Fool for Love (10 page)

"We need to talk—"

"Where's your ring?"

Her brain froze on the image of the buxom
blonde riding him hard.

"What the hell is going on here,
Janey?"

"It's over," she said softly.
Thirteen years of her life. Gone. Done. Over. And she had absolutely nothing to
show for them.

"What is?"

"We are."

"What are you—"

"I saw you."

His eyebrows knitted with confusion, which
apparently pained him. Tears flooded his eyes, but Janey wasn't naive enough to
think they were for her. Not anymore. "You saw me? Where?"

Janey felt like she was floating above
herself, looking down at someone who looked like her and sounded like her but
wasn't her at all. "In bed."

"You're talking in riddles," he
said, exasperated. "When did you see me in bed?"

"I came to your apartment on our
anniversary to surprise you, but the surprise was on me. You should really lock
your doors when you're 'entertaining.'"

All the remaining color drained from his
face when he finally got what she was telling him. "You don't
understand."

"You're goddamned right I
don't." Janey gave herself credit for keeping her voice down when she
really wanted to shriek and rail and punch him until he hurt as much as she
did. "And guess what? I really don't want to understand."

"Wait. Janey, listen—"

"There's nothing you can say and
nothing you can
ever
do to get the image of you having sex with another
woman out of my head."

"It's not what you think."

Janey laughed when she wanted to cry.
"You're probably going to tell me you were conducting medical research or
some other lame story that you'll expect me to believe."

"It only happened once."

"I don't believe you."

"I swear to God!"

"Don't swear to God and then lie to
my face. You'll go to hell."

He touched his wounded face and winced.
"Already there."

"You don't
know
hell!"
She no longer cared about keeping her voice down. "You didn't have to see
me
writhing around in bed with another guy!"

"You don't get it, Janey. Work is so
stressful, I miss you so much, and there's this other thing going on… I just
needed to take the edge off."

She stared at him, incredulous. "I
offered to move to Boston so I could 'take the edge off' anytime you wanted, but
you said I should stay on the island. At least now I know why you were so
anxious to keep me tucked away where I couldn't 'surprise' you anytime
I
needed to take the edge off."

"Janey—"

"You've made a fool of me and a
mockery of all the years I spent waiting for you. I was
always
faithful
to you."

"She means nothing to me. You're the
one I love. I've always loved you, and you know that."

Images of Joe making sweet love to her
chose that moment to pop into her overworked brain. "If you really loved
me, you wouldn't have 'taken the edge off' with other women while you were
engaged to me." Deciding she wanted nothing to remind her of all the years
she'd spent so foolishly devoted to him, Janey dug the ring out of her bag.

She dropped it on the bed and took one
last long look at the man she'd loved all her life. "Don't get any ideas
about pressing charges against Joe. You're lucky he
only
broke your
nose. He and Mac were quite prepared to kill you after they heard what you'd
done. I told them you weren't worth the trouble. Turns out I was right about
that. Have a nice life."

Turning, she battled her way through the
curtain to the hallway, where Maddie leaned against the wall looking
embarrassed to have overheard the exchange.

"Janey!" David called.
"Wait!"

"Get me out of here," she
muttered to Maddie. Her legs suddenly felt like spaghetti, and Janey wasn't
sure they'd support her weight for much longer. "Please just get me out of
here."

"I've got you." As Maddie put an
arm around her and hustled her through the waiting room, Janey felt every eye
in the place on her. She and David hadn't been quiet. News of their broken
engagement was probably already burning up the island phone lines.

"Oh, God, my parents," Janey
whispered. "They should hear this from me, not the gossips."

"I'll take you to them. Just hang in
there. The worst part is over."

"How'd I do?"

"Better than I would have. You held
yourself together and got through it with your dignity intact."

That might be true, Janey thought, but
hearing him casually confess to being unfaithful had broken what was left of
her heart.

Maddie called ahead to let Janey's mother know they
were coming, so Janey wasn't surprised to find both her parents, Mac, and Joe
waiting for her at "The White House," the nickname the locals had
given the McCarthy's two-story colonial that overlooked North Harbor. Down the
hill from the house was McCarthy's Gansett Inn and McCarthy's Marina.

The first thing she noticed when she and
Maddie stepped into the kitchen was Joe's swollen right hand. Before she could
say anything about it, however, her mother rushed her. Janey could see her
mother had been crying, which made her mad all over again at David.

"Oh, sweetie! I don't know what to
say."

"I'm sorry you heard it from someone
other than me."

"Don't worry about that," Linda
said, stroking a hand over Janey's back. "All we care about is that you're
okay."

"I suppose I will be.
Eventually."

"These things take time, honey,"
Big Mac said.

Janey absorbed the comfort of her mother's
embrace for a long, quiet moment. When she opened her eyes, she found Joe
watching her intently. An odd current of awareness zipped through her,
reminding her once again of the connection they'd shared during their time
together.

She wanted a moment alone with him but
knew it couldn't happen now.

Big Mac was next in line for a hug, and he
lifted Janey off her feet. Surrounded by her father's familiar scent and
overwhelming love, Janey finally broke. "Aww, baby," he said, holding
her tight against him. "It's gonna be all right. I promise you'll be just
fine. We'll see to that, won't we, Lin?"

"You bet we will."

Her parents guided her to a sofa in the
family room and sat on either side of her. The others followed, hovering on the
perimeter of her disaster.

