Once and for All

by Jeannie Watt

  Jodie remained silent. What could she possibly say? I’m so sorry? In more ways than you can imagine?

  “I guess I still retain a lot of anger, and I need to acknowledge it so I can deal with it.”

  “Yes,” Jodie agreed faintly. Anger. Her fingers, which had been lightly curled on the sheet, tightened into a fist. Sam dropped an arm over her and drew her closer, but at that moment Jodie wanted space. Room to breathe, to think. She felt a wave of heat and nausea.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I…I’m sorry this happened, Sam.”

  “Yeah. It sucked. Still does.”

  Thankfully, Sam lapsed into silence, and Jodie made a conscious effort to relax her taut muscles. She shut her eyes as if to sleep and Sam took the hint, pulling her close, cradling her against his body. Jodie felt a tremendous weight of guilt. He wouldn’t be with her now if she’d told him the truth. What they had together, what she had secretly come to treasure, was all a lie. An illusion that would evaporate once the truth was exposed.

  As she felt him relax against her, his breathing becoming more even, she knew what was going to happen, what she had to do.

  He was going to hate her for being a flake rather than a liar.

  SAM HADN’T EXPECTED to fall asleep, or to wake up alone. It was 7:15. Beau and Tyler would be home any minute and it would have been a bit embarrassing if Jodie hadn’t woken up before they got there. He got out of bed and pulled on his pants. Maybe the four of them could order in a pizza or something. And maybe the boys would turn in at a decent hour so he and Jodie could sneak back to bed and spend the night together.

  Damn, but he was going to miss her when she was gone.

  He picked up his cell and turned it on, surprised there were no messages from clients. Apparently the Fates had been with him.

  “Jodie,” he called as he walked into the dark living room. He snapped on a light. “Jodie?” he repeated, getting an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  The house was empty. Dark and empty.

  He turned on the kitchen light as he entered the room, then went to the coat rack and grabbed his jacket. He jogged across the lawn separating the house from the clinic. His truck was there, the Spitfire was not.

  She was gone.

  Where? Why?

  Sam stood for a moment, looking at the empty spot where the slick little car had been parked up until about an hour ago, judging from the tracks. Big fat snowflakes were falling, and there was maybe a quarter inch of snow covering her tire marks. She hadn’t been gone long. Maybe she was just going for takeout for them? Or she wanted to show up after the boys got home, so it wouldn’t appear as if they had spent the day together in bed?

  Or maybe Sam was clutching at straws. If she’d done any of those things, she would have woken him first. Told him.

  She was gone.

  Why?

  The Beast roared into the drive a few minutes after Sam had returned to the house and attempted unsuccessfully to call Jodie. Twice. He was pacing through the kitchen, trying to make sense of the situation, when the boys burst in, jubilant because the booster club had come up with the funds to send the team to the state tournament in Reno a day early so that they could be well rested.

  “Great,” Sam said, attempting a hearty response, when at the moment he really didn’t care about basketball.

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “We’re leaving right after school tomorrow. We have to do laundry tonight and pack.”

  “What’s wrong?” Beau demanded.

  Sam frowned at him. “Nothing.”

  Beau gave him a long “yeah, right” look and Sam caved, knowing he had to tell them something.

  “Jodie had to go back to Las Vegas. I’m just worried about her on these roads.” And wondering where the hell she was and why she’d left like she did.

  Beau’s expression cleared. “You’ll probably go see her sometime, right?”

  “I imagine,” Sam said vaguely. “I have to go check the messages in the clinic.” He grabbed the keys off the hook and went out into the night without a jacket, hitting Redial on the phone as he walked across the lawn. Nothing.

  The gnawing sensation in his gut was almost making him nauseous. What in the hell was going on?

  It was after nine when Sam called Margarite. The housekeeper sounded perplexed when she said hello. Apparently she didn’t get that many personal calls.

  “It’s Sam. Do you know where Jodie is?”

  “On her way to Las Vegas.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “Just before noon. She had a fight with Joe and left.”

  Great. So as far as her family knew, she’d been on the road to Vegas when she’d actually been making love to him.

  “So she hasn’t called to say she’s there?”

  “Not that I know of, but Nadine has been holed up in her bedroom since Jodie left. It’s not the happiest of times here, Sam.”

  “I can imagine.” He ran a hand over the stiff muscles at the back of his neck. “Why do you stay?” he muttered.

  “I like Nadine, and Lucas has a job. Plus it pays well.”

  “Would you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Talk to Nadine. See if Jodie got to Vegas all right and call me back.”

  There was a pause and Sam wondered if Margarite was going to ask why he wasn’t in contact with Jodie himself. It didn’t take a brainiac, though, to figure out that he’d only be asking if he couldn’t contact her, and Margarite was no fool.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know something. If you don’t hear from me, I don’t know anything.”

  “Thanks.” It was all he could ask. Sam paced his office. When Jodie said she was keeping her options open, maybe she meant that she was a free spirit who could come and go as she pleased. Well, she was that. He had no claim on her, but still…

  The phone rang, startling him, and he scooped the receiver out of the charger.

