That Thing Called Love (16 page)

As she let herself into the kitchen, she heard Austin’s shoot-the-hell-out-of-everyone “Halo” Xbox game playing in the living room.

Heard Austin himself crow, “You’re going
down!
”

Fool that she was, she assumed he was talking to Bailey and headed for the living room doorway to greet them.

But it was Jake’s voice that rumbled, “In your dreams, oh vanquishable one. This is no kiddie tournament. You’re playing with the master now.”

Jenny stopped dead.
Well, crap. Isn’t
this
just fucking perfect.
Jake was the last person she wanted to see. But she’d asked him to spend some time with Austin while she was gone, so what was she supposed to say—
get the hell out of my house, I’m in no mood to deal with you?

Suddenly her purse seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and, as if it had multiplied tenfold, she’d swear she could
feel
the earth’s gravitational pull. Sliding the purse strap off her shoulder, she trudged into the living room.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound upbeat but fearing she fell woefully shy of the mark. “I’m home.”

“Hey,” Austin replied without taking his gaze off the television screen. He did something that made guns blaze and a character die and he laughed in triumph. “Yes! You’re toast, ancient one! Who’s the master now, huh?”

But Jake wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at her, his dark brows furrowed. “You don’t look very rested for someone who just spent her day shopping in the city or at a spa, or whatever. In fact, you look like crap.”

Austin turned to stare at him, openmouthed. “Seriously, dude? That’s cold. She’s been at the state pen all day.”

Head whipping around, Jake gaped at the teen. “What?”

“She spent the day in Monroe, man.” Austin’s tone suggested he was speaking to the mentally impaired. “Seeing her dad. Jeez.” He gave Jake a hard look, glanced at his watch, then up at her. “Look, I was supposed to meet the guys—a few of us are having a mini pinball tournament at Bella T’s. But if you’d rather I stay—”

“No.” She shook her head. She’d kill for some alone time.

“Are you sure? I can hang around.”

“No. Go. Knock ’em dead.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. My homework’s done.” He jerked his chin toward Jake. “The grinch here made me do it before we could play ‘Halo.’”

He took a few steps toward the kitchen. “I’ll be home by nine, ’kay?” And between one second and the next, he’d disappeared into the kitchen and from there to the mudroom. The exterior door slammed a moment later.

She turned wearily to Jake. “Thanks for staying with him. And for the homework thing.” That was more than she’d expected, and she was so grateful she didn’t need to ride herd tonight.

He crossed over to her. “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

When she’d asked for his help, she’d merely told him she had a long day planned off the peninsula. She just looked at him now.

“Of course, why would you?” he muttered. “But you look like you’ve been through the wringer. You hungry? I could make you something to eat.”

The idea of food made her stomach pitch. “I’m really not.”

“How about a nice relaxing glass of wine?”

The suggestion piqued the first interest she’d felt in putting anything in her mouth since leaving Tasha’s apartment. “That I could go for.”

“Uh, you have any?”

The sheepish question elicited a faint smile. “In the cupboard over the broom closet.”

He went into the kitchen, and she kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the sofa. Picking up the remote from the coffee table, she powered off the television Austin had left on, sighing as the blue screen disappeared.

Jake was back in a moment with one of the extralarge wineglasses she hardly ever used generously filled to the rim with chardonnay. He extended it to her.

She took a grateful gulp and felt warmth spread a trail from her throat to her stomach. She took another, even bigger swallow, then looked at Jake over the wineglass rim. “Thank you.”

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten? You sure you don’t want something?”

She ignored the first part of the question in favor of quaffing more wine. Her blood developed a pleasant buzz beneath her skin, and the tension she’d been packing all day began to dissipate from her muscles. “Maybe in a bit.”

He shrugged and took a seat on the opposite end of the couch. “Your day was pretty bad, I take it.”

A harsh laugh escaped her. “You could say that.” She lifted the glass. A small voice in her head suggested maybe she should slow down, but she ignored it. After all, she was in her own home, on her own couch, and it wasn’t as if the world would rock to a halt if, for one hour of one day, she was the tiniest bit reckless.

“Is it always like this?” When she merely looked at him, he demanded, “Are you always this upset when you get home?”

“It’s never really fun,” she admitted. “But today I had a come-to-Jesus talk with my father.”

“So that’s probably a step in the right direction, right?”

She shrugged. “It was long overdue, anyhow.” She looked at him and noticed he was growing a little fuzzy around the edges. Oops. Maybe being reckless wasn’t her best idea.

Even so, that didn’t stop her from draining the glass. Because, what the hey. It had been a day filled with less than brilliant ideas.

All the same, she could hardly believe it when she heard herself admit, “There was a second there that I was tempted to cave in to my dad’s demands to give him a job at the inn. But this place is Austin’s birthright, I have a responsibility to him—and my dad is an unrepentant thief. So I did the right thing.”

