by Anne Conley
Her mind wandered further down the dark path to what was supposed to happen with her life, and she succumbed to the morbid thoughts.
Chapter 28
The motorcycle ride had done little to appease Jason’s anger. He couldn’t believe she was actually considering Les’ proposal. He’d been listening in, hoping it wasn’t what he’d thought. But it was, and then Les had kissed his girl. Les had to know he was there. Christ, she’d answered the door wearing his shirt! The asshole had to know what they’d done. But when he heard them kiss, he’d come close to losing it. Yeah, he’d heard it. And the sounds of lips locking kept replaying over and over in his head.
His gut clenched as he rode faster. It had been a sucker punch. He knew Les had feelings for Renae. But he also thought they were friends. He thought he’d stepped back. Apparently, he’d thought wrong.
At the hospital, he fielded the now familiar questions about how he was enjoying his Christmas vacation in Mexico outside of the resort. Jason had given in, regaling his dad with fictional stories of renting a moped to see the Isla de Mujeres and snorkeling in the clear blue water, forcing thoughts of his own personal problems below the surface.
“Dad, I think I’ve got us a place to live when we get home. Do you know Mary Colt? She’s offered to let us live in her old house after they do the hip-replacement.” Joe’s surgery was finally scheduled for the next morning since his infection had cleared up. Jason had to admit, his coloring looked better than it had since he’d gotten to Serendipity. Jason had thought he was doing okay with his dad, but apparently just keeping him alive wasn’t enough. Now he was staying in the hospital, hooked up to continuous fluids, and eating three square meals a day, he was thriving.
“Yeah, that’s one hot mama,” Joe drawled.
Ewww. “Well, maybe you’ll get to see more of her.”
“Will she be living there too?”
“Nope. She lives somewhere else, so her house is vacant. We’ll pay rent and live there, but I think I can get some visits out of her. How does that sound?”
His dad didn’t answer, just closed his eyes and assumed a dreamy expression. After a couple of minutes, it abruptly shifted to a concerned one.
“How are you and Renae doing? I’m assuming since you’ve finagled this living arrangement, you’ve been calling her since you’ve been here?” Here being Mexico…
“Well, there’s some complications I’m working through. She’s sort of just tolerating me now.” He exhaled heavily. He might as well tell his dad. He may have some sort of twisted insight that might help. “And her friend Les proposed to her right under my nose.”
“Les is a good guy.” Joe smirked at his son. “So, you got some competition?”
“Yeah, probably. But it looks like you’re going to get another grandkid out of the deal.”
“You knocked her up?” Joe’s eyes widened with surprise. “And Les proposed before you got a chance?”
“No, I told her I’d marry her first, but she doesn’t trust me for some reason.”
“Well, she hasn’t had an easy go of it. And Les has been around longer.”
Whose side is he on? “I know. I’m doing my best to reassure her I’m not like her ex.”
“That kid was such a screw-up. I remember all that mess.”
“What do you remember?” Maybe some insight was in order here.
“I don’t remember when they got married, she was just a kid in church then, but I do remember after. I thought she was a blind fool. Anybody could see he was screwing around on her. As soon as she got pregnant, he stopped coming to church with her and her parents. But Mary and Richard worried about her. Said he didn’t let her do anything but church outside the home, was real picky about how she cleaned and what she cooked. Made her stop seeing her friends. He was out partying all night long and too hung over to show up for church. When he died in that car wreck, rumor had it he crashed because the woman he was with had her hands all over him. Ralph Powers was working the fire truck at the scene and said his pants were undone, his willy laying out for the world to see. And the girl just walked away. That was just Ralph talking, though, probably. No one really knows for sure, but that was the rumor floating around those days. And drunk? As a skunk. Ralph could smell the liquor outside the car.”
“Wow. So what happened?”
“Oh, people talked. They said she should have divorced him before it got to that point. They said she shouldn’t have cut him off from the sex or he wouldn’t have strayed so far. Some people felt sorry for her. Others were mad at her. Serendipity talked about it for months. I think it was a bad deal from the get-go, though, and the town should have minded their got-damned business.” Joe was turning red in the face, but his heart was fine, so Jason let him get mad on Renae’s behalf.
“What did she do?”
“The only thing she could do. She held her head up and kept living her life for that baby. She didn’t hide, she worked, she went to church. She raised that little girl into a fine young woman and people quit talking when Mrs. Mosely overturned her husband’s brand new tractor in their tank, proving that hay cutting was man’s work.” Joe chuckled to himself at some memory that Jason wasn’t privy to.
He said his goodbyes and kissed his dad, promising to be there the next day for his “Mexican surgery.”
He wasn’t sure if he should really be encouraging his Dad’s dementia by playing along with it, but it seemed the path of least resistance.
When he picked up Renae for the doctor’s visit, he didn’t have any answers that would help him. So he just followed her to the minivan and got into the passenger side.
She didn’t say anything, which was fine. He was still pissed she was even considering Les’ proposal and that she’d kissed him. His traitorous memory dredged up the sounds of that kiss, and his anger rose to the surface again. She slammed her door shut, breaking his train of thought.
