Mistake (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  Unless what? Unless she was moving to Australia? Unless she planned to drop off the face of the earth?

  “When were you thinking?” Good grief. How had that come out of her mouth?

  “Darren took the kids to his parents. I don’t usually go so thought I’d take the whole day.” Karen sounded pensive and a little timid, nothing like Little Miss Enthusiasm.

  “Do you want to meet me at the mall?” No need to specify which mall. Any female in the city knew the best place to shop.

  “Now?”

  “Unless you want to work out first.” Jenna was getting a bad feeling about this. Karen had called, so why was she hedging?

  “I can be there in twenty. Maybe twenty-five.”

  “I’ll meet you at the south entrance.”

  “Great!”

  Staring at her now silent phone, Jenna felt her brow furrow. What was that all about? Well, she’d soon find out. Really glad she’d chosen sneakers, even though her boots would have made a far more significant fashion statement, she drove across town to spend her Sunday doing retail therapy.

  * * * *

  “Oh my god, Jenna! You aced it. How do you do that?” Karen admired her reflection in the tri-fold mirror outside the dressing room.

  Jenna shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell the other woman why she was obsessed with clothes, and she had no idea where her eye for fashion had come from. She never planned to wear hand me downs again or clothes that didn’t fit, or worse, weren’t clean. “I’d get a pair of strappy black sandals with as high a heel as you can manage. They’ll stay in style a long time and wear with anything. And if you have the dress altered next year, have the sleeves removed and shorten it, you’ll have the perfect everyday dress.”

  The sapphire blue predominating in the pattern of the fabric set off Karen’s equally sapphire blue eyes, and her red hair looked amazing. Best of all, the dress had been on a remainder rack because it looked like nothing on the hanger until Jenna’s discerning eye spotted it.

  “Don’t overdo the jewellery,” she advised. “Simple hoops or studs in silver, maybe a couple of bangles. The neckline is so nicely cut I don’t think you’d want to add a chain, but see what it looks like.”

  “I will,” Karen promised. “And again, thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  Jenna idly sorted through the racks until Karen came out with her precious dress, and walked with her to the check out.

  “Do you have time for coffee?”

  She hesitated and then relented at the disappointed look on Karen’s face. They chose a seat in the food court, finding a small table where they could sit with their backs to the wall. Jenna’s gait stuttered for a moment when she realized why she was making the seating choice. Goddamn him. Would she ever not be reminded?

  “You okay?” Karen looked at her, pert nose wrinkling, her head slightly tilted.

  “Fine. Why don’t you wait here and I’ll get the coffee.”

  “No. My treat. You don’t need to carry anything in that hand. And you didn’t have to give up your Sunday afternoon for me.”

  It was hardly her Sunday afternoon, seeing as they’d found the dress almost immediately and the rest of the day stretched out ahead of her interminably. But she nodded and asked for a hazelnut coffee with cream. Karen had been easily fobbed off with a story about breaking a glass she was washing when the other woman expressed her concern about Jenna’s hand. While she waited, her eyes swept the food court, seeing other shoppers chatting or having their own coffee. Smoothies or sodas predominated, and there were children eating ice cream. Jenna wondered what her friends might want for dessert the following day. Carla had a sweet tooth while Judith tended to diet sporadically. Maybe strawberry angel food cake—low in calories relatively speaking and pretty tasty. Anything not to think about Bryce and the fear Karen was going to talk about him.

  “Here you go.” Karen set her coffee down and took her seat, clutching a smoothie. “I love fruit and it’s nice not to have to make these for myself.”

  After a few pulls on the straw, Karen leaned forward, her manner hesitant and anxious. Here it was. The real reason Karen called her. Jenna braced herself. “I told Darren about you and Bryce. He thinks it sucks.”

  “Oh. Well…” Jenna wasn’t providing any additional information. This was the kind of tête-à-tête she dreaded and one she predicted. So why had she agreed to meet Karen? She decided to ignore the real reason, her curiosity about Bryce. She was being perverse.

