by Heidi Betts
“It’s okay,” Jenna murmured, although her watery voice and wavering words clearly revealed the claim to be a lie. “It was just sex, and we both knew it wasn’t leading anywhere. It had to end sometime.”
Ronnie, who had leaned in close to Jenna’s other side and was rubbing comforting circles in the center of her back, whispered, “But you didn’t want it to, did you?”
Jenna took a deep, shuddering breath. “It doesn’t matter.” Straightening slightly, she shook her head, sending her short, black hair fluttering. “Things were never going to work out. Not while we were married, and not now.”
She lifted her gaze, which was wet with tears. “He’s never going to change his mind. I don’t think I ever really believed that before, but I do now.”
“What did he say?” Grace wanted to know.
Jenna shook her head again and gave her two closest friends a meaningful glance that clearly said she’d share the details with them later, but wasn’t ready to bare her soul just yet, in front of everyone. “Suffice to say I got the point this time. Loud and clear.”
Inhaling dramatically, Grace wrapped her arm around Jenna’s shoulders and squeezed her close. “We make quite the pair, don’t we? Obviously we are not cut out to be involved with the males of our species. I say we swear off the opposite sex altogether,” she announced with feeling. “We should start a ‘Men are Scum’ Club, where we sit around drinking girlie cocktails and discussing why testosterone is the curse of humanity and anyone with a Y-chromosome should be dragged into the street and shot.”
At first, Charlotte didn’t think Grace’s good-natured teasing would have the desired effect. Jenna looked entirely too miserable to find anything amusing at this point.
But after a few minutes, she sniffed, wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, then raised her head to face Grace. “Can I be the president?”
Grace chuckled and hugged her again. “Absolutely. I’ll be your vice president, and we’ll have signs and buttons made up to promote the group. Our logo will be a twig and two berries with a big red line through them. No dicks allowed.”
Laughter went around the circle, breaking the veil of tension that had fallen over the group. Slowly but surely, the women returned to their knitting, filling the area once again with the clickety-clack of needles on needles.
Grace and Ronnie, too, leaned back in their seats and picked up their respective projects.
“I think you’re just looking for another excuse to toss back pretty-colored drinks,” Ronnie shot in Grace’s direction.
“Like I need an excuse,” Grace retorted. Then, in a stage whisper aside to Jenna, she said, “Don’t listen to her. She’s been consorting with the enemy and is just jealous she hasn’t had an epiphany about what assholes they are like the rest of us enlightened ones.”
Ronnie raised a skeptical brow. “Until recently, you were ‘consorting’ with the enemy, too. More often than I do, I’d venture to guess.”
Grace rolled her eyes and leaned forward to stick her tongue out at Ronnie around Jenna, who sat between them. “But I have since seen the error of my ways,” she proclaimed in a very put-upon tone. “That’s why they call it an epiphany and why I’m enlightened, thankyou-verymuch.”
From there, the conversation broke down into dirty jokes and the denigration of men, with Zack Hoolihan and Gage Marshall getting the brunt of the women’s disgruntlement.
Charlotte was barely listening to any of that, though. She was much too wrapped up in worries over why the enchanted yarn hadn’t worked.
It had apparently gotten Jenna and Gage back together for a short while-which certainly hadn’t been her intention. She’d wanted Jenna to find a new man, not go back to the same one who’d already broken her heart once before. (Even if Gage was a nice enough young fellow otherwise.)
But if the yarn had gotten them back together, then it was supposed to keep them together. The spinning wheel was said to create yarn that brought true love, not temporary lust with a misery chaser.
This wasn’t good, and it wasn’t right, and there had to be something she could do.
Purl 18
“I think I fucked up.”
Gage took a swig of beer from the bottle in his hand, doing his best to block out the noise around him. The raised voices of bar patrons, the competing programs playing on two separate televisions, the clanking of glasses from people drinking and waitresses filling or clearing orders.
It all clumped and clanged in his head, adding to the pressure there, making him wonder if he should drink more in an attempt to block it out… or drink less to keep the sensitive tissues of his brain from becoming so susceptible in the first place.
Zack and Dylan were with him-on their usual night, at their usual table-and had been since around seven o’clock. It was now nearing midnight, and Gage was pretty sure he could accurately predict that Jenna was not going to show up, after all. It was Wednesday night, her knitting group’s meeting night, so she should have.
He’d followed the normal routine of meeting his friends with the sole purpose of being there when she came in with Ronnie and Grace. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d planned to do or say once she arrived, but he suspected it would have involved embarrassing himself in some fashion.
Now, though, he was sort of pissed that she hadn’t shown up. Sure, she’d saved him public humiliation, but she’d also robbed him of the chance to see her, talk to her, do… something to make up for the way things had ended back at her aunt’s place.
It hadn’t been quite a week since he’d climbed on his Harley and headed back to the city, but it felt like months. Years, even. The longest four days of his life.
Every second of every minute since walking away from her-knowing it was really over and that they’d both finally said everything they had to say to each other-had made him feel worse. Made his insides tighten and his skin twitch.
