Natural Attraction

by Marisa Carroll

  “The deposits will be in your checkbook, Kerry. Try and get hold of yourself,” Mark soothed. He looked beseechingly at Jessie once more.

  Poor man. Jessie swallowed a giggle, surprised at herself as her anger bubbled away at the look of quiet desperation in his eyes. It did serve him right. Damsels in distress were notorious for being unable to extricate themselves from their dilemmas. Didn’t Mark know that? His education in that respect was sadly lacking. He’d be marvelous at playing Saint George and the dragon; he’d give Robin Hood a run for his money when it came to fighting off the sheriff of Nottingham’s men. But the IRS? With his princess sobbing on his shoulder? Jessie sighed. She knew what she had to do.

  “Let me take you home and sort this out, Kerry. It’s my business, you know. And your house is barely two blocks out of the way. Mark will see that someone gets your car back to your place.”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “I’m a CPA, remember? I’ll help you all I can with the examiners. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see.”

  “Jess, would you?” Mark’s gratitude was heartfelt. His smile almost made up for Jessie’s renewed heartache—almost, but not quite.

  “What are friends for if not to help each other in emergencies?” Jessie felt like a hypocrite. Taking charge of the high-strung Kerry and her tax audit wasn’t the basis she’d envisioned for reviving her relationship with Mark.

  “Jessie…” Mark seemed to hesitate. He glanced down at Kerry again, almost as if he didn’t quite know how she got there, hanging on his jacket lapels, or what to do with her next. “We still have a great deal to discuss.”

  Kerry’s head popped up. She was suddenly attentive to the conversation.

  “I think we’ve said all we can today,” Jessie replied, with a pointed look at Kerry, still adhering tightly to Mark’s jacket. “Things haven’t changed, not really.” But they had. And not for the better. She must have been crazy to believe they had. That’s what being in Mark’s arms did to her reason—obliterated it.

  “Jess.” He looked as if he were about to give her an order. She wasn’t going to stand for that. Jessie cut off what he’d been going to say.

  “We’d better be leaving, Colonel.” It worked. Mark set his jaw in a tight line. Jessie smiled with cool politeness. Kerry’s arrival had saved her from a grave loss of common sense. She couldn’t carry on a purely physical relationship with Mark, her emotions were far too deeply involved. It had been a close call. “My car’s out front, Kerry. Are you ready to go?”

  JESSIE TURNED FROM HER UNSEEING contemplation of the bleak mid-November day. The trees were bare, the sky low and dark with moisture. It was raining now, but a short while before it had snowed. It would snow again as the temperature dropped at the end of the short afternoon. Outside, the cold east wind carried a tang of salt and the sea. Winter was ready to settle in with a vengeance.

  “Bam, bam, bam. Gotcha, ya sleazeball.” Jessie stared in horrified fascination as Kerry’s towheaded older son spread his sturdy legs, steadied the plastic toy pistol with cupped hands—the same way she’d seen a thousand television cops and detectives do it—and calmly laid waste to half the familiar inhabitants of “Sesame Street”.

  “Nathan! Stop that this instant.” Kerry’s lovely voice had a tendency to climb shrilly when she admonished her children repeatedly. Possibly, Jessie thought from the vantage point of longer experience, because Kerry wasn’t prepared to back up her directives with appropriate disciplinary action. Children had a sixth sense about such things and exploited any weakness to the hilt. Four-year-old Nathan and two-year-old Peter were nearly out of control, in Jessie’s opinion.

  “I’m tired of ‘Sesame Street,’ Mom. Make it go off. I want to watch ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.”’

  “I can’t make it go off,” Kerry said patiently, putting down the dog-eared legal pad she’d been writing on. She uncurled herself gracefully from the sofa and tugged at the cap pistol in Nathan’s hand. “No more shooting.”

  “I bet you can’t count to ten before the Count does,” Jessie challenged, sliding a pencil into her topknot as she moved back into the circle of warmth and light in the middle of the living room.

  “Can too,” Nathan rejoined obstinately, but he gave up custody of the toy. “Wanna listen?”

