Unexpected Love (Jo's Story)

by Nikki Williams

  “Hey, let’s go up to the zoo for the day,” I say to them.

  “Yay!!” They both squeal. We all head out to the car and get in. I back out and head to the zoo on the north side of town. My phone is blowing up with text messages and phone calls. Now Annie is also calling me which means he has called her. I answer when she calls for the third time in a row.

  “What do you want Annie?” I answer.

  “Wow, you are not in a good mood.”

  “No, I'm not, and I know why you are calling and I'm not talking about it.”

  “Jo, he is freaking out. He says he has called you and text you a bunch of times and you won’t answer.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “Did you really just walk out of his house?”

  “Yes, I did. And again, I'm not talking about it.”

  “Jodene Lewis, seriously? This guy adores you and is completely in love with you, why are you being so damn stubborn.”

  “Annie, I said I'm not talking about it,” I hang up the phone. Why does it not surprise me that people would take his side on this? What about the fact that he has lied to me?

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Lizzy asks me.

  “Nothing sweetie,” I smile at her. I grab my phone and dial Bobby’s number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Bobby, its Jo.”

  “Hey Jo, what’s up?”

  “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Sure what’s that?”

  “Can you do a little research on a news story that was on this morning?”

  “The one of Jake and the new mystery girl as they are calling her?”

  “Yep, that would be the one.”

  “Sure, I have been kind of watching it. Did he tell you who she is?”

  “Didn’t give him the chance to. The girls and I are on our way to the zoo.”

  “Sure, no problem. I will see what I can find out for you and get back to you.”

  “Thanks Bobby.”

  “No problem, be careful Jo. I know this is tearing you up.”

  “Yes, but I will not just sit back and take it, you know that. He even has Annie on his side.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “That sucks. I will do some digging.”

  “Thank you. Let me know when you find something out.”

  “Will do,” he hangs up. He is always my go to guy for finding things out because his dad is a private investigator and he knows how to look things up. I am driving and my phone starts ringing again. It is my mom.

  “Hello?”

  “Have you talked to Jake yet?” She asks me.

  “No, why?”

  “He stopped at the house looking for you.”

  “I'm sure he did. I’m betting he is probably hitting everyone’s house that I know to see if I am there.”

  “Why are you running from him Jo?”

  “Because I may say things that I would regret if I talked to him right now.”

  “You have a temper issue sometimes girly.”

  “You have known that for a long time mom.”

  “Yes, I have, I just hope that you don’t let this go overboard. What if it is nothing?”

  “He still lied to me about it. He saw her and didn’t tell me. I don’t care if it is his sister, he should have told me that he met with someone out there, especially being that we have been in the spot light so much.”

  “You should call him Jo.”

  “Once I have calmed down and think I can handle talking to him, I will consider it.” I pull into the parking lot of the zoo. “I have to go we just got here.”

  “I hope this helps you calm down,” she hangs up the phone. I park the car and sit there looking at my phone. I have fifteen text messages. I'm betting most of them are from Jake. I am not the type of person to usually run away from my problems. I am just afraid that if I were to talk to him right now I would say something that I would regret.

  “Can we get out mom?” Lizzy unbuckles.