  “Jodie’s at her condo, Sam.”

  He let out a relieved breath, glad she was home, even if it raised other issues. “Do you have her number there?”

  “Just a sec.” A moment later Sam had the number. He thanked Margarite and hung up.

  Then he programmed the number into his cell and tucked the paper into his personal phone book. She was home. She knew how to get hold of him. Maybe he’d just wait a day and see how this all played out.

  Although he still wondered just why he had to do that. This was flipping strange.

  IF JODIE’S STOMACH WAS any tighter, it would be inside out. She still felt on the edge of nausea, and after getting home had thrown up.

  She’d orphaned the twins, taken Sam’s brother from him.

  She didn’t know how she was going to live the rest of her life knowing that.

  Her once a week housekeeper had visited during her absence, so the condo was immaculate. No dust, no sign that it was anything but a showplace, which it was. When Jodie had left Las Vegas eight weeks ago, she’d loved her condo. The minimalist designs and Southwestern color schemes blended beautifully, and the lack of clutter usually soothed Jodie. Today it simply emphasized just how austere her life was. All clean edges. No fraying. No comfort. No fun.

  No gym socks on the floor.

  She set the grocery bags she carried on the table, then stood for a long moment staring sightlessly across the room.

  Sam wouldn’t have gym socks on his floor if it hadn’t been for her. Those gym socks would have been in the twins’ house, and their parents would have been telling the boys to pick them up.

  Jodie squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard. She was going to have to deal with this. She could call Carmen, tell her she was home early, maybe go out and have a drink….

  Her chin dropped to her chest. Jodie wasn’t up to seeing any of her friends just yet.

  She put the groceries away, lit a few candles to take the staleness out of the air, then settled on the leather sofa to go through the files she’d brou
ght home. Jodie wouldn’t go to work for two more days, since she’d left Wesley ahead of schedule, but she’d stopped by the office, anyway. She needed something to distract her and was rewarded by a stack of case files to take home. She sifted through them now to make certain there were no DUIs. No more of those cases for her. Ever.

  The phone rang at eight. Jodie didn’t move. She let it ring until the machine picked up. And even then she didn’t check to see who it was. She’d been in contact with the office. She’d let her mother know she’d arrived home safely. Her father wouldn’t be calling anytime soon—not until he was certain Jodie had suffered enough for screwing up. She certainly didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  Half an hour later the phone rang again. Then fifteen minutes after that.

  Jodie gave up and went over to shut the ringer off—which she should have done in the first place—and check the caller identification. She instantly recognized the number.

  Sam. Someone had given him her home number. Well, it sure as heck hadn’t been her father. She pressed her lips together, and then after a brief hesitation, turned the phone off.

  JODIE DID NOT TURN ON either phone on for two days. Her cell phone sat in the bottom of her purse, in case of emergencies, and she ignored her land line. She figured if Sam kept calling and she didn’t answer, he’d get the message. It was fun while it lasted, but the city girl had gone back to her bright lights.

  She was being cowardly, but right now she’d much rather have him despise her for being shallow than know the truth.

  “Are you all right?” Penelope, the receptionist, asked when Jodie came in on Thursday dressed for a brief court appearance in a navy suit that made her look paler than usual. There was nothing wrong with the suit, but there was plenty wrong with her. Apparently, having only one or two hours of sleep a night was beginning to show. She’d put on blush that morning, but had ended up with two pink patches on unnaturally pale skin, so had washed it off again, going for the wan look.

  People didn’t want wan lawyers. She was going to have to stop on the way home and pick up some bronzer. And more concealer for the circles under her eyes.

  “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

  “You sure look like it.” Penelope had never been known for her tact, and Jodie suspected the only reason she was at the front desk was because she had something on one of the partners. She was a bombshell in the classic tradition, possibly an ex-showgirl, so Jodie could see it happening. “Why don’t you take some time off?”

  “I’ve already taken time off,” Jodie reminded her. Kicking around alone in her condo was killing her, but she couldn’t bring herself to call Carmen, who would lecture her. She didn’t feel close enough to any of her other friends to confess what she’d done. And she didn’t feel like going out and pretending to have fun when she wasn’t.

  How had that happened? How had she ended up with acquaintances rather than friends? Those eighty-hour weeks, probably. Who had time for friends? Or a husband, for that matter?

  But now she welcomed the work. Anything to take her mind off…

  Yeah.

  As if anything could.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JODIE WAS READING OVER a brief when her doorbell sounded at ten o’clock Saturday morning. She’d been up since dawn, but hadn’t done anything except read. The jacket she’d worn the day before was tossed carelessly over the back of an ebony dining room chair, and her briefcase was lying open on a coffee table cluttered with unread mail.

  She padded across the carpet in her bare feet, wondering who the heck would be at her door without calling first, then remembered no one could call first. Her brain was going. She looked through the peephole and felt the blood drain from her face. No. Make that her entire body. Sam.

  She stepped back and stared at the door, running through options in her head. Pretty simple. Open the door or leave it closed.

