Carolina Blues

by Virginia Kantra

  Tess waved a hand. “Help yourself.”

  “Seems like everybody else is,” Luke said.

  Jack made himself stand still. Never let them see you sweat. Or squirm.

  Lauren’s gaze met his, her eyes alight with laughter. And the tension that had been part of him for the past year and a half, the coil that was so tightly wound all the time, suddenly relaxed. She made things so . . . easy. Because, yeah, okay, the situation was pretty funny. Frustrating as hell, but bearable, as long as Lauren smiled at him with laughter in her eyes.

  A corner of his mouth curled in response.

  “I was looking for you,” Meg said to Lauren, picking up the wine bottle. “Your agent called.”

  The laughter in Lauren’s face died.

  Jack fought an absurd impulse to go to her. To comfort her. But he didn’t know if the gesture would be welcome. He had no real place in her life, any more than she had in his. He didn’t know what she wanted from him, besides sex.

  “Guess I better get to work, then, huh?” she said in a bright, brittle voice.

  Jack frowned. Was that what she wanted? “We all should,” he said.

  “You okay to drive, Chief?” Luke asked with a glance at the wine.

  Jack gritted his teeth. He hadn’t touched the wine. Or anything else. Hardly.

  This was why he didn’t have a personal life. It was too damn messy.

  “I’m good. We need to talk anyway.” He needed to bring Luke up to speed on the bakery situation.

  He glanced at Lauren. She was watching him with those dark, observant eyes, her chin slightly higher than usual.

  She would be all right, he thought with relief.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, still pink and swollen-looking, and the ground shifted under his feet just enough to let him know that he was not, in fact, good. He was not in control.

  And maybe she wasn’t as all right as she pretended, either, because she wasn’t smiling anymore and there was a pucker between her brows.

  Hell. He was not kissing her good-bye with an audience. Wasn’t making a date in front of one, either.

  “I’ll . . .” What? I’ll call you was out. “I’ll see you,” he said.

  Her lips firmed. She gave him that look, like she could see right through his excuses to the back of his skull. The look that promised they weren’t done here. “See you.”

  He said his good-byes and left with Luke. It wasn’t like he was running away, he told himself. He had things to do. Real things. Paperwork. E-mails. Finding Tillett.

  Things he could control.

  * * *

  “SO, YOU AND Jack Rossi . . .” Meg’s voice trailed off as she settled into the cushions of the lounger. Sunlight streamed through the jasmine twining over the porch trellis, firing the pollen in the air to floating motes of gold. “Is that a good idea?”

  Lauren gulped her wine. She couldn’t believe he’d left her like that. Well, yes, she could. I don’t have a personal life, he’d said.

  Yeah, because he was running from one as fast as he could. His rejection flicked heat to her face.

  Okay, not rejection. What was he supposed to do, say Excuse me, throw her over his shoulder, and haul her upstairs so that the entire Fletcher family could listen to her headboard banging against the wall?

  The thought made her warm all over for entirely different reasons.

  It was just bad luck that Tess had interrupted them before they went upstairs. Just bad timing.

  Kind of like everything else in her life.

  Lauren knew better than anyone that sometimes things didn’t work out as planned. Fathers died. Educations were put on hold. A simple run to the bank turned into a three-day ordeal in front of television cameras. Life was too uncertain for her to get hung up on some guy. Any guy.

  But somehow all the relationships that had come before—the missed connections and botched communications and guys who failed to follow through—had not prepared her for Jack. He was different.

  Or maybe she was the one who had changed.

  She shifted uneasily on the couch. “Couldn’t we talk about something else? You said Patricia called.” She really had it bad if talking about her agent was preferable to dwelling on Jack Rossi.

  “I was leading into that. Gently.”

  The idea of Meg approaching any subject gently tickled Lauren’s humor. “Like a dentist starting a root canal.”

  Meg grinned. “So tact isn’t one of my strong points.”

