And how about when Jarred comes back?
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it,” she muttered aloud. Jarred professed to have no feelings for the woman. She just hoped it would stay that way.
Three hours later, she closed up her office and headed for the elevators, again running straight into Sarah Ackerman, who’d already pushed the down button. They half smiled at each other in acknowledgment, and Kelsey hoped her expression didn’t look too forced. Silently, they entered the elevator and took it to the first floor. At the bottom, Sarah headed quickly for the front doors and Kelsey dawdled, waiting for the other woman to leave first.
There was just no way she was ever going to like Sarah.
By the time she arrived home, it was after six. To Kelsey’s surprise, Jarred was in the kitchen. “Congratulations. You made it down here all by yourself.”
“Nearly killed me,” he grumbled. “And this beast tried to trip me.”
Mr. Dog barked at Kelsey as if pleading his case to the opposite. He wagged his tail and wriggled. “He doesn’t look too remorseful,” Kelsey said.
“And they call him man’s best friend.”
She laughed, then inhaled in sudden surprise when he reached for her. His scent enveloped her as he placed a long, lingering kiss on her lips, reminding her very clearly of their shared evenings together. The embrace lasted long moments, and slightly breathless, Kelsey broke away first.
“You’re also dressed, I see,” Kelsey observed. In a black shirt and black slacks, Jarred looked like his old handsome self. His grip was strong, his lips warm and demanding. She could almost believe the accident hadn’t happened, except for the crutches propped against the kitchen island. “I’m going to have to change, and I’d better be quick.”
“Nola can wait,” he said, unperturbed.
“She wants us there by seven. She called today. She said you said you wanted to go.”
“Wanted to go?’’ He snorted. “She harangued me until I caved in!”
Kelsey laughed and headed upstairs. It felt so good to talk to him without all the old animosity. She wanted to pinch herself sometimes. It just didn’t seem as if it could be real.
Half an hour later, she was driving Jarred toward his parents’ house, which was only a few miles and a bridge away on Mercer Island. The Bryants lived in a wonderful brick home nestled within a stand of fir and cedar trees and placed to offer a sweeping view of Lake Washington. It wasn’t as grand as Jarred’s house, but what it lacked in space, it made up for in charm and heart. Nola had kept wonderful care of the house and grounds, and there was no question that it held its own among the newer, snappier homes that had replaced the ones in the Bryants’s era.
Still, Kelsey felt a bit of a chill as she drove down the curving, fir- and maple-flanked drive. Maybe it was because the maple trees were denuded this December, their dark limbs skeletal against the gray sky. More likely it was that Nola had never been fully welcoming; it wasn’t her nature, and as a result, Kelsey had always dreaded visiting Jarred’s parents. One of the few pleasant byproducts of Kelsey’s estrangement from Jarred was that she hadn’t had to suffer through any more dinner engagements at the Bryant home with Nola residing fiercely and coldly over the festivities.
“Will’s here,” she said, recognizing his car. “I understand it was one of your conditions.”
“She told you that?”
“He told me,” she corrected. “We had a brief discussion at work today.”
Jarred gave her a searching look. “He’s trying harder. Good.”
“I don’t think Danielle’s accompanying him.”
Jarred made a noncommittal sound.
Kelsey hadn’t seen Danielle since the night of the accident, and then Will’s petite, rather serious wife had stood a distance away, lost in her own thoughts. But then they’d all naturally been upset and shocked, so it wasn’t any wonder that she’d tried to stay out of emotional range.
“At least with Will here, the heat’s off you and me,” Jarred observed.
“That’s not a very nice way to speak of your mother.”
“Facts are facts,” he said without the slightest shade of remorse. Reaching over, he placed a hand on her knee, warming Kelsey through and through. “She should accept Will as a member of the family, but she never will. It’s just a battle she can’t stop fighting.”
“Why can’t she?”
He shook his head. “She won’t share anything with Will. He’s not hers. She was civil to him when he was dumped on our doorstep, but she doesn’t know how to really embrace anyone.” His mouth formed a grim smile. “But she’s going to accept you,” he added in an iron voice. “One way or another.”
