See Jane Fall (24 page)

“Asked her for a rain check instead. For
tomorrow
.”

Her eyes narrowed on his like lasers,
blazing and hot, and as he stared at her, a smile spread across his
face and he sucked in a satisfied breath. Despite all the work
she’d put into making him think it was over for them, her eyes told
him
everything
he needed to know; everything he’d been
longing
to know for two long days as she ignored him.

No woman looked that way at a man she didn’t
want.

He exhaled in a bemused chuckle, and raised
his eyebrows, nodding, holding her eyes.

“Well, well. Look at you, Minx. Ice, my
ass.”

Then he sauntered away, his body hotter and
more excited for Jane than it had ever been for her cousin, despite
everything.

Thank God he had turned down Samara.

He wasn’t ready to give up on Jane, after
all.

***

Jane watched him walk away, feeling confused
and bewildered. She couldn’t remember any man ever turning down a
night with her cousin. Men moved heaven and earth for a moment
alone with her Sara.

My God
, Jane thought, feeling a
nervous giggle bubble up from deep inside,
how did Sara take it?
Did she just stand there, dumbstruck by his refusal?
Jane
didn’t recall scratch marks on Lars’s face, so maybe her cousin had
been too stunned to react. She shook her head.
Good Lord, the
rest of the afternoon is sure to be unpleasant now!

But, somehow that didn’t matter. A grin
spread across her face as Jane’s heart thumped wildly, desperate to
believe that Lars could be the exception, as he’d claimed. More
than anything—anything at all in the whole world—Jane wanted to
believe that it was possible for someone to want her, someone who
she wouldn’t lose, someone who would belong to her. So that she
could finally, after seventeen long years, feel like she belonged
to someone once again.

After losing her parents she was frightened
to hope. Losing Ben didn’t help either. Her tender heart barely
dared, and she had resigned herself to a life full of work…and not
much of anything else. But, now, here was Lars. Who may or may not
have a date with Samara tomorrow night, but had turned down a date
with her tonight.

She remembered the facts laid out in her
freshman statistics class: Consider an experiment that can only
yield one result. The probability of the result is 99.9 percent,
but there was always 0.1 percent existing for chance, for anomaly,
for the possibility of random phenomena.

A random phenomenon. Could Lars Lindstrom be
the 0.1 percent? Could he have meant it when he told her
I’m not
that guy
? Could—

“JANE!”

Jarred from her thoughts by the melody of
Sara’s dulcet, loving voice, she truncated her thoughts, shook her
head and stepped inside. Sara was sitting at her vanity in white
underwear, a cigarette hanging from her lips, cutting something in
her lap with Margot’s huge silver scissors, which flashed like
lightening in the dim light of the trailer. Jane stepped closer to
see—

“What are you— NO! No, Sara! Stop!” Jane
ripped the scissors away, throwing them across the trailer,
grabbing the cut-up scraps of faded, beat-up canvas out of Sara’s
hands, clutching them to her chest, tears of outrage burning her
eyes, and a desperate cry releasing from her throat in sorrow. “How
could you? How
could
you, Sara?”

Tears trailed down Jane’s cheeks as she
stared at her cousin in disbelief. She felt the jagged-cut edges of
the old fabric against her fingertips as she cradled the pieces of
the beloved cap in her hands and felt like breaking into a full
sob.

The old cap had been Jane’s version of a
security blanket, a tangible reminder of summer Saturdays enjoying
a baseball game with her dad at Candlestick Park before she was
forced to move from San Francisco to Boston. It reminded her of
happy times, of feeling warm and loved; it didn’t smell like her
father’s head anymore, and it didn’t look as it did when he wore
it. It had faded and frayed from so much use and handling, but she
loved it—it was her most treasured thing, and now it lay broken in
her hands, in pieces.

“You unimaginable bitch,” Jane murmured,
shaking her head back and forth and backing away from Sara. And
just like that, the third of those threads snapped inside, but this
time Jane didn’t feel relief from the bruising, shocked grief she
felt.

