All Shook Up

by Susan Andersen

  “Looks like my tank was siphoned dry.”

  Ben swore beneath his breath, then gestured toward the car. “Climb in. We’ll talk about it once we’ve gotten Soph settled at home.”

  J.D. was silent on the ride back to the Lawrences’ house, but he knew what he had to do. Acid churning in his gut, he leaned forward to tap Ben on the shoulder as they neared the lodge. “Can I borrow the work truck to get gas for my car and drop off the blade assembly?”

  “Sure.” Ben pulled into the drive that swept past the lodge’s big front porch and brought the Buick to a halt. “You can pick up the keys at the front desk.”

  J.D. climbed out of the car and leaned down to study Sophie’s pale face through Ben’s open window. He cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry I got you mixed up in this mess,” he said sincerely, then widened the scope of his glance to include Dru and Tate in the backseat. “Sorry I involved all of you. Give me an hour or two to get my stuff together; then I’ll clear out.”

  Sophie and Tate exclaimed in startled protest and Ben said, “Now, son, don’t make any hasty decisions. Let’s talk about this.”

  But it was the shock on Dru’s face that struck J.D. to the bone. He’d made a valiant attempt not to look at her, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. What he saw was betrayal staring out at him through laser blue eyes, in a face drained of color.

  It was tempting to let guilt chew on him, but then a healthy dose of anger came to his rescue. Dammit, it wasn’t like he wanted to leave—he was doing this to keep her and her family out of the line of fire! Slapping his hand down on the window opening, he straightened. Then he turned away and strode into the lodge.

  He should have known he couldn’t simply drive off into the sunset. When he opened the driver’s door to the truck a couple of minutes later and swung up into the cab, he found Dru already inside, waiting for him.

  She met his gaze head-on. “You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy to just walk away, did you?”

  He rammed the key in the ignition and turned it, then slammed the shift stick into gear practically before the engine had roared to life. He spared her one brief glance before he pulled out onto the road. “Trust me, sweetheart, there’s not a damn thing that’s easy about any of this.”

  She didn’t respond, and he determined to hold his tongue as well. It took him less than three minutes to cave, though. “I’m getting gas for my car, then I’m packing up and getting the hell out of here.”

  He fully expected her to argue with that, but she crossed her arms over her breasts and turned her head to stare out the side window. She was silent when he pulled up behind his Mustang a few minutes later to transfer the blade assembly unit into the bed of the truck. She wasn’t any chattier the rest of the drive down to town. But instead of continuing to stare out at the scenery, she swiveled in her seat to stare at him. He was highly aware of her gaze on him every second of the ride, but still she didn’t say a word.

  It made him jumpy as a cat.

  It didn’t help that he was also uncomfortably aware of her lightly tanned thighs, which he caught glimpses of every time he shifted gears. The temptation to reach across the stick shift and wrap his hand around the sweet curve of the nearest thigh was damn near irresistible. He wanted to press his palm against the warmth of that velvet-smooth skin of hers one last time and feel the fit, firm muscle beneath.

  But this was hard enough as it was. Touching her now would be like driving nails into his own coffin.

  And that was assuming that she wouldn’t smack him upside the head should he attempt it.

  Dru waited until he’d dropped the lawn-mower blades off at the machinist, filled up a gas can at the service station, and was headed out of town before she spoke. She’d been mentally assembling her arguments for the past twenty minutes, but in the end she merely said, “Don’t go, J.D.”

  Muscles in his arms leaped to prominence beneath his skin, then went rigid, and his knuckles turned white where he gripped the steering wheel. His eyes were hot as coals as he swung his head around to stare at her, and what she saw in their depths didn’t reassure her.

  “I have to,” he said.

  “That’s ridiculous. Of course you don’t.”

  “Yes, dammit, I do!” Releasing the steering wheel with one hand, he raked his fingers through his hair in frustration and looked over at her as they left the town behind. “You think this is easy for me?”