“Why do I believe that’s wishful thinking?”
“Because you’ve never trusted my feelings for you.”
Kelsey controlled her surprise as she pulled the Explorer to a stop and climbed from behind the wheel. He never ceased to amaze her. Slowly, she was beginning to trust that this change in him was permanent.
Jarred, who eschewed the crutches for a rather sturdylooking cane, refused to let her help him as he walked to the front door. It took him a while to get from the car and walk the curving brick path. His right leg could accept almost no weight and the cane frustrated him in a way that was almost amusing. But the glacial look he shot her way when he saw the corners of her mouth twitching instantly wiped the smile from Kelsey’s lips.
“Someday you’ll pay,” he whispered as she rang the bell, and her laughter died in her throat when he suddenly pressed his face against the smoothness of her hair and inhaled deeply.
Rattled, she started guiltily when Nola threw open the door herself.
“Darling!” Nola greeted Jarred, reaching out her arms and hugging him hard. Kelsey worried that Nola’s enthusiastic welcome might actually topple him over, but when he saw her hovering anxiously, he mock glared at her and shook his head ever so slightly.
“Come in, come in,” Nola enthused, barely offering more than a belated hello to Kelsey before fussing over Jarred. Kelsey followed after them, and when they entered the living room and she saw that Will was alone, she decided to attempt to improve their relations by taking a seat near him.
To her surprise she saw that Will wasn’t alone. Danielle stood beside the cart of drinks, slowly sipping a glass of white wine, her expression as distant as one of Saturn’s moons.
“So how’s it going?” Kelsey asked him.
He threw a glance at his wife. “Not well,” he admitted.
“Hello, Danielle,” she said.
Rousing herself briefly, Danielle offered a flickering smile. One moment it was there; the next it was as if she hadn’t even responded. Will regarded his wife moodily, but Kelsey got the feeling there wasn’t a real desire inside him to attend to his wife. Neither one of them appeared to be making an effort, and Kelsey was asking herself why when Sarah Ackerman strolled in from the den with Jarred’s father escorting her.
Kelsey managed to fight back a gasp of surprise. She shot a look at Jarred, whose own expression had darkened into a scowl.
“Well, hello, all,” Jonathan greeted them. Like Jarred, he relied on a cane, but unlike Jarred, Jonathan seemed to be hovering over the three-footed chrome device as if it were all that kept him from completely collapsing into a heap.
Will got eagerly to his feet and met them. The frigid glare Nola sent Sarah spoke volumes, and for the first time, Kelsey warmed to her mother-in-law. Kelsey might not be blue-blooded enough for Nola, but Sarah Ackerman was even worse. And it didn’t matter that Nola refused to consider Will a true Bryant. He was, for better or worse, her husband’s flesh and blood, and she was compelled to put up with him, at least on some level.
But again, Sarah was something else.
“Let me get you a refill,” Will said to Sarah, taking her empty wineglass.
“Oh, no, thanks. I’m fine.” Sarah wisely moved away from the drink cart and Danielle.
Danie
lle seemed to surface. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay. Nola, thank you for inviting me, but I’ve got things to do.” She glanced at Will, opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind, and collected her coat from the hallway closet. The soft closing of the door marked her exit.
“Anyone else?” Will asked a trifle bitterly, gesturing to the cart.
“White wine,” Kelsey jumped in, beating back the uncomfortable silence.
Nola’s mouth was pinched. “Excuse me for a moment, will you?” She retreated to the kitchen.
“After you get your drinks, come on in to the den,” Jonathan invited, motioning gently to Kelsey and Jarred with his other hand. “I’ll have some scotch, Jarred.”
“I’ll get it,” Kelsey said since Jarred was hardly the one to ask for help.
While Jarred and Jonathan passed through the double doors into Jonathan’s private den, Kelsey searched the crystal bottles on the cart. Without being asked, Will poured Jonathan’s drink, handing the cut-glass old-fashioned glass with two fingers of scotch to her. Next, he pulled a bottle of chardonnay from a sterling silver wine chiller, poured her a glass, and handed her the long-stemmed glass, meeting her gaze briefly and silently.
