A Date on Cloud Nine

by Jenna McKnight

  For Mike, though, he simply distilled all that down to the responsibility he felt to look after her.

  “Why?” Mike asked.

  “Remember when Angie left me?”

  “Without a word—oh yeah, I remember.” Mike shook his head. “That was a helluva binge you went on.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” Jake leaned close, elbows on knees, not wanting to share this with everyone. “I started drinking on the job. One night everybody went home but me. I don’t know where I was, probably passed out in the basement or something. Anyway, when I woke up, I started breaking things.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You know, vandalism.”

  That caught Mike’s attention. He mirrored Jake’s position and whispered gruffly, “You mean the Reynolds job?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t remember it too clear.”

  “Holy cow, that was a lot of damage. We all thought it was a vendetta against Reynolds or something.”

  “Nah, just me. It was Brady who found me and locked me in a trailer for a week and dried me out. And kept me from losing my job. And then made it possible to start up the tech business. So you can see why I owe him not to screw around with his wife.”

  Mike leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Wouldn’t bother me—” Jake’s glare stopped him cold. “Ooh, some predicament, buddy. But I got the perfect solution.”

  Yes! Jake knew coming here would help. “Tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

  “Buy me another beer?”

  “You figure this out, a whole case is yours.”

  “You’re gonna love this. It’s so simple. Hey, guys, isn’t this simple? Jake here doesn’t know what to do about the woman moving into his place.” That caught everyone’s attention, and both teams drew near. Mike clapped him on the shoulder and said, very seriously, “I have the perfect solution for you, buddy, and I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you, you understand?”

  Jake swallowed, waiting for the grand solution.

  “You move into my place, buddy. You’ll be safe there.” Mike made him wait for it, then grinned. “And I’ll move into yours.”

  Jake growled, jumped up, shoved his way through the guys, grabbed the first ball on the return, and slammed it down lane six. Strike, big deal.

  “Is she hot?” he overheard someone ask Mike.

  “Hell yes.”

  “Hey then, count me in.”

  “Me too.”

  Jake power shot another ball at the pins on the next lane over. No one dared object.

  John strolled through heaven’s White Garden, a place he often went for peace and solitude. The white roses were perfect, never blasted or wilted. Millions of them scaled trellises to the top, then cascaded freely off them, like waterfalls of silk petals.

  Elizabeth bustled through the arched gate, glancing neither right nor left as she followed the shortest path toward him.

  “I didn’t know you liked the garden,” he said with a beatific smile.

  She glanced around, as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh. Pretty. Do you have a minute?”

  John admired a perpetually dew-dropped bud, then nodded, giving her permission to wreck his interlude.

  “What do you call it when someone overmasters a lesson?” she asked.

  “Perhaps you should explain who and what.”

  “It’s Jake. If he was here to master loyalty, he’s overdone it. I mean, Lilly’s practically thrown her naked body on top of the man, and all he can think about is how disloyal it is to want his best friend’s widow. So what do we do when someone learns something too well?”

  “Ah, but that’s part of the lesson. If someone overdoes something, then they really haven’t learned it after all.”

  “So there’s nothing we can do?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  When Elizabeth neither continued nor left, John said, “Was there something else?”

  “No. Well, yeah. I still have a nagging feeling that I forgot to tell Lilly something, but I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Perhaps you should join your peer group. Networking’s quite helpful for working through problems that are difficult to define.”

  Lilly called Betsy and got her machine. In case the cute paramedic was staying over, Lilly resisted the impulse to scream bloody murder into the phone for fear he wouldn’t understand she just needed to vent and would instead call 9-1-1 and give them her phone number, which would lead to sirens screaming to her front door and do nothing to alleviate all the frustration she’d built up in the last two weeks.

  When Jake offered to let her move in with him and followed it up with that crack about being able to sleep later, she thought he was hinting at long sexy nights to come when they’d need to sleep in just to keep from exhausting themselves.

  Anyway, that’s what she had in mind. With their first course on the granite island still scorching her skin everywhere they’d touched, everywhere he’d kissed, everywhere she’d known he would be in another two minutes, well, she darned near drooled at the offer.

  But when he bolted during dinner, she figured that he figured she was just another stray, like Mooch, who needed a warm place to sleep. Really sleep.

  So she’d been widowed only five months. Didn’t bother Andrew. Shouldn’t bother Jake. After all, she’d explained that the end of their marriage had been seventeen months ago, not five.

  Seventeen celibate months.

  Geez, what was a woman supposed to do to get some passion in her life? Short of putting on her sexy new clothes and strutting a street corner downtown, which really wouldn’t be passion at all, just sex, and probably not even as good as she’d had with Brady in the beginning. No sense going there.

  Nope, Jake was the guy for her. You couldn’t help but admire a guy who loved frizzy cats and messy kids and put his life on hold to pay back his family. She couldn’t help but love a man who valued loyalty and friendship and family above all else. Having similar values herself, she wanted to give him the money Brady’d diverted because it was the right thing to do.