  “Yes. I do. If it was so terribly difficult, you wouldn’t be so damn quick to pack your bags.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Drucilla! I thought I could start a new life here, but that’s clearly not going to be possible. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let shit from my old life explode all over you or Tate or your aunt and uncle.”

  A mishmash of anxiety and resentment tightened a knot in her stomach. “So you’re saying you’re leaving because you care for us?”

  He looked reluctant to admit any such thing, but finally gave her a terse nod. “Yes.”

  She snorted. “Please. People who care for each other stick together.”

  “People who care for each other see to it that those they care for don’t get hurt!”

  “Which only proves my point. We don’t appear to be the target here, J.D. Your Robbie person is gunning for you, not us, so why do you need to go anywhere? You might as well stay right here, where we can make sure you don’t come to harm.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he scoffed. “Like a bunch of hotelkeepers are going to be any kind of defense against a lunatic with a grudge.”

  “And who do you fancy yourself to be in this scenario—GI Joe?”

  “Of course not,” he said stiffly, but Dru rode right over him.

  “I think you do. I think you think that because you lived in a few foster homes while you were growing up, it somehow makes you worlds tougher than me.”

  That brought his hard-angled jaw up. “There’s no ‘think’ about it—I am worlds tougher than you!”

  “You are so full of it, John David! You think your life was so much harder because your mama didn’t want you? Well, big deal—my parents didn’t have time for me, either. I’ve learned to take care of myself just fine, thank you very much, and I neither want nor need you to sacrifice yourself for me.”

  He pulled the truck up to its parking space outside the lodge and looked across at her. “I’m leaving, Drucilla.”

  “And how do you figure that will help us—help me? Just how will your leaving to make yourself a moving target, and us never knowing what the hell happened to you, help me or Tate or Aunt Soph and Uncle Ben?”

  “It’ll take all of you out of target range.”

  “And what about the fact that I love you, J.D.? Doesn’t that count for anything? It seems to be something you like to hear—but I guess when it comes right down to it, my love really doesn’t matter to you at all, does it?”

  For a second he looked as if he were going to explode, but then his expression went blank. Dru fully expected him to look her in the eye and agree that it didn’t. Instead, he said flatly, “It matters. But I’m still leaving.”

  Frustration erupted and she jumped out of the cab. Holding the door open, she stared up at him across the length of the bench seat. “Then you’re a fool,” she said. “Because you could have had me, but you threw me away for the stupidest reason in the world: to satisfy your damn fatheaded, macho pride.”

  She closed the door and refused to drop her eyes before his turbulent dark-eyed gaze. “I hope it keeps you warm at night.”

  24

  “I hope it keeps you warm at night,” J.D. mimicked sourly as he shouldered the gas can and tramped down the hill to his car. Keeps you warm, keeps you warm, keeps you warm. The words echoed in his mind, and no matter how hard he tried to shut them out, they accompanied him step for step down the road like a choir of tinny voices from a fever dream, repeating endlessly.

  You could have had me, Dru’s voice whispered, but you threw me away fo
r the stupidest reason in the world: to satisfy your damn fatheaded, macho pride.

  He swore and ruthlessly clamped a lid on the voices, to shut them down—especially that last one. Dammit, who needed pride to keep him warm? He had his indignation. Star Lake Lodge was as close as he’d come to a home in twenty years, and Drucilla and Tate, Sophie and Ben, the nearest thing he’d had to family. To hear Dru tell it, though, you’d think he was about to stroll out the door swinging his pocket watch and whistling a happy tune, when he felt like his guts were being ripped out without anesthesia.

  He’d never known anyone remotely like Dru, had never realized it was possible to feel about a woman the way he felt about her. He’d done his best to shroud the truth from himself, to cloak it behind lust, but now that Lankovich had made it impossible to stick around any longer without putting Dru and her family in danger, J.D. could no longer dodge the facts. Sure, he wanted to make love to Drucilla day and night; that was a given. But more than that, he wanted to move in with her and her kid. He wanted the right to protect her, to raise Tate as his own, to be the guy who maintained upkeep of the lodge. He wanted the kind of life he’d believed only other people got to have, the kind of life that Dru had shown him could possibly have been his, too.