Sarah observed from a distance. A prickle of awareness feathered Kelsey’s skin. There was much more going on here. Much, much more.
“I’ll bring this one to Jarred,” Will said, holding another glass of scotch.
Jonathan was seated in a bloodred wing-backed chair, his feet propped in front of a gas fire. Jarred sat in the adjoining chair. When Kelsey entered the room, he motioned for her to join him. Will handed him his drink as Kelsey gave Jonathan his; then Will left, closing the doors behind him. Thinking that climbing into a chair with Jarred might be a little over the top, considering the tensions of the evening, Kelsey signaled Jarred with a slight shake of her head, then took a place in front of the fire.
“My dear, won’t you take a chair?” Jonathan asked.
“In a minute. I need to stretch a bit.” She frowned at Jarred’s scotch. “Terrible stuff,’’ she told him. “I’m sure Dr. Alastair would not approve.”
Jonathan frowned. “Should you have that, son?”
“I’ll survive,” Jarred’s voice was dry.
Jonathan looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead he said, “So how are you doing?”
“On the road to recovery,” Jarred assured him. Then, very seriously, he asked, “What about yourself?”
“Me?” Jonathan was surprised. “Why, I’m the same as ever.”
Since this was patently untrue, Kelsey flicked a glance at her husband. Jarred regarded his father soberly.
The door opened and Nola entered, smelling faintly of smoke. She’d been nervous enough to have to sneak away for a few minutes and rely on a cigarette. Kelsey almost envied her the vice. The white wine just wasn’t cutting it in this strained atmosphere.
“I don’t remember inviting her,” Nola bit out. “Was that your doing?” she asked Jarred.
“If you mean Sarah, I think Will invited her for moral support,” Jarred revealed.
“What do you mean?”
“Danielle isn’t the warmest person on earth. Maybe he wanted someone around who shares at least some of his thoughts.”
Or maybe she invited herself, Kelsey thought.
“Is there some reason they’re out there and we’re all in here?” Jarred asked next.
“I’ll go out.” Kelsey left before anyone could disagree with her. She knew what it was to be ostracized by this family, and though she was no fan of Sarah’s, and she didn’t know quite what to think of Will, she could at least be polite.
But they were nowhere to be seen, and when she peeked around the corner into the nooklike room next to the kitchen, she caught them in an impassioned embrace.
Retracing her footsteps, she stood undecided in the kitchen. Her heart thudded and her head reeled.
“Kelsey?” Jarred called from the door to the den.
Feeling like a spy, she hurried to meet him.
“Where are Sarah and Will?”
“Oh, they’re talking in the other room.” Should she say something? Deciding it was better to keep quiet until they got home, she added, “Business, I think.”
She didn’t fool him for a minute, but he let the moment pass. Later, she would have to come clean about everything, including Gwen’s assessment of Will’s character. After all, this was exactly why Jarred had placed her in a position of trust: He wanted to know what was going on at his company while he wasn’t there.
Dinner followed shortly thereafter, and nothing of import was said. Seated beside Jarred and across from Will, Kelsey began to feel the dreaded pressures that accompanied an evening with the Bryants. She tried desperately to shake off the sensation without much success. Will and Sarah didn’t seem to be particularly cautious about others knowing about their burgeoning relationship, however. They smiled and joked and generally seemed more at ease with each other and intimate than their business warranted. What it really meant was anyone’s guess, and Kelsey was torn between the feeling that she should warn Will about her nemesis and a surging relief that Sarah had moved on from Jarred.
But it was still all in the family.
The maid was clearing the dishes when Nola asked, “Kelsey, could I have a word with you?”
Shooting Jarred a look of dismay, Kelsey nevertheless followed her mother-in-law into the nook that Sarah and Will had previously occupied. Wondering what this was all about, Kelsey stood next to the built-in sideboard, catching her reflection in the diamond panes of the upper cabinet. Her furrowed brow reflected her feelings, and she cleared her expression.
Nola, for once, seemed at a loss for words. She fingered a crystal glass full of port and gazed out the windows to the drooping limbs of a water-soaked fir tree. “Will’s certainly surprised us all, hasn’t he?”