  “Sure.” Jessie turned off the lisping rendition as she concentrated on making sense out of Kerry’s checking account. “Fine, Nathan. You’re a smart boy,” she said, appropriately praising when Nathan’s piping voice stilled momentarily. Hadn’t lost her timing yet. Jessie congratulated herself.

  The closing theme from the children’s show wafted across the room. Forgetting his homicidal tendencies of a few moments earlier, Nathan sang along. Then shortly he bounced down onto a ratty corduroy cushion and began to take an interest in the ritual greeting of “Mister Rogers.”

  “You make that look so easy, Jess,” Kerry said wistfully, lifting Peter into her arms. It was a refrain Jessie had grown used to hearing during her several visits to Kerry’s home.

  “Make what look easy?” Jessie answered distantly as she made the last entry on her checklist of details to be worked out before Kerry’s appointment with the IRS agent.

  “Dealing with children.”

  “Lots of practice. And it doesn’t get easier, I’m sorry to say, only more familiar. You’re doing fine. I think we’ve got this thing beat.” Jessie changed the subject abruptly. She didn’t like to be told how good she was at mothering. It made her think of Mark, how he’d shown her she could enjoy her girls again. Thinking of Mark and how she’d hurt him made her sad even after three more weeks of not seeing him. The pain of missing him wasn’t less. If she was totally honest, it had increased considerably.

  “How much is it going to cost me?” Kerry bent her head to nuzzle Peter’s soft dark hair.

  “That’s the best part. Not a thing.” Jessie grinned at the hopeful look Kerry darted her way. “Unless I’m very mistaken and I’m not—the IRS will end up owing you money. Kerry, you didn’t take half the deductions you’re entitled to.” She let exasperation show in the timbre of her voice. “There’s day care for the boys, interest on your loans. Why didn’t you have a competent tax person do these returns for you?”

  “I thought I couldn’t afford to have it done professionally,” Kerry confessed with a rueful shrug of her shoulders. “David took care of all our finances. He made it look so easy I just thought I could keep on doing what he’d always done.” Easy tears filled Kerry’s eyes, but she blinked them back.

  “I see,” Jessie said crisply to avoid the waterworks, but she smiled to soften the sting. She was so used to fending for herself she’d forgotten how terribly bewildering those first years after Carl’s death had been.

  “I’ve never wanted to be a liberated woman.” Kerry cuddled the toddler, who responded with a wet, sticky kiss. “I just wanted to stay home and take care of my babies, never bother with taxes and insurance and having a career. I guess I’m just a throwback to another generation.” She laughed a little sheepishly.

  “Mothering and keeping house is the most demanding, underrated, lowest-paying job in the world, Kerry. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently. When you have to add being breadwinner to the other responsibilities, well, not so many men could do it.”

  “You’re sounding awfully feminist today, Jess.” Kerry laughed brightly and Jessie joined her, albeit reluctantly.

  “I am, aren’t I? Sorry. It’s just that few women can enjoy the satisfaction of being full-time homemakers anymore. Especially in an economy like ours. It’s very sad.”

  “Yes, it is. I never thought of it like that. So few ordinary families can afford to be one-paycheck households any longer.” Kerry looked down at her son with a thoughtful expression.

  They weren’t friends exactly. Not yet. Jessie doubted they ever would be as she watched Kerry with her son. She was too soft and unassertive to appeal strongly to Jessie’s independent nature. But she could giv
e credit where credit was due. Kerry was coping the best way she knew how in a situation far more difficult even than the one that had faced Jessie seven years earlier. Carl had always supported Jessie in her educational and personal endeavors. David and Kerry obviously hadn’t had that kind of relationship. Now she was a single parent surviving the best way she knew how. That similarity forged a fragile bond between the two women.

  “Mom, when are we going to eat?” Nathan piped up from in front of the TV, never turning his head.

  “Cookie,” Peter seconded in his piping baby voice. Nathan, with his chin propped on his pudgy hands, must look a great deal like his absent father, Jessie decided. He certainly didn’t resemble his petite, fine-boned mother. Peter, on the other hand, was definitely Kerry’s child from the top of his curly black head to the soles of his slender pink-toed feet. He’d be a lady-killer someday.

