Close to Home

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “I told you I was going to win,” she said triumphantly.

  Jace put the paper down and his eyes wandered to hers. To his surprise she didn’t look away.

  A lock of hair slipped over her cheek and without stopping to think, Jace reached over and brushed it away. Like he used to.

  Then she caught his wrist, curling her fingers around it.

  Like she used to.

  For a split second they were connected.

  Jace’s mind slipped back to that moment of weakness he saw in her during the car ride home. Questions swirled in his mind as he struggled with old, residual feelings.

  “Dodie, I wish—”

  “Here we are.” Sheila bustled into the room with a tray of clinking glasses. “Refreshments for the evening.”

  Dodie dropped his hand as if it burned her, and her gaze retreated downward as she scurried back to the couch.

  Jace felt like cursing Sheila’s sudden arrival. Once again it seemed as if he had hovered on the threshold of discovery. As if one more moment would have slipped open the door into Dodie’s secrets.

  Sheila handed him a glass of soda. “Help yourself to cookies or muffins,” she said, pointing to the plate heaped with baked goodies. She stood in front of him for an extra moment, as if waiting for some kind of acknowledgment.

  “Thanks.” Jace glanced up at her and took a quick sip of soda, his eyes returning to Dodie.

  But she was ignoring him, gathering up papers, shuffling them into piles.

  Sheila pulled a chair closer to the low table and dropped her folder on it with a thunk.

  “So, how did you do with your list, Sheila?” Jace asked.

  Sheila looked from Dodie to Jace as if she sensed something happening between them.

  “I got something from most everyone,” she said, tapping a shining fingernail on her folder. “Gift certificates. And quite a few donations. Some clothes, some custom embroidery for a sweatshirt, tickets to the symphony in September and tickets to an Oilers hockey game in October. Box seats,” she added with a satisfied grin.

  “Wow. That’s pretty good.” Jace was impressed. Between what Dodie had collected, what he had managed to pull together, and Sheila’s contributions, both the live and silent auctions looked to be a huge success.

  “Is Paul singing during the dinner, as you hoped?” Sheila asked.

  “I’m not sure…” Jace looked over at Dodie. “He was going to get back to you, wasn’t he?”

  Dodie nodded. “He called yesterday to tell me he wasn’t going to sing.”

  Jace frowned. Why was Dodie looking as if she had just scored some major coup?”

  “Helen Lennox is going to sing instead.”

  Jace and Sheila spoke up at once.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Really?”

  “How did you…what…” Jace sputtered, his mind ticking back to that evening. Helen hadn’t given the slightest indication that she was interested in singing ever again, let alone for their fundraiser.

  “That’s unbelievable,” Sheila said, with a trace of envy in her voice. “I didn’t realize you knew her.”

  “I didn’t. I met her when Jace and I went to visit her and Paul.

  “I heard they got married. I thought it was just a rumor,” Sheila huffed, twisting a strand of dark hair around her finger. “I can’t imagine she would choose to live way out in the boonies in that cabin of his.” She rolled her eyes at Jace as if he would understand.

  “It’s very cozy,” Dodie said with a wistful tone. “And quiet. I think I could live there. Far away from people…”

  Jace wondered at the note of yearning in her voice.

  “So did Helen say what she was going to sing? Is she going to get her band to perform with her? Or is she flying solo?” Sheila grabbed a notebook and clicked her pen, glancing from Jace to Dodie, looking for more information.

  “We didn’t iron out all the details,” Dodie replied, her smile lingering at the edge of her lips as she hugged her knees. “But I do believe she said something about Paul accompanying her.”

  “So it would be an acoustic set.” Sheila clicked her pen again, then scribbled some notes. “Our ticket sales are going to go through the roof once word gets out. Between our speaker and Helen Lennox, this will be a sold-out event.”

  “I imagine.” Dodie rested her chin on her knees then turned her head to look at Jace. “You do realize that this little coup, on top of all the other donations I’ve already gotten, puts me squarely in the lead.”

  “Do you want me to concede already?”

  “How many more businesses are left on your list?” Dodie asked, a faintly taunting note filling her voice.

  “A few.”

  “Probably the ones that didn’t return your calls the first time? The ones that maybe have something, you know, like a T-shirt or a mug?”

  Jace lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Okay. I give up. You won.”

  “Won? Won what?” Sheila frowned at both of them, obviously puzzled.

  “Dodie and I had a little contest going to see who would get the most valuable donations,” Jace explained, setting his cup down on the table. “And I think she’s won.”

  “Really? How interesting.” Sheila’s tone intimated she thought anything but. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

  “It was just between Jace and me,” Dodie said. “I think he was scared I was going to quit on him, and he figured I needed the incentive.”

  “Little did I know,” Jace said. “Especially now that you’ve managed to get Helen to come and sing. Congratulations. I’m very proud of you.”

  Dodie shrugged, but Jace saw a flush creep up her neck. The small hint of her discomfort gave him his second sliver of hope. And even better, he’d lost his challenge with her, which meant he got to take her out for dinner.

