by Kim Boykin
She was there all right, she just wouldn’t pick up the damn phone or open the door. “No. Thanks.”
“I see your rooms are on the same credit card. Will you be checking out as well?”
Was he really going to chase after her? Christ, he’d only known her for a few days. No he’d let her go. He’d catch the Braves game by himself. But the idea of her leaving—him. His heart jolted at the thought. He massaged the little nerve twitching above his eye. If he was this bad after four days with this woman, he was so screwed. “Yes. Sure.”
“Of course, I’ll email the bill to you, Mr. Randall. The car Ms. Jordan ordered will be here soon.” Car? Shit. He needed to get his ass downstairs. “Twenty minutes, maybe less.”
He thanked the woman, slammed down the phone, and shoved all of his shit into his bag, the urge to straighten and organize nearly killing him. He heard her door slam, zipped his bag and headed down the hall just as the elevator door was closing. He jammed his finger into the button and waited for the next elevator.
When Jake stepped into the lobby, a red compact car was parked in front of the entrance. The rental car guy was talking to Tara, seemed to be going over the agreement, checking the car out for dents and dings. He put Tara’s bag in the trunk and closed it before tossing the keys to her.
“Got it. Thanks,” Jake said, intercepting the keys and throwing his bag into the back seat. The car guy looked like he wasn’t too sure about Jake. “It’s okay, she’s with me.”
“You really know how to piss a woman off,” Tara gritted out. Jake got in the driver’s seat, which was a feat at six-four. She got into the car and slammed the door hard enough to make the paint fall off.
“Where to?” he asked.
“The Isle of Palms,” she snapped.
Of course. Only a three hundred mile deviation from the itinerary.
Jake seemed relaxed and didn’t press me to talk. I stared at the infamous Atlanta traffic that was backed up for miles.
“I’ve only told three people about Jim.” Four if you count the cop who tried to arrest me for DUI. “I’m sorry I blew up at you; I know you had good intentions.”
“No, I’m sorry, Tara. I should have asked for your input or at least told you before we got to Lou’s place.”
“How do you know her, Jake?”
“I was a senior in college and worked for her as an intern.” He paused. “We had a thing, but it was over years ago.”
“Like two years ago?” Because she sure made it look like she was into him, or at the very least was still a friend with benefits.
“The end of that summer, Lou was accused of sexual harassment by a guy who worked for the firm, and she was fired. Lou comes from money and the guy was just looking for a big fat settlement. Said he had specific dates that she’d come on to him. Knowing Lou, she probably did, but the guy was an idiot. He probably had a pretty good case, but he was an idiot, about eighty percent of those dates, she was out of town.”
“With you?”
He nodded.
“What happened to the guy?”
“When I was deposed, it didn’t look great for Lou that she was sleeping with an intern, but it debunked most of the specifics in the guy’s claim. His lawyers had taken the case on a contingency, they dumped him, I guess. Anyway, Lou turned around and sued the company for wrongful termination, sexual discrimination, you name it. With what she already had, she won enough money to buy the company and rebranded it.”
I probably should have thanked him for being so honest except it made me sick to think of him in bed with Lou. Was I really mad he’d told her about Jim? More embarrassed than anything else. And jealous of her. But I didn’t have any claim on Jake Randall.
“Tara, Lou’s business is built on confidentiality; you don’t have to worry about her telling anyone about your husband,” he said. “I hate to bring this up in the car, but at least you can’t run away from me.” He looked at me long enough to make me nervous, and then back at the road. “Are we going to talk about the kiss?”
Traffic was still stalled. It would be risky, but I could jump out probably without a scratch. Or I could have a grownup conversation with Jake Randall.
“Look, Jake, since Jim left, I’ve been such a mess. Then I started the tour and I began to feel like, I don’t know, like I was somebody. Not just some woman who got dumped by her husband. But the truth is, I’m still a mess.”