  He would be like the child Kerry would have with Mark someday.

  “Are we really finished, Jess?” Jessie nodded mutely. “Great, I have a dinner date.”

  “How nice.” Jessie’s good humor had disintegrated under the stress of her musings. Now an icy blast of suspicion assailed her.

  “Mark was going to take me somewhere special this evening,” Kerry lamented, “but Mrs. Mollicut couldn’t come out to sit with the boys. May I warm up your coffee, Jessie? It looks cold.”

  “No, no, thanks.” It wasn’t her coffee that was cold, it was her heart. “No more coffee. I have to be going. There are so many things to do before the wedding Saturday.” So far Jessie had avoided the subject of Mark Elliot by the simple expedient of ignoring any remarks Kerry made about him. She wasn’t about to start discussing him now. Jessie began stuffing cancelled checks and receipts back into the shoe box where Kerry kept them in a random order that she claimed was a system uniquely her own.

  “I’m sure you do have a million things to finish up. I’ve missed the twins’ baby-sitting.”

  I bet you have, Jessie affirmed in silent spite.

  “Mrs. Mollicut, my landlady, has been a real lifesaver. I’m afraid the boys make Mark nervous. But she has a virus and couldn’t keep them all night.” Kerry blushed, but it wasn’t quite as captivating a reaction as it usually was, or perhaps Jessie was less inclined to be charitable after the telling personal statements.

  “I’m sorry your plans have been spoiled.” Jessie got the words out of her mouth with an effort.

  “Yes…Jessie could I ask you something? Something personal?”

  Jessie’s hands tightened on her attaché case with hurting force. Good Lord, wasn’t it enough she’d volunteered her time to untangle Mark’s new love’s financial difficulties? Did she have to play mother confessor to the couple’s problems with their love life also? It was too much. “I don’t think I’m the right person.”

  “I thought you and Mark were friends. He constantly refers to that week you spent on the island. He spends more time talking to the twins when they’re baby-sitting than he does to me.” An inkling of pique tempered the soft words. “You two are the same generation…closer to the same age….”

  “What is it, Kerry?” Jessie resigned herself to a painful few minutes. She wondered if this little question-and-answer session would count toward qualifying her for martyrdom.

  “Mark seems perfectly healthy to you, doesn’t he?” Kerry wasn’t looking directly at Jessie any longer. She seemed to be paying great attention to the view from her living-room window. Peter was engrossed in mashing into the carpet a chocolate chip cookie his brother had brought him from the kitchen. Nathan had returned to watching “Mister Rogers” with a handful of cookies for himself. Jessie and Kerry might have been alone.

  “He did take a nasty fall on the island but…” Anxiety streaked through Jessie like cold lightning. Had Mark suffered some complications from the accident that he was hiding from her?

  “No…I don’t mean that kind of physical,” Kerry shook her head. “I know about the fall…. This is different. I mean,” she plunged ahead, aware of the quelling look on Jessie’s face. “I realize at his age…men slow down…but surely before…he must have been a fantastic lover.” Her words ended on a wistful sigh.

  “I…” Jessie couldn’t seem to get anything past the constriction in her windpipe. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  “Mark seemed so passionate at first…. Then…well, I don’t understand what happened. Perhaps I’m not desirable enough?” Kerry obviously hadn’t paid any attention at all to Jessie’s reaction to her confidences. She only wanted a sounding board for her own thoughts. The horrible suspicion that Mark had told Kerry about their affair died aborning in Jessie’s thoughts.

  “You’re a lovely, loving young woman, Kerry. I’m sure that’s not the problem at all,” Jessie managed to croak.

  “I’ve rushed him, I suppose. I mean older men probably don’t like the woman to take the initiative. The first night he brought me home, well, it was star shine and moonbeams. I’m afraid I got a little carried away….” Kerry let the sentence trail off with delicate if delayed tact. “It was just like with…my ex-husband. And Mark seemed to want everything I’ve been missing. A home, a family, someone to take care of. I have to make up my mind, Jess. You’ve got your life so much in control. What should I do?”