Sara had the decency to look sheepish. Maybe
she knew she had overplayed this hand. She shrugged and stubbed out
her cigarette, speaking gently. “C’mon, Janie. I was sick of that
dirty old thing lying around. It was…distracting. I’ll buy you a
new
hat. Any one you want.”

“I don’t
want
a new hat…” Jane sat
down on the chair beside the vanity, facing her cousin, then
examining the pieces in her hand. Sara had severed the brim from
the cap, and then cut the cap in three large pieces, but the front
piece that held the red, once-fuzzy B was still intact. Jane took
the other three pieces, and gently lowered them into the garbage,
then put the B into her back pocket. When she looked back up at
Sara, her eyes were cold.

“I should quit right now.”

Sara’s eyes widened and Jane saw the worry,
no, the
panic
, on her face. “Now, Jane. Don’t be rash. I’m
sorry I hurt your little hat—”

“I’m
not
going with you this
weekend,” Jane growled, low and furious.

Sara looked surprised, then tilted her head
to the side, trying to be charming, cajoling. “Janie…”

“No. I’m
not
going to Jackson Hole
with you. That’s final. And I’m staying in my own motel room for
the rest of the shoot.”

Sara chuckled lightly, shifting nervously in
her seat. Her voice was smooth, careful. “You better step back,
little cousin. Sorry about your hat, but you’ll stay with me as
planned.”

“No, Sara. I
won’t
.”

“
Watch it
,” Sara warned, her voice
like the crack of a whip, but Jane held her eyes without flinching.
She didn’t lower her glance, or back away. She sat there, locked in
a showdown with her despicable cousin, violet eyes to mossy green,
until Sara finally looked away.

“Fine,” Sara conceded tightly. “Have it your
way. You know what? You need to cool down a little anyway. A couple
days off will do you good.”

Jane turned her back on Sara, moving to the
door. “I’ll send in Ray and Shanelle first.”

“You do that, Janie. You do that for
me.”

***

Lars was surprised when Jane asked to be
dropped off at the motel that evening on the way back from the
shoot. He noticed that neither of the cousins was very chatty,
mostly just occupied with their phones, answering his questions
with a word or two.

As they got to the cottage, Samara climbed
over Jane, who sat stiffly in the seat, refusing to move or look at
her cousin. “Send Sebastian over, Jane.”

Samara glanced back and thanked Lars for the
ride, but slammed the door a touch too hard as she got out of the
truck, stomping alone to the front door of the little cottage.

Lars looked over at Jane. He didn’t know
what was up with her, but she didn’t seem okay. She seemed
withdrawn, deeply sad. As angry as he felt with her, he couldn’t
bear to see her like this.

“You okay, Jane?”

“Mm-hm,” she murmured.

Lars turned the truck around, heading back
into town.

“Music?”

“N-no, thanks.”

He heard her voice catch and it made his
heart catch. He’d never seen her like this. He’d seen her cool and
aloof, distant and professional, even sad, but this was different.
He remembered his sister Jenny’s face in the days after their
mother had died. He recognized in Jane the kind of pain that rose
from grief. He wanted to reach out to her, but he didn’t want to be
rejected by her again.

“
Is
everything okay, Jane?”

“It will be,” she murmured in a thready
voice, looking out the window, away from him. After a moment she
turned to him. “Would you mind getting Sebastian and bringing him
over to Sara’s place?”

“Sure. I-I’m glad to help. Whatever you
need.”

“Thanks,” she sighed, returning her eyes to
the window.

They drove in silence until he pulled into a
parking space at the motel. Surprised she didn’t immediately jump
out of the truck to get away from him, he tried again.

“Would it help to talk about it?”

She rolled her neck away from the window
until she faced forward, resting the back of her head on the seat
back with tears brimming in her eyes, looking straight ahead. She
bit her lower lip, and her raspy voice was low and muffled when she
spoke. “Do you ever feel like things didn’t turn out the way you
expected them to? Like, you’re on the wrong path?”

“Are you on the wrong path, Jane?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see any others,” she
gasped the words and he knew she was stifling a sob. How he wanted
to open his arms to her, draw her to his chest, help her to know
everything would be all right. But, he had no right to touch her.
It might only make things worse for her, and certainly for him.

“Look harder, Jane. You’re smart. You’ll
find your way.”