“Damn straight,” Jake said with none of her own misgivings and second-guessing. “I don’t believe I want my son around him.”

“Me, either.” She squinted at him. “So why the hell don’t I feel better?”

“Oh, baby, you’re asking the wrong man. My father was what you might call serially monogamous. He left Max and his mother for mine. I mean, he poured
all
of his attention into us and cut them off as if they didn’t exist. Then he left me and my mom for some other woman who had a kid that may or may not have been his. I’m kind of fuzzy on the paternity details, and my mother died before I was interested enough to ask her about it.” His shoulder hitched and he met her gaze squarely. “You already know that
I’m
no shining beacon of fatherhood.”

“That’s true,” she agreed amiably. But, Lord, he was attractive. She set her empty glass on the coffee table. Well, she attempted to. It took her two tries.

“Shit.” He looked at her more closely. “You’re hammered.”

“I am,” she agreed and, smiling happily, scooted down to his end of the couch. She climbed onto her knees facing his right side. “I’m feeling way better than I did when I got home.” She angled a friendly arm across his chest, curling her fingers over his shoulder. He was so warm and hard-bodied. “Let’s get it on.”

“What? No!” He lunged to the edge of the couch, knocking her loose.

She fell into the space he opened up and barely avoided a face-plant by thrusting out a hand to catch herself. Shoving back to sit on her heels, she pushed her hair out of her eyes with her forearm. “Why not?” she demanded reasonably. “You know you want to.”

“Yeah, I do. But low as your opinion is of me, I draw the line at taking advantage of drunk women.”

She blew a pithy raspberry. “Spoilsport.”

He laughed and climbed to his feet.

She reached out to stroke one hard thigh and gave him a loose smile when he took a hasty step back. “Sure you don’t wanna change your mind?”

“Hell, no, I’m not sure. That’s why I’m getting out of here.” He looked down at her and a crooked smile slashed a shallow groove in his cheek. “Man, you’re going to hate yourself in the morning.”

She shrugged. “‘Que Sera, Sera.’”

“Be interesting to see if you’re singing that tune in a few hours. And, hey.” Reaching out, he ran a rough hand over her hair. “If your offer still stands once you’ve sobered up, you know where to find me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“J
UST
SHOOT
ME
NOW
.” Carefully avoiding looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, Jenny picked up the aspirin bottle, shook a couple tablets into her palm and washed them down with a glass of water.

Not that her headache was all that unbearable—its cause more from tension than a hangover. After all, wasn’t she flipping Pollyanna? She’d only had that one measly glass of wine. Sure, it had been a big sucker and she’d downed the thing on an empty stomach. But if she’d known it was going to turn her into
that
woman—the one who occasionally hung out at the Anchor and made drunken passes at all the guys—she’d have gone ahead and knocked back a couple more. Maybe then at least last night would be a nice comfortable blur in her head.

Blurry would be a definite improvement.

But she wasn’t getting off that easy. Because God forbid her memory should extend her the courtesy of failing for just one stinking night.

No, she remembered every embarrassing moment.

Not that all of it had been awful. After all, she recalled exactly how hard and warm Jake had felt. How yummy he’d smelled.

But sweet baby Jesus—she could have gone forever without remembering the horrified look on his face when she’d hit him with that truly
suave
proposition. And she didn’t even want to think about the way she’d draped herself all over him.

She didn’t get it. That so wasn’t her. She was no Mother Teresa, but she didn’t sleep around casually, either, let alone make sloppy passes at men.

But there was something about Jake that...drew her. Oh, sure, there were his looks and that body. But if it were just about the physical, she wouldn’t feel so unnerved. She could dismiss the desire to get closer to him horizontally as a mere matter of chemistry and attraction; biology, pure and simple.

But the layers he’d managed to burrow beneath—that was something else. Something more.

At first she’d attributed the emotional tug she felt around him—a tug that, to her unease, was
growing
—to his budding relationship with Austin. The more things he did right, the more effort he put into his son, well, it just made her heart expand, that was all.

Not in a that-thing-called-love way, though! No sir, no how. Because where would that get her? Jake was leaving and taking Austin with him. It would be exceedingly stupid to allow herself to feel anything deeper than simple lust.

She had firsthand experience with loving people and having them choose other things. Her dad had chosen wealth and power over her; her mother image and status. Damned if she’d go down that road again.

Just thinking about it had her head pounding harder than before. Leaning into the sink, she pressed her forehead against the mirror’s cool glass. “Please,” she whispered. “If no one’s gonna shoot me, then a lightning bolt would do the trick. Something.
Anything.
I’m begging you.”

The phone rang.

