“Why wouldn’t it work?” He stuffed more food into his mouth.
So many reasons. For starters, “because each time we were intimate I’d know you’d rather be with my sister. That I’ll never be anything more to you than a poor substitute for the woman you really want.”
He choked.
Good.
“That’s not true.”
“You feel so good Jaci,” Jena repeated the words he’d uttered over and over when they’d been in bed together. “Do you have any idea how special you are?”
“That’s not fair.” He placed his sandwich on the paper wrapper. “I said those things because I
thought
I was in bed with Jaci. Because you’d led me to
believe
I was in bed with Jaci.”
“Which gave you the opportunity to pour out your true feelings.”
“I was drunk.”
“A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.”
“This is nuts.” He slapped his hand on the table. “You won’t marry me, the father of your daughters, because of a bit of wisdom you found inside a fortune cookie?”
“I won’t marry you because you don’t want to marry me.” She pushed away from the table. “I won’t marry you because making you a daily part of my daughters’ lives, knowing you plan to desert all of us in five years is cruel.” She stood. “I won’t marry you because Jerald’s right.” She scooped up her uneaten dinner and turned to leave. “I’d be miserable married to a man like you.” A man she would love who could never love her, one focused on physical beauty and incapable of monogamy. At least if she married Thomas terms could be negotiated, time frames agreed to, her heart protected. And her body wouldn’t matter.
* * *
“Wait.” Justin made it to the door before she could open it. “I
do
want to marry you.”
“Why?” she asked, her blue eyes challenging him.
Because it was the right thing to do. The honorable thing. But from the look on her face he was pretty sure neither answer would satisfy her.
“Because I’m rich?” she asked. “Because if you marry me, you’ll be rich too?”
No.
Before he could expand his no from an instantaneous mental reaction to an actual verbal response she said, “Because I’m pretty?” She grazed her fingers down his chest enticingly. “Because you want my body night after night?”
Oh, yeah. He liked that idea. He turned them so her back was to the door and pressed his body to hers. “I don’t need your money,” he whispered in her ear. “And maybe five years will turn into ten or twenty or a lifetime.” He kissed down the side of her neck. “We won’t know until we give marriage a try. But no matter what happens between us, I will never desert my daughters.”
He kissed back up to her ear. “While we’re figuring it all out, sex night after night sounds real good to me.” He brought his hand to her breast. “And trust me.” He caressed until he felt the tight bud of her nipple through her bra and blouse. “I’ll make you feel so good so often you won’t have time to be miserable.”
He moved his lips to hers. Kissed her, tasted her, wanted more of her. “You have the most amazing breasts.” He explored their supple fullness with both hands.
She pushed him away. “And what if I didn’t?” she snapped, straightening her clothes. “What if I didn’t have amazing breasts? What if my body repulsed you?”
She wasn’t making any sense. “But it doesn’t. It’s perfect. I love your body. I want your body.” Any man who swung toward heterosexual would want her body.
At that last thought, an unfamiliar, possessive, mine, mine, mine all mine popped into Justin’s head.
Jena shoved him.
“What?”
“I am more than a pair of breasts.” She had tears in her eyes. And he’d put them there. An odd, uncomfortable pressure settled in his chest.
She reached for the door.
He grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?” How had complimenting her body taken such a wrong turn?
“I can’t do this,” she said. “Please.” She looked up at him. “I need to get back to work.”
The aftermath of whatever the hell happened between them in the break room helped Justin recognize yet another difference between Jena and Jaci. The silent treatment. For better or for worse, Jaci put her emotions out there for all to see. In stark contrast to her sister, when something upset Jena, she went quiet. Of course she was too well-mannered to completely ignore him, but her interactions turned brief, coolly polite, and only when necessary.
She didn’t want to marry him? Fine. He’d tried to do the right thing. She’d turned him down. Done. Pressure off. He could still parent without the hassle of marriage. Even better.
Jena smiled warmly at an unkempt woman in the waiting area, helped her with her diaper bag and, while accompanying her and a small child to an exam room, chatted like they were old friends. Comfortable. Genuine.
