“Don’t cry, Jenna. The world is a harsh place, and sad things happen.” Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, and Jenna saw herself as a little girl unable to let go of the brown-skinned baby girl who had died in her arms.
“We gotta save her, Mama. She’s not really gone. See, she’s still warm. Feel her. She’s not too far gone yet.”
Her mother took the baby from her. “We have to go on and try to save the next one. Save your energy for that.”
Her parents had never let her express her emotions, and they’d never expressed theirs either. Death and suffering were part of their daily lives, and they bore it all with stoicism. She used to think her parents were cold, but now she understood the delicate balance they’d maintained between caring and not caring too much.
Mitch had upset her precarious balance.
To prove that, her heart sped up when she heard his motorcycle return. She had to restore her serene facade, deal with the truth tomorrow, and try to piece her life back together afterward.
She gave him enough time to go upstairs before making her way back to the house. As she opened the kitchen door, she remembered something he’d said. I hate him and I love him, but I’ve got to know the truth. It’s the only way I can stop this war going on inside me.
“You all right?”
His voice startled her, as did the sight of him leaning in the doorway. His hair was disheveled from his ride, face flushed.
“Fine.”
He nodded, straightening and readying to leave. “Good night, then.”
She opened her mouth to return the farewell, but something she’d never admitted before came out instead. “I feel the same way about him.”
Mitch turned back to face her. “What?”
She removed her sweater and hung it up on the hook by the door. She found herself walking toward him, pausing in the doorway in front of him. “I lie in bed at night listening to the blood pulse in my ears, and I hate him with one beat and love him with the next.” The guilt she expected to feel didn’t come, and neither did recrimination shine in the eyes that held her gaze.
When he reached out and touched her chin, warmth washed away the chill inside her. “It’s okay to hate the person you love sometimes. Hate, love and joy make life worth living.”
When his thumb ran along her lower lip, she felt that pulse she’d spoken of jump to life. No, no, not with Mitch! She shouldn’t be feeling this way about him. She hated him for making her face the truth about her husband, hated him for making her feel warm and tingly every time he looked at her. She would — could never love him.
She moved away when she realized he wasn’t releasing her. Breaking away from his gaze, she turned and said, “Good night.”
Long after she’d prepared for bed, she could still feel his touch on her chin and lower lip. He’d touched her like that several times, and Jenna could remember every second of each touch. As she got into her bed, she had a startling realization: Paul had been her husband, yet he’d never touched her like that. He held her when she needed a hug, yes, and whenever a touch seemed appropriate. But he’d never just reached out for no particular reason and connected with her.
She had seen other couples do it, those subconscious touches that spoke of intimacy, hardly noticeable to others. But Jenna had noticed, and she’d always felt a peculiar emptiness or longing, perhaps. She’d never thought to question why, because she had a perfect marriage.
She shivered, pulling the covers up over her shoulders. One question haunted her as she tried to drift into sleep: if the surge of electricity between her and Mitch was because of the connection they had from Paul’s heart, why did Mitch’s touch affect her so much more than her own husband’s had?
Mitch woke with a start, surprised to find daylight creeping through the lace drapes. When was the last time he’d slept through the night?
He put on jean shorts and a blue T-shirt, both a little wrinkled from having resided in the bottom of his duffle bag for two days, and headed downstairs. The sounds of Jenna in the kitchen made him feel more at home than he did, well, in his own home. Betzi was usually puttering around in the kitchen in the mornings, but something about the knowledge that it was Jenna making those clinking noises sent a strange kind of warmth through him.
“Good morning,” he said, helping himself to a cup of coffee.
She was standing by the sink, slathering butter on a bagel, wearing blue shorts and a white shirt. “If you say so.” She gathered up her coffee cup and plate and said, “I usually eat breakfast out at the gazebo. You … can join me if you want.”
It wasn’t really an invitation, but Mitch piled three bagels on a plate and followed her out to the gazebo. The air outside was cool and crisp, and the salty breeze toyed with her light hair as she sat watching the people on the beach.
Something in the distance made a smile curve her mouth. It was the first time he’d seen her features relaxed, her eyes lit with pleasure. He took a deep breath to get rid of the tightness inside him, then looked to see what could make this lady smile like that.
Three kids were squatted down on the beach studying a circular arrangement of stones. Someone had left a happy face there last night. When she realized he was standing there, that smile disappeared, chilling him at the thought that he could extinguish it with his presence alone.
“You were born to smile, you know that?”
She just looked at him for a moment, then turned away. “I don’t have much reason for doing it anymore.”
She let those words hang, and they did hang heavy around Mitch’s neck. He cleared his throat. “You said your parents were gone.”
