by Ward, Susan
“It’s what she wants. We can hire full-time nurses. People do it all the time—”
“That’s not what your father needs. It’s not in the best interest of Gloria either.”
“I can’t make the decision. It’s Gloria’s to make. I’ll talk to her tonight and get back to you.”
He patted me on the arm and I went back to sit with my father. He just lay there while I read, and everyone was right that he couldn’t hear me.
I snapped shut the book and set it on the bedside table. Decisions had to be made, but they weren’t mine to make. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want to be the one who sent Jack senior to a place he’d consider dignity robbing, even knowing he most probably wouldn’t be aware I’d done it to him or that he was even there.
I left the hospital for the night and headed back to Hope Ranch. I entered the house and made a beeline to the kitchen. As I fixed my drink, I spotted Lena sitting on the cliffs, and by the quietness of the house I was pretty sure no one else was awake.
I checked the clock. Fuck—it was after 11:00 p.m. I’d gone to sit a few hours with my dad and ended up spending half the night with him.
As I sipped my drink, I watched Lena. Christ, she was waiting up for me. Not a good sign. My father’s illness had hit the pause button on her walking out on me, and I was pretty sure it was only a matter of time until we were in that discussion again.
I went out the patio doors and crossed the yard to her.
Lena looked over her shoulder. “You’re late. Your father is still all right, isn’t he?”
“No change.” I sank down on the grass behind her, pulled her up against me, and surrounded her with my arms and legs. “They want us to move him to a nursing home.”
She leaned back into my chest. “What do you want?”
“I want what’s best for him.”
Her hair teased my chin as she nodded. “I need to get to New York soon.”
Fuck. “I can’t go, Lena. Not yet.”
“I know.”
My throat tightened. Oh shit, not tonight. Not this discussion tonight.
“I’ve made arrangements for Sammy and I to go back tomorrow,” she whispered.
I turned her in my arms and held her face in my hands. “Don’t go, baby. I can’t do both things. Be without you and make decisions for him.”
She still wasn’t looking at me. I stared hard out at the ocean, because I could feel myself weakening over her and too many other things I didn’t want to go through.
Not tonight.
Not now.
Not ever.
She slowly disentangled herself from my arms. “I can’t stay with you, Jack,” Lena said.
“No,” I snapped, in spite of my resolve not to get angry. “You are not walking out on me again. You’re not going anywhere ever again without me. You’re the only person in my life that matters. Why can’t you see that?”
“You don’t even know I’m here most of the time,” she screamed, her voice cracking, and she sprang to her feet. “And when you can see me, you wall me out, and I don’t even know why.”
She stared down at me, trembling and brushing at tears. I could tell by how red and puffy her face was that she’d been out here crying before I joined her, but those enormous brown eyes flashing at me were my undoing.
I sprang to my feet. “Don’t put this all on me. Everything is not my fault. You own part of the blame for what’s wrong with us, too.”
That hurt her. I could see it in her eyes, and fuck, this wasn’t what I wanted.
“I love you, Lena. We’ve both done things. Why can’t you just let go of the things that hurt us?”
Her eyes flared and her lip trembled before she looked away. “I can’t forgive what you’re doing to yourself because I love you, you foolish man. I won’t stay and watch you destroy yourself.”
She hurried toward the house.
“I forgave you Reggie,” I spat at her back. “The second I stepped through your dressing room door. I love you enough to move past you fucking my best friend.”
Lena whirled. “Reggie?” Her gaze ran my face, confused. “What are you talking about?”
I felt my heart accelerate, my limbs go weak, and I just wanted to make love to her, or cry, or do anything but this. I wasn’t sure that if we finally had it out and I knew for certain what had been between them, I could keep hanging on and not let her go like she wanted to.
“What do you mean fucking your best friend?” she repeated heatedly.
It was too hard to meet her gaze.
I raked a hand through my hair and closed my eyes.
“I’ve known about your affair with him since before you left me, Lena. Jesus Christ, he wrote about it in that fucking journal he gave me.”
She stepped toward me, shaking with indignation. “I never had an affair with Reggie. There was never anything between Reggie and me except friendship and you, Jack.”
“Bullshit,” I said through clenched teeth. “I may have been blind two years ago about what you were doing all those hours you spent alone with Reggie, but Jesus Christ, don’t lie about it. Both of you betrayed and hurt me.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” she whispered, taking a step in to me. Her eyes were fixed on me, enormous with pain and tortured reluctance. “You want to know what was between Reggie and me, Jack? Reggie told me to leave you. That I should get out before you trashed my life like you were trashing your own.” Another step. “He told me I was a fool thinking I could make a difference in what you were doing to yourself.” Another step. “He told me he couldn’t take it anymore because he loved us both. That he wouldn’t be a good friend to either one of us if he didn’t tell me to go. And it ripped him apart to tell me to leave you because he loved you and hearing I couldn’t do that because he loved me.”
I could barely breathe because I knew she was telling me the truth. I could also hear the things she wasn’t saying, but my traitorous emotions pitched and chased after shadows.
“Are you saying you never had an affair with him?”
