Then He Kissed Me

by Christie Ridgway

  “I won’t shake your hand, sir,” he said, looking down at himself. “I’m filthy again.”

  His father gave a little shrug. “It looks natural on you, son.”

  Jack laughed.

  The king of Ardenia frowned. “I meant that as a … as a compliment, damn it.”

  “All right.”

  The frown went fiercer. “Jack, why do you always see me in the worst possible light?”

  “Like father like son?”

  The other man swore in German, the language he favored when angry. “Can’t we have a conversation free of subtle insults?”

  Suddenly Jack was weary. Tired of the tension between him and his father and irritated with how this place, this beautiful place, had resurrected so many of his ghosts - his interest in winemaking, the friendships that he’d let lapse, the resentment toward his family that he harbored and couldn’t seem to shake.

  He didn’t want to care about any of it, but now the pervading isolation and loneliness he’d endured during the last decade was exhausting him.

  “Then let’s cut the bullshit, Dad,” he said. “Ten years ago, you believed I had arranged my own kidnapping. Mine and Roxanne’s.”

  “That’s not true. I knew for a fact and from the first that Roxanne’s involvement was impromptu. She was supposed to be with me and your mother that day and begged off at the last minute.”

  Jack shrugged. “So instead I took her on that date I had made with Maxine, to that lake in the mountains. Rox became collateral damage.”

  His father ran his hand over his eyes. “We’ve all been so damaged by this over the years.”

  “I know.” Weariness dragged at him again. “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t ask for an apology,” the other man bit out. “Let’s be clear about that. I’ve never asked for an apology from you!”

  Jack stared. His father had never raised his voice, not once, in his entire memory.

  “It’s I who should apologize,” the king said, his voice quieter, rougher. He ran his hand over his eyes again.

  Jack noted the new lines on the king’s face and the folds of skin at his throat as he swallowed. The father had aged in the last decade and there was pain for the son in that, too.

  “I somehow gave you the idea that I didn’t trust you. That I blamed you, and -” His father broke off. “I can see now that my words aren’t working.”

  They stood together in silence.

  His father gazed around the vineyard. “This is a good place, Jack. Edenville, these two acres.”

  “You think so?” His father’s opinion didn’t matter to him.

  “And don’t just credit that old man Ray Crawford for your interest in it. Plenty of Parinis knew how to grow things, too.”

  The king of Ardenia looked about him again, then his eyes came to rest on Stevie, standing in the distance. “Your fiancée, I think she’s good for you, too, Jack.”

  “Really?” He said it just to sound interested. Now wasn’t the time to be truthful about Stevie.

  “Really.” His father reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. “Bonne chance, mon fils.”

  Good luck, my son. Jack shrugged off the well-wishing and instead let his gaze roam the vineyard, where life was waiting to begin again. It was a good place, he thought, despite himself. He realized he felt a kind of camaraderie with the dormant vines. For ten years he’d been like them.

  His mind wandered and he let his imagination have free rein for a moment. What would it be like to be here beyond Roxy’s wedding? Would he be different when the sun warmed the dirt and green growth sprouted from the now-quiet vines? He could almost hear the drone of insects and the rustle of leaves as he walked down the ordered rows. Would he change? Could he live with the man he might become here?

  His gaze landed on Stevie, who’d taken up the digging bar and was working at the stubborn stump in his stead.

  I think she’s good for you, too, his father had said.

  The king approved of his fake fiancée, and for the first time in a long, long while, Jack let himself care what his father thought.

  But could he be anything beyond bad for Stevie?

  Then He Kissed Me

  18

  ************************************************************************************************

  Roxanne glanced over at Emerson as they arrived at her brother’s vineyard. “You didn’t need to come with me,” she said.

  “The wedding is scheduled three days from now,” he reminded her, taking her hand in his as they threaded the rows of vines in the direction of the small winery building at the rear of the acreage. “You said you needed to talk with Jack before you could make a final decision. I think it’s fair that I’m part of that.”

  Fair? Yes. But the final decision about the marriage ceremony might be something Emerson wanted to weigh in on himself after he learned her last secret - and realized how flawed his fiancée really was and how her bad judgment had ultimately damaged Jack, too.

  As if sensing her disquiet, Emerson squeezed her fingers. “I love you,” he said.

  She could almost smile, understanding him so much better now. When lightning had struck them that first night, she’d embraced the sense of fate - completely dazzled by the flash and heat. Naive of her, she realized today. Emerson, by nature and by experience, had been compelled to take a second look at what they were doing. Though at the moment he claimed to love her and was convinced of their happy-ever-after, she wasn’t holding him to “forever” until she finished saying her piece to Jack.

  “There he is.” Emerson pointed ahead, where she could see Jack sitting on the front steps to the little castle’s entrance, a pad of paper on his knee, a pencil in his hand. Disheveled, with a day’s growth of beard on his face and dirt on the knees of his jeans, Roxy’s brother didn’t look anything close to a royal prince.

