“Only the daycare workers know about me having the kids. I like it that way,” I say as I shift my weight again and feel very awkward.
Here I was thinking he was about to ask me out and instead he’s thinking I’m a lunatic. How embarrassing!
“Why is that?” he asks me then reaches out and unfolds my arms and holds both of my hands. “You don’t have to close yourself off to me. I’m not judging you. I only see that you’re making things harder for yourself than they have to be and I don’t think you have anyone around you that’s told you that.”
A lump forms in my throat as tears start to fill my eyes. “Their mother was my only sibling. We were very close like best friends close. She and her husband went out on a double date with our parents. Within fifteen minutes of them leaving their house, and me with the kids, our entire family left this world forever, leaving us behind, alone.”
His hands tighten around mine as he says, “That must’ve been very hard to deal with. All alone with a couple of little kids. You said two years ago so that means Mia was just a baby and her older brother was only two. That’s hard for the most seasoned mother to take, much less an aunt.”
I nod and feel the tears spilling down my cheeks. “It was. It is.”
“You know, I bet if you really look around and stop trying to keep all this to yourself, you’ll find at least one person who you can feel comfortable talking to about this. At least one person to help you with this tremendous burden that was placed on you.” He pulls me in for a hug and rocks back and forth with me as I start bawling like a baby.
Damn doctor!
I hate when this happens to me! It’s never happened when anyone else was around. I’ve always managed to keep my outbursts private. Then this damn young man comes along a sets my emotions free.
I sniffle and get a hold of myself. “I’m sorry.”
He takes me by my arms and holds me back as he looks at me. “Don’t be. And do yourself and those kids a favor and find that friend who can help you with this. We all need help. We’re not meant to take on things like raising a family all alone.”
And with his words, I feel terrible. I feel terrible because as well as he means, he has no idea what it’s like. He has no idea of the huge responsibility I have to make sure those kids never get hurt again.
Letting in another person is just too risky at this point. How come no one can understand that but me?
Chapter 2
JUDE
Making my way to the meeting room where the owners of the spa are with Mercy, I take the wine and cheese basket I brought for them and walk down the long hallway some lady who works here pointed me down.
Behind the clear glass door, I see Mercy sitting with her back to me and an older couple sitting across from her. I push the door open, making Mercy spin around in her chair and look to see who has interrupted their meeting.
“Jude!” she says as she hurries to get up. “What are you doing here?”
Her boss, Lester Cofield, lets her know why I’m here as he says, “Mercy, we invited him.”
She spins back around and looks at her boss. “Oh, I had no idea.”
I place the basket on the table and take Lester’s wife, Janice’s, hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Cofield.”
“You too, Mr. Hurst. My, you are so handsome,” she says with a blush on her pale cheeks.
“And you are gorgeous,” I say with a smile.
Her husband laughs and stands up to shake my hand. “Jude, great to have you here.”
“Thanks for allowing me some of your time, Lester,” I say as I shake his hand then take a seat right next to Mercy who is pale, with dark circles, she’s tried to conceal with makeup, under her eyes.
Under the table I run my hand over the top of her thigh which is covered by a pale blue, form-fitting skirt she has a white, silk shirt tucked into. “Mercy, how are you doing today?”
She gives me a nod then says, “Fine, anyway like I was saying, our sales went up this last month and I think the advertising we came up with is doing that for us.”
Lester looks at the wine and then at me. “Mind if we open that up, Jude?”
I get up and open the cellophane that’s holding in the delicious contents. I made sure there were four wine glasses and a corkscrew added to the contents of the basket filled with two bottles of red wine and some cut up fruit and cheese packages.
Mercy seems tired and distracted as I open the wine. “Mercy, would you get the little fruit and cheese packages out so we can enjoy those with the wine?”
She gets up and takes the rest of the things out of the basket and places them in nice little piles on the platter I bought for them to go on. “Looks like there’ll be no need to go to lunch after our meeting today,” she says as she arranges everything perfectly.
“Nonsense,” I say. “I’ve made reservations at Abacus for us at one.”
Lester smiles at me. “You don’t say. How extravagant of you, Jude. And appreciate as well.”
Mrs. Lester adds, “I haven’t eaten there. I’ve heard great things about the food, though. And after the trip in from our place in Montana, I could use a fancy meal. Thank you, Jude. You’re not only handsome but very sweet. So would you like to tell us what you can add to our little spa?”
“I would,” I tell her as I place a glass of wine in front of her then hand one to Lester before I hand one to Mercy and take mine with me to sit down again. I rest my hand on her leg again with no one the wiser as it’s hidden under the table. “You did get my business plan in the email I sent you, right?”
“We did and I have to say it looks great,” Lester says as he picks up an apple and tops it with a piece of cheddar cheese. “If we decide to take you up on your offer, you do understand our girl, Mercy, here will still be making sure you run your section up to our very high standards? You don’t have a problem taking orders from a woman, do you?”
I look over at her and watch her take a drink of the wine. “Nope.”
