See Jane Fall (32 page)

“You recorded that? Yesterday when we were
talking?”

“Just in case I needed it.”

He nodded, revolted that he was alone with
her, repulsed by her, unable to see anything beautiful in her
anymore.

“You played it for Jane just now.”

Samara jerked her head in a satisfied
nod.

“How’d that work out for you?”

Samara took a deep breath, straightening her
back and her neck, looking at him with cold, angry eyes. “She
quit.”

“Huh,” he exclaimed, smiling a little in
spite of himself. “Well, thank God for small miracles.”

Her nostrils flared, and she narrowed her
eyes, staring at him, holding her phone tightly, the old-fashioned
silver microphone on the screen adding the smallest bit of ambient
light into the darkened trailer.

He turned away from her, unable to take a
good, deep breath, wanting like hell to get as far away from Samara
Amaya as possible. He’d gotten the information he’d come for. How
to fix it? Damned if he had a clue.

He turned the knob to leave but her voice
stopped him.

“You really wanted Jane more than me?” Her
voice was small like a child’s, like she was about to cry.

“I only
ever
wanted Jane,” he
answered with his back to Samara. “It had nothing to do with
you.”

Then he stepped outside, closing the door
behind him, walking back to the van. He’d known from the start that
winning Jane’s trust would be hard. Thanks to Samara, now it looked
impossible.

CHAPTER 11

Jane eyes burned with tears and a huge lump
wouldn’t vacate her throat.

She’d been so looking forward to her weekend
of freedom, and after kissing Lars this morning and hearing him
admit that he wasn’t going to Jackson Hole, a whole fantasy had
taken root in her mind. For a few sweet hours, she imagined herself
spending the weekend with him.

She lay despondently on her motel bed, on
her side, in the same place and position where Lars had held her on
Monday night. She winced, wrapping her arms around her body.
Thinking about Sara and Lars together made her feel sick. Why had
he kissed her in the morning mist if he was planning “a night to
remember” with her cousin? She couldn’t think about it anymore. It
was making her crazy.

So, on to the next mess: She had quit her
job.

Finally. And while part of her felt like
dancing around her motel room, the other part was feeling slightly
terrified.

Jane’s uncle was going to be very upset with
her; he would certainly try to pressure her to return to Sara’s
employ. Could she hold up against the pressure this time as she
hadn’t been able to before? She pictured his face, her father’s
face, asking her to give Sara another chance, and her resolve
weakened. Then she fished the fuzzy B out of her back pocket and
held it in front of her eyes, feeling her strength return as she
shoved it back into her pocket. Nothing and no one would entice her
to ever work for Sara ever again, she thought with bravado.

W
here are you going to go, Jane? And what
are you going to do?

She knew she couldn’t very well stay in
Gardiner, but nowhere else sounded right either. She’d always
dreamed of returning to San Francisco where she’d grown up, but it
would be lonely. She could go back to Boston, find her own
apartment in Cambridge, look up some of her college friends, and
see if she could explain things to her aunt and uncle. Or she could
return to New York, where she had solid business contacts…or did
she? Would anyone work with Jane Mays when she wasn’t attached to
Samara Amaya?

Jane massaged her aching head, looking for
her mother’s voice.
Ice cream, sweet baby Jane. That’s the
answer to everything. We need some ice cream.

“I wish it were that simple,” she muttered
softly, missing her mother with a longing that tightened her chest
and made her feel breathless. She sobbed and laughed at the same
time. “Ice cream, huh? Okay, Mama.”

Jane sat up and wiped away the tears that
had fallen as she lay on the bed. She stood up and rooted through
her wallet for a few dollars, then looked around the room for her
cap before remembering it was gone. She sighed, missing its
comforting presence—one of the many things she wished had turned
out differently this week.

***

Jane opened the door of the grocery store and
picked up a basket, strolling over to the produce.
Some
vacation. Starting in the grocery store staring at a hill of
grapefruits.
She picked one up, enjoying the feel of the cool,
smooth-bumpy rind under her fingertips.

