Valentine's Child

by Nancy Bush

  “I know.”

  “I nearly smashed into you! You’re damn lucky about my new tires otherwise we’d be examining the wreckage.”

  He looked the same. From the thick black strands of hair now slapped lank with water against his forehead, to the dense, spiky lashes now starred with rain, to the rock-hard jaw, wide, muscular shoulders, lean hips, and long legs.

  J.J. Beckett. All-around athlete. Her knight in shining armor.

  Except he’d used her and thrown her away.

  And suddenly Sherry couldn’t tell him. The words wouldn’t even form in her brain, let alone reach her lips. This angry man glaring down at her as if he wanted to rip her limb from limb, much the way he’d glared at her years before, didn’t deserve the truth.

  “I made a mistake,” Sherry murmured, turning away.

  That threw him. He was ready for a battle and she’d capitulated without an angry word. Running a hand through his hair, he only succeeded in pushing the rain-slicked locks away for a second before they flopped forward once more. He peered at her through narrowed eyes, his mouth tight with fury.

  “Wait,” he muttered as Sherry climbed into her car and slammed her door closed.

  Rain blurred the windshield. Sherry felt herself tremble again and muttered furiously under her breath, mad at herself, her own susceptibility. A shadow loomed outside and suddenly J.J. was right beside her, peering in the window. She froze, hands tight on the wheel. She had no reason to fear him now. But she couldn’t help herself.

  The beams of his headlights were aimed through her windshield, glancing off her eyes, blinding her. She lifted one hand to shade her face, hiding from J.J.’s probing gaze.

  “Hey.” He rapped on her window.

  She toyed with the idea of simply tearing away, spinning through the mud and hopefully avoiding both him and his Jeep in her bid for escape. But running hadn’t been the answer in the past; it wasn’t the answer now. Cracking the window a sliver, she kept her face averted. Courage apparently wasn’t her strong suit, she realized, avoiding looking at him straight on.

  “Are you lost? There isn’t anything else down this road except this property.” He gestured toward the house.

  “The Becketts.”

  “You know the family?” he asked. Now he was really staring at her.

  “I’ve heard of them.” Sherry twisted the ignition but one of his hands, wet and strong, clamped over her window.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “I’m in a hurry,” she told him, pressing her toe to the accelerator.

  Recognition crept over his features. “Sherry?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” she muttered. Thankfully the Focus crept forward, the tires gripping easily now that she wasn’t stomping on the gas. Still, she had to work to avoid his bumper. But J.J. hung right on, walking alongside the car, gazing at her until, unable to stop herself, Sherry stared at him full-face.

  His eyes were gray, clear and full of undisguised shock. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Haunting the neighborhood.”

  It just slipped out. After years of habit. Sarcasm, her favorite protective device.

  And it was as if she’d suddenly awakened him from a hypnotic trance, for his face changed as he, too, remembered their last, acrimonious parting.

  “You came to see me.” His voice was hard. “Why?”

  “I came to see a lot of people. Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “You haven’t changed.”

  “Fortunately, that’s not true. Let go of the window, J.J.”

  “No one’s called me J.J. since high school.”

  “Really? What do they call you? Or should I even ask?”

  He didn’t miss the jab, and she remembered with a tiny dart of pain, that he’d always been quick — one of the few intelligent jock Oceantides had ever turned out. His mouth quirked, almost with amusement, and she suddenly remembered the taste of his lips and the whiteness of his teeth.

  Her heart jolted painfully. Why? Why did she remember these things?

  “Jake,” he said quietly.

  “Well, Jake, I gotta go. It’s been… interesting.”

  “How long are you going to be in town?”

  “As short a time as possible.”

  He stared at her, long and hard. Sherry’s breath caught. She was mesmerized. As mesmerized as she’d been that first time he’d stared at her when she was scarcely sixteen, when he’d singled her out from the rest of the giddy, sophomore girls.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” was his response.

  And then he slipped away from the window and strode through the rain to his waiting Jeep.

