Second Act

by Herkness, Nancy

  He would tell Bryan he wanted the time off because it was a cause he cared about, but to himself he admitted the truth: he couldn’t stand the thought of letting Jessica down.

  As much as she’d wished to thank him, Jessica had been relieved that Hugh was in a hurry. There’d been no time to discuss where things stood between them.

  Pete was going to be a much tougher proposition. She’d texted to set up a meeting with him at nine at Philomena’s, the bar they’d enjoyed last Thursday, and then dashed home to shower and change. She’d taken some care with her clothes, needing the armor of black jeans, a tailored white silk blouse, and her favorite plum suede boots. Even her hair had been carefully tamed into a neat bun. Leaving it down would send the wrong message.

  Now she sat in the back of a ride share on her way to face him, wondering how to explain what had happened to make her life so tangled.

  Pete was already sitting in a booth when she walked in, his pale blond hair glowing against the brown leather of the banquette. He stood and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, but there was no smile in answer to hers. As soon as they were both seated, he waved a hand at the stemmed glass in front of her. “I ordered you a Manhattan since that was your choice the last time we were here.”

  “That was thoughtful of you.”

  He pinned her with his gaze. “I’m not going to beat around the bush because that’s not my style. I saw the photo of you and Hugh Baker in the Star.” He grimaced. “Not that I read that garbage, but a work associate does and remembered meeting you at the hockey game, so she shared it with me.”

  Jessica winced. That had probably injured Pete’s pride on top of everything else. “The photo was a surprise to me, too.” She wanted to say it was misleading, but she couldn’t quite force the words out.

  He locked his gaze on her face. “When I asked you about Hugh Baker, you told me your engagement ended a long time ago. You said you were over him. In that picture”—his voice turned hard—“you sure as hell don’t look over him. And you might have mentioned the fact that you are still seeing him.”

  She didn’t blame him for being upset. “When we talked about Hugh, I wasn’t seeing him. Until the week before our conversation, I hadn’t had any contact with him in eight years. Not a word. So when I ran into him—literally—while he was filming the new Julian Best movie, I didn’t expect anything about our relationship to change.”

  “Whose relationship? Yours with Hugh or with me?”

  “Both . . . either. What I told you was true—Hugh and I live in different worlds. Nothing made me think he and I would connect again.”

  Pete sat back, his expression grim. “But you did. So where does that leave us?”

  She folded the corners of the paper cocktail napkin up over the base of her glass. “I don’t know.” She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I hate to screw things up with you when I have no idea what’s going on with Hugh.”

  He huffed out a frustrated breath. “Look, I don’t shy away from some healthy competition. You’re an amazing woman, so it doesn’t surprise me that I’m not the only man in your life. I’m not even afraid to go toe to toe with a world-famous actor. But I can’t compete with the past. Your relationship with Hugh Baker goes back a long way. I need to know if those old feelings are truly dead.”

  His words took Jessica on a roller-coaster ride of dismay, gratification, and finally, the stunning realization that she needed to admit the truth to Pete—and to herself.

  She swallowed hard, glanced up at Pete, and then stared down into the golden liquid in her glass. “I thought those feelings were dead. I had buried my life with Hugh in a deep, dark corner of my heart, never to be resurrected.” She forced herself to meet Pete’s gaze. “Even when we talked again on the movie set, I didn’t feel anything other than a sort of regretful nostalgia.”

  Pete’s face seemed carved in stone.

  “But we spent some more time together.” She thought of how she and Hugh had made love the day he’d scooped her up off the dog bed. She should have known that it wasn’t only her body that responded to Hugh. “I wouldn’t say the old feelings resurfaced. Eight years is a long time, and we’ve both changed. But whatever brought us together back then is still there in some form. I just don’t know whether there’s any future in it. Only time will tell.”

