A Reunion And A Ring (Proposals & Promises Book 1) (13 page)

Flushing a little, Tess shook her head. “That’s hardly true. Scott is a brilliant man. He just needs a little organizational assistance.”

She hurried away a few moments later to handle whatever crisis had occurred at ten o’clock on a Saturday night.

“How much later are you expected to stay at this thing?” Gavin asked Jenny.

Looking toward the gregarious Stevie again, Jenny made an on-the-spot decision. “I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

At least she didn’t live far, so the drive wouldn’t take long. And she could have her little talk with him in the privacy of her apartment.

Stevie made no argument when they took their departure of her. In fact, she looked just a bit too pleased that Gavin had offered to drive Jenny home.

Jenny was definitely going to have to talk to Stevie tomorrow. She knew her friend wasn’t Thad’s biggest fan, but surely she wasn’t trying to deliberately sabotage the relationship by throwing Gavin in Jenny’s path. Why on earth would she think an ex-boyfriend from a spectacularly failed relationship would be a better match?

She and Gavin made their way through the crowded bar area near the exit door, then stepped out into the darkened parking lot. They could still hear the muted strains of Eleven Twenty-Five playing behind them. In front of them a steady stream of traffic traversed the road that ran past the restaurant, parallel to the river. Pebbles on asphalt crunched beneath their feet as they walked to Gavin’s truck. He didn’t speak, and she could think of absolutely nothing to say, either.

He opened the door for her, then held out a hand to give her a boost into the tall cab. She settled into the seat, arranged her dress around her legs and fastened her seat belt. Gavin climbed behind the wheel, slanted a smile at her that made her nerves flutter again, then started the engine. Country music blasted from the speakers before he quickly turned it off. Fortunately, it had been a new song and not one that carried any old baggage with it.

She gave him the name of her apartment complex and he nodded to indicate that he was familiar with it. He didn’t seem to be interested in conversing as he drove, so she settled back into the taut silence and mentally rehearsed a breezy, casual speech about how nice it had been to see him again, how she was glad they’d had a chance to put the hard feelings behind them, how she would always remember him fondly even as she went on with the hard-won life she’d been leading before they’d reconnected.

“You’ll turn right at the next light,” she said, mostly to ease the mounting tension.

“I know.” His tone wasn’t curt exactly, but there was an edge to it that made her aware she wasn’t the only one dealing with discomfort during this drive. She thought wistfully of how effortlessly he’d teased with Stevie and how comfortable he’d seemed with Tess, but there was entirely too much history between her and Gavin to allow them that easy interaction.

With a couple of cars stopped ahead of him, he braked for the red light, his fingers drumming restlessly on the steering wheel. She found herself mesmerized by the movement. The light must have changed and he eased forward. Because she was studying his strong hands instead of looking out the windshield, she didn’t see what happened next, but Gavin suddenly braked and pulled into the parking lot of the gas station on the corner. The station was closed for the night, but one other car was parked in the lot. She noticed someone standing outside the other vehicle—a woman, she thought, but it was hard to tell in the shadows under the yellow security lights.

She frowned toward Gavin. “Is something wrong?”

“Sit tight. I’ll be right back,” he promised, and slipped quickly out of the truck.

She watched as he approached the other car, his hands out in a nonthreatening position at his sides. Squinting, she saw that the woman was bent over, one hand on the top of her car and the other hand on her stomach. Either she was quite overweight, or...

Or pregnant, she realized suddenly. Despite Gavin’s instructions, she reached for her door handle and jumped out of the truck to see if there was anything she could do to help.

The woman was probably close to her own age, though it was hard to tell in the pale lighting. She leaned heavily against her car, crying, gagging and moaning while Gavin talked soothingly to her. To make things worse, Jenny could hear wails from the backseat of the car, at least two separate little voices. “What’s going on?”