  “You lasted so much longer than anyone else.” Jeez. Karen was a sweet girl, and very earnest, but her comment was hardly comforting, merely underscoring what a man-whore Bryce was.

  “Uh, Karen, this is a conversation I really would prefer not to have.” In truth, Jenna was torn between wanting to stand up and run to her car, and asking Karen if she knew what was up with Bryce. Perverse.

  “I get that, Jenna. And I normally don’t get in other people’s business, but he was different with you. Darren said so, too, and he’s known Bryce forever—he said it was like the old days when Bryce was with Valerie until...well, Bryce was like, happy with you.”

  And there it was, the missing piece to the puzzle. Jenna thought she might spit up her coffee. She knew it was another woman—this kind of thing always was—but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it now, not at all sure.

  Karen hurried on, “He was going to marry her. Valerie. I didn’t know her but Darren did, and he said she was crazy. But Bryce loved her to pieces and minimized her craziness. He sacrificed everything for her according to Darren. But she was wild and crazy and turns out she was a big drinker, too.

  “Bryce got a couple of her DUIs forgiven and it cost him big time with the Captain when he found out. That’s why this party is such a huge deal. Bryce should have had this promotion years ago, but Valerie messed things up for him. And then she—”

  Jenna decided she couldn’t listen to any more. “Karen, please. I don’t need this information. It’s private and Bryce didn’t share it with me. And we’re over, so it isn’t something I should know.”

  “But I thought you could come to the party and make like you thought it was okay and all and—”

  “And Bryce would see me and it would all work out?” Jenna effortlessly finished Karen’s plan. She’d been young once, romantic and starry eyed. That was for romance novels with the obligatory happily ever after endings.

  The other woman looked downcast. “I guess I hoped. Darren’ll kill me if he finds out I did this.”

  “Not from me he won’t.” Jenna promised. “But I don’t want to hear anymore, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The talk turned to Karen’s little children and her mother’s pride shone through. Evidently she wasn’t really fond of her in-laws, especially Darren’s mom, but they were good to the kids so she was happy for them to go visit. She planned to take a really long bubble bath when she got home and fix herself a spinach salad with goat cheese and strawberry dressing, something the rest of the family despised. Jenna could see how Karen thoroughly enjoyed a day to herself but clearly heard how she already missed her kids. She focused on the conversation so as to think about it later instead of what she’d learned about Bryce.

  “Do you want to get together again sometime, Jenna?”

  “Let’s see how things go,” she answered, purposefully vague. She liked the younger woman well enough—she clearly had a heart of gold, but there was no way she’d keep quiet about Bryce, and Jenna suddenly couldn’t bear any more.

  They parted at the south entrance and Jenna found her car among a sea of similar small gray sedans. Wearily, she headed for home and decided to take a nap. It would probably totally screw up her rest tonight, but she couldn’t keep her mind on anything because she was so tired.

  * * * *

  Surprisingly, Jenna not only had a nap, she fixed herself some eggs and toast for dinner, along with a small side salad, a salute to Karen’s good example, and watched some mindless series on te
levision while she checked her emails. And she hardly thought about Bryce at all. Maybe learning that he’d been hurt or betrayed in some indefinable way years earlier knocked some sense into her stupid heart. Her head absolutely understood his reaction because she’d acted in much the same way with the men she dated after her marriage went south. The instant she picked up anything vaguely similar from them as the vibes her husband had given off she ran for the hills. Bryce hadn’t given off any of those warnings.

  The difference between her and Bryce was that she hoped for better, while he didn’t believe it could happen, at least from her perspective, parlor psychology aside. The similarity was the ugly piece—they both ran in order to survive, and that she couldn’t fight. So her heart subsided with a whimper.

  When her usual bedtime rolled around, she went to lie down with a book featuring a policeman, an agent in some kind of police agency separate from the usual departments up north in Minnesota, and who solved crimes with remarkable acuity. His fellow officers referred to him as that fucking Flowers, and he always got the girl despite deplorable taste in T-shirts. Jenna preferred the previous hero, Lucas, but he reminded her too much of Bryce, so she immersed herself in the new series.

