All or Nothing (18 page)

“There's no such thing as too much information in my mother's world,” Jen said, her words breathless.

Zach couldn't resist. He bent and kissed her. Just a gentle kiss, but it was one that made his pulse go crazy all the same.

Jen froze for a moment, her lips firm beneath his. Then she relaxed, letting him ease into a primo kiss. Zach was ready to slide his arms around her waist and pull her closer, when she abruptly ducked away.

“What would Roxanne think of that?” she demanded and headed back into the dining room without waiting for an answer.

Zach was mystified as to why his dog's opinion would matter.

But then, Jen was a thousand mysteries rolled into one. And he was feeling very inclined to solve more than a few of them. She traveled. She defied expectation.

She'd smiled for him.

She'd laughed at his joke.

There was a bounce in her step.

He was winning, and that was enough to send him back into the fray.

J
en was sizzling. She'd been out of the dating game too long, that was for sure, if one quick kiss that wasn't supposed to mean anything left her as hot and bothered as this. She knew she was blushing, knew her family were taking far too much notice of her response, and wished that this day would end immediately.

If not sooner.

Zach sauntered back into the room, the image of masculine confidence. Jen had the urge to chuck the gravy boat at him.

That only got worse when he smiled at her.

He smiled the way a wolf might smile at the chicken that it meant to eat for lunch. She licked her lips—big mistake—and tasted him. He watched her, his eyes bright and his expression knowing, and Jen knew she that her cheeks were scarlet.

So much for keeping her cool.

Roxanne
, she reminded herself.

Natalie swatted Zach on the arm when he sat down. “No fair ducking into the kitchen to neck, especially when your story is just getting good,” she chided.

Zach looked startled by this accusation.

“We
weren't
necking,” Jen argued but no one was persuaded.

“Right,” Pluto said.

“I don't much care what you were doing.” Natalie winked at Zach, who seemed surprised to be suddenly finding favor with Jen's mother. “All that's important to me is that you were doing something that made my daughter laugh for the first time in years. You keep doing that, whatever it is, but finish your story before you do it again. Why were you in jail in New Orleans?”

Zach tried not to fidget, even as all eyes turned upon him. “Oh, we don't need to talk about that today,” he said, glancing in Jen's direction. She ignored him. He used an evasive device that she was coming to realize was his usual one. “Hey, you probably don't know that I collect lawyer jokes. Here's one: why don't sharks ever attack lawyers?”

“Professional courtesy,” M.B. said dismissively. “Tell us about jail in New Orleans.”

“Why don't hyenas eat lawyers?” Zach said, looking a little bit less confident of his jokes' reception. Jen decided to let him deal with whatever her family dished out all by himself.

Even though she felt a teeny bit badly for him. After all, his kissing her and getting her all zingy hadn't been part of the plan.

“Even hyenas have their dignity,” Gerry said. “You need newer jokes.”

“A doctor told a patient that she had six months to live,” Zach began, apparently not noticing the deadly calm that settled around the table. “'Isn't there anything I can do?' the patient asked. ‘Marry a lawyer,' the doctor said. ‘It'll be the longest six months of your life.'” Zach looked around, clearly expecting a chuckle, and found everyone serious. He glanced to Jen in confusion and she shook her head minutely, unable to stop herself.

He didn't seem to know what to do.

“I don't care about lawyer jokes,” Gran said. “If you have a criminal past, I demand to know about it.”

There was silence in the dining room. Zach was clearly considering about the best way to proceed. Jen reminded herself that in her scheme of things—in Cin's scheme of things—there really weren't any right answers.

Her family was supposed to hate him. That was the point.

Zach looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. “Well, uh, it was a possession charge.”

“Possession of what?” Gran demanded, jabbing her fingertip into the table to make her point. “Because it's the right of every citizen to bear arms and don't let them tell you any different...”

Jen almost groaned at the introduction of a familiar theme—and an equally familiar argument.

“Do not tell us that you're a member of the N.R.A....” Natalie began with outrage, mother and daughter squaring off as they had so many times before. M.B. raised his hands to referee, but against all expectations, there was one right answer and Zach found it.

“Actually, it was possession of marijuana,” he admitted.

“Mary Jane!” Natalie and Gerry cried jubilantly together.

Jen groaned and rolled her eyes, simultaneous to her sister.

* * *

Zach felt the tide turn in his favor, but he couldn't explain it. His own family, after all, had been livid with him since that incident—and Jen's family took it as evidence that he was okay? He looked around the table, skeptical of his read of the situation.

“Marijuana is the most underrated palliative care herb known to mankind,” Natalie said, her manner triumphant. “You were fighting the good fight, fighting for legalization of a substance that has been demonized by the government...”

“Wait a minute,” Zach said, incredulous. “You're happy that I was busted for possession of pot?”

Natalie nodded. Gerry leaned an elbow upon the table and began to expound. “It's outrageous that the government had legalized both alcohol and tobacco, yet continues to enforce punitive fines for the much less hazardous substance known as marijuana. This is, of course, a result of the ridiculous profits they make on sin taxes...”

Zach blinked but they didn't stop. He'd been raised with a diametrically opposed philosophy, one that accounted marijuana to be the root of all evil in civilization. He looked around the room again, hoping to find some clue that the universe hadn't changed that much.

He found it in the censure in Jen's grandmother's expression. That was familiar. That was what he got at home.

“I hope you've left that nonsense behind you,” she said, adjusting the master butter spreader on the butter dish for emphasis.

“Yes, Mrs. Sommerset, I have,” Zach said, and it was true. “Since New Orleans, I've had nothing to do with it.”

She glared at him. “And when was that?”

