Slow Hands

by Leslie Kelly

  So unhappy. So very unhappy.

  Much, she had to admit, as her sister looked. Tabby, a few seats down, had a tight, forced smile on her lips. And while her chair was close to Bradley’s, they didn’t touch. Not at all.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. I just know she told me how to find you, So even though she tried to buy me like a side of beef, I’m ready to kiss the woman.”

  Maddy put her hand on Jake’s forearm, which rested on the edge of the table. Smiling at one of the bridesmaids, who’d stared over in curiosity from the head table, Maddy warned, under her breath, “Do and you might be on the receiving end of that steak knife.”

  “Jealousy? That’s a good sign, right?”

  Maybe it was.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here,” he admitted, and she knew he was not referring to the oddly tense celebration. “This is almost over, right?”

  The waiters had cleared away the dinner dishes and were bringing dessert. The toasts and speeches had occurred before they’d arrived, and the wedding party gifts had been opened. So yes, thankfully, it was almost over. There hadn’t been a single opportunity for Oliver or Bitsy to speak to them. If Maddy had her way, they’d be out of here before the two unwelcome guests ever got the chance.

  “Absolutely.”

  For a few minutes, Maddy thought she’d have her way. As dessert ended and everyone prepared to leave, an impromptu receiving line formed at the exit. Tabby and her fiancé, as well as both sets of parents, were thanking their guests. The milling crowd, in no hurry to leave, lingered over each goodbye, blocking the door.

  Groaning at the delay—for several reasons—Maddy remained silent as they edged closer to escape. Finally, there were only a few people between them and her father, who was at the closest end of the line. “Almost there,” she whispered.

  But they didn’t make it. “Not going to even say hello?”

  Oliver.

  Maddy’s back stiffened. She forced herself to pretend she hadn’t heard, focused only on her father’s face…not to mention the damned door.

  Jake, however, did not. With his arm curved possessively around her waist, he glanced over his shoulder at the other man. “No. She’s not. So shove off, will you?”

  A grin tickling her lips, Maddy stepped closer, tempted to just push past the well-wishers and leave. Tabby would understand. But she wouldn’t let this jerk force her out of her own sister’s party.

  “Oh, come on, Maddy, this is childish.”

  Feeling Jake tense, she murmured, “Forget it, he’s not worth it.”

  Though as tall, her ex didn’t even approach Jake’s massive build. Which just proved he was a moron for what he did next.

  “Jesus, Maddy, you won’t even face me? Are you going to hide behind this hired stud all night?”

  Gasping, she spun around, taking in both the sneer on Oliver’s handsome face…and the spiteful amusement on Bitsy Wellington’s. Obviously the woman—at least ten years Oliver’s senior—had gotten what she came for. Nasty drama.

  “Babe, like you said, he’s not worth it,” Jake murmured, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t let him use me to get to you.” He raked a cold stare over Oliver’s impeccably clad form. “I don’t give a shit what a lying, cheating little prick like this thinks.”

  Behind her, Maddy heard someone cough, or choke or laugh. Dad. He’d heard. He’d edged closer. And he liked what Jake had had to say. Oh, God, what if he’d heard all of it?

  “You’re right,” she whispered quickly, tugging at Jake’s arm. They needed to get out of here. Now. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re the hired help, so keep your mouth shut,” Oliver said to Jake.

  Oliver must have been drinking—he was flushed and there was a definite slur in his voice. Not to mention that he seemed to have lost his own sense of self-preservation if he didn’t notice that Jake, despite his casually insulting tone before, was holding his temper in check by the merest sliver.

  Still oblivious to the danger, Oliver added, “Come on, Maddy, you could at least talk to me. I didn’t know I’d screwed you up so badly that you’d have to pay for it ever since. If I’d known you were that much in love with me, I’d have tried harder to make you forgive me.”

  Jake snapped. With an audible growl, he stepped away from Maddy, grabbing Oliver by the front of his jacket. “Let’s go. Outside. Right now.”