  VALENTINE’S CHILD — NANCY BUSH

  Chapter Two

  The motel room was drab and smelled of mildew, but it was relatively clean, possessed an ocean view, and several of the units looked to be under renovation. Sherry flung her rain-drenched coat over the back of a desk chair, ran her fingers through her damp mane, then flipped out the lights and stood in front of the sliding glass door, staring at the dark, moving waves as they spread across the shore. There was a beach of sorts below the cliff, tucked tightly between angry bluffs of black rocks. A rickety wooden staircase hugged the headland for anyone who dared to climb down to that spit of wet sand. On a night like tonight it would be tantamount to suicide. Sherry stood where she was and longed for a glass of hot spiced wine.

  J.J. Beckett. Excuse me — Jake — Beckett. Her inner eye remembered his glistening, wet hair, tense jawline, broad shoulders and jean-wrapped hips. She shook her head in disbelief. How could she be so focused on his body parts? After all this time!

  Groaning, she exhaled heavily, an ironic smile playing on her lips. She hadn’t even noticed his physical attributes this much in high school. Even when they’d been stripped naked and making love in the Beckett tree house, Sherry couldn’t recall thinking of him as so incredibly male. She’d been in love, and as such, she’d wanted to make love. A part of her had done it for him, because she had wanted to please him. But lovemaking had also seemed like such a natural expression of adoration, need and happiness that she’d been in there as well, eager to be with him.

  Lust? No, she hadn’t felt it then. She hadn’t known what it was. Still didn’t, actually, although her mind seemed stuck in a pretty carnal track right now. How could it be that after all this time what struck her the hardest were all those male parts working seductively together?

  J.J. Beckett. She’d had her chance to tell him tonight. Her shining moment. But in the heat of emotion she’d simply run. Run away. Just like she did before.

  What had he said? You haven’t changed. Well, that wasn’t the truth. She’d changed mightily, and for the better. Gone was the Sherry Sterling of yesteryear. Gone was the painful yearning for things out of her reach, the anxious hours of waiting — waiting for that special something to happen to her.

  Closing her eyes, Sherry tipped her head to one side and remembered…

  Sophomore year. The lunchroom was a shrieking, humming machine of humanity where shouting was the only form of communication. Sherry sat on a plastic chair, munching an apple, wishing her breasts would grow. Sixteen and still gawky, she eyed her friends with faintly veiled envy, noticing their rounded curves and girlish giggles, wanting for all of the world to be one of the popular, cute girls instead of a slightly serious, boyishly-slim wannabe whom no one looked at or cared about.

  Popularity was everything. With it, you were somebody. Without it, you were less than nothing. A negative number. Below zero.

  She silently assessed her friends across the lunch table. Jennifer had breasts, so some of the guys checked her out and said hello. She was just too shy and awkward to do anything about it. Her eyes would bug out and she would stammer and generally make herself look like an idiot whenever any of them spoke to her. Julie was the opposite. Loud and almost obnoxious, her laugh was like a donkey braying and although she was loyal and guileless, she som
etimes drove Sherry crazy.

  But Jennifer and Julie had been her friends for years, all through elementary school and junior high. Good friends. Friends you could count on.

  Sherry bit fiercely into her apple. The trouble was she wasn’t a good friend. All she wanted to be was part of the cool crowd. Jennifer and Julie’s conversation ebbed and rose like a tide, the subjects inconsequential. None of it interested Sherry anymore. Now that she was a sophomore their chatter seemed inane and boring. She wanted something more. Something better.

  As soon as the thought crossed her mind she squelched it, hating herself a little. What was wrong with her? Why was she so mean?

  “Hurry up,” Jennifer mumbled around the last bites of a maple bar. “I’ve got to get to my locker before he shows up.”

  Sherry groaned inwardly. “He” was J.J. Beckett, the cutest — and richest — guy in the sophomore class. But he knew it. Boy, did he know it. Sherry had seen the way he strutted down the hall, girls trailing after him like a bride’s train. It was enough to make an intelligent female puke.

  To that end, she made retching noises. Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. She knew Sherry’s feelings about J.J. and did not approve.