  He looked like Jack Parini, grandson of a salt-of-the-earth Georgia farmer. He looked intent, but content, too, and she had to harden her heart because she suspected she was about to shatter that mood. Maybe it was selfish of her, she thought, pausing a moment. Maybe she should let him be. But this confrontation felt like her last chance to get things right - maybe for both of them. She slid a look at Emerson. All of them.

  “Hey, big brother,” she called softly.

  “Rox.” His head came up as he closed the pad of paper. He spared a look for Emerson that wasn’t all too friendly. “I didn’t hear you two drive up.”

  “You looked absorbed.” She let go of her fiancé’s hand to sit next to her brother on the step. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” Jack put aside the pad and pencil and gave her a small smile. “Do you need me? Is Mom insisting on dressing you up like Marie Antoinette? Is Dad intimidating the staff at the resort?”

  “Those things I can handle,” she said. “There’s just the small matter of you.”

  His smile died. “I’m sorry the press and everybody keeps chewing on that old story, Rox. Would it help if I left -”

  “No.” She put her hand on his arm. “No. You can’t go anywhere until you and I talk about that old story, Jack. Until we get some things straight between the two of us.”

  He rose to his feet. “There’s no need.”

  “Yes, there is.” She tugged on the denim of his jeans, forcing him to sit again, then slid her hand in the pocket of her jacket to pull out an object. “Because of this.”

  Without looking at Emerson’s reaction, she showed her brother what she held. Jack stared at the small bride and groom cake topper sitting on the flat of her palm. “Oh, God. I suspected you were tempted again…” He passed a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, Rox.”

  “Would you stop saying that?”

  He blew out a breath. “So you didn’t st - take it, then?”

  “Of course I stole it.” For the second time, she avoided Emerson’s gaze. Would he be disappointed that she still succumbed? “From Stevie’s
office just yesterday. But you’re not the one who should be sorry about that.”

  Jack was on his feet again. “Damn it, of course I’m sorry.”

  “This is my problem,” she said. “Not yours.”

  “But it’s my fault you have the problem.”

  There was that burden of guilt she had to lighten. “We need to talk about what happened.”

  “No.” He tried pacing away, but she clutched at his denim pants leg again. “We’ve both been through it a million times.”

  “But not with each other, Jack,” she said quietly. “We’ve never been honest with each other about what happened when we were kidnapped.”

  He dropped back to the step. His gaze shifted to Emerson, standing close, then back to her. “I should have seen Maxine for what she was.”

  “Beautiful but cold?” Roxanne prompted. “Manipulated by her brother who was evil to the core?”

  His hand slashed out. “All that.”

  “But she covered so well, didn’t she? No one suspected that Maxine or Emil were anything but the flashy and somewhat - spoiled progeny of rich parents. Our own brother Henri introduced you to her, right? He didn’t exile himself from Ardenia and the family after discovering his peripheral connection to the kidnapping.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jack scoffed. “Henri didn’t lock you in that room. He didn’t terrorize you for five days and nights.”

  “And neither did you, Jack.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He scooped up the pad and pencil. “I’ve got things to do.”

  She yanked the items out of his hand. “Not until I’m finished. My counselor has helped me confront a few things I’ve avoided for the last ten years.”

  He stilled. “You’re seeing the doctor in San Francisco again? Good.”

  “It is good. Necessary.” She glanced toward her fiancé but couldn’t interpret the expression on his face. “I told Emerson about my problem, you know. It sent him away from me, to Stevie -”

  Emerson made a noise, but Jack cut him off with another slashing hand gesture. “I know about that.”

  She grimaced. “He’s lucky you didn’t deck him, then. Not that he’s a threat in that regard. Stevie’s in love with you.”

  Jack looked off into the vineyard. “Rox…”

  “Shh. It’s still my turn to talk. Ten years ago, remember how -”

  “I remember everything.”

  “Still my turn to talk.” She put her hand on his knee. “I told the therapist about the experience yesterday. After years of trying to erase it from my mind, instead I replayed it moment by moment in my head.”

  “I think the erasing is a better plan.”

  “But it doesn’t work, does it?” At the reluctant shake of his head, she continued. “Ten years ago, we drove up to that house by the lake and went to the door, expecting to see both Maxine and Emil. But she wasn’t there. Emil was alone - and surprised to find I’d come along with you.” He’d smiled, and to the fourteen-year-old she’d been, it hadn’t seemed evil, but exciting.

  Jack grimaced. “He was so damn happy to see us.”

  “Because he thought with the capture of the two youngest in the royal family, he could double the ransom.”

  “Which he did.” Jack’s muscles went tense under her hand. “Why the rehash, Rox?”

  “Because of the things I’ve been taking,” she said, holding up the wedding cake topper again for him to see. “And what I haven’t been taking.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.” Her fingers curled around the motionless little figures, standing arm in arm, just as she and Jack were linked and frozen by their shared experience. She chanced a glance at Emerson, but his face remained unreadable. “I also know that if it wasn’t for me being there that day, you would have gotten away.”

  “No. I -”

  “Yes. I can replay it in my head so clearly now. How you so politely let your little sister precede you through the doorway. Then you walked in, shut the door, and Emil went from smiling host to sinister kidnapper.”

