RiverTime

by Rae Renzi

He hadn’t seen her since the night of the benefit. She looked sharp in jet-black jeans and a red silk shirt tight enough to show off her figure. Even now, when her very presence was like fingernails on a chalkboard, he recognized her sultry appeal. She hit you with everything she had upfront, but she couldn’t maintain the illusion—her personality got in the way.

  Nocona made a slight querying movement with his head.

  “I’ll call you later, Nocona.”

  Standing slowly, Nocona squeezed Jack’s shoulder briefly, nodded at Ramona. He walked silently through the door, taking with him the last bit of Jack’s serenity.

  “I thought you and Emma were going to the zoo,” Jack said, as if this were a day like any other, as if the house, like the marriage, weren’t empty as a tomb. He couldn’t achieve calm around Ramona. The best he could do was passive, which, when combined with her combatant aura, came out with an aggressive twist. He didn’t like himself for it, but couldn’t seem to stop.

  “I did. Then I dropped her at Jennifer’s. I told her she could have dinner there.” Ramona sat in the chair vacated by Nocona. The mild breeze stirred her hair, blowing it across her face. She pushed it back. “I leave for New York in an hour, don’t forget. I’ll be there for a week. I have things to do.”

  “Do you?”

  Ramona flicked the envelope in Jack’s direction. “Read it. I’m sure it’ll make your day.” Her fingernails, deep burgundy, clicked against the glass-topped table.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what it is.”

  “Divorce papers.”

  “This is, what, the fourth time? As I said, you need a new hobby, Ramona.” But inside, a tiny spark of hope burst to life.

  Ramona crossed her legs and looked at her folded hands in her lap. “You never loved me.” It wasn’t said in an accusatory tone, merely stated.

  Jack glanced up, surprised. “No, I never did. It wasn’t in my vocabulary. Nor, I thought, in yours. What we had was lust, Ramona, nothing more.”

  Ramona looked past Jack at the house, the yard, the pool. “I know.” She laughed humorlessly. “I didn’t want to scare you off. I thought eventually I could convince you to love me.”

  “By getting pregnant? By threatening to take Emma if I left you? By blackmail? You didn’t try to convince me—you tried to force me. Love doesn’t work that way. It’s more like…the opposite. If you love someone, you have to be willing to let them go, if that’s what they need.”

  “Is that what you wanted?” Ramona’s question was asked without rancor. He was unaccustomed to honesty from her, so he almost missed it. “Would that have made you love me?”

  “That’s the point. Love is not about making someone love you.”

  She looked confused for a second, then impatient. “Well, I did get love out of you, if only for Emma. I made her for you.”

  Jack nodded, deciding to let the rewriting of her motivation slip by. “You did that. And she’s perfect.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s perfect.” A look of smug satisfaction settled on Ramona’s face. Even in this, even her own child, he realized, she could only view as a reflection of herself. She had no way of looking at life except as a mirror. It made him a little sad for her.

  Ramona straightened in her chair. “I’ve decided to move to New York where the series will be filmed. Staying with you is holding me up.” She ran her fingers through her hair and stood to look down on him.

  “Yeah, I guess I’ve been a pretty big liability. When do you leave?”

  “As soon as I find an apartment for us, we’ll move. I’ll send the bill.” Then, as if that closed the subject, she tossed him a hard smile and strutted toward the door.

  “No.”

  Ramona stopped. “No, what?” she asked, as if she had no idea.

  “No, Emma is not going with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve already found a nanny.”

  Jack folded his arms and stared at her. “If, unlike the previous three times you filed for divorce, this one is real, Emma’s official domicile is here in L.A. That means she stays here unless we both agree to a change. That’s not going to happen. Do you imagine that I’d simply let you walk away with my child?” He picked up his beer and took a drink. “Leave if you want, but Emma stays here.”

  Ramona’s lip curled. “Oh, I don’t think so. Are you forgetting the photographs of you and your little honey? Are you sure you want to ruin her career?”

  A flush of anger shot through Jack. So that was the game. Keep Emma and ruin Casey. Protect Casey, lose Emma. A weight settled on his shoulders.