  “It’s okay,” Lauren said. “I can guess what she wanted anyway.” The book. It was always the book.

  “She just wants to know if you’re on schedule,” Meg said.

  “Why didn’t she call me herself?”

  “She doesn’t want to pressure you.”

  Too late. The suffocating feeling was back, pressing on Lauren’s chest, squeezing her lungs. She forced herself to inhale. “So she got you to do her dirty work.”

  “Only after I plied you with wine.”

  Lauren stared down into her glass. “I am writing.” Trying to write. “Every day.” Even to her own ears, the words sounded weak. Like an excuse.

  Meg raised her eyebrows. She didn’t make excuses. After she’d been fired from her Fortune 500 job, Meg had formed her own very successful boutique PR agency. Her drive and determination made Lauren feel even worse about her own floundering panic. “And how are you feeling?”

  Think positive. “Good.”

  Meg didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She’d been in that hotel room.

  Lauren sighed. “Better,” she amended.

  “So . . .” What’s the matter? The words hung silently in the air like a thought balloon in a comic strip.

  What’s the matter with you?

  “I think . . . I need to do more,” Lauren said.

  Meg frowned. “Lauren, when I came down to Saint Louis, you were exhausted.” And that exhaustion had brought on a full-scale panic attack. “The whole point of you coming here was to give you a break. To give you a minute out of the spotlight so you could concentrate on your writing.”

  “I know. And I’m grateful.” She was, too. Meg had saved her. “But . . .”

  “You just need a chance to relax. Until things get back to normal.”

  Lauren’s hands tightened on her glass. She set it down carefully. There was no “normal” anymore. Not one she recognized. Her old life was gone.

  At least when she was on tour, she’d had a role to play. She could be, for hours at a time, the person that her audience expected. Hostage Girl, clear-thinking and brave.

  But away from the SWAT teams and television cameras, who was she?

  Only with Jack she had felt briefly, intensely, herself. Present. Alive.

  “I need to do more with my life,” she explained.

  “Like work at the bakery?” Meg asked dryly.

  Lauren winced. “You heard about that.”

  “Sweetie, you’re on an island now. The two main occupations are fishing and gossip. And since my nephew’s girlfriend also happens to work at the bakery . . .”

  “Your nephew’s dating Thalia?” Lauren asked, diverted.

  Meg’s eyes narrowed at the change of subject. Lauren smiled ruefully. No one could ever accuse Meg of being unfocused.

  “Not that my nephew’s love life isn’t my top priority,” Meg said. “But let’s stick with you for the moment. Why are you working for Jane?”

  “It’s only for a couple hours a day,” Lauren said defensively. “And Jane’s short staffed.”

  “But what do you get out of it? Besides free pastries.”

  “It’s something I can do. Something I’m good at,” Lauren said with growing assurance. “I need to help.”

  “That’s why you quit school after your father died,” Meg said.<
br />
  Lauren’s heart jolted.

  “It’s not a secret,” Meg said. “It’s in your book. Which I read. You’re my client. You left college because your mother wasn’t holding it together and your brother, Noah, needed you.”

  “He needed counseling,” Lauren said.

  “Which you made sure he got,” Meg said. “And then when you did go back to school, you chose psychology as your major.”

  Lauren hadn’t realized she had revealed so much of herself, her old self, on the page. Or maybe Meg, with her Harvard education and tight-knit family, was very good at reading between the lines. “Noah went through a really tough time after Dad died. The counselor made a huge difference in his life. It made me realize that that’s what I wanted to do.”

  “That’s great. But, Lauren.” Meg met her gaze. “You can’t save everybody.”

  “I know that.” She sure hadn’t saved Ben, despite her promises to him that everything would be all right. She hadn’t saved his family, even if she did still send them money every month. Somehow she had to learn to live with the guilt and move on. “It makes me feel better to try,” she said. “To give back, even if it’s just a cup of coffee.”