Her eyes burned into mine and I could feel her body pulsing with anger. “The only thing there ever was between Reggie and me was that we both loved you.”
I stared at the ground. I was tired and I hurt and I didn’t want Lena to leave me.
Some part of me knew it wasn’t fair.
That it was the wrong thing to do.
I said it anyway.
“Then if you love me, don’t walk out on me now, Lena. I’ll do anything you want me to. I won’t make it unless you stay with me.”
Thirty-Two
Lena stayed and the Hope Ranch house became our home. She said it was the last chance she was giving me, but maybe we had shot of making it this time in a place called hope.
It was ironic that it was the man my father intractably remained that should be the one who brought Lena and me home to Santa Barbara and saved my marriage and me.
I never doubted the senator loved me or that I loved him, not even in my early years of the tug-of-war of wills or in adulthood when we clashed words in a splatter of news ink. Not even through the seven years we did not speak directly to each other.
Neither of us would have existed without the other, and none of it would have amounted to anything if we had not loved. Once I realized that, I forgave my father everything. Even that he could not forgive me.
After all, it was who he was—unbending, unchanging, and unwilling to reach out to me—his staying true to himself and who he was that brought me home in the end.
I was the one who returned to New York first, a month after our fight on the cliffs, because I had contract demands I couldn’t get out of as easily as Lena took leave from the Philharmonic. And it was Lena who made the decision and arrangements to move my father from the hospital to a nursing facility, doing it quietly behind Gloria’s back and mine.
Gloria immediately packed up her backs, divorced the senator, an
d moved elsewhere because, in the ultimate irony, Jack Sr. had never changed his will.
I was his son, it was the correct thing a man should do, and everything he owned was transferred in a trust to me, even the Santa Barbara house, much to Gloria’s fury. I’m sure it infuriated her more that I would have preferred peace with my father instead.
On an early February morning, I reached home and found my wife on the patio trying to teach Sammy the cello. Jeez, I could tell the boy hated every minute of it and only indulged her efforts because, hell, we all indulged Lena.
He spotted me and stopped the bow mid-move, and before he could say anything I silenced him with a finger across my lips.
“No,” Lena said at once. “Sit. Finish. Discipline and practice before—”
I got to her chair before she noticed. “Discipline and practice. My favorite things,” I teased, and quickly snuck in to put a sloppy kiss on her neck.
“Jeez, Dad,” Sammy exclaimed, grimacing. “Do you have to do that in front of me?”
I smiled. “Yep, I can’t help it. I do. I love your mother.”
Lena laughed softly, shaking her head. “Impossible, both of you. Put your instrument away, Samuel. It’s not a toy. Then we’re done for the day.”
He rose from his chair.
“I’m glad you’re home, Dad,” he said, gave me a hug, then started to put away the cello.
“Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming home?” Lena said, rising to face me.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
Smiling, she dropped a chaste kiss on my lips because Sammy was with us. “Well, you definitely surprised me. How long are you back for?”
I tilted my head to my son in a manner that said get lost, and he nodded and disappeared into the house.
Once he was gone, I took her in a loose drape of my arms and said, “I don’t know. It depends on how long you want me here. What do you think to having a stay-at-home beach bum around the house full time?”
She stared up at me, brows puckered. “What? Jack, what you talking about?”
I settled on a table and eased her between my legs. “I quit, Lena. I’m off the road at least a year. Forever, if you want me here.”
Her eyes widened and I fought to hold the smile on my face as I waited for her reaction. I hadn’t discussed it with her first. I just did it. Sitting in New York, all I could think was why the hell am I here while she’s there? Next thing I knew I was telling my manager I was through. If this was going to be my last shot with her, I wanted to give it my all.
“Really? This isn’t a joke?”
I eased her into my body, but placed a silly kiss on her nose because I still wasn’t sure what she thought. “No. No joke.”
I caught just a second of the sparkle in her eyes before she melted into me, pressing her cheek against my chest. “Then I think it’s a marvelous idea.”
I started to run my hands up and down her back as I kissed her shoulder. “Promise to think that after I’ve been home a few months.”
She laughed. “Home. I like the sound of that, Jack.”
“You happy, doll?”
She nodded, her gaze shimmering. “Pretty darn happy. It’s a pretty darn good start.”
Start? I tried not to let that dampen my mood, since leaving my career while at the top of it was my all-in move, the most definitive thing I could do to show Lena I’d heard every word she’d said in the past two months and there was nothing more than that to give her.
I took her hand and guided her to the side of the house where the sliding doors to our bedroom were.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
I grabbed her up against me, kissing her passionately, pushing her into the room with the steady pressure of my body and lips. “We’ve been apart for a month. We’re not leaving our room until I’m ready to.”
She laughed when I set her back on the bed and undressed her between the heated moves of my mouth.
She arched as I ran my lips down her neck. “Someone missed me.”
“I always miss you,” I whispered, roaming lower with my touch and lips. “Did you miss me?”
Her head lifted off the pillow, her eyes sparkling. “What do you think? You got me into bed, didn’t you?”
I laughed and lightly teased with my tongue up the inside of her leg. I stopped with my face close to her dainty bud, not tasting but taunting with only breath.
