Smooth Talking Stranger (32 page)

I smiled slightly. “It’s for sane people, too. In fact, the saner you are, the more you’ll get out of it. And it might help you to figure out where the problems are coming from. You may need to adjust your ideas of what marriage should be. Or, it’s possible that part of the problem is the way you and Pete communicate. If you want to stay married, you might want to take a look at those things and—”

“I don’t.” It was clear that Ashley loathed me, that I had been judged as an unworthy rival. “I don’t want to fix anything. I don’t want to be Pete’s wife anymore. I want—” Ashley broke off and looked at Jack with ferocious, imperious longing.

I knew what she was seeing . . . a man who seemed to be the answer to all her problems. Handsome, successful, and desirable. A fresh start. She thought if she could get back together with Jack, it would erase all the unhappiness that had transpired since she had gotten married.

“You have children,” I said. “Don’t you owe it to them to try to save the family you’ve created?”

“Have you ever been married?” she demanded.

“No,” I admitted.

“Then you don’t know shit about it.”

“You’re right,” I said calmly. “All I know is that getting back together with Jack won’t fix you or your problems. What you had with him is in the past. Jack’s gone on with his life. And I’m going to take the liberty of speaking for him by saying that I’m sure he still cares about you as a human being, but nothing more than that. So now, the best thing you can do for Jack, and yourself, and everyone, is to go home to Pete and ask him what you can do about your marriage.” Pausing, I glanced at Jack. “Did I get all that right?”

He nodded, his face relaxing.

Ashley made an infuriated sound. She stared hard at Jack. “You told me once you’d always want me.”

Jack stood, keeping the baby comfortably tucked against his shoulder. His eyes were opaque. “I’ve changed, Ashley.”

“I haven’t!” she snapped.

His reply was very soft. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She grabbed blindly at her handbag and headed to the door. I went after her, frowning as I wondered if she should be allowed to run off in such a distraught condition. “Ashley—” I said, reaching out to touch her skinny arm.

She shook me off.

I saw that she was angry but in control, her face taut, her forehead puckered as if it had been embroidered too tightly. Her gaze arrowed to Jack, who had come up behind me. “If you send me away now,” she told him, “you’ll never have another chance. Be sure of what you want, Jack.”

“I’m sure.” He opened the door for her.

She flushed in anger. “Do you think you’ve got what it takes to keep him?” she asked me scornfully. “He’ll put lots of mileage on you, honey. He’ll take you on a fast ride, and then you’ll get dumped by the roadside.” Her gaze switched to Jack. “You haven’t changed at all. You think going out with someone like her will make everyone think you’re all mature now, but the truth is, you’re still the same selfish, shallow asshole you always were.” She paused for breath, glaring at him. “I’m so much prettier than she is,” she choked indignantly, and left.

As Jack closed the door, I turned to lean my back against it. Still holding Luke, Jack stared at me. He seemed bemused, as if he had found himself in unfamiliar territory and was trying to get his bearings. “Thanks.”

I gave him a tentative smile. “You’re welcome.”

Jack shook his head, looking baffled. “Seeing the two of you together like that. . .”

“The past and the present?”

He nodded and sighed, the corners of his mouth pulling with a troubled grimace. Raking his free hand through his hair, he said, “You look at someone like Ashley, and you know exactly what kind of guy would want her. And I used to be that guy, and that bothers the shit out of me.”

“A guy who wanted a trophy?” I suggested. “A guy who wanted someone pretty and fun . . . I wouldn’t be too hard on him.”

“You’re more of a woman than she could ever be. And a hell of a lot more beautiful.”

I laughed. “You’re just saying that because I got rid of her for you.

He came closer until the baby was caught between us, and he slid his hand around the back of my neck. His fingers were strong and slightly cool as they clasped my tender nape. The sensation, almost unbearably pleasant, made me shiver. “We don’t have a problem?” he asked warily.

“Why would we have a problem?”

“Because any other woman I’ve ever known would have gone ballistic, coming up here and finding Ashley in my apartment.”

“It was obvious you didn’t want her here.” My lips curved with a wry smile. “And for the record, Jack . . . whatever kind of man you used to be, you’re not at all selfish or shallow now. I’ll vouch for you any time.”

