Out of Character

by Diana Miller

  “I appreciate how you’re always there for me.” Jillian blinked away the moisture Kristen’s words had triggered. “Even when you were in Denver, and I was in Boston, I could call you, and you’d make me feel better.”

  “You’ve done the same for me, more times than I can count.”

  “You know what else?” Jillian lifted her chin. “Mark might have hurt me by running off, but he also used me and probably lied about being married. That makes me mad.”

  “Good. You’re not going to let him ruin any more of your vacation,” Kristen said. “What you’re going to do is have fun. Then when we get back to Denver, you’re going to get Mark’s phone number and leave him a nasty message. And hope his wife intercepts it.”

  “I’m so lucky to have you for a friend.”

  “Damn right,” Kristen said as their waiter approached with enormous plates of pasta. “I’m going to make sure you enjoy the rest of this vacation.”

  * * * *

  To her surprise, Jillian did have fun the next day, primarily because Kristen was on a mission from God to keep her from moping. They took the shuttle to the ski area, avoiding the parking hassles inevitable on a sunny Sunday with nine inches of fresh powder, and spent the day skiing with some law school friends of Kristen’s, including two attractive males she swore were single and straight. Neither was Jillian’s type, but she still enjoyed herself enough to agree to join the group for dinner. She hadn’t been able to resist scanning every lift line and ski slope on the off chance Mark hadn’t left, but she’d managed not to let her failure to spot him ruin the day.

  He wasn’t going to ruin her evening either. Jillian refused to check for messages when she and Kristen got back to the townhouse. Instead, she took a shower. Despite her resolve, she remembered another shower. The one she’d taken at Mark’s townhouse.

  She’d finished wetting her hair when he’d stepped into the stall. To be honest, she’d been expecting him, considering how insistent he’d been that she showered before she left.

  Silently, he slipped behind her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Washing your hair.” He aimed the nozzle so the water flowed down her back then rubbed in shampoo, the hint of coconut reminding her of him.

  He massaged her scalp for several luxurious minutes then positioned her hair back under the shower spray. When he’d rinsed out all the shampoo, he kissed the top of her head. “Your hair sparkles.” He combed his fingers through her dripping locks. “And it feels like silk.” He ran his fingers through her hair once more then picked up the shampoo bottle.

  “That was wonderful, but I usually don’t soap it twice,” she admitted.

  He squirted shampoo onto his fingers. “It’s not for your head.”

  Within seconds, Jillian’s knees had turned to shower gel, and she was leaning against him, her breath coming in gasps.

  “I love the way you respond whenever I touch you,” he said as he fingered her clit, his other hand soaping her nipple. “I can’t seem to get enough of you.” His erection was conducting its own massage against Jillian’s back.

  The water had turned icy before they’d finally left the shower.

  Damn him. Jillian turned off the water, angrily wiping a few tears with the back of her hand. Obviously, that last time he’d finally managed to get enough of her. She dried off, dressed in jeans, a sweater, and running shoes, and pulled her wet hair into a ponytail. Then she went into the living room.

  “Why aren’t you ready?” Kristen asked. “We’ll be late.”

  “I decided not to go.” Jillian sat down on a chair beside the patio doors that led to the snow-piled deck. “I think I overdid it today.”

  “Do you want me to stay here with you?” Kristen asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “You go out and have fun. I’ll just sit alone in the dark.”

  Despite herself, Jillian laughed at Kristen’s whining tone. “You always claim your mother says that, but I’ve never heard her.”

  “That’s because you’re aren’t her kid. She claims guilting us is one of the obligations of motherhood.” Kristen’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you decided not to let that bastard ruin your vacation.”

  “I won’t. I don’t feel like going out because I’m tired. I was wounded a couple days ago.”

  “You can’t blame me for being concerned,” Kristen said. “Look how long you hibernated after Andy.”

  “Getting dumped by a man you’ve been with for over two years is a little different than a disastrous one-night stand.”

  “He was more than a one-night stand, and you know it. That’s why you’re still upset.”

  “I’m not upset.” When Kristen looked dubious, Jillian’s lips twisted into a rueful half-smile. “Okay, maybe I am a little. I need to sit around and feel sorry for myself for one night. But only one.” She raised her hand. “I hereby swear that after tonight, I won’t waste another nanosecond thinking about Mark Jefferson. Except what complete and total pond scum he turned out to be.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Kristen stood up. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

  “Why, you want some competition for Patrick?”

  Kristen tilted her head, her hair skimming one shoulder. “He’s rather hot, isn’t he?”

  “Rather.” Patrick was a lawyer from Seattle who could have moonlighted as a GQ model. “The car keys are on the kitchen table.”

  “I can take a cab and get a ride home.”

  “Taking the car is easier, and I certainly won’t need it tonight. I think I’ll order pizza.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you—sometime.” Kristen shrugged unapologetically. “It’s vacation.”

  After Kristen left, Jillian sat staring out the glass patio doors. The blinds were open, the outside lamp illuminating the deck and surrounding dark. It was snowing, just like that night in the chairlift, the same fat, lazy flakes. Then Mark had kissed her—

  She flipped the blinds, shutting out the annoying snowflakes. Despite what she’d told Kristen, she was not thinking about Mark tonight. She’d eat something, watch a little TV, then go to bed early.