I ran my hands up the top of her thighs, spreading my fingers wide before I spread her legs. “Getting you into bed”—I kiss low on her abdomen—“that’s easy. Keeping you there”—I moved my tongue lower—“takes work.”
She laced her fingers in my hair. “Not today.”
I looked at her.
Her eyes were wide and loving and shimmering.
I pulled off my shirt and frowned playfully as I undid my jeans. “Damn it, you tipped your hand too soon. I was looking forward to you making me work for it.”
Her arms opened for me. “And I’m looking forward to letting you.”
When she looked at me that way, she made me ravenous for her. I’d spent the long, lonely hours on the plane home thinking how I’d make love to her. Slowly. Tasting and touching her everywhere, a total reawakening of the senses, drinking in every part of her I could get.
Instead, I covered her with my body and quickly buried myself deeply within. As I moved she rose up into me, her answering kisses urging me onward.
“I love you, Jack.”
I plunged into her and then stilled, savoring the feel of her shuddering beneath me. “I love you, baby.”
She used her body to urge me to turn us, and I rolled onto my back, taking her with me. She planted her hands on my shoulders, running herself up my length over and over again as she fiercely rode my body.
She was on fire.
Frantic for her release.
And mine.
Her muscles started to quiver and her beautiful face tightened.
“Faster, baby. Faster,” I moaned, clutching her hips to guide our moves. “That feels so good. Fuck me harder, Lena.”
Her moans mixed with my ragged breaths.
She put her breast up to my mouth and as I closed my lips over it, she moved one of my hands to her other breast so I could pinch and roll her nipple.
Her entire body began to quake.
“Oh yes,” she screamed, her head moving in a slow sway. “Come now. Come with me.”
I was rock hard and on the edge before she said that, but the shuddering of her body was my undoing. Pounding into her climax, I let go. Her hips continued to rock, clutching me tight as she stroked every last drop from me.
Slowly, she melted down on my chest.
“Oh God,” I moaned. I couldn’t catch my breath. “You checked your temperature today and I fucking love it when you’re ovulating. I don’t have to woo you. You’re going to keep me in bed for days anyway.”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe. Maybe not. That time had to have worked. Perfect news. Perfect day. Yep, that one got me pregnant. We’re done for the day.”
I grinned, brushing the wayward hairs from her face. “Nope, not buying it, Lena. I surprised you by coming home on the right day. The timing is brilliant. I don’t think we should waste it. When everything is going your way you don’t stop unless it changes.”
“Then we won’t stop.”
I covered her face in kisses. “Not ever.”
“Not ever,” she agreed. She kissed me, and when she eased back she was smiling, but there was a hint of sadness tucked carefully in the darkness of her gaze.
I tightened my arms around her. “It doesn’t matter, Lena, if we don’t ever have another baby. You and Sammy are enough for me.”
“I want your child, Jack. Our child.”
“I know, doll.”
She eased off me and stretched out on the pillow beside me. “Then finish what you started when we first got into be
d, and then make love to me again.”
~~~
Six months later, I was still a stay-at-home beach bum. Lena had gone back to performing, shuttling coast to coast between New York and Sammy and me. We still weren’t pregnant, but not from a lack of trying. And Liam came to visit.
“This is really what you do all day?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement.
I watched Sammy searching along the edge of the surf as I took a beer from the cooler and opened it. “Yep. That oil spill made the beaches a fucking mess. They were closed for months. The Government and corporations ruin everything good and don’t do shit to fix it. They may have opened the beaches up back in June, but we’re still having birds wash up covered in oil.”
Liam sank down in the sand. “So Jackson Parker is just going to stay in Santa Barbara, fighting Union Oil instead of the war. I see your wife has still got you on a short leash.”
“You wish you were on my leash.”
He laughed. “So long as you’re happy, brother. That’s all that matters to me. The guys sent me here to see if you’d do the Aquarian Exposition with us. Three days of love and peace. Everything we’re about, Jack. But I understand if you can’t. A guy’s got to do what keeps peace with his woman.”
I didn’t like how he said that, but I shrugged. “My fight’s local and I plan to keep it that way. This is my home, Liam. Everything important to me is here now.”
He studied me. “You look good, Jackie boy. Stay in Santa Barbara with Lena. It’s doing you good.”
I laughed. “It is good. Other than learning to fuck on a schedule and not shooting my mouth off so much that I piss off my wife, life is pretty fucking good for me.”
He frowned. “Fucking on a schedule?”
I shook my head. “Yep. Lena wants another baby and it’s not happening. She’s seen a dozen doctors. She’s got us on all kinds of crazy regimens. Fuck, she made me see a doctor, too, to make sure there was nothing wrong with me. He told me to quit drinking. That I needed to help my swimmers swim. So don’t tell Lena I’ve had a couple of beers down at the beach with you. She’ll be fucking pissed at me, man.”
Liam laughed.
I spotted a tar-covered bird struggling in the waves. I sprinted across the beach and slowly moved in, trying to get hold of it, but every time I moved toward it, it moved back, afraid.
