Summer Kisses (312 page)

Jack found himself leaning over the armrest toward her. “What’s so fascinating?”

Her smile grew a little, as if by asking he had passed some test. She leaned closer until they were inches apart. Her eyes were green, he noticed. Somehow he’d just assumed they’d be brown.

“You signed up for the show,” she whispered, “so clearly you want to be here. But right now, you look like you’re hoping a hole would open up in the floor and swallow you. And I don’t think it’s just because you hate the music. You keep tossing glares at the pro—” Marcy caught herself. They weren’t supposed to mention the behind-the-scenes folks. Ever. “I just meant you look like you want to escape the whole
experience
. So which is it? Happy camper or inmate digging his way out with a spoon?”

Jack glanced at the cameraman hovering nearby to catch their intimate exchange. He could feel the segment producer’s gorgon stare on the back of his neck, but he didn’t turn to look at her. He took Marcy’s hand and smiled as he ran his thumb across the backs of her knuckles. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, willing himself to mean the words.

Marcy leaned closer. For a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him and he had to force himself not to flinch away, but she just pressed her cheek against his so her lips were directly next to his ear.

“Liar,” she whispered, too low for the mics to catch.

Jack felt a genuine smile curling his lips. He really liked Marcy. No games. No pretense. And she wouldn’t let him get away with a damn thing. Just like Lou.

Jack’s smile faded. Had Lou and the kids landed yet? If he called her now, would she answer? The symphony felt like it had been playing forever, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. They were probably still in the air. Or baggage claim. And then she would be driving. The traffic around O’Hare was a nightmare, even on a Sunday night. He shouldn’t distract her while she was driving, but could he afford to wait until she got home? His hand slipped into his pocket, stroking the links of the gold charm bracelet.

“You’re gone again,” Marcy said, watching him from a distance of inches. “Where’d you go just now?”

Jack sighed and gave up hiding it. He didn’t want to be here. “I need to talk to my kids. There’s something I forgot to say.”

Marcy’s head tipped to the side in that considering way again. “I don’t think that’s all of it. You look… guilty.”

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re too perceptive for your own good?”

“All the time. Does that mean I’m right?”

Jack glanced back toward the producer. She was frowning. Internally, he shrugged. What the hell. They could edit this part out. “It’s Lou. My friend who helps me take care of the kids. My best friend. I said something stupid to her this afternoon as they were leaving.”

“Ah. And now you can’t sit still until you’ve made it right. That’s actually a pretty admirable trait—that you realize when you’ve fu— ahem,
messed
up and want to make it right. I know a lot of guys who would stand by their guns even knowing they’re in the wrong.”

“I doubt they’d do that if they were quite this far in the wrong.”

“Really screwed the pooch, did ya?”

He winced. “You know, this isn’t making me feel better.”

She grinned, unrepentant. “It’s not supposed to. You want to beat yourself up until you can make amends. I’m just helping.”

“You’re all heart.”

A mischievous smile quirked the corners of her mouth. “That’s what they tell me.”

A little huff of indignation from his other side reminded them both that they weren’t alone—even if they didn’t count the camera crew that crowded the box. Jack wasn’t sure whether Missy was upset because they were talking during her transcendent musical experience or whether she was in a tiff because he was ignoring her to favor Marcy. At the moment, he didn’t particularly care. He just didn’t feel like playing the game.

Marcy jabbed him with her elbow. “Put your arm around her,” she whispered low. “She’ll eat it up.”

Jack looked at Marcy questioningly, but she was already turning back to the symphony, feigning sudden interest in the current concerto.
Strange girl.

He shifted in his chair, draping his arm along the back of Missy’s seat. Missy, who hadn’t budged from the tip of her chair all night, sighed happily and leaned back into the curve of his arm, proving she was definitely aware of her surroundings, no matter how entranced she seemed to be.

Jack slanted a look at Marcy out of the corner of his eye and caught her repressing a wicked little smile. For a moment, the I-shouldn’t-be-laughing-but-I-am expression reminded him sharply of Lou.

