“Nan, I’m not being a prude. It’s just…don’t you think that it’s too much, too fast, too soon with Jesse?”
“Are you having as much fun as you say you are?”
“Yes.”
“Is he as incredible of a lover as you said he was?”
“Yes.”
“Is he--God forbid such a travesty--a zero out of bed?”
“No. He’s funny, interesting. He talks to me, and you know when I tell him something personal, it’s like he understands.”
“This just gets better and better. And you’re wanting to run away from all of this fun because…?”
Alexi sighed. “I sound pretty dumb.”
“Not dumb, just a misplaced sense of duty. The same problem that kept you on the road to wedded bliss with Roger.”
Shuddering, Alexi grabbed her water and took a hefty drink. No way in hell did she want to be back there.
“Listen, girlfriend, what you got going on now doesn’t happen often. Are you going to give it up?”
Thirty minutes later, Nan’s question still rambled in Alexi’s head as she slipped into Lucy’s room. But surprise at seeing the usually active Lucy asleep took precedence over the Jesse dilemma. Lucy looked paler and the shadows under her eyes appeared more pronounced. Had the new medicine failed? Surely, Karin would have said something this morning other than Lucy had a restless night.
Maybe that was all that was wrong. Alexi made a mental note to check with Lucy’s nurse before leaving. The dancing balloons had sunk to beribboned orbs that dangled halfway to the floor and Lucy had Amanda Lee wrapped in a soft blanket propped next to her on the pillow. The sight brought a rush of warmth to Alexi’s heart. By passing on the doll, Alexi had shared a part of her mother--a special love from the shadows of the past to shine upon another little girl’s heart. Even though Lucy was asleep, Alexi felt the need to just be with her a few minutes. It was a selfish need. Being in the hospital and sharing her time with Lucy and the other ill children put life into perspective, and brought the important things into focus.
Moving quietly, she sat by the bed and brushed her fingertips over Amanda Lee’s soft blanket, remembering times when the doll had been her only comfort, her only friend. Life would never be that simple again.
The warmth and strength of a large hand on her shoulder cut through her thoughts. Jesse had found time to come. She looked up at him and realized her life would never be more complicated that it was now. Her breath caught and her stomach tightened when she saw what he held in his hand. Four new red balloons, fresh dancing balloons for Lucy. Leaning over, he tied them to the bed rail. It would be the first thing she’d see when she awoke. Not wanting to disturb Lucy’s sleep, Alexi signaled for Jesse to meet her in the hall.
A deep frown furrowed his brow, making him appear grimly fierce. “She looks so pale, so very tiny, and so frail.” He shook his head and she could see the heartfelt concern weighing him down. “I didn’t realize. She has such bright eyes and such a big smile that I didn’t see how sick she was. Is she worse?”
“I don’t think so. All Karin said was that Lucy had had a restless night, but I’ll check with the nurse.”
“Good idea.” Jesse turned and headed to the nurse’s station. He moved like a man on a mission and Alexi almost had to run to keep up. Just before they reached the nurses’ station, she slid her hand into Jesse’s. “Let me talk to the nurse. The look on your face will scare the woman to death.”
“What look?” Jesse frowned harder.
“The look that says you’re going to grab life by the throat and shake it upside down until it starts dealing fairly with a little girl who likes to make red balloons dance.” She squeezed Jesse’s hand. “Thanks for thinking of bringing them to her again. I know they’ll make her smile when she wakes.”
“I wish I could do more.” Jesse kept a hold of her hand.
“Me too.”
She learned from Lucy’s nurse that they were keeping a close eye on Lucy and running a few more tests to make sure the new medication was helping, otherwise everything was the same.
“Is that good news?” Jesse questioned after the nurse had left. “I mean shouldn’t the new medication make her better?”
“Just keeping Lucy’s condition from worsening is a Godsend. Her only hope is a transplant.”
“I see.”