  “Where does Jack Rossi fit into all this?”

  Lauren hesitated. This wasn’t the kind of thing you discussed with your publicist. Only with your therapist. Or maybe a friend.

  She was so very tired of being isolated in hotel rooms. Of presenting a front to strangers. Of hiding her hurt from the people who knew her best.

  But she wasn’t sure enough of her relationship with Meg to know what to say. She wasn’t sure of herself.

  Are you moving forward? Jack had challenged her. Or running away?

  Lauren took a deep breath. She’d come this far. She wasn’t going to back down now. “He makes me feel better, too.”

  “Really.” Meg sounded disbelieving.

  “You don’t think he’s hot?”

  Meg shot her a droll look. “I’m engaged, not dead. Of course I find him hot. I’m just surprised you do.”

  Lauren smiled wryly. “To use your expression, I’m messed up. I’m not dead.”

  Meg turned pink. “I wasn’t going to say messed up. Fragile maybe. And Jack is kind of a bad ass. A cop. An ex-sniper. Are you really sure he’s the best person for you to be with right now?”

  A sniper. The word conjured visions of black-jacketed, goggled figures swarming through smoke like demons from the mouth of hell. Of Ben’s uncle, George, one blind eye staring up at the ceiling, lying in his blood on the nubby bank carpet.

  “Jack was a sniper? In Philadelphia?”

  “In the Marines. In Afghanistan. Luke told me.”

  Lauren’s heart beat faster. “Don’t they screen them? To be, like, super emotionally stable or something?”

  Meg shrugged. “Maybe when they go in. God knows what happens when they come out. My point is, I just don’t see Jack as the nurturing type.”

  Nurturing? No. Blunt and honest and uncompromising. A man of principle, Lauren thought, remembering how he’d tried to warn her off. I’m just telling you how it is.

  But he’d given her water. Driven her home. Cared for her. She remembered those dark, assessing eyes on her face. No bad effects?

  “He’s been nice to me,” she said.

  “Good for him. I still wouldn’t have pegged him as your type.”

  He could be her type. Well, once he got over his unfortunate tendency to walk away after kissing her brains out. But Lauren could work with that.

  “He’s a fixer-upper,” she said.

  “A what?”

  “That’s my type,” she explained. “I sort of collect them. Musicians, tattoo artists, fellow grad students. Guys who need a place to crash after their parents or their girlfriends kick them out. Nice guys, but not long-term relationship material. So they stay with me until I can fix them.”

  Meg narrowed her eyes. “You fix them.”

  “Mm.” She helped them find their feet or their mojo, gave them haircuts or research help, got them into rehab or out of debt. “And then, when they don’t need me anymore, they move on.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “I was.” Lauren blinked. Past tense. Why wasn’t she now? Was it Jack who was different?

  Or was the change in new Lauren? Not only the result of trauma, not simply a matter of survival, but a choice.

  Meg was frowning, staring into her glass, swirling the contents gently. “You know,” she said slowly. “Jack isn’t some twenty-something couch dweller you can launch after he learns to tie his own shoes. He’s older than me. Older than Matt, even. He’s not going to change for you.”

  “I know. I’m his rebound girl,” Lauren said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He hasn’t been with anyone since his divorce. He isn’t ready for a committed relationship.”

  Meg raised her brows. “And that’s enough for you?”

  Lauren looked at Meg, with her New York haircut and three-carat rock, blissfully engaged to the hunky contractor she’d crushed on in high school. So sure of herself, so confident about her life and Sam’s place in it.

  It must be nice.

  “It has to be,” Lauren said. “My life is a hot mess right now. I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in two months. I’m not looking for true love. I’m just hoping to get laid.”

  Meg was silent.

  “You don’t approve.”

  “Not for the reasons you think. Lauren . . . Before I was with Sam, I wasted six years of my life on a guy who was more interested in what I could do for his career than in who I was or what I wanted. So I have to ask, what do you get out of this?”