“Are you mad at me?” As if she could be. She was in the wrong for all this.
She sighed as she started the decrepit machine. “No. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’ve got to get it all sorted in my head first.”
The problem with Renae wasn’t his feelings for her. He knew he could fall for her in a heartbeat. Hell, he probably already had. The problem was he had no idea how she felt about him besides the side effect of one drunken night. Although it was apparently a process that could be repeated if last night was any indication.
“Look, Dad told me about what a hard time you went through before, and I just want to let you know that I’m not him.” For some reason, the name of her former husband stuck in his throat, especially in comparison to himself. “I wouldn’t ever do that to you.”
She took a turn too fast, and he clutched the dash board, biting his tongue against correcting her driving. “I just needed you to know that.” He was still pissed she was considering Les’ offer and even more pissed he was having to compete with him for her acceptance.
“I know no such thing.” She said between gritted teeth. “And you and your dad know nothing about me.”
“I know, Renae. That’s what this is about. I want to know you. I want to be here for you.”
“What about what I want?” She ran a yellow light, and Jason hissed a breath out.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” He gritted the words out, trying to quell rising fear.
“I want to get this over with.”
“Am I that repugnant to you?”
The doctor’s office was up ahead, and Jason was thankful for small towns. At least he didn’t have to drive with her in Houston traffic. They’d be dead.
She threw the car into park and turned the key off in one angry move. “This isn’t about you. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m about to undergo a dangerous, rather painful procedure to find out what’s wrong with our baby.”
Shit. He was such an asshole. “Y
ou’re right. I’m sorry.” Chagrined, he got out of the car and followed her inside.
He was alarmed at the urgency to get them into a sonogram room. Jason was accustomed to waiting at doctor’s offices, even if it was an emergency with his dad. The lack of wait time told him the professionals saw this as an emergency, and it worried him.
He set aside all thoughts of Les and his anger to be here for Renae and the baby.
He was watching Renae, lying in her hospital gown on the table, the sonographer’s wand on her belly like it was no big deal. He couldn’t help but eye the enormous needle on the table next to her with trepidation. It made his heart pound just looking at it, and he certainly didn’t want to imagine it poking into her belly near his baby. He focused on the screen instead, watching the humanoid blob move around. The sonogram tech was showing different parts of the baby, his heart, his head, his arms and legs, and Jason was fascinated with it all. This little monochromatic blob was his baby. His child. A piece of him.
But his eyes kept edging over to the needle. It was huge. What if the doctor missed and poked the baby? Suddenly, that was all he could see happening. A cold sweat broke out on his neck, trickling down his back. He tried to ignore it and focus on the screen, but it wasn’t happening.
When the doctor came in, he was all business, snapping on a pair of gloves and reaching for the oversized q-tip, already swabbed with topical anesthetic. After prepping the area and anesthetizing the place he would stick, he picked up the needle. Jason reached for Renae’s hand to offer comfort to her, or himself, but she wouldn’t let go of the white-knuckled death grip she had on the sides of the table.
When he looked at the needle again, he realized just how long it was, and stars began to dance in his peripheral vision. Suddenly light-headed, Jason swayed briefly. When the sonogram tech asked him if he was okay, he managed a nod before seeing the needle pierce Renae’s distended belly, and blackness overtook him.
Jason was standing behind and to the side of Renae, so she didn’t have a clue why the sonogram tech asked if he was okay. Not until she heard the shuffling thud. By that time, the doctor already had the needle in her, and she didn’t dare move, even though alarm coursed through her. She was concerned he’d hit his head when he fell to the floor, but the alarm was suddenly taken over by annoyance. She looked up at the doctor, who was focused on his task with a slight smirk on his face. The stinging pain was overshadowed by Jason’s performance behind her, the entire ordeal over in less than a minute.
When she was able to get up, she walked over to Jason, where another nurse had come in and put ice packs on Jason’s head and face, managing to revive him. When he came to, his unfocused blue gaze was on Renae in an instant, his face ashen.
“Are you okay? Did it hurt?” He asked her.
“Me? Are you okay? Did you hit anything?”
He shook his head. “No.” Grinning at her wryly, he said, “Some support I was.”
“If you had a thing about needles, you should have said something.”
“I don’t have a thing about needles, but that one was, like, a foot and a half long!” She stifled the giggle at the alarm in his eyes.
She shrugged. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, how did it go? What did I miss?”
“It was over in less than a minute. Relatively painless, and the baby made it through the procedure without any distress. We get the results in two weeks.” She grabbed his hand to haul him to his feet. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go home.” The ease with which she said home in reference to her own house where he was an unwelcome guest just slipped out. It bothered her, the ease with which it came out of her mouth, but she let it slide for now.
She drove home in silence and when she got home, she turned to Jason, but he was already on her. His hands clutching her shoulders.
“I need to know what you’re going to say.” He licked his lips. “To Les.”
What was she supposed to tell him? That her feelings for Jason scared her? That she’d sort of seen Les in a different light this morning? That Les was comfortable, and she knew what she was getting into with him, whereas Jason was like riding a roller coaster and scared her. In an exhilarating way.