She nodded, looking out over the pale blue ocean. “My parents were missionaries. When I was six, they got the calling, as they put it. We traveled all over Africa, helping the sick and poor.” Her voice grew soft, and she smiled faintly. “There were times when I understood why they did what they did. All those people looking at you like you’re the only hope they have. We were always the minority, and sometimes they thought we were god-like. And when we could save a sick baby …”
“It was wonderful. We were god-like then. But all those other times, when we held them as they gasped their last breath.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You were asking about my parents. Being the minority wasn’t always a good thing. We were perceived as a threat to some. Like the group of rebels who gunned my parents down. My parents knew about the unrest that day, but they went into town anyway. Maybe they thought God would protect them.” She looked over at him. “He giveth, and He taketh away.” She had seen so much, explaining the haunted look he sometimes saw in her eyes. Those gray eyes had seen tragedy so young. Whatever it was that had started to bother him last night returned to niggle at the edges of his mind.
“And He taketh away and giveth,” he said, referring to Paul and his heart. “You weren’t with them when they were killed, did you?”
“I followed them,” she said in that low, soft voice. “I was afraid. Maybe I thought I could keep them safe by being there. But I couldn’t. I hid in the bushes until the rebels left, and then I ran back to the village like a coward.”
“You weren’t a coward,” he said, imagining a young girl who must have been terrified. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“What happened afterward? Where did you go?”
“I went to live with my grandmother in Haiti until she died. The church she was affiliated with scraped together some money, enough to get me back to the States. I got a job with a furniture restorer, paid the church back and met Paul and I don’t want to talk about myself anymore,” she finished in a stream of words.
His fingers curled over the arms of the chair. That shadow edged closer. “During your surgery … and afterward. Who was with you?”
“I told you, I don’t want to talk —”
“Just tell me.”
She shifted in her chair. “There were lots
of people around. Doctors, nurses, all kinds of people. When I came home, I hired a nurse to stay with me here for a few months.”
He shook his head, quick jerky motions. “I’m not talking about people who were paid to take care of you.”
She looked away, but he caught sight of the tremble in her chin. Her words came back to haunt him: I can take care of myself. I don’t need anyone, got it? The realization hit him like a wrecking ball, right in the gut. He shot to his feet, leaning over the table toward her.
“You went through it alone, didn’t you?”
She backed away from him, mouth tightening. “Yes, I went through it alone. I didn’t have a choice. But I’m here. I survived. It’s not the first time I’ve been alone.”
He straightened, running his hand through his hair. “God, Jenna, you lost your husband and went through major surgery … alone.”
This delicate woman had survived, but he could see at what price in her eyes. That son of a bitch abandoned her because he was driving recklessly, doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. All he’d left her was this house and a string of lies. And now Mitch was being a bigger son of a bitch by making her face those lies.
“Dammit!” He slammed his palms down on the table surface, making her flinch. “Dammit.” Then he turned and stalked back to the house before he went against his vow and took her in his arms and made her forget everything for a while. He wanted to erase every sad memory that tainted her eyes. Those times she’d cried, they were the times the fortress she kept around her had crumbled. He’d watched her quickly patch it and hold up that cute chin of hers as she did it.
Where was this rage coming from? The same place Paul’s love and protectiveness had come from? Not from Paul, that much he knew. He stared at the pictures lined up along the edge of the desk in the office.
“If I see you in hell, I’m going to make you pay for what you did to her.”
And then he sent those pictures flying across the room.
Jenna stared at the kitchen door for a long time, feeling overcome by Mitch’s display. All that passion blazing in his eyes on her behalf wrapped around her insides. No one had ever been angry for her, or even at her. It was strangely touching. After a short time, she picked up their uneaten bagels and returned to the house.
He was standing in the kitchen. “Let’s go for a ride. Clear our heads before we start.”
She had no choice but to follow him, or so it seemed. He grabbed his black leather jacket on the way to the front door. When they stepped outside, he headed to the shiny dark red and chrome motorcycle. It was a Harley Davidson, with storage compartments on the back and each side. The seat was long enough for a passenger.
“Why don’t we take the car?” she asked.
“We don’t have to talk on the bike. We just ride and feel the wind and speed.”
Not being closed up in the intimate space of the car was almost enough to give her the courage to ride the beast. Not that he was giving her a choice. He held the jacket up for her, and she slid into it. She was instantly enveloped in the sense of Mitch, as though he’d put his arms around her. He unhitched a helmet from the bike, walked over and placed it over her head, then put his on.
“I’ll be careful,” he said at her apprehension, straddling the seat and nodding for her to do the same.
She’d never ridden a motorcycle before, although she’d had a scooter in Haiti. She stepped over the seat behind Mitch.
With a lurch, he started the bike, and she cringed at the loud blast of sound so early in the morning. He turned around and said, “Hold on. Lean with me into the turns, okay? Don’t try to fight me.”
That’s when she realized she’d have to put her arms around him. This was worse than talking! At least she didn’t have to look him in the eyes, she thought, sliding her arms around his waist but trying to keep her upper body from touching his.
Within moments they were speeding down the winding road along the coast. As soon as he’d hit the gas, she had instinctually moved up against him. Holding on for dear life, she assured herself.
