Authors: Fern Michaels

Finders Keepers (27 page)

BOOK: Finders Keepers

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Relax. How could she relax after that horrible nightmare and being so close to this handsome man? She was strung tighter than banjo wire, and they both knew it.

Snuggling beneath the covers, Jessie found herself being pulled closer to Tanner. She didn't object. His nearness left her feeling breathless.

“You smell good,” Tanner murmured against her hair. “Are you calming down?”

“No. How can I be calm when I'm lying next to you in my bed?”

“I'm calm.”

“Men are always calm. Women are jittery about things like this. You are wearing my clothes you know.”

“I can take them off if it bothers you.”

“That isn't necessary.”

“You must be pretty warm with all the stuff you're wearing and all these quilts.”

“Actually, I feel . . . just fine.”

“Liar. I can see the perspiration on your forehead.”

“It's these quilts and the spread. We could take some of them off.”

“Done!” Tanner chortled as he kicked the spread and two of the quilts to the bottom of the bed. “Howzat?”

“Ah, better. Yes, a lot better. I hear the heat rattling in the pipes. This apartment gets really warm during the day. Really warm. The truth is it gets hot. Sometimes I have to open the windows. Even in the winter. The bathroom gets like an oven. The kitchen is worse.” She was babbling but couldn't seem to help herself

“You talk too much.”

“That's because I'm nervous.”

“Because of what we might do or what we might think about doing?”

“Both.”

“Sex is what two people do when they're together in bed. Out of bed, too. In cars. On the grass, sometimes in kitchens. The shower is good. Chaise lounges are great. See, you have me babbling, too. Do you want to get to it, or are we going to talk it to death?”

Worms of fear crawled around inside Jessie's stomach. Was she ready for this? In her eyes sex was a commitment. “Why don't I make us some breakfast. I could cook you some oatmeal. It won't bother your throat. Breakfast is a good way to start the day. See, it's getting light out. That means it's a new day.”

“I don't want any breakfast, and I don't think you do either. I want you. Period. Maybe it's this getup I'm wearing that's putting you off. Well, we can remedy that right now.”

Jessie blinked when she saw her robe and flannel nightgown sail across the room. She could feel the heat from his leg when it brushed against hers. She tried to shake down her pant leg to no avail.

“Your turn,” Tanner grinned.

Jessie peeled off her thick socks.

“I was thinking more along the lines of your sweater.” His bare toes grappled with her bare toes. Jessie wondered if toenails could burn. Hers felt like they were on fire.

“Need some help?”

“No! I can do it myself.”

“Are you always this . . . shy with guys.”

Guys. He thought she was experienced, and it was her own fault for letting him think that. Damn. “This might be a good time to tell you I . . . what I mean is . . .”

“Yes,” Tanner drawled.

“I don”t . . . I should have . . . you see . . .”

“Don't tell me it's that time of the month? I don't want to hear that, Jessie.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You know, your period. Do you have it?”

It was an out. What if he was bold enough to want to check? She shrank into the bedding. “No, I don't have my period.”

“That's a relief. What's our problem here?”

Jessie bolted upright. “The problem is I'm a virgin,” she blurted.

“Shit!”

“That's it, shit!”

“You led me to believe . . . you said . . . all kinds of things. What it means is I now have to change my . . .
approach.
”

Approach meant a strategy of sorts. She couldn't help but wonder if he would whip out a map from somewhere. She wished then for worldliness and sophistication. Right now she felt like an overage Girl Scout. “I know, and I'm sorry. I wanted you to think I was worldly. I really hate to admit this but what little I do know about . . . all of this is what I've read and what Sophie told me. I really did lead a sheltered life. Would you rather I'd slept around?”

“Hell no. I believed you. That doesn't say much for my intuitive powers or my observations.”

“Does that mean it's soft now and you can't or don't want to do it? I just need some time to . . . you know, work up to taking my clothes off. Furthermore, I never thought, expected to do this until I got married. I'm breaking one of my own rules here. This is very important to me. Men never seem to respect women in the morning when they do . . . have sex and aren't married.”

