Jay laughed and looked at her with admiration. “I couldn’t have put it any better myself. I was a bloody fool.” The laughter faded from his face as he sighed and re-crossed his legs. His manner made it clear he was ready to bring up another uncomfortable revelation and Katie’s guard went back to full alert. “I saw Adam last week. He told me you still love me.”
Katie snatched a cup and raised it to her face. “Gossiping old woman,” she muttered, bringing a surprised snort of amusement from Jay. The warmth of the coffee drowned some of the butterflies in her stomach.
“Do you?”
Not fair. She didn’t want to lie, but at the same time she didn’t want him to think a declaration of love would make everything alright. The silence grew uncomfortable as she hesitated. More afraid of it than how he might construe her meaning, she answered. “Yes. I still love you.”
He sighed. “I love you, too, Katie. I always will.”
Katie shook her head, raising her hand in an unconscious warding-off gesture. She was relieved when he didn’t speak further and used the silence to marshal her see-sawing emotions into some semblance of calm. When she dared glance in his direction, his eyes were closed, his head leaning against the high back of the couch. Katie took the opportunity to observe him the way he’d scrutinized her. His words may have been flowery, but Katie recognized the truth in them. The reality of Jay was more beautiful than any image she’d carried in her memory.
Jay took a deep breath. “Do you remember the night we met?”
Katie frowned, on guard. “Of course.”
“I do, too. I walked into your flat and saw a fucking angel in black lace. I’d never wanted anyone so badly in my life. It happened that quickly.” He snapped his fingers. “And then I found myself dancing with you.” He sighed. “Something happened when we touched. It was like … like … ”
“Like time had stopped,” Katie whispered. “Like the earth had tilted on its axis. I felt it, too.”
“It’s still there, Katie. Whatever it was that was set in motion the first time we touched is still between us.” He drew in his breath. “It’s always been there; even after we both began to take it for granted. I don’t know much, but I do know it doesn’t happen to everyone. We have something so incredibly special and it’s a fucking shame to just throw it away.”
Steel fingers dug into Katie’s throat. She tried to swallow, to regain her voice to berate him more for the hurt he’d caused. But she couldn’t. His words conjured up too many feelings, things she hadn’t let herself feel for a long time. She could hear the ticking clock on the wall, but she felt again time had stopped, that the rotation of the earth had changed. She attempted to fight against it, but just as before it would not be ignored.
“We didn’t throw it away then. Remember?” Jay’s voice was strained. “We wanted each other and we did what we had to do to be together. We pushed past anything that got in our way. But even though it hurt people close to us, I’d do it again. You were more important. We were more important. Nothing mattered more to me than being with you.” He raised his head and pinned her with his gaze. “And nothing matters more to me now.”
She didn’t want to see the complete conviction in his eyes, but she couldn’t look away.
“I’m only half alive without you, Katie.”
Lips trembling, she whispered, “I’m only half alive without you, too.”
Jay took a quick, indrawn breath. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes. No.” Too agitated to sit still, she jumped up and looked out the patio doors. “I don’t know.”
Behind her, Jay’s sigh sounded irritated. “That helps a lot.”
Katie’s own irritation rose at his words. “Well, what the hell did you expect?” She turned to him. “You show up out of thin air after all this time and start laying all this on me about how much you love me and want me back and start pressing me to make a decision on the spot.”
“I should think it’s a simple one, Katie.” Jay got up and came to stand beside her. “Either you love me or you don’t.”
“I’ve already told you I love you.” Katie narrowed her eyes at him. “I just don’t know if I can trust you.”
Jay gave every appearance of a man who’d just been hit over the head with a brick. “I should think that’s simple, too. Either you trust me, or you don’t. I don’t know what else I can do.” He pushed his hair back with both hands. “I’ve told you how sorry I am, but if you don’t believe that, then I’m at a complete loss at what more to say.”
She took a deep breath. “There’s nothing more you can say.”
Jay grew still. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry.” She had to look away from the absolute devastation she saw in his eyes. “I can’t.”
The sound of his trembling breath seemed to fill the room. “Katie, I … ” The strain in his voice made it almost unrecognizable. “Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg? Because if that’s what it takes, I … ”
“No!” She whirled to face him. “Don’t you dare. That would be the final insult to what we had.”
“Have! What we have, Katie.”
Looking into the depths of his tortured, hazel eyes, she slowly shook her head.
“No,” he whispered. “I refuse to accept that.” He raked his hair back again and turned away from her.
“You have to.”
“No, I don’t!” He turned back to her, eyes blazing with emotion. “I will not fuck this up again, and I won’t let you do it, either. I love you and you love me and we will not fuck this up!”
Katie forced her voice around the giant industrial-sized lump in her throat. “We already have. We fucked it up and now it’s over.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“You did what?” Even from six thousand miles away, Maureen’s voice drilled sharp as an ice pick and Katie winced, holding the phone a bit further from her ear. Maureen continued without pausing for breath. “You need to be smacked, Katie Carey, and you’d better be glad I’m not there or you’d get one. How could you?”