  The three of them spent the rest of the evening sorting out the donations, deciding which ones needed certificates, and where to store the ones already received. As they catalogued the items, Jace grew more excited about the prospects of the fundraiser. It was going to be a roaring success and a huge feather in his cap.

  Carson would be sure to take notice, he thought. Anything that put him in Carson’s field of vision was a bonus.

  “So where do we bring all the actual donations?” Dodie asked, getting to her feet.

  “I’m going to suggest my office. I imagine that would probably be the most secure place to store them.” Jace replied.

  “Okay. I’ll bring what I’ve got already.”

  Jace tried to catch her eye as she gathered up her papers, but she seemed to be ignoring him.

  A pang of disappointment reverberated through him. Had he imagined that moment between them?

  Chapter Six

  Dodie glanced at the clock on her dashboard before she got out of the car. Jace’s secretary told her that he wouldn’t be back until twelve-thirty, which gave her twenty minutes.

  The box holding the quilt was surprisingly heavy, and she’d had to park a ways down the street, so she was out of breath by the time she pushed her way through the large glass door into Jace’s office.

  “What have you got now?” Jace’s secretary, Callie, asked, looking up as Dodie put the box onto the floor.

  “The quilt.” Dodie set the box down and caught her breath. “I didn’t think that it would weigh so much.”

  Callie got up from her desk. “Do you need a hand?”

  “I’ll help her.”

  Dodie’s heart shifted at the sound of Jace’s deep voice. What was he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to be back yet.

  She felt a frisson of awareness when she caught his blue eyes looking down at her. Why was it that every time she saw him, the old feelings grew stronger?

  And why was it that each moment they were together, she wavered between pleasure in his company and bittersweet regret?

  “So this is the quilt?” he asked, bending down to pick up the box.

  �
�If you don’t mind putting it away, that’d be great.” She took a step backward, toward the door. “I should get going anyway, so thanks.”

  “I’ll bring it to the room, but you’ll have to show me what to do with it.”

  Dodie was about to tell him she didn’t care. But he had already headed down the hallway, and walking away would look rude, so she followed him.

  He shouldered open the door behind which the rest of the auction items were stored. “As you can see, it’s getting full in here, and I don’t want it to get squashed, so do you have any ideas?” Jace asked.

  “Most anyplace will do. Just make sure nothing gets stacked on top of it.” Dodie glanced around the room. “Wow. Things are really picking up.”

  “Callie had most of the gift certificates typed up already, and we’re still getting a few more donations in. We’re going to have a full day just tagging everything, then another entire day setting it all up in the arena.”

  “I’ve got Steve to deliver his stained-glass window directly here. I have a bit of nagging to do to get some of the other stuff in, but I’m slowly getting my list done.” Dodie couldn’t help adding, “My very extensive list.”

  Jace set the box beside the boxed-up dollhouse Dodie had brought yesterday, then turned to her. “And speaking of your list, I owe you a dinner. I’ve been trying to get hold of you to arrange it, but you seem to be avoiding me.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Text messages? C’mon.”

  Dodie shrugged his comment aside. “Don’t worry about dinner. It was a good incentive. You don’t need to follow through.”

  “I honor my deals,” Jace said. “So, how about this Saturday?”

  Dodie let her eyes graze over him again, testing her reaction to him, and her stomach twisted as his eyes held hers. “I think I’m babysitting for Janie that night.”

  “You used that excuse the last time you weren’t babysitting for Janie.” Jace crossed his arms as if getting ready to challenge her.

  “This time I am.”

  “I checked already. Janie, Luke and the kids are gone for the weekend. And your mother doesn’t need you for anything.” He quirked a brow. “And as far as I know, there’s no special market day within a two-hour drive, nor are you working at Janie’s coffee shop or the thrift store that night.”

  As she tried to hold his gaze, her mind slipped back to that evening in Sheila’s basement. When he had touched her and she had thought her heart was going to jump out of her chest.

  Then she had held his wrist, caught the scent of his cologne and something at the core of her being had shifted.

  She had missed him so much it created an ache within her. An ache she couldn’t act on.

  So she had ignored his phone calls and messages about dinner. There was no way she could go out with him and pretend as if everything was fine.

  “I’m not going to quit until you agree.”

  Why he was bothering with her?

  His persistence created a spark of yearning, which she quickly quashed. If he knew…

  “If you keep putting me off, I’m going to think something else is going on,” he said. “And I’m a lawyer, I know how to ask questions…know how to find out secrets—”

  “Okay. Fine.” She glared at him, hating the pressure. But his comment about finding out secrets bothered her more. “I get to pick the place.”

  Jace raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “How could I forget?”

  She let her gaze rove over his suit and made a sudden decision.

  “Why don’t we do D.J.’s. Saturday night.”

  “D.J.’s? Not the Riverbend Inn?”

  Dodie shook her head. “We’ll do takeout and eat by the river.”

  “Okay. It’s your choice. I’ll pick you up at five o’clock.”

  Dodie thought that was the end of that. Until Jace took a step closer.

  Don’t step back, she thought. Don’t move away. Stand your ground.

  But she couldn’t stop her breath from coming faster, her heart from pounding a little harder.