  “Yes, let’s go,” I get out of the car and help the girls get out. I decide that I will not look at my messages when I am with the girls. I look at the clock when we get out of the car and it is a little after 10:00. I figure we can walk around a couple hours then go back home and take a nap. I know I could use one too.

  ~~~~~

  I wake up to my phone ringing. I grab it and see it is Annie calling. “Hello?”

  “Where have you been all day?”

  “I was spending time with my kids is that ok with you?”

  “Why are you getting pissy with me?”

  “Because you seem to think that Jake has done nothing wrong. You are supposed to be my friend not his.”

  “I think you are overreacting Jo. Have you even talked to him?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I sit up. “But I'm guessing you have, probably more than once, and I'm willing to bet he stopped over at your place and gave you a sob story about how I am ignoring him.”

  “Jo, I wish you would call him. He went home about two hours ago and keeps texting to see if I have heard from you. Just call him or text him,” she hangs up. I look through my text messages and he is the only one that I have messages from. I read through them briefly and decide to call him. More to let him know I am fine but still pissed he lied to me.

  “Hello?” He answers.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey Jo,” I can hear the relief in his voice.

  “I just called to let you know I am fine, the girls and I went to the zoo this afternoon.”

  “Oh, I bet they had fun.”

  “Yes, they did.” I look out my window. I don’t have anything else to say to him.

  “Jo, I really would like to talk to you about this.”

  “I don’t really feel like talking about it Jake, you lied to me.”

  “It’s not what you think it is Jo. Can I please just come over and talk to you. I really would like to explain to you what is going on before the press release is shown on the news tonight.”

  “I don’t know that you coming over here is a good idea. I think maybe we should just give this a couple days to blow over Jake.”

  “Jo, please don’t push me away. You’re going to make it worse than it really is. There is a reason that I didn’t tell you about it.”

  “Jake, you were seen in Denver with another girl. You obviously knew about it from the reaction that you gave me this morning when I showed you the news. All you would have had to do was tell me the truth and we would have probably avoided this entire issue.” He doesn’t say anything.

  “Fine, if you want to blow this up like that then go ahead. It’s a shame that you are letting this get to you like this. Call me when you are ready to talk, if you ever are,” he hangs up the phone. I just sit there in shock. Maybe I am overreacting. I can’t stand being lied to though so it isn’t like I am mad about nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Hey Jo,” Ryan smiles as I walk into the office Monday morning.

  “Hey,” I sit at my desk. I turn on my computer and start looking through my emails.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I smile. “How was your weekend?”

  “It was good, Molly met my parents and they love her.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Your parents will like anyone that treats you better than Hailey.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” he laughs. “So how was your birthday?”

  “Pretty shitty, thanks for asking. I spent most of the day avoiding phone calls and text messages because everyone is pissed off at me because I walked out of Jake’s house after finding out he lied to me. But it’s my fault of course.”

  “I heard about that. He was on the phone a lot Saturday night with Joan talking about something with a Denver picture.”

  “Yeah, well I haven’t talked to him since Saturday afternoon when he hung up on me for telling him that I feel like I shouldn’t have to forgive him for lying to me.”
/>
  “Lying to you about what?”

  “Not telling me that he saw a girl out there. He obviously knew there were pictures because when I showed it to him he wasn’t surprised at all.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No.” I go back to reading my emails.

  “I'm guessing you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “You would be correct.” I print off a couple forms to file my restraining order against Amber. “I have to fill these out and hand them in. Will you get everyone together to meet in about fifteen minutes so we can go over our work load?”

  “Sounds good.” Ryan gets up and walks out of the office. I sit there filling out the papers when Chief knocks on the door.

  “Hey Jo,” he says.

  “Hey Chief.”

  “I wanted you to see this first hand,” he hands me a file. I open it and see Danny Lewis on top page. I look down and see that he is requesting a transfer from Columbus Ohio to here.

  “Jarrod’s baby brother wants to come home?” I smile. I haven’t seen Danny in two years; he left home about five years ago and came back for Jarrod’s funeral and I haven’t seen him since.

  “He requested this station only. North Side kept begging him to go there but he said no he only wants to come here.”

  “Are you going to bring him in?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Absolutely, I think he would be a great addition to squad.”

  “He doesn’t want squad Jo, he wants on to your team.”

  “Is there room for him to come on to our team? We just hired Derek.”

  “If you want him on your team, then there is room.”

  “Then yes, I want him on this team. He is a damn good cop.”

  “He has experience with investigations down there too.”

  “If you are willing to give me the extra person I will take him.”

  “He is yours then. I will call Columbus and let them know to approve the transfer.”

  “Thanks Chief.” I smile at him. I can’t believe that Danny is coming home. He must have gotten sick of being so far from his parents. I finish filling out the paperwork and take it down to the filing clerk and head to the board room to go over our work load for the week. “Hey everyone,” I smile as I walk into the room. They all say hi and smile. I see our new recruit Derek sitting next to Ricky. I sit down next to Ryan and he hands me some files.

  “These are the ones we talked about last Thursday,” he tells me.

  “Alright,” I open the first one. “For starters I want everyone to welcome Derek to the team,” I smile at him. “He is going to be working with Ricky for the first couple weeks to get things off to a good start.” I go over all the cases that we are picking up to help out for the next two weeks. I hand out the folders for everyone and tell them to keep Ryan and I posted on what they find. Ryan and I start going over a couple cases that Chief just wanted us to take a look at and see if we can find any connections when my phone rings. I look and see that it is Jake. It is only a little after 11:00 and he doesn’t normally call me this early.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, I didn’t think you would answer,” he sounds shocked.