“Great,” Lester says then pops the food into his mouth.
“Is there anything you’d like to know, Mercy?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “No.”
Mrs. Cofield giggles and asks, “Is it his good looks and great body that have you acting so meek, dear?”
Mercy chokes on the wine as her face goes red. I pat her back and take the glass out of her hand to help her as I laugh a little. “You okay?”
She nods then stops coughing. “I’m fine. And his looks aren’t a problem. Well, not to me, anyway.”
Mrs. Cofield grins as she pulls the glass to her lips. “Of course, they’re not.”
Lester gestures to Mercy as he says, “Our girl, Mercy, here, is not normally this quiet, Jude. She’s a great gal and knows how to run a tight ship. She’ll eventually get used to you and then you can bet she’ll tell you how to streamline your process and let you know the most efficient and profitable way to run your section of our spa. I think it would be best if the two of you had a few meetings to get to know one another and make this thing work for us all. You can do that, can’t you, Mercy? You can have a few private meetings with Mr. Hurst and talk to him to find out how we can make his gym and personal training center work best, right?”
“Of course, Mr. Cofield. You know you can count on me, sir,” she says with a slight nervous tremor to her voice.
I feel like something’s wrong with her. Like something’s bothering her that she’s not told anyone about. I don’t think it’s merely my presence here.
Moving my hand over her upper thigh, I feel it tense up. “You know I think you should let me do a bit of personal training with you, Mercy. Then you’d know what it is I do and can do to make this business more profitable for the Cofield’s.”
Mrs. Cofield claps her hands as she says, “That’s a marvelous idea, Jude! Mercy, you could really learn about what he does to make his body so perfect and you could get all fit, absolutely free, dear.”
“Sounds g
reat,” she says as she takes another drink of the wine. “So, I’ll get to work on that project as soon as I get time.”
Lester picks up another piece of cheese as he says, “Make that the top priority, please, Mercy. I want to get things going ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” she says and I can’t shake the feeling she has something going on she’s trying to hide.
So I press it a bit to see if she’ll come clean with any information. “How about this evening, after you get off of work? I can take you to my gym at home and show you what it is I do.”
“No!” she says so quickly, it startles Mrs. Cofield and she drops her apple slice.
“No?” Lester asks.
“No, I can’t do anything after work hours. I can’t!” she says then fans herself with her hand.
“Mercy, we’ll gladly pay you overtime to do it,” he says. “We don’t expect you to do anything without being compensated for it.”
Mrs. Cofield adds, “We will need you to work a few extra hours each day until we have that new section running perfectly, you should realize that, Mercy. And let’s be honest, spending a few hours after work with Mr. Hurst here will most definitely be very enjoyable.”
Mercy looks at me with huge eyes, her lips are forming one straight line and she seems to be mentally telling me that this little venture of mine is fucking up her life.
Well, now what the hell do I do?
Chapter 3
MERCY
Damn this man!
Mentally, I’m throwing daggers at him for making things so difficult for me. Not only did I get very little sleep last night as both kids started puking as soon as we got back home from the emergency room, but I had to call Becky and get her to babysit since they couldn’t go to daycare and I couldn’t miss this meeting.
I had plans to take off after lunch and go home to take care of the kids, but now it seems like I’m going to have to make Jude and his venture into the spa industry my everything.
And he’s only doing it to so he can spend more time with me!
If my bosses weren’t sitting here, looking at me like I’m crazy, I’d let Jude really have it. He’s so completely spoiled he doesn’t even realize he’s asking too much out of me.
Mr. Cofield looks at his watch and says, “Well, look at the time. If we’re going to make that one o’clock reservation, we better get a move on. We’ll take the new limo we bought for the spa.”
“I’ll just freshen up a bit and meet you all out front,” I say as I get up and hurry to my office to take some aspirin for the headache this business of seeing to Jude and his whim of making some type of a personal trainer space here is giving me.
Closing the door behind me once I’m in the safety of my office, I lean against the door and fight the urge to start crying. “Calm down, Mercy. It will all work out,” I say to myself.
Then a tap on the door makes me jump. “Mercy?” Jude asks.
Stepping away from the door, I run my fingers underneath my eyes just in case any tears have slipped out of them. “Yes?”
He opens the door and comes inside. He scoops me up in his arms and I want so badly to cry and tell him everything. But I can’t, so I simply rest my head against his wide chest and let him hold me.
His lips press against the top of my head as he asks, “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing,” I mumble. “I’m just really tired.”
He holds me back and looks at me. “And why is that?”
Because two little kids puked all night long and I had to take care of the poor little things and a doctor made me cry. But I say, “I had trouble sleeping.”
“You should’ve called me. I would’ve come over,” he says as he pulls me back close to him. “Maybe you couldn’t sleep because you missed me. I know I missed you.”
Wrapping my arms around him, I hug him tight and wish like hell I could lean on him. But I can’t and I need to set myself straight. “Jude, I wish you wouldn’t make things hard on me.”
