And to think she’d gotten excited about that scoop. Was, frankly, stupidly, still excited. Good lord if this were true…
But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
Still, she had never seen a man so vulnerable as Ian before he left her. He’d been stripped bare, his sparkle gone, the charm and the grin nowhere to be found. He was simply a man worried and naked.
The journalist in her wanted to believe him.
The woman in her wanted to help him.
That vulnerability, that heart-rending guilelessness, appealed to her, called out to something soft and nurturing in her, and she wanted to help him. She wanted to touch him. Brush that hair back from his forehead and tell him she’d help him make things better. She wanted to touch her fingers to his lips, to ease away the sad set to his mouth. She wanted to run her hands across his eyes, down his cheeks to erase the solemn cast to his beautiful face.
Those walls he’d blown over this morning with his bare chest and that towel were not going to be rebuilt. She saw that now.
This attraction to Ian was only getting worse, because where the nurturer stopped, the woman took over, and there were other things she wanted to do to him. Other ways she wanted to touch him.
“Crazy!” Jennifer said, shaking herself free from where she’d been rooted on the floor, staring vacantly out the window. “Absolutely nuts.”
There was nothing for her to do upstairs, no way to occupy her hands and head. Already the small apartment was too filled with her anxiety and misplaced desire. Spence and Deb were outside and she turned, ready to go back downstairs, but then she heard the rumble of voices through the floorboards.
The dark timbre of Ian’s voice sent gooseflesh across her back and over her scalp. Bob answered, she could tell by his Jersey accent.
They were in the kitchen and she needed to stay away from Ian. To just wait it out, while he was down there.
Suddenly, stupidly, the image of Annabelle with those big sunglasses popped into her head. Her skin prickled as if a draft blew over her.
Tentatively, wondering if she were simply validating a lunatic’s wild accusations because she was so unhappy with her life, she reached for her laptop and clicked onto the Internet using the wireless that J.D. had set up.
A messenger window popped up.
KerryWaldo: You’re like one of those people who has a huge house but only uses one room. Do you know what carte blanche means? Annabelle’s son is in rehab, though no one can find out which one. Jackson Greer is all over the news again—if you’re going to do a story about Annabelle, you need to do it now. You should want to do it now. The Jennifer I knew would leap at this chance. Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.
Jennifer stared at the screen, dumbfounded. Waldo no doubt meant something fluffier than what was happening here with Ian. Waldo…the whole damn world…had no idea what Jennifer could do with this follow-up story. The tsunami-sized ripples this story would make.
Waldo, Jennifer knew, would commit crimes for this story. Murder. Mayhem. She’d chop off heads for this scoop.
With a calmness she was so far from feeling Jennifer closed the window.
Swallowing hard she searched pictures of Annabelle Greer and within seconds she had that black-and-white photo from Greer’s first term as governor of North Carolina.
Annabelle had just released her first children’s book to rave reviews and the couple was suddenly all over the newspapers. The photo was taken outside, in the spring. Sunlight made a halo around her shiny pageboy, and she wore those big glasses and that mandarin collar.
Jennifer peered closer, as if better study of the photo would reveal its secrets. Her mind swung like a pendulum from doubt to wonder—was she? Wasn’t she?—without ever getting closer to a decision.
Looking harder at the photo, she realized Ian stood in the corner. At ten he’d already been handsome—striking, really—with dark lashes around light eyes. He stood beside his mother, watching her.
His eyes, his whole face, so terribly, terribly sad.
What was true?
And she realized, if she could just get that answer, and it was the right one, there would be no stopping her from writing this story.
Jennifer managed to avoid Ian for a while. Or maybe he was avoiding her. Either way, there were no accidental run-ins in the kitchen, or outside the bathroom.
She and Deb taught classes, ran a book group, ordered supplies. They rejoiced over the fixed faucet, speculated on life with central air and didn’t talk about the men living in the back room.