When she passed by Justin he may as well have been a cobweb for all the attention she paid him. They’d reverted back to high school.
Except now he couldn’t help noticing
her
. Long blonde curls restrained in a tight bun, her luscious curves hidden beneath a boxy scrub top, and her face devoid of trendy, high-fashion makeup, she looked nothing like socialite Jena Piermont from the society pages of newspapers and magazines. She looked better. Real.
Desirable.
And he had a hankering for the genuine version of Jena.
Dr. Charmer passed her in the hallway and smiled.
Justin imagined the satisfying crack of dislocating the jaw attached to that smile with one powerful punch.
Which made no sense. Because Justin didn’t do jealousy. Except, apparently where Jena, the mother of his twins was concerned, he did.
Lord help him.
A married couple returned to the desk to check out with Gayle. The man guided his wife with a gentle hand at her mid-back while holding their sleeping baby in a car seat. He’d watched them and listened to them since they’d arrived. They were about the same age as he and Jena, their baby a couple of months older than the twins. The woman had been nervous, worried about the child’s fever and bright red cheeks. The man held her hand or sat with his arm around her while she rested her head on his shoulder.
The guy probably had a better role model growing up than Justin had. He didn’t know how to be the type of man Jena wanted. The type of man she deserved. That didn’t stop a small part of him from wondering what if?
Thank goodness work saved him from his thoughts. “You folks all set?” he asked as they stood. “I’ll escort you out.”
The man opened the car door for his wife then walked to the other side of the car and placed the car seat in its base.
“How long have you been married?” Justin asked.
“A few weeks,” the man replied.
So they’d had the baby first, too.
“Thank you,” the man said and got into the car. Before he started the engine, he leaned over to kiss his wife. She smiled at her husband like he was the most special man in the world.
He imagined Jena giving him a look like that and went all warm inside. Until he remembered women like Jena didn’t give men like him looks like that. Because he didn’t do love, sucked at demonstrating affection, and while she was looking for long term he’d never managed to stay with the same woman longer than one month. Twenty-two days to be exact. And the last three he’d spent ignoring her phone calls until she officially broke it off.
Back inside his cell phone buzzed. He checked the number—Jaci—and walked out of Gayle’s hearing. “What’s wrong?”
“Hello to you, too,” Jaci said. “The girls are fine, sleeping like little angels.”
He relaxed.
“Ian just told me you scheduled yourself to work at the urgent care center tonight. Very interesting,” she teased.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To know how Jena’s doing. We haven’t heard from her in over an hour.” Despite the non-stop pace of patient after patient with little to no downtime in between, Jena had managed to check on the twins. Caring. Concerned. A good mother. Unlike his who’d chosen the lure of the Las Vegas stage over caring for a toddler. Without so much as a phone call or birthday card since.
“She’s fine.” He watched Jena move from one exam room to the next. Purposeful. Confident. Impressive. “Just busy.”
“Ian also tells me you’ll be giving her a ride home tonight to save him a trip out?”
“Yup.” Justin picked up an abandoned tiny sneaker, lying on its side at the base of a potted plant and put it on the corner of Gayle’s desk.
“I don’t know,” Jaci said. “She was pretty quiet today and didn’t want to see you when you stopped by. Did something happen between the two of you last night?”
Interesting. So Jena hadn’t shared his offer of marriage with her sister.
“Is she okay with you bringing her home?” Jaci asked.
She’d have to be since she’d have no other option. “Yup.”
“Can you put her on? I’d like to hear it from her.”
“Nope, she’s in with a patient.” That wasn’t a lie.
“Have her call me.”
“Sure thing.” That was. “But don’t worry if she doesn’t. It’s crazy here tonight.”
The next time Jena went to breeze by him without a word he reached out to stop her. “Jaci called.”
She stiffened and flashed him a worried glance.
“The babies are fine. She wanted you to know since they’re asleep she’s going to sleep,” he lied.
“Thank you,” she said without looking at him and continued on her way.
