"I suppose I should make an effort to go, too, one of these days," she said, taking what she knew was far too long to clean a single plate. "It's just, I've never been real big on church. Mother was Episcopalian, but not what you'd call dedicated, you know? So it never really took with me, either. Not that I don't believe, I just don't play well with others, I guess—"
"Jenna. Stop your infernal rattling and look at me."
She froze at Hank's gentle reprimand, then turned, her arms tucked against her stomach as some sort of lame—as Blair would say—defense against his impenetrable gaze. He sat sprawled in the chair, his arms crossed, one leg stretched out as usual. Laid back, one might think, except that every trace of the gentle teasing from a second before was gone, replaced by an iron set to his jaw she hadn't seen in weeks. Even so, everything in her screamed to reach out, give up, give in to the overpowering longing to feel his skin against hers one last time. Oh, God, she wished the next few minutes were already behind her.
Even if she dreaded even more the nothingness that would be left when they were.
Chapter 16
"What's up?" he said, too quietly.
"I…" She stopped, hauling in a deep breath. "I'm…we're not staying the extra week."
Except for a spasm in his jaw, he didn't react at all. "Mind tellin' me why?"
"I…need more time to prepare for my class than I'd thought, that's all."
"That's bull, Jenna. Now cut the crap and tell me the truth."
Oh, God. "Fine," she said on a rush of air. "I'm scared, Hank. Last night—"
"Was an isolated, off-the-wall thing. That was the first time Angel's had a holdup in more'n twenty years—"
"I know that. For heaven's sake—I'd hardly want to take Blair back to D.C. if it was crime I was worried about."
"Okay. Then why are you blowing me off?"
"I am not blowing you off!"
"Oh, yeah? Sure sounds like it to me. But hey, nobody said just because I fell in love with you that you had to with me."
His words hung in the air between them, threatening to suffocate her. Finally she regained control of her lungs enough to get out, "It wouldn't work, Hank. I can't leave my position, or uproot Blair—"
"Ever?"
She licked her lips, cursing the blush singeing her cheeks. "Our lives are back east, Hank. Not that I don't like Haven, but it's not my home. And Blair's friends back there…these are kids she's known all her life—"
"She can make new friends. She has made new friends. But all the family she's got is here."
"Don't you dare pull that on me, Hank Logan! I was her family before they were, in every way that counted!"
"Nobody's sayin' you're not, sweetheart. But what I'm saying is—"
"I know what you're saying—"
"Okay. I'll move to D.C."
Fear ripped through her. "What?"
"I'll move there," he said with a shrug. "I'd already been giving it some thought, as it happens. And I've got a nibble on the Arrow. So I'll sell up and move east."
This couldn't be happening. "But…but what you just said, about your family…"
"I missed the first thirteen years of my daughter's life. It's come to me that I'd rather not miss any more of it than I have to. And if you haven't figured it out by now, I intend to smash every objection you come up with until you decide to tell me the real reason why you've suddenly changed your mind."
She turned back to the sink, even though there was nothing left to wash. "I haven't changed my mind. I never made any promises, Hank, and you know it."
"That's true, you didn't." She heard him get up from the table, close the gap between them. "Except you can't tell me that, up until what happened at the Git 'n' Go, we weren't at least travelling down the same road. Now suddenly you want to turn back. So, see, what that says to me is that either I misread what was happening between us—"
"You didn't misread anything, Hank," she said, so softly she could barely hear herself.
"What did you say?"
Even though she knew it would kill her, she had to look at him. "I said, you didn't misread anything." Tears flooded her eyes; frantically, pointlessly, she blinked them back. "I'm not leaving because I don't love you, Hank. I've got to leave because I do."