“You're putting me on, right? You can't be that archaic in your thinking. Jesus, you are. Okay, let's go back to square one. You go into the bathroom and take your clothes off. Come back to bed with a towel wrapped around you. Securely. Then you get into bed and when you're ready to take the towel off, you tell me.”

“Areyou making fun of me?”

“Yeah. But in a nice way. Get moving before I change my mind.”

“I always thought you needed candles and . . . oil, wine and you knowâ”

“Move!”

Jessie scampered to the bathroom. As she stripped off her clothes she eyed the shower. She should be fresh and clean for
the event and the
approach leading
up to it.
A shower would only take a few minutes.

“I'm waiting!” Tanner bellowed.

“Shut up, Tanner,” Jessie bellowed in return.

“What the hell are you doing in there?”

“Taking a shower.”

“You're what?”

“I told you, I'm taking a shower. Maybe you should take one, too. I had one last night but you must have taken one over twenty-four hours ago. Okay, I'm done. I'll leave the water running. I have lots of hot water. Gallons and gallons of it. You can stand under the shower all day and it will still be hot.”

“Shut up, Jessie Roland,” Tanner said as he stomped his way to the bathroom. “Don't look.”

Jessie looked, then turned away. For some reason she thought it would look different. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Her expression said it all. She heard Tanner groan as he yanked at the shower curtain. Where was the fun? The exhilaration? It all seemed like such a chore. She eyed the messy bed. In the blink of an eye she straightened the sheets and the light blanket. Taking a deep breath, she let the towel drop to the floor. Her heart hammered in her chest as she lay back against the pillows, the sheet pulled up to her chin. When she heard the shower curtain rip across the rod, she took a second deep breath. She squeezed her eyes shut when she heard the bathroom door open.

“Well!”

Jessie cracked one eyelid. Then she cracked the other before she yelped when Tanner in all his naked glory started to beat on his chest with his clenched fists, at the same time emitting a bull roar. She let her gaze shift from his face to the quivering mass between his legs. She didn't need Sophie to tell her this was one magnificent specimen of manhood. A curl of heat began to form in the lower part of her stomach. She liked the feeling.

“Say something,” Tanner said.

What was she supposed to say, for God's sake? Jessie whipped the sheet down and away from her naked body.

“Come here,” she managed to croak.

“I'm there.” Tanner crossed the room in two steps and bounded into the bed, driving Jessie backward, his naked body covering hers. Instinctively, she held herself rigid as she bit down on her lower lip.

At best it was a weak resistance and then no resistance at all when his tongue licked at her lips, his hands searching, probing, then finding those secret places only lovers knew. Her lips parted ever so slightly, allowing just enough room for his tongue to spear into the warm recesses of her mouth. A low moan of surrender escaped her lips.

She gave as good as she got, molding her body against his, her own hands as busy as his. He played with her then, his lips nipping her earlobe and then her lips. She wanted more, always more. Using all her strength she toppled him over until she was on top of him, her breasts mashing against his broad, sweaty chest. She moved against him, her own body slick with sweat. With his head between her hands she held him steady, her lips eating his, her tongue working furiously, searing them together.

And then she was on her back again, her legs pried apart. Her subconscious told her this was the moment and she welcomed it. The tiny cry of pain went unnoticed by both of them as she relentlessly clung to him, helping him, guiding him, and then the finale as she soared to heights she never thought possible.

Gasping and struggling for breath, her body a silken sheath of wetness, she allowed herself to be drawn into Tanner's arms. “I liked that. I really liked that. Let's do it again.”

“Whoa. Easy does it here. We need time to . . . to rebound. At least I do. Just lie here and talk to me. Lovers call it pillow talk. The magazines say women love pillow talk. Do you?”

Did she? “Yes. There wasn't one part of my body you didn't touch or kiss. I didn't know I had so many nerve endings. They were all twanging at once. It was beautiful. I want to do the same thing to you.”

“You have my permission, but later. Did I hurt you?”