  God, how much more harm could he do to Casey? She was already in the hospital, now he’d land her in the scandal sheets. All because of the complete mess he’d made of his life. He tried not to think what that kind of notoriety would do to Casey, and the shambles it would make of her career. It was abhorrent.

  But abandoning Emma? That was unthinkable.

  “I’ll make this simple. I will not give up Emma.”

  “Fine. If that’s the way you want it, you’ll hear from my lawyer. And the press.” She tossed her head and disappeared into the house, the implied threat trailing her like a wisp of soot.

  He sat in the garden for a long while as daylight seeped away, considering first one option, then another. As the pink roses faded with the light, a possibility began to take shape in his mind, a kind of mental aikido. Ramona was not without vulnerabilities. It was a matter of leverage.

  Timing would be important. Or rather, speed. And ruthlessness.

  He pulled out his phone. “Jared, it’s Dylan Raines.”

  “Hey. What’s up? Haven’t heard from you in a while, which is good news, I guess.” Jack’s divorce attorney, one of the tops in the business, had kept Jack from doing something stupid more than once in the ongoing saga with Ramona.

  “Wanted to let you know Ramona’s filed again. This time she’s threatened to take Emma and move to New York.”

  There was a long silence on the line.

  “Hello? Jared?”

  “Sorry. Trying to work this out. Ramona filed again. You mean again, like you re-married her since the divorce was finalized? I got to say I’m surprised.”

  It was Jack’s turn to be flummoxed. “Uh, I don’t think I understand. Can you walk me through this?”

  “Starting with?”

  “Starting with the last divorce being final.”

  “Okay, then. That was the one she filed six months ago. You signed it a couple of weeks before you went on that location-scouting trip to the Grand Canyon, remember? You called her bluff? It went through. I mailed you a copy. Please don’t tell me this is news to you.”

  “And this—the finalizing—happened while I was on the river? Why wasn’t there any press on it?”

  “Yeah, strange, now that you mention. I guess she either bought off someone to bury it, or she’d cried wolf too often for the press to jump on it. And, of course, it would’ve gotten swamped by the big news that you were missing. I remember thinking she was probably shitting bricks when you were presumed dead, ’cause she’d just done herself out of inheriting a fortune. So, you’re telling me this is news to you, that reconciliation didn’t happen?”

  “Reconciliation did not happen. As far as I knew, the divorce didn’t happen.”

  “Well, shit. That sucks—you’ve been stuck with her needlessly. But I got to say, I’m relieved. I’d have to wonder about you if you’d gone back to her. She’s a little too psycho for me. On the plus side, don’t worry about Emma. Ramona can’t take her unless she goes for full custody and the prelim hearing goes against you. I’ll file a restraining order to make sure Emma stays put.”

  Jack returned to the garden. From curiosity, tempered with suspicion, he opened the envelope and pulled out an official document. The date stamped on the front was June 6. Months ago.

  Jared had been right.

  Jack leaned back in his chair, his mind whirling. He picked up the decree and read it again ca
refully. It’d been so long since it was written that he’d almost forgotten the terms of the agreement, so it was comforting to see that he—or more accurately, Jared—hadn’t agreed to anything stupid out of sheer desperation.

  It appeared to be real, legal and final. What could have motivated Ramona to hold on to these papers all this time?

  He supposed it could have been as simple as impression management. Announcing a divorce from him right after the rescue would not have reflected well on her, especially after all those heartwarming photos of the joyful reunion. She undoubtedly would have been portrayed as a coldhearted harpy by the press. She’d opted instead to play the role of loyal and concerned wife.

  More to the point, she wouldn’t have been in a position to benefit from all the publicity he’d gained from the adventure. Yes, that felt more like it. Ramona had been biding her time until she could reap the maximum benefit in terms of exposure. It had paid off. She now had a part in a television series, didn’t she? So basically, she’d squeezed everything she could from him before relinquishing her grasp. Nothing new there.

  But if he’d known he was divorced months ago, before the river trip, his life might be very different now.