She let her hand rest in Jesse’s as they left the hospital. Somehow the burden of Lucy’s situation didn’t seem as heavy as before and she realized he had a way of easing her burdens. Like after the wedding when dealing with her family. The concern about the strange incidents, and now her worry over Lucy. He was a man a woman could rely on when difficulties arose and the fact that she was beginning to rely on Jesse didn’t sit well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All the way to Roger’s office, Alexi stomach churned with her thoughts turning her insides to butter. Being in Jesse’s constant company did strange things to her heart and her head. Even the prospect of confronting Roger took a back seat to Jesse.
The closer they got to the bank, the grimmer his expression became. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?”
“I’m sure. This is something that I need to do alone.”
He drove into the bank’s parking lot.
“I won’t be long.”
He glanced her way, but didn’t say anything.
She’d dressed comfortably in a coordinating silk cardinal red suit, top, and black heels—the black heels Jesse wanted her to wear to bed tonight. He hadn’t mentioned them again, but she’d caught him looking at them as she slid out of the car. She slowed her movements, easing out of the low seat as sensually as she could. That was all it took. One look from him and one slight movement from her and the tension between them turned into something else. Something hot and low and burning.
He raised his gaze, following the line of her leg all the way up past the hem of her skirt to the contours of her breasts beneath the clinging silk blouse then to her gaze.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She knew what he wanted to do. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She let her body tell him that she wanted him too. She kept up her confident easy pace all the way into the bank. As she walked through the doors of Holstead’s Bank and Trust, she saw several people that she’d known casually either through her grandmother or Roger, and she waved or smiled at them as she passed. The more people she met the slower she walked. By the time a third cold shoulder turned her way, and the sounds of whispering filled her wake, she realized that for the first time in her life she was being shunned. It was an uncomfortable, eye-opening experience to be ostracized, and it gave her a small idea of what Jesse had faced years ago and maybe even now.
Keeping her head high and her smile firmly in place, she approached Roger’s secretary. The bony woman had angles as sharp as her tongue, and looked up with a frown.
“Mr. Holstead is busy this afternoon, would you like to leave him a message Miss Jordan?”
“Sorry for the misunderstanding, Mrs. Colby, but I have a three o’clock appointment. Please tell Roger I’m here.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken. Mr. Holstead’s three o’clock appointment is with someone else.”
“I know. A Miss Orlan, right?” Having purposely made an appointment under the wrong name so that she’d be assured to see Roger with the surprise advantage on her side, Alexi sweetened her smile and intoned her voice with just the same French accent she’d used the make the appointment. “You misunderstood, oui?”
Mrs. Colby’s face mottled to red. “Well I never.” She marched in a huff to Roger’s office. Alexi followed.
Mrs. Colby stuck her head into the open door of Roger’s office. “You won’t believe what she has done. She’s—”
“I made an appointment to see you under a false name,” Alexi finished for the woman and stepped into Roger’s office. As always, image was everything to Roger.
He nodded to Mrs. Colby. “No prob
lem. Thank you Irma.” Mrs. Colby left, looking down her sharp nose as she passed. Roger leaned back in his chair, not bothering to stand as Alexi walked into the office. “Well, I must say this is a surprise. Are you on my doorstep to gloat?”
“This is hardly your doorstep,” she said, shutting the door. Roger didn’t look the least bit remorseful, or sorry, or heartbroken. Either he wasn’t wearing his heart anywhere near his sleeve or Benny was mistaken about Roger’s state of mind. She also wondered why she never realized that Roger, although handsome in a golden-haired Hercules sort of way, lacked a certain sincerity about him. A sincerity that she recognized in Jesse, it was part of the sensual nobility he exuded.
As she studied Roger, she realized something else. He no longer held any place or importance in her life. She looked at him and felt nothing, as if everything that had happened prior to her wedding never existed. Why did she feel that way? Was there something wrong with her? No. He was never the man she’d thought he was. He had played a role and she’d been no different. But now she’d stepped out of Disneyland.