“I’m confused. I can’t think straight when you’re around me.” That much was true. Every time she looked at him, like now, all she could imagine was his naked shoulders, over her, balancing on his elbows, his fingers tangled in her hair, touching her face while he rocked in and out of her. His intense blue eyes probing her insides while he made love to her. She shook the image away.
His jaw clenched so hard, she saw his temple move, and his eyes turned a steely icy blue. It was a little scary, and Renae flinched.
“Fine.” Turning on his heel, he stalked into the guest bedroom and slammed the door. She could hear him in there, rummaging around, cursing to himself. When he emerged, he had his saxophone in the same hand as his duffel bag, and something in his other hand. He tossed it on the table. It skidded across towards her where she stopped it to look at it.
It was a baseball card sandwiched between two pieces of plexiglass.
She looked at him. “What’s this?”
“I’m out. But I’m taking care of my baby. You won’t let me in because you’re scared. I get that. I’m scared too. But I’m not about to shirk my responsibilities to you or him.” He motioned to the card. “There’s only about a hundred of those in circulation. The last one went for 2.6 million dollars at Sotheby’s. I’ll get you the name of my agent when I get to the shop. He’ll be able to get you a fair price. See ya.” And he was gone.
Good.
Right?
Renae’s front door slammed shut, and she sank in her chair, listening as he started his dad’s Buick and squealed tires leaving so fast. What had she done?
She fingered the baseball card.
What the hell would she do with two point six million dollars?
Without Jason?
Chapter 29
Renae wasn’t going to lie to herself and say that the next two weeks flew by. She had never experienced nerves about a test like she did the amnio. The constant feeling of a thousand caterpillars crawling around in her stomach became an ever-present entity, morphing into fluttering butterflies when she thought about it too much, going back to caterpillars when she wasn’t thinking. When thoughts of Jason entered her mind, the caterpillars all died and turned to lead fishing weights, dropping one at a time into the pits.
And Les called her every night. At first, she’d actually answered her phone, putting off the decision she had to make by begging for more time. Eventually, she’d stopped answering, but he hadn’t stopped calling. His messages were sweet, though, and patient with his ever-present sense of humor.
“Hey, Renae, it’s just me, the hopeful fiancé-to-be. I know you need more time, call me when you can.”
She’d been really messing up at work, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Three times last week, customers had come up to her after she’d cashed checks to return money to her. She’d been giving them too much. At least there were some honest people in Serendipity. The ones who came back anyway. There was no telling how many people she’d given the wrong amount to who hadn’t come back to tell her. She knew a write-up was probably in her near future. Her drawer had been off all week.
Again, she tried to do things to occupy herself and get her mind off these things.
She tried to make her brother, Dalton, a Chocolate raspberry mousse truffle cake with raspberry-cassis sauce. It was one of his favorites, but she managed to accidentally pour way too much Grand Marnier into the bowl and had to start over, then she did the same thing with the corn starch in the cassis sauce. Nearly ready to give up on the cake, she forced herself to focus on something besides her problems for the duration of the recipe. So she thought about Dalton, the one man in her life who wasn’t giving her hell.
She was older than him by four years, and she’d always bossed him. Since they’d both grown and led
separate lives, they’d actually become friends especially after their father’s death. Dalton felt like he had big shoes to fill after Dad had died, and Renae knew she was probably feeling the same way with her own mother’s constant influence in her life.
For some reason, she’d never had a problem bossing her little brother or her daughter. She could tell them what she wanted without even thinking about it. It was everyone else in her life she needed to figure out how to talk to.
Her attempts at not thinking about things backfired on her as she burned the cake hopelessly. Giving up on making a treat for Dalton, she trashed it all.
The next weekend, she tried making candles, following the directions to the letter and ruining her favorite double boiler in the process. But fifty dollars in supplies later, they didn’t turn out the way she wanted them to.
So she made cookies.
Even though the holidays were over and everyone she knew was sick of sweets, she made cookies for all her friends and family. She made a care package for Kelly, taking it to the post office to mail instead of the shop where she might run into Jason. It was further away and much less personal, but personal with Jason was not what she wanted right now. She still didn’t know what to say to him.
She didn’t eat the cookies herself. She could barely swallow her own meals. Forcing herself to eat regularly had become a necessary chore, one she didn’t look forward to.
Finally, she forced herself to pick up her phone and make a call.
“Hey, Renae.” Les answered on the first ring, and Renae suddenly felt guilty for not calling sooner.
“Hey. Um, listen, I’ve really thought a lot about what you offered me.”
Hope reached her ears through the phone lines. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Um… I can’t. I’m sorry.” She felt like a total bitch for doing this over the phone.
Silence greeted her.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m sorry, too. I’d make you happy.”
“I know you’d try your hardest, Les. But I just can’t think of you that way.” Renae swallowed, hard. She felt like she was breaking up with him. “I know that you’ll find a woman someday who’ll make you happier than I can. She’s out there, right now, with your name written all over her.”