If leaving had been the reasonable thing to do, he kept thinking, shouldn’t he feel better about it? When a decision was right, it was supposed to have a calming effect. You were supposed to breathe easier and find inner peace.
All he’d found was one more thing to keep him up at night. One more regret to add to his ever-growing list.
This was one regret, though, that he wasn’t sure he could live with. Each day that passed made him feel worse, made him wrack his brain for a way to fix what he’d broken.
Talking with his friends at the precinct had helped. For the first time in a long time, he’d opened his eyes a bit and paid attention to what was going on around him. Not job-wise, but deeper, in the personal lives of the men and women he worked with.
He’d spent years thinking law enforcement and family didn’t mix. Apparently, he was one of the few guys on the force who held that belief. Most of them were married; a lot of them, married or not, had kids. Many were divorced, sure-police work added a level of stress to relationships that most folks didn’t have to deal with-but he had to admit that his observations mostly turned up happy, normal family lives.
So why couldn’t he have that, too?
It was the first time he’d really let himself consider the possibility, and it didn’t sit well because it meant he’d been functioning about fifty points shy of the average IQ. Jenna had tried to tell him that all along, tried to convince him he could be a good husband, a good father, and a good cop.
He hadn’t believed her. Hadn’t trusted her-or himself-enough to believe they could have everything. He still wasn’t entirely confident of the feelings roiling around inside him, but he was coming around. He was starting to think maybe, just… maybe.
Which was why he’d wanted to see her tonight.
And why he was ready to admit he’d fucked things up royally.
“Oh, yeah?” Dylan responded. “What did you do this time?”
“I think I screwed up with Jenna.”
Zack, who was prickly as a cactus these days and had been drinking at a slightly faster clip than his f
riends, made a sound deep in his throat. “Ha! Join the club.”
“You screwed up with Jenna, too?” Dylan asked in an attempt to lighten the mood around the laminated table. He got a hairy eyeball for his trouble.
“You can’t please ’em,” Zack continued in a slightly louder voice than normal.
His words were becoming just slurred enough that Gage knew they’d have to take his keys and see that he got home some other way. “You buy ’em gifts, you give ’em a big ring, and you don’t cheat on them, redargless”-which Gage took to mean regardless-“of what they might think. But do they believe you? No! ’Course not. They see one naked woman in your bed and aumotatically assume you banged her.”
Slamming his beer down against the table, he nearly bellowed, “Well, I didn’t!”
Dylan cringed, and several heads turned in their direction, but Zack didn’t seem to notice… or care.
“We know that,” Gage reassured him.
When he’d first heard about Grace’s discovery of another woman in Zack’s hotel room on the road, he’d figured Grace had every right to be upset and break off their engagement. Gage was kind of a stickler for fidelity in a marriage and loyalty in all other aspects of life. Friend or no friend, he could never back a cheater.
Once Zack had told them his side of the story, however, Gage’s opinion had changed. He believed Zack when he said he hadn’t invited that woman into his room-or his bed.
It wasn’t Zack’s ranting and raving and the accuracy of the details each time he recounted what had happened that convinced Gage of his innocence, but the obvious anguish in his friend’s voice and demeanor. He was genuinely broken up about losing Grace; he loved her and had been faithful to her, no matter what she thought.
According to Zack, he’d been in the shower when both the strange woman and Grace had arrived at his hotel room. He’d answered the door when Grace knocked, but didn’t know how the other girl had gotten in. A stolen key card, a bribed member of the housekeeping staff… determined puck bunnies seemed to constantly come up with new ways to get close to the players.
It had been a cruel twist of Fate that brought Grace to the door at that very moment. If she’d been five minutes later, Zack had told them more than once, the woman would have been gone because he would have kicked her and her already discarded clothes out into the hall the minute he found her in his bed.
It was something Gage knew Grace needed to know-whether she chose to believe it or not-but wasn’t ready to hear just yet.
“Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “And once Grace has a chance to calm down and really listen to you, she’ll believe it, too. You just have to give her some time.”
Zack let out another snort, then turned his attention back to the bottle in front of him.
“So what did you do to land in the doghouse?” Dylan asked, getting back to Gage’s original comment.
Gage shook his head, running his thumb back and forth distractedly over the label on his Rolling Rock. “I’m starting to think I’ve been wrong about this whole ‘no kids’ thing.”
“Whoa.” Dylan’s eyes went wide and he rocked back an inch or two in his chair. Even Zack dragged himself away from his wallowing long enough to stare dumbly.
Gage felt his face heat at such close scrutiny.
“That’s quite an about-face. What changed your mind?” Dylan asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Gage admitted, avoiding his friends’ intense gazes by keeping his own eyes slanted down at the tabletop. “I was so sure it was a bad idea. That refusing to have children and letting Jenna go was the right thing to do, the best way to keep everyone safe.”
He drew in a deep breath and threw himself back against his chair. “But I miss her. Being with her again reminded me of how things used to be and how lousy I’ve felt this past year and a half without her. Then I went in to work and started to notice how many of the other guys have kids and happy marriages. Other UCs, detectives, beat cops, the members of SWAT.”