  A wave of anger soured his stomach as the full implications of Ramona’s manipulations dawned on him. Because of her, he’d lost Casey.

  Or, rather, to be perfectly truthful, he’d lost the chance at Casey, because he’d never been sure that she’d be able to bridge the gap between their worlds.

  A breeze ruffled the papers, carrying with it the scent of newly cut grass. Jack took a deep breath to calm down, trading anger for sad wistfulness. He’d lived through heartbreak before, no need to travel that well-worn road again.

  Focus on the positive. If these papers were genuine and final, then he was free. That was something. He could start to have a life again without Ramona hanging on his every move wielding the whip of his child.

  How much had Ramona told Emma? Had she told her about the move to New York? Had she told her that she wouldn’t see her father very often? Jack had been a consistent presence in his little girl’s life and provided the only family Emma knew—her grandparents, Wink and Emmaline, and her adored uncles, Justin and Nocona (and Tesla, Nocona’s border collie), her aunt Marionetta. Separation would be painful—and harmful—for Emma. Ramona knew that, and she did love Emma. She must have conjured the mother of all self-deceptions if she’d convinced herself that Emma would suffer no harm in moving.

  The battle for custody wouldn’t be fun, and his every move from this point forward would be watched and might well affect the outcome of the proceedings.

  Jack sipped his beer and flipped through the pages of the divorce decree again. A strange idea percolated in the back of his mind. A few minutes later, he pushed back his chair, walked into the house and down the hall to his study, the one room Ramona hadn’t touched. Flipping through the hanging files, he found the one labeled Home Repair Contracts and pulled out an unmarked envelope holding a tattered piece of paper. He slid the paper out of the envelope and examined it closely.

  A smile started at one corner of his mouth and slowly spread across his face. He looked at the ceiling and laughed. Then he folded up the paper and returned it to the file.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Casey leaned back in bed and closed her eyes. If she couldn’t see, she could pretend she wasn’t in a pale green room in a stainless steel bed with plain white sheets and tubes running into her arm. She could pretend, instead, that she was home in Washington, with Reed running off to a meeting with the glamorous Senator Carr while Casey had lunch with the political spouses to milk them for gossip and fended off insults from her mother-in-law. Oh, so much better.

  Her life had gone from near-perfect to chaotic in one long mudslide, starting with the river trip. She had a nagging sense that she was doing something wrong, if only she could figure out what. It gave her a headache, or it would if she didn’t already have one. To add to her misery, the nurse wouldn’t bring her any chocolate. And this place was supposed to make her better?

  A nurse opened the door and breezed in to do all those slightly irritating but necessary nurse things—check her pulse and temperature, poke at her bandages, inspect the saline drip. Finally satisfied that order still reigned, she gave Casey a bright professional smile and sailed out the door, almost mowing down Ditsy.

  “Thought you might need this.” Ditsy proffered a small dark brown paper bag with discreet gold lettering.

  Casey grabbed it. “Oh, God bless you, Ditsy. These people have no idea.” She dug into the bag and pulled out a truffle.

  “I noticed. Although, in fairness, they seem to be doing a decent job of keeping body and soul together for their clients.”

  Casey munched carefully—her mouth still hurt. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Now.”

  “Hmm. Not quite as obvious.”

  “The police will be back. Jack’s sending security for me. It’s only a matter of time before the press gets wind of something. I’m feeling…”

  “Say no more. Do you want to do this the quiet, easy way, or the noisy, obstreperous official way? I am proficient at both.”

  Casey snorted.

  “Right, then.” Ditsy marched up to the IV stand, twisted a knob or two and swiftly withdrew the needle in Casey’s arm. “Time to go.”

  Sneaking out of the hospital was surprisingly easy. It took Ditsy a further few minutes to pack up their belongings and check out of the hotel. Casey waited in a nearby coffee shop—the way she looked, she didn’t want to chance an encounter with anyone in her profession. When the cab and Ditsy drew up, she eased into the car.

  “Pain meds wearing off?”

  “Uh, yep.”