  But why shouldn’t she feel this way? From the first day of kindergarten, J.J. Beckett had been Mr. Perfect, too cool to notice the shy girl in the third row who hid the bruises on her arms from the teacher by wearing long sleeves, even on hot days. Day after day, from the classroom window, Sherry watched J.J.’s perfect mother pick him up from school and drive away in the Becketts’ sleek black BMW toward that house on the hill that everybody else talked about; that beautiful, fairytale house above the cove.

  She knew the house; knew exactly which one it was because it was her dream house. She could imagine the parties and tea cakes and velvet that waited within those magic walls. But shy Sherry Sterling, whose clothes were a size too small and frayed along the cuffs and hems, wasn’t one of the chosen twenty-seven asked to J.J.’s kindergarten birthday party. Only the best and brightest had received the gilt-edged invitations. Snotty Caroline Newsmith brought hers to school and flipped it in front of Sherry’s nose.

  “You aren’t invited, are you?” Caroline had taunted. Five years old and already well versed in the art of snobbery, Caroline was a have while Sherry was clearly a have-not.

  Sherry hadn’t answered. She’d just looked down at her colored drawing of a sunny beach with a blue sky.

  “He’s got his own beach, J.J. does. They’ve got a boat, too.” Caroline had leaned over Sherry’s shoulder, staring at the picture. “And a tree house. Our parents are friends. I’m going to marry him someday.”

  Sherry’s continued silence caused Caroline to lose interest and she moved on to another loser who hadn’t made the J.J. Becket friends-of-choice club. Surreptitiously, Sherry crumpled her drawing in one fist and shoved it into the pocket of her sweater.

  From the classroom window she had watched the Becketts’ BMW arrive to pick up J.J. that day, only this time nearly the entire class had tripped gaily toward the car, swarming it. J.J.’s mother stepped out and arranged the kids in rows on the sidewalk. Other mothers — the chosen drivers — came in their own cars, and after the kids piled inside, the vehicles serpentined away from the school, following the gleaming black leader, all on their way to paradise.

  Sherry had gone home on the bus, only to walk in on her father swaying drunkenly in the living room, and her mother, half cowering, her cheek covered protectively with one palm. There had been other Beckett parties over the years. Sherry Sterling was never invited. Neither were Jennifer and Julie, social nobodies as unimportant as she was. The three friends found each other and bonded — a case of need and desperation none ever openly admitted to but all felt.

  And now, it was such a visceral betrayal that Jennifer had a crush on J.J. Beckett that Sherry wanted to scream.

  “How do you know he’s going to show up?” Julie demanded.

  Jennifer lifted a dismissive shoulder. “He walks by my locker on his way to biology every day.”

  Julie snorted. “Like he’d even notice you.”

  “He says hi to me.” Jennifer stuck out her chin and her breasts lifted to attention, too. Sherry suddenly wondered if she stuffed her bra.

  “Down, girl,” Sherry muttered. Julie stifled a giggle and Jennifer glared at her, wounded to the core.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jennifer looked about to cry. “You always say something mean about J.J.”

  “What should I say?” Sherry demanded.

  “He’s on the varsity football team. You could say he’s a great athlete,” Jennifer said.

  Sherry slapped her palm to her forehead. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Jennifer was undeterred. “He’s got amazing eyes and he’s got a dimples right here.” She pressed her fingertips into her cheeks. “You can see them sometimes when he smiles.”

  “He hardly ever smiles,” Sherry pointed out.

  This appeared to be just another plus. “He’s serious. If he doesn’t get a football scholarship, he’ll get an academic one. He’s really smart.”

  “And he’s got the coolest muscles,” Julie chimed in. Sherry narrowed her eyes at her. The Benedict Arnold. She was supposed to agree with her.

  “J.J. Beckett’s a stuck-up jerk,” Sherry said.

  “Well, he’s nice to me,” Jennifer answered defensively.

  “Let’s give him a medal.” Sherry scooped up her book bag and headed for the halls. She had to get away from them. From their silly desires and fantasies.

  “I can’t wait to get out of Oceantides,” she murmured aloud, a litany she recited at least twice daily.