She watched familiar sights whiz by, swept up in the cool air blasting her, drunk on the speed. She could feel Mitch’s muscles working as he maneuvered the bike around the curves. Beneath her splayed hands, his stomach moved in and out with his breathing.
For the first time since her transplant, she felt alive and free. Carefree. Exhilarated. She let all of her anxieties and doubts go, reveling in the powerful sound and vibrations of the bike.
Her body stirred at the revelation, combined with all the other sensations swirling through her. She was pressed intimately against Mitch, breasts crushed against his back, thighs pressed against his. Heat burned wherever they touched, a sensual dizzying heat she’d never felt before. She could feel her heart racing in tune with the engine, the adrenaline coursing through her the way it had just before Mitch arrived.
He pulled into one of the small beach parking lots and turned around. “You all right?”
She blinked, feeling a little too all right. “Fine,” she shouted back over the engine, knowing that word didn’t touch the way she felt.
He nodded and hit the gas. Mitch was everything this bike was: stimulating, fast, rumbling with energy. Dangerous to feel like this with him, dangerous to be pressed up against him like this and enjoying it.
Still, she felt an acute disappointment when he turned into her driveway. She jumped off the bike the moment he killed the engine, but all of the vibrations and heat still rocketed through her body.
He took the helmet from her, their fingers brushing casually but not without impact. “Now that we’ve cleared our heads …” he said, his mouth quirked in a way that indicated the ride had not, in fact, cleared his head.
She ran her fingers through her hair. “Yeah. It worked wonders.”
Mitch brought a list of the dates Paul had withdrawn money from his account. In the hours after her ride, Jenna had dug through the files looking for the bank statement that matched those dates, finding each statement missing. She had requested that the bank fax her the missing statements.
Even though the big desk was cluttered with papers, she noticed that the pictures of her and Paul weren’t sitting along the back edge of the desk anymore. Mitch had stacked them on the far corner.
When he noticed her looking at the stack, he said, “We needed the room.”
Mitch took each page as it came off the fax and laid it on the desk. “Here’s the first deposit,” he said, pointing to a two-hundred-thousand-dollar entry. “Three days later he withdrew it.”
Jenna could only stare at the numbers. Up until then, she had convinced herself that the missing statements were a coincidence. But now more evidence mounted against Paul.
“The second withdrawal matches another deposit and cash withdrawal made in December two years ago.”
That one was for one hundred thousand dollars.
“Maybe he put the money into the houses we were buying and didn’t want me to know about it.”
Mitch matched up another deposit/withdrawal. “Do the dates coincide?”
She willed them to match up. In every case, like the last one, the transaction occurred sometime before they’d sold their house and bought another one.
Mitch had a determined expression on his face, as though he’d become an auditor for the IRS. His eyes softened, however, when he looked up at her. “Do the dates coincide with those blue moods you were telling me about?”
“I … I don’t know. I never kept track of them.” She tried to remember what they’d been doing when each one hit. “Christmases. And … before he died. He was down in the dumps before he went house-hunting in Maine. Real edgy, restless, walked in his sleep more.” There were times when Paul had seemed suddenly frantic to sell their current house and move on.
“So we don’t know for sure if his moods centered around these withdrawals. None of them were made just before Christmas, but that’s a tough time of the year for a lot o
f people.” He looked at the calendar, but she had the feeling that statement was true of himself as well. “What did you do last Christmas, Jenna?”
“Started hating Christmas,” she admitted. “I was living in that complex near the hospital. We set up a tree and decorated it, sang carols.” She’d been so empty, singing words of joy and not feeling any of it. Feeling guilty over that. Not wanting Mitch to feel pity or worse, that passion on her behalf, she said, “How will we ever find out what Paul did with that money?”
“We might not. But if we put enough pieces together, we might be able to at least make a guess.”
“How much money did he have access to?”
“We’re allowed to withdraw four hundred thousand a year without question, plus expenses and upkeep on Bluebonnet Manor.” Mitch’s expression grew grim. “Even after dad died, he still wanted to control us. He stipulated that we have to go through our financial manager if we want to withdraw more than that amount. That’s why I’m making my own money.”
The wind chimes from the house next door tinkled pleasantly, adding to her building hope. “Yet over these last nine years he only took out eight hundred thousand.” Only! “If he killed your parents for money, wouldn’t he have taken advantage of that, and of living without expense at the manor?”
“I’ve hung my hopes on that, too, but it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he couldn’t deal with it once the deed was done. Maybe it was a crime of passion. He’d been having problems with my parents. Something could have snapped. Maybe after he realized what he’d done, he didn’t want anything to do with the money.”
“Maybe he just couldn’t handle the horror of his parents’ deaths. Somebody broke into his home and killed his parents. And then the police looked at you and him as suspects. Of course it was stressful. Who wouldn’t want to get away from all that?”
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