  So, how to repay him. Actually, this was easy if she failed her mission—and after self-indulgently desiring that antique-cushion-cut diamond the other day, she had reason to be concerned that John and Elizabeth would give up on her and yank her back. That, or she wouldn’t get pregnant in time, which also was a distinct possibility, the way things weren’t going.

  In the office, she flipped through Brady’s address book, looking for his insurance agent’s number. Might as well find out how much it’d take to buy a three-million-dollar policy on herself.

  The bracelet zapped her, not that she needed the reminder. She knew if she so much as reached for her checkbook, she’d be on the floor.

  “Yeah, yeah, stuff it,” she said to Elizabeth, as the agent’s phone rang. “I’ll find a way.”

  And she did. Betsy could pay the premium; Jake could be the beneficiary. All Lilly had to do was pass the physical, which wasn’t a problem. If she failed her mission and died again soon, Jake would be set. It felt good to utilize a loophole without getting zapped into unconsciousness.

  On the other hand, if she did everything correctly and passed the Transition tests and didn’t die, well, she didn’t know how she’d pay Jake back if that was the case. But one solution already had presented itself. Maybe another would, too.

  Sunday evening was moving day. Jake made the offer; Lilly was taking him up on it. He arrived in a mellow mood fifteen minutes after Betsy, giving Lilly two cars to pack with belongings.

  “Sorry I’m late. Sometimes my nephews’ hockey games don’t start on time.”

  Knowing that being visibly angry with him over deserting her the night before wasn’t going to charm him out of his pants, she followed his lead.

  “You go often?”

  “Oh sure. They’re not old enough yet to be embarrassed by all
the screaming we grown-ups do. We’re conditioning them now so we can keep going later, you know?”

  “Yeah, my nanny used to tell me stories about people like you.” She rolled her eyes to cover her envy.

  He saw right through her. “I’ll take you sometime, show you how the other half lives.”

  “Deal.”

  He got down to business then, joking about how she could condense all her possessions down to two carloads of clothes and boxes.

  It wasn’t as if she’d need any of her current wardrobe past spring. If she got pregnant on time—soon—nothing she owned would fit beyond then. If she didn’t, she’d be called back before Easter.

  So other than what she could use over the next couple months, Lilly put everything into storage in a corner of her basement to go through later. None of it had any monetary value. It was just what accumulates in clothes closets, linen closets, bathroom drawers, dresser drawers, junk drawers—everything that piles up in the everyday course of life. Old makeup, wrong shade lipsticks, too many combs, too tight underpants, uncomfortable bras, photo albums, snapshots of friends, mementos from vacations. She should’ve thrown most of it away, but she’d never been good at parting with possessions. Like money, they were her cushion for a rainy day.

  Everything of value, mostly jewelry, she took with her. She’d have to sell it or donate it, because it was worth quite a bit, and she’d keep her bargain.

  “What about Brady’s library?” Jake asked.

  “Fully furnished means books, I guess.”

  “Not Brady’s books.”

  “You’re being proprietary again.”

  “Hey, that’s a fine collection he put together. I know what some of those books cost separately. They must be worth even more together.”

  Brady’d devoured books like some people did junk food; classics, autobiographies, art tomes, scholarly works, it didn’t matter. If one was to his liking and originated in a different language, he had to have it. If he could find a first edition, he added it to his collection. Jake was right; the collection couldn’t stay. She’d have it appraised and sell it, but she wasn’t telling him that.

  After flipping through a few of Brady’s photo albums, Lilly wanted something similar for her children. She had a few pictures her nanny had taken and some from boarding school. She put those together with ones of herself out of Brady’s albums, then boxed the remainder up for his family.

  She wanted to take an hour for her last walk through the house, but her recent attitude adjustment provided a little enlightenment on that issue. She told the lovebirds and koi good-bye, made sure there were detailed notes so the professors could take over their care, then locked the door and looked ahead.

  Jake’s parents’ house had five bedrooms on the second floor. Looking into each one closely as she made her choice, Lilly spotted a crucifix, a white-beaded rosary coiled on a dresser, a dried palm leaf tucked behind a framed picture of the guardian angel, and a Bible. Mr. If-I-can’t-see-it-then-it-doesn’t-exist appeared to be in the minority in this family.

  She took the bedroom across the hall from Jake’s because its lace-canopied four-poster bed looked cheery and feminine. Her clothes filled that closet, and when she spread out into the closets in two other rooms, he didn’t seem to mind.

  On their last trip from the car, she and Betsy carried flight bags up the stairs.

  “Can you do me a favor?” Lilly asked.

  Betsy groaned. “As long as it doesn’t involve carrying all this back out.”

  “I need you to keep it a secret.”

  Betsy seemed to discern the seriousness of her request, because she slowed down and paid attention.

  “Would you buy something if I asked you to?” Lilly asked.

  “A vibrator?”

  Lilly groaned. “You have a one-track mind, you know that?”

  “And this is bad, why?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” Betsy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want me to buy you one where he won’t know about it?”