She watched as disbelief, hope, confusion streaked across his face in rapid succession. "That doesn't make a lick of sense, Jenna—"
"Don't you understand? I can't go through losing anyone again! Only, until last night, until I saw that gun pointed at your chest, I thought, okay, maybe I could shove it all behind me, live for the day, the moment, not worry about the future. But after an entire night of being sick with fear, of reliving the horror I went through with Phil…oh, God, Hank," she said, her heart breaking at the look on his face, "I'm so sorry! And believe me, I feel like an idiot right now. But it seems as if I've spent the last ten years mourning people, and I'm tired. I love too hard or something, I don't know. But I do know I hurt too much when they die."
"I'm not plannin' on leaving any too soon, Jen."
She swiped her hand across her wet face. "Neither was Phil."
He glared at her for several seconds, then said softly, "Blair's gonna be gone in a few years. Then what? You planning on spending the rest of your life alone?"
"I have my work. I'll be okay."
He made a derisive sound. "Right. I forgot about all those people in your head."
"Hank, please…don't be this way—"
He suddenly charged her, making her take a step back. "I'll be any damn way I want! In case you missed it, you just pissed me off, honey. Pissed me off but good. I've lost a bunch of people I loved too! So I damn well know what it's like to think that maybe it's easier to be alone than to live. Then you came along and showed me exactly how much of a dumbass I was being."
He cupped her face in his hands, his mouth an inch from hers, her tears mercifully soft-focusing the fury hardening his mouth. "And I saw somebody even lonelier and more clueless than I was, so lonely I had no choice but to haul my butt out of the abyss I'd wallowed in for two years to rescue her. For God's sake, Jenna—don't you get it? I'd rather spend ten freakin' minutes with you than a lifetime without you!"
He captured her mouth in a kiss surprisingly tender, then engulfed her in a hug that was anything but. His heartbeat battered her eardrums; his scent, her senses, until she thought she'd die from the anguish.
"Oh, Hank, trust me…" She skimmed her hands up and down his back, up and down, as if she could imprint his solidness on her sense memory. "Nothing kills love more quickly than fear. And as long as I'm this scared, you wouldn't want to spend ten seconds with me. I'm so sorry," she repeated.
He abruptly let her go. A second later, he was at the door.
"So am I, honey. Because I think we could've been real good together. Real good. But damned if I'm gonna keep reaching out, only to get my hand slapped away."
Then he left, quietly shutting the door behind him.
* * *
Four weeks to the day after they left Haven, Blair slogged into Jenna's home office in her pj's, flopping onto the beat-up love seat on the wall opposite the desk and swinging one bare foot over the arm. Jenna glanced up from the computer screen, her mouth tightening at the oh-so-cheerful expression on her niece's face, sighed, clicked Save and leaned back in her desk chair.
"Nice chat with your father?" True to his word about wanting to know every detail of his daughter's life, Hank had called Blair at least every other evening since their return. God bless Caller ID, which had enabled Jenna to avoid picking up when he called. The last thing she needed was to hear his voice, especially since she'd craved nothing else since leaving Haven. She dragged over the open bag of potato chips she'd been unsuccessfully trying to ignore for the past hour and stuffed two or three into her mouth, breaking off a piece for Meringue, who'd jumped up on the desk when she heard the bag rattle.
"Yeah," Blair said. "Did I tell you, he's going to turn the Arrow int
o a real resort?"
"Really?" Jenna said through a mouthful of soggy chip bits. "A big one?"
"Nuh-uh. Just fancier. This guy wanted to buy it from Dad, and Dad thought he might sell, but he changed his mind. So the guy, some developer or something from Tulsa? He said he'd still like to invest in the place, anyway. So that's what he's going to do. There's gonna be a lodge and restaurant where the motel block is now, a pool and tennis courts, six more cottages, and all of the old ones are going to be completely remodeled."
"Wow. That'll take some big bucks."
Blair shrugged. "I guess." She twiddled with her hair for a second, then said, "He asked about you again. How you were doing."
Jenna stiffened and crammed in another handful of chips. "An you said?"
"That you were busy on a new book and getting ready to teach and stuff. I figured that was better than telling him the truth."
Startled, Jenna looked up in midmunch. "The truth?"