They were so much alike. Marcy even seemed to share Lou’s mild skepticism toward the entire
process
. He wondered if Marcy would be half as good a mom as Lou had been—before he’d essentially told her she had no right to have an opinion about his children.
Dumbass
.

As the orchestra finished a number and the audience surged to their feet in applause, Jack came slowly out of his chair to join the fanfare, wondering for the first time if the only reason he liked Marcy so much was because she reminded him so strongly of Lou.

When Lou’s plane landed at O’Hare, there was a message on her phone. She didn’t listen to it. She set the phone to silent and herded two cranky, sleepy kids through the maze-like airport toward baggage claim, trying to remember where she’d parked the Focus.

She didn’t check the phone again until she had the kids home, in their pajamas, brushing their teeth like zombies, already half asleep. When she flipped open the phone, it immediately lit up with four new messages.

Four.

All from Jack.

Lou held her breath. That was good, wasn’t it? He still wanted to talk. He wouldn’t call five times if he just wanted to tell her to get the hell out of his house and drop the kids at their grandparents’ on her way. Would he?

Lou herded Emma and TJ into their beds, the need to listen to her voicemail burning inside her. She would have broken the speed record for cover-tucking—forehead kiss, fast-forward through the lullaby, nightlight on, overhead light off—but just as she was pulling Emma’s door shut behind her, a soft voice piped up from the bed.

“Aunt Lou?”

Lou froze with her hand on the knob, her cell phone burning like a hot coal in her pocket. “Yes, baby?”

“I miss Daddy.”

Lou’s heart dropped. She’d been expecting this. Frankly, she was surprised Emma and TJ hadn’t felt their father’s absence sooner. Of course it would have to be now. When Lou was exhausted, frustrated, hurt and angry with Jack. When the last thing she wanted was to sing the long-distance praises of Emma’s daddy.

Lou pushed the door back open, ignoring the siren call of the cell phone in her pocket, and moved to perch on the edge of Emma’s bed. “He misses you too, sugar.” She brushed the baby-fine hair off Emma’s forehead. “There’s nowhere he’d rather be than with you.”

“Then how come he doesn’t come home?” Emma mumbled, burrowing down under the blankets until they covered everything from the nose down, Fluff Muffin peeking out beside her, pressed against her cheek. Heart-stopping blue eyes gazed out from her rounded baby face. Em had gotten Gillian’s dark hair, but the eyes were all Jack.

“He has to stay for the show, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking of you every minute.”

“Why does he have to do the show?”

Trust Emma to ask the simplest unanswerable questions. “He…” Words failed her.

What could she say? That Jack didn’t really
have
to do the show. Lou wasn’t even sure in her own mind about his motives anymore. If she had ever been. How could she explain it all to Emma? A reality TV show was never a
need
.

“Is it to get a new mommy?”

Her heart stuttered. Had Jack told Emma that? Lou couldn’t refute it. “Maybe. But not just any mommy will do for you guys, so he has to stay a while and make sure she’s the right one.” Uncertainty snaked through her thoughts. Was that the right thing to say? Dr. Spock didn’t exactly cover this part of parenting. Suddenly Lou wished for Jack, someone to talk to about the tricky parts, but his words from that afternoon haunted her.

Had he just lashed out? She didn’t want to hold a grudge about words spoken in anger, but what if he’d really meant it? Had she hallucinated all the team parenting over the last four years?

She’d had a lot of time to think on the plane ride home. Maybe too much. She was sure Jack hadn’t meant to hurt her with what he said in the screening room. His temper so rarely came out she sometimes forgot how he reacted when he felt cornered. And she hadn’t exactly been careful with her accusations.

Not that her words were any excuse for making her feel like an imposter in her own life. She was going to make him beg before she forgave him for that crack about her not having any say in the kids’ lives.

Provided he even wanted to beg. The show had some strange hold over him. Who knew what advice Miranda and the Suitorettes were feeding him?

“Aunt Lou? Can we call Daddy to say good night?”

