by James, Sandy
I snorted a small laugh before I could catch myself, so I pretended to cough into my fist to try to spare his feelings. “What do you want me to say?” How about, “Teaches you for screwing around with a younger woman?”
“I miss you, Jackie. I miss our talks. I miss that we share the same memories. I miss that I didn’t have to... you know...show off for you in bed. You understood me.” He put his hand over mine where it rested on the table.
I pulled my hand back and stared at him. “We didn’t talk, we fought. You don’t miss me.” And I don’t miss you.
“But I do. Shit, Jackie, we grew up together. You’ve always just...been there—almost as long as I can remember. It’s hard without you taking care of me.” I could tell he was uncomfortable because he got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. He sure didn’t need it. His hands were already shaking.
“David...”
“I’m having trouble getting by without you.” The chair made a scraping noise on the tile as he took a seat again. “You always knew where stuff was. You always paid the bills on time. You didn’t go on shopping sprees for ridiculous stuff like couch purses.”
“They’re Coach purses, and Ashley just turned twenty-three. Give her a chance. Have you ever even shown her how to balance a checkbook? Have you ever helped her make a budget?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t have to show you how to do any of that. She’s home with Duncan all damn day and the place is still a mess. I trip over toys, clothes, and–and–stuff.” David’s gaze wandered the kitchen and the great room. “Look how nice this place is.”
“Not everyone is as anal retentive as me. And I recall you bitching an awful lot about how messy the house was all the time when the boys were little. Chasing after a growing boy is exhausting. I’m sure she’ll get to be better with practice.”
He might be nostalgic, but my trip down memory lane was only reinforcing what I had thought earlier. Our marriage had never been paradise.
The house had been livable, but messy. I had paid my share of bills late, trying to juggle way too little money and way too much debt. But through hard work, we’d muddled our way through and lived to tell the tale. That remarkable accomplishment, however, did not make a good marriage.
Once the kids hit high school, David and I had already realized we had absolutely nothing in common except for Patrick and Nathaniel. For the last couple of years, I think the marriage limped along like a wounded animal. We had stayed together simply out of force of habit. Neither of us wanted to be the one to admit defeat and take the blame. David’s affair wasn’t what doomed our marriage. It was just the catalyst that finally forced us to admit the marriage was over.
I was happier now. I had my friends. I had my job. I had my boys. I read to my heart’s content. I fiddled with writing books in my spare time, goofy little mystery novels I was sure no one would ever read. Once I’d gotten past the empty nest blues, I enjoyed my life.
I was happier now, even if I was alone.
You’re not alone, Jackie. You’ve got Mark now.
But even if I didn’t, I was still better off. I didn’t need a man to make my life valuable.
Good God, somewhere in the last couple of years, I’d developed something akin to self-worth. For the first time in my life, I was comfortable in my own skin.
I smiled at the new and incredibly surprising thought.
“You’ve never even slept with anyone but me, right?” David pulled me back from my thoughts. “Right?” he demanded when I didn’t immediately reply.
“That’s none of your business.”
“I knew it,” he said with a firm nod. “You’ve never been with anyone but me. Who’s this new guy? Mike?”
I smirked because I knew damn well David knew Mark’s name. “He’s a friend.”
“I don’t want you to sleep with him. I–I want you back.”
“Bullshit.” I wished Ashley would miraculously show up and take her husband home. “I’m a toy you didn’t want anymore, but now you don’t want anybody else to play with it, either."
“But I love you,” he insisted.
“You’re the father of my boys. We share a history. I love you too. But,” I added when he began to smile, “I’m not in love with you anymore.”
Each and every word was true. I had really moved on.
***
I didn’t crawl back into my bed until almost three. I sat staring at the clock for a long time, scolding myself for drinking anything with caffeine. But that wasn’t the only reason I was still awake. The minutes clicked by slowly, but sleep simply wouldn’t find me because I couldn’t find the “off” switch for my brain.
I thought about David—about everything he’d said—and the only real emotion I could muster was pity. The man had made an awful lot of mistakes in his life, and I was sure he’d make plenty more. But he was Ashley’s problem now.
Thank God.
I thought about Nate and Kathy and wondered how awkward it would be for them if they broke up while Mark and I stayed a couple. Or worse—how awkward it would be if Mark and I didn’t stay together while they still went out?
I hated that thought. My mind took a side route as I hoped to hell Nate and Kathy were smart enough to use reliable birth control. I sure didn’t want my son having to get married at nineteen like I had.
And I thought about Mark. I thought an awful lot about Mark. Where were we going to go from here?
I never found any answers.
***
Damn doorbell.
The annoying sound seeped into my exhausted brain. I couldn’t tell if it was real or just a dream. It rang again. I groaned and rolled over to look at the clock.
7:55 AM.
Fuck that.
I pulled the covers over my head, planning on finding a screwdriver later and removing the stupid doorbell permanently. If that didn’t work, I’d find a hammer that would do the job quite well.
The stupid thing rang yet again.
I threw the covers off, mumbled a very unladylike word that I hear from the students on a daily basis in the school hallways, and groped for my robe.