  * * * *

  “No more, Jenna!” Judith held up a beautifully manicured hand to support her plea and Jenna wondered how her friend was able to go sailing and keep her hands so nice.

  “There’s only one piece left, Jude, and Carla ate double her share.”

  “Hey! Back off. You said it was low cal.” Carla patted her flat belly with smug satisfaction. She could have modelled with her slender figure, long, flowing blond hair and big brown eyes, except she was quite height challenged.

  They all laughed and Jenna got up to put away the leftover chicken and potato salad, then wrapped up the green salad, too, thinking she might take it to work the next day. Judith, her full figure shown to advantage in bright green capris and a matching tunic, gathered up the plates to stack the dishwasher, and Carla got up to make coffee. It was like many of similar evenings spent together when one of them weren’t pursuing a relationship. Thus far it had always been just one of them involved with a man while the other two hung together and provided back up when things went to shit for the one dating. She reflected how lucky she’d been to meet them at the self-defence seminar and thanked her lucky stars they’d hit it off so well.

  Sitting in the living room sipping decaf, Carla cut to the chase. They’d talked through dinner about the sailing adventure, something Judith never planned to repeat, but one Carla thoroughly enjoyed. Jenna loved how diverse her friends were, and how they had one another’s backs and tried things they knew they’d hate—because they’d support the other. All of them had avoided the elephant in the room, until now. “You wanna talk about Bryce, honey?”

  “No. I’ve spent enough time thinking about him, Carla.”

  “’Preciate that, honey. It just seemed strange.”

  “What?”

  “Everything we could find out told us he was a player. Not in the “use them” kind of way, but in the “tell them the score and take them and move on” kind of way. We knew you wanted something different and the way you met…I mean, that wasn’t like you.”

  Jenna laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but still…“I surprised myself, ladies. And I don’t regret it. The sex was blistering, and the best I’ve ever had. Now I know what I can expect.”

  It was Judith’s turn to laugh, and the rich sound filled the room. “Or compare to. And I gotta tell you, Jenna, there’ll be a lot of men out there who don’t measure up. Or maybe you gotta feel something for them, too, to make it blistering.”

  Trust Judith to peg it. She had definitely felt something for Bryce, although that feeling actually began to grow after that first wild, insane time. That afternoon had been just pure animal attraction. And her panties were growing damp at the memory. She hurried to pull her thoughts back to the topic at hand, marvelling at how one’s body betrayed one.

  “Well, whatever, Jude, it’s over. He made it perfectly clear.”

  “He hurt you.”

  “Well, breaking up is never pleasant,” Jenna said practically, wondering at her unnerving sense of calm when something felt dead and heavy deep inside.

  “That stud let you down easy?” Carla looked fierce and Judith’s eyes were glossy with tears.

  “No,” she admitted quietly. “But no false hope either. I was a mess but I’ll be fine.” Secretly she wasn’t so sure, but then she’d never been in love before. And now she’d admitted it to herself maybe one of her friends would give her a lobotomy so she could forget. Damn it.

  “Well, now we’re back to full strength, let’s have a girl’s night out. Next Friday?” Judith clapped her hands together and rubbed them in anticipation.

  “Can’t do Friday,” Carla said. “Saturday?”

  Jenna thought briefly of Bryce’s promotion party and wondered who he’d have on his arm—and in his bed later to celebrate with. She hurt so badly at the thought the pain stole her breath and made her belly cramp. Fortunately, her friends were bickering over a place to go and in a few unobserved moments she was able to present an unaffected appearance. They decided on the Steakhouse, someplace, thank god, she had never been to with Bryce.

  “Okay, we’ll hit the road. Work tomorrow.” Judith managed a lawyers’ office and Carla worked in Student Services at the State College, and they kept much the same hours. They both hugged her tightly and Judith pressed a kiss on her cheek. Jenna returned the affection and managed to hold back her tears until Carla’s car vanished down the street. She went back inside and wept silently as she locked the house down for the night, crying all the way to her bedroom and throughout her night time routine. It had to get better. If it didn’t she was going to perish, just wither up and blow away.