  All she knew with utter certainty was that she’d fallen right back in love with Hugh, despite their past failure, despite the glaring differences between their two worlds, despite having no idea how he felt about her. As she watched Pete swallow the rest of his drink in one gulp, she wondered what the hell was wrong with her. Across from her sat a successful, attractive, decent man who wanted her. Why did she long for the man who’d hurt her enough to drive her away from him?

  Pete set down his glass as though it was made of the most fragile crystal. “I appreciate your honesty.” He signaled the waiter for the check and took his credit card out of his wallet to lay it on the table. She hated to have him pay for the drinks, but it seemed like the wrong time to argue about it.

  “You’re a nicer guy than I deserve,” she said as a pang of regret rolled through her.

  He shook his head, handing the waiter his credit card without even looking at the check. “I’m not nice. I just know when I’m beaten.”

  “I wish things had worked out differently.” She meant that.

  “Just don’t say you really like me,” he said, his mouth twisting in a grimace. “That would be the kiss of death.”

  “Deal,” she said.

  Pete signed the credit card slip and stood up. Jessica started to do the same, but he waved her back into her seat. “You should drink that cocktail. You might need it.”

  He walked out with a confident stride, and Jessica saw several female heads turn to watch him.

  She picked up her Manhattan and downed half of it all at once, hoping the alcohol would wash away the guilt and remorse she felt over hurting Pete. The other half she swallowed in an attempt to drown her newly acknowledged feelings for Hugh.

  But Hugh had fought his way out of the deep, dark corner she’d shoved him in, and now she couldn’t banish him back into it. The glow of the Manhattan was starting to seep through her bloodstream, but all it brought was a desire to lay her head down on the table and cry until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  And wasn’t that exactly why she hadn’t wanted to love Hugh ever again?

  “You did what?” Gavin jerked upright in his chair, nearly spilling the glass of scotch he held.

  “I got Bryan to rearrange a few scenes so I could take tomorrow afternoon off. The K-9 Angelz is a program I believe in.” Hugh didn’t mention the string of creative curses the director had let loose when Hugh had made his request. But Hugh never asked for special treatment, so Bryan—or rather Bryan’s assistant, Timoney—found a way to accommodate him.

  “At least be honest with me,” Gavin said. “You didn’t disrupt a major motion picture for the kids and the dogs.”

  Hugh put his feet up on the coffee table in Gavin’s den. “No, I suppose I didn’t.” He took a sip of his drink.

  “What’s going on with your ex-fiancée?” the other man prodded.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Well, I know it’s more than you’re letting on. Talk to me. I’m your best friend.” Gavin paused a moment. “Possibly your only friend.”

  Hugh barked out a laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself.” But he found he wanted to talk about Jess. “She told me why she broke our engagement. Well, actually, I pressured her into it.” He wasn’t going to cut himself any slack.

  “Something about how she hated being in the public eye all the time.”

  “That was my spin on it. She didn’t enjoy the spotlight, but I was the one who made her feel uncomfortable about how well she handled it.” He shook his head. “She decided that she was holding me back from my lofty goal of being a movie star. The woman who’s saved countless animals’ lives believed she would be an
impediment to my career. God, I was such an idiot.”

  “No argument here,” Gavin said. “However, it sounds to me like there’s a fine line between what you believe and the explanation she gave you.”

  “Ah, it’s subtle but significant. My theory assumed that she was thinking only of herself, but that’s not Jess. She would have sucked it up and done what was necessary because she was always there to support me. I was such an ass about it that I convinced her she wasn’t good enough at the publicity appearances. She didn’t want to be the reason I didn’t make it as an actor, so she took herself out of the equation.”

  Gavin stood up to refill his glass from the cut-crystal decanter. He tilted it toward Hugh. “Want another?”

  “Why not? You serve damned good scotch.” Hugh held out his glass for Gavin to pour more of the golden liquor into.

  “So how does this revelation change things?” Gavin eased back into his chair.

  Hugh had been trying to figure that out ever since Jess told him. “There’s a lot of damage. In my mind, she abandoned me, so I abandoned her. She called me. I didn’t return her messages. She even sent me a very handsome and expensive gift when Level Best premiered. I still have it, but I never thanked her.”