“I don’t see it that way. But can you at least admit we’re attracted to each other?” I’d offered him an out, but he wasn’t taking it. “But I think it’s better that we don’t do anything about it. For now.”
Okay, so he was taking the out. My stomach pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I sucked at rejection, which probably explained why it took me so long to get published. I looked at the cars beside us, the buttons on the dashboard, anywhere but at him.
“I understand, Jake.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I like you, Tara, and it’s hell trying to keep my hands off of you. But if we’re involved, it’ll be harder for me to do my job.” Jake Randall likes me? But where does that leave us? “You need this tour, so let’s start out as friends and see where it goes.”
“Friends.” I repeated.
“Wait. That didn’t come out the way I meant. What I should have said was, let’s use this time to get to know each other.”
You can learn a lot about a new friend when you’re cooped up in a car with them hours on end. Turned out Jake had been a swimmer and a baseball player in high school but swam butterfly and freestyle in college at the University of Wisconsin.
“And girlfriends?”
“How far back do you want to go?” he asked.
“Serious girlfriends?”
He wasn’t laughing now. “One, in college. Kate.”
I had shared my sad story with Jake, but I could tell by his tone, he wasn’t ready to share his with me. “Next question. Where did you grow up?”
“I was raised on a horse farm about twenty minutes west of Milwaukee. My parents still live there.” He looked at the smile plastered on my face from the image of Jake on a horse in a pair of tight, low slung jeans. Cowboy boots. Maybe a hat. Maybe not, but definitely no shirt. “What? You think that’s funny?”
I shook my head, red faced, laughing so hard I snorted. “Just picturing you on a horse, that’s all.” Naked.
“Between chores and school and practice, I worked my ass off.” I told him to take the exit to I-95 North. “So do you want to tell me where we’re going?”
“Guess.”
“Your place on the Isle of Palms?”
“How did you know?” I socked him in the arm.
“Lucky guess.” He shrugged. “Tara, I read your bio. I read your website. I read all of your blog posts.”
“Nobody has read that blog. I shut it down over a year ago.”
“The internet is forever, Tara. Remember that.” He said it playfully but there was an edge to his voice. “So is it my turn to grill you?”
“I thought you knew everything there is to know about me.”
“I do have one question.” He paused like he was trying to find the right words.
“I read the blog post you wrote when you and—when you bought the beach house. I know what it means to you. So why are you taking me there?”
Turns out Jake didn’t know everything. Most of my blog was about the best parts of the Lowcountry and how much I loved our home. I didn’t write about how Jim and I built the house with the intention of furnishing it and flipping it as a high-end beach rental. By the time we got it ready to sell, the bottom had fallen out of the market. We were stuck with a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month second home mortgage payment and the bank had our seven hundred thousand dollar nest egg. We never intended to hold onto the house this long, but the market was so bad, even selling it now would mean a huge a loss.
A little over two years ago, Jim’s company restructured and his commissions were cut in half. Things got hard
financially; Melissa rented the beach house for us to at least try to cover some of the expenses. That was when I started hating the place.
I hated the taxes that came with the house, the six different kinds of insurance we had to buy every year that totaled thirteen grand. It was the real estate version of an albatross, which is what Marsha and I always called it. Then one morning, I got up before Jim to walk on the beach, watch the sun come up. The dolphins were playing along the shoreline, putting on a show. The sunrise was so spectacular, it made me cry. I was angry that I’d hated the house so much, I’d missed such a beautiful sight every morning. I decided then and there, I wouldn’t take anything I had for granted again.
There were things I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to have kids, but that wasn’t happening. I wanted to publish, and since nobody wanted to read my romance novels, I went back to the house and started writing the book that ended up changing my life.
“You missed your beach trip when you got me, Jake.”
Oh, that grin that always made my knees wobbly. “I got lucky when I got you.”
Chapter Eleven
‡
They pulled into the driveway around seven. Every light in the huge oceanfront house was on. Marvin Gaye was blaring on the outdoor speaker system. A woman who looked close to Jake’s mom’s age was hanging off her balcony waving an empty wine glass at them.