  Chapter Four

  “Meadows!” The cop at the desk hollered at him as Bryce headed toward the back, having turned in the unmarked and picked up his personal vehicle. He detoured to see what the guy wanted.

  “What’s up, Jonsson?”

  “Your girl’s car was stolen again. She called it in this time and I sent a unit. Weirdest thing—”

  “Wait one.” His girl? Was Jonsson talking about Jenna? Right, no one knew that he’d moved on. And he hadn’t, yet, although he needed a date for this Saturday. “Jenna’s car was stolen again?”

  “Yep. She went out to her parking space after work and it was gone. Called us to report it. Normally I’d write it up and file it, but seeing as she’s your—”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Bryce cut him off again. What the fuck? Whose car got stolen twice within five weeks? Was she playing some kind of crazy game?

  “But, Meadows, same thing happened as the last time. It turned up a block away, parked backward on the street, windows open, no sign of tampering, like somebody had a key. I wouldn’t have remarked on it, but the other time it was Gregor who caught it, and he was a little pissed at you finessing it.”

  Right. Bryce had told Gregor just to have Jenna sign off on it rather than have it towed to the compound, and make her come in to claim it. Gregor was a “by the book” uniform and hadn’t been impressed. It seemed a little strange at the time to recover it so quickly, but the older models sometimes could be opened by keys from the same make and model, and the way it was abandoned and parked spoke of a practical joke. It happening a second time didn’t seem funny.

  “Was it towed?”

  “Uh, no. We did the same thing as last time. She met the unit, signed off on it and headed out.”

  Bryce wanted to let it go, but it niggled at him. He punched her number in and heard it go to voice mail. Probably driving and didn’t want a distracted driver ticket.

  “It happens again, tow it.”

  “Okay.” Jonsson squinted at him and Bryce knew the other cop thought it was funny, too, and not in a good way. He didn’t know anything about Jenna insofar as her past went—he’d never asked a
nd she hadn’t talked about it. History had been a place neither of them shared about. Interesting.

  Making his way back to his desk to work overtime on some files he had pending, Bryce called Jenna again.

  “Hello?” Her tone was cautious, and he figured she saw he’d called before. Quickly, before she jumped to conclusions, he asked about her car.

  “I don’t understand either. It has to be the same person.” Her voice was no longer cautious—a very real hint of fear colored her tone.

  “Jenna, it has a flavor of…stalking.”

  Instead of the immediate denial he expected, he got silence. “I have to go. Thanks for your help.”

  Bryce slowly took the cell from his ear and considered it. Then he called her back and it went straight to voice mail. She was on the phone so that probably meant she had an idea who had done the thing with her car, twice, and she was making a call about it. Yet whoever it was hadn’t touched it the whole time him and Jenna were together. His gut got tight and he called again, this time leaving a message.

  “Call me, Jenna. Don’t fuck around.” They might not have a thing anymore, but that didn’t mean he’d stand by and let something happen to her.

  Minutes crept by and she didn’t call. He called her. Voice mail. He couldn’t concentrate on the damn files so decided to drive over and speak to her in person. A unit could probably do the same thing but…he decided not to examine the need to do this himself.

  By the time he reached Jenna’s, pushing his truck harder than warranted in the late afternoon traffic, Bryce hadn’t been able to rationalize the theft of Jenna’s car—twice. He was a cop and naturally suspicious so his interpretation of the events still added up to stalker. He wondered why Jenna hadn’t shared anything about her past and regretted the way he’d tamped down his curiosity whenever she mentioned something in passing then clearly backed away from continuing. He’d told himself he didn’t want to know any more about her than what they had in the moment, that her history wasn’t important. And it wasn’t. Because if she got to talking about hers she would expect him to return the favor. His foot faltered on the accelerator for an instant—he was about to open a door he wasn’t certain he could close and the surge of emotion accompanying that realization was indescribable. Pushing it away, he pulled up in front of her house to do his job.