by Laura Drewry
Yup, the Stomp was nothing if not sophisticated entertainment.
“Do you mind?” Jayne didn’t wait for Carter to answer, just lifted his beer and chugged almost a third of it.
“Didn’t think you liked beer, Jay.”
“Hate it, but it’s the Stomp, and when in Rome … Besides, I’ve got something stuck in my throat.” No one needed to know it was one of Nick’s Tylenols. The pill hadn’t looked so big inside the bottle, but given the way it had lodged itself in her esophagus, it must have doubled in size at the first hint of saliva.
One more sip. There, that was better. She forced a smile, and turned to Nick’s girlfriend, yelling to be heard over the music.
“It’s good to see you again.” Whatever your name is.
“You too.” She turned her soft green eyes to Nick. “We were getting worried.”
“She was. I wasn’t,” Carter corrected with a soft grunt. “It’s Jay, after all.”
“Sorry.” Nick kissed his girlfriend’s cheek, then thumbed toward the bar. “I’ll be back.”
“Want me to come with you?” LindaLisa was on her feet so fast, Jayne had to blink to refocus.
Nick just shook his head, made a motion toward her chair, then pointed between LindaLisa and Carter, who nodded. Scott family sign language; I’ll take care of the drinks, you take care of LindaLisa.
A second later, the crowd swallowed Nick, leaving the three of them at the table alone.
It wasn’t until LindaLisa sat down that Jayne realized what she’d seen. LindaLisa was wearing a dress. No, not just a dress. A pink dress, summery and sleeveless with wide straps over her shoulders and an oversized decorative button pinned to her neckline. It was cute and girly and completely out of place here.
Hell, she looked like she was going to an after-church picnic, not sitting in what could only be considered a makeshift honky-tonk, where at some point in the evening that pink dress was going to be covered in at least one person’s beer.
Nick should have warned her.
“So.” If Jayne looked straight at the other woman, maybe she wouldn’t have to remember her name. “Nick tells me you’re a party planner.”
“An event organizer, yes.”
“Here in town or do you work in the city?”
“Both.”
Jayne waited for her to offer more, but all she did was sip her wine and search the crowd for Nick.
“So you do things like weddings, birthdays, that kind of thing?” Having to yell was not helping Jayne’s head at all.
“Yes, as well as coordinating conferences, board meetings, whatever the client needs.”
“Nick says you get to travel, too.”
“Sometimes.”
Again, Jayne waited for more. Again there was nothing. Wow. Maybe Nick lied; maybe his girlfriend wasn’t so thrilled with Jayne staying at his house. Why else would she be so short with her answers?
Jayne shot Carter a questioning look, but he just grinned behind his bottle and shrugged. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And why was he smiling? This wasn’t funny. Jayne and Abby had never liked each other, and it had caused nothing but problems for Nick. So if Jayne was going to be living here again, and Nick was going to go out with Party Planning Perfection, then Jayne was going to do everything she could to be friends with her.
Even if LindaLisa didn’t seem the least bit interested.
“I’m a copy editor.” Jayne leaned across the table to be sure LindaLisa heard her. “Or I was, anyway.”
“Yes, Nick told me.” At least this time she stopped craning her neck to find Nick and actually smiled at Jayne.
Jayne wiped her palms across her jeans and smiled back before continuing with her mindless chatter. It took awhile, but she finally managed to learn LindaLisa would be in Vancouver at a trade show for the next few days, she wasn’t a big fan of dogs (allergies), and this was her first Loggers Sports weekend.
Shocking.
Carter was of no help whatsoever, especially after a long-legged blonde walked by in shorts that would make Daisy Duke look like a nun. With a resigned sigh, Jayne sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t that LindaLisa was giving off hostile vibes or anything; she just didn’t seem the least bit interested in talking. The only thing she did seem interested in was Nick and how long it was taking him to get their drinks.
That made two of them.
Jayne all but grabbed the beer bottle out of Nick’s hand when he finally returned.