  The doorbell rang again. And again. Then he started knocking. Next thing, the neighbors would be complaining, and she’d be talking to the condo board.

  Get it over with.

  She unlocked the door and pulled it open, letting her hand drop from the carved brass knob as she took a step backward. For a moment she and Sam simply stared at one another, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out that he was pissed off in a royal way.

  “Why didn’t you answer my calls?” he asked without stepping inside.

  “Come in,” Jodie said, moving back another few feet.

  “Why?” he repeated, not budging.

  “Damn it, get in here,” she said.

  He took three steps forward, just enough so that Jodie could close the door behind him.

  “I don’t understand what happened,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  “Then why don’t you fill me in?”

  “There’s something you don’t know about me.” Jodie glanced away momentarily. “Something bad.”

  “How bad can it be?” Sam asked, in a surprisingly gentle voice that made Jodie feel rotten for having strung him along as she had. Damn, but she’d done a number on him.

  She squared her shoulders. “I defended Colin Craig. I’m the one who got him off for his third DUI. He would have gone to prison if I hadn’t done that.”

  The expressions that crossed Sam’s face were easy to read, because Jodie had felt every one of them herself multiple times since learning the truth. Shock, anger, incredulity. Pain. Lots of pain. Only her pain had come slowly, amplifying as she’d fallen for Sam.

  “How long have you known?”

  She forced herself to meet his eyes. “For a long time,” she whispered, preparing herself for what had to come next. “Before we made love. I’ve essentially been lying to you for weeks now.”

  Sam stared blindly across the room. Jodie’s fingers started to ache and she realized she had a death grip on the back of the ebony chair she’d tossed her jacket onto earlier. She let go and crossed her arms in front of her, hugging herself.

  “At least I understand why you left.” He turned back to her, his face pale. “I need to think about this.”

  “What’s to think about, Sam?”

  “Will you let me in when I come back?”

  “Don’t come back, Sam.”

  “Will you let me in?” he asked again.

  Jodie’s shoulders rose and fell as she inhaled, exhaled, wished there was some way out of this. “I don’t know how you got into the complex in the first place,” she said numbly.

  “I walked through the gate when a car drove through. Your security sucks.”

  “The gate code is the last four digits of my phone number. And yes…I’ll let you in.”

  It was the least she could do. Let him rage at her before he disappeared from her life.

  It was soon obvious that Sam didn’t need the gate code. He never left the complex. For over an hour he sat on a chair in the courtyard under the palms and simply stared into the distance, while Jodie occasionally went to her window and stared at him.

  She wanted more than anything to make him stop hurting.

  She couldn’t.

  When Sam finally stood, she figured the odds were fifty-fifty as to whether he’d go back out through the gate or come up to her condo. He started for her building and Jodie’s heart sank.

  Well, at least it would all be over soon.

  She went to wait by the door. Sam only had to ring the bell once before she opened it and stepped back to let him in.

  The verdict wasn’t at all what she expected. Instead of cold anger, Sam simply said, “You should have told me what happened.”

  “In hindsight, I can see that,” she answered coolly. “I was selfish.” Incredibly, monumentally selfish.

  “We could have faced this together. Talked about it.”

  Jodie stared at him, stunned. “Talked about it?” she asked incredulously. “Are you crazy? I pretty much killed your brother.”

  Anger flashed across Sam’s face.
“Did you hold the bottle to Craig’s lips? Put the car keys in his hands?”

  “I made sure he was in a position to do just that.”

  Sam inhaled deeply. “You know what really bugs me?”

  “I slept with you?”

  “That you have so little faith in me.”

  “What?” Not the answer she expected. What did faith in him have to do with anything?

  “Yeah. You could have told me,” he reiterated. “Granted, we’d only been together for a while, but…” His mouth tightened as the words trailed off. “I thought we had the beginning of something that could grow strong.”

  “And then things changed,” Jodie said bitterly. She felt the sting of tears and turned her head away so she wasn’t looking at him. “You cannot have a relationship with someone who killed your brother.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “And stop being so damned noble. No matter how forgiving you might be now, don’t you think this is going to matter just a wee bit in the future? Don’t you think Tyler and Beau are pretty much going to hate me when they find out?”

  “It won’t be easy,” Sam agreed.

  “It would be impossible. I know.”

  “How?”

  “Just trust me. I know.”

  “Damn it, Jodie.” He crossed the space between them and took hold of her shoulders. Jodie winced, from guilt rather than pain, and he instantly released her.

  “We could at least make an attempt to work this out instead of just abandoning all possibilities.”

  “Sam,” she said wearily, “think about what you’re saying.”

  “Jodie—”

  “Bottom line, Sam. I won’t do this to your nephews. I won’t do it to you. We are no more.”

  “Tell me one thing.”

  Her belly tightened at his tone. She knew what was coming. “What?”

  “Did you feel like you were falling in love with me? Before?”

  She still felt as if she was falling in love with him, which made the situation that much worse. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She’d expected him to demand an actual answer, as her father would have. He didn’t.

  Instead, he crossed to the door. “Would you consider answering my calls in the future?”