Instead it was just Jennifer and the thoughts spinning in her head nonstop.
Finally, crying uncle the next afternoon, Jennifer headed outside to the pond, where she knew Deb would have the boys cooling off during the hottest part of the day.
She needed to breathe fresh air. Needed to be outside. Needed to be out of her damn head.
She broke through the treeline onto the dirt rim of the swimming pond. Spence, stripped down to his cut-off jean shorts, was sailing out over the water on the rope swing J.D. had built years ago.
Spence had been practicing his trick off the rope and he managed to get half a somersault in before belly-flopping into the water.
He came up howling and she winced in sympathy. Her boy caught sight of her and lifted his hand up in a wave.
“Did you see that?” he cried.
“Yep,” she said. “You almost got it.”
Spence swam for the shore and was soon scrambling up the rough bank, reaching for the rope again, the flesh of his belly pink from hitting the water.
When did he get so brave? she wondered. He certainly hadn’t learned it from her. Doug had been brave in his way, taking everything head-on, even sickness and death.
If Spence and Doug could do that, what could she do? What could she face? Another fluff piece? Sure, if she had to. What about Kerry Waldo’s assumption that Jennifer’s life was over because she wasn’t writing hard journalism?
Or the possibility that Ian was telling the truth?
If it were true—and that was such a huge if—the story would electrify the world. The story would electrify her career.
The career she’d left behind. The career she’d left for dead.
“Hey,” Deb said and Jennifer broke out of her thoughts to find the woman playing in the sand with Shonny.
“Hi,” she said, scrambling around the pond to get to Deb.
“Ian and Andille are still here,” Deb said, cutting to the chase. “They gonna start paying rent, or what?”
“Central air is still getting fixed and Ian hasn’t said anything about the lawsuit.”
Deb pursed her lips and looked down at Shonny and his scribbles in the sand.
The sound of bugs buzzing through the grass and bushes filled the quiet between them. Jennifer closed her eyes and let the warm Carolina wind blow over her face, wishing it could blow away the weight she felt on her shoulders.
“You okay?” Deb asked, shielding her eyes from the sun as she glanced at Jennifer.
No, she wanted to say. She actually wanted to tell Deb everything Ian had told her, but she’d promised and she knew what Deb would say anyway.
Deb was no fan of Ian Greer.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Tired.”
“You snapped at Laura yesterday?” Deb said, raising her eyebrow and smiling just slightly.
“What did she say?” Jennifer groaned, feeling bad again for the way she’d dealt with her.
“That you were snappy and that she’d never count on us for babysitting service again.”
Jennifer sighed and put her head in her hands. Really, she was batting a thousand. “I’ll apologize,” Jennifer mumbled.
“Don’t,” Deb said. “She was plenty snippy in return. Walking back here with her nose so high in the air it’s a wonder she didn’t fall.”
“Did she take off those sunglasses?”
Deb looked at her askance. “No. Why?”
Jennifer sta
red at her hands, wondering if she were a fool for even contemplating this. Ian was a scandal monger and this could be his biggest scandal, his greatest success, and she was getting sucked in.
“Jen?”
“Do you think—” She sighed and just said it. “Do you think Laura is abused?”
Deb blinked at her. Watched her. Then shrugged. “She says no.”
“She could be lying,” Jennifer said then wondered why she was pursuing this.
“Sure,” Deb said. “But we have no reason to believe otherwise.” She drew a series of stars in the sand for Shonny to exclaim over.
“Fire truck!” Shonny yelled and Deb began to sketch a fire truck.
“When I first came here,” Deb said, “and for the year that I stayed, I thought every woman was a victim and every man an abuser. Everywhere I turned. And I realized at some point you have to take people at their word or you’ll make yourself crazy.”
Jennifer turned, slack-jawed, to face Deb, wondering if she was even aware of the huge hypocrisy in what she was saying. “So, you’re totally over that?” she asked sarcastically. “You don’t believe every man is an abuser?”
