Cross My Heart: A Contemporary Romance Novel

by Abigail Strom

  He took another breath. “And that’s why I’m here. I’m pretty much throwing myself on your mercy, Ms. Landry. I’m hoping you’ll come to my house for dinner tonight and make me look like father of the year.”

  If he’d planned it out deliberately, he couldn’t have said anything that would have melted her more. What woman wouldn’t be a sucker for a dad trying to improve his relationship with his teenage daughter?

  “Call me Jenna. And of course I’ll come over.”

  He looked surprised. “You will?”

  She smiled up at him. “You expected a harder sell?”

  “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “Coming here was impulsive, and I’m not usually impulsive. I didn’t know what to expect. But I thought you might have plans.”

  His brown eyes warmed a little as he looked at her, and Jenna felt a tingle at the base of her spine.

  “My only plan involved a pizza, which I will now call and cancel. I’d love to come to your house for dinner. But your daughter knows I’m not in a band anymore, right? I don’t want to meet Claire under false pretenses of fame and glory.”

  He shook his head. “She told me your band broke up a few years ago. She did say something about a reunion tour this fall. I think she’ll probably ask you about that.”

  Jenna laughed. “Her and everyone else. Give me a few minutes to change, okay? I’ve been doing some painting and I’m not exactly presentable.”

  His eyes traveled down her body and back up to her face. “I think you’re very presentable,” he said, and she could tell it was the second impulsive thing he’d done today, because he looked a little self-conscious after he said it.

  She felt a sudden rush of awareness, like an electric surge. It was so strong and so unexpected that she almost took a step back.

  “Okay, then,” she said after a moment. “I’ll be over in, say, half an hour? Will that work for you?”

  “That’s perfect,” he said. “We’re having salmon, if that’s all right.”

  “Perfect,” she said, echoing him.

  “Well…great. We’ll see you in half an hour.”

  Jenna leaned against the doorframe and watched him cross the lawns between their houses. When she realized she was staring, she closed the door firmly and went upstairs to shower.

  A few minutes later she was scrubbing paint flecks off her skin under the spray of hot water. She pictured Michael’s serious face and warm brown eyes, and the way his loose-limbed body had filled her doorway. She remembered his gaze moving over her, and the way her body had responded.

  She hadn’t felt that zing in a long time. It had been a while since she’d even felt like flirting with anyone.

  But why now? Why him? Michael was nothing like the bad boy type she’d always gone for in the past.

  He struck her as the responsible type. Stable and mature. He looked so serious—and she knew from her neighbor on the other side that he was a doctor.

  She’d turned thirty a few months ago, a milestone she hadn’t wrapped her mind around yet. Was her attraction to her conservative-looking neighbor a sign of things to come? Was this the final death knell of her old wild self, the girl who’d left home to start a rock band?

  Jenna stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry. She smoothed lotion onto her skin and stood at the counter to apply her makeup.

  She’d always sworn she’d never lose her edge, never turn boring or conventional or tame. Look at Tina Turner, still rocking the house at seventy. If Tina could stay wild then so could she.

  But looking at herself now, she acknowledged that she wasn’t the person she’d been at eighteen…or even twenty-five. Five years ago, for instance, she would have gone for dead pale skin and lips, and exaggerated her eyes with thick black liner. Now she was putting on mascara and lip gloss and not much else.

  She couldn’t pin down the exact moment in time she’d changed her look. It had been a gradual thing.

  There’d been other changes, too. She’d quit smoking almost three years ago, and to help deal with the nicotine cravings she’d started jogging. Now she actually enjoyed getting up early to run before breakfast. A far cry from her days in the band, when the Mollies would stay up till dawn and sleep till late afternoon, in time to get ready for that night’s show.

  She didn’t go out to the clubs as much, either. She’d settled in Chicago after the Mollies called it quits, working as a studio musician and enrolling in a degree program for music education. Between work and classes something had to give—and that turned out to be her night life.

  Then a few things happened. The Mollies made plans for a reunion tour, she got the job offer from L.A., and an old friend asked her if she’d be interested in teaching music that summer in Willow Springs, Iowa.

  The lease was up on her Chicago apartment. Aunt Beth and Uncle Sean were travelling until fall, and when they offered her their house for a couple of months, the timing had seemed too perfect to pass up.

  So here she was.

  Coming back to Iowa made the other changes in her life stand out in sharp relief. When she was living in Chicago, giving up cigarettes and a few nights out hadn’t seemed like such a big deal. But here in the town where she’d grown up, it felt like the old Jenna had slipped away when she wasn’t even looking, replaced by a woman she wasn’t sure she wanted to become.

  A woman who got up early to go running. A woman who spent her days teaching and her nights working on home improvement projects. A woman who found herself attracted to her next door neighbor, who was conventional and serious instead of wild and reckless.

  A woman who was losing her edge.

  No, she told herself, pulling on a pair of jeans and her CBGBs tee shirt. The fact that she’d made a few changes in her life didn’t mean she was losing her edge.

