“She was too young.”
“You ran because you knew you couldn’t deny her anything,” Jared said. “You knew if you stayed, you’d make love to her, because she wanted you to. You left because you were scared.”
“I left because I loved her!” Jax argued.
“You didn’t even have the decency to tell her you were going—”
“Because what Kevin threatened to do was—”
“So what are you saying?” Jared’s dark eyes were intense. “Are you saying that you want me to make the same stupid mistake you did? I thought one of the reasons you were writing this story was to give yourself a chance to do it over, and do it right this time.”
“Fine!” Jax threw up his hands. “I’ll write that love scene. But I’ve got to warn you, friend. It’s only going to be one night. And things are going to get much worse before you get your happy ending. I’ve got another 230 pages to fill.”
Jax sat in his sports car. From where he was parked, he could see light streaming from the front window of Kelly’s apartment.
He’d left his hotel room this evening after writing a passionate scene between Jared and Carrie. Writing sensual scenes made him restless, in need of air. He’d intended to go to a movie, but somehow he’d wound up here.
He’d waited for Kelly this afternoon as she finished up her calculus exam. He’d asked her to go out to dinner again, and again she refused. This time he could barely keep up with her as she nearly ran to the newspaper office. She’d disappeared inside with only a quick goodbye, not giving him enough time to kiss her again.
God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her the way Jared had kissed Carrie in the scene he’d written only a few hours ago. Jax wanted to kiss Kelly the way he had on that night so many years ago—prom night….
At first Kevin had refused to let Jax take Kelly to the school dance. He’d followed Jax all the way downtown, to the tux rental place. A little bell had tinkled as they walked into the air-conditioned interior of the tiny shop.
“I need a tux,” Jax told the skinny man behind the counter.
“No, he doesn’t,” Kevin countered, folding his big arms across his beefy chest. “I need a tux.” He turned to Jax. “She’s too young for you.”
The shopkeeper removed a measuring tape from around his neck, and stood looking at them. “You both want tuxes?”
“No.” Jax smiled. “Just me.”
“No.” The fierceness of Kevin’s voice was a sharp contrast to Jax’s cool control. “Not him. Me. I need it for tonight.”
“I’m taking her,” Jax said mildly to Kevin. He leaned against a glass-topped counter that held an assortment of bow ties and cummerbunds.
“She’s a kid.” Kevin’s face was pink with anger. “You should be dating women, not little girls.”
“Don’t you trust me?” Jax asked, his voice level.
“No, not after the way I saw you looking at her this afternoon.” Kevin ran his hands through his short red hair in exasperation as he glared up at his friend. “Hell, Winchester, she’s only sixteen!”
“I know how old she is.”
“You better keep that in mind. She’s jailbait, pal.” Kevin took a threatening step forward, stabbing Jax’s chest with his forefinger. But Jax didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even blink. “You mess with her,” Kevin threatened, “and you’ll end up in prison. And I’ll personally escort you there.”
The two young men locked gazes for several long moments. Then Jax smiled, shaking his head slightly. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt her, Kev.”
“Mess with Kelly and I’ll kill you,” Kevin repeated, but the anger was gone from his voice.
“I’m crazy about her,” Jax admitted. “I’ll take good care of her, I promise.”
“You are crazy.” Kevin laughed with disbelief. “Beth has a gorgeous friend who’s dying to get naked with you, but you want to go out with a girl who’s barely out of diapers. I just don’t get it.”
Jax smiled. “You don’t have to get it. Just relax. I want to go out with Kelly tonight, and you want to go out with Beth. We’re both doing each other a favor, okay?”
“I still think you’re nuts.”
Jax looked at the shopkeeper, who was watching them with unabashed interest. “I need a tux for tonight,” he said again.
But the shopkeeper shook his head. “What’re you? Six foot five? I’m sorry, no can do. I only had a few rental tuxes in your size, and they’re out. Won’t be back in ’til Sunday.”
“Then I’ll buy one,” Jax said.
“You’ll what?” Kevin’s eyebrows disappeared under his thick red hair.
Jax smiled at his friend. “I’ll buy one.” He looked back at the shopkeeper. “And I’ll pay extra if you get the alterations done by this afternoon.”
By five o’clock, Jax had showered, shaved and finished putting on his brand-new tuxedo up in Kevin’s room. He didn’t remember being this excited about going to his own junior prom.
Kelly’s door was still closed, so he headed downstairs to wait for her. Jax stopped in the kitchen first, pulling the flowers he’d bought her out of the refrigerator and carrying them into the living room.
Nolan O’Brien was lying on the couch, reading the newspaper as Jax came in, and he looked over the top of it, smiling. Kevin and Kelly’s father was an older, heavier version of Kevin. He had the same red-orange hair, thinning a bit on top, though, the same beefy frame, the same cheerful disposition and millions and millions of the same freckles.
“So you’re the sacrificial substitute date for the prom, eh?” the older man asked, not bothering to move from his relaxed position on the couch.
