“Well.” Sam squinted. “I don’t know—”
“It’s her. I know it.” Spence was out the door and running across the front yard to the sidewalk, just as the car became distinguishable as a silver Jetta.
Well, Sam thought, a bittersweet sadness creeping up on her. What do you know.
The car was barely stopped before Jennifer was hurtling herself out the driver’s side door and into the lawn where she fell on her knees and crushed Spence to her.
It was simply too much. J.D. leaving. And now Spence. Sam’s heart, as if set in icy water for too long, stopped feeling the pain and went numb. Her whole body went numb as if shutting down a little, to protect itself from harm.
Sam watched them, knowing she should probably give them some privacy, but she didn’t know if she’d ever see Spence again. And so, looking away, even for a moment for all the right reasons, was impossible.
Jennifer cupped Spence’s face in her hands, running her thumbs over the sunburn, as if she could erase it and Sam winced. She was talking to Spence, very seriously, and after a second Spence’s arms flew up into the air.
Jennifer seemed surprised but then thrilled, pulling her son to her and rocking him gently against her.
Sam’s numb heart couldn’t withstand that and she finally had to turn away.
She went to the kitchen and tried to be happy for Spence and Jennifer.
A few minutes later, the front door opened with a bang and she whirled to see Spence charging into the kitchen like a boy on fire.
“Guess what, Sam?” he cried.
“Wha—”
“We’re going to stay.”
Sam braced herself against the counter, too stunned to speak.
“For a few days,” Jennifer clarified, coming to stand behind Spence. “And only if it’s okay.”
Jennifer looked different. Good. Some of the pinched misery around her mouth and in her eyes was gone and, while sadness still surrounded her like a coat, she didn’t seem quite so brittle. So desperate.
Sam struggled to flip her mind around to actually say something and she must have been gaping like a fish, because finally Jennifer cupped Spence’s shoulder.
“Sweetheart,” she said. “Can you give Sam and I a second?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll go get your suitcase.”
Once Spence was gone, Jennifer approached Sam. “Are you all right?”
“I’m…” …totally falling apart. “Confused. What’s… ah…what’s going on?”
“I quit my job,” Jennifer said as if she were saying the sun was out. “I interviewed the First Lady and driving back to Baltimore I realized that if I had to spend one more night in a house that smelled like Doug I would—” she took a deep breath “—lose it. Just come totally undone. And then I realized that it wasn’t just the house. It was my life. Without Doug I don’t want that life. I don’t want to try to slip back into it without him.”
“So you quit your job?”
“I quit my job.”
Sam blinked, trying to reconcile this woman with the woman who left here and she couldn’t do it.
“And you’re staying…here?”
“For a few days, until a house I rented in Asheville for the summer can be made ready.”
“Asheville.” Sam nodded. She felt a strange jealousy for the strength Jennifer had. It was as if they’d switched places and Jennifer was the one on solid ground, while Sam was getting cozy at rock bottom. “Spence will like that.”
“He’ll like staying here for a few days better,” Jennifer said with a twinkle in her eye that Sam never would have been able to guess was possible.
She’s not taking Spence away.
“Me, too,” Sam said, trying not to cry, but her breath caught on a big heavy sob. Her body was splintering, breaking apart like a boat against a shore and she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t control herself.
“Whoa, whoa,” Jennifer said, coming forward to gingerly touch Sam’s shoulder as though the grief might spread by contact. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you—”
“No,” Sam admitted. “I’m not.”
And then, the biggest surprise of all, Jennifer hugged her. She just leaned in past the tears and pulled Sam close.
“It’s going to be okay,” Jennifer said. “Whatever’s wrong, it will be okay.”
No, it won’t, Sam thought. It won’t ever be okay.
J.D. sat beside Greg at the dark corner table in the bar off the Beltway.
“Christ, man,” Greg bitched. “I was about to leave.”
“Sorry,” J.D. said, without really meaning it. He shrugged out of his coat and settled back into the wooden seat.
He’d been lying low for three months, ever since Greg took Christina and Brett into custody. He wasn’t sure if Conti and his crew would put two and two together and get J.D., so he put his head down just in case.
But now that Francis Conti’s arrest had been made, his bail set at about a gazillion dollars, J.D. figured he could poke his head up for one quick drink.
“You all right?” Greg asked, drinking the last of the beer in front of him, then wiping his mustache with a his giant paw. “’Cause you look like shit.”
J.D. ignored him, focused instead on the blond waitress walking toward him. She gave him a quick once-over with her hard eyes and he apparently passed some test because her walk got a little looser. As though her hips were suddenly greased.
J.D. wanted to be turned on by her. By the utter ease of it all. The anonymity of it. He didn’t know her, or care about her or spend nights thinking about her. He could screw her, scratch this itch that was killing him, then he could get on with his life.
Something he hadn’t been able to do in ten years. But she left him cold.
Instead, stupidly, what seemed more appealing was driving down to Northwoods and parking down the street from Serenity and waiting to catch a glimpse of Sam.
Sooner or later the urge was going to get too strong to fight and he’d be on the highway like some sick stalker.