He eases the hug and pulls back to look at me. “Is my opening a personal trainer thing here really too much work for you, Mercy?”
How can I tell him that I can’t possibly spend more time than I already do away from the kids, he knows nothing about? “Jude, you heard what they said. A few hours after work, that’ll make it around nine before I get off.”
He frowns at me then sighs. “Look, I can let this thing go. For you, I’ll let it go.”
“You really would?” I ask as I look into his eyes.
With a kiss to the tip of my nose, he says, “I’d do anything for you, Mercy. Anything.”
I hug him again and wish this could all be swept away. Only I know now that the owners want this, it will have to be done. “You know Mr. and Mrs. Cofield aren’t going to let it go, Jude.”
His chest heaves with a sigh. “Mercy, can you tell me what it is that has your time so taken up?”
“It’s just that I have to have a certain amount of downtime. That’s all,” I lie.
“It really won’t take any time to set things up. I don’t need your help. I can pay people to do it all. You and I can go eat dinner then make a stop back by here to make sure things are done each day. If they’re not, then I will take care of that. You don’t need to do a thing. I’ll pamper you like you’ve never been pampered before. So you’ll have better down time than you could ever get at home alone.”
How I wish it could be so easy. How I wish I could do that with him, without it hurting the kids. I can’t go days hardly seeing them at all. And right now they’re both sick!
“Can you take care of things on your own and we’ll just let my bosses think I’m helping you, Jude?” I ask as I give him a sad face. “It’s just that I need more rest than most people. Even the great down time you’re offering me isn’t what I need. I need sleep.”
“Why is that?” he asks. “Do you have some condition you don’t want to tell me about?”
Can you call having kids a condition?
“No, I just need more rest than most people. I wouldn’t call it a condition. I’m just more tired than most people.” I let him go and walk to my desk to get my purse. “We need to go, I’m sure they’re waiting for us.”
He nods and waits for me then takes my hand when I walk back to him. “I need a kiss first,” he says then his lips touch mine as his arms wrap around me and I feel lightheaded.
My body melts into his and I want to let him hold me and take care of me and never stop. His tongue plays with mine as my insides heat. Then he ends the kiss and rests his forehead against mine. “Mercy, what you do to me is unreal.”
“Jude, that’s very sweet but you and I both know you’ve kissed many a girl in your time,” I say as I pull out of his arms and open the door to my office. “Now let’s get going. I really have a lot to do and had planned on leaving right after lunch. That little training session is a thing that will have to wait. But I’d like you to keep that little secret for me, please.”
“Okay,” he says as he follows me out, placing his hand on the small of my back as we walk down the hall. “You look so tired I’m not going to press you about anything else today.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that he’s going to go easy on me for once. At least he can see that I really am tired. My bosses smile at us as we get into the limo and Jude sits next to me being careful to leave a gap between us so they don’t get a clue about our real relationship.
Mr. Cofield gives Jude a nod and says, “I see you’ve had a little conversation with our Mercy and she seems to be feeling a little less tense with you now. She’ll warm up quickly, you’ll see. I think you two will work together very well.”
Mrs. Cofield’s light blue eyes light up and she winks at me. “You’ll thank us one day, Mercy.”
And just like that, I can see the conspiracy in my bosses’ eyes to help me get a real life. Who knew the old couple was a couple of Cupids?
Chapter 4
JUDE
As lunch w
ent on, I watched Mercy growing more and more exhausted. Her usually perky eyes were heavy and she barely talked at all. When Mrs. Cofield noticed a light sheen of sweat form on her brow she asked Mercy to go to the ladies room with her and when she came back out, Mrs. Cofield informed me that Mercy had become ill and she sent her home in a cab.
All of my calls have gone unanswered and I’m beginning to get very pissed at the woman who seems so dead set on keeping things to herself. I mean, how could she not even let me know she felt sick?
Did she really feel sick or was it nerves?
Whatever it is, I want to get to the bottom of it. And I want some answers from her. I got her address from the lady at the front desk of the spa when I told her we had a meeting later and she forgot to give it to me. So I’m on my way there now to make sure she’s okay and doesn’t need to go to the doctor and make her let me take care of her.
Pulling up in front of the house, I see the yard hasn’t been mowed in quite some time. The screen door is hanging by one hinge and it looks deserted. I can’t believe she lives like this!
Maybe this is why she never wanted to let me come over. I can see why. I wouldn’t blame her, though. Well, not really, anyway. I mean she does live alone and this place does look like it might be hard to keep up.
It’s in an older neighborhood and maybe she doesn’t like to be outside much after she gets home. I don’t know. Now that I think about her wanting to spend so damn much time in this place I really don’t get it.
I walk up onto the little porch and knock on the door. I can’t hear a thing going on inside. No television, radio or anything. I knock again. I’m sure she’s asleep. Then it hits me that there are no cars in the empty drive.
An old woman comes out on her porch as I walk around to the back of the house to see if there’s a back door I can knock at. “Can I help you, sonny?” she calls out to me with a crackly voice.
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