“Doorstep or whatever. I’m sure you’re not here to argue semantics, Alexi. So why don’t you get to the point? You and your revenge have already cost me more than I can afford.”
She frowned. Revenge? “Fine. You want the point of why I’m here? Then tell me why are you harassing me? Why the break-in and destruction of the honeymoon suite? Why the phone calls?”
Roger shot up out of his office chair so fast it flipped. “What the hell are you talking about? Harass you? You’re the one who has sent pictures of me to the tabloids. I’ve been forking money out the whazoo and threatening major lawsuits to keep them from being front-page fodder. How did you get the pictures anyway? Did you or your lover hire the chicks and then pay some sleaze ball to take pictures? Any man is going to go for it when three chicks strip and start rubbing him everywhere and then rubbing each other. Especially if all he’s had for the past two years is plain old vanilla sex.”
Alexi grabbed the back of the chair in front of her, but kept her composure. “We’ll skip your sexual problems and focus on the rest. Either you’re insane, or something is very wrong.”
“What? Are you going to play little Miss Innocent? Sorry, but the tabloids spoiled things in their front-page story about him. I’m not a man who believes in coincidence and I think it’s pretty farfetched to believe that this Weldon guy was left at the altar when his bride ran away with another man and then the same thing happens to me.” Roger opened his desk drawer and pulled out a newspaper and tossed it onto his desk. The picture of her and Jesse kissing glared at her. “You never kissed me like that, so there’s no pretending that you aren’t intimately acquainted with him. Everybody around town is talking about how you’ve been sleeping around, playing me for a fool.”
Alexi clutched the chair back. If she had wanted an honest read of Roger’s state of mind, she’d gotten it, and it wasn’t pretty. “I don’t know anything about the pictures other than they were anonymously delivered to me thirty minutes before the wedding and I haven’t seen them since. Besides the few I threw at you, the rest were left behind in the bridal tent.” She walked over and stabbed the paper on his desk with her polished fingernail. “The last time I saw Jesse was when I was seventeen years old. When I ran into him in the park, I asked him to kiss me because I wanted to wipe the memory of your lying kiss out of my mind. After seeing pictures of you screwing around with three women at the same time, that seemed very important. And as for passion, maybe you just aren’t the lover he is. Now, are we going to have a civil discussion or are you going to sling mud?”
“You’re lying, Alexi. There’s no way you knew this guy at seventeen and then kissed him like that out of the blue. That’s a lover’s kiss there.” Roger laid the newspaper out flat. See his hand on your ass? See your back arched to press your tits against him? You two are lovers and there is no denying it.”
“I see that I’m wasting my time. Leave a message at Nan’s should you ever decide you’re interested in getting to the bottom of this. You might try looking at who would benefit by exposing your pictures to the press.”
“You and your do-gooder image. If you can make me out to be the bad guy then you’re set to take off with your lover. Only it backfired didn’t it? If, by a remote chance you’re as innocent as Benny claims then I think you need to take a good look at the guy you’re with. Seems damn strange that this conveniently happens after he comes to town. Maybe he’s behind the harassing, so he can play hero. Maybe he’s a closet Ted Bundy.”
She marched to the door and jerked it open. “Blaming Jesse is going too far. Someday Roger, things are going to catch up to you and I pity any person who’s around you then.” Though she wanted to slam the door and scream at everybody who turned their nose as she passed, she kept her poise and left the bank with dignity. Roger may have professed to be a gentleman, but when it came down to the wire, he wasn’t. By the time she reached the car where Jesse waited, she shook with anger.
Jesse looked at her and started cursing. He flung open his car door. “Whatever that bastard did, he’ll answer for it.”
“No, wait.” She grabbed his arm. “That’ll just make a bad situation worse.”
“It can’t get worse. You’re quivering like a kitten pinned by a Pit Bull.”