  “Betsy, listen.” Lilly explained about the insurance policy and listing Jake as beneficiary.

  “But why don’t you just—?”

  “I can’t, okay?”

  “No but—”

  “Please.”

  Betsy sighed. “Okay.”

  “I’ll write a letter so Jake pays you the premium back.”

  “Whatever.”

  Lilly hugged her. “Thanks, girlfriend. Now, get my camera out of that bag, would you? I want Jake to take a picture of the two of us together.”

  “Sure. Hey,” she said when the phone rang. “Jake’s outside, you think we should get it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You live here now.”

  “Yeah, but nobody knows that yet.”

  A couple more rings, though, and Lilly trotted across the hall and picked up the extension in Jake’s room. Even on a weekend, it could be one of the businesses he consulted for or an important networking connection getting back to him.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry, I must have the wrong—Ooh, is this Lilly Marquette?”

  Shoot, how much did he want others to know? Her “yeah” was slow and tentative.

  “Hmph. I forgot you were moving in today. Have Jake call me. This is Jessica, his sister.” No Can’t wait to meet you.

  On the other hand, no Where the hell’s my brother’s three million dollars? either.

  “Sure.”

  The phone rang again before Lilly got out the bedroom door, probably a product of the well-organized Murdoch grapevine. Knowing she probably was going to get interrogated by one of Jake’s sisters, she nevertheless picked up the receiver.

  Her hello didn’t get an immediate response, and she was just about to hang up when she heard it.

  “Get out,” a voice rasped, bitterly enough to make Lilly shiver. No way this was a sister. “You don’t belong there.”

  12

  I cannot believe this!” Up in Transition, Elizabeth was fit to be tied. She was pacing in tight little agitated turns, but it wasn’t helping.

  “Need some assistance?” John asked when he appeared.

  She’d never get her own division if she kept running to him for help.

  Perusing his electronic clipboard, John murmured, “Hm, I see. Money issue. Second man.”

  “Can she not catch a break?”

  “It’s just like I always say; people don’t know what they really want until they’re forced to think it through.” John was his usual cool and calm self as he pushed a few buttons, examining new information. “Hm, seems there’s a few minutes missing here.”

  It wasn’t as if Elizabeth didn’t have a few friends in high places who’d cover for her, though she didn’t want to press her luck too often.

  “Wait a minute,” John said, looking surprised. “What’s this threatening phone call?”

  “My point exactly.” Elizabeth wanted to stamp her foot and yell, but it just wasn’t dignified. “I have half a mind to go back, uh, go down there and—”

  “Oh, no no no,” John said. “Mustn’t do that. Rule number twelve-oh—”

  “I need a clipboard.” Fretting and pacing wasn’t getting her anywhere, so she quickly matched her demeanor to John’s, adopting silence and a calm, angelic outward appearance.

  “Now, Elizabeth, if we gave a clipboard to every angel who thought she was cut out for this job—”

  “Please, just let me borrow yours.” She stopped short of batting her eyelashes, because of course that wouldn’t work on John.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Five minutes, that’s all I ask.” She smiled oh, so sweetly. “Five minutes to look into what’s going on down there and why. Please, John. Just five minutes to find out who made the phone call.”

  “No.”

  “But how else can I help Lilly? You know she deserves it.”

  “Does she?”

 
“Oh, John,” she coaxed softly, “that’s not fair. Why can’t we help her? Just a little.”

  “The rules have served us well. Stick to the plan and keep mentoring her with the bracelet a while longer. Things will work out if they’re meant to.”

  “But wouldn’t it help to find out who made the phone call? And what her plan is?”

  “Even if you did, you couldn’t tell Lilly.” Elizabeth wanted so badly to chew her fingernails, a habit she’d broken generations ago, but it would send the wrong message. “But if I knew something else, something important, perhaps I could warn her—you know, with the bracelet.”

  “Stick to the rules, and you’ll be fine.”

  A simple, “Alarm, seven o’clock,” before retiring alerted the computer to wake Lilly on time Monday morning.

  She hadn’t lost any sleep over the nasty phone call. Maybe her own heavy breather had made her immune, but she just didn’t think somebody would be threatening her over Jake after only eighteen days. Had to be a wrong number. She dropped off quickly to Enya and woke up to Native American flutes.

  Jillian, a.k.a. Murdoch sister number three, stopped by after dropping her kids at school. She came in the back door, scowled at Lilly, and Jake dragged her off to another room. After that, she smiled tightly and said she came to borrow a purse. Lilly might’ve bought that except Jillian dashed upstairs and darted from room to room until she discovered which one Lilly’d moved into. She left without anything except news, and Jake’s devilish twinkle.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “Either she has a split personality or you read her the riot act.”

  He grinned unabashedly. “My family’s a little mad at you.”

  “Nah, it’s more than that. I’m the woman who’s moved into your house. They want to check me out.” See what room I’m sleeping in. “It must be great to have siblings care about you that much.”