“Cheers.” She clinked bottles with Carter and Nick, but LindaLisa just leaned in and whispered something in Nick’s ear until he nodded.
“We’ll be back.”
Jayne tipped her bottle in response, then scooted her chair closer to Carter as Nick and LindaLisa wandered off. From this angle Jayne could watch the entire dance floor and not have to yell herself hoarse to talk.
“Okay, one more time,” she said. “Is it Linda or Lisa?”
“Lisa.”
“Right. Lisa.” Jayne expelled the breath she’d been holding, then took a long sip of beer. “Lisa Lisa Lisa. I don’t know why that’s so hard to remember.”
Carter snorted. “Because you’re an idiot. When he went out with Linda Williams in high school, you called her Lisa all the time.”
“I did?” Jayne frowned. All she remembered about Linda Williams was that she’d been part of the “cool” crowd, which was why she and Jayne had never been friends. And now Nick was dating another girl who obviously didn’t run in the same crowds as Jayne. Another girl who, in fact, was nothing like Jayne at all.
And that in itself spoke volumes.
“So is … Lisa … pissed because we were late? Is that why she doesn’t want to talk to me?”
“Nah. She’s just kind of quiet.”
“Kind of?” Jayne shook her head slowly, winced against the pounding, and took another sip of her drink to try and ease the pain.
“Dance with me.” Dickie Garner’s huge hand wrapped around Jayne’s arm and yanked her to her feet. A couple years older and a good hundred pounds heavier, Dickie towered over her by at least a foot, but that didn’t matter because he just lifted Jayne up, wrapped one arm around her back, took her hand in his free one, then waltzed her around the floor to whatever cowboy hick song the DJ was spinning.
“Lookin’ good, PJ.” His full red beard tickled her cheek as he nodded to the couple dancing past them. “How you been?”
As big as Dickie was, Nick would’ve clocked him for calling her that. It pissed him off enough when she called herself Plain Jayne, but when someone else did … look out.
“I’m good. You?” She had no idea what he said after that because it took all of her focus to keep her legs from swinging around and hitting the people around them.
By the time she returned to the table, Carter was nowhere to be seen, but his jacket hung on the back of his chair, so he couldn’t be far. Nick and his girlfriend were talking to a couple several tables down, so Jayne sat down and sipped her beer, slow and steady.
The combination of that first Tylenol and beer had managed to take the edge off her headache a little, but after being swung around like a rag doll for five minutes, the edge was back with a vengeance. She pulled out the Tic Tac container in her pocket, now home to three more Tylenols, and downed a second one.
Whoever thought mixing pain meds with alcohol was a bad idea had no idea what they were talking about. Neither one seemed to be helping her head at all.
For the next while, she wandered through the crowd, talking and laughing with people she hadn’t seen in years, including Regan Burke, who now owned a salon downtown.
“Are you living here again or just visiting?” Regan shrugged out of her date’s grasp, then held her palm up in front of his chest. “Just a minute.”
“I’m back. Gonna see if I can get Gran’s store reopened.”
“That’s great.” The guy was back, pulling on her arm. “Come by the salon next week, we’
ll catch up.”
Jayne waved her off with a smile and was soon swallowed up by more people, some of whom insisted they’d been such good friends and it was such a shame they hadn’t kept in touch. Uh-huh. Terrible shame.
Brett Hale stood guard by the door, and as serious as he’d looked earlier, it was nothing compared to how he looked in full uniform with a 9mm strapped to his hip. They talked for a few minutes, but when Dickie tried to stumble past him, Brett quickly relieved him of his keys and helped him outside to a cab.
Every time Jayne caught sight of Carter, he was talking to a different girl, and whenever Nick’s gaze found hers, he’d raise his brow in his silent way of asking if she was okay. It was fun to see everyone, and she found if she didn’t move too fast, and if she wasn’t bumped too hard, she could almost control the pounding in her head.
“There’s my little Jaynie.”
“Doc!”