  Bitsy shrieked, apparently realizing the vicious games she played could occasionally turn around and bite her on the ass. Others in the room froze and stared at the spectacle. Maddy couldn’t even find her vocal cords to stop what was about to happen, partly because she was reeling from Oliver’s offensive accusation and partly because she was stunned at the raw violence dripping off the sweetest, most tender man she knew.

  “Get your hands off me. She pays you to fuck her, not to protect her.”

  “You sonofabitch…” Jake’s arm flew back in preparation, but before he could land a punch, another man had pushed between his fist and Oliver’s face.

  Dad.

  “Young man, you are the most rude, disgusting, foul little rodent I’ve ever met,” Jason Turner yelled, his face reddening, spittle flying off his lips. “How dare you say such things about my daughter?”

  “Maybe because they’re true? Just ask her. Ask if she’s not standing beside the male whore your own wife tried to nail not three weeks ago.”

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!

  Everything had spun out of control so quickly, Maddy hadn’t even had time to process it. Her father’s face was beet-red, his breath coming in hoarse gasps. Jake dived for Oliver, sending them both rolling to the floor, fists flying. Deborah came running, screaming at Bitsy, who cowered away. Tabby came, too, looking ready to kick Oliver’s face in if Jake botched the job. Fat chance that. The groom grabbed the bride, hissing at her that she was embarrassing him, and his parents hurried over to watch in offended horror.

  But Maddy had eyes only for her father, oh God, her father.

  “Dad?” she whispered, reaching for him, watching his breaths grow choppier, his face grow redder.

  Jason waved her off with a weak gesture, then his left arm fell to his side, his fingers spasming as his shoulder slumped. He lifted his other hand toward his chest, bending over double at the waist, audibly struggling to breathe.

  “Daddy!” she yelled, grabbing for him as he began to fall.

  Those not paying attention to the brawl began to whisper in worry as Maddy collapsed with her gray-haired father to the floor. She knelt beside him, touching his flushed face…suddenly realizing he was no longer gasping for breath.

  No breath at all.

  “No…Tabby!”

  Her sister spun around, finally realizing what had happened. She threw off her fiancé’s restraining hand and sprinted over. Deborah, too, her eyes widened in shock, her mouth hanging open in horror, knelt by her husband’s side, oblivious to her designer dress and their audience. “Somebody do something. Call an ambulance, hurry,” she wailed.

  Maddy jerked her head up, tears coursing down her cheeks as the image of her father’s breathless, lifeless form imprinted itself on her brain. Her eyes found Jake’s, locked on him, not needing to say a word.

  He didn’t hesitate. “Everyone get out of the way,” he shouted, shoving his way over and dropping to his knees.

  “Don’t touch him,” Deborah said. “You’ll make it worse.”

  Jake ignored her, ripping Maddy’s father’s shirt open, straight down the front, leaning down to listen to his chest.

  “Does he know what he’s doing?”

  “Yes,” Maddy assured the other woman. “This is what he does. His real job. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” Then she looked at Jake, already tilting her father’s head back, blowing puffs of air into his mouth, then fisting his hands to administer compressions to the older man’s chest.

  “Please…” she whispered, for his ears
alone.

  She couldn’t form any more words, nor did she need to. Jake understood, it went without saying.

  There was absolutely nothing he wouldn’t do to save her father’s life.

  12

  KNOWING HOSPITAL procedures by rote, as well as being friendly with one of the guys on the rescue crew, Jake knew he would be able to keep Jason Turner’s loved ones a lot more informed than the average family. So there was no way he was leaving them. No way he was leaving her.

  Not when she so obviously needed him.

  He drove all three Turner women to the hospital, in Mr. Turner’s car. He’d expected to drive Maddy and her stepmother—but he’d been genuinely surprised by Tabby’s decision to ride with them, as well.

