The Kissing Game

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Hi, this is Jonathan Chester. I'm away from my desk right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  It was Jazz. He called himself Jonathan— Frankie hadn't realized that was his real name— but the voice on the tape was Jazz's. His voice sounded deeper, richer, older, and more restrained, but it was still musical and pleasant, as if he were smiling while he spoke.

  The phone beeped. It was Frankie's turn to talk.

  “Hi, um, Jazz? My name is Francine Paresky, and I'm calling from Sunrise Key, down in Florida. I don't know if you remember me, but—”

  There was a click and the phone was picked up. “Frankie?” It was Jazz. “My God, is that you?”

  Frankie laughed, suddenly giddy with relief. “Yeah,” she said. “It's me.”

  “I'm sorry I didn't pick up right away,” Jazz told her in a voice that sounded a whole lot less grown-up than the voice on the tape, “but when I come in to work this early in the morning, I screen my calls, and …. God, how are you?”

  “I'm …. I'm okay. I'm good.” After all these years, she was talking to Jazz again. She felt both hot and cold and decidedly weak in the knees. She sat down at the kitchen table, playing with the curled telephone wire, stretching it out and then releasing it, watching it bounce. “Older. I'm older.” A movement out the window caught her eye. Simon. Walking on the beach.

  Jazz's laugh was rich and warm. “Yeah, me too. You know—this is really crazy. You're going to think I'm nuts, but I was just thinking about you. Not more than two days ago. Isn't that wild?”

  He sounded exactly the same. He still spoke with that same underlying sense of urgency and excitement, as if the words he spoke and the person he spoke to were the most important in all the world. It was wild. It was as if she'd suddenly been thrust into a time warp and sent back a dozen years into the past.

  Frankie tried to picture Jazz, but oddly enough her mind kept turning his clean, all-American features into Simon's more angular, almost elegant face, his brown hair into blond. She turned away from the window, suddenly aware that she was still gazing at Simon—a romantic solitary figure looking out over the waves.

  “I was watching a movie,” Jazz continued, “and this girl, I swear, she's gorgeous—she looks exactly like you. Marisa something. She's in everything these days. Honest, Frankie, the first time I saw her, I was sure it was you.”

  Frankie smiled, rolling her eyes. “Thanks for the compliment, Jazz, but I think maybe you don't remember me all that clearly.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. I have extremely vivid memories of you.” He spoke softly, pausing just long enough to make her recall her own vivid memories. Long, slow kisses on the beach …. But just like that, his voice changed and he was upbeat and friendly again. “So come on. Tell me what you're up to these days. Probably married with a pack of adorable kids, right? Come on, ‘fess up, babe. Break my heart.”

  Frankie's gaze slid back to the window. Simon hadn't moved. The wind tousled his blond hair. Break my heart. When Simon had left her so she could make this phone call, he'd looked at her with the oddest expression on his face. It was almost as if she were breaking his heart. But she knew that couldn't be true. Simon's heart was made of Tyvek. It was indestructible.

  “Frankie, you still there?”

  Lord, what was she doing? Letting her mind wander to Simon while she was on the phone with Jazz …. “No, I'm not married—”

  “No? That's hard to believe.”

  “How about you?”

  “Me? I'm …. still as footloose as ever. I tried marriage for a while, but things, you know, change. But that's not fair. We were talking about you. Come on, fill me in on the past ten years. Don't leave out any details.”

  “You're working—I don't want to take up too much of your time—”

  “Are you kidding? I've got my priorities straight—and old friends win out over early morning busywork any day.”

  Jazz wasn't married. He wasn't married, and he was still the nicest guy in the world. She looked out the window again, but Simon had disappeared.

  “I still live on Sunrise Key,” Frankie said. She told him the entire story. Clay Quinn's visit. Alice Winfield's death. The will. Her search for his stepfather. Jazz listened intently, interrupting occasionally with a sympathetic comment or a lighthearted joke that made her laugh.

  But the entire time she spoke, she watched out the window, wondering where Simon had gone, and waiting for him to return.