Kelsey wasn’t going to go there. Will was capable of making his own decisions, bad or good, and Nola’s opinion really didn’t matter.
“No comment?” Nola’s lips pursed.
“None whatsoever,” Kelsey said, meaning it.
“Well, you’ve grown wiser over these last few years, I see.” She moved restlessly to the other side of the room, one ear cocked toward the open door to listen for unwanted eavesdroppers. “I never believed you and Jarred would stay together, but I see now that this accident has done the impossible. It’s brought you back to one another again. And Jarred seems… happy, for lack of a better word.”
Since there seemed to be no response needed, Kelsey remained quiet. But some sixth sense warned her of pending disaster, for the hair on her forearms lifted.
“I thought he would never forgive you for that pregnancy scare, but I see I was wrong.”
“Forgive me?” Kelsey repeated in a warning tone. “You still think I lied about it?”
Nola waved her away. “Let’s not argue about this again. I was told that you made it up.”
“By whom? Jarred?” It nearly killed Kelsey to ask the obvious.
Nola set the crystal glass down with unsteady fingers. “No. I don’t remember now. I think it was… something I overheard.”
The hell she didn’t remember! Kelsey’s mind instantly sought for an answer, and she landed on Sarah once more. But at least Jarred, even believing that the baby wasn’t his, hadn’t repeated his fears to his mother. “I believed I was pregnant. I still do. I had an early miscarriage.”
“All right.” Nola conceded the battle so quickly that it took Kelsey a moment to realize this wasn’t the purpose of this meeting. “I wanted to clear that up before anything else was said.”
“Okay.” Kelsey trod lightly, waiting.
“You know Jarred’s thirty-ninth birthday is right around the corner. I know he’d like to have a child, and though I admit I felt he should divorce you and get on with his life, I see now that things have changed.”
Kelsey couldn’t believe her ears. Was Nola, who’d fought her
at every turn, going to come full circle and beg for the grandchild she wanted? This had nothing to do with what Jarred wanted. Nothing!
“I really think you need to know the terms of Hugh’s will and how it affects Jarred.”
“Hugh’s will?”
“Yes.”
“Nola, I don’t think I want to hear any more. Whatever it is you want to say, maybe you should say it to Jarred. I can already tell this is dangerous territory, and frankly, I’m not interested in discussing the will.”
Color returned to Nola’s pale cheeks. “Well, there are some things you should know if you don’t already!” she snapped, recovering her starch with remarkable speed. “By the time Jarred is forty, if he doesn’t have an heir, preferably male, then by the terms of his grandfather’s will, the business reverts to Will. Of course Will isn’t a real Bryant, but that doesn’t matter according to our legal counsel. If Jarred doesn’t produce an heir and Will does, Will inherits. The stipulation being that Will must produce an heir by the time he’s forty. He’ll have years to accomplish that goal whereas Jarred’s running out of time!”
Kelsey absorbed that startling bit of news in disbelief. She’d never heard anything of the sort, yet she and Jarred had so rarely talked about his business and family outside of a few comments on Jonathan and Nola’s health and personalities that anything was possible. “What are you saying?” she demanded, wanting Nola to baldly spell it out.
“I’m saying it’s time you knew why Jarred and Jonathan and I were so upset when you said you were pregnant and then you weren’t. I don’t think Jarred knew you’d miscarried.”
“I told him. He knew.”
“Darling, he didn’t believe you,” she said on a sigh.
No, he didn’t believe the child was his….
Kelsey thought back to that terrible time and suddenly saw a whole new angle: Jarred struggling to hide his feelings about the pregnancy from Nola, who had her own agenda working. And Sarah, lying every which way, hoping to destroy Jarred’s marriage for her own purposes.
No wonder Nola had made those remarks about Kelsey not sleeping in the same bed as her husband. She’d been worried sick that Jarred’s fortieth birthday would come and go, and Jarred and Kelsey’s marriage would still be stuck in limbo! Now Kelsey’s anger with Nola and Sarah intensified. They’d meddled in her life—hers and Jarred’s—and been the wedge that had nearly broken them apart.
Not Without You Page 17