  “Kerry, I don’t know how to advise you on this.” That was the biggest understatement yet. Jessie’s mind was in turmoil. Had it gone so far that Mark was ready to propose to Kerry?

  “Mark could make my life so much easier, and I could give him a home, babies of his own.” Jessie suddenly understood the meaning of the old cliché about feeling a knife twist in one’s heart. She had to fold her hands in her lap to keep from pressing them against her breast to try and contain the pain.

  “Mark Elliot will make a wonderful father and husband. I know that without any doubt.” Jessie’s voice was low and strained, devoid of emotion.

  “But I’m not sure anymore. I’ve been talking to David, Jessie. I got his new number from his mother. He’s changed, I think. Or maybe I have. I don’t know. A few weeks ago everything seemed so simple. I still find Mark terribly exciting despite the difference in our ages. Perhaps I’m imagining this thing about his physical limitations? Perhaps tonight…after tonight, I’ll be able to tell more about my own feelings….”

  Jessie thought she was going to strangle. There wasn’t any oxygen left in the overheated little room. Mark was going to spend the night here with this woman. “I have to be going, Kerry. I’m sure you and Mark will work this out.”

  “We’ll see,” Kerry said sweetly. “Mark will be here any minute. Won’t you stay and have a glass of wine with us? He’s bringing everything but the candles. He offered to cook for us here after I told him Mrs. Mollicut couldn’t watch the boys. Still, I would have liked to see his place.”

  “His place?” Jessie’s tone was unnaturally high and sharp. “He was going to cook you dinner at his place?” The bastard!

  “They say he has the most adorable loft above the magazine.” Kerry was clearly puzzled by the abrupt change in Jessie’s attitude. “He’s quite a cook. He’s doing some exotic lamb dish. Jessie, are you choking? I told you not to drink that cold coffee. Do you want a slap on the back?”

  “I’m fine,” Jessie lied, holding up a restraining hand. Curried lamb stew. How could he? Her temper surged into control of her thoughts and her tongue. “I’ve heard he does that dish very well.”

  “And he’s bringing dessert, too, Amaretto mousse. Doesn’t that sound romantic? Oh, there’s the doorbell.”

  Amaretto mousse! The fink. Jessie struggled into her coat and pulled on her gloves over hands shaking with temper.

  “Mark, come in.” Kerry’s greeting floated blithely into the void in her thoughts. “Jessie’s still here. We’ve finished up the stuff for the IRS. Wasn’t she wonderful to have stuck by me these past few weeks?”

  “Jessie’s a trooper.” Mark sounded as disconcerted as Jessie felt
to see her in Kerry’s apartment. He was carrying a large covered wicker hamper in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. His thick, red-plaid wool jacket complemented the mahogany darkness of his skin. His hair held droplets of half-melted snow, or was it half-frozen rain? Jessie’s thoughts skittered around the edges of her brain refusing to dwell on anything too long for fear she’d shatter into anger or tears. She wasn’t sure which emotion was closer to the surface.

  “How’ve you been, Jessie? We’ve missed you at the magazine. There’s an assignment I’d like to talk to you about….”

  Both the boys had jumped up at Mark’s entrance. Now they came surging forward, creating a distraction that allowed Jessie to find her handbag and her attaché case under cover of its noise and movement.

  “I don’t think I’m going to have time for any freelancing for quite a while,” she mumbled. When she looked up again both children were firmly affixed to Mark’s pant legs. Kerry was laughing, taking the hamper and the wine. Mark bent down to pick up the smallest boy and run his hand through Nathan’s hair in a father-and-son gesture that left it standing up in short tufts all over his head.

  “Please, stay for a glass of wine, Jess,” Kerry invited, smiling in happy anticipation, as if she’d made up her mind about her future in the few short moments since Mark’s arrival. Jessie felt despair settle like a lead weight in her middle.

  “No, I’m afraid I can’t. Mother needs a last fitting on her dress. Hi, her fiancé, will be here tomorrow and the spare room isn’t ready. Nell has so much homework these days….” Jessie gave up the attempt to make excuses. “But thank you for asking.” Kerry shrugged and turned toward the kitchen to deposit the hamper.