Jinxed (33 page)

What they didn’t understand is that she’d been surviving hard knocks since the day she was born, and she was ready to battle and conquer life’s demons. She had to be happy on her own before she could be happy within a relationship.

So she’d let Jake walk out the door. She’d absorbed the hurt in order to draw strength.

In contrast, breaking off with her mother had been surprisingly easy. When Giselle had first stormed into her hospital room, Afia had allowed herself the brief illusion that she’d cut her honeymoon short because she was concerned about her daughter’s well-being. But then Giselle had launched into a tirade about Glick and the missing fortune, and the truth had blasted Afia with the force of a ruinous hurricane. Her mother was a shallow, abusive, superstitious woman who wreaked havoc on her life. There was no making sense of her, and Afia no longer wanted to try. When Giselle had started to expound on the consequences of being born on Friday the thirteenth, Afia had simply tuned her out.

Power had surged through her veins when she’d asked her mother and her new, obnoxiously pompous husband to drop her at a hotel. “We make our own luck,” she’d said as she’d hobbled out of the car on sheer will and crutches. “It’s all in the mind, Mother. Positive thought over negative. I am currently removing all negative aspects from my life, and that includes you.”

In the coming days, Afia focused on herself. She rented a small apartment and spent hours reading self-help books that Rudy had been more than happy to lend her. She adopted a kitten, enlisted in a driving school, and devoted more and more time to the daycare center. At night she dreamed of Jake and took solace in knowing, that someday, when the time was right, they’d be together.

She healed. She grew. She lived. And the weeks flew by …

Every hour seemed like a day. Every day like a week. Letting go was the hardest thing Jake had ever done in his life.

The bitch of it was in knowing that Afia didn’t need him. She wasn’t jinxed. She wasn’t inept. She was a strong, intelligent woman, and she was doing just fine on her own.

They’d spoken on the phone. She’d called him the day after they’d parted at the hospital to resign from her job. “You were right,” she’d said. “I don’t have what it takes to be a private investigator.” At first, he feared that she doubted her ability to learn the more specific ins and outs, but then he realized that what she lacked was the much-needed emotional distance that got him through most of his cases. She wasn’t willing to become a detached cynic, and he loved her all the more for it.

Subsequent phone discussions had been like pouring alcohol on a gaping wound, but he’d endured because he was her friend. It hurt like hell because he wanted to be so much more, but he’d take what he could get. Afia was a uniquely special person, and he was blessed to have her in his life at all.

He knew through Gallow that she’d given half of her fortune away to charity while investing the rest for her future. She was tooling around in a compact car and working thirty hours a week at The Sea Serpent. Her drag show benefit had been a huge success. He’d attended, and his heart had pounded like a sonuvabitch as he’d hugged her and congratulated her at the after-show party. Resisting the urge to kiss her, to beg her to come home with him had been the limit of his endurance.

That had been two weeks ago, and he hadn’t seen or talked to her since. He goddamned couldn’t bear it.

He stared across the room at the landscape painting hanging on his office wall. The painting he and Afia had bid on and won. For a while he’d been able to draw comfort from the artist’s colorful vision—a majestic sunrise casting warmth and rays of a promising new day over fertile farmland. A new day. A new beginning. But lately, the painting only conjured loneliness and pain.

Aside from Angela Falcone-Brannigan, who awaited trial and assured jail time, Jake seemed to be the only one suffering from the initial lie that had brought them all together. Afia had forgiven Harmon and Rudy. Rudy and Jean-Pierre were happily “attached.” Afia was happily single. Giselle, the bitch, was free and clear of her “jinxed” daughter. Even Anthony Rivelli had attained a semi-happy ending. He’d escaped marriage to a violently jealous woman with his job and secret in tact. Jake and Afia had promised to forget about Iva Dream, and most everyone had skipped merrily into the sunset.

Zippety-freaking-do-dah.

The phone rang, jerking him out of a bout of self-pity. He rolled back his stiff shoulder, shoved aside a case report, and leaned across his desk to snatch the receiver. “Leeds Investigations.”

“Get your ass over to the hospital now, big brother. I’m in labor.”

Joni’s phone call took Afia by complete surprise. She’d been under the impression that the woman blamed her for Jake getting shot. Knowing her pregnancy to be a delicate one, she’d steered clear of the mother-to-be these past weeks, not wanting to be the cause of any undo agitation. That Joni wanted her there for the birth of her baby was astounding … and nerve-racking.

Jake would be there.

She hadn’t seen him in two weeks—the longest, most miserable two weeks of her life. Though he’d kept his distance as of late, he’d proven to be a genuine friend, supportive and not at all controlling. But she ached for so much more. Why hadn’t she been more aggressive? She’d waited for the right moment, and now it seemed as if she’d missed the boat. Apparently, he’d moved on. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but she told herself she wouldn’t crumble when she saw him. She wouldn’t make a scene by asking him why in the heck he’d given up so easily.

I am willing to be Jake’s friend and nothing more. I am happy in my solitude
.

Bull. She’d be happier with Jake.

Her heart pounded as she entered the hospital. The same hospital where she and Jake had parted ways. When she asked at the desk, the nurse told her that Mrs. McNichols had already given birth, and that she could proceed directly to the maternity ward.

A place of new beginnings
.

Jake stood at the nursery window with his hand pressed against the glass.

Afia’s palms grew moist and heart fluttered.
Go to him. Say something, and for God’s sake don’t ramble or cry.
“Congratulations, Uncle,” she said, coming up behind him, her pulse racing a billion miles a minute.
Do not crumble
. “Niece or nephew?”

“Niece. God help me.” He clasped her hand and pulled her in beside him. “Kylie McNichols. Second one to the left. Isn’t she cute?”

His touch ignited a firestorm in her heart. “Adorable,” she said, past the huge lump in her throat. Kylie was tiny, pink, and sweet. Afia longed to have a baby just like her. With Jake. She glanced up at him, her heart swelling at the adoring expression on his face as he smiled down at his niece.
Be aggressive
. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m here. Joni called me.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad that you’re here. I think Joni probably called you because she’s tired of hearing me bitch.”

She swallowed hard.
Think positive
. “About?”

He turned to her then, traced a finger along her jaw. “About how much I miss you. These last two weeks have been hell.” He quirked a pathetic smile. “And I let my sister know it.”

Dizzy with relief, she placed her palm over his chest, reveling in the frantic beating of his heart. How could she have ever doubted the strength of their love? She
connected
with this man. “I missed you, too.”

He swallowed hard. “You did?”

She nodded. “Very much.”
Trust your heart, trust your heart
… “Jake?”

He tucked her hair behind her ears, his tender touch igniting a thousand dreams and desires. “What, baby?”

“You know that thing about us being friends, no matter if we live next door or across the country … I have to be honest. I’d like it a hell of a lot better if we lived together.”

He dropped his forehead to hers and let out a slow, shaky breath. “I’m going to marry you, Afia.”

“I know.” She moistened her bottom lip, relished in the zap of the live wire, the zing of cupid’s arrow. “And we’re going to have three children. I didn’t just scare you, did I?”

He smiled, those mesmerizing emerald eyes glassy with bone-deep affection. “You just made me very happy.”

“Nothing and no one will ever come between us.” She tunneled her fingers through his hair and sealed their love with a kiss.

She was the luckiest girl on the planet.

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