Standing in front of her table, Dr. Scott wrapped her in a long, tight hug, then kissed her cheek and held her at arm’s length. “So good to have you back.”
“When did you get here?” Out of his grasp, she sank into her chair, then pointed at one for him to take.
“Little while ago.” He leaned closer, the minty smell of toothpaste on his breath. “I got stuck talking to T-Squared by the door.”
Almost completely gray now, his hair gave him that distinguished look some men lucked into, and it didn’t hurt that he was a handsome man to start with.
“Is Mrs. Scott with you?”
Doc shook his head. “Too loud for her. I’m only here to have a dance with my Jaynie, then I’m gone.”
Jayne eyed him carefully, taking in the tiny smile tipping his mouth and the way his hazel eyes, so much like Nick’s, twinkled.
“Please tell me you didn’t …” She tried to push her chair back, but it butted up against the boards just as the song’s first chords blasted through the speakers. “Doc!”
Dr. Scott wasn’t listening to a word she said. He simply took her hand and tugged her out to the middle of the floor where a few others had already lined up. Neither Nick nor Carter was among them. No, the two of them stood off to the side, grinning like the idiots they were.
When her glares didn’t seem to have any effect on them, Jayne shrugged and tucked her thumbs through her belt loops. Step, cross, step, together, tap. She couldn’t remember Nick’s girlfriend’s name, but she could remember every step to the most obnoxious line dance ever choreographed. Every step, every clap, and every single jump.
Go figure.
Lines of people crossed the floor, everyone laughing at themselves or their neighbors who kept bumping into them. It was impossible to pretend she wasn’t having fun, especially with Doc singing at the top of his lungs beside her.
By the time the song ended, his face was flushed and his normally tidy hair was mussed, but the way he smiled at Jayne made all that jumping around worth the extra pounding now vibrating inside her skull.
“Thanks, Jaynie,” he laughed, leading her back to the table. “I think I’m good until next year’s Stomp now.”
“God, I hope so.” She pressed her hand to her forehead in a futile attempt to stop the swaying.
A quick kiss on the cheek, a one-armed hug, and he started toward the door, calling back over his shoulder.
“Oh, and I told those two knuckleheads to keep their comments to themselves or I’d kick their asses into next Tuesday.”
And that, right there, was one of the many reasons Jayne loved Dr. Warren Scott.
She slumped onto her chair, what was left of her beer in one hand, forehead in the other.
Nick frowned at her from where he sat with Lisa and another couple. He started to get up, but Jayne waved him off. She’d expected that last Tylenol to pack a punch, but all it had done so far was wave its fist at the pounding in her head. Granted, she wasn’t doing herself any favors by sitting in a rink with blaring music and hundreds of people, but she’d rather put up with the pain than have to look into Nick’s angry eyes as he gave her shit for not telling him she’d hurt herself.
The DJ shifted his musical choices from country to classic stuff from the seventies and eighties, which seemed to revitalize the crowd. This was Jayne’s kind of music, and Carter even managed to fight his way through a wall of blond babes long enough to drag Jayne out on the floor a couple times. Nick only danced with Linda.
Lisa!
After the last round with Carter, Jayne started off the floor when the first few notes came over the speakers. She froze in mid-step, searching the crowd for Nick.
It was her song. He’d “given” it to her for her sixteenth birthday, for the title more than anything else, and it had become an unspoken rule that this was not just her song, it was their song.
Where was he? Had he forgotten? She stretched on tiptoe, craned her neck … and there he was, striding toward her with his mouth tipped up in one of his goofy grins.
It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside …
Jayne took a couple steps toward him, feeling her smile all the way down to her toes, then stopped. LindaLisa grabbed Nick’s hand, tugged him back, and said something Jayne had no hope of hearing. He shook his head, motioned toward Jayne, and even took a step in her direction, but LindaLisa pulled him back and smiled up at him with nothing short of pure sunlight.
He stared at Jayne for a long moment, undecided, until she finally shrugged, sighed, and waved him off. It was just a song.