  Ditsy handed her a bottle of water and some aspirin. “Thought so.” She examined Casey critically. “I believe some makeup is called for, as well.”

  Casey laughed ruefully. Her fingers floated over her bruised-and-battered face. “I think it’s going to take more than makeup for me to look good.”

  “My dear girl, looking good is not currently on the list of possibilities. But looking less horrifying might be an achievable goal.” Ditsy opened her capacious handbag and dived in.

  By the time they got to the airport, Casey more closely resembled a teary-eyed woman than a losing prizefighter, thanks to Ditsy’s skill with cosmetics.

  “We should at least tell the boys that you’re with me and we’re fine. Otherwise, being males, they’ll think you’ve been kidnapped, and take out their guns and shoot someone.”

  Casey hadn’t thought of that. “This whole thing is way too daytime television but, okay, we should call. I don’t really want to cause them worry. I just need to feel normal.”

  “As if that were remotely possible,” Ditsy said. “Shall I call Nocona, or do you want to talk to Jack?”

  “Call Nocona—but not until we’re out of here.”

  The twins were lounging in Nocona’s airy living room with bottles of beer in their hands when Jack strolled in. In unconscious synchrony, the twins turned to him.

  “Hey, guys, can you watch Emma for a while? I need to go see Casey.” He’d brought Emma over to spend a few days in Nocona’s secluded bungalow hidden on a large plot of land, until things were sorted out.

  “Where’s Emma?” Justin asked.

  “Outside. Tesla snagged her as soon as her feet hit the ground.” Emma could have no better caretaker than the preternaturally intelligent and watchful Tesla, who had a more finely developed sense of safety than all three men combined. The dog would take exquisite care of Emma and entertain her at the same time. “I’ll only be gone for an hour…”

  Justin grunted and Nocona looked at his feet.

  Jack set his and Emma’s bags on the floor. A tiny alarm riffed through his head. “What?”

  Justin’s glance was missing its hint of mischief. Nocona looked even more thoughtful than usual.r />
  “What?”

  “Casey’s gone,” Justin said. “She walked out of the hospital before the security detail even got there. She didn’t wait for an official discharge, and she also checked out of the hotel. Our security guys just called it in.”

  “She checked out? Or is she missing?”

  “Checked out. So did Ditsy.”

  So it was voluntary, not coerced. Jack felt a frisson of annoyance even as his tension dissipated. “I’m getting pretty damn tired of the women in my life bailing out on me without warning.”

  “Maybe visiting her in drag was a bad idea,” Justin said. “Might have scared her.”

  “Scared me,” Nocona said.

  Jack scowled, turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned a moment later, beer in hand. “I don’t suppose she left word about where she went?”

  “No. But Ditsy made reservations for two to fly to Minneapolis.”

  “Minneapolis?”

  “Minneapolis,” Nocona confirmed. “Then Cleveland, and D.C.”

  “In that order,” Justin added.

  The three of them sat in silence drinking their beer for a few minutes.

  “That girl has been watching too many spy movies,” Justin said.

  “That, or she’s afraid,” Nocona said.

  Jack settled back in his chair. “No small wonder, I guess. She’s scored a threat on her career and an attempt on her life in the first twenty-four hours of being around me. She should want to put as much distance between us as humanly possible.”

  “Yeah. We need to do something about that.”

  “This Bloody Mary is much too appropriate.” Ditsy handed a glass to Casey, now ensconced in a first-class seat. “Do you want to tell me why we’re running out on the love of your life? And possibly mine too? Other than someone trying to do you in, that is.”

  Casey had been working that question over since she stepped out of her hospital bed. “Ditsy, I’m feeling topsy-turvy. Someone is trying to hurt me intentionally and I don’t have a clue who. Or why, for that matter.” She paused to take a gulp of her Bloody Mary. “The whole situation with Jack is a disaster. Even if we weren’t both married, there are so many reasons we can’t have a relationship, I don’t even remember them all. He isn’t right for me—our careers simply are not compatible. I’m still married to Reed, and Jack has his own marital nightmare to deal with. And he has tattoos.”