by Mara Jacobs
“At one time I wouldn’t have cared about hers either,” she finally said, turning back from the window, but not looking at me. “At one time I would have relished how she’d take the news.” She took a deep sigh, then continued, “But I find that staring the grim reaper down has made me a bit more compassionate toward your mother.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what it would take for me to be compassionate toward her too,” I said before I thought better of it.
She looked at me, shocked. After a second she burst into laughter, and I couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
Stick
Caro and Jane laughing over whatever Jane had said (and with Jane, who knew what that could be) was about the only truly honest moment of the whole damn day.
Caro and Joe were interviewed together, and the topics of forgiveness and second chances played a big part. As did Caro’s illness.
She was forthcoming about her health and how much time she felt she had left. And damned if she didn’t spin it to help Joe Stratton by saying things like dying had made her see what was really important, and it was the future for “our kids.” And that Joe thought so too, and that was why he was reentering the political world—to make a difference.
Shit like that.
They really were something. Even in Caro’s diminished state (mostly physical, but they did have to stop a few times because she had stumbled on some words), the respect and affection they had for each other was evident. And genuine.
At one point the interviewer asked Joe about losing Caro and never marrying again. I couldn’t quite hear his answer, but it must have pleased Caro, judging by the look on her face.
Jane was added to the mix last. I tried to get her alone first. Not that I could give her a pep talk or anything, but just in case she wanted to vent or rage or whatever so she wouldn’t lose it on camera.
But I shouldn’t have worried about her. She was dynamic, with her father’s natural charm, and the savvy she’d picked up along the road that had been honed by Caro over the past few months.
She was witty and sincere and talked about family coming in different shapes and sizes, and that everybody needed to look out for each other, and that was what Joe Stratton stood for.
She was magnificent.
But she wasn’t Jane. Not my Jane. Not the Jane I held in my arms, or verbally tussled with. Or, hell, physically tussled with when it got real interesting.
We hadn’t been together since the night of her birthday, when we’d spent the whole night in the guesthouse. And even though that had only been a few days ago, I missed it. Missed her.
Waking up with Jane, feeling her intense energy around me first thing in the morning, was more exhilarating than a triple espresso.
And certainly more arousing.
We took our time that morning, a slow, drawn-out session that almost had me saying words to her that I’d never said to any girl.
I’d wanted to that night, too, as I looked down at her, buried deep in her soft body. I’d almost told her that I loved her, but I didn’t.
I could tell myself it was because I wasn’t sure of my feelings, but that wasn’t completely it, or at least not only it.
The truth was, I had no way of knowing how Jane would respond if I told her I loved her. I thought she felt the same way, but that didn’t mean she would ever admit it. Jane would never show any signs of weakness, and I think she had some fucked-up logic that to tell me she loved me would be a weakness.
She wouldn’t be wrong—she sure as hell had made me weak in some ways.
But stronger in others. And I was grateful enough to her for that to keep my mouth shut and not put her in a fight-or-flight moment.
“God, get me out of here,” she said after she’d finished with the interview and come over to my side of the room.
I wanted to take her in my arms, hold her close, kiss the top of her head and tell her how well she’d done. But the crew was packing up while Amanda Teller spoke with Elliot and Grayson. Joe and Caro were still in their seats, their heads bent together. Probably planning how to take over Russia or something.
But, much as I wanted to, I didn’t take Jane in my arms in front of everybody. She would have hated that. Instead, I said, “You were really great.”
There was doubt in her striking green eyes, and just a tiny movement of the shield when she looked at me and said, “Really?”
Aw, fuck everybody else. I pulled her to me, and she only tried to pull away a little bit. I ran my hands up and down her back and whispered in her ear, “You were…fierce.”
I felt her smile against my chest, and for just a second she relaxed into my embrace and her hand came up and rested at the small of my back.
But this was Jane, and in the next second, she took that hand and tugged at my belt loop at my back, pulling me away from her as she stepped back.
“Fierce? Like gay-designer fierce?” She said it with a finger snap and hand movement that looked, okay, yeah, just like a gay designer. Or maybe a diva.
I laughed. “No. Like you-are-not-one-to-be-fucked-with fierce.”
She smiled. “Yeah, okay. I like that.”
“You should. It’s you.”
I noticed Amanda Teller watching us with interest the same time Jane did. She took another step away from me. “I’m going to take off. I’ve got a class this afternoon that I wasn’t sure if I was going to make or not. Looks like I’ll be able to.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
She went over and said her goodbyes to Caro and her father—hugging them both. I wasn’t sure if that was for Amanda’s benefit or not. Maybe not. Jane and Caro had grown pretty close over the past months, and she had even seemed to make strides with her father.
Jane was no dummy, and she knew she’d be spending a lot of time with him in public over the next few months. And if he won, and was truly back in the political world, it would be years. It was in everyone’s best interest to bury resentment hatchets now.