“I had to.” Katie wasn’t sure Maureen would listen to anything she said, but she was going to at least try to explain. “Yeah, I love him, Maur, but I don’t trust him not to just walk out on me again. I couldn’t take that and you know it.”
“But, sweet bleeding Jesus, you sent him away? Without even giving him a chance?”
Katie tightened her lips. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him hurt me again. Damn it, my heart’s nothing but a mass of scars as it is.”
Maureen sighed and when she spoke the irritation had left her voice. “Scars only remind us of where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”
“And I’m not going anywhere Jay can rip me apart again.”
“Don’t shut him out, Katie. Don’t let those scars keep you from trusting Jay.” Maureen’s voice through the phone was pleading. “Give him another chance.”
“Give him another chance to crucify me, you mean.” Katie tightened her lips in annoyance. She’d thought Maureen would understand, would sympathize with her. Instead, her friend was berating her long-distance from fucking Rome. “No, it’s finished. This isn’t Cinderella and her handsome prince, you know. This is real life.”
“Yes, the rest of your bloody life without the man you love.” The irritation was back.
“Forget it.” Katie sighed. “I’m sorry I said anything.”
“So am I,” Maureen snapped.
“Fine. I’m hanging up now.”
“Fine.”
There was a distinct click as the connection was broken and Katie stared at the receiver in shock. Maureen had hung up on her! Well, just wonderful. Katie replaced the receiver on the base with more force than was necessary. The one person she’d thought would have any empathy for her had just all but declared herself a card-carrying member of the Jay Carey Fan Club. After the way Nicky had betrayed Maureen’s trust to the point of divorce, Katie had thought Maur woul
d understand just how hard it was to trust again.
Oh, but she does, whispered a little voice in Katie’s ear. But she gave Nicky a chance to regain her trust, and now they’re together in Italy with their children.
It wasn’t the same. Katie shook her head. It wasn’t the same at all. Sure, Nicky had screwed around on Maureen, but he’d never left her.
Didn’t he? The little voice wouldn’t be silenced. Not the same way, no, but he did leave her. He came back, though. Just like Jay came back to you.
Yeah, and Jay had left again. So much for his declarations of eternal love. She’d been right about him. He’d rejected her, come back to fuck her mind up and left her again.
In the cab that she, Katie, had called. He’d left when she had all but shoved him out the front door. He’d left because she had made him.
She sank to the floor and dropped her head in her hands. Maybe she should call Maureen back, try to discover how the bloody hell one went about trusting someone who had blown it in such a phenomenal way. Katie’s brow furrowed as she tried to discern what it was Nicky had done to regain Maureen’s trust. Her mind replayed the conversations they’d had when Maureen broke the news that she was back with Nicky. What was it she had said?
“I finally realized he couldn’t earn back my trust if he wasn’t here. So I rang him and asked him for a date.” Maureen’s laughter echoed in Katie’s memory. “We kind of started over.”
Fifteen minutes later, Katie was speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway, hoping against hope Jay was still at the Beverly Wilshire where the cab company had said they’d dropped him off.
But when she stood in front of the registration desk and heard they had no Jay Carey registered, her heart dropped straight down to her feet. She was too late; he’d gone again and she had no idea how to find him.
The heavy contents of her bag shifted with an audible clunk as she turned away. Three steps from the desk, an idea popped into her head and she whirled back, surprising the desk clerk.
“Ben Dover,” she said.
The woman’s perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me? Did you just tell me to bend over?”
Katie shook her head. “No. Ben. Dover,” she enunciated. “Is he staying here?”
The clerk’s mouth tightened with annoyance, but she flipped open the register and ran a finger down the column of names. Katie held her breath until the woman looked up and nodded.
“Mr. Dover is in room 306. Do you wish me call up to the room?”
“No, thank you.” Katie’s knees were weak with relief and she leaned for a moment on the counter for support. “I want it to be a surprise.”
From the look on Jay’s face when he opened the door to her knock, the surprise was successful. After a moment of stunned silence, he inclined his head stiffly. “Are you sure you have the right room?”
Katie fought down a rush of irritation. After the way she’d tossed him out of her house the day before, he was entitled to be pissed off. After all, she hadn’t been able to hold back any when he’d shown up unannounced on her doorstep.
“May I come in?”
“What’s the use?” He stood in the doorway as if he was guarding the entrance to Aladdin’s Cave. “You made yourself quite clear yesterday, and I really don’t think … ”
“Cut the crap, Jay,” she interrupted. “Just let me into the fucking room, all right?”
He sighed, but stepped aside so she could enter. She strode into the room and set her heavy bag on the dresser. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she turned to face him. “I’ve been thinking, and … ”
“So have I,” he interrupted. “You made it abundantly clear that I’m beyond redemption, so I’ve decided we should just … ”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Katie glared at him. “You surprised the hell out of me yesterday just showing up like that. You’d had plenty of time to work out what you wanted to say, but I couldn’t think straight. Now it’s my turn to talk, and you’re going to sit there and listen to me.” She pointed a stern finger at the unmade bed.