“I’m just angry. Thanks to our picture in the paper, Roger, and apparently half the town, are convinced that I was cheating prior to the wedding and that we set him up to have those pictures of him taken with those women.”
“He what?”
“Also pictures of his sexapade are being mailed to tabloids by me.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Jesse that Roger blamed him for everything, even the break-in and the phoning, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to add more fuel to Jesse’s fire.
“Alexi don’t you see what’s happening here? Either Roger’s lying and is trying to muddy the waters, or someone else is pulling stings to make you two dance like puppets.”
“I don’t think Roger was lying. He was too genuinely upset about his own circumstances. So that leaves us with an even bigger problem.”
“What?”
“Who!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “There isn’t anyone. Unless a business rival of Roger’s is behind this and they’re trying to diminish Holstead’s Bank and Trust’s image by tarnishing Roger.”
“Businesses have done worse for less, but it feels like we’re stretching. I think Roger or Benny could be behind it all, but Andy is who I have my eye on. That guy screams suppressed anger from a mile away.”
Alexi shook her head. “You just don’t know Andy.”
“Face it, Lex. If you were a struggling artist working in a gallery, and that said gallery didn’t even feature any of your work, wouldn’t you be resentful? How long has he worked for you?”
“Two years. But he’s never even asked me to exhibit his stuff.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to discover him.”
“I don’t think so. Why do you think it could be Benny? Why don’t you consider some stranger has targeted me for some reason?”
“I haven’t ruled out the stranger aspect. But somehow this all seems personal. And whether you can see it or not, I think Benny hangs the moon on you.”
“You’re mistaking Benny’s concern for me for something else. We’ve known each other since diapers and he and Roger have been friends since college. I think it’s an even further stretch to believe that two years after Roger and I became engaged that Benny suddenly decides he doesn’t like Roger and me together and sabotages the wedding.”
Jesse sighed. He wasn’t going to get anywhere if she kept shooting down his suspects. Was she blind to the potential danger from people around her, or was he not seeing someone he should? It was a damn good thing she was staying with him. “Roger could be doing it all or even just behind the hotel vandalism. What’s he like?”
“At what?” Sex was her first thought. Vanilla com
pared to Jesse’s triple chocolate raspberry truffle? She blushed.
“I don’t want to know what you two did between the sheets. Just from your reactions I can tell that. What—”
“What do you mean you can tell by my reactions?”
He just grinned at her and shook his head. “A guy can tell what kind of lover a woman has been with by how she reacts.”
“How?”
“Hell, I can’t just spout it out in words. I’ll just show you later, okay. Now let’s get back to what we’re supposed to be talking about here. Unless you’re angling to have sex here in the parking lot of the bank in broad daylight?”
He reached over and slid his hand up her leg from the strap of her shoe to the hem of her skirt. She clamped her legs together and pushed his hand away. “Oh, no. I am absolutely NOT going to get caught doing that here with you.”
“Am I to take it then that you’d do it here with someone else?” A devilish light of humor danced in his pure blues.
She gasped. “You could twist—Yes,” she said, realizing how to take the wind out of his sexual sails. “I’d do it here in broad daylight with Gerard Butler.
“You would?” His grin bit the dust as if she’d grown horns.
“Of course. Now what do you want to know about Roger?”
Jesse frowned and she could see he was reluctantly letting the Gerard Butler discussion go. “What kind of temper does he have? What sort of hobbies is he into? Does he operate on an even keel, or is he a bit unbalanced?” Jesse’s voice had just a slight nose-out-of-joint tone to it, and she smiled.
“I would have said Roger didn’t have much of a temper at all, but then I’ve never seen anyone cross him until today. He was more animated today than ever before, even stood up so fast that his chair flipped. But he didn’t make any violent actions or threats. Golf is his hobby. What else can I say?”
Jesse exhaled. “Nothing at this point.” He started the car engine. “Where to next?”
“My father’s office. We’ll be early, but I have a question or two for Benny.”
Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Series) Page 18