  “Possibly” being the operative word here, Boscoe. J.D. arrived at his Mustang and swung the gas can to the ground. The fact was, if Lankovich hadn’t stepped in to trash that particular dream, something else probably would have come along to mess it up. Face it: he wasn’t cut out for a Disney family kind of life. He hadn’t believed it even existed, until he’d met the Lawrences.

  That he now knew better—too late to do him a damn bit of good—left a bitter taste in his mouth, but J.D. swallowed it and buckled down to the business at hand. He popped the car’s hood and unfastened the gas cap. Then he poured the contents of the can into the gas tank, except for the last cup or so, which he dumped into the carburetor.

  As he slammed down the hood, tossed the empty can into the Mustang’s trunk, and then walked around to climb into the car, he still found it hard to sink his teeth into the fact that Robbie Lankovich was the instrument of his leaving. He would have sworn the man was all talk and no action.

  The car cranked over on the first try, and he smiled grimly. Didn’t it just figure that this would be the one thing to work without a glitch today? He headed back up toward the lodge.

  Dru had demanded to know what possible risk Robbie could present to her and her family, since J.D. was his target. And, hell, maybe she was right. Maybe he could—

  He jerked the thought up short. No. No, dammit. Don’t even go there. How would he live with himself if something happened to one of the Lawrences? He was doing the right thing by leaving. It was the only thing he could do.

  It was just painful, was all. But he’d live.

  He pulled up behind his cabin and climbed out of the car, slamming the door closed. He needed to throw his stuff into his duffel and hit the road before he could do anything stupid—like decide to stick around despite the risks to Dru and her family.

  Indulging in a fantasy that he knew would never be realized, J.D. entered his cabin and was almost to the bedroom when he realized he wasn’t alone. A man sat in the big Mission-style rocker in front of the window, the afternoon sun backlighting him so that his face was in shadow.

  The gun in his hand, however, was clear as day as it pointed straight at J.D.’s chest.

  Char took one look at Dru’s face as her friend walked through the lobby, and excused herself to the activities clerk with whom she’d been checking her schedule. She caught up with Dru just as the elevator doors were closing between them.

  “Hey, Dru. Hold up.”

  Dru appeared not to hear her, and Char dove for the doors, thrusting her hand between the closing panels to trigger the opening mechanism. She slid through as the doors once again bounced apart.

  Dru turned her head then and looked at her through stricken eyes that didn’t quite track. Char had the distinct impression her friend hadn’t any idea who stood in front of her. “Dru?” she said gently. “What happened?”

  When there was no reply, Char reached out to rub her hand up and down her friend’s upper arm.

  Dru started. Then she blinked and, focusing, discovered her best friend standing in front of her with a look of concern on her face. “Char?”

  “Where’s Tate, Drusie?”

  “With Aunt Sophie. I don’t want him to see me like this.” She felt her chin wobble and gave her best friend a helpless look. “I can’t seem to hang onto my Mom face.”

  “What happened?”

  The pain struck anew and, wrapping her arms around her waist, Dru hugged herself. “He’s leaving, Char.”

  “Who’s leav—J.D.?”

  “Yes.” Tears rose in her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. “The shit. The lousy, lousy shit.”

  “But why? He’s crazy about you.”

  “He says it’s to protect me. And Aunt Soph and Tate—to protect all of us.”

  “Protect you? From what?”

  “Some guy who sabotaged his canoe and his car.” Drawing a deep breath, Dru gathered her scattered wits enough to relate what had been happening.

  “And he thinks that by leaving he can protect you from this fellow? Why, that’s actually kind of romantic.” Dru’s feelings must have been written across her face in screaming neon, for Char immediately scowled. “Romantic for a guy who’s basically a lousy shit, that is.” Then she looked Dru in the eye. “So what did you have to say about all this?”