She heard his voice behind her before she
saw him.

“So…yesterday…you had a question for
me…”

Her fingers squeezed in reaction to his
voice, the fingernail of her thumb digging into the tough peel
unconsciously, extracting a mist of the sharp, bitter smell. She
turned around slowly to find Lars standing behind her, basket
hanging from his elbow, looking impossibly handsome in cowboy
boots, dusty jeans and the same white polo shirt embroidered with
“Lindstrom & Sons” that he’d been wearing when he kissed her in
the mist this morning.

By the time she got to his face, she
realized he’d watched her eyes ascend from the boots up. He raised
his eyebrows, smiling. “Take a picture, Minx…”

“…it lasts longer,” she whispered.

“Your voice slays me, Jane.”

“So, you didn’t go, after all. To Jackson
Hole.” She held the grapefruit between both hands, her fingernails
still digging into its waxy skin.

“I told you I wasn’t going.”

“You told me a lot of things.”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“Then you’re lying to someone else.”

“That’s true.”

“Why should I trust you if you’re lying to
her?”

“Because she’s impossible. Because you find
yourself in an impossible situation and say whatever it takes to
get out it. Even if words weren’t cheap to you before, you use
them, you…you…”

“Is that your excuse?”

“It’s the truth.”

“So says a liar,” she murmured, looking up
at him with tired eyes.

He cringed and exhaled audibly, wounded,
looking away from her.

“Can I fix this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered, fingernails
extracting more bitter spray.

“You’re murdering that grapefruit.”

“I’ll buy it.”

She stared at his light blue eyes, wishing
she could still her heart, which pleaded with her to find a way to
believe him, to trust him, to let him stay in her life.

“I was—” she started then stopped,
swallowing the lump in her throat. “I was wrong about Jackson Hole.
About you going.”

“I was
never
going. For the record.
Never.”

Jane nodded. “She said you were.”

“I know.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and she tore her
gaze away from him, looking down at her feet. “She played…um, a
conversation for me…that you two had, and—”

“I know. I made her play it for me after you
left.”

Her eyes darted back up to his face and he
reacted to the distress he saw there, tilting his head to the side
and wincing. He raised his hand, as if to touch her, and then drew
it back, swallowing like it hurt.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “How did
you—”

“I went to see her after I saw you run from
her trailer to the
Trend
van. I asked her what she had said
or done to upset you. She played the recording for me.”

“You were touching her when she recorded
that.”

He nodded. “I had my hand on her leg.”

She swiped at her eyes, embarrassed to feel
fresh tears fall.

“God, Jane, please…”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“NO! No. Absolutely not!”

“Were you…naked with her?”

“Jane, no! No, no…I was never naked with
her. Never even close.”

“But, you touched her.”

“Twice. Once on the leg when she made that
recording. The leg.
Nowhere
else, Jane. And…the other time.
She invited me into her trailer, and she only had underwear on. I
was totally caught off-guard…she…she took my hand and put it on her
breast, then she pressed her body against mine and she kissed me,
but I pushed her away, just as Margot walked in…”

“Convenient.”

“Truthful.”

“Skeptical.”

“Frustrated,” he whispered through clenched
teeth, taking a step closer to her. He ran his free hand through
his hair, tousling it. His face was sharp with frustration yet
softened with regret. “Jane. All I ever wanted—from the
beginning—was you.”

Me.
She only had a moment to enjoy
his words, because two simultaneous thoughts scattered them: the
first was that she could tell he was telling the truth, which added
a layer of confusion to her perception of his behavior, and the
second was that he had just used the past tense. She swallowed and
turned around, facing the grapefruits, unable to bear the intensity
in his stark, silvery-blue eyes. She let the mangled grapefruit in
her hand roll dejectedly into her basket as her eyes filled with
more embarrassing tears.

“And now?” she whispered, hating herself for
caring when she could still hear the conversation Sara had played
for her in her head.