A few minutes before close, upon returning from investigating a disturbance behind the building, Justin met up with a worried Gayle hurrying toward him. “One of those boys you escorted out of here earlier came back.”
Justin sped up.
“He said something to Jena and the fool girl followed him outside,” Gayle said.
Justin broke into a run.
“I told her to wait for you,” Gayle said as he passed her on his way to the entrance.
“If I’m not back in one minute call the police.” Justin shot out into the dark. “Jena,” he yelled.
Nothing.
“Jena,” he yelled again, louder, so anyone within a mile radius would hear him.
Nothing.
So he listened. Cars driving past. A horn honked in the distance. Then quiet. A muffled... He turned to the right. Followed the sound to the far end of the parking lot where the spaces designated for the urgent care staff were located, noting it seemed darker and more shadowed than it had earlier. “If you hurt her I’ll kill you,” he called out. Even unarmed—because the urgent care center management did not want their security guards to carry weapons of any type with children around—he could do it. And would.
He looked up to see the corner parking lot light out.
How convenient.
He ran.
“Jena.”
“I’m he—”
Someone cut off her response.
Not smart.
Justin followed her voice. Quietly. He crept between two cars to the grassy edge of the parking lot and saw her shadowed form, on the ground with someone on their knees behind her, a hand covering her mouth.
An uneasy feeling ran a chilly sprint up his spine.
Two teens accompanied by an elderly man had entered the care center earlier. He scanned the area and behind him for the other two.
Jena began to struggle.
The person behind her jerked an arm around her throat.
Justin’s body tightened with rage. He would not allow that miscreant to hurt her, or worse, would not even entertain the possibility of his daughters growing up without their mom. And fueled by an emotion powerful enough to make him ignore proper police procedure and the good instincts that’d kept him safe over the years, Justin sprang to action. “Release her this second if you want to live.” He showed himself and stalked toward the attacker who didn’t move. “I can make it quick or I can make you die an excruciatingly slow and painful death.”
Jena tried to fight, twisting, gasping...
“Don’t—” Something struck the side of his head. A pipe? A bat? He held in a shout of pain. His vision blurred. Unable to stand he dropped and rolled onto his side, fought to remain conscious.
“Don’t hurt him,” Jena cried out. “What do you want?”
Money. Drugs. Her. Unacceptable. Justin struggled onto his knees, willed his head to stop spinning.
“Stay down,” a male voice yelled.
Another male voice, this one sounding panicked said, “Let’s go.”
Jena crawled over to him. “Are you okay?” She gently touched the side of his head. “You’re bleeding,” she cried out.
He put his arm around her, would not let them touch her.
The two men loomed over them.
“I told you this wouldn’t work,” one of the men said.
“If we show up—”
Justin chose their moment of conflict and inattention to jump—well stumble—to his feet and fight. His right fist connected with a nose, his elbow with a cheek. A siren sounded in the distance. Thank goodness because Justin felt seconds from collapsing to the ground.
The siren grew louder.
The men ran off. But Justin would make sure they were found.
He swayed. Jena caught him, maneuvered him up against the side of a minivan, and pressed her body to his to keep him upright.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled and made his headache even worse in the process.
“He said when they showed up without the prescriptions the drug dealer beat up his friend and he was scared to come in for treatment because you’d banned them from ever coming back. I’m so sorry.” She hugged him.
Damn she felt good. He reached down, grabbed her butt and pulled her hips flush with his.
She tilted her head up to him. “On account of you likely have a head injury I’m going to overlook this little display.”
“I want you, Jena.” He tried to nuzzle her ear, the movement throwing him off balance, tilting him forward.
“Now I know you’re not thinking clearly,” she joked, throwing her entire weight against him—which he liked a lot. “Stop moving around or I’m going to drop you.”
A car screeched into the parking lot. A siren echoed in his head. Loud. Make it stop. He clutched his hands over his ears. Lights blinded him. A car door slammed. He groaned but knew enough to reach for his badge in his front pocket and held it up. “Officer Justin Rangore. MVPD. Two men. One lured Jena into the parking lot.”