  “With a great big gun.”

  “Trained on me.” Emerson moved now, his hand landing on Roxanne’s shoulder. She had to ignore it. She had to go on. “But I know you, Jack, and I remember Emil. He was small, and nervous. You outweighed him, and you could have overpowered him, too, except he had that leverage.”

  “Which was you.” Jack sighed. “Anyway, what-ifs are useless.”

  She couldn’t let him dismiss her points that easily. “I know Papa had all you boys trained for your own protection. I was so jealous that you got to spend time at the firing range and had been taught down-and-dirty self-defense. You knew the moves. You would have attempted them if I hadn’t been in the way.”

  “Again, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters a lot, if you ask me. It had to be harder for you to be powerless when you knew that if you’d been alone -”

  “But I wasn’t alone!” Jack half rose from the step, then dropped back down, his voice lowering, too. “Damn it, Rox, this is all so ridiculous. I’m sorry, so sorry about what happened to you. But talking about it doesn’t change a thing. I wasn’t alone that day.”

  “And I’m sorry about that.” They’d finally reached the purpose of her visit. It was time to make the confession that she hoped would cleanse the last festering infection from the wound inside her. How Emerson would react - how it might change that date they had at the altar - she didn’t know. But she steeled herself to continue. “I coaxed you into letting me go up to the lake with you. I knew you were supposed to be meeting Maxine and Emil there and I wanted in on the fun.”

  “It was hard for you, being the youngest of all the kids in the family.”

  “And you were the best big brother in the world for being so patient with me.” She smiled a little. “I really missed you when you were away at college in California.”

  He smiled back. “You’re just saying that because Edmond, Henri, and Derick never let you win at Monopoly or Mule Bornes like I did.”

  “I beat you fair and square every time … didn’t I?”

  Smiling some more, he shook his head. “We had some good times, even in Ardenia, didn’t we, Rox?”

  “We’re going to have some more good times,” she said, hoping she was telling the truth. “The best times. But to get to them, I have to put the kidnapping in context for us both. If I hadn’t been there, I think Emil wouldn’t have managed to overpower you.”

  “It doesn’t -”

  “And one of the reasons, I think, I’ve been taking things is to avoid taking responsibility for that. And for the fact that I was desperate to go along with you that day.”

  “You were desperate to avoid some ribbon-cutting thing that Dad and Mom wanted you to attend.”

  She shook her head, then sucked in a breath. It was time, now. Her fingers brushed Emerson’s, still on her shoulder, and then fell to her lap, where they rested on that happy bride and groom. “I wanted to see Emil, Jack. I thought I was in love with him. He said he was in love with me.”

  Her brother’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  Emerson’s hand tightened on her. She couldn’t look at him. “He’d come over to the house with Maxine that summer. We’d talk, fool around in the pool, you know. Then we kissed a few times, and -”

  “He was seven years older than you!” There was outrage in Jack’s voice.

  Roxanne felt only relief that the truth was finally out - and maybe even a little sympathy for that lovesick girl she’d been. But she kept her gaze lowered to avoid Emerson’s reaction. “I couldn’t tell the family after the kidnapping. I didn’t want to let them down.”

  “You wouldn’t -”

  “I was their perfect little princess, Jack, and I couldn’t take that away from them. But the truth is, I would have stowed away in the trunk of your car if you hadn’t agreed to take me.”

  He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Rox.
I don’t know what to say.”

  “I do, Jack.” She took up the pad and pencil and flipped it open. It looked like he was redrawing the interior of the winery. Instead of lingering on his pencil lines, she turned to a clean page. Her hand moved swiftly.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

  He glanced at the four words. “Thanks for that, but -”

  “Say it out loud,” she insisted, giving the pad a little shake.

  His gaze moved back to the page. “I forgive you, Jack,” he repeated, obviously puzzled.

  “Again.”

  He looked up, a decent man who had blamed himself for too long. “I forgive you, Jack.”

  Roxanne took a breath. “Now actually do that, best of big brothers. Do what it says. Forgive yourself.”

  Jack continued staring at her. “Roxanne, I’m lost here.”

  “No. You’ve found everything. You found your place.” She gestured to the vineyard. “You found what you want to do with your life. You found a woman to love.”

  She took the wedding cake topper she still held and pressed it into his unresisting hand. “Congratulations, Jack. You found normal.”

  What she might have given up now, she didn’t know.

  *****

  His mind reeling, Emerson silently drove Roxanne back to the resort and just as silently followed her to her rooms and through the door to her suite. He was still himself, the kind of man who needed time to think things through and process them, even though he’d operated on pure instinct and impulse when he’d gone after Roxanne. It was so out of character, he’d gotten that stupid case of cold feet that went even icier when he discovered she wasn’t the perfect princess he’d once thought.

  Thank God for Stevie, who had pointed out it was his rashness when dealing with Roxanne that proved how strong his feelings were. He’d gone back to his fiancée, convinced of his love, convinced they were meant to be together. When she didn’t want to totally commit to the marriage, what could he say? After the way he’d back-pedaled, he’d had to respect her wishes.