  She didn’t feel like pizza. She’d toast a bagel. She walked over to the refrigerator.

  A deafening blast shook the townhouse.

  Jillian rammed against the refrigerator. She grabbed the handle as she struggled to stay on her feet. Glasses, dishes, pots, and pans crashed around her. A shelf of cookbooks slammed onto the floor, then the telephone and microwave. She covered her head with one arm, bracing herself for a barrage of wood and tiles.

  The room stilled, walls and ceiling still intact.

  Her pulse raced. The explosion had been close by. Someone could be hurt and need her help. Adrenaline surged the way it did in the ER. Jillian ran to the front door and jerked it open.

  Cold air pummeled her. Cold air and smoke and gasoline. The smell of burning.

  She stepped outside. An inferno blazed at the end of the driveway, ferocious flames licking in all directions as they devoured a car.

  Her car.

  Chapter 5

  Jillian sprinted across the snow, her heart jackhammering her chest. She was only a few feet from her car when a hand grabbed her.

  A man pulled her back. “Stay away. It might explode.”

  “Kristen.” She fought him. “Kristen’s inside.”

  The man’s grip tightened, and he dragged her up the driveway. “You have to stay back. It’s not safe.”

  “Let me go.” She yanked her arm, over and over, her eyes riveted to the flaming car. “My friend’s in there. It’s my car.”

  The smoke, the smell, was suffocating her. She had to get Kristen out, had to make the man restraining her understand. “Kristen’s burning,” she screamed, pounding him with one fist as she tried to free her other arm from his grip. “Don’t you understand? I have to save her. She’s burning.”

 
The man held tight, letting her hit him. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I’m a doctor.” Her voice broke, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing anyone can do.” The man released her.

  He was right. It was too late. Jillian slumped forward, hugging herself, trying to press away the excruciating pain in her stomach and chest. “Not Kristen. It can’t be Kristen.” Icy tears frosted her cheeks. She heard voices, but couldn’t process words or even syllables.

  “Come to our place. You must be freezing.” A woman draped her arm around Jillian’s shoulders and led her, still doubled over, across the snowy sidewalk to the townhouse next door.

  A siren blared in the distance, getting louder. Like at work, except this time no adrenaline flowed. This time she already knew it was hopeless. “Not Kristen.” Her chest felt as if a broken jar had wedged inside, slicing her heart. “Why Kristen?”

  “I’m so sorry.” The woman steered Jillian into the townhouse and onto a sofa. “I’ll get you something to drink. Tea or brandy?”

  Jillian couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even sit upright, had to lean forward to keep from passing out from the pain. More sirens, engines revved, and people yelled. She squeezed her eyes shut and clasped her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sights and sounds. Trying to make the horror go away.

  It wouldn’t. She still heard the muffled sounds. She still pictured it against her closed lids, the car, the flames. She still smelled it, on her clothes, in the air. Imprinted forever on her brain.

  Kristen burning.

  * * * *

  A policeman drove Jillian to the Keystone Police Station. She sipped overheated coffee from a Styrofoam cup and answered his questions, trying to pretend she was in the ER talking about some victim she’d never seen before the paramedics had brought her in. She waited in the office until the policeman returned with her typed statement. He asked her to review it, but she couldn’t make out the words, so she simply stared at it for a while then signed her name.

  Kristen’s ex-husband Jason was driving there to talk to the police and could give her a ride back to Denver. So Jillian trudged to the reception area and sank onto a ripped vinyl sofa to wait for him. She closed her eyes, lay down, and tried not to think.

  * * * *

  “Jillian?”

  She couldn’t open her eyes, wasn’t even sure the man’s voice was real. Sirens, smoke, and flames had seemed as real as this voice, but she knew weren’t.

  “Jillian.” A hand gently shook her shoulder.

  She forced her eyelids open. She felt as if she were looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, Andrew Dawson’s concerned green eyes tiny flecks in an abnormally small face. His chin was covered with stubble, and his dark brown hair was disheveled, but he still looked good.

  And she was so glad to see him. She sat up. “Andy.”

  “Oh, Jillian.” Andy sat beside her and held out his arms. She went into them easily, as if it had been yesterday rather than six months ago since he’d last held her. “How are you?”

  “Horrible.” she murmured. “My car exploded.”

  “I know.”

  “I tried to get to her, but I couldn’t. A man stopped me. He said it was too late. Even when I told him I was a doctor, he said it was too late.”

  They sat there, silently holding each other, until Jillian asked, “Why are you here?”

  “I drove Jason,” Andy said. “He wanted to talk to the police, and I didn’t want him to come alone. Do they know how it happened?”

  “They think it was some bizarre accident, maybe a rock punctured the gas tank and something sparked, triggering an explosion.” Jillian moved out of Andy’s arms. “I was supposed to go with her. At the last minute, I decided not to, that I was too tired. She wanted to take a cab, but I made her take the car.” Her eyes teared. “Why didn’t I let her take a cab?”