I could hear David stirring in the living room, so I figured I’d find out what the stupid paperboy wanted, brew a pot of strong coffee, and call my ex a cab. He wasn’t sleeping on my couch again. He probably had a hell of a hangover.
For some odd reason that thought made me smile.
David’s voice was muffled as I went to open my bedroom door. I didn’t realize he was talking to Mark until I heard Mark shouting.
“Oh, no!” I sprinted for the front door.
“I told you,” David insisted in a scolding voice, “I stayed here last night. Jackie asked me to spend the night with her.” He was standing there in nothing but a gray t-shirt, his tightie-whities, and blue socks.
It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“What?” I screeched as I reached the foyer.
Mark’s gaze caught mine, and I could see the naked anger. He was squeezing a small bouquet of pink carnations hard enough the stems were bent.
“Mark, I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” Mark shouted. “Didn’t sleep with your ex after you told me you wanted to wait?”
“I knew you hadn’t slept with him.” David’s smug smile made me want to hit him upside the head.
Sweet heavens, what kind of show were we putting on for the nosy neighbors? I could feel their gazes, their stares, and their condemnation.
Get a life.
I needed to soothe Mark. “I didn’t sleep—”
“Bullshit.” Mark inclined his head at David. “Like he’d lie about that. Admit it. You spent the night with him.”
Now I was getting angry too. If Mark didn’t trust me any more than that, no amount of explanation was going to make him suddenly have faith in me. I should’ve told him David slept on the couch, but the stupid, sarcastic Jackie came out to interfere before I could wrestle her down.
I gave my eyes
an exaggerated roll. “Fine. I spent the night with him.”
Mark’s free hand was clenched into a fist, and the hand holding the bouquet snapped what remained of it apart. Broken carnations littered my front porch. Then he tightened that hand into a fist as well. I wondered if he was going to punch something. Or someone. About the time I was going to make another sarcastic response, something hit me like a heavyweight’s punch.
Mark was jealous. The reason he was ranting and raving was because he was jealous of David.
I tried not to laugh in relief, but a chuckle slipped out anyway. He cared for me. Mark Brennan really cared for me.
“What’s so funny?” my ex-husband asked, looking horribly annoyed.
“You.”
“Me? What the hell do you mean?”
“Have you seen yourself in a mirror?” I decided to ignore David and turned back to the man I wanted, the man whose feelings I actually cared about. “Mark, I’m sorry I got so sarcastic. David was here last night, but he slept on the couch. Seems he and his wife—” I stressed the word at my ex-husband, “—are having some marital problems, and he decided to solve them by getting drunk and crying on my shoulder because he didn’t have anyplace else to go. I didn’t have the heart to kick him to the curb.”
David threw me a nasty glare, but he just didn’t faze me anymore. I almost giggled at the notion of my newfound independence. I was past letting him get to me.
It was a very liberating concept. What I did care about was Mark and soothing his hurt feelings.
The tension in Mark’s face had waned, and there was relief in his brown eyes that warmed my heart.
“Why don’t you come in?” I asked. “I can make some coffee and cook you an omelet or something.” He stared down at the pile of carnations. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll clean it up later. It was a thoughtful gesture.” Turning back to David, I added, “You can call Ashley to come get you.”
“I don’t get an omelet?” David asked in the tone of a pouting three-year-old.
I just figured he’d been spending too much time around Duncan. “Nope. If you want one, have Ashley cook it.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Take some condoms,” Julie said before she finished the last of her fast-food dinner.
We only had an hour between the end of the school day with the students and the beginning of parent-teacher conferences that would last until nine o’clock, so Julie and I hit the local Mickey D’s and avoided eating healthy for once. We considered the late lunch our just reward for what would be an exhaustingly long day. It had been years since I had a Big Mac, and I was savoring every bite.
At least I was until Julie spit out those three scary words of advice.
“I can’t do that,” I replied. “It would make it look like—”
“Like you’re a grown-up who doesn’t want to get pregnant at forty-two or catch a venereal disease,” Julie calmly replied, dispensing advice that sounded reasonable and ridiculous at the same time.
“They don’t call them venereal diseases anymore. They’re sexually transmitted diseases. And I doubt if Mark has any STDs. He was married, for God’s sake.”
“But you don’t know for sure if he fooled around or if he had lovers after she died. It’s not just simple stuff now, Jackie. Not like the old days when all you’d need was some penicillin to get over it. There’s AIDS. Herpes.” Julie calmly gathered her trash.
“Mark doesn’t have AIDS or herpes, and I can’t get pregnant. I’m on the pill.”
Julie shot me a worried glare. “You went on the pill because of him?”
“Hardly, although I might’ve if I’d needed to. They keep my periods from getting too heavy and stop me from breaking out. You know, they lied to us when they said once we got past adolescence we’d stop getting pimples.”
It was another fib grown-ups liked to tell teenagers about how wonderful adulthood was going to be. I remember being twelve and thinking I was never going to grow up—that I was never going to get my period like all the other girls. I would have gladly given it back once it arrived and I realized how much “fun” it was.
“I still think you should take some condoms. You just never know anymore.”
I shook my head. “He’ll think I was planning to have sex with him.”