"Yeah. That you're miserable."
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm crazed because of the book, but you know I'm always like that at the beginning—"
"Jenna, hello? I know the difference between the way you get when a book's stressing you out and the way you've been since we came back. God—you're worse now than you were after Uncle Phil died."
Blair's words took her breath away. "That's not true!"
"It is! You're like this, this zombie or something, and this room is your tomb! All you do is sit in here and work and pig out on junk food." Blair swung her leg around to sit cross-legged on the love seat. "If I didn't come in here, we'd never even talk. What I don't get is, why you won't even try to work it out with Dad. You two are obviously crazy about each other."
Jenna looked back at her computer screen. "My relationship with your father is between him and me, Blair."
After a moment, Blair said, "This is scary for me, too, you know."
Jenna looked at her niece. "What is?"
Blair tugged her sleep T down over her knees, hugging her legs to her chest. "Letting myself love somebody else." Twin creases dug into the space between her sandy brows. "But isn't it kind of dumb to think we're only allowed a certain number of people in our lives, and if they die or move away or whatever, that's it?"
Another breath bit the dust. "Yeah. That would be kind of dumb."
"So?"
"So…what?"
"If that's true, why can't you work this out with Dad?"
Jenna leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples for a moment before letting her hands fall to her desk. "Blair, honey, I'm sorry, but your nagging me isn't going to change anything. I'm thrilled for you, I really am, that you're growing so fond of your father, that you've been able to get past your own pain. In some ways, I wish I could be like you. But I can't. Now if you don't mind, I need to get back to what I was doing—"
"I want to go live with Dad."
At this rate, Jenna thought, she'd never breathe again.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me."
"But…school. And your friends…"
"DeAnna's moving next month, and Tiffany's gotten all caught up in this new group, and…I don't know. It's just not the same." She shrugged. "I'd have to start over, anyway. Might as well be there."
"In Haven, Oklahoma."
"Yes, Jenna," Blair said patiently, as if she were the grown-up and Jenna the child. Which anyone eavesdropping on their conversation would have probably thought, anyway. "I like it a lot better than I thought I would. I don't know if I'd want to live there forever, but it's okay for now. And I like Maddie and Uncle Ryan and Uncle Cal. And the kids. And Dad's pretty cool, in a dorky kind of w-way." Then her face crumpled, two fat tears popping out and cruising down her cheeks. "And I can't stand it anymore, watching you be so unhappy and n-not knowing what to do about it!"
"Oh, sweetie…" Jenna was up and over to the love seat in a flash, gathering the weeping child into her arms. From the moment she'd made the decision to find Blair's father, she'd known losing her was a possibility. She'd never dreamed, however, that she'd be the one to drive her away. "I'm so sorry I've been such a wet blanket, I'll try to do better, I swear…."
But Blair was shaking her head against Jenna's chest. "I already told Dad I want to come," she said, pulling away and wiping her eyes. Jenna handed her a tissue. "And he said it was fine with him—" Blair loudly blew her nose, then looked up at Jenna through spiked cinnamon-colored lashes "—as long as it was okay with y-you. And you said it was up to me where I wanted to live."
Even though summer still had a few weeks to go, a chill tracked up Jenna's spine. "Yes, I know I did." Not even trying to keep the anguish out of her expression, she smoothed back her baby's hair. "Okay, fine. You can go. But you can't change your mind in two weeks. If you go, you stay."
"I know that. But I can come back at Thanksgiving, can't I?"
"You'd better!" Maybe it was better that she couldn't breathe, because that would only jostle the knife in her heart. "When…when do you want to go?"
Blair bit her lip. "As soon as possible? Like maybe this weekend, since school already started there? And is it okay if I take Meringue with me?"
"Sure, sweetie," Jenna said, pushing the words through her tight throat. Blair wrapped her arms around her neck and hugged, not with the abandon of a little girl who got what she most wanted for Christmas, Jenna thought, but cautiously, like someone who's not sure she got what she wanted after all.
