent. She licked her lips. “It’s complicated,” she told him.
“Complicated?”
“I like things complicated,” she admitted, trying out a slow smile and watching its effect on him. “Want to make it more interesting?”
It wasn’t an invitation, not exactly, but there was no doubt in Lucas’s mind that his wife’s far-from-innocent protégée had just offered the unthinkable. But before he could unknot his tongue and react, Angela uncurled herself from the couch and crossed the room. She put her hands on the armrests of his rocking chair, over his forearms, trapping him. He could have flung her off in a second, tiny thing that she was, but he was shocked. Stunned. Immobile. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit curious.
For a second, Lucas didn’t react at all. It was more than enough. She bent down, her hair falling over her shoulders, brushing his face while she studied his lips and avoided his eyes. Then her mouth was on his, hard and demanding, tasting of something unrecognizable but sweet.
If he kissed her back, it was only for a moment. And only because he was too astonished to stop it. Not, he tried to convince himself, because she was enticing.
When Lucas jerked away and stood up, Angela fell back with a laugh. He didn’t know if she was laughing at him or at the situation. And he didn’t know if the kiss was a game or if she meant it. He didn’t want to know.
“Jenna will be home in a minute,” he muttered.
Though he intended for his blatant reminder to snap Angela back to reality, to awaken the guilt that should be grinding away at her conscience, the girl was unfazed. She merely flopped back down on the couch, picked up the TV remote, and cranked up the volume. No word of explanation. The superior tilt of her profile made it seem to Lucas as if she had dismissed him.