She turned to him, eyes watery and wide, and
in his whole life, he’d never seen anything, nothing at all, so
beautiful as Jane Mays’s green eyes. Tears spilled down her face in
rivulets, fat, round drops, one after another, as she gazed at him,
looking completely miserable. He couldn’t help himself anymore. He
reached over and brushed them away gently with his rough, calloused
thumb.

“How can I help?” he asked in a whisper.

“You can’t. I have to figure it out for
myself.” She looked at him, smiled sadly and then leaned away from
him, swiping at her eyes.

It wasn’t exactly a rejection, but she
wasn’t welcoming him into her life either. Just as bitterness
threatened to take over, she surprised him by touching the back of
his hand with the back of hers. Just a light touch, like a
feather.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “for being so
kind to me, Lars. For making a terrible day not quite so terrible
at the end.”

He turned his face slightly, pathetically
grateful to be sitting beside her, for the light touch of her skin
on his, which throbbed for her to touch it more. His heart leapt
just to be alone with her once again, and whatever carnal, flimsy
attraction he may have felt for Samara suddenly dissolved like
sugar in water, as unsubstantial in its departure as it had been in
its presence.

And then there was only Jane.

She moved her hand and took a deep breath,
opening her door. Before she hopped out, she turned back to face
him.

“Thanks, again. See you tomorrow?”

He nodded, and she closed the door behind
her. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

And just like that…he didn’t feel angry or
sad anymore. It didn’t matter that she had pushed him away, and it
didn’t matter that she claimed they were better off without each
other. Because in his heart, he knew that wasn’t true—they were
better off together, and he was going to figure out a way to have
another chance with her.

***

Taking Sebastian to Samara’s only took a few
minutes, and then Lars stopped at home for a quick bite before
heading back to the Lindstrom & Sons office. His Pop was on the
phone when he got there and Nils was finishing a sandwich at his
desk.

“
Ja
, Jenny-girl, that’s fine. Tell
Erin her
Morfar
can’t wait to see her! Ha ha. She’s a smart
one. Travel safe, Jen. Tell Sam to get you here in one piece. You
too. Bye.” He smiled at Lars, putting the receiver back in the
cradle. “Can’t wait to see that Erin.”

Lars smiled back at his father. “I know,
Pop. Me too.”

“She’s a beauty, like her
Mamma
.
Can’t wait to hear her start talking!”

“Going to be confusing when the twins call
you
Farfar
.” In Swedish, the word for grandfather was
dependent on whether you were speaking to your mother’s father or
your father’s father.
Morfar
for your maternal grandfather,
and
Farfar
for your paternal grandfather. So, while Jenny’s
daughter would call him one name, Erik’s daughters would call him
something different. “When are they getting here?”

“Saturday for lunch. You’ll come to the
house?”

“
Ja, Pappa
. Of course. I can’t wait
to see the girls again. And
Minste
and Kat.”

“Your
Mamma
and me? We have three
boys, and one girl. Your sister and brother? They give me three
girls. How ’bout one of you settle down a give me a grandson? Even
things out a bit!”

Nils didn’t look up, but Lars chuckled. “No
pressure
,
Pop.”

“With the right girl,
Midten
. Like
Katrin for Erik. Maybe like Maggie…”

Nils grunted and cleared his throat, looking
annoyed.

Lars passed on the chance to tease him
further. “Too bad Katrin didn’t have any sisters.”

“What about this New York girl? Maggie likes
her lots. And Nils. And Paul.”

“Paul?” His voice was so harsh when he said
his friend’s name, it didn’t even sound like him.

“Sure. Paul says she’s a great girl.”

“She is.”

Lars didn’t like this one bit. He thought
back to the concert in the park when Paul seemed so chummy with
Jane. Paul wouldn’t make a play for Jane, would he? He could see
how Lars felt about her, couldn’t he? “He sure got over Jenny
quick.”

“Lars! Jen’s been gone almost two years.
Good for Paul to move on.”

Like hell he’ll move on with Jane. Over
my dead body.
He looked up at his father’s twinkling blue eyes,
and knew he was reading Lars’s face like a book.