Deb’s head snapped around at Jennifer’s tone then she seemed to catch on. She relaxed and smiled ruefully. “I’m trying,” she insisted.
“Like you’re trying with Andille?”
Deb’s lips tightened and she stared at the fire truck sketched out in the sand. Her small body radiated tension.
“The man has given you no reason not to trust him,” Jennifer said, wondering if maybe she should leave well enough alone, but somehow unable to. “And you’re treating him like he’s personally assaulted you.”
Deb wiped her cheek on her shoulder and they both looked up at the sound of Spence screaming out over the water. He landed in a huge cannonball and Shonny cheered.
“I know.” Deb sighed. “It’s just that I had no chance to get used to him. No chance to get used to the idea that a man like that—”
“Like what?”
Deb was so still. So quiet. “Big,” she said. “Real big. And handsome, like my father was. And charming like him, too.”
“He’s not your father,” Jennifer said softly.
“I know that.” Deb scowled. “In my head, I’m clear on that. But when I see him, something happens. Some alarm goes off that—” She stopped. “I can’t ignore,” she finally whispered.
“You don’t want to spend your life hiding from men, do you?” Jennifer asked. “Hating all of them for what your father did?”
Deb watched Shonny, her heart in her eyes, and Jennifer’s heart bled for the woman, it really did. “No,” Deb finally said. “And I tell myself to try. I tell myself not every man is my father. Not every man will hurt me. I’m telling myself that right now, about Andille, who has been nothing but kind.” She sighed. “But it’s hard.”
Jennifer slung her arm around her friend. “I hear you,” she said, knocking her head lightly against Deb’s.
“What about you?” Deb asked, pulling away.
“What about me?”
“You’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping yourself clear of men for the past few years.”
Jennifer reeled back, her heart pounding. “My husband died,” she said.
“So, you’re done?” Deb asked. “Thirty-seven years old and you’re giving up?”
“It’s not about giving up.”
“Yes,” she said, laughing slightly, and Jennifer bristled. “It is. Men make up fifty percent of the world and we’ve both been avoiding them. Not that we can any longer with two of them right under our feet, for who knows how long.”
Jennifer wanted to protest, but she knew Deb was right. The problem was Jennifer was in no hurry to stop.
She thought of all the reasons she didn’t like Ian Greer. The secrets. The way he’d shown up drunk on her doorstep after his mother’s funeral. The way he’d spent so many years defiling his family’s good name. She really didn’t like the way he’d saddled her with this secret…or lie, depending on what was true.
But what really bothered her, what really sunk under her skin and made her itch, was her reaction to him. The way her body went liquid at the sight of him. The way his gaze could hold her and stop her heart. His smile and the way his jeans fit and his shirt hugged the muscles of his shoulders made her feel womanly again. He made her want to be desired and feel desire.
It made her want Doug. It made her want Ian.
It made her want to have her hormones surgically removed.
To her horror, part of her—the part out of the control of her brain and her grief—was ready to join the living again. At least in some capacity.
Behind them leaves rustled and branches snapped and Jennifer and Deb both stood to see what was running through the woods.
Ian sprinted from the treeline. He stopped when he saw them, panting and panicked.
Adrenaline surged through her at the sight of him.
“We’ve got a situation,” he said.
8
Ian was no good with hysterical women. They made him nervous. Andille said it was because he wasn’t in touch with his feminine side. Luckily, Andille was right at home with hysterical women. He had seven sisters after all and a mother to try to keep happy. So, when the hysterical woman toting two hysterical girls knocked on the door of Serenity minutes ago, Ian left them in Andille’s capable hands and went to find Jennifer and Deb.
Jennifer and Deb, who were such pros they took one look at his face, gathered up their kids and were on the trail back to the house before he could catch his breath.
He brought up the rear, behind a red-headed boy in dripping wet cut-offs. The boy turned and walked backward, watching Ian.