  She was attracted to Michael because he was hot, not because he seemed mature and responsible. And she wasn’t going to act on her feelings. She hardly ever saw him, for one thing—he seemed to work a pretty intense schedule. And she was only here for the summer. Nothing, and especially not a man, would keep her in Iowa any longer than that.

  Jenna had only two rules when it came to the opposite sex. Don’t let them change you, and don’t let them tie you down. She’d almost let a guy change her, once—before she found out the hard way that he wasn’t worth it.

  It was a mistake she had no intention of repeating.

  ***

  Michael took one last, critical look at his dining room.

  Was it too formal? He’d set the table in here rather than in the kitchen, wanting to make a good impression on his beautiful new neighbor—who’d turned out to be even more stunning up close. Only now, remembering her paint-flecked sweatpants and tee-shirt, he felt a qualm. Maybe Jenna would prefer a more casual setting.

  But it was too late to change things now. She’d be over any minute.

  She’d be here. In his house. Thinking of that made his blood run thick and hot in his veins, a pulsing warmth that made his whole body feel…primed.

  He knew, of course, that there’d been no actual change in the temperature of his blood. He was a doctor; he knew exactly what blood was and how it functioned in the body. He also knew that what he was feeling now was a biological reaction he could trace in scientific detail, from surges in norepinephrine and dopamine to the actions of his adrenal gland and blood flow to his corpus cavernosum.

  Usually, that kind of knowledge gave him power. Logic and intellect could always control emotion and sensation. But this time, for some reason, it didn’t seem to matter that he knew exactly what was happening in his body. The effect Jenna Landry had on him was stronger than his ability to reason it into submission.

  “Dad!”

  He turned his head to see his daughter coming down the stairs. When he’d told Claire about the guest coming for dinner, she’d stared at him for almost a minute, actually speechless. Then she’d squeaked out something and dashed upstairs. Now she was back, having changed
out of her blouse and into a tee-shirt with Death Cab For Cutie emblazoned on it.

  “Do I look okay?”

  That was an unexpected question. Claire had stopped caring what he thought about her appearance a long time ago.

  “Sure, sweetheart. You look great. Is that the name of a band?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, it’s a band. God, Dad, how can you be so—”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish the insult. The doorbell rang and the two of them froze briefly, looking at each other.

  They went to the door together, and he pulled it open.

  Jenna stood there on his porch smiling at them both. She wore a silk headband the same sapphire blue as her eyes, the color vibrant against her black hair. Like Claire, she was wearing a tee-shirt in honor of something he’d never heard of. CBGBs, whatever that was. The shirt looked soft and well-worn from many washings, and was somehow more flattering to her slender curves than the most elegant cocktail dress could have been.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi, Michael. And you must be Claire?”

  His daughter nodded. Jenna held out a hand and Claire took it, eyes wide. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said breathlessly.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too. I hear you’re a music fan.”

  Claire nodded again. “I have all your songs,” she said in a rush, and then winced. “Wow, that sounds lame. I mean, I bet you hear that all the time.”

  Michael stepped back and gestured for Jenna to come in.

  “It’s not lame at all, it’s flattering,” Jenna said as she crossed the threshold. “Wow, this place is beautiful,” she said, looking around her as Michael led the way into the living room.

  “Can I offer you something to drink? Some, uh, wine?” He tried to remember what kind of wine he had. He hardly ever drank himself but he had several bottles in the house, given to him by friends and colleagues over the years.

  “That sounds great,” she said, smiling at him, and he hoped to God his expression wasn’t quite as goofy as his daughter’s.

  He went to the kitchen, and by the time he opened a bottle of Chardonnay and came back to the living room, Claire seemed to have gotten over her initial awkwardness and was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her, talking with Jenna about music. He knew he wouldn’t have much to contribute to the conversation, so he handed a glass of wine to Jenna and sat down on a chair to listen.

  For the first minute, he didn’t take in much of what they were saying. He was too distracted by the curve of Jenna’s breasts under that soft tee shirt, a curve that seemed geometrically perfect to him—as if breasts were meant to be that shape and that shape only, and any variation would make them inferior.

  Her entire body was perfect. There was a subtle grace in the way she held herself, in her movements and in her stillness. Her arms and legs were slender and toned, the muscles perfectly defined. He studied the V shaped insertion point of her deltoid on her humerus. Something about that dip from muscle to bone was incredibly appealing. He had a sudden urge to kiss her there, to press his lips to that exact spot.

  Jenna glanced over at him, and he realized he had no idea what she’d just asked him.

  “What?”

  “I was asking if you’d ever seen a show at the Odeon.”

  “Oh. No, I haven’t.”

  Time to start paying attention to the conversation.

  Apparently the Red Mollies were, in fact, doing a reunion tour at the end of August, beginning with a show at the Odeon in Des Moines. The tour wasn’t a big deal, according to Jenna—just a few cities in the Midwest. If they were well-received, they might consider hitting other parts of the country next summer.

  “You guys are getting back together.”

  “Definitely not,” Jenna said firmly. “We’re only touring for a couple of months.” She grinned at Claire. “Would you like to see us at the Odeon? It’s an all-ages show. I can get tickets for you and a few friends, if you’d like. And your dad, of course,” she added, giving him a quick smile.

