Only an insane man steps off the ledge of a cliff twice in one lifetime.
He cut through the small talk that Bill attempted, asking to speak to Maddy. “She’s out of the shop with a client. Do you want her cell number?”
He’d refused to take down the number all the times she had offered to give it to him, feeling that it was just one more way to entangle his life with hers. He didn’t want the temptation of having such easy access to her. But this was different.
“Yeah, why don’t you give it to me?” J.T. jotted down the number as Bill rattled it off. Hanging up with a terse, “Thanks,” he pressed the numbers her brother had given him. It took five rings to finally reached her.
“Hello?” Her voice, always cheerful, sounded like sunshine against his ear.
“Maddy, it’s J.T.”
“John Thomas?” she said warmly, pleasure vibrating in every syllable.
It made him feel guilty because he had to tell her what he knew she didn’t want to hear. There was the murmur of another, deeper voice in the background. Annoyance took him by surprise. It was sprinkled with a touch of jealousy. That in itself convinced him he was doing the right thing.
“Who’s that?”
“My client.” He heard her making an excuse to the other man before asking him, “To what do I owe this unexpected honor? The last I recall, you didn’t want my cell number.”
“Your brother gave it to me when I called the shop.”
He heard concern seep into her voice. “Is something wrong?”
J.T. could almost see her in his mind’s eye, holding the tiny black phone he’d seen her with to her ear, her lips almost touching the base of the receiver. The warmth and yearning that came over him seemed almost automatic. Silently cursing his juvenile behavior, he told himself to grow up.
“Are you free for lunch?”
There was a pause on the other end. He knew the backhanded invitation had taken her by surprise. But he didn’t want to do this on the telephone. It was the coward’s way out and he had never been a coward. Except maybe about this.
“I can be. In say, half an hour?”
There was a smile in her voice. It reached out and touched him, compounding his discomfort.
“Half an hour’s fine,” he told her.
They made arrangements to meet at a restaurant not too far away from where she was with her client. She’d have to drop the man off at the shop first, but she assured J.T. that she could make it in plenty of time.
Hanging up the phone, he began to plan what he was going to tell her. He’d never been good at voicing his feelings. No matter how he phrased it, none of the words sounded right to him. He figured they never would.
But it had to be done.
Before it was too late.
Maybe it already was.
Traffic had been worse than she’d anticipated. Lunchtime was a mad scramble of people trying to find time for their private lives within the space of forty-five minutes to an hour. She made the best time she could, considering.
He was waiting for her when she arrived at the restaurant, a trendy little place where people went to get a little solitude. She didn’t exactly know why, but she could feel nerves dancing throughout her body. Maybe it was because he’d never invited her out before. He’d shown up at her shop and on her doorstep, and agreed to meet her in places she suggested, but he’d never initiated anything himself.
Maybe he’d finally passed a major hurtle.
And maybe he hadn’t, she thought. Walking toward him, Maddy braced herself the second she saw the look on his face.
This wasn’t going to be good.
She’d fooled herself these last few months, she realized, telling herself that crawling into his life the way she had was something she was doing for his sake, to draw him out among the living. But that wasn’t quite the case.
Not entirely.
Oh, she’d started out with those intentions, wanting to help get this man out of his shell. But somewhere along the way, she’d found herself getting tangled up in a whole different set of feelings. Feelings that had more to do with the man he was than with the man she was trying to get him to be.
More to the point, she found herself falling for him.
Big mistake, Maddy thought.
He probably realized it and thought so, too. Maybe that was what this was about. Maybe he was about to gently ease her out of his life.
Something within her froze.
As he half rose in his seat when she approached, she saw that there was a determined look in J.T.’s eyes that even the romantic lighting in the restaurant couldn’t hide.
Funny, if she hadn’t been acutely aware of the shift in her own feelings, she would have taken the look to be no different than the one he’d given her all the other times he’d resisted her gentle and not-so gentle nudges to get him involved in something outside of his own pain.
Uneasiness made her see things more clearly.
“This is a pleasant surprise.” She slipped into the seat opposite him. He’d chosen a secluded table, she noted. Was that to give them privacy, or because he didn’t want anyone seeing her in case she caused a scene? Maddy tried to stay upbeat. “Usually I have to do the suggesting.” She took the menu in her hand without glancing at it. Instead she looked at him. “Turning over a new leaf?”
Damn it, how could a woman in a business suit look so damn alluring? Why did she have to look this good? But then, when had she ever really looked bad? Even that first night, when he’d found her swollen with child, her hair all but plastered to her head, she’d still looked radiant. In the throes of agony and obviously scared, she’d still managed to look better than any woman had a right to, outside of a movie screen.
He wanted her. Badly. And that was just the trouble. He didn’t want to want her. Not on any level. Not for sex and definitely not for something more.
He realized that she’d asked him a question. Something about turning over a new leaf. “No.”