"So will we," Mac said, standing
with his arm around Maddie, who nodded in agreement.

Joe remained a quiet observer, but upon
another quick glance, Janey noticed a tick of tension at work in his cheek. She
looked away, unable to process all the emotion she felt coming from him. He no
doubt wanted to scoop her up and take her away somewhere until she stopped
hurting so badly.

"What happened at the clinic,
honey?" Linda asked.

As Janey relayed as much of the
conversation with David as she could bear to repeat, she watched Joe slip from
the room and wished she could go after him. She hated that he was hurting, too.

Mac kissed Maddie's forehead and followed
his friend.

Janey swiped at the tears on her cheeks.
"We'll have to cancel the wedding. You've spent all that money—"

"Don't give it a thought," Linda
said. "We'll worry about that when you're ready to."

"I hate him for doing this to
me," Janey whispered. "For ruining everything."

"So do we, honey," Big Mac said,
squeezing her shoulder. "So do we."

Joe couldn't take another minute of listening to Janey's heartbreak. He'd
already endured more than he could handle. Flexing his bruised hand, he winced
at the shaft of pain that greeted the movement.

"Takes about a week," Mac said.

Turning to his friend, Joe said, "What
does?"

"The hand. It took about a week for
mine to heal after I flattened Darren Tabor."

Joe smiled. "Ah yes. I remember now.
Another broken nose to our credit."

"Both times, they had it
coming."

Darren, the loser who'd already ruined
Maddie's reputation with false rumors in high school, had made an off-color
comment about her voluptuous figure that Mac hadn't appreciated.

"Except you're not known as the
hothead of this duo," Mac reminded him. "In fact, I suspect this
might be the first broken nose to your credit."

"You suspect correctly."

"What gives, man?"

Joe stared out over the expansive view of
North Harbor. "I saw his smug, smiling face and something snapped."

"So he didn't even say
anything?"

"I believe he said hello."

Mac laughed. "Goddamn him."

"Exactly."

"So much for being subtle."

Joe looked over at his friend. "Where
has that gotten me?"

"Joe—"

He held up a hand to stop Mac from saying
any more. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You just need to bide your
time," Mac said softly. "Give her a couple of months to get past
this, and then maybe…"

"A couple of months." To Joe
that sounded like a lifetime. One night without her and he'd managed to get
drunk, throw up and punch someone. What would he look like after sixty nights
without her?

"It seems like forever right now, but
you've already waited forever. What's a little while longer?"

Joe's laugh was tight with irony.

Mac rested a hand on his shoulder.
"What can I do for you? I hate to see you so spun up."

"Nothing. Like you said, I just have
to bide my time. Somehow." In a perfect world, Janey would realize on her
own that they were meant to be together and come to him, ready to plan their
future. However, Joe had no illusions that he lived in a perfect world.

"Just think about what might be
waiting for you on the other end."

That was the problem—Joe already knew
exactly
what was waiting for him, and he had no idea how to live without her for even a
couple of weeks. "Yeah." He'd never before felt so out of sorts, like
he was coming out of his own skin. "I need to get out of here."

"Where do you want to go? I've got
the bike." Mac referred to his old motorcycle. "I can take you."

"Back to work, I guess. I've taken
enough time off, and I can only imagine how they're all buzzing after watching
me get carted off by the cops."

"They'll forget about it in a day or
two. Come on, I'll give you a lift."

Joe followed Mac inside where Linda was
forcing some soup on Janey. She glanced up, and their eyes met. A current of
electricity crackled between them, and Joe wondered how it was possible
everyone on the room didn't feel it. Before he succeeded in broadcasting his
utter misery to her entire family, Joe mumbled a quick good-bye and thank you
on his way to the front door. He was surprised when Janey, rather than Mac,
followed him.

"Joe! Wait!"

"Go back inside, Janey. I can't do
this right now."

She grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop.
"Please."

Oh God, this woman was his
kryptonite
!
He turned, took a breath and put his hands on his hips. It took all his
fortitude to make contact with those pale blue eyes. "What do you want me
to say?"

"Why did you hit him?"

"Because he was there." Joe
looked down at the ground, his eyes connecting with her delicate feet in
flip-flops. A heated memory of pressing kisses to her sensitive arches came
rushing back like a punch to the gut.

"Joe," she whispered, resting a
hand on his arm. "You're so tense. I hate seeing you like this." She
reached for his bruised hand.

He pulled it back and cast an uneasy gaze at
the house, certain he'd find faces in every window. But no one was watching.
Bringing his eyes back to her and absorbing the familiar burst of longing that
occurred every time he saw her, he steeled himself to do what he knew he had to
do, even if it killed him. "What happened between us was a mistake,
Janey."

The flash of hurt that crossed her
expressive face was the first nail in his coffin. "How can you say
that?"

"Your father and Mac would kill me if
they knew—"

"
Why
did you hit him?"

"Because he was smiling and smug and
satisfied, coming to see you like nothing was wrong after what he'd done to
you!" Joe's head felt like it might explode. He needed to get out of
there, to get away from her. Now. "I have to go."

She clutched his arm. "Not like
this."

"I can't do this! It's like I'm
losing my mind! I hit someone! I got thrown in jail. Last night I got so drunk
I puked outside the Beachcomber. I can't deal with it!"