Jay’s lips tightened into a thin line, but he dropped down onto the bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Talk, then.”
Katie ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “First of all, I’m sorry for throwing you out of the house yesterday.” She saw his look of skepticism and sighed again. “I am. I was overwhelmed and it was the only thing I could think of at the time. But it was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
His head dipped in a brief nod and his expression softened the tiniest bit. “Thank you.”
“Okay.” Too agitated to stand still, she began pacing back and forth in front of him. “I’ve realized that every time I thought of us back together I was wishing it could be the way it used to be. The way it was when we first met, and when we first moved in together. But I know now that it’ll never be like that again.”
She saw a shudder go through him at her words and she hastened to explain.
“It’s because we aren’t the same people we were then. We’ve both changed, and … well, so much has happened. We’ve hurt each other too much to go back to how it was.”
“So that’s it, then?” His voice was strained. “There’s nothing left?”
“I didn’t say that.” Katie shook her head. “You said it yesterday, Jay; whatever was between us the first time we touched is still there. We love each other. And you know what? We’ve never lied to each other. Yeah, we’ve withheld things, but when either of us asked, we told the truth. That’s pretty special, I think. It’s a lot more to build on than most people have. So I thought that if it couldn’t be the way it used to be, maybe it can be better.”
Jay uncrossed his arms and sat up a little straighter. “All right then. You’re right; we have changed.” Some of the desolation left his eyes and was replaced by a glimmer of hope. “How would you suggest we go about making it better?”
Instead of answering, Katie turned to the dresser and reached into her bag. She removed the portable cassette player and sat it next to the television. Her finger hovered over the Play button.
“I thought maybe,” she said, “we could start over.” She pushed the button and the familiar “Ahhh” that began “Crimson and Clover” came from the tiny speaker.
With a deep breath, she turned to face him again and held out her hands. “Dance with me?”
He placed his hands in hers with a look so tender it jolted through her like an electric shock, leaving every nerve ending sizzling. Rising from the bed, he took her in his arms with the sigh of a man finally coming home after a long absence.
Katie relaxed into his embrace, as excited and nervous as she’d been the first time they danced together at her long-ago housewarming party. But instead of the tentative dance they’d shared on that night, now they stood clinging to each other like drowning victims would a life preserver; clutching at the one thing that would guarantee survival.
Katie turned her face into Jay’s neck, rubbing her cheek against his hair, inhaling that wonderful combination of smoke, cologne and Jay himself that made her dizzy. He’d been right; whatever it was between them was too special to give it up. The intensity of their connection flowed through her, and she felt the jagged hole in her heart begin to mend.
Jay cleared his throat, the sound vibrating against her cheek. “Where do we go from here?
“Not to London,” she murmured. The memory of the echoing stillness of their house was too fresh for her to contemplate returning there. Too many shadows of hurt and betrayal lurked in every corner; it wasn’t what they needed to start over.
“No, not London,” Jay agreed. “When I went there to try to make things right with you, I couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. It was so quiet, but not in a good way. I was only there an hour or two, but I felt almost … entombed.”
It was almost as if he’d read her mind, and she closed her eyes in relief that he understood.
“That’s a perfect description of it — a tomb. I felt
it, too, and it’s why I finally left.”
“Christ, Katie, I’m so sorry.” His breath hitched and his arms drew her closer. “I wish … ”
“No more,” she interrupted. “We’re starting over, right?”
Sudden silence descended as the song came to an end, and a moment later the tape player clicked off. Still they swayed together, dancing to music only they could hear.
“A long time ago,” Katie began softly, “ … you said something about living in the Berkshires. Remember?”
He grew still. “Not only do I remember, but I was just thinking about it.”
“You were?” There it was again, the feeling that he was reading her mind. More proof, if she needed it, that despite everything that had happened they were still in tune with each other. “It sounds like a good omen, then.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually.” Jay cleared his throat. “When I left London I took the car and drove over to Reading. I don’t know why. At the time I thought I’d never … Anyway. There’s a lovely house for sale there near the Thames. It would be a nice spot for us to start over. And there’s lots of room, so one day … ”
“One day we can adopt a dozen children?” she whispered. “You said that once, too.”
“I meant it then, and I mean it now. I want a family with you, Katie. I want to live the rest of my life with you, no matter what happens in the future. I just want to be with you.” His lips brushed through her hair. “I’m going to prove it to you.”
She took a deep breath. “You already have.”
“Thank you.” Jay’s voice broke. “Oh, God, Katie, thank you.” His lips moved across her cheek and his warm breath tickled her ear. “Love you so much, baby.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered. Drawing back, she looked into those intense hazel eyes that had drawn her in and held her since the moment she first saw him. Responding to the love and hope she saw there, she tangled her hands in his hair and pulled his head down to hers.
And once again time stopped and the world tilted on its axis.
Crimson and Clover Page 27