Maybe if she repeated it enough times she could convince herself that was true, and maybe—just maybe—she might be able to close the giant gaping hole that had suddenly opened in her stomach.
And you can tell everybody this is your song …
Apparently, Sir Elton, it wasn’t her song anymore.
Back in her chair, she closed her eyes, chugged her beer, and prayed the alcohol would help ease the pain that somehow connected the cavern in her belly to the pounding in her head.
“He’s an idiot.” Carter stood in front of her, his hand out, offering her a smile. “Come on, Jay, let’s dance.”
“Thanks, but I think I better sit this one out.”
“You okay?” Carter twisted a chair around and straddled it so he faced her. “You’re lookin’ a little pale.”
“Just a headache.” And since the beer she’d swilled hadn’t even begun to ease the pain in her head or her stomach, she tipped another Tylenol out of her handy Tic Tac container and chased it with another swig.
“What are you taking? And why the hell are you chasing it with beer?”
“Just some Tylenols I stole out of Nick’s cupboard.”
The floor was packed with people, yet every time she looked up, there was Nick watching her over LindaLisa’s perfectly coiffed head.
“Hey.” Carter nudged her foot with his own. “Focus, please. What kind of Tylenols?”
After another second, she finally dragged her eyes away from the dance floor and grinned at Carter. “Big ones.”
She tried to laugh it off, but he just held out his hand, fingers wiggling, until she finally sighed and gave him the container.
“Jeez, Jayne, how many have you had?”
“One at Nick’s, and one after Dickie twirled me around like a Tilt-A-Whirl, so two.” She started to nod, then stopped. “Oh, and the one I just took. So three.”
She managed another swallow of her beer before Carter wrenched the plastic cup out of her hand, sending what was left all over her lap.
Jayne sprung to her feet, teetered, and sat back down hard.
“You’ve had three?” He tipped her chin up so he could stare into her eyes. “How long have you had it?”
“The beer?”
“The headache.”
“Just since … I dunno.” A murky fog began to claw its way through her brain, bringing with it the first sign of relief. Finally. And it only took three giant Tylenols and the better part of three beers. Good things happened in threes, right?
“Jayne. Look at me.”
She did what he said, but had to blink a few times to bring his face into focus. His fault; he was so close, their noses almost touched.
“What happened? You were fine at the store.” He lifted her eyelids, one at a time, then pressed his fingers against her wrist. Oh, right. Carter wasn’t just Carter. He was Dr. Carter Scott, pediatrician extraordinaire. Funny.
“It’s nothing.” The growing fog slowed everything down; blinking, breathing, talking. “I was reaching for a box, then Nick called … and then …”
“Then what?”
“What? Oh. Um, I stepped on a rat.” It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. “Little bugger scared the crap outta me … think I … um … I jumped.”
“You jumped?”
“Mm-hmm. High.” She tried to force her eyes to open a little wider, but finally gave up and just let them close. “Like Olympic high-jump high.”
“What did you land on? Jayne. Look at me.”
“You said that already.” She tipped her face up to his, and even managed to open her eyes again, but that wasn’t enough for Carter. Next thing she knew, he was on his feet leaning over her.
“Did you hit your head?” He set his fingers against her scalp and walked them slowly over the top of her head.
“Your eyes are really dark,” she said. “Like brown M&M’s.”
“Does this hurt?” He pressed a little harder above her ears.
“Nick’s eyes are more like … spring, don’t you think?”
“Jayne—how hard did you hit your head? What else hurts?”
“He always smells good. D’you ever notice that?”
Over the top again, then down the back. “What about—?”
“Ow!” She jerked her head away from his fingers, but by that time Carter had dropped his hands.
“Nice goose egg. Did you at least ice it?”
“No time. Nick already had his angry eyes on.” She blinked again, slowly. “Can I have my drink back?”
“No. You’ve had enough.” He took her elbow and tugged her to her feet just as Nick walked up. His face, so beautiful and friendly looking when he wasn’t scowling, was set in a full-on scowl. Not so beautiful or friendly now.