  “I won’t be here,” Claire said, looking stricken. Then she looked at him. “Unless you want me to stay longer?” she asked hopefully. “I know Nana won’t mind. I could stay until school starts in September.”

  Michael stared at her. “You want to stay longer?”

  Claire usually started talking about leaving Iowa thirty seconds after her plane touched down. Was she serious, or would she change her mind in five minutes? And if she was serious, how could he make it work? After two weeks, his grueling hospital schedule would start up again. How would he—

  “Or what about this?” Jenna put in quickly, as if she sensed his confusion at Claire’s sudden request. “The band is coming here next week for a practice session. Would you like to see us rehearse?”

  Claire’s mouth fell open. “I…that would be…”

  “I think that’s a yes,” Michael said after a moment, seeing his daughter reduced to speechlessness for the second time that night. The oven timer went off in the kitchen and he rose to his feet. “I’ll have dinner on the table in a few minutes. Claire, would you—”

  “I want to get a CD for Jenna to sign. And I have to go text some friends. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared in a rush, and Michael decided not to stop her. He’d been going to ask her to help get the food on the table, but what the hell. She looked so happy…and he didn’t want to mess it up.

  Jenna went with him to the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry for putting you on the spot about the concert,” she said contritely. “I should have checked with you before I suggested something like that.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as he took the salmon out of the oven. “I was just a little thrown. Claire talks nonstop about how much she hates being here, and then all of a sudden she’s talking about staying another month. Sometimes I get whiplash from the mood swings.”

  “Teenage girls can be hard to take,” Jenna said, carrying the asparagus into the dining room while he took the salmon and the rice. “They don’t mean half the things they say.”

  “Yeah, but which half?” he asked as he set the dishes on trivets. He took the asparagus from Jenna and set that down as well.

  Jenna laughed. “It depends on the day and the mood. Adolescent hormones are terrible things.”

  He did one last check of the table—he’d set out the salad and rolls before she arrived, and everything else was ready. “If I tell you the dumbest thing I ever did as a father, do you promise not to laugh?”

  In the softer light of this room, her eyes were darker, almost midnight blue. But they were still warm. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Last summer during her visit, Claire burst into tears for no reason. And I…well, I thought it would be helpful if I explained the science behind her mood swings. So I did. I even drew pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Yeah. To illustrate the molecular structure of hormones.”

  She managed not to laugh out loud, but he saw the corners of her mouth twitch.

  “I guess I don’t have to tell you how that went over,” he said wryly. “It’s just…” he could still feel the frustration of that moment, the frustration he felt every time he talked to his daughter. “I really do want to help her. But all I have to offer is the kind of thing that helped me when I was her age. And it never works with Claire.”

  She was looking at him thoughtfully. “So even as a kid, you were into science?”

  She’d put a hand on the back of one of the dining room chairs, and he was struck by the way her fingers curved over the wood. She had graceful hands, sensitive and elegant. They could have been a surgeon’s hands.

  He nodded. “Big time. Science helped me through everything. Being able to understand the world around me was like a lifeline. An antidote for anything that was wrong.” He shook his head. “Claire doesn’t care about science at all. Everything I love, she hates. And I don’t understand the things she love
s. Like music.”

  The laughter was gone from Jenna’s eyes, replaced by sympathy. “Sounds rough,” she said gently.

  How had the conversation turned so serious?

  “Sorry,” he said as he heard Claire coming down the stairs. “I didn’t mean to lay that all on you. I invited you for dinner, not an episode of the Dr. Phil show.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Jenna said, reaching out to give his arm a quick squeeze. It was just a friendly gesture, there and gone, but he wasn’t expecting it and his pulse kicked into high gear. Luckily Claire came into the room before Jenna could notice his reaction.

  “I only brought one of your CDs with me because I have all your songs on my MP3 player, but it’s my favorite and I was wondering if you could sign the liner notes?”

  Claire sounded eager and excited, and Jenna grinned at her. “Of course I will.” She took the pen Claire held out, opened the CD case, and spent a few minutes writing.

  “There you go,” Jenna said, handing the case back to Claire. Curious, Michael came closer and read over his daughter’s shoulder. The page Jenna had written on was mostly white space, which had given her plenty of room.

  Sometimes it feels like nothing’s alive

  Everything dead but my raging heart

  Every beat a pain that drives, drives

  I want to be so alive I shake and quiver

  So alive I could believe in forever

  For Claire, from Jenna.

  Believe in forever.

  “That’s from my favorite Red Mollies song. How did you know that was my favorite song?” Claire asked, clutching the CD as if it were precious.

  “Lucky guess,” Jenna said. She was smiling, her blue eyes gentle, and it was obvious she understood things about Claire—about being a teenager—that he never would.

  His next door neighbor, a virtual stranger, had formed a closer bond with his daughter in half an hour than he had in fourteen years.

  “Dinner’s ready,” he said abruptly, and Jenna shot him a quick glance before she took her seat at the table.