At Yvette, Jane let me really take her in my arms and kiss her silly. In fact, she seemed to cling to me more than she ever had before.
“Was I really…fierce?” she whispered in my ear when we came up for air.
“Absolutely. Fierce. Fearless. Ferocious.” I kissed her after each word, then went in for a long, languid tangling of tongues and mashing of lips. “Flawless,” I added when I finally pulled away.
She smiled, and cupped my cheek with her hand, a very un-Jane-like move. After placing a gentle kiss on my lips she said, “Thank you for being here today. It helped.”
Yeah, very un-Jane.
“Anytime,” I said, meaning it.
She stepped away from me and got into the Vette. Leaning out the window, she said, “I may take you up on that.” And I think she meant that, too.
The crew and Amanda Teller made their way out shortly after, the crew packing up their van and Amanda getting into a waiting limo. When I went back inside, Grayson, Elliot, Joe and Caro were around the dining room table, where they strategized for another hour. The dining room had pretty much stayed as command central ever since that day that Jane had joined them.
The day I took Jane’s virginity. The day she gave it.
When the men left, Caro called me in to the dining room.
“Sit, Stick,” she said, indicating the seat next to her.
My feelings for Caroline Stratton—much like my feelings for Jane—were incredibly complex.
I respected and admired Caro for the way she’d lived her life, the way she’d raised her children and for doing what she felt was the best thing for them even though it might not be the best thing for her.
But I also knew she was a shrewd woman who wasn’t above manipulating people for what she probably considered the greater good.
I wasn’t absolutely sure that her bonding with Jane hadn’t been part of her master plan to help her ex-husband’s campaign. And I knew she absolutely believed in Joe’s destiny for higher office, and th
at it would only benefit her children in the end.
I wasn’t sure she was right about any of that, but it wasn’t my place to say anything.
Not that she would change her mind even if I did.
I cared for her beyond being her caregiver. But it wasn’t as emotionally draining for me as doing the same things for my father. Yes, I had grown to like and respect Caro, but seeing her waste away was just very sad. Not emotionally devastating, as it had been with my old man.
The interview had taken a toll on her. She looked more tired than normal, even though she’d had her makeup and hair people in earlier today to get her ready for the interview. They even did Jane. Their phones had been confiscated while they were here, and they’d had to sign non-disclosure agreements, but Caro had wanted them here.
“You’ve got to be worn out,” I said to her.
She just nodded and looked down at her hands, which were folded on the large mahogany table. I waited. She was at the point now where words sometimes escaped her. It had happened to my father too…at the end.
She took a deep breath, then reached out to put a hand over mine.
“I need your help with something.”
“Anything,” I said, thinking maybe she wanted me to carry her to her room or something. She really had gone past her limits today.
“I need to call Betsy and Joey.”
“Sure, let me get the phone.” It wasn’t unusual for her to call them in the middle of the day. She spoke with her kids quite often, but hadn’t Skyped or FaceTimed with them in a while, not wanting them to see her weight loss. I started to rise, but she put a hand on my arm, stopping me.
“It’s time for them to come home.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Stick
“So, what’s this all about?” I asked Lucas as he directed me to park along the main drag in Pierpoint, a small, fairly affluent town about forty minutes from Schoolport.
We were a few doors down from the hair salon where one of my information contacts worked.
Back when I used to need information. I hadn’t seen her since the day I’d stopped by back in January, when I’d ended things.
Both professionally and personally.
Shelly had taken it well—it was a casual, no-strings, not very frequent hookup. She knew the score and seemed cool with me cutting things off. Even thanked me for being honest with her.
As honest as I could be.
Because it would have been way too weird to say, “Shelly, you’re great, and I really like having sex with you. But there’s this girl that I don’t even like very much. And she can’t stand me. And, well, I don’t think I can have good sex with you anymore because I can’t stop thinking about this girl…that I don’t even like.”
So, yeah, I just said I was interested in somebody and I thought it might lead somewhere and Shelly was cool.
“Is this about Shelly?” I asked Lucas now. I couldn’t figure out why else he would have asked me to drive to Pierpoint.
He’d texted me earlier, saying he had something important he needed to talk to me about. Caro was meeting with Joe and Grayson, so it was good timing for me to be gone. When I picked Lucas up at his mom’s place he just told me to drive to Pierpoint, not saying why.
We made small talk on the way, but I could tell something was bothering him.
“You don’t need Shelly, do you?” I asked him now. “Like, you aren’t…uh…taking over my action, are you?”
He gave me a “fuck you” look. “No. I’m with Lily. Completely. I don’t need your old action.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t mean that kind of action. I meant the…car information action.”
“Oh, right.” He shook his head. “No, not that.”