Any other night Lou would have called Jack and had him sing an off-key lullaby to Emma, but tonight she didn’t know what kind of reception would meet her call. If they were going to have a fight, she wouldn’t let it be in front of Emma. So Lou made a stern face and tucked Emma in tighter. “Do we make phone calls after bedtime?”

“No,” Emma grumbled, the covers slipping down just enough to reveal a pout.

“Tell you what. We’ll call him as soon as you get home from school tomorrow. And the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come. Okay?”

Emma’s nod took her back under the covers, nearly to her eyebrows. Lou smoothed her curls one more time then shifted on the edge of the bed, getting ready to stand. A tentative whisper stopped her.

“Aunt Lou?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Don’t you want to be the mommy anymore?”

“Oh, baby.” Only Emma could shatter her heart so completely. “I will always love you and TJ. I will
always
want to be with you and look after you. I’m always going to be here for you, baby, no matter what. But… things are going to be different when Daddy gets home.”

Everything would be different. She could only hope that Jack wouldn’t be completely changed.

“Why different?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Lou sighed. “Sometimes different is wonderful. You don’t ever have to be afraid of change, okay, Em? Daddy and I are always gonna love you and be here for you.”
Just not together
.

The eerie ex-wife feeling was back again. All the heartache of a divorce with none of the visitation rights.

Lou bent and pressed a kiss to Emma’s forehead, breathing in the scent of Johnson’s No More Tears. “Get some sleep, Emma-belle. Tomorrow’s a school day.”

Having invoked the incontrovertible
school night
bedtime warning, Lou stood and slipped out of the room. She shut the bedroom door and rested her palm for a moment on the wood, closing her eyes.

She’d never expected this
process
to be easy, but it was turning out to be even harder than she’d imagined. A mine field with the kids.

And with Jack… the cell phone was an ominous weight in her pocket.

Her feet felt heavy as she dragged them down the stairs. She curled up on the living room couch, suddenly afraid to hear what Jack had said. Holding her phone in her cupped palms, she stared at it like it might come to life and bite her.

She had to listen to the messages eventually. But maybe not right this instant.

She wasn’t sure she was ready to know how he felt when she had no idea how she did. Was she still angry? Could she forgive him? Could she still trust him?

The message light on her phone blinked cheerfully. It had no idea how important those messages were. She felt like her whole life hung by a thread.

She had to know.

Lou pressed the button for her voicemail and closed her eyes.
Please, please, please
.

First came the message from the plane.
“Lou. It’s, uh, it’s me. Obviously. Look, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have... It was a shitty thing to say, okay? And I’m sorry. Call me back.”

The fear knotting her stomach eased. She’d been ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure he was apologizing, but that sliver of a chance that he wanted her out of his life had been enough to scare her senseless. Now she could breathe again.

The second message must have come in while they were getting their bags.
“Hey. The, uh, the flight status thing said you landed. So I thought I’d call. To apologize. In case my first message didn’t come through. I’m sorry. I’ll try back later.”

The next three were more of the same. In the fourth one he mentioned trying the house. She figured she’d have another apology on the home machine. In each message, Jack sounded more dejected. More lost. She’d just finished listening to the last one when her phone vibrated. She had a new text.

Lou hated text messages, especially the awful, abbreviated English people used to write them. She thought they were a lazy impersonal way to communicate. Jack had heard her complain about them a thousand times, but he was trying every possible way he had to get through to her. Lou’s heart felt tight in her chest. For once she didn’t hate getting a text.

She pressed the button to view it.

So sorry. I can’t stand fighting with you. Please take my call. -J

The cell phone rang in her hand.

She swallowed, inexplicably nervous, and hit the button to connect. “Hello?”

“God, Lou. I’m so sorry.”

Lou closed her eyes and sank deeper into the couch cushions. “It’s okay,” she said, ignoring the fact that she’d told herself she would make him beg. She just wanted to ease that panicked edge she heard in his voice. He was still her Jack. The show hadn’t completely stolen him. Yet. “I’m sorry too.”

“No. I was the jerk. Don’t apologize.”

“Jack,” she said, trying to make his name the usual laughing scold. It didn’t come out quite right, but he reacted as if it had.