  If she were his fiancée, he wouldn’t have let her leave his side. He’d have been holding her, reassuring her that everything would be all right—exactly as he’d been doing for Maddy since the on-duty rescuers had arrived and taken over. Instead, from what he’d heard, Tabby’s fiancé had been anything but supportive. He had, in fact, ordered her to calm down. The frowning man had actually scolded her for her hysterical behavior toward the asshole who’d caused all of this—Oliver—who she’d lunged at after the ambulance crew had wheeled her father out of the restaurant.

  Jake understood Tabitha’s actions.

  He did not understand the groom’s reaction.

  In the same position, Maddy might have retreated behind her icy, self-protective wall, but Tabitha had not. She’d screamed at her fiancé, shrieking that he was partially responsible for what had happened. She’d refused to ride with him, climbing in beside a tearful Deborah and a white-lipped Maddy instead.

  “He’ll be all right, won’t he? Please say he’ll be all right,” Deborah said from the backseat. She’d been repeating those words in some variation since the moment Jake had pulled into traffic, driving fast, ignoring the speed limit as much as he safely could.

  “I’m sure he will,” he replied, again. “He had constant CPR from almost the second his heart stopped. The EMTs were able to immediately defibrillate him back into a rhythm and he had a decent pulse by the time they pulled out.”

  A thready one…not that he told them that. Because any pulse was better than if Jason Turner hadn’t responded to defib at all and had to undergo CPR all the way to the hospital.

  “Thank God,” Deborah whispered.

  “Yeah. But no thanks to you,” Tabby snapped.

  Jake sucked in a slow breath. He’d been expecting this—waiting for the moment when it would start. Maddy had been silent, her lips moving as if she were saying quiet prayers for her father. Tabby’s shock had worn off—now she was looking for someone to blame. Make that someone else to blame, considering she’d already told off Oliver and yelled at her husband-to-be.

  Man, was the woman unlike her sister.

  “Tabitha, please don’t,” Maddy murmured from the front seat. Jake reached over and took her hand, squeezing it. He didn’t want her going through any more stress right now.

  He seconded her plea. “It’s not the time.”

  “When is the time? After she buries him under the ground and puts on widow’s black to go out and do her whoring around?”

  “Shut up,” Deborah said wearily. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, you mean, my father didn’t grab his chest and have a heart attack because he found out his loving wife of one year was screwing around on him?”

  “It’s not her fault,” Maddy mumbled. “Dad can’t stand the sight of Oliver. He was working himself up into a frenzy without a single word about Deborah.”

  Knowing Maddy, too, had to resent her stepmother, Jake found himself surprised by the defense. Then again, Maddy knew her sister better than anyone. Probably the only way to calm Tabitha down was to try to deflate her righteous anger.

  “Bullshit. He didn’t keel over until after Oliver announced to the entire room that Deborah was a cheat.”

  “He knows,” Deborah murmured, still sounding tired—and not interested in fighting.

  “What?” Maddy turned in her seat.

  “Not that I’m a cheat. I’m not.” With indescribable pain in her voice she added, “But he told me to feel free to become one.” She met Jake’s stare in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, I understand there was a mistake about your identity.” Then she dropped her gaze. “Besides, it’s not like I would have gone through with it. I saw the way you looked at him, Maddy.”

  “You told him where to find me,” she murmured from the passenger seat.

  The woman shrugged. “What can I say? Hopeless romantic, that’s me.” Then she spoiled it, adding, “I know your father’s been worried about you. You’re all he ever talks about. Madeline this, and Madeline that.”

  There was a hard note in her voice, though why she’d display more anger toward the quiet, crying stepdaughter than to the bitchy, screeching one, Jake couldn’t possibly say.

  “I hoped that if you found someone, got busy with some kind of personal life, maybe it would be one less thing he’d have to stress over. I was hoping he’d stop the incessant worrying about you.”

  So her goal hadn’t been exactly selfless.

  “You are so full of it,” Tabby snapped. “Don’t believe a word of it, Mad, this is all a pack of lies.”

  “I’m not a liar. I am a forty-four-year-old woman who hasn’t had sex in months, whose husband encouraged her to go out and get it somewhere else because he’s no longer interested.”