  “In short, you behaved like a real bastard.”

  “I behaved like I was still a teenage foster child, not a grown man. I understand that now. But then . . . she hit every hot button in my brain.” He swirled his glass so the liquid formed a whirlpool. “It was like watching my mother walk away from the foster home all over again.”

  Gavin was silent, a rare occurrence. Hugh looked up to find the usually harsh angles of his friend’s face gone soft with compassion.

  “Don’t you do it, too,” Hugh said, an edge in his voice. “I don’t want pity.”

  “It’s empathy. I was also deserted by my mother.” Gavin’s tone was even. “It leaves scars that never quite heal.”

  Hugh nodded in acknowledgment of their shared experience.

  “Jessica told you you’d already repaired some of the damage, so the case is not hopeless,” Gavin said. “Which brings me back to the question I asked you the last time we discussed this: What do you want from Jessica?”

  Hugh put his feet on the floor and stood up to walk to his favorite window. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving her.” He faced Gavin squarely. “I want her to love me again. I want to build a better relationship this time. I want it to last.”

  “That’s definitive. How are you going to make it happen?”

  “She’s not indifferent to me,” Hugh said, remembering their evening at the theater.

  Gavin chuckled. “I won’t ask how you know that. I can see it on your face. But that’s not enough.”

  “It’s a start. With Jess, there have to be emotions involved,” he said. “I need to charm a grumpy animal welfare inspector tomorrow. That will earn me brownie points.”

  “All that indirect trust building is great as far as it goes, but you have to put your heart right out there for her to stomp on if she chooses to. You have to tell her exactly how you feel. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

  Hugh shook his head. “There’s still too much about our past we need to resolve. She’s not ready to hear how I feel yet.”

  “Or maybe you’re just too afraid to tell her.”

  Chapter 16

  Jessica poured herself a mug of fragrant coffee, plopped half a bagel in the toaster, and sat down across from Aidan. He was wearing plaid flannel pajama pants, a gray T-shirt, and a serious case of bedhead, his sun-streaked hair a rat’s nest of spiky knots. She took a gulp of the life-giving beverage, carefully put the mug down on the oak table, and braced herself to make another confession.

  Last night while she’d wrestled with the guilt she carried for hurting Pete, she realized that she might have also killed her brother’s chances of getting the job at ExDat.

  “You know the picture of Hugh and me in the tabloid?” Her brother hadn’t been there when she’d gotten home last night, but he’d left the paper on the kitchen counter, open to the photo, making Jessica cringe all over again when she saw it.

  Aidan nodded, his eyes half-closed, as he took a large swallow of his own coffee.

  “Pete saw it, too, and he wasn’t thrilled about it. Not that I blame him. Anyway, we won’t be seeing each other anymore.”

  “Shit!” Aidan’s eyes went wide with dismay. It took a moment, but he got past his first reaction and managed to give her a brotherly pat on the hand. “That’s a bummer. Probably not a fun discussion to have with him.”

  She was touched by his sympathy. “I hope it doesn’t screw up the job interview.”

  “Nah. Pete’s not that kind of guy. Don’t worry about it.” Aidan’s confidence seemed a little forced. “It’s none of my business, but what’s going on with you and Hugh, anyway? The picture made things look kind of, um, intense.”

  She made a face. “Pictures can be misleading.”

  “Yeah, but you wanted to marry Hugh once. Are you headed in that direction again?” He raised both hands, palm out. “Just to be clear, I think he’s a cool guy, so I’m on your side either way.”

  His unconditional support sent a little tendril of warmth curling into her chest. “You’re a pretty decent brother, you know.”

  Aidan grinned, which, combined with his bedhead, made him look about ten years old. “I keep telling you that. Are you going to answer my question or not?”

  “Not?”

  “I said it was none of my business.” But he looked hurt.

  “I don’t know the answer,” she said. “With Hugh, nothing’s ever simple.”