“Only for a moment. I don't even remember it now.” She cuddled deeper into his arms, her fingers playing with the fine furring on his chest. “How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted. I think a nap is in order. Don't move, just lie here next to me.”

It would take a dragon to move her, Jessie thought. She had no intention of going anywhere. She said so.

“That's good. You feel good next to me.”

“Did you hear the phone ring?” Jessie asked sleepily.

“Yeah. It was probably Pop. He never gives up. The next time one or the other of us gets up we should take the receiver off the hook.”

Jessie's last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that she would do whatever this man asked of her because she was in love with him. “Okay,” she murmured.

Jessie stared across the Tidal Basin, marveling at the glorious array of cherry blossoms that were so spectacular they took her breath away. Would she be here next year to see them? Would they be as pretty, or was this year special? Did she even care? Probably not. The only thing she cared about right now was the piece of paper in her hand. She'd read it a hundred times during the past few hours. Maybe a thousand. That didn't matter much either, since the words were seared into her brain. She was pregnant. That was what mattered. The
only
thing that mattered. It was all her fault. Sophie had warned her that women had to take responsibility for themselves. She hadn't done that, and her pregnancy was the result. Tanner said having sex using a condom was like washing your feet with your socks on. He'd adamantly refused to wear protection. She'd been just as adamant about not going on the pill. It was her fault because she hadn't paid attention to her menstrual cycle. Abstaining a few days a month wouldn't have been so difficult. Why hadn't she done it then?
Because, for some reason, I can't deny Tanner anything. He mesmerizes me. He has me in his control, and I was afraid to rock the boat. I was afraid he wouldn't come back. I lived for those long weekends and our days and nights of sex.

Dear God, what would Tanner say when she told him? Would he walk out on her? He didn't seem to like children much. Right now she wasn't even sure how she herself felt about children. In fact, just recently, he'd referred to a child on the street who had been skipping rope as a snotty little bastard. She recalled how his lip had curled in distaste. That's how Tanner felt. The big question was, how did she feel about being pregnant? What exactly were her feelings for Tanner Kingsley? Was she in love with him? Was it a sick kind of love? Was she obsessive about their relationship? Right now she didn't feel anything where he was concerned. That was strange in itself. Until yesterday her heart skipped a beat at the mere mention of his name. Today she thought she hated him.

A strong wind whipped across the Tidal Basin, bringing with it a thousand fragile, pink blossoms. Jessie reached out to cup her hands for the falling petals. How pretty they looked, how delicate. She shivered inside her spring coat. Maybe she should go back to the apartment. And do what? She couldn't even call Sophie since she had no idea where she was. It had been months since she'd heard from her. She'd called everywhere and left messages to no avail. She'd even called Arthur Mendenares, but he seemed to be missing, too. On a business trip, his office said.

Tears trickled down Jessie's cheeks as she let her mind travel back to January. She'd been so caught up in her own little world back then she'd ignored Sophie, put her off, forgetting to return her calls, taking the receiver off the hook when Tanner was in town, which was every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent in class or at the library. There had been no time for Sophie.

A fat pigeon waddled up to the bench Jessie was sitting on. She fed it bread crumbs. Another pigeon appeared. She fed it, too. Would others appear or were these two friends like she was with Sophie? “We still are friends. I didn't mean to make it sound like past tense,” she said to the pigeons, who seemed to be listening to her words. She threw more crumbs.

The trickle of tears turned into a waterfall. A baby. She was going to have a baby. And she wasn't married. Motherhood. Marriage? Would Tanner marry her? Did she want to be married to Tanner for the rest of her life? She had to do something, and if she wasn't ready to do something, then she needed to
think
about doing something.

Jessie crunched the lab report into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket before she got up to walk aimlessly around the basin.