Feeling his breath on the back of her neck
was the last thing she expected, and her eyes shuddered closed, her
hands curling into fists.

“Jane. I am
still
not that guy, but
damn
you are making it hard on me,” he whispered close to
her ear. She felt his fingers push the damp curls off the back of
her neck and his lips brushed the hot, throbbing skin hidden there.
She would never look at a grapefruit the same way again. “You
walked away from me. You
pushed
me away. But, I didn’t
initiate anything with your cousin, and when she did, I pushed
her
away. And that conversation you heard? That was me
getting out of going to Jackson Hole so I could stay here with you.
I’m not doing anything with her on Sunday night. I just didn’t know
how to turn her down on Thursday without being fired.”

Jane had to admit…his explanation made a
certain amount of sense. It didn’t excuse everything, but it wasn’t
exactly implausible either. He kissed her neck again then put his
hands on her shoulders, turning her around to face him.

“Jane…just give me the weekend. Give me
three days…three days to show you how I feel…and, and if you don’t
believe me, if you don’t trust me…if you still think I ever wanted
Samara Amaya more than I wanted you, I’ll drive you up to Bozeman
on Monday and I’ll never bother you again. Three days…”

She swallowed, feeling unsure of him and of
herself. Everything she had feared about getting involved with him
seemed to have happened, but he was explaining it all away so
quickly. She didn’t know what to believe.

But, more than anything, Jane was sick and
tired of letting old fears of pain and abandonment hold dominion
over her heart just as she had let fears of being alone keep her
bound in servitude to her ungrateful, unkind cousin. It was time to
grow up. It was time to realize that taking a fall wasn’t the end
of anything.

Jane had already fallen several times this
week, she realized. Fallen for Lars…fallen when she let him
go…fallen when she thought he was with Sara…fallen when she thought
she had lost him. The more Jane fell, the more she belonged to him,
as if the key to finding her way—to finding
him
—was to keep
falling and to stop protecting herself.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he asked, with a surprised half
smile that tugged on her heartstrings.

“Okay.” She shrugged, “I don’t have anywhere
else to be.”

“I heard,” he answered, raising his eyebrows
at her. “You quit.”

“Yes, I did.”

Jane realized she’d been holding her breath
and she let it out in a rush, staring at Lars, in the corner of the
produce section of the small country grocer. She put the back of
her unoccupied hand to her cheek and felt the dry heat there,
wishing her racing heart would slow down. They were going to spend
the weekend together; she couldn’t help the way her breathing
hitched a little as she realized that in a very messy, unexpected
way, she had gotten what she wanted.

“Come over tonight,” he suggested, his eyes
unsure, as though he knew he was pushing his luck a little.

“I have to get ice cream first,” she
answered, and his face broke into a pleased grin that made her
insides turn to jelly.

He walked down the aisles with her and then
to the cashier. Jane smiled at the woman, exchanging
pleasantries.

“Do you need anything from your room?” he
asked, after they were seated in his truck.

She turned to him and shook her head slowly,
unaccountably nervous. Jane knew that nothing would happen that she
didn’t want to happen tonight, but she felt a little jumpy
nonetheless. Too much change at once. She was on vacation. She was
unemployed. She was spending the weekend with Lars.

“You’ll drive me home later?”

“Whatever you want, Jane. You’re in
charge.”

He lowered the visor on her side, and just
grazing her shoulder, he took out a disc, slipping it into the CD
player. As he pulled out of the parking lot, Ricky Nelson’s voice
filled the cab, singing “Traveling Man.”

Jane turned to him, sighing. “Ahhhh. What a
great choice.”

“Yeah?”

“I love this one.”

“Me too.”

“It’s…magical…
‘and in every port I own
the heart of at least one lovely girl
…’” She sang along
quietly.

“Magical?”

She shrugged. “Kind of. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s…
magical
.”

“Okay, Professor, then why do you love it?
You admire him? I mean, he’s quite a player. A girl in every town?
A honey in every port of call? That how you roll?”