Gavin had the woman by the elbows now, supporting her as he summed up succinctly, “She was stopped at the light ahead of us and had some sudden sharp pains and felt dizzy. She was able to pull in here and stop the car but now she’s in severe pain and nauseated. I told her I’m an off-duty cop and I’ll get her help. I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

He’d done all that in the brief minutes it had taken her to even see that someone was in trouble, Jenny realized. Still speaking in the same calming tone, he supported the woman while she was sick again beside the car, and he was apparently unfazed by the unpleasant situation.

Another shriek came from the car.

“My babies,” the woman gasped, taking a staggering step that way.

“My friend is going to check on the kids right after she grabs a blanket from behind the seat of my truck,” Gavin assured her with a glance at Jenny. “I need you to lie down until the ambulance gets here. Your kids are safe for now. They’re just frightened and upset.”

Jenny whirled toward the truck, located a plaid stadium blanket folded neatly behind the seat where Gavin had said it would be and whipped it out onto a relatively clean patch of pavement. She’d spotted a first-aid kit, too, but couldn’t imagine anything they’d need from that at the moment. Gavin was certainly prepared for anything, it seemed.

She helped him carefully lower the crying woman onto the blanket and then she opened the back driver’s side door of the woman’s car. Two children were strapped into car seats, the older a boy of maybe four, the younger no more than eighteen months, if that. Both were fighting their restraints and howling for their mother. It was late, and she was sure they were sleepy and scared. The baby—a girl—was closest to her, so she fumbled with the straps and buckles to take her out of the seat and cradle her soothingly as she hurried around to the other side of the car to comfort the little boy. The baby clung to her so tightly Jenny could hardly breathe. She patted the little back as she opened the second door to look in at the boy.

“It’s okay,” she assured him over the lessening wails of the baby in her arms. “My friend is a policeman and he’s helping your mommy. What’s your name?”

“M-Marcus,” he snuffled. “Can I get out?”

She wasn’t at all sure she could safely control two children in a parking lot this close to a street that, while mostly deserted at the moment, was often quite busy. The few cars that passed were driving too fast, and none bothered to stop to offer assistance. Unlike Gavin, most people didn’t instinctively leap to help strangers on the side of the road this late at night.

“Why don’t you stay in your seat just a little longer?” she suggested, bouncing the clinging baby, whose cries were down to a whimper now. “We’ll get you out just as soon as we can.”

The boy burst into shrieks of protest. “I want out. I want my mommy!”

The baby began to cry again, not as loud as before, but still sounding pitiful. She probably needed a diaper change, a bed and a familiar face, not necessarily in that order, and Jenny was helpless to comfort either of the unhappy siblings. Considering their mother was still crying loudly nearby, Jenny was close to bursting into tears of sympathy herself.

The sound of a rapidly approaching siren was the most beautiful music she had ever heard. Moments later, the ambulance was parked nearby and medics bustled around the woman in distress. Gavin appeared at the car door, giving Jenny an encouraging nod as he reached into the car to unbuckle the howling little boy much more easily than Jenny had freed the baby.

“Hey, buddy, I’m Gavin,” he said, lifting the boy easily into his arms. “You see those guys there? They’re medics and they are taking good care of your mom, okay? She’s going to be fine.”

Being out of the car seat was already having a positive effect on the boy’s mood. He swiped at his wet, runny-nosed face with one hand as he studied Gavin’s face somberly. “My name’s Marcus, not Buddy. You’re a p’liceman?”

“Yes, I am.” Tugging a handkerchief from his pocket, Gavin dealt with snot and tears with an efficiency that reminded Jenny that he had two young nephews.

“I got a badge,” Marcus informed him. “It’s at home. It’s a sheriff badge. Like Woody’s.”

“Yeah? That’s cool, Sheriff Marcus.”

The boy gave a watery giggle and rested his head trustingly on Gavin’s shoulder, sucking a finger and looking toward the activity by the ambulance. Alternately rocking and bouncing the baby, who’d quieted again and was starting to doze against her shoulder, Jenny looked at the strong, steady man and the frightened little boy and felt her heart turn a hard somersault. The sensation felt a lot like panic. Delayed reaction to the tense situation—or was it something else that was suddenly making her hands tremble against the little body she held?