Jack bent his head, his breath fanning hotly over my mouth. He kissed me, hard and sweet and long. “Don’t ever leave me, Ella. I need you.”

Abruptly I felt uncomfortable in his embrace. “Luke’s getting squished,” I said with a half-laugh, maneuvering away, even though the baby had been resting still and content between us.

I savored the two weeks that followed with the bittersweet awareness that it was only a brief season in my life. Jack and Luke had become the axis on which the entire world spun. I knew I would lose them both eventually. But I pushed that awareness as far away as I could, and simply allowed myself to enjoy the near-magical quality of those blazing summer days.

It was a busy, bustling kind of happiness, my schedule filled with work, taking care of Luke, trying to keep up with friends, and spending every available moment with Jack. I had never suspected I could become so familiar with someone so quickly. I learned Jack’s expressions, his favorite words, the way his mouth tightened when he was deep in concentration, the way his eyes crinkled at the outside corners right before he laughed. I learned that he kept a tight rein on his temper, that he was gentle with people he judged to be more vulnerable than himself, and that he couldn’t abide pettiness or small-mindedness.

Jack had a wide circle of friends, two of whom he considered close buddies, but the ones he trusted most were his brothers, especially Joe. His greatest require-ment of others was that they keep their word.

To Jack, a promise was a life-or-death matter, the greatest measure of a person.

With me he was openly affectionate, tactile, a physical man with a strong drive. He loved to play, to tease, and to coax me into trying things that made it difficult to face him in the bright light of morning. But there had been a time or two when sex was not playful at all, when we breathed and moved together until it seemed Jack had brought me to the brink of something, a kind of white-hot transcendence, that startled me with its force, and I drew back and broke the momentum, afraid of what might happen.

“You need a baby of your own, ” Stacy told me, when I called her one afternoon. “That’s what your biological clock is telling you.”

I had tried to describe to her how Luke, in his small and innocent way, had broken down my defenses. For the first time in my life I was experiencing an emotional connection with a child, and it was stronger than I ever could have expected.

I had told Stacy I was in terrible trouble.

I wanted Luke for a lifetime. I wanted to be there at every stage of his growing up. But soon his real mother would come for him, and I would be on the periphery.

It was one hell of a one-two punch, what Tara and Luke had done to me.

“It’s gonna hurt bad when you give him up,” Stacy continued. “You need to be ready for that.”

“I know. But I don’t know how you get ready for something like that. I mean, I’ve told myself that I’ve only had him for about three months. That’s not a huge investment of time. But I’ve gotten attached to him all out of proportion.”

“Ella, Ella . . . there is no proportion with babies.”

I gripped the phone tightly. “What do I do?”

“Start making plans. Come back to Austin right after Luke is gone, and stop wasting time with Jack Travis.”

“Why is it wasting time if I’m enjoying it?”

“There’s no future in it. I admit he’s hot, and I’d probably be hit-tin’ that, too, if I were single. But Ella, keep your eyes open. You know that kind of man’s not in it for the long haul.”

“Neither am I. That’s what makes it perfect.”

“Ella, come back home. I’m worried about you. I think you’re fooling yourself.”

“About what?”

“About a lot of things.”

But privately I wondered if just the opposite was true—that I had stopped fooling myself about a lot of things, and life had been more comfortable and less complicated when I had been mired in self-deception.

I talked with my sister once a week.  We had a couple of long, fairly awkward conversations, littered with the inevitable psychospeak that you couldn’t help but lapse into after having seen a therapist. “I’m coming to Houston next week,” Tara finally told me. “Friday. I’m leaving the clinic. Dr. Jaslow says I’ve gotten a good start, but I should probably keep seeing someone if I want to make more progress.”

“I’m so glad,” I managed to say, feeling cold all over. “I’m glad you’re better, Tara.” I paused before making myself ask, “You’ll want to take Luke right away, I guess? Because if not, I could always—”

“Yeah, I want him.”

Do you really?
I wanted to ask her.
Because you hardly ever ask about him, and you don’t
seem to find him all that interesting.
But maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe he meant too much to her . . . maybe she couldn’t bring herself to discuss the source of such powerful longing.