Well. That was something Jenna knew all about, wasn't it?
* * *
"Libby's already called three times today," Hank said, finally ditching the Tulsa airport traffic and pulling out onto the highway. In her carrier on the seat between them, Meringue, not quite recovered from the mild sedative the vet had given her before the flight, meowed tentatively. You could almost hear the question mark at the end.
"I can't wait to see her," she said, but somehow, there wasn't quite as much enthusiasm as Hank might've expected.
"You havin' regrets? About coming?"
Blair seemed to think about this for a bit, then said, "Yes and no. I mean, I really did want to come back, but I hated leaving Jenna. But I couldn't stand being around her any longer, either. But I thought…"
"What?" Hank said, thinking there were an awful lot of "buts" in that explanation.
"I thought maybe, if I left, it'd make her change her mind. About you."
Oh, dear Lord. Hank gripped the steering wheel. "Are you tellin' me your coming out here was just some kind of stunt to get Jenna to follow?"
"No, I swear." At Hank's snort, however, she let out a sigh. "I didn't know what else to do, okay? It's like I told her…she's worse now than she was after Uncle Phil died. All she does is mope around, she hardly ever smiles, she never laughs, and you wouldn't believe how many bags of chips she's gone through." Then he felt her gaze sear the side of his face, even as his insides churned. "You've got to do something."
"Me? What the Sam Hill am I supposed to do?"
"Tell her she's being stupid?"
"Oh, yeah. That'd go over big."
"I mean it. She obviously loves you—"
The words knifed straight through him. "Which doesn't mean squat, honey," he said after the initial pain subsided, "if you're as scared as your aunt is."
"Why are you taking her side?"
"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm just telling you, there's nothing I or anyone else can do to change her mind until she's good and ready to have it changed. I know, honey. I've been there." And that was the only thing that had kept him from wanting to throttle her, that he did understand. Didn't matter that she wasn't being rational. Rational rarely had anything to do with people's fears. He understood that, too.
"Don't you want to be together?" Blair asked.
Hank glanced over, then back out to the highway. "More than I've ever wanted anything in my life."
"Then—"
"Blair, I'm sorry, but this is your aunt's problem to w
ork out. Not mine. And she made it more'n clear to me before she left that us having a relationship was a dead issue. So do me a big favor and let it lie in peace, okay? Now—you want to stop by Ruby's when we get to town and get some lunch?"
"Whatever," Blair said, ramming her folded arms across her stomach.
They didn't have much to say to each other the rest of the way, which was good and bad. Good, because arguing with any female was hard on the nerves; arguing with a teenaged one was exhausting. And bad because the silence gave Hank far too much time to think about things he'd already been devoting too much time to over the past month, namely, what he could do to blast Jenna out of her cave. Especially if she was as miserable as Blair said she was.
But no matter how many ways he tried to look at the problem, he always came back to the same point, which was that there was no way in hell to force Jenna to see things his way. Much as he might like to.
At least, so he'd told himself a thousand times during the past month.
"I could stay with Maddie and Uncle Ryan. Or Libby," Blair said, making him start. He looked over, frowning at her smug expression.
"What are you talking about?"
She shoved a hunk of hair behind her ear. "When you go to D.C. To talk to Jenna," she added. In case she was being too subtle.
Hank suppressed a groan. Barely. "Didn't you hear a single blessed word I said back there?"
"Maybe she'd feel differently now. If you showed up."
"And maybe I'd just be wasting my time."
"Well, you'll never know unless you try, will you?"
Hank went ahead and let out that groan.
* * *
During the six or so hours since she'd put Blair on the plane for Tulsa, Jenna had finished up the third chapter of her new work-in-progress, chatted with both her agent and her editor, who were both thrilled with how well her book signing had gone—and although her editor had kept mum, her agent had hinted that there was talk about Moon over Oklahoma, the new book, going hardcover—gone grocery shopping, answered some fan mail, and sat on her sofa in a stupor until darkness swallowed the apartment.
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