Oh, the things I have to look forward to, he thought bitterly.
“Two beers,” he said, cutting off the blonde’s smile before it had a chance to really get going. “And a burger. Put it on his tab,” he said, jerking a thumb at Greg.
“Wonderful,” Greg said when the waitress stalked off. “You’re an hour late and I still have to pay.”
J.D. didn’t say anything and Greg leaned forward, trying to look at his face in the smoky darkness of the bar they met in once every few months. “You all right?”
No. He wasn’t. He was bleeding from some wound he couldn’t find.
“Fine,” he said. “Congrats on the arrest,” he said, changing the subject.
“Thank you,” Greg said and took the two beers the waitress brought over. “Thank you very much. I think with the info the kids gave us we should be able to make this stick.”
J.D. tried not to ask. Tried not to care, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “How are the kids?”
“Good,” Greg said. “She had the baby. A boy. Everybody’s healthy.”
Something in J.D. soared. Something he was totally unaware existed inside of him.
“They gave him up for adoption,” Greg said and J.D. paused while lifting his glass to his lips.
Amazing, he thought and then just as quickly he thought of Sam and how much she would want to know.
He thought of Sam’s face hearing that news. Her smile. Her tears. The bright light that shot out of her when she was happy.
She should know about that baby.
And suddenly, like the information pried open a door he’d locked and forgotten about, he realized everything she didn’t know.
She doesn’t know I love her, he thought. She doesn’t know I can’t sleep at night. That I can’t taste air or water without thinking of how she tasted. She doesn’t know that I’ve been more dead than alive for the past three months.
“J.D.?” Greg asked, clap
ping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”
J.D. stood, pulled a twenty from his pocket and tossed it on the table. “No,” he said. “But maybe I will be.”
The sound of air brakes snapped J.D. awake from the coma he’d been in.
He jerked upright, banging his chest against the steering wheel. His elbow against the driver’s side door.
“Oh, man,” he muttered, rubbing his elbow and trying to roll out the kinks in his shoulders and lower back. Sleeping in his car. Had he really come to this?
The news about the baby and the adoption had put him on the road to Sam. Imagining her face when he told her had given him the reason he’d been waiting a month for.
A reason to sleep in his car outside Serenity House.
A reason to see her.
A reason to talk to her.
A reason to live again.
The sun had risen, and the front lawn of Serenity House seemed a little foreign. Surreal. Because of all the boxes. And the movers.
And the way Sam stood amongst it all like a redheaded Napoleon.
Last night the house had been still, the lawn empty.
Now, it was the scene of a move.
Warm Carolina air blew through his open window, carrying her voice, her laughter as she joked around with one of the guys. Through the windshield of his car she was a vision of every single thing he thought he never truly deserved and he realized how stupid it was to be here. To have driven all night to tell her something he could have e-mailed her.
Was she leaving? Was it too late? It was the only answer.
He put his head down on the steering wheel.
“Idiot,” he muttered, thumping his forehead against the leather. “Such. An. Idiot.”
He leaned back, pressing his arms straight, gripping the wheel and looked up. Right into Sam’s eyes. She’d seen him. Amongst the mayhem in her yard she’d found him.
As he watched, her hand fell to her side. Paper fluttered from her fingers.
He felt their connection like electricity in the air. Everyone, everything, every sight and sound vanished and for a perfect moment it was just them. Him and Sam.
Like it used to be. Like it should have been all along.
If this connection was here, she had to feel something. Even hatred. He could deal with hatred. He was so damn glad he hadn’t killed everything she’d felt for him.
On autopilot, guided by something outside of himself, something so big and all-consuming he was powerless against it, he opened the door.
His love for Sam was his compass. His engine. And he got out of the car and crossed the lawn. He wanted to run to her, relieved to see her again, happy that he’d mustered up this courage. But as he got closer he realized that it was anger he saw in her eyes. A whole lot of it.
“What are you doing here?” she said. Her tone indicated she’d prefer him someplace else. Like Mars.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he whispered, moving sideways as movers carrying Sam’s bed came down the stairs. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m moving.” She crossed her arms over her chest and her chin was up, so defiant and strong, and he nearly evaporated with his love for her and his fear that he’d lost her.
“Away?” he asked, stunned that she would leave the shelter.
“To town.”
“What about the shelter?”
“I can run the shelter and not live here. What do you want, J.D.?”
He looked at her, watched her, opened his heart, felt himself waver, thin and diminish. He was water. Then air. He was nothing. He let it all go. The things he’d done. The things he’d seen. And he concentrated on her and rebuilt himself. Piece by piece into the man he was when he was with her. The man he wanted to be.
“My…” He licked his lips. “My name is J. D. Kronos,” he said and her eyelids flinched. “I used to be a private investigator, but I quit. I’m not sure what I am doing now. Not that that would be a problem. I like to work.” He paused. “I live in Newark in my uncle Milo’s old condo. It’s a dump and I don’t feel like it’s my home. I never have. Once a year I send my sister a thousand dollars, but she doesn’t know who it’s from. I’m a good cook, my uncle taught me. I like football.” He was rambling. Really running in circles, so he decided to get right to the point. He took a deep breath.