Three long months since she'd begun her affair with Tanner. Three long months of waiting for the phone to ring, waiting at airports to pick him up and drop him off. Three long months of lust. It was all about sex. Tanner thrived on sex, but then so did she. It was the off hours, the hours when they weren't sleeping, eating, or romping and rolling in the bed that bothered her. Those hours were spent in silence, reading or watching television. More often than not hours would go by before either one said a word. Love wasn't supposed to be silent. Love was supposed to be joyous with each party sharing and confiding things that didn't even matter. Tanner didn't like to take walks or go for rides in the country. Tanner didn't particularly like going to the movies. Oh, he would go, but he never seemed to enjoy the picture and never wanted to discuss it afterward. He wasn't crazy about eating out but he did that, too, on occasion. He much preferred for her to cook elaborate dinners with sweet desserts after which he would sleep for hours while she cleaned up. When he woke he was ready for sex. It was those times she waited and hungered for. It was those times she didn't want to give up. Sick, obsessive love. A strangled sound escaped her lips. She was turning out like her mother. Now that she was pregnant and it was too late, she was forced to recognize the signs she'd chosen to ignore all these months.

She didn't know how she knew, but she knew that Tanner would have no patience with a pregnant woman. Knowing that, accepting that, where did it leave her? Nowhere, that's where.

Her life was one big mess, and she had only herself to blame.

Jessie turned for one last look at the beautiful rows of cherry trees. She found herself shivering. It was unseasonably cool even with the trees blooming so late this year. Another week and it would be May and then it would be June and Sophie's wedding.
If
there was a wedding. In order to have a wedding, you needed a bride. And a groom. Maybe she should go back to the apartment and try to locate Sophie's boyfriend, Jack Dawson. If nothing else, it would give her something to do to take her mind off her pregnancy. Or, she could study for the last of her finals. Who would attend her graduation? She started to cry again as she climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep.

Jessie entered her apartment a long time later. For the first time since she had gotten it to make sure she didn't miss any of Tanner's calls, she didn't head for her answering machine to see if the little red light was blinking.

In the kitchen with her coat still on, she made coffee. While she waited for it to perk, she rummaged in one of the kitchen drawers for the yellow pad she'd used when she was trying to locate Sophie. The list of numbers she'd called was endless, taking up three whole pages on the legal pad. Maybe she was wasting her time. Maybe Sophie didn't want to be found. Sophie was a master at getting lost, a trait she'd acquired when she was a teen bent on evading a mother who didn't give a whit if she was being evaded or not.

Jessie flipped open the telephone directory, running her finger down the long list of Dawsons. She patiently dialed each Dawson with the name John, Jack, and the initial J with no results. She then looked up the number for Sophie's old firm and placed a call. She did her best to make her voice warm and chatty when she said she was Jack's sister and would only be in town for a few hours between flights. She babbled nonsense about him being in Costa Rica and herself being in England. Her ploy worked. She copied down the number the personnel director rattled off. She dialed the number only to get a recording device. Unwilling to leave a message, she switched to the list of numbers she'd called over the past few months when she tried to locate Sophie.

It was dark when she hung up the phone for the last time. It rang almost immediately. For the first time in months she let the phone ring until the answering machine picked up. It never once occurred to her that it might be Sophie. No one of any importance called her these days. The few friends she'd made through school had moved on. The senator had stopped calling at the end of February and Irene was in the hospital, according to Tanner. She'd tried to visit once but was told visitors were restricted to family members only. She'd sent a card and flowers.

The urge to cry again was so strong, Jessie headed for the bathroom, averting her eyes from the red blinking light on the answering machine. A warm shower always made her feel better. A light supper and then she would curl into the corner of the worn couch and try to figure out what to do with her life.
Pregnant. Unmarried. A child. Responsibility.