“Hi,” Ian said, after a moment. In his effort to give Jennifer her space to make up her mind about him and his story, he’d been avoiding all the residents, including this kid.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, stepping over a root as though he had eyes in the back of his head.
“My name is Ian.” He was no good with hysterical women but he really liked kids. His mother, before his father was ever in office, had taken Ian to orphanages and shelters to volunteer on weekends. It was something he did all through his teens and only stopped once it began to contradict this image he worked so hard to present to the world. “Who are you?”
“Spence.” Spence swiped at a mosquito that hovered close. Twilight was coming and with it the swarms of southern pests. “Is Andille a basketball player?”
“Nope. But he’s very good at soccer.”
“He is?” Spence asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Not as good as me,” Ian said with a grin. “But pretty good.”
“I play soccer.”
I bet you do.
“Well, then, sometime we’ll have to have a game.”
“Me, too!” the toddler over Deb’s arm shouted.
“You, too,” Ian agreed, feeling so good he almost forgot about the screaming woman.
Spence stumbled slightly, but didn’t slow down. “My mom doesn’t like you,” he said quietly.
“I’m not always a real likeable guy,” Ian said. He rarely wished things were different, but walking with this kid he felt the bite of remorse.
Spence harrumphed and Ian wondered if that noise was a good opinion, or bad.
As they neared the house, the wailing of those little girls could be heard and Ian felt a terrible surge in his blood pressure. Lord, he hated crying.
He wasn’t an idiot, and knew it went back to his mother. Who, oddly enough, didn’t cry. She never got hysterical. No matter what—and there had been plenty for her to cry over.
But he knew that her total and utter control in the face of all things was why he was never prepped for tears. He simply didn’t have the tools to deal with them, like trying to go after a nail with a socket wrench.
Jennifer and Deb took off running at the sound of the crying and, without many options, Ian followed.
The woman, who looked a bit like the woman who’d been here yesterday with the sunglasses, was right where he’d left her. Sitting on the couch, the two girls clinging to her.
At the sight of Deb and Jennifer the girls cried harder.
Andille stood useless in the corner and Ian gave him a pointed look, wondering why he hadn’t handled this, and Andille shrugged. Apparently this situation was beyond his calming capabilities.
“Madison?” Jennifer asked, coming to crouch in front of the girls. “What’s going on?”
Deb sat on the couch and stroked the blond heads and murmured comforting things. Ah, Ian thought, that’s what you’re supposed to do.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “My name is Sarah. I’m Laura Jones’s sister.”
“What’s happened?” Jennifer asked and Ian could see the strain and stress on Jennifer’s face and he felt the utterly bewildering desire to help her. To relieve those fine fragile features of their concern.
But, sadly, he didn’t have the tools for that, either.
He really was useless sometimes.
“Laura’s been arrested,” Sarah said. “Marcus is in the hospital.”
Oh, but this situation was starting to look like familiar ground. Perhaps he could be of use after all.
“What?” Jennifer breathed. Madison cried harder and the other girl’s screams hit a fever pitch.
“Come on.” Deb stepped in. “Let’s go see if we have any cookies in the kitchen.” It took some doing but she managed to pry the girls away from Sarah. But then Shonny started crying and finally Andille earned his keep by sweeping the boy up in his arms and giving him a little jostle to make him laugh.
Deb stiffened like Andille had taken a bat to the boy but after a long tense moment, she relaxed. Barely.
Spence, still dripping and looking about as shell-shocked as Ian felt, followed everyone into the kitchen.
Pat heads, whisper comforting things and, finally, find cookies. The ABC’s of grief counseling, Ian filed it away for future use.
Daisy brought up the rear, sparing a growl for Ian as she walked by.
With the children gone the silence was heavy and Ian felt like an interloper on a scene he didn’t even want to see. Since he knew this story, knew it better than he wanted to having lived it for so long, he knew it would be handy for him to stick around.
And Then There Was You (Serenity House Book 2) Page 8