“And I love you. I know I’m not what you want or need.” Oh, God, wasn’t that the truth? Just saying the words to her silent, impassive face proved what a fool he was for trying this. But he couldn’t quite get himself to shut up. “But I wanted you to know that. To know that the man I am when I am with you is the man I want to be. The man…”
She wasn’t responding. She just stood there, breathing hard, her eyes not blinking. “I…” He took a deep breath. This didn’t work. It was a waste of time, he was too late. “I just wanted to say that.” He stepped backward, lifting his hand, wanting so badly to touch her, but just saying goodbye. “Take care, Sam.”
She grabbed his hand. Her palm was sweaty, her grip strong. His fingers curled around hers instinctively. Like she was a rope from shore and he was a drowning man.
“My name is Sam Riggins,” she whispered. “I work too much but I am trying to fix that. I bought a house. A little one in town. With a bedroom for Spence when he comes and visits. I am trying to work on myself. On lots of things. I’m trying to find hobbies, but I hate knitting. I’m a terrible cook.” She smiled and he realized that tears had gathered in her eyes. He was suddenly weightless. Off the ground. Only her hand kept him in place. “And I love you. I’ve always loved you and you are exactly what I need. You are what I have always wanted.”
She tugged on his hand, because he was still too stunned to act, and then he was in her arms, held tight by her strength. Breathing in her perfect rose smell.
Sam. His whole body sighed like a weary traveler arriving home. And suddenly the fog cleared. It was Sam in his arms. Sam crying. Sam holding him so hard he hurt. It was always Sam.
Holy crap, he thought, wanting to laugh and bawl at the same time. It worked.
“I thought I was too late,” he whispered into the crook of her neck, his lips on her skin, her hair under his fingers. The many smells and textures of this woman bringing him back to life.
“You’re just in time,” she whispered back.
Epilogue
J.D. had a home. His first real one. Filled with furniture that matched and books and CDs and the woman he loved. She made him coffee every morning and he made her dinner every night and sometimes they talked about the past and sometimes they didn’t talk at all.
He was renovating each room, stripping the floors, painting the walls, putting his blood, sweat and tears into a little bungalow that a month ago he’d never seen, and now he was mad for. Sick over.
She joked sometimes that he loved the house more than her and he always felt compelled to show her otherwise.
He couldn’t love anything more than he loved her.
He’d even managed to take control of his job. He was still a P.I., but he no longer took the jobs that made him ill. No more cheating spouses, no more workers’ comp or insurance fraud.
“J.D.?” Sam whispered, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind him. Her hands slipped up his chest, over his pounding heart. “Honey? Are you okay?” Her fingers flew down to his wrist, taking his pulse and he reversed their grip, bringing her fingers to his mouth.
“I’m nervous,” he admitted. “Last time I saw the kid he was so scared of me he didn’t want me around him.”
“He felt so bad about that,” she said, turning him away from the front bay window, where he’d been standing guard waiting for a sign of a silver Jetta.
“He shouldn’t.” J.D. laughed in a rough burst. “He was right to be scared of me.” God, he was so nervous he was practically sick with it. Spence and Jennifer were coming through Northwoods on their way back to Baltimore after the summer in Asheville and he felt like he was about to face a fir
ing squad. He was terrified of what the boy might do. How he might react to him.
So help him, if the boy was scared of him, J.D. didn’t think he could take it.
“It will be fine,” Sam whispered. “You’ll see.”
J.D. still had his doubts, his lingering distrust that things would be fine for him, but he didn’t like to argue with Sam. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and hoped that she was right.
“They’re here,” Sam said and he whirled to face the window. Sure enough, a silver Jetta was there.
J.D. opened the front door and stepped out into the yard just as the car’s back door opened and a little redheaded boy with J.D.’s eyes and Sam’s hair tumbled out. A boy with a sunburn and freckles that hadn’t been there in June.
“J.D.!” Spence cried, joy lighting up his face.
And then the boy was running and so was J.D.
J.D. crouched down and then fell onto his knees in the grass just as the little boy hit him, his body a heavy pencil-scented missile.
“I missed you, J.D.,” Spence whispered in his ear.
“Not as much as I missed you,” J.D. assured him. Spence’s arms wrapped around his neck and J.D. closed his eyes, relief an animal he could no longer contain.
Wrapping his arms around Spence’s back, he thanked God for Sam. For this boy and the long road that brought them all together.
Thank you SO MUCH for reading Sam and J.D’s story. I hope you enjoyed it!
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Jennifer and Spencer get their own story in AND THEN THERE WAS YOU which is available NOW!
The scoop of Jennifer Stern's career has just landed on her doorstep. Literally. Ian Greer—the playboy millionaire—is everything the headlines claim. Charming, flirtatious, and ready for a good time. But Jennifer soon suspects he's pulling a fast one and there's a different man behind the handsome mask he shows the world. He's a puzzle she longs to unravel.
The Story Of Us: A Secret Baby Romance (Serenity House Book 1) Page 18