“Tarrrrra! You’re here. Hurry up, Melissa is too.” An older man appeared, wrapping his arms around the woman and was smiling until he saw Jake.
“Put your things away and come over,” the guy said like it was an order, not an offer.
“I have that spicy pimento cheese dip you like so much. And wine, lots and lots of wine.” Which was surprising because it sounded like the woman had already drunk half the wine in Sonoma.
“Hi, Marsha, Mike,” Tara said. “Give us a minute.” The guy looked like he’d been hit with a bucket of cold water when Tara said the word us.
“This is going to be weird,” Jake said, taking their bags out of the car. They walked up the steps of the beach house. Tara punched in the code to the numeric lock and opened the door and dropped her purse on a table beside the door. She went straight to the great room drapes and opened them. The broad view of the Atlantic was amazing.
She stopped for a minute shook her head and laughed. “The three-million-dollar view I can’t afford.”
After about five minutes, it was obvious whoever had put the music on had put “Sexual Healing” on repeat. Tara mumbled something about strangling someone named Melissa, turned the music off and opened the pantry with a small fridge and a few cabinets that were locked to keep the summer guests out of the owner’s stash. The shelves were well stocked with an overabundance of things Tara said she used often, crab boil, red rice mix, and—oh, great. Grits.
She pulled a couple bottles of wine out of the cooler to take next door and set them on the kitchen counter. “Boy, I’m ready for a drink. It was kind of a shock, seeing the For Sale sign in the front yard; Melissa had said it would be. How about you?”
But it couldn’t be worse for her than seeing pictures scattered around the house of her husband and her and her dog, Lilly. Could it?
He wondered if being here was as weird for her as it was for him. She seemed really happy now, and Jake was glad he was here with her. “The house is rented on and off June through August,” she said. Jake stood there with his briefcase and carryon, unsure of where to go. “There’s a master suite on this floor and five bedrooms and five baths upstairs. Want to see?”
He nodded and followed her up the stairs lined with more pictures of Tara and the husband, but he was focused on the way her hair swayed across her back, those legs that ended at her perfect ass. What happened to keeping things platonic?
He stopped to look at the last photograph at the top of the stairs. It looked like her book launch party. The woman who was hanging over the balcony when they drove up was proposing a toast on Tara’s special day. Everybody was looking at Tara, except for her asshole husband standing beside her. He was looking away from Tara, toward the Exit sign above the door.
“Just pick a room,” she said like she was hoping he’d go back down stairs and pick hers. He wanted to. Yeah, not sleeping in the same bed with her, or not trying out that big ass Jacuzzi tub downstairs that was definitely big enough for both of them? That was going to suck. He dropped his bags in the bedside chair in the first bedroom he came to. This waiting thing was going to be a lot harder than he thought.
I pulled a yellow halter dress that still had the tags on it out of the closet; I’d bought it at a trunk sale just after the first of the year. I knew if I put my new black heels on, we probably wouldn’t make it next door. The way Mike Lemieux looked down on Jake and me from his balcony, there was no doubt he’d come over and drag us out of the house like a couple of horny teenagers.
Maybe I was in denial, but nothing bothered me about being with Jake in the same house I’d built with my husband. Not pictures of Jim, not mementos from our travels, nothing. It wasn’t a revenge kind of thing. For the first time in a long time, I was happy; Jake had a lot to do with that. But what surprised me most was that I felt less and less anger toward Jim. Maybe our marriage had run its course. Maybe Jim had fallen out of love first, and I’d followed suit.
I had no idea where this thing with Jake was going. Who knows, he might run screaming from me by the end of the tour, and I wouldn’t have to find out what my forty-year-old body looked like next to his. The age difference still crept up in my mind from time to time, especially when some young twenty-something sashayed by. But Jake made it easy for me to believe age really doesn’t matter.