  EIGHT

  WHAT ARE YOU doing? Where did you get that?” Simon was on the beach, sitting on the sand out of sight of the house, reading one of Frankie's diaries. He jumped about a mile into the air at the sound of her voice, then tried to hide the notebook he'd been reading so intently.

  “I don't believe you.” Frankie held out her hand for the notebook. “Leila always claimed you were the nosiest brother in the world, but I didn't believe her—until now.”

  He managed to look abashed, but on Simon the effect was disgustingly charming. “I'm sorry.” He handed it to her and pulled her down next to him on the sand at the same time. “I couldn't resist. It was on the floor in the hall, and I …. “ He shrugged. “I'm addicted.”

  “To my diaries,” Frankie said flatly.

  “It's awful. I can't seem to get enough.”

  Frankie flipped open the cover. “I wrote this when I was twelve. Was it really that fascin ating?”

  Simon laughed. “Yeah. You were a scream. Some of the things you said …. “

  “Oh, Lord, should I dig a hole and bury myself in it now?”

  His eyes were the same color as the sunlit ocean, and when he laughed again, they sparkled even brighter. “No way. It's great stuff, Francine. Like …. you had this plan to end the cold war. It was great. Each family in the United States had to exchange one child with a family in Russia. You figured no one on either side would dare start a nuclear war when one of their kids was behind enemy lines.”

  Frankie had to smile. “I remember that. I bet it would've worked too.”

  “That was almost as good as your plan for racial harmony,” Simon told her with a grin. “You figured if everyone who was white was required to marry someone nonwhite and vice versa, within a generation or two we'd all be the same color.”

  “That works well in theory,” Frankie admitted, “but at age twelve I didn't know too much about the workings of love and freedom of choice. Requiring people to marry …. it's unconstitutional.”

  “In some ways, life was much simpler at age twelve,” Simon said. “In other ways, it was incredibly complex. Two weeks after you wrote that particular forward-thinking diatribe on social reform, you proclaimed exactly who you and Leila were going to marry.”

  Frankie closed her eyes, scrunching her nose in an expression of dread. “I'm afraid to ask.”

  “You don't remember? I'm crushed.” Simon leaned back in the sand, supporting himself on his elbows. The ocean breeze blew a lock of hair in his face and then pushed it away. “You decided that Leila would marry Marsh Devlin.”

  He smiled at the expression of surprise Frankie knew was on her face. “Wow. Just call me Nostradamus,” she said. “How could I possibly have predicted that? Leila despised Marsh back then. What was I thinking?”

  “You weren't thinking. From what you wrote, I'm guessing it was some kind of early hormonal reaction.”

  “To what?” Frankie glanced down at Simon, surprised to see embarrassment in his eyes. He looked away first, squinting as he stared out at the ocean.

  “You honestly don't remember?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well …. to me, actually. Since Marsh was my best friend, you figured it would work out rather neatly if Leila married him. Because you decided that you were going to marry me.”

  When their eyes met, something caught and sparked. Frankie felt hypnotized. She stared at him, unable to look away, unable to move, unable to think about anything but the way she had held him so tightly, her body p
ressed intimately against his, just a short time ago. Lord, she still had some kind of raging hormonal reaction to the man. Some things never changed.

  As she watched, Simon wet his lips as if they were suddenly too dry. It was a nervous movement. Simon, nervous?

  “You saw me shooting hoops down by the town beach.” His voice was raspy and he stopped to clear his throat. “Apparently my incredible teen age splendor made your twelve-year-old hormones kick in.” He was trying to joke, but his words didn't counteract the hunger Frankie saw in his eyes. He must have realized that, too, because he made himself look away. “You wrote in your diary that you were riding your bike, and it was the weirdest thing. You looked over and saw me, Leila's big brother, Simon, playing basketball. No big deal. But then you looked again, and suddenly it wasn't just Simon, it was Simon. I know exactly what it felt like, because the same thing happened to me the summer you turned eighteen.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  Simon met her eyes again, and she could not for the life of her figure out if he was teasing or serious.