Finally the mother was on her way to the nearest hospital, the children were handed off to anxious relatives who’d been called to the scene and Gavin’s blanket was returned to him, dirty and somewhat worse for wear. He stuffed it into his toolbox to deal with later and helped Jenny into the cab again. He sighed as he started the engine, and she could tell he was tired. It had been more than half an hour since he’d jumped out of the truck.

“Just another day in the life of a police officer, even when off duty?” she asked wryly.

He gave a weary chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.”

“How on earth did you realize what was going on? Before I could even see that someone was in trouble, you were already out there dealing with the situation.”

Driving onto the street toward her apartment, he shrugged. “I saw her car swerving a little when she was driving ahead of us. I thought she might be a drunk driver, and I was keeping an eye out in case I needed to call it in. Then she pulled over and climbed out of her car and started puking, and I could see she was pregnant. Thought she might need some help.”

She shook her head slowly in amazement. “You were so calm. I was a nervous wreck until the ambulance arrived. I thought you might have to deliver a baby right there in that parking lot.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time for that, either,” he said with a quick grin in her direction. “But I didn’t think it was that. Mike—one of the EMTs—said he thinks it’s a stomach virus.”

“I saw you talking with him. Another friend?”

“I’ve met him a time or two. He’s a friend of Rob’s.”

It suddenly occurred to her what he’d just said. “You’ve really delivered a baby?”

“Just once. Back when we had that ice storm five years ago, a woman gave birth on the side of I-30 when her panicky husband hit a slick patch and got stuck in the median. I happened to be close by, so I jumped out to help. The husband and I delivered the baby, though he wasn’t a whole lot of help, to be honest. They named the kid after me—well, the middle name, anyway.”

“They named him Gavin?”

He laughed shortly. “They named
her
Alexandria Gavin Smallwood. They send me photos on her birthday every year. She’s starting kindergarten this fall.”

She smiled in delight. “That’s a very sweet story.”

He grunted, typically uncomfortable with her description, then turned into the drive of her apartment complex. She gave him the entry code to the gate, and her amusement faded as he keyed it in. “I doubt that all your stories about your work have such happy endings.”

“No,” he said, his tone grim now. “Not all of them. But I like to think everything I do in the course of my job serves the community in some way.”

“I know,” she almost whispered. “That was always what mattered to you most about becoming an officer. You wanted to uphold the law and serve the community. Hands-on, you said, not from the comfort of an office or a courtroom.”

If it surprised him that she remembered his rationalization word for word, he didn’t comment, merely nodded again as he parked in the space she indicated. “I still feel that way.”

Without yet reaching for her door handle, she stared at the stairs directly in front of them that led up to her apartment. “Avery said you left the force for a while.”

“That’s sort of a long story,” he said after a moment. “Do you want to hear it here in the truck or are you going to invite me in?”

Now she was rethinking her earlier decision. She should probably tell him what she needed to say and politely send him on his way now. When or why he’d left the force and returned was really none of her business, especially since she might never see him again, barring another surprise meeting. Inviting him up to her place, even just to talk, was certainly not the wisest course of action, considering. Some people just had that...that thing.
Chemistry
, she thought, remembering Stevie’s word from earlier. It didn’t mean they were meant to be together long-term, though. The same was true in reverse. Just because a connection was somewhat more serene, more understated, more cerebral, perhaps—take herself and Thad, for example—that didn’t mean a couple couldn’t have a long and quietly contented union. Right?

“Why don’t you come in?” she said with a sigh, despite her trepidation. “We do need to talk.”