  “I tried to change his mind. I argued with him until I was blue in the face.” A niggling voice in her head whispered, Not really, and tried to tell her that she’d been reeling from the shock too much to debate effectively, but she shook it aside. “I told him this Lankovich person was clearly gunning for him, not us, so there was no reason for him to leave. But he’s got it in his mind that removing himself is the only answer and he won’t listen to reason.” The elevator doors opened on the top floor and they stepped out into the corridor. Skirting a Housekeeping cart outside one of the rooms, Dru stalked over to the private staircase that led up to her and Tate’s apartment, but turned to face her friend, her arms still crossed over her waist in an attempt to hold in all the hurt. “So I told him it was the stupidest decision I’d ever heard in my life, and I hoped it kept him warm at night.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What do you mean, and what? That’s it?” Char demanded incredulously. “You hope it keeps him warm at night? I’m embarrassed for you, Lawrence. You’ve been able to argue me into a corner since we were ten years old, but now that you’ve got a fight on your hands that matters more than any you’ve ever had, you hope it keeps him warm at night? I’ve never heard anything so feeble in my life!”

  Dru’s misery was replaced by a red-hot flash of anger. “I felt like I was being broadsided out of the blue by a two-ton truck, McKenna. What was I supposed to do, beg him to stay?”

  “Hell, yeah, if that’s what you really want. And if you truly do believe he’s a lousy shit, then at the very least you were supposed to lay into him. If he’s leaving anyway, don’t you at least want to tell him exactly how you feel?” Tilting her head to one side, she raised her eyebrows at Dru. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a fool. Like once again I let my hormones sucker me into believing I’d found my One True Love, when what I’d actually found—again—was just another man looking for a little temporary satisfaction. I took the biggest risk of my life with him, Char. I knew better, but I did it anyway—I opened myself up to the possibility of falling in love again. And even though he never said so, I thought it was a real love for both of us. Not just a flash-in-the-pan sexual attraction, but the honest-to-God real deal.” She glared at Char. “But only on my part apparently, if he can just walk away this easily.”

  “I think you ought to tell him that.”

  That struck a chor
d with the resentment beneath Dru’s hurt, and she straightened her spine. “Yes. Absolutely. He doesn’t get to do this—he doesn’t get to set me up for a fall, then just walk away with that mealymouthed rationalization.” She pivoted and walked back to the elevator, where she jabbed the Down button. When it didn’t immediately arrive, she turned on her heel and set out for the stairs.

  “Now, that’s more like it,” Char called. “You go get him, girl.”

  “Hello, J.D.” The man with the gun stood up and took a step forward, away from the blinding backlight. The gun in his hand remained doggedly aimed at J.D.’s chest.

  “Butch?” Recognizing his friend’s voice was like taking a swift kick to the solar plexus, and J.D. scrubbed his fingertips over the spot as if it had taken an actual blow. Another corner of his mind, however, promptly breathed Aha. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, eyeing the man he’d always thought of as his closest friend. “I knew Robbie Lankovich didn’t have the stones for this.”

  Butch’s laugh was full-bodied and robust. “You thought Junior was behind these little incidents? Jesus, boy, spending so much time in Pissville U.S.A. has clearly cost you your edge. Not only does Robbie lack the balls, he’s a mite too busy to concern himself with Big Daddy’s woes. He’s spending all his time trying to explain himself to the IRS.”

  “Is that so? Well, excuse my lousy judgment, but I was working without the facts.” J.D. sat down on the edge of the couch. Bracing his hands on his knees, he looked up into Butch’s smiling face and tried to reconcile his friend’s grin with the gun that hadn’t wavered. While part of his mind refused to believe Butch would ever pull the trigger, another part rapidly selected and discarded a multitude of ways to get out of this situation.

  Knowing just what the hell the situation was would be a real help. “I can honestly say it never once occurred to me that my best friend would want to remove me from the picture. Care to share why?”