  Jack, Lauren thought with a stab of pure longing.

  She got Jack. All that tough strength, all that tempered control, all that sublimated passion, to wrap herself in like a down comforter, his hard hands and broad shoulders and smoldering dark eyes.

  Rescue me.

  “Maybe just the chance to feel connected again.” She looked up. Smiled. “It’s been so long since I’ve had sex, I’m practically a virgin.”

  Meg laughed and leaned forward to refill her wineglass. “Okay. I think it’s great that you’re rejoining the living. Everybody deserves a summer fling. As long as you know going in that that’s what it is.”

  “That’s all it is,” Lauren said.

  She was pretty sure she was okay with that.

  Six

  “HEARD YOU DITCHED my daughter for some gal with a nose ring,” Hank said two days later.

  Jack’s jaw clamped. He’d kissed Jane one time at Matt Fletcher’s wedding four months ago. Maybe he’d thought about doing more, but the chemistry had never been there. On either side, he admitted.

  Defending himself to Hank, though, would only make him sound like a jerk. Never mix sex and the job.

  “Lauren Patterson.” Luke looked up from typing a list of items stolen from Lois Howell’s clothesline. “And if you ask me, Jack’s the one with the ring in his nose.”

  Hank snorted. “If a woman’s leading him around, it’s not by the nose.”

  A police department was like a locker room, the same smell of sweat and pine cleaner, the same playground hierarchy. Ribbing was good, a sign of acceptance, evidence that they were playing as a team. But he was the coach. Time to get everybody’s head back in the game.

  “How’s Jane?” he asked.

  Hank scowled. “She doesn’t talk to me. I figured you’d know. You’re the one at the bakery all the time.”

  “The bakery was closed until this morning,” he reminded Hank. “I went out yesterday to take a look at the new security system.”

  He’d met up with the crime scene tech from the sheriff’s department. He’d seen Jane and the repairman fixing the air c
onditioner unit. He’d looked for Lauren.

  But she wasn’t there.

  Of course. She had work to do. And so did he.

  His disappointment at her absence was strong enough to make him uneasy. He wanted her. He didn’t deny it. A good detective didn’t ignore the facts to suit his own theories. Or in this case, his life.

  But he didn’t want to need her. So after leaving the bakery, he hadn’t gone to the inn to see her. He held back, just to prove to himself that he could, like a smoker going a whole day without a cigarette.

  Her dark gaze met his, her perception lightened with humor. If I invite you in for a drink, would that violate your professional or personal boundaries?

  He almost shuddered. You couldn’t put yourself out there like that. You couldn’t let people in. Because if you did, they would mess you up.

  But somehow she did it. Invited him in, left herself all raw and naked and open and vulnerable.

  She was incredibly brave.

  And dangerous.

  “What about that piece of shit Tillett?” Hank asked.

  Jack dragged his mind off Lauren. “Is that what you called him when he was your son-in-law?”

  “Worse than that. Not that Jane ever listened,” Hank said. “You find him?”

  Reluctantly, Jack shook his head. Beneath Hank’s gruff manner, he was obviously concerned. “Not yet.”

  “He could’ve left the island,” Luke said.

  Maybe. The locals looked out for their own. No one remembered seeing Tillett in the last two days. But at the height of the tourist season, one scruffy, long-haired guy could easily blend in with the fishermen, surfers, and campers on vacation. Without a warrant, there was no way to track the guy’s movements, especially if he drove across the bridge instead of taking the ferry.

  “I’ll take his photo around again when we’re done here. Grab the other side of this desk,” Jack said to Luke. “I want to move it by the entrance.”

  Luke pushed back his chair to comply.

  “Why do we need another desk?” Hank said. “We’re crowded enough already.”

  Jack wedged the desk beside a bank of file cabinets. “Town council finally approved the new budget. We’ve got ourselves a dispatcher, someone to take over the permits and filing and handle calls.”