Chapter Eight

M
inutes later, Gavin stood inside her living room, looking around curiously. She studied her home for a moment as though through his eyes. The entire two-bedroom apartment was done in shades of cream with a select few deep-orange accents because she couldn’t resist adding touches of her favorite color. Everything was arranged just so, nothing out of place, not a speck of dust on anything. Her draperies framed a beautiful view of the Little Rock skyline at night. Stevie had helped her decorate, so everything looked classic, coordinated, tasteful and more expensive than it actually was. Exactly the tone she’d wanted to convey. Because she knew Gavin so well—or had at one time—she suspected it looked a little too calculated for his taste.

Her grandmother loved the place. She’d brought several friends over to see it, just to preen a bit about her granddaughter’s success. Thad approved, too, telling her she had excellent taste. He said he wanted to build a big home, and he wanted her to help him design it, decorate it, fill it with elegant dinner parties and intimate gatherings of vibrant conversationalists. Perhaps a couple of kids, maybe even a dog. As long as it wasn’t the slobbery, shedding sort of dog, he’d added ruefully. He just wasn’t the big, slobbery dog kind of guy.

Gavin loved big, slobbery dogs. His family had always had one or two when she’d known them.

“Nice place,” Gavin said, the compliment obviously no more than a social formality.

“Thanks.”

“I like the painting.”

It hung over the fireplace, an explosion of orange from peach to near-red, a depiction of a sunset over a tropical beach. The colors refracted in the gathering clouds, bled into the waves, stained the sand, spilled over a single shell lying in the foreground. It was the only item in the harmonized decor Thad didn’t care for. He thought the artist, a student Jenny had met at a local university gallery showing, had been too heavy-handed with the color. Jenny didn’t agree. She’d visited Hawaii once for a conference about six years ago, and she’d seen a sunset exactly like this, so bold and bright and fiery that it had completely engulfed her, had taken her breath away. In that moment, she had been purely, deeply happy in a way she hadn’t been since she and Gavin had...

She bit her lip, cutting off the thought.

Gavin turned away from the painting. “You asked why I quit the force for a while.”

Despite all her internal lectures, she still found herself asking him to sit down, and she knew it was because she wanted to hear this. When it came to Gavin, she really was pathetic.

He looked so out of place on her delicate cream brocade wing-backed chair. Too big, too masculine, too colorful somehow for the neutral room. His words made that contrast even more jarring. “About four years ago, I got in the middle of a knife fight when I responded to a 2:00 a.m. disturbance at a sleazy club we’re called to at least once most nights. One guy, young, barely out of his teens, had been stabbed in the chest and I knew from looking at him he wasn’t going to make it. Others were bleeding. Someone pulled a gun and the shooting started just as we got there. I watched another kid go down. Saw one of my friends in uniform wounded so badly he spent two weeks in ICU. I watched the hysterical girlfriend of one of the punks pick up a knife and run at my friend who was down. I had to fire my weapon to stop her from shoving the knife into him.”

He’d given the details in a flat, emotionless monotone that sounded memorized, as if he’d told the tale many times before. Only his eyes told the real story, and that one twisted her heart. “Did you...did you kill her?”

“No. But I was prepared to in order to save Bob’s life.”

Enormous relief flooded through her, strictly for Gavin’s sake. She was glad he hadn’t had to live with that. She swallowed hard. “Were you injured?”

“Nothing serious.”

“It sounds like a chaotic scene, to say the least.”

Still in that oddly detached tone, he agreed. “It was. Not the first I’d dealt with. Hasn’t been the last.”

“So what was different about that one?” she asked perceptively.

He spread his hands, his face bleak now. “I saw the eyes of the kid who’d been stabbed before we got there. He was so young. Scared, but resigned. As if that was exactly the way he’d expected to end up. And I found myself asking what was the damned point of it all? Sometimes it feels like we do the same thing every night and then come back and do it all again the next. We arrest the same people over and over, then watch them get out and go right back to what they were doing before. I started having nightmares about being unable to stop the girl from slashing Bob while he was lying there hurt and unable to defend himself. Mom was nagging me to find a safer job, Dad was sick, the father of the woman I was dating kept offering me more and more money to work for him handling security for his company in Hot Springs. So, I gave it a shot.”