The television on low, her pad and pencil on the end table and the phone she'd dragged from the kitchen with its twenty-five-foot cord rested on the floor by her feet. Not that she would answer it. It was there in case a brilliant burst of insight occurred as to where Sophie might be. God, how she needed her friend.
Where are you, Sophie?
Tears puddled in her eyes. She brushed at them angrily. She felt a storm building inside her body. She made no move to squash it. Instead she let it surge through her, her fists pummeling the sofa cushions. Then she screamed her despair. Sometimes anger was good. It cleared one's brain. Her foot lashed out, toppling the stack of books on the coffee table. A crystal candy dish sailed across the room. A vase of early daffodils flew in another direction, the slimy green water staining the light gray carpeting. She should have thrown them away days ago. What difference did it make? The flowers were dead anyway. She howled again as she collapsed against the sofa cushions. And then the anger was gone as quickly as it had come. Her head jerked upward at the same moment her shoulders stiffened.
Get on with it, Jessie. Just get on with it.

Her resolve was sharp when she entered the kitchen to fix herself a sandwich and a fresh pot of coffee. While she waited for the coffee she scurried to her bedroom to rummage in the small trunk under the window. The packet of personal papers along with her savings-account book was secured with two taut rubber bands so it would fit into the sleeve of one of her red sweaters. She dropped to her haunches, aware that something wasn't quite right about the contents of the trunk. Everything was folded neatly, it just wasn't folded the way she normally put things away. She'd always folded the sleeves of the sweaters the way the department-store clerks did, so the sweaters would lie flat. She squeezed her eyes shut. She crossed her fingers the way she had when she was a child that her papers would be untouched.

The phone rang, six long blasts of sound as her trembling fingers fumbled with the last sweater in the trunk. Her heart fluttered in her chest when she realized the sleeves were folded wrong. The packet looked the same, but it had been touched, gone through. Who? Her landlady wasn't the curious type. To her knowledge the elderly lady never ventured to the second floor of the building because it was difficult for her to climb the stairs with her arthritis. Tanner? She'd known it was Tanner; otherwise why was she even bothering to check the trunk. Aside from her savings-account book that was self-explanatory, the rest of the papers wouldn't mean much to anyone but her. She said a prayer of thanks then that Sophie had insisted she keep everything in the Atlanta house.

The phone rang as she walked back to the kitchen. She ignored it as she poured coffee. It stopped in the middle of the sixth ring and then rang again a few seconds later. Munching on her cheese sandwich, Jessie tuned out the ringing phone. Tanner was persistent, she had to give him that.

Snuggled back into the corner of the sofa, Jessie finished her sandwich. She could have been eating sawdust for all she cared. The coffee seemed extra strong and bitter. She gulped at it. When she finished the coffee, the phone rang again, six long peals of sound and then silence. She rifled through the slim packet of papers. She didn't bother with her passbook account. She knew to the penny how much money she had in her account; $6,714.33. The little nest egg would hold her over till the end of the year, at which point she would have to tap her trust fund. Medical bills, giving birth, supporting a child had to be expensive. Someone had told her that, but she couldn't remember who it was. She would have to find a house somewhere that had a yard and a porch. Children needed space. As she grappled with her options, the phone rang again. She paid no attention. She could go back to the house in Charleston, open it up and live there. Or, she could go to Sophie's house in Atlanta. The third option, which didn't bear thinking about, was going to Texas to live with Tannerâprovided he wanted to marry her, which she seriously doubted.

Jessie smoothed the wrinkled papers from the packet onto her lap. Sophie's last report to her at the beginning of January said she had a little over twenty-one million dollars in her trust fund. On one of the small calendars that was divided into quarters, she had placed little stars, each one denoting a million dollars, plus other little squiggles that only she would be able to decipher. It was obvious that her parents had added to the fund since the day she'd left home. Twenty-one million dollars, and it was all hers to use or not use. The decision was hers alone. It would certainly go a long way toward raising a child.

A headache started to hammer behind her eyes. She had to find Sophie. She reached for the phone just as it rang. Her eyes narrowed to slits, she grappled with it as she barked, “Hello.”

“Jessie, where in the goddamn hell have you been? I've been calling you all day. Didn't you get my messages?”

“No. I took a walk.”

“You took a walk!” He might as well have said, “You danced with the devil!”

“Do you love me, Tanner?” She ticked off the seconds until he answered. Ten long seconds.

BOOK: Finders Keepers

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