  “You and Leila were walking toward me on the beach,” he told her. “I saw you coming, and I started thinking, Leila and Frankie want a ride someplace. I started trying to think up excuses and reasons why I couldn't drive you where you wanted to go. But in the time it took you to walk up to me and past me, I'm looking at you and looking at you and I'm thinking that's Frankie. That's Frankie? Oh, man, that's Frankie.”

  Frankie laughed, shaking her head, unable to react any other way. She couldn't believe what he was saying. How could she?

  “Of course, I have no proof,” Simon continued. “I didn't keep a diary.”

  “How convenient for you.” Frankie stood up and brushed the sand from her bottom. “If fairytale hour is over, I've got to go get packed.”

  “Fairy tale?” Simon said. “Oh, man, I share my deepest secrets with you and you have the audacity to call them fairy tales?”

  He actually managed to look hurt. Frankie had to remind herself that this was Simon Hunt she was dealing with. Somehow he'd gotten it stuck in his mind that she was going to be his next sexual conquest. She had to remember that he'd say or do damn near anything to achieve his goal.

  But she knew how to make him back away, and back away fast.

  She lifted her chin as she looked down at him, still sitting there in the sand. “You want to make my predictions two for two?” she asked. “We could do a double wedding with Leila and Marsh.”

  But he knew she was only bluffing, and he smiled and called her on it. “Why wait? We could fly to Vegas tonight.”

  “Sorry, I can't,” Frankie said coolly, annoyed that she hadn't managed to make him squirm. “In about three hours I'm catching a flight up to Boston.”

  Simon sat up straight. “Boston?”

  “I'm having dinner with Jazz tonight.”

  The look of incredulousness on Simon's face nearly duplicated her own emotional state. It seemed crazy, unlikely, impossible. But it was true. After too many years apart, she was going to see Jazz Chester. Tonight. So what was she doing, standing there playing games with Simon Hunt? She should just walk away. She should turn around and go to Boston and never come back— at least not without Jazz.

  “Whoa.” Simon looked out at the horizon as if he needed its steadying influence. “I guess you got through to him.”

  Frankie nodded. “He was in his office.”

  Simon stood up, brushing the sand from the seat of his shorts. “And you're going there today?”

  “I'm catching the ten-fifty flight off the island.”

  “Tell me about the phone call. Start with the part where he said hello.”

  “He's exactly the same,” Frankie told him. “He's single—divorced, I think. He didn't go into detail. I told him about my search for his stepfather—Marshall is John's last name. We were close, tracking him with the rental records.”

  “So that's it? Case closed? Time for a vacation in Boston?”

  “The case isn't closed.” Frankie started walking back toward the house, and he followed. “Jazz didn't have John Marshall's phone number—they didn't stay in touch. Jazz's mother and John were divorced twelve years ago. That's why Jazz never came back to Sunrise Key.”

  Simon snorted. “Is that what he told you? And you believed him?”

  Frankie shot him a hard look. “Of course.”

  “He was what, twenty years old, yet he couldn't come down here without his mommy and his daddy?”

  “Sunrise Key was John's favorite vacation spot,” Frankie said tightly. “Jazz wanted to come back, but he was afraid he'd run into John. Apparently the divorce was nasty.”

  Simon lifted one eyebrow. “It looks bad to me, Francine. He can't be bothered to come back here, yet at the drop of a hat you're blowing hundreds of bucks on a plane ticket to see him again. He's taking advantage of you.”

  Frankie stopped on the stairs to the back porch feeling exasperated and annoyed and emotionally chafed. What did she care what Simon thought? And certainly, who was he to criticize Jazz? Simon hadn't had a single relationship in his entire life that wasn't based on his taking advantage of someone else's hopes and emotions and weaknesses. He hadn't once had a relationship where he'd been the one to give instead of take, where he'd been the one to fly a thousand miles, his heart in his throat, simply to see someone's smile.