  “You’re always revved up by a challenge.”

  She sighed. “Do you think that’s why I keep falling in love with him?”

  Her brother’s eyebrows rose. “Oh-kay, so that was an answer.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything because I have no idea how he feels about me.” She braced her chin on her hands. “We live such different lives. I just don’t see how to reconcile them, even if he wanted to. We couldn’t manage it eight years ago.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but eight years is a long time. You’ve both changed. Maybe you could work it out now.”

  A spark of optimism flared. If her irresponsible brother thought it was possible . . . “I’ve considered that, but I figured it was just wishful thinking on my part.”

  “You’re already in love with him again. If it doesn’t work out, it’s still going to hurt. But if you don’t try, you’ll pile regret on top of the pain.”

  “Wow! That’s incredibly . . . smart.”

  “It’s just logic. I’m good at that.” He grinned again, his gray eyes bright now. “But you’re welcome for the brotherly wisdom.”

  She laughed just as her phone pinged with a text. She pulled it out of the pocket of her forest-green scrubs and swiped into the message.

  Schedule rearranged. Will be at the Carver Center at noon. Shall I wear Julian’s tuxedo?

  “Oh my God! I can’t believe he did it!” Jessica shouted.

  Aidan winced, his free hand over one ear. “Hey, keep the volume down. I haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet.”

  “Sorry.” She typed back, feeling the uncontrollable smile that stretched her lips wide: You are truly the Best! If you could carry a really cute puppy while wearing the tuxedo, that would be perfect. Thank you a thousand times over!

  His response came back immediately. I’ll let you know how you can repay me later. Now I have to go make up for this afternoon’s lost time.

  “Hugh got the afternoon off to charm the Animal Control inspector.” As a warm glow spread through her, she couldn’t help but wonder whether he was doing it for her or for the kids.

  “To do what?”

  “Oh, right, you don’t know about the impending catastrophe at the Carver Center.” She filled him in on the situation while she buttered her bagel, her appetite suddenly back in full force
. She savored her first bite of the warm bread with its chewy crust and lightly crisped top. Bagels were one of the things she loved about New York.

  “I don’t know a ton about the movie biz,” Aidan said as she ate with gusto, “but changing the shooting schedule in less than twenty-four hours seems pretty . . . significant. Are you sure you don’t know how Hugh feels about you?”

  Jessica sailed through her morning appointments on a wave of pure joy. Hugh was going to rescue the K-9 Angelz program. Yes, she had that much confidence in his ability to win friends and influence the inspector. But the joy came from Aidan’s conviction that Hugh wouldn’t have done something as difficult as changing the filming schedule unless he was trying to impress Jessica.

  She took a car service to the Carver Center, not wanting to arrive with slush stains on her scrub pants. Emily greeted her at the front door with a hug. “Mr. Baker called to say he’s running a little late due to work, but I’m not worried. I’ve never known an inspector to come at the beginning of the time window.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you enlisted a movie star to help us, but I’m so grateful. The health inspector was quite prickly, so I’m concerned about what he might have reported us for.”

  The Carver Center’s director was usually unflappable, so the inspector must have been downright awful. “We’ve got this,” Jessica said. “But I’m going to take a look at the kennel area to see if I need to make any extra tweaks.”

  “Diego was here until ten o’clock last night scrubbing and polishing. He got all the kids to groom their dogs until they practically sparkle.” Emily’s eyes took on a militant light. “I can’t believe a rational person could find anything wrong with our facilities.”

  Jessica remembered what her contact had said about nasties and crazies but decided to keep it to herself. “Diego is one amazing kid.”

  “I can’t wait to see what he does with his life,” Emily said. “It’s going to be extraordinary.”

  Jessica agreed as she slipped off her quilted winter jacket and shrugged into the pristine white lab coat she’d brought with her. She kept it for occasions when she needed to look especially authoritative and competent. It even had her name and the clinic’s logo embroidered on it in the same serious forest green as her scrubs.