“It’s not about the apartment, is it?” She was grasping at straws and she knew it, but she was trying to divert his attention.
Nearly a month ago, she’d managed to wheedle a grudging invitation out of him to see his apartment. Appalled by the Spartan way he lived, with little more than the basic necessities as far as furniture went, she’d started out by making subtle suggestions about how he could change things. Suggestions led to her bringing him photographs, which led to her dragging him to the actual store where the pieces of furniture or accessories were.
In what she knew was a moment of weakness, he’d surrendered, allowing her to do what she wanted to his apartment. In the space of a few hours, she’d pulled strings and gotten things delivered, turning the cold residence into a home.
She’d known she had surprised him with her abilities, although he’d tried hard not to show it. Surveying the final results, he’d gruffly asked her if she hadn’t already had enough to do, with the new baby and the business. She’d answered that she believed in squeezing every last drop out of life. That performing miracles, as she termed her work on his apartment, gave her life additional depth.
That was when he’d finally allowed that the changes suited him and that he liked what she had done to the place. Coming from him, she’d considered it the highest praise possible.
But praise was the furthest thing from her mind now. He wasn’t here to talk about the apartment. She knew that. But like an ant in the path of a rushing tidal wave, she was bound to try to put up barricades in hope of surviving the inevitable.
If she survived, she could rebuild.
He’d been here over half an hour, waiting, he thought, having his stomach tie itself up in small knots because he both wanted and didn’t want to do what he was about to do.
“No,” he said curtly, “it’s not the apartment. I already told you I liked it.”
She tried not to let his tone get to her. “So you did.” She took a bread stick from the basket and began to shred it s
lowly. It was time to stop waltzing. “What is it you wanted to see me about?”
The only way to get through this was to say it and be done with it. “I want my life back.”
Chapter 10
Maddy sat before him, silence hanging between them. Damn it, he was supposed to feel relieved, not guilty.
“I want my life back,” J.T. repeated.
She folded her hands before her like a school girl sitting at attention in a classroom, listening carefully lest she miss something.
Maddy leaned forward, her eyes intently on his. “And it’s being held hostage by who?”
She knew the answer to that better than he did, J.T. thought. “You.”
Maddy cocked her head. “Excuse me?”
He didn’t want to go into it, didn’t know how to make her understand. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he even understood the whole thing himself.
All his previously rehearsed words deserted him. None of them made any sense anyway.
He took a breath, as if that could somehow help. “I don’t want my life getting tangled up with anyone’s.”
“I wasn’t aware I was trying to entangle you.”
They could have been talking about the weather for all the modulation he heard in her voice—a sure sign, he realized, that he’d hurt her. Maddy sounded enthusiastic about almost everything.
“Well, try or not, you were. He was.” She looked at him, not comprehending. “Johnny,” he explained. Both she and the boy had begun burrowing into his life, taking up more and more space. Hell, he woke up every day looking forward to seeing them. That was a bad. Very bad. “And I can’t go through all that again.”
“Through all what again?” Stunned, feeling numb, Maddy desperately tried to make some kind of sense out of what he was telling her. “Feeling something?” she hazarded. The flicker in his eyes told her she was right. “J.T., if you don’t feel, you’re not alive, you’re only going through the motions.”
He raised his chin defensively. “Well, that’s enough for me. That’s all I need to do, to go through the motions.” J.T. rose. Sorrow was beginning to shade her eyes and he couldn’t bear to look at them, knowing he was responsible. But if he gave in, it would be even worse in the long run. “I just wanted to tell you that, so that you’d know.” He paused one moment. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“I know that,” she said quietly. “But I don’t want it to be you.” She raised her voice as he began to walk away. “I don’t want you to be alone like that, John Thomas. If it can’t be me, make it someone else.”
The words had followed him all the way to his car. All the way through his day and all the days and nights that followed. She cared that much about him, worried that much about him, that she was willing to let him be with someone else as long as it meant he was happy.
What the hell was wrong with her? he demanded silently, slamming his locker door, taking his anger out on anything in his path. Nobody was that selfless.
She was.
She was better off with someone else, he told himself, striding to his squad car. Someone who could care for her the way she deserved. And he was better off getting back to square one, where he’d been all this time. Before he’d met her.
During the day, J.T. existed within the walls of the apartment she had redecorated for him and tried not to think of her. For two weeks, he tried. He volunteered for second shifts, covering for anyone who didn’t come in. Trying to outrace his thoughts. And the feeling of loneliness that had crept out again.
Loneliness.
He hadn’t realized the specter was gone from his life until it returned again with all its hopelessness, all its darkness.
It was as black as it had been before, except that this time, he had been the one who brought it into his life.
He had the shell that he’d demanded back and it was cutting off his very breath. It didn’t fit anymore. With each day that passed, it grew tighter around him and more confining. Making him claustrophobic.
He was a walking time bomb, ready to go off and he knew it.