  “For your information,” she said icily, “my trip to Boston isn't a social call. Jazz's mother did keep in touch with John Marshall regarding alimony payments. Jazz thinks Marshall's current phone number is in her address book.”

  “And you can't just call her …. ?”

  “No, I can't. She died six months ago.”

  He was instantly contrite. “I'm sorry, I didn't know—”

  “There's a lot you don't know.”

  “You're right. I'm sorry. Please, fill me in.”

  “Jazz hasn't had time to go through his mother's personal effects,” Frankie said stiffly. “Everything from her apartment was packed up and put in one of those self-storage facilities. He thinks there's at least one, maybe two boxes that are labeled as being from her desk.”

  Simon looked at his watch. “Okay. What do I need to pack? How many days do you think we'll have to stay?”

  “We?”

  “I'm coming too.”

  Frankie had to laugh. “Oh, no, you're not. I don't need your help for this.”

  “What if John Marshall's address isn't in the box that was packed from Jazz's mom's desk? What if you need to search through the entire storage area? You'll need me for that.”

  “I'll muddle through.”

  “I'll meet you at the airport at ten-thirty.”

  Simon started walking toward the front of the house, toward the street where his car was parked. “Until this case is closed, I'm your assistant, remember?”

  “No, you're not my assistant.” Frankie chased after him. She had to go to Boston alone. It would be too weird to see Jazz for the first time in years with Simon looking on.

  “Oh, yes, I am.”

  Frankie's frustration turned to full-blown annoyance. “Look, Si, this was just another one of your games, but it's over now. You lose—I didn't sleep with you. Sorry. Time to hit on your next target.”

  Simon looked at her over the top of his sports car, a deadly glint in his eye. If Frankie hadn't known better, she might have thought he was even more upset about this than she was. “Are you kidding?” he said with a tight smile. “This isn't over—it's just starting to get interesting. See you at the airport, boss.” He got into his car, closing the door behind him and starting the engine with a roar.

  Frankie's annoyance turned to anger, and she leaned down, knocking rapidly on the passenger's side window until he opened it. “You're fired. You can't come with me because you're fired!“

  He just laughed as he slipped his sunglasses onto his nose and drove away.

  Simon had to pull over to the side of Ocean Avenue. He had to ta
ke several long, slow, deep breaths before his heart rate returned to near normal and his hands stopped shaking.

  Jazz was single. Jazz was exactly as Frankie had remembered him. Jazz was friggin’ perfect.

  Jazz was going to have dinner with her to night ….

  It was his worst nightmare coming true. God help him, if Jazz truly turned out to be a candidate for Mister Rogers's nice-guy-of-the-year award, Simon could quite literally kiss Frankie good-bye.

  He could see it all so clearly. She'd extend her trip to Boston for a week or two. Before the second week was out, Jazz, not being stupid enough to pass up a good thing twice, would ask her to marry him. And Simon would be a guest at their June wedding. He'd sit in the back of the church and die a thousand times, wanting her, needing her, knowing she was forever out of his reach.

  Of course, he'd finally get his chance to kiss Frankie—when he kissed Jazz's bride.

  Just like that, Frankie would be gone forever.

  You're fired, she'd told him.

  Like hell he was.

  You lose.

  Not yet, he didn't. Not yet, not by a long shot.

  He was going to Boston. And before midnight tonight, he vowed, he was going to seduce her. He was going to get what he wanted and convince Frankie that it was what she wanted too. All it would take was a single kiss.

  He was a fool for not having kissed her before. He'd had the opportunity. One kiss and she'd stop being able to hide the fact that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. One kiss and this mutual attraction they'd both denied for so long would ignite into flames.

  One kiss ….

  Nothing and no one was going to stop him.

  No one except Jazz Chester. Nothing except the fact that Jazz was the one Frankie truly wanted. Jazz was the one who was going to be with her tonight, holding her, kissing her, probably even making love to her.

  Miserably, Simon pulled his car back onto Ocean Avenue and drove the rest of the way home.

  NINE

  THE PHONE RANG in the hotel room, and Frankie dove across the king-sized bed to pick it up. “Hello?”