  Jace frowned as if sensing her discomfort and touched her cheek. Just the faintest brush of his fingers, hearkening back to a time when it was his right to do so and she would have welcomed his touch.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She chanced another look into his eyes, then over his familiar features. In her mind she saw herself tracing the scar on the side of his face with her finger like she used to. Her way of letting him know that she saw the faint disfigurement as part of him.

  If anything, the scar created an air of mystery and danger that Dodie knew still could smolder beneath Jace’s now-benign expression.

  “Did I do something to make you fearful of me?” he pressed.

  She could see his heartbeat at the base of his neck, could smell the scent of his aftershave. She felt herself waver.

  Then his cell phone rang and Dodie was spared.

  He pulled it out of his pocket, frowned at it and then stepped away from her. “Sorry. I have to take this. It’s Carson.”

  Dodie nodded, her pulse racing.

  “I’ll come for you on Saturday,” he said. “Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.” And then she fled.

  Blue jeans. T-shirt. Cardigan. Chunky necklace.

  Dodie laid the clothes out on the bed and examined them once more. She and Jace were just going out for hamburgers, not a full-on date, yet she fretted about the color of the T-shirt, the cut of the blue jeans. Was the knee-length cardigan too much? Should she wear running shoes or the leather boots she found at the thrift store? Would Jace notice that the boots were secondhand? Would he care?

  And why wasn’t she wearing the orange silk shirt she had originally planned? Was she trying to prove something?

  This was ridiculous.

  She yanked on her blue jeans, slipped on the T-shirt, cardigan and necklace. She looked fine. A little more conservative than usual, but fine. Just fine.

  In the bathroom, she applied a hint of mascara to her lashes, added a spritz of perfume and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Then she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

  She let her hair drop, her mind drifting back, once again, to that moment in Sheila’s basement when Jace’s hand had tangled in her hair.

  How she had wished his hand would linger.

  She yanked her hair back and twisted an elastic around it. Jace was living up to his obligations by taking her out. Nothing more was going on between them.

  In a couple of months he would be gone. Back to his law firm in Edmonton and out of her life.

  Her hands stilled and she felt a brush of sorrow.

  Then she shook it off. He’s not for you, Dodie Westerveld, she thought, as she marched into the living room to wait.

  Ten minutes later she sat perched on the edge of her couch, paging mindlessly through a magazine she’d already read, trying not to look at the clock.

  Jace was eight minutes late.

  She tossed the magazine aside and walked to the window of her apartment, but there was no sign of his car.

  Twenty minutes later, she had organized her spices and tidied her jewelry box. She looked around for something else to do, then shook her head.

  No way was she going to wait around her apartment.

  She grabbed her car keys from the hook hanging by the door, then yanked opened the door and stopped.

  Jace stood directly in front of her, still wearing a suit, his face flushed and his hand lifted to knock.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. He shoved his hand through his hair in a gesture that was so familiar it created a gentle ache in Dodie’s heart. “I got a frantic call from Randy Webber, the chairman. Mr. Rialto, the fundraiser’s speaker, might be canceling on us. Randy and I were trying to come up with a backup plan.”

  “No way.” Dodie felt Jace’s disappointment. Stuart Rialto had been as big a catch as Helen Lennox. He had been booked eighteen months in advance.r />
  “It’s not a definite, but we had to do some brainstorming. That’s why I’m late.”

  “Have you come up with anything?”

  “Randy is following through on a few possible replacements, though it’s hard to find someone on such short notice.”

  “It would be such a disappointment if Rialto bailed.”

  “Yeah. But thanks to you we got Helen. And thanks to that, the ticket sales are going very well.” He squirmed. “Sorry. I don’t want to be talking about the fundraiser. And again, sorry I’m late. You look like you were just leaving?”

  “I decided I didn’t feel like waiting around.” Dodie glanced at his suit. “I’m not going to hold you to this, though.”

  “You can. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  “Hamburgers?”

  “Haven’t had a D.J.’s burger for years.”

  Dodie locked the door of her apartment behind her, then double-checked the door and the deadbolt.

  “It’s probably okay,” Jace said with a trace of bemusement in his voice.

  “Doesn’t hurt to check.” Dodie gave the door another rattle, then turned to Jace. “Shall we go?”

  “I’ve got my car here. Unless you want to go in separate vehicles.”

  “No. You lost the contest. You can pay for gas.” Dodie kept her tone carefree, but she couldn’t repress an odd sense of excitement.

  After they got their burgers, Dodie directed him to the park along the river.

  While Dodie got out, Jace took a cardboard box and a blanket from the backseat of the car.

  “Dessert,” he said, holding up the box at her puzzled look. “Strawberry cheesecake. Got it from the bakery during my lunch hour.”

  He remembered her favorite dessert.

  Dodie felt a twinge of pleasure, and on the heels of that a flutter of anticipation.

  Jace caught her gaze, and for a moment sparks arced between them.

  She looked away.

  “Can’t wait.” Dodie turned and walked over the spongy grass to a large aspen tree perched along the edge of the river. The sun warmed her shoulders through the material of her sweater. From the branches of one of the trees a robin sent his song into the spring air.