“Really?” I stood there with a bottle of wine in each hand, looking at him dressed in shorts, a vintage t-shirt, and flip-flops.
“What?” He looked down like there was a big catsup stain on his shirt.
God, he was gorgeous and looked way younger than thirty. “Come on, mister,” I said, heading for the front door. “I’m going to need to see some ID before you can have a drink.”
During our car trip to the island, I’d briefed Jake on my history with the Lemieux, which included them being Jim’s and my financial planners as well as neighbors here at the beach and next door neighbors for twenty years in Charlotte. Marsha and I had become instant friends, best friends.
“So, it’s Mike and Marsha, right?” he asked. “And who’s Melissa again?”
“She’s my friend and realtor.” And matchmaker. He nodded and grabbed one of the wine bottles along with my hand. I stopped in my tracks. “You sure about this, Jake?” Hand in hand, meeting my oldest and dearest friends, and Jim’s too?
“It’s okay, Tara. Friends can hold hands.”
To say our reception from the Lemieux was at opposite ends of the spectrum would have been an understatement. Mike barely said anything and Marsha immediately made an excuse to drag me into the kitchen where Melissa was whipping up Firefly martinis.
“Oh. My. God, Melissa, you have to see Jake. He’s gorgeous.” Marsha was nearly hyperventilating. “Tara, go back out on the deck and nonchalantly press your body against him. I’ll bring Melissa out to introduce her to Jake so she can see those sparks for herself.”
“Come on, Marsha,” I said. “Settle down.”
“But you like him. I can see it in your face,” she gushed. “Besides, Melissa’s an expert at these kinds of things.”
“And you have no filter and a very loud voice. Please, don’t drink anymore.” I took the wine she’d just poured herself and set it out of reach. “Please calm down and lower your voice.”
“All right. All right.” Marsha nabbed her glass and took a couple of big gulps. “Melissa was over there not even an hour ago, working her magic. I bet she used one of those Geechee spells her grandma taught her. I bet there are love charms all over your house. You should look under your bed.”
“Hey, those are trade secrets, missy. Besides, I can say w
ithout a doubt that Tara doesn’t need any charms.” Melissa toasted me with a wicked grin.
Marsha’s eyes went wide. “Wonder what would happen if you put one of those charms between your-?”
“Well, I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” Melissa tested her martini and then poured one for me. “I was at the kitchen window when y’all started over here. Very…enlightening. You made a good move bringing Jake here for a little IOP magic.”
“Stop it with the Isle of Palms magic. Between you and Marsha, you’re making me feel like I’m ambushing Jake. This is just a thank-you trip—a business thank-you trip. We’re friends. That’s it.”
The two women tiptoed over and took a peek at Jake, then came running back.
“Damn he’s hot,” Melissa said.
Marsha was fanning herself, in agreement and seemed to be in the throes of a full-blown hot flash.
“And you’re going to be aloooone with him? Girl, if I were you, I’d do him on every flat surface in that house. Serves Jim Jor—” Marsha swatted her hand over her mouth. “That bastard. We are never speaking his name again.”
“Amen, sister.” Melissa threw back her drink in agreement.
“I love y’all, you know I do, and I like Jake. A lot. But I’m not angry with Jim anymore. I just want to sell the houses, finish the tour, and then maybe start over someplace new.”
“I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps.” Marsha was a terrible singer, and Melissa wasn’t much better when she chimed in. They were so bad, they roused Marsha’s ancient lab, Pumpkin, off of the deck, and the dog hobbled into the kitchen and howled the rest of the song with them.
“Sounds like the girls are having a good time in there.” Mike Lemieux handed Jake a beer out of a cooler on the deck.
Jake nodded, popped the top and took a long draw. All he heard in the house was whispering and giggling and a lot of shushing, maybe from Tara. And then there was the dog, a chocolate lab who had begged him to pet her before the singing started, which he really didn’t mind so much because trying to carry on a conversation with Jim Jordan’s best friend was beyond awkward.