“You are.”
“Yeah, well...I am, and I’m not.” I squirmed nervously in my seat. “This is a weird conversation.”
Julie tossed me a smile. “Not any weirder than when—”
“I do not want to talk about your husband’s prostate again.”
“Fine, fine. Have a small conversation about erectile dysfunction and people get uncomfortable.”
I shot an evil glare that I hoped she realized meant I didn’t want to talk about her husband’s junk.
“Fine. Jackie, you’re not a kid. If you want to sleep with the man, go ahead. Who should you have to justify it to?” She stared at me with those intense, wise eyes. I knew I was in trouble. “You’re in love with Mark, aren’t you?”
I didn’t even try to deny it. Julie would’ve known I was lying. Yes, I was in love with Mark Brennan. I was stupidly, adolescently, giddily, head-over-heels in love with Mark Brennan.
I finally nodded, but just once and curtly.
We both got up to pitch the remnants of our fast food feast in the trashcan. I got a refill of my Diet Coke to try to bolster myself for the evening with a second dose of caffeine.
“Buy some condoms.”
“It would look like I’m expecting him to sleep with me.”
“You are,” she said with an amused grin.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to point it out to me. Makes me sound skanky.”
“You love the guy, Jackie. There’s nothing wrong with it if you really love him.”
I snorted. “That’s not what we tell our students. Abstinence. Wait until you’re older. Remember? That works so well,” I added with a strong note of sarcasm before slinging my heavy purse over my shoulder.
“Oh, yeah.” Julie gave me an exaggerated eye roll. “It works like a charm. I have two pregnant juniors and three pregnant seniors. But you’re not a teenager, Jackie. You’re an adult. You don’t need to make excuses for feeling the way you do about Mark. Being horny isn’t against the law. Neither is sleeping with the guy.”
“I hate that word. Horny. It sounds so...so...adolescent.” I dismissed the rest of the notion with a shake of my head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. His daughter will be there. That’s not exactly conducive to romance.”
There was no way I’d allow Carly to get sucked into that kind of situation. It had to be a nightmare for the poor girl as it was to have her teacher dating her father. My falling into Mark’s bed sure wouldn’t make it any more bearable for her.
I was not going to sleep with Mark at that cabin. It wasn’t fair to her. “Besides, she’ll be a great chaperone.”
“Take some condoms anyway. You never know what’ll happen.” Julie groped through her purse and retrieved her car keys.
“I’ll think about it.”
***
“She’s not coming?” I asked for the third time.
Mark was loading my bag in the trunk of his Honda, and I stood in the driveway, absolutely unsure of my next move.
“I told you, Carly wants to spend some time with Kathy. She really misses her, and since Kathy’s going to be home this weekend, Carly wants to stay. I hope you’re not too disappointed. You get to see her every day at school.” He slammed the trunk and took my hand. “Maybe she’s smart enough to realize I want to be alone with you.”
I was in serious trouble. I was going off to a romantic cabin in the woods with Mark, and I hadn’t gotten around to buying those condoms Julie had recommended. “Maybe we should stay. You probably want to spend time with your girls.”
“It’s so nice this weekend—probably the last warm one we’ll get this season. Let’s go.” He squeezed my hand and gave me a puppy dog look with those big, sad, bro
wn eyes. Mark probably knew I was putty in his hands.
“But...”
“Jackie, don’t you want to go with me? We’ll have some alone time. We can...talk.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll...talk. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
A naughty smile spread from his lips to color his whole face. “You’re afraid of me? I’m big, but I’m not that big.”
I laughed despite myself. “I cannot believe you just said that.” I could feel the heat radiating from my cheeks.
“I got you to laugh didn’t I?” He took my other hand. “Babe, we won’t do anything you’re not ready to do. I know that making love would be a big step for you.”
I nodded at the obvious. “I imagine it would be a big step for you, too. I mean Elaine was probably—”
“Stop,” he said, giving my hands a quick, firm squeeze. “Rule number one—let’s not talk about anyone except us. Let’s talk about now, not about the past. No Elaine. No David. It’s just Jackie and Mark and what’s happening between them. Okay?” His eyes searched mine.
I could feel the rush of freedom whistling over me like a cool spring breeze. The shackles of the past were springing open, leaving nothing to bind me to a dead marriage and nothing to bind him to a dead wife. “That’s a really good rule.”
He brushed a quick kiss on my lips. “So you’ll go? It’s beautiful up there. Most of the leaves have probably fallen, but there are deer, foxes, and raccoons, too. You’ll love the cabin—and I’ll love having you all to myself. No kids. No school. No cops. Just us.”
“It sounds like paradise. Let’s go.”
***
“It’s so beautiful.” I took in the landscape surrounding the cabin. Not really a cabin, more like an enormous log house. I never realized cops made enough money to afford something like this.
Mark handed me my bag, snatched his own, and slammed the trunk shut. “I love it up here. I time share with several other cops in my precinct,” he explained, obviously reading my mind. Detectives could be creepily perceptive. “Just looking around takes all the tension away.” He took my duffle back and walked toward the front door. “We could go for a walk and stretch our legs after that long drive and all.”