It didn’t escape her that he’d let himself be influenced to quit by another woman, though he’d refused with her. Had it been because he’d been ready to try something different for himself that time? She pushed that question away, as it shouldn’t matter to her at this point. Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “The woman who shops at my store?”

He grimaced. “No, someone else.”

So there had been several women after her. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Though she didn’t think of him as a player, Gavin Locke was never going to be a monk.

“You didn’t like security work?” she asked to distract herself.

“Hated it. Especially after Molly and I broke up and it got too awkward to work for her dad. So I left that job and took one selling construction equipment for my uncle. When that didn’t work out, I tried my hand at driving a delivery truck. Bored out of my mind. I thought about going back to school, maybe training to be an EMT, maybe some sort of medical technician. But when it came time to make a decision, I knew what the answer had to be. I’m a cop. I’m pretty sure I was born a cop. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, all I know how to be. It’s not always a nice job—it can be ugly and traumatic and sometimes even boring. It gets too little respect and damned little gratitude most of the time. But sometimes, someone names their kid after you. So, I told everyone who wanted me to do something else that I was sorry if it disappointed them, but this is what I had to do. And I’m never again going to try to change who I am just to keep someone else happy.”

Gavin knew who he was. What he wanted. Where he belonged. As much as it pained her to admit it, she both admired and rather envied his certainty.

If she’d had even the most tentative thought that perhaps he’d be ready now to move on to something less hazardous, that his latest on-the-job injury would discourage him from staying on the force, she surrendered it then. Studying him through her lashes, she realized he might as well be wearing a uniform rather than his polo shirt and khakis. Even off-duty, he was all cop. And anyone who loved him would have to be willing to love that part of him, as well.

“So, anyway, there’s my story for the past ten years,” he said, spreading his hands. “You asked, and I’ve answered. I trained for my career, got a degree, had a few relationships that didn’t work out, tried a couple other jobs I didn’t care for and made a lot of good friends. All in all, I’m content with my life. I’m looking forward to being on the job again soon. When I take time off, I want it to be for vacation, not sick leave.”

“So this latest, um, incident didn’t shake your confidence.” Making it a statement rather than a question, she nodded toward his shoulder.

“No. Maybe a few bad dreams the first night or two, but no more than to be expected, and I was prepared for it. I can handle my work and everything that comes with it. Just had to make sure before that I’d made the right choice.”

As candid as he was being with her, Gavin wouldn’t like being seen as vulnerable. Nor did she think of him in that way.

“It sounds like a good life,” she said quietly, trying to smile. “Exactly what you always wanted.”

“Maybe not exactly,” he said, his eyes locked with hers. “But close.”

She didn’t know how to respond, other than, “I’m glad you’re happy.”

“And you? Are you happy, Jen?”

Shifting her weight on the sofa where she’d perched, she twisted the ring on her right hand, a nice costume piece from her shop. “I told you about my career when we were at the cabin. I love owning my own store, and I’m excited about the second store I’ll be opening in Jonesboro. The work keeps me insanely busy, but I’ve enjoyed almost every minute of it.”

“It was what
you
always wanted to do. Be a successful business owner, I mean.”

“Yes, and I’ve accomplished that.”

His eyebrows rose, and she wondered what he’d heard in her voice. “Why did that sound like past tense?”

She felt a muscle twitch in her jaw, a quickly suppressed grimace. “Not past tense,” she assured him. “I’m just keeping my options open. I mean, I want to stay busy and productive and useful, whatever direction I take next. Even if I’m not personally overseeing the boutiques on a daily basis, I could start a charitable foundation or get involved in a political cause. Something important that would let me utilize my talents and training.”

He eyed her with a hint of skepticism. “Since when do you care about politics?”

“I’ve always been involved in community activities,” she reminded him a little too heatedly. “Even in college, I was a member and officer of several civic organizations.”