  “You never call me this time of day unless it is important,” I stand up and walk over to the window where I the roses he sent me had been sitting. I got rid of them this morning when I got here because they were looking really sad.

  “Oh, yeah your right. I'm sorry, I was just going to leave you a message and wanted to see if you were picking the girls up from Lisa and Mark’s tonight.”

  “Yes, I will be done at 4:00 and over there to pick them up.”

  “Oh,” he sounds bummed. “Any possibility that you would want to talk to me at any point today?”

  “Jake, I'm at work.”

  “Yeah, I know you are. Sorry, I will let you get back to it.” He hangs up. I think it hurts a little more today than it did on Saturday when he hung up on me.

  “You ok?” Ryan asks as I sit back down at my desk.

  “Yeah,” I look at my computer and see that I have an email from Bobby. I open it.

  Hey Jo,

  Found the information you were looking for. Took me a little digging this girl is extremely hard to find. Apparently her name is Trisha Allen. It looks like Jake knows her though cause I see a few things of them together maybe in college?? Let me know if you need any other information.

  Bobby

  Just what I didn’t want to see, that he was hanging out with his ex while he was in Denver. Why did she go all the way up there to see him? I write him a thank you and get back to the work at hand. Next thing I know it is 4:00 and I am headed out to pick up the girls. I pull into Lisa and Mark’s driveway about fifteen minutes later and walk up to the front door.

  “Hey,” Lisa opens the door after I ring the doorbell. “The girls are out back playing,” she steps aside for me to come in.

  “Oh so they are going to fight me to leave then,” I laugh.

  “Most likely,” she laughs. “How are you doing?”

  “Good, it was a long day of going over case files today. I am ready to go home and relax for the night.”

  “That’s not what I am talking about and you know it,” she looks at me.

  “Not in the mood to talk about it. He has hung up on me the last two times I have talked to him and pretty sure that I screwed it up.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, either way I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Want to stay for dinner?” She tries to change the subject.

  “Oh no, I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You wouldn’t be intruding trust me. It might make it a little easier to get the girls out by then,” she smiles.

  “I don’t know Lisa, I feel weird with Jake and I not really talking and you guys being his closest friends.”

  “Don’t,” Mark comes down the steps. “You’re our friend too. And I know he won’t get pissed.” He walks over and gives me a hug. “You ok?”

  “Yeah, I'm ok,” I muster a smile. I haven’t seen Jake since Saturday morning and I am really starting to miss him. Especially standing in his best friend’s house. Maybe I should go out and call him. “Is my bag still here from Friday?” I ask Lisa.

  “Yeah,” she walks to the closet down the hall and grabs my bag out of it. “Here.”

  “I am going to take this out to my car. Do you need me to get anything?”

  “No,” she smiles.

  “Ok, I am going to make a phone call then I will be back in.”

  “Ok,” she smiles and winks. I'm thinking she knows I am going to call Jake. I walk out to my car and lean against the back of it. I look down the road and see that the builders are still working on the house. They have part of the downstairs walls started. My guess is Jake is paying them very well to work long hours to get this house done. I grab my phone and dial his number and take a deep breath.

  “Hello?” He answers.

  “Hey,” I smile at the sound of his voice.

  “Hey,” I can hear his smile. I don’t know what to say. “Pick the girls up?”

  “Actually I am staying for dinner, unless you don’t want me to hang out with your friends?”

  “They are your friends too Jo. I don’t have an issue with you hanging out with them at all. I think it will do you some good to spend some time with Lisa.”

  “Jake, why didn’t you tell me it was Trisha?” I get right to the point of my phone call.

  “How did you know who it was? The press doesn’t even know it’s her,” I hear the shock in his voice.

  “I'm a cop Jake, I have connections. I can find out anything I want about pretty much anyone I want.”

  “I didn’t tell you because she set me up. I didn’t know she was there and I don’t know how she found our hotel or my room for that matter. I was hoping Joan could keep the lid on it, but I
should have known that she was going to play dirty.”

  “I wish you would have been honest with me Jake. I asked you last Monday when you thought she was going to start crap if there was anything you needed to tell me. You should have told me then. It hurt for me to see that on the news like that.”

  “I know, and I'm sorry. Jo these last two days have killed me with you not talking to me. I hate that I didn’t tell you what happened and I know why you are mad at me. I just hate that you pushed me away like that.”

  “I did it so I wouldn’t say something that I would have regretted. I hate being lied to, I understand you were trying to protect me, but it was the worst choice you could have made Jake.”

  “I'm so sorry Jo.” I hear him take a deep breath.

  “I see they are getting pretty far on the house,” I try to find something to talk about.

  “Yeah, I was over there after practice today. They are about four days ahead of where they should be. If the weather keeps cooperating they will keep up the good pace. Right now they are thinking October sometime.”

  “That’s cool,” I smile.

  “You don’t have to try and keep talking to me Jo; you can go back and talk to Lisa. I know you have nothing else to say to me.”

  “Actually I do have something else to say to you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I miss you Jake.”

  “I miss you too. I hope I get to see you soon.” I stand there looking at the ground. “I have to go Jo, Joan is calling me. Can I call you later?”

  “Sure,” I smile.

  “Ok, talk to you later,” he hangs up. I stand there looking at my phone. I wish this would be easier for us. I know things are getting more complicated with this ex-girlfriend poking around. I walk back toward the house and go inside. I see Lisa in the kitchen and go in by her.

  “How was your phone call?” She smiles at me.

  “It was ok.”

  “Did you talk about it?”

  “I just told him that I am hurt that he didn’t tell me the truth when he got home.”

  “Yeah, I chewed his ass out too,” Mark walks around the corner. “I told him it was going to bite him in the ass eventually.”