And still he didn’t pick up the phone, didn’t drive the short distance to her house. He felt that if he could only hold his ground long enough, things would be all right. He’d get over her, like the flu.
Fenelli stood it as long as he could. And then, the second hour into one of their shifts, he turned and looked at his partner as they drove by the silent industrial park on the west end of Bedford. “Look, maybe you don’t want my advice—”
J.T.’s profile remained stony as he looked straight ahead into the night. “I don’t.”
Fenelli ignored his dismissal. “But you’re going to get it anyway because if you don’t do something, and soon, a bunch of us guys are going to take you behind the precinct and shoot you,” he informed him. “It’ll be a mercy killing—” He slanted a look at J.T. “For you and for us.”
Irritated beyond patience, J.T.’s head snapped around and he looked at his partner. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He was talking about the hurt he knew J.T. was trying to avoid. The hurt, unless he missed his guess, J.T. was going through right now.
“I’m talking about the fact that we take chances in life no matter what we do.” Fenelli turned around the block. “That being a cop is taking a chance. That stepping off a curb is taking a chance.” Fenelli pushed on though he knew that the analogy hit far too close to home. “Some lousy drunk might come careening around the corner and knock you straight into Kingdom Come.”
“The point?” J.T. growled.
Fenelli pulled over to the curb and looked at the young policeman he’d taken under his wing when he’d first been assigned to him, wet behind the ears.
“The point is we don’t know what’s coming today, tomorrow, or even an hour from now. None of us do. All we can do is take the little bit of happiness we might be lucky enough to find along the way, and the way I see it, you got lucky twice. Don’t blow this second chance you got, J.T. you’ll regret it for the rest of your life—short though that may be because we are going to shoot you if you don’t get back with her, make no mistake about that.” Finished, he moved away from the curb again and started down another long stretch of street.
J.T. blew out a breath. “Maybe you have something there.”
Fenelli grinned, though he didn’t turn to look at J.T. He’d gotten through, at least a little. “Yeah, maybe I do.”
Maddy didn’t know she could care for someone so quickly, or hurt so much so fast when they left. But she could and she did.
Each day that passed since J.T. had walked away from her and out of the restaurant was busy.
Each day was empty.
Empty despite the baby she adored and the work she loved. Empty despite her family who, as always, had rallied around her with a minimum of questions and a maximum of support.
She’d get over it, she told herself, struggling with her feelings. She’d survived John’s death; she would get over this.
But not anytime soon.
Because it was Mother’s Day and her family had come out en force to gather at her house in order to celebrate the day, Maddy pinned a smile to her lips and tried to act as if she wasn’t weeping inside. Who knew, if she pretended hard enough, maybe she’d begin to believe it herself.
After all, that was what had happened with John Thomas in the first place. She’d tried so hard to draw him out, she’d gotten drawn in.
So she mingled, and hosted, and made small talk. All the while thinking of him and wishing he were here.
Well, he wasn’t going to be here. He’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want to see her anymore and he hadn’t been around for almost three weeks. Why should today be any different?
She paused to scoop Johnny up from his playpen and hug him to her. “You’re the only man I need in my life,” she murmured against his cheek.
Johnny squirmed in response.
A faint melodious chime echoed somewhere in the background. �
�Doorbell, Maddy,” Bill called to her. He was standing closer to the front door than she was. “Want me to get it?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s okay.” Walking by Bill’s latest girlfriend, a forensic expert attached to the coroner’s office, Maddy placed Johnny in her brother’s arms. “Entertain Johnny, I’ll get it.”
Maybe it was a friend dropping by, she thought, making her way to the front door. Everyone in her family was already here, and then some. Her brothers had each brought their current flames and her dad was busy surveying the lot under her mother’s watchful eye.
A smile curved Maddy’s lips as she turned the doorknob. Her father wasn’t twenty anymore, but he acted it at times. It was one of the things she found endearing about him.
Her smile froze in stunned disbelief the instant she opened the door.
Was this just wishful thinking?
She blinked, but he continued to stand there.
“It’s you.”
J.T. almost shifted in his discomfort before he stopped himself. He was holding a large bouquet of flowers in his hands and felt absolutely devoid of the courage that saw him through every day.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Because she was looking at them, he became aware of the flowers he was clutching. He’d told the florist to throw every flower she could think of into the bouquet. One of them had to be Maddy’s favorite. “These are for you.” He thrust them toward her. “Happy Mother’s Day.”
Taking them, she still looked a little uncertain. She hadn’t thought that something like Mother’s Day registered with J.T.
“Thank you.” She took a deep breath. The fragrance was wonderful. Maddy raised her eyes to his. “I thought it might be a peace offering.”
“Actually it’s that, too.” Out of steam, he paused, searching for more words and coming up woefully empty. “Can we have it? Peace?”
“I never went to war, John Thomas,” she told him quietly. “You did.”
He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug before letting it drop. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 16