  Twisting the combination on her locker, Sherry glanced over her shoulder and groaned. J.J. Beckett, the object of her wrath, was heading her way. He wore a blue-and-gold letterman’s jacket — varsity football his freshman and sophomore year, thank you very much — and was surrounded by adoring girls from all grades.

  “Hey, J.J.,” one of them suddenly sang out. “What are you doing after the game tonight?”

  “Sleeping,” he answered in that studied voice Sherry found particularly annoying. Didn’t the guy possess one ounce of spontaneity? Everything was so careful, so orchestrated.

  “With anyone I know?” the girl responded on a laugh. “Or can I come over later and see how much sleep we get?”

  Wild, braying laughter accompanied this come-on. The whole entourage whooped and snickered like a pack of witless hyenas.

  “Brother,” Sherry muttered under her breath.

  J.J. and friends stopped directly opposite Sherry, as if she were their one-and-only audience member and the show was meant for her alone.

  “I feel like I could sleep for a year,” he answered, ignoring the sexual banter. “Me and my dad are going to Pullman tomorrow to see a Cougars game.”

  “My dad and I,” Sherry corrected softly.

  Her voice seemed to suddenly clang like chiming bells. Either that, or it was a trick of fate, but whatever the cause, her words fell into an unexpected lull and hung there, a red flag of challenge to Oceantides’ favorite son.

  “What’s your problem?” one of the groupies demanded.

  “The brainiac speaks,” another sniffed.

  “What a bitch,” still another said on a half laugh of derision.

  A pair of blue jeans over slim thighs topped by a tan-leather and blue-and-gold wool jacket moved into her line of vision. J.J. Beckett, his jacket unzipped to reveal a dark shirt, stood directly in front of her. His chest rose and fell several times, ten inches from her nose.

  Her heart somersaulted painfully.

  “My dad and I are going to Pullman tomorrow to the Cougars game,” he corrected himself. His low-timbred voice raised a rash of goose bumps along her arms.

  Sherry found she couldn’t look up and meet his eyes. Her pulse raced along, light and fast, a traitor, too. Ignoring him, she pulled several unneeded books from
her locker. But he just stood there, eyeing her hard, his breath deep and even, a faint scent of leather and musk reaching her nostrils. Glancing up, she saw those clear gray eyes she hadn’t forgotten since her terrible, elementary-school days, although she hadn’t looked at him this closely in years.

  “Why do you try so hard to put me down?” he asked.

  “What?” Sherry stared.

  “It’s always that way with you. A quick jab.”

  She was stunned. “Me?”

  “I can’t walk by you without a remark.”

  She was incensed. Of course it wasn’t true. J.J. Beckett didn’t even know she existed!

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sputtered, slamming her locker. The entourage had moved back, waiting for him, the girls regarding her smugly as if they knew she was about to get slam-dunked by their hero.

  “You’re mad at me all the time. Like I’ve done something to you. Did I? Something I don’t remember?”

  “I don’t care what you do.” Sherry fumbled with her book bag. The stitching on one handle was dangerously close to ripping out altogether. She plucked at the thread, intending to tighten it, but it came undone as if by unseen hands, and the bag fell to the floor.

  J.J. automatically reached forward to help, bending down at the same moment she did, his arm brushing hers. At the contact, Sherry jerked compulsively, nearly overbalancing, and just as automatically his hand grabbed for her arm, holding her steady.

  The heat of his fingers nearly overpowered Sherry. That and the recognition of his innate strength. Frozen, she could do nothing but balance precariously on the balls of her feet. He held her steady, his face registering only normal concern.

  “Sorry. You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said shortly.

  “Looks like that bag’s destroyed.” He smiled.

  White teeth and sexy lips. The guy didn’t smile very often but when he did, it was a stellar show. Sherry suddenly snapped back to reality, hating him for being so perfect. “Well, it was on its last legs,” she muttered, pulling her arm free and snatching the bag by its other handle. She and J.J. rose in unison, each awkwardly trying to figure out how to get out of this strange little moment gracefully.