“Okay, not what I had in mind,” she muttered, pushing back from the counter.
Still, it’s better than reliving my stellar stupidity.

Well, depending on who was calling.

Unearthing her cell phone from her purse, which she had to first locate beneath the jumble of last night’s discarded clothing, she gave the screen an apprehensive glance.

And exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she saw it was the inn’s head of maintenance. She opened the connection. “Hi, Dan, what can I do for you?”

“Hey, Jenny,” he boomed and, pulling the phone away from her ear an inch, she easily envisioned him in her mind’s eye: a short, stocky, perpetually sun-and-wind-burned man who, five would get you ten, had a faded brown John Deere baseball cap pushed to the back of his head, its bent bill pointed north.

“I’m out at the storage sheds,” he said, “and the damn salt air has eaten clean through two-thirds of the hinges. I swear they go along just fine—then corrode overnight. Anyhow, I’m gonna go ahead and replace all of them to save me from having to turn around and do the rest next week.”

“O-kay.” It wasn’t like Dan to ask permission to do his job. Generally, he simply fixed things before they became a problem.

He laughed. “I know, I’m babbling. The problem is I don’t have enough in my existing supply. And I wasn’t sure if you want me to put them on the inn tab at the General, or if you’d rather pick some up for me yourself.”

“You do it. And figure how many you can handle in your supply closet so you can get those at the same time. Caleb’s good about the volume discount.”

“You got it.”

They discussed which cabins Dan’s paint crew planned to spiff up for a couple more minutes, then disconnected. Jenny tossed her purse on top of the clothing pile and raised her eyes to meet her gaze in the mirror.

“Okay,” she told it firmly. Time to stop obsessing over her idiocy and get to work. She needed to call in additional staff for both housekeeping and the restaurant for the coming weekend. Needed to touch base with the head gardener to ask about his staffing needs as well, since it was that time of year, and discuss his budget. She also needed to check with Maria to see how Abby was working out at the front desk, as it was important the younger woman be at full speed when things began accelerating in the coming weeks. What she
didn’t
need was to waste any more time thinking about Jake Bradshaw.

It didn’t pain her to admit, however, that she wouldn’t bitch if they managed not to run into each other for a while.

A nice
long
while.

* * *

S
TANDING
IN
THE
KITCHEN
in his boxers, lazily scratching his stomach above the low-slung band, Jake wondered if he’d run into Jenny today. Maybe he oughta drop by her place ’round about three-thirty and see how Austin’s pinball tournament had gone. She usually made it a point to be at her cottage for at least part of the afternoon when the kid came home from school.

“Damn, Bradshaw.” His hand stilled, then dropped to his side. He shook his head in disgust. “That’s pathetic.” Scowling at the coffeepot, he willed it to get a move on and produce the damn joe. Obviously he needed to clear his head.

Except...

If he thought that was pathetic, what was he supposed to make of the fact that he’d had a lush, desirable woman throw herself at him last night and he’d played the goddamn hero? Where had that come from? Wasn’t he the guy who had walked out on his kid? The man who cold-bloodedly chose women who were a slightly upscale, sophisticated version of a good-time girl expressly because they wouldn’t expect a damn
relationship
from him?

So why choose
now
to be honorable? He grabbed the coffeemaker’s glass carafe, ignoring the splatter and hiss on the hot plate as the last drops of water dripped through the grounds and hit it. Gratefully, he poured himself a soup-bowl-size mug.

Gut in an unaccustomed uproar, he took a big gulp and burned his tongue. Jerked in reaction to the scald and splashed some coffee from the cup onto the back of his hand.

“Ouch! Shit!” He fumbled the mug onto the counter, gave his hand a fierce shake, then slapped the faucet on, producing a voluminous gush of water.

“Christ.” He thrust his hand beneath the cold flood.

And wouldn’t have been the least bit comforted if he’d known he was mimicking Jenny—who was in his head too damn deep as it was—when he said, “Somebody just shoot me now.”

* * *

“
I’
M
SORRY
YOU
CAN
’
T
see Nolan right away,” Jenny said that afternoon as they climbed in the car.

Austin shrugged and focused his attention on his hands as they slowly fit the male end of his seat belt into the female and clicked it home.

Anything not to have to look at her. Jenny already seemed to possess this spooky ability to see into his head and read his thoughts.

They’d just walked out of Dr. Janus’s office, where he’d gotten his shot to replace the messed-up vaccination Dr. Howser had given him and Nolan and a bunch of other kids back when they were little.

It turned out he was gonna need a second one as well in about a month. Plus, Dr. J had said Austin’s body needed time to generate its own antibodies, so he had to keep on keeping his distance from Nolan.

It really sucked that he was sort of happy about that. What kind of shitty friend was he?