“A year ago.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Jen's grandmother studied him for a moment. Zach knew she wouldn't find any evidence he was lying because he wasn't. He let her look until she settled back, satisfied. “Well, I suppose one must give people the chance to reform themselves. And there's no one more likely to keep you on the straight and narrow path than my Jen.”

Zach inclined his head in agreement, noting how Jen evaded his glance.

“But we need to rise up and challenge the status quo,” Gerry said. “It's people like you who fight the good fight by challenging the government, putting themselves at risk to ensure access for all to this wonderful helpmate of a plant. You have to head back into the battle...”

Zach had to interrupt him. “Actually, there was nothing heroic about it. I had some stash. I was going to sell it and make a profit. People were buying and I planned to make some money. It was capitalism, plain and simple.”

“You're so modest!” Gerry said. As Gerry settled in to what was clearly a familiar rant, Zach watched Jen and Cin exchange a glance. The two sisters left the table, abandoning Zach to the battle lines being drawn between the tofu and the giblet gravy.

Pluto gave Zach a thumbs-up. “You are so in,” he murmured, only loud enough for Zach to hear. “Good on you, man.”

But the look on Jen's face when she glanced back from the threshold of the kitchen told Zach that being in with her mother had come at the expense of being out with Jen.

* * *

This was the worst possible scenario, Jen was sure of it.

“It had to be pot, didn't it?” Cin demanded. She paced the kitchen, ranting. “You had to find the one upper crust guy in Greater Boston who's a convicted pot head.”

“There's probably more than one,” Jen felt obliged to note.

“The one who admits it, then! The one who brings it up in casual conversation.” Cin flung out a hand. “I don't want to go back in there. I don't want to see the love fest while it goes down. You're going to have to peel them off him to leave this place, you know, and it's not going to be pretty. Even Gran is ready to forgive him. And that's not the end of it. It's going to be
‘When's Zach coming over?'
all the time. He's going to be moving into the spare room before you know it and there won't be a thing you can do to stop it. Shit, you
will
be getting married in the spring, although I suppose that will save you from dating the guy with the soul patch.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“It's the truth. Mom loves him. And it's all your own fault.”

The only thing Jen knew for sure was that she should never have agreed to Cin's plan. Jen was a jumble of conflicting emotions, just as she'd been from the beginning, but they kept getting stronger. She could taste Zach's kiss still—and knew she'd liked it too much.

She was too lonely, that was it.

That made perfect sense except that his desperate look, the one he got when his considerable charm wasn't working, made her want to help him out. It would be like throwing a line to a drowning man...

But she wasn't supposed to like him. At all.

She was supposed to be glad to let him drown.

She wasn't supposed to be wondering what kind of photographs he took.

“Wait a minute! This isn't all my fault,” she argued. “It was your idea. You got me into this...”

“No. No.” Cin—characteristically—waved off her responsibility. “My idea was that you would find an outwardly charming but completely uptight rich guy for a fake date. Key to this strategy was that he would be like Steve, meaning that Mom would hate his guts. You didn't follow my plan. You made up some variation, and having strayed from the brilliance of the original scheme, you've created your own mess.” Cin held up her hands. “Not my problem anymore.” She pivoted, then paused to glance back. “But hey, if it doesn't work out, give him my number. I still think he's cute.”

She shoved open the door to the dining room while Jen tapped her fingers on the counter. What a mess. What was she going to do? Moving to Zimbabwe sounded like a good choice. Even walking to Chile had its appeal. Jen heard a little squeak as Cin was surprised, then froze as she guessed what had surprised her sister.

“Thanks, but I don't need your number,” Zach said smoothly. “I might be a crazy optimist, but I think things are going to work out just fine.”

Jen heard her heart hit the basement floor far, far below her. Then she wondered just how much he'd overheard.

She looked and was afraid.

Zach was cocky. He braced a hand in the door frame and watched her, his stance confident, his smile brilliant. He was doing that radiant sunbeam thing again.

This was not going to be pretty.

He winked at Cin. “Even if Jen has strayed from the brilliance of the original scheme.” Then he grinned, a smile that had trouble written all over it. “Or maybe because of it.”

Oh no.

He strolled into the kitchen, letting the door swing closed behind him and came to stand beside her at the sink. Cin, predictably, abandoned Jen.

Jen was left alone with Zach and devoid of good answers.

The guy had been to jail and hadn't told her. He had been charged with possession of marijuana and hadn't told her. He had to hurry back to Roxanne all the damn time, which meant he was seeing more than one woman at once. Yet she felt guilty for using him, even though she'd done a crummy job of it.

She was some kind of wimp.

Jen couldn't even look at him. She was too busy praying that he hadn't heard everything.

“I only have one question,” Zach said as he leaned against the counter beside her. “Who's Steve?”

Oh no.

* * *

Zach was ecstatic.

Where confusion had reigned, now everything made sense. He'd heard enough of the sisters' conversation to recognize a nefarious scheme, one he'd have been proud to have devised himself. Jen was embarrassed, as befit someone caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Zach had always been one for following his instincts and it was now obvious to him why he'd been so attracted to Jen in the first place. They were two of a kind. Or at least they understood each other.

And that was a very good thing.

“I don't want to talk about Steve,” she said, looking as uncomfortable as he'd ever seen her.

That was saying something.

“Okay, so let's talk about the Plan,” he suggested. He wanted only to be encouraging, but Jen gave him a suspicious look. “What was the goal here, beyond having a date for turkey day?”

Her lips set. “It was Cin's idea.”

“I picked that up already.”

She watched him for a minute. “Aren't you insulted? Or hurt?”

Zach pretended to consider this, then shook his head. “No. We haven't known each other nearly long enough for me to be emotionally devastated by your decision to use me. That's why I was a perfect choice.” He nodded approval. “Brilliant on your part to use a stranger.”

“I wasn't using you, not exactly...”