“True. But mostly because you were already starting to make future business connections,” he murmured, and she couldn’t argue with him because he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I’ve matured,” she said instead, both her tone and her posture a little stiff. “We all do eventually. It’s important to me to try to make a positive difference, just as you do in your daily work.”

“Are you thinking about selling your shops after you open the one in Jonesboro?” he asked bluntly.

Even hearing the possibility put into words made her throat tighten, but she answered candidly. “Maybe.”

“Why? The boyfriend doesn’t like sharing you with your work?”

And here was finally the subject they’d been avoiding, and yet was the primary reason they’d needed to talk. Gavin’s tone was cutting enough to make her chin rise defensively.

“Thad would never tell me what to do with my career. But if I accept his proposal, I’d be traveling with him quite a bit and busy with a lot of things outside my boutique business. I’m not sure I’d have time to do justice to both endeavors, and you know how I feel about doing anything halfway.”

“Thad Simonson, right? One of
those
Simonsons. Of Simonson, McKenzie and Ogilvie.”

She nodded to confirm the long-established law firm that had jump-started so many political careers, from local offices to Washington, DC. The Simonson name was on a few buildings in the area, including a law school library, so it was no surprise Gavin was familiar with the family, though she didn’t think she’d mentioned Thad’s last name to him yet. She didn’t ask how he knew. She and Thad had appeared together at several prominent local events during the past few months, so maybe a mutual acquaintance had mentioned to him that she’d been seeing Thad Simonson.

“Congratulations, Jen.” His voice was indifferent now, deceptively so, judging by the way his eyes had darkened to a glittering navy. “You snagged yourself a lawyer, after all.”

She swallowed a gasp that would have only rewarded his deliberate dig. When she was certain her voice would be steady, she said icily, “That doesn’t deserve a response.”

His nod might have been meant as an apology, but didn’t come across as very penitent. “When’s the wedding?”

Still stinging from his barbed comment, she glared at him. “There’s no date yet. As I said, I’m taking my time to make certain of my answer.”

“How long have you been seeing him?”

“About seven months.”

After a moment, he asked brusquely, “Are you in love with him?”

She moistened her lips. “Thad is a great guy. He and I have a lot in common, and we enjoy each other’s company. I wouldn’t even consider marrying him if I didn’t have feelings for him.”

It was a pathetically lame response and she was all too aware of it. Gavin’s expression made it clear that he thought so, too. “That’s not what I asked you.”

Her chest tightened. Rather than continuing that line of questioning, she shut it down. “You wanted to know what was going on in my life. Now I’ve told you. I’m in a relationship with Thad. I don’t think you need all the details.”

“So were you thinking of him when we kissed at the cabin? Or when we danced tonight?”

The wave of sensations those reminders invoked stole the breath from her lungs and made her fingers clench despite her efforts. She cleared her throat before saying tightly, “For old times’ sake, you said. That’s all it was.”

With a shrug, he pushed himself off the chair. “Yeah. Okay. Fine. That’s all it was.”

She stood, too, relieved that her shaky knees supported her. She didn’t know why this conversation was quite so upsetting. It wasn’t as if anything had really changed in her life because she’d run into Gavin a couple of times.

He moved toward the door, his steps long, purposeful. She hurried after him, though she wasn’t certain what she wanted to say. “Gavin...”

Pausing at the unopened door, he turned to look down at her. “Goodbye, Jenny. I hope you have the life you and your grandmother have always wanted for you. That’s exactly what you deserve.”

She could tell he didn’t mean the words as a compliment. She was sorry they were parting again with bitterness, but maybe that was just the way it was supposed to be between them. “Stay safe, Gavin,” she whispered, reaching for the door to let him out.

He’d reached out at the same time. Their hands fell on the knob together, his atop hers. His warmth engulfed her. Both of them went very still. She wasn’t sure which of them recovered first, but they both let go at once. Her hand tingled as if she’d just touched a live current. Did his?

“I’ll get it,” Gavin said, and opened the door for himself. “Bye, Jen.”