“It won’t be for long,” Jenny continued reassuringly, and he really wished she would quit talking.

Oblivious, she reached across the console to pat his knee. “Rebecca tells me Nolan’s eruptions are starting to crust. He won’t be infectious very much longer.”

“Yeah,” he agreed glumly.

“Hey, I know!” She took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a glance. “Why don’t we swing by and pick up Bailey? She’d probably appreciate the opportunity to get out of the house, too.”

“I’ve got to get to practice. But Bailey talked about being there.”

“Oh. I totally forgot about that. Still, I’m glad she’s going. You two are good together. And I think she can probably use all the friends she can get right now. Rebecca said she’s having a tough time in school.”

“It’s those damn snobby girls!” Okay, maybe that came out sounding a little too angry, because Jenny shot him an odd look. But it pissed him off that none of the girls at school would give Bailey a break.

And Jenny merely said, “It’s not easy coming in at the end of the year—especially in a school where everybody knows everyone else. Trust me, I’ve been there. You want to give her a call to see if she needs a ride?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, pulling his Droid from his pocket.

“Hey,” he said when Bailey answered. “Me and Jenny are on our way to practice. Want us to swing by to pick you up? You can tell Mrs. D if you want that I’ll walk you home when it’s over, so she doesn’t have to come pick you up.”

“That would be great,” Bailey said, and the pleasure in her voice sent an embarrassing heat through him.

“Sweet. See you in a few.”

“That works for her, I take it,” Jenny said and detoured to the Damoths’ house at the next turn.

“Yeah.” He kept his gaze firmly on the scenery outside. Because he was pumped knowing he’d have Bailey all to himself after practice. And he really wouldn’t mind if Nolan’s contagion took a bit longer to go away.

Which, as he’d already established, made him the shittiest of shitty friends.

* * *

J
AKE
WAS
RESTLESS
. He’d turned in the last of his
National Explorer
assignment a few days ago and had been enjoying a little R and R. But today being unproductive chafed him. Pacing the rental house ate up a little time, but not nearly enough. He was bored.

The thought stopped him in his tracks. “What are you, eight?” His
kid
acted more mature than this. Exasperated with himself, he grabbed his camera, threw a couple of extra lenses in the bag and slammed out of the house. It had been a nice day, weather-wise, and was gearing up to be a decent evening, as well. Getting out and enjoying the weather beat the hell out of rambling around the cottage.

He killed some time stretched out on his stomach on the edge of the inn’s lawn to get shots of the sun-dappled water through the sea grasses. But landscapes weren’t exactly the creative outlet he was looking for. He liked photographing people best, yet did he take the boardwalk into town where he was likely to find a subject or two? No, ma’am. He found himself stalking down the beach away from it. Because as much as he’d enjoy shooting some portrait studies, he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

Until he spotted his brother—
half
brother—through the sparse screen of trees and waterfront properties that separated this section of the beach from the shore road. Max was cruising tortoise slow in his department SUV and—his frame of mind inexplicably lightening—Jake found himself cutting across the lot of one of the summer people’s buttoned-up cabin and heading toward the road to see where Deputy Dawg was going.

The action was about as dumb as everything else he’d done today, but what the hell. For the first time since he’d awakened this morning with little Ms. Salazar burrowed firmly in his head, his mind was engaged in something other than her.

The million-dollar question, of course, was what made him think he had a snowball’s chance of keeping pace with a man in a car. But, hey, it was something to do and it wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of time on his hands. If—or, more realistically,
when
—he lost the trail, he’d at least have burned some time in this interminable day.

But—whataya know—he caught a break. As he rounded the slight bend in the road, he saw the back end of Max’s cruiser disappearing down the public boat launch where they’d watched the nuclear submarine. Red taillights blinked, then disappeared into the trees that bordered either side of the drive and parking area.

Cutting back toward the sun-dappled water, he lengthened his strides down the high, intermittently sandy sections of the pebble-and-rock beach.

The tide was in, and the shoreline mimicked the curve to the east that the road had taken, so the boat ramp was out of sight until Jake navigated the bend. The first thing he saw when he cleared it was Max sitting in a patch of sand with his back propped against a log, staring out over the canal. Jake stopped in his tracks and groped for his camera.

His brother looked so...lonely. Or, hell, maybe just alone. All Jake knew for sure was that the guy was all big, brooding angles, from his austere mouth and sharp cheekbones to the rawboned massiveness of his shoulders and wrists and his big-knuckled hands. His long legs were drawn up, his muscular arms crossed over his knees, and he’d planted his angular chin on one wrist.

Max’s dark hair, dark brows and thick fan of lashes, not to mention the black, almost military-style uniform sweater he wore with his jeans, were a study in contrasts against the bleached-out log he leaned against and the pale sand he’d dug his bare feet into.