I wandered to Luke’s crib, where he was sleeping. I reached out to touch one of the honeypots on the mobile. My fingers were trembling. “Can I pick you up at the airport?”

“No, I’m . . . that’s being taken care of.”

By Mark Gottler, I thought. “Listen, I don’t want to be a pest, but. . . that promissory contract we talked about. . . it’s here at my apartment. I hope you’ll at least take a look at it while you’re here.”

“I’ll take a look at it. But I won’t sign it. There’s no need.”

I bit my lip to keep from arguing with her.
One step at a time,
I told myself.

Jack and i argued over the prospect of tara’s return, because he wanted to be there, and I wanted to face it alone. I didn’t want him to be a part of something so painful and personal. I had a pretty good idea of how much giving up Luke was going to hurt, and I would rather not have Jack see me at a moment of such weakness.

Besides, that Friday was Joe’s birthday, and they had planned to go fishing on an overnight trip to Galveston.

“You have to be there for Joe,” I told Jack.

“I can reschedule the trip.”

“You
promised
him,” I said, fully aware of the effect that word had on Jack. “I can’t believe you’re even thinking of backing out on your brother on his birthday.”

“He’ll understand. This is more important.”

“I’ll be just fine,” I said. “And I need the private time with my sister. Tara and I won’t be able to talk if you’re there.”

“Damn it all, she wasn’t supposed to come back until the next week. Why the hell is she getting out early?”

“I don’t know. I can’t believe she didn’t think to schedule her mental-health issues around your fishing trip.”

“I’m not going.”

Exasperated, I paced around his apartment. “I want you to go, Jack. I can be stronger about this without you. I need to do it alone. I’m going to hand off Luke to Tara, drink a big glass of wine, have a bath, and go to bed early. If I really need to be with someone, I’ll go upstairs and visit Haven. And you’ll be back the next day, and we can do the postmortem.”

“I’d rather call it the postgame analysis.” He watched me intently, seeing too much. “Ella. Stop that damn pacing and come here.”

I was still for about ten seconds before I went to him. His arms went around me, and he pressed my resistant body against his at intervals: my shoulders, back, waist, hips.

“Stop pretending everything is fine,” he said near my ear.

“That’s all I know how to do. If you pretend everything’s fine long enough, everything eventually becomes fine.”

Jack held me for wordless minutes. His hand continued to move slowly over me, pressing me closer, squeezing, urging, like an artist molding clay. I breathed deeply, letting myself be petted and gently gripped, my nerves leaping as he pulled my hips against his, letting me feel how aroused he was.

He pulled off my clothes and then his own, every movement deliberate, and when I tried to say something, he took my head in his hands and kissed me, openmouthed and searing. Pulling me down to the floor, he straddled my hips, his mouth working at mine. I struggled upward, trying to get closer, straining toward the pleasure of his firm body. We rolled slowly, first me on top, then him, and he grasped my hips and slid inside me, deeper, deeper, until he was encompassed in wetness and heat. I groaned in satisfaction at the necessary weight of him anchoring me, the feel of his flesh pressing, mine opening.

He reached for a sofa cushion, shoved it beneath my hips, and took me in grinding thrusts, pushing, demanding, making me come with plangent cries. And even then he kept on, making it last, delaying release until it broke over him. He stayed in me for a long time, his strong fingers tangled in my hair, not letting me turn my mouth from his. It seemed as if he were trying to prove something, demonstrate something, that my heart and mind were unwilling to accept.

It was still dark when Jack left on Friday morning. He sat beside me on the bed and pulled my sleeping body upward, holding me. I awakened with a murmur, and he held my head in one hand, long fingers cupping firmly around my skull. His rich baritone was soft in my ear. “You do what you have to. I won’t stand in the way. But when I come back, you’re not shutting me out, you hear? I’m going to take you somewhere . . . a nice long vacation . . . and we’re going to talk, and I’m going to hold you while you cry until you feel better. And we’ll get you through this.” He kissed my cheek and smoothed my hair, and lowered me back to the mattress.