Lifting his head, he met Dylan’s gaze, then Zack’s. “So if they can do it and aren’t afraid something awful will happen to their families, what am I so worried about?”
Dylan leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. “That’s what we’ve always wondered. We tried to tell you that just because bad things happen, it doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily happen to you. Or Jenna or any kids you have.”
Gage’s mouth curled into a self-deprecating grin. “Yeah, I’m getting that. I don’t think I wanted to hear it before, though.”
“You don’t think?” Zack countered. “You were like the Great Wall of China any time the topic came up. I always thought you were afraid something would happen to you and you’d end up leaving Jenna alone to raise whatever children you’d had, but I didn’t think it was worth ruining your marriage over.”
He paused to take a swig of his drink, shrugging a shoulder as he lowered the bottle back to the table before continuing. “I figure it’s better to be with the person you love for as long as you can than be without them forever.” Swiveling his head from Dylan to Gage and back again, his eyes crossed and he said, “That made sense, right?”
Zack might be well on his way to fall-down drunk, but a few of his brain cells were still functioning.
“Yeah,” Gage mumbled. “It does.”
He didn’t want anything to happen to him, to leave Jenna-or any children they might have-alone. And he sure as hell didn’t want anything to happen to them. But being apart was clearly making them both miserable.
What was the point? Why should they be divorced and miserable when they could be married and happy for as long as they were blessed to be together?
They-he-had already wasted too much time, idiot that he was; he didn’t want to waste any more.
Pushing to his feet, he dug out his wallet and tossed a couple bills to the table. “Can you get him home?” he asked Dylan.
Dylan looked surprised, but said, “Sure. Where are you going?”
“I have to find Jenna. I’ve got a couple years’ worth of stupidity to make up for.”
As far as plans went, it could have used a bit more… planning.
He’d stalked out of The Penalty Box full of gusto and determination. It wasn’t until he’d reached his bike and was strapping on his helmet that he realized he didn’t have a clue where Jenna was.
Thank God no one had been in the parking lot to see him remove his helmet, climb back off the bike, and walk back into the bar two seconds after he’d walked out.
To their credit, his friends hadn’t laughed at him-at least not until after he’d left again. Well, Zack had, but Zack was three sheets to the wind and would have laughed at his own shadow at that point.
After asking Dylan if he had any idea where Jenna might be or where the girls might have gone after their knitting meeting since they hadn’t shown up at the Box, his friend had pulled out his cell phone and called Ronnie.
Without telling her why he wanted to know, he’d found out that she and Jenna had gone to Grace’s apartment for a couple of post-meeting, non-Penalty Box drinks before heading home. Gage hadn’t stuck around to hear the rest of the conversation, but had headed back out, this time with a destination in mind.
Now he stood outside Grace’s apartment door, wiping his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans and hoping his heart didn’t jump out of his chest before he got a chance to tell Jenna everything he needed to say.
Sucking in lungfuls of oxygen, he braced his feet slightly apart and lifted a hand to rap on the door. He was about to knock again when the door flew open and Grace stood there, staring up at him. She was dressed in some floor-length white satin nightgown with a matching robe. With her blond hair and full face of makeup, she looked for all the world like a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. Stick one of those long black cigarette holders in her hand and she could have been a twenties starlet.
“Hey, girls,” she called back over her shoulder, “it’s a dick. Should we take a vote on whether or n
ot to let him in?”
Something told him she wasn’t calling him a dick because he was an ace detective, but considering audacious was one of Grace’s regular settings, Gage didn’t waste time trying to decipher her comment.
A second later, Ronnie appeared a few feet behind her-still fully dressed in the skirt and blouse she’d worn to work, thank goodness.
Gage breathed a silent sigh of relief at the sight of her. Of the three of them, she hated him least at the moment and was probably his best shot at acting as a voice of reason with the other two.
But instead of smiling and telling Grace to let him in, Ronnie’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I think we should let Jenna decide,” she said in a voice that swept over him like a blast from the deep freeze.
Uh-oh. This might not be as easy he’d hoped.
A second after that, Jenna walked into view. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans with pink appliqué butterflies running down one leg and a white, scoop-neck top with a butterfly high toward one shoulder. And the boa around her neck of course matched every shade of pink and white in the outfit, bringing it all together in Jenna’s own unique style.
A fist clutched his insides as he took in every detail, from her ruffled black hair to the painted pink toenails peeking out through the open toes of her wedge sandals.
She looked good… but she looked sad, and he vowed to do everything in his power to wipe the pain from her face.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, meeting Jenna’s gaze and speaking past the other two women who stood between them.
A heavy silence followed his words. He waited for her reply, but the longer she took, the more blood pounded through his veins.
Finally, Grace pushed away from the door and headed for the kitchen. “Since it doesn’t look like you’ll be leaving, can I get you a drink?”
He heard ice cubes falling into a glass and dragged his attention away from Jenna long enough to watch Grace stroll back toward him, drink in hand. She offered him the tall, clear glass of light brown liquid, and he nearly reached for it. God knew his mouth was as dry as the Gobi Desert.