“But something to do with Shelly?” I looked up and down the street, seeing if there was any other possibility based on the businesses.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Listen, why don’t you go in there and say hi to her. I’ll wait here.”
“Why would I want to do that? I haven’t seen her in months. I don’t want to say hi. Not that I have any issues with her or anything. It’s just…over. It was never much to begin with. Nothing like what I’ve got with Jane.”
Lucas took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Dude,” I said, starting to get pissed off as well as worried. “What the hell is it?”
“I just think you—” He stopped abruptly, and I followed his vision. Shelly was coming out of the salon. She turned and walked away from us down the sidewalk. “Shit,” Lucas said. “You need to go talk to her.”
“Why?” I asked. But I had my answer as Shelly turned around, apparently forgetting something from the salon. As she turned our way, and then toward the salon, I could see that she was pregnant. Very pregnant.
“Oh, shit,” I said, a feeling of dread easing over my entire body.
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I think you should—”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because I was already getting out of my car and rushing to the sidewalk.
“So why didn’t you say anything the last time we saw each other?” I asked Shelly.
She had agreed to meet after she was done with her shift, having just been on a break when Lucas and I saw her.
She seemed not at all excited to see me, but didn’t hesitate much when I asked to talk with her.
I drove Lucas back to Schoolport, called in to make sure Caro was okay without me, then drove back to Pierpoint.
Now, Shelly and I sat at a diner a few doors down from the salon. She was eating a ham sandwich and fries, but all I had the stomach for was coffee.
“I wasn’t sure I was keeping it when I last saw you,” she said.
I started to say something, but kept my mouth shut, not really sure what I should say about that.
Not really sure how I felt about that.
“And the last time we saw each other, you were ending things, so I wasn’t about to tell you then. It would have seemed like I was trying to keep you, trying to trap you.”
“Shel, I know you wouldn’t do that. We were always careful.” Both statements were true. I’d known Shelly for a few years. She was a couple of years older than me and made an okay living cutting hair at the swanky salon. She wasn’t looking for ways to keep me as a boyfriend. And we’d always used condoms.
“So, what was the plan? Were you ever going to tell me?”
She took a long time to answer me. Ate a few bites of her sandwich, took a gulp from her glass of milk. “Here’s the thing, Stick,” she said, then leaned across the table closer to me. “I’m not sure it’s yours.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I mean, I’m not a slut or anything. But let’s face it, we were never more than an occasional hookup.”
I held up my hand. “No explanation necessary. You were a free agent.”
She nodded. “So were you.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. There had been other girls in that stretch.
Until I danced with Jane at her sister’s wedding. Then no other girl would do…even though I couldn’t admit to myself that Jane was the one I wanted.
“So, obviously at some point you decided to keep it,” I said.
A sweet glow came over her face. “Yes. It was scary as hell, but now…now I’m really glad and excited.” She rubbed her hand over her huge belly. Over the baby.
My baby? Jesus, this was all so unreal.
“And when will we know if I’m the father?” I asked. “Some kind of test or something?”
“They have some prenatal testing you can do, but I’d rather not do the invasive stuff. There’s also some prenatal blood tests they’ve started doing, but you have to send them off to a lab out of state, and it’s expensive.” She shrugged. “If you want, we can do a blood test after the baby is born.”
“What do you mean if I want?”
She sat back in the booth, both hands now slowly caressing her tummy. “I intended on doing this on my own, Stick. I�
�m not asking for your help.”
“I’d say that was obvious by the way you kept it under wraps. What about the other possibilities for the father? Do they know?”
She shook her head. “No. He’s out of the picture, was before I knew I was pregnant. Like I said, I intended on doing this on my own. How did you find out, by the way?”
“Lucas saw you somewhere.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I suppose something like that was bound to happen. With you being local and all.”
“But—”
“I would have let you known. After the baby was born. I would have asked if you wanted to be involved. And I would have—will—if it’s…the other guy’s.”
I believed her. Shelly had always been a straight shooter with me. And given the business we did together, there was a high level of mutual trust.
“How are you doing for money?” I asked. I knew the salon was one of the more expensive ones in town, but I couldn’t imagine they had a good healthcare program. So she was probably on some low-priced, piece-of-shit healthcare policy.
Plus, she wasn’t receiving the extra income I had been sending her way for information on her clients’ comings and goings.
She shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” She wouldn’t meet my eye as she said it.
“Listen, we’ll figure it out, okay? I’m…I’m not going to let you go through this alone. I can help out financially with the hospital costs and stuff. I…” I knew what I was going to say. I also knew it was going to change my life forever. And that I was about to lose the one thing—the one person—who meant everything to me. “I will be a father to my child.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jane
I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me. I heard everything he said, but it was like the words were surrounding me in quicksand, and I couldn’t find any solid ground.