  Whoa, this conversation he did not want to be party to. Not that he had any way to escape from it.

  Judging by Maddy’s wide eyes and pale complexion, he didn’t think she wanted to hear it, either. Now that the words had started, though, Deborah didn’t seem in any hurry to shut her mouth. “Do you know what it’s like to try to keep up the happy wife front when your father doesn’t want to touch me?”

  “You’re crazy,” Tabby said.

  “It’s true,” Deborah told her. “The last time we had sex, he called me by another woman’s name. And because I had the foolish, soft heartedness to be hurt by it, he’s decided we shouldn’t even bother trying to have that kind of marriage.”

  “He loves you,” Maddy whispered.

  “No, dear, he doesn’t.” Now there was no mistaking the dislike coming from the woman’s mouth. Again, directed at Maddy rather than Tabitha, who’d just called her a nutcase. “He said he did, but wanting to be in love with someone is not the same as loving them. Your father has nothing in his heart for me beyond affection. He wants only companionship and an occasional dance partner.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I thought it would be enough, a friendly but loveless marriage.” Sighing deeply, she added, “Hell, maybe I thought I could change him, even though no other woman has been able to.”

  Maddy’s eyes, already wet from previously shed tears, blinked rapidly. As if unaware she was doing it, she slid her fingers from his, clenching her hands in her lap.

  He took no offense. Sex talk about a parent was bad enough. Hearing that parent might actually be so cold, loveless—well, he didn’t even want to think what it might be like. For Maddy or for her sister.

  “So don’t go judging me,” Deborah continued. He glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing that she was again talking to Tabitha. “Not when you’re about to do the same thing.”

  “I don’t know you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do, dear. Please don’t pretend I’m wrong. I know what a couple pretending to be in love looks like. You and Bradley don’t love each other. At least, in my marriage, one of us is in love.”

  “Tabby?” Madeline whispered, this time turning all the way around in her seat. She looked as though she’d been hit—again—for the dozenth time in an hour. The heartbreak he saw in her eyes hit him again, too. “That’s not true. You love him. You do, don’t you?”

  Silence. When Jake cast a look back, he saw
Tabitha staring stonily at her sister, tears still on her cheeks—ones she had shed for her father. Not any fresh ones for herself and the future she had apparently chosen.

  “You told me…”

  “I thought I loved him,” the older Turner sister replied. “I wanted to. Mainly because I thought he loved me and I’d be crazy not to feel the same way.” She glanced out the window. “His family business isn’t doing well and he needs money. He told me two days ago—said it wasn’t honorable for him to marry me without telling me about his financial situation.”

  Maddy didn’t appear ready to concede the point. “Okay. He should have come clean sooner, but he did tell you. So he does love you, and wants you to be together on open, honest terms.”

  Her sister laughed softly. So, from the sound of it, did her stepmother. As if the two of them knew something basic, something undeniable, something Maddy hadn’t yet figured out.

  Goddamn it, if he had his way, she’d never figure it out. Or at least never believe it. Not what he sensed they were trying to tell her.

  “No, he was just afraid I’d find out after the wedding and divorce him. He called me into a meeting with his parents where they all informed me it would be a wonderful match, that they found me eminently suitable, despite my, how did his mother call it? My high-spiritedness.” She sniffed and Jake didn’t have to look in the mirror again to see her tears.

  “That witch,” Maddy snapped. “And Bradley—he’s a coward.”

  “Just a man,” Deborah murmured. “Like any other man.”

  Oh, by all means, ignore me. I’m not here.

  “I wasn’t happy about the dishonesty.”

  “Can’t imagine why not,” the older woman murmured. “Who wouldn’t want a relationship based on lies?”

  “Shut up,” Tabby snarled.

  Maddy interceded again. “Why didn’t you end things? Do you really love him?”

  “No. But I conceded the point. I obviously can’t trust my own emotions. And a logical, well-thought-out marriage sounded like a very good proposition to me. It still does.”