  Andy clamped his hands on her shoulders. “Because you knew she’d rather take your car. If she hadn’t, this probably would have happened when you both were in the car. You can’t blame yourself, Jillian. Kristen would be furious if she knew you did.”

  “I know.” Deep sobs wracked Jillian’s body. She’d never see Kristen again, never talk to her again, never argue with her again. Kristen was dead.

  Andy held her, rocking her, crying with her.

  Jillian lifted her head. “I’m sorry for falling apart like that.”

  “Don’t be. Here.” He offered her a Kleenex.

  She took it and wiped her wet cheeks and eyes, blew her nose. “I’ve seen so many violent deaths and injuries in the ER, but it’s never happened to a friend. I’ll never look at another burn victim without remembering. The smell—”

  “Try not to think about it,” Andy said. “How’s your shoulder?”

  She’d forgotten all about it. “It’s fine. Heck of a vacation I’ve had, isn’t it? If I were paranoid, I’d think someone is out to get me, that they put a bomb in my car when they missed killing me on the chairlift.”

  “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  She had no idea why she’d said something so outrageous. She attempted a smile. “You think I have a secret life?”

  “No, but something might have happened in the ER—”

  “Nothing did. I’m just having a string of really bad luck. I’m definitely staying away from ladders and black cats for a while.” She took a couple deep breaths. “How did you know I was shot? The paper didn’t give my name.”

  “Kristen told me.”

  “When?”

  “I talked to her the day after it happened.” Andy looked sheepish. “She promised to try to convince you to agree to see me again.”

  A phone rang twice, the floor creaked under someone’s shoes, voices murmured, a door slammed. Normal sounds. Except nothing was normal. Her eyes filled again. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “I know. Neither can I.” Andy wiped a tear from her cheekbone and held Jillian close again. His heart pounded under his cashmere sweater, the one she’d given him a Christmas ago.

  “I’m going to miss her so much,” she whispered.

  “Me, too.” Andy’s arms tightened. “Me, too.”

  * * * *

  At nearly four in the morning, they pulled up in front of the Denver apartment Jason had rented when he and Kristen split up two years earlier. Jillian and Andy muttered a few sympathetic platitudes. Jason got out of the car and plodded to the front door.

  “Stay at my place tonight.” Andy watched her, his hands on the steering wheel of the idling Lexis.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “In the spare bedroom,” he added. “Kristen told you that I wanted to talk to you.”

  Jillian nodded. She didn’t want to discuss this now. Seeing Andy tonight was raising conflicting emotions she was in no state to sort out.

  “I do want to, but not tonight. I thought you might not want to be alone in your apartment. I sure as hell don’t.” He took one of her hands. “You can trust me, Jillian.”

  She studied him for long seconds. The last man who’d told her that had been lying. But Andy had never lied to her. When he’d wanted out of their relationship, he’d told her, before he’d started up with Tiffany. Andy wasn’t Mark.

  Jillian squeezed his hand. “I know, and you’re right. I don’t want to be alone tonight, either.”

  Andy’s condo looked the same as the last time she’d been there: all tasteful wool, leather, and wood except for the wagon wheel coffee table he’d had since college and refused to relinquish; neat except for a pile of magazines and newspapers on the floor beside the sofa and a half-full coffee mug on the end table. She followed him into the spare bedroom where he set down her suitcase. The Keystone police had considerately collected her things from the townhouse.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  She shook her h
ead. “What time do you have to leave in the morning?”

  “By nine. If I’m gone, make yourself at home.”

  She touched his arm. “I’m glad I didn’t go home tonight.”

  “So am I,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

  * * * *

  Jillian didn’t sleep, not really. One of the sleeping pills she’d gotten after she’d been shot knocked her out for a couple hours, but then she woke up and thought about Kristen. All those memories everyone claims will eventually be comforting, but at the moment hurt like hell.

  At eight, she gave up. She dressed then applied blush and lipstick in an attempt to make her pale face look less skeletal. It only accentuated her dark circles, making her look like a skeleton with a couple fading black eyes.

  Andy sat at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. “How did you sleep?”

  “Lousy. How about you?” Jillian pulled a mug from the cupboard above the coffeepot and filled it.

  “The same. I have a meeting, but I should be done by noon. I can take the afternoon off.”

  Jillian returned the pot to the warmer and sat at the table beside Andy. “Don’t worry about me. I want to go see Kristen’s parents then I need some time alone.” She sipped hot, strong coffee.

  “The funeral’s tomorrow. At ten at First Lutheran. Jason called.”

  “That’s fast.”

  “I think her family wants to get it over with. It will be several days before the authorities release her remains, so…”

  Jillian cradled her mug between her palms. “I can’t believe we’re talking about Kristen.”

  “Do you want to stay here again tonight?” Andy asked.

  “Thanks, but I need to go home. I have to find something to wear to the funeral.” She closed her eyes against a stab of pain.

  “At least let me take you to it.”

  She took a couple steadying breaths before reopening her eyes. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “I’ve got to go.” Andy closed his laptop and stuck it into his briefcase. “I’ll come back and give you a ride home.”