“It’s no sacrifice, Nolan,” Jax said easily, sitting down in the rocking chair that was across from the couch. He leaned forward to put the flowers on the coffee table.
“A corsage and a dozen roses,” Nolan said, looking at Jax appraisingly with a slow smile. “I was wondering when you were going to start noticing that Kelly’s almost all grown up. Looks like it finally happened.”
Jax smiled.
Nolan folded the newspaper. “I suppose I don’t have to give you the normal ‘date speech’ that I give the rest of the boys that take Kelly out—you know, the ‘no drinking and driving’ speech, the ‘get her home before midnight’ speech…”
“I know your rules,” Jax said, nodding. “Although you might want to cut loose with the curfew for tonight. Kelly told me there are after-prom parties scheduled one after the other until sun-up. And then, if it’s warm enough, everyone’s heading over to the beach.”
Nolan nodded. “Okay,” he said agreeably, swinging himself up into a sitting position. “Just don’t forget, Kelly comes across as being much older than she really is. Keep in mind that she’s only sixteen. There’s a big difference between sixteen and twenty-two, Jax.”
The older man’s eyes were intense. Jax smiled, realizing that Nolan was giving him a polite version of the same message Kevin had delivered at the tuxedo shop: Don’t mess with Kelly.
“I know,” Jax said quietly.
“Good.”
Ten minutes later, Kelly was sitting next to Jax in his little red Spitfire, and they were heading down the road toward town, toward the restaurant where he had made dinner reservations.
Jax glanced over at her, still struck by how beautiful, how elegant and poised she looked.
When she’d appeared in the living room, his heart had nearly stopped.
She was wearing that fabulous blue gown, and her hair was pinned up, swept back loosely, femininely, from her face. She was wearing makeup and her eyes looked more blue than they ever had before, with her long, dark lashes accentuated. Her normally pretty, fresh face looked exotically beautiful with her hair up, giving Jax a good look at the gorgeous woman she was destined to become in the next few years.
Kelly was a child-woman, a curious mixture of innocence and poise, elegance and enthusiasm. She was unconsciously sexy—well, mayb
e not entirely unconsciously. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her slinky gown because the back of the dress was open. True, the top wasn’t tight fitting, but the smooth material occasionally clung to her lithe body, and the effect was…extremely distracting.
He’d thought he’d have no trouble taking her out like this. He’d thought after four years of being close friends with Kelly that it wouldn’t be hard to remember she was still only a kid.
So why was it that he could think of little else but how her lips would feel against his?
Jackson’s pulse was running too fast, his heart pounding. Relax, he ordered himself, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Just relax. Stay cool.
“This feels…strange,” Kelly said, glancing at T. from beneath her eyelashes. She laughed softly. “You look as tense as I feel.”
“I’m not tense,” Jax protested, reaching up with one hand to loosen the tight muscles in the back of his neck. “Are you tense?”
“Yeah,” she admitted with her usual candor and a brief, charming smile. “I just keep thinking…well…maybe we should go Dutch tonight.”
“Dutch?” he said, disbelief in his voice as he looked over at her. “Nope. This is on me, Kel.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to make you pay for everything—” she turned slightly in the bucket seat to face him “—just because I happen to be female. Especially considering that I shanghaied you.”
“Do I look like I’m suffering?” Jax asked, amused.
“You never look like you’re suffering. That’s why it’s so hard to tell whether or not you actually are.”
“I’ll let you know if and when I start,” he assured her with a grin as he pulled up to a red light.
She looked up at him, and he returned her gaze. Her face was so familiar. He knew her so well. Or did he? He knew the child, not the woman. And sometime during the past few months, she’d suddenly become part woman. Her skin looked so smooth, so pale compared to the inky darkness of her hair. Yet her cheeks were flushed with a soft glow of good health, her mouth curved up into a small smile, her eyes bright, sparking as they met his own. Jax could imagine himself drowning in the blue depths of her eyes. Imagine? Hell, he was drowning.
A short beep from the car behind him told him that the light had changed, and he forced his eyes back to the road. After a moment, he glanced quickly at Kelly, but she was looking down at the small clutch purse she was holding in her lap, a faint tinge of embarrassment on her cheeks.
God, she knew everything he was feeling just from looking into his eyes. He’d learned a long time ago that he couldn’t hide things from Kelly, so why should he expect to be able to hide this?
The main problem, was that he wasn’t exactly sure what “this” was.
Was he in love with her?
If he wasn’t in love with her already, he was definitely teetering. No, not just teetering, he’d already lost his balance. There was nowhere for him to go but over the edge.
Kelly glanced at him again, smiling, and Jax felt a sudden lack of gravity deep in the pit of his stomach.
Free fall. He was in free fall, there was no doubt about it. He’d taken the plunge, and he was falling hard and fast.
Add into the equation all the feelings he was already carrying around for Kelly. It was one hell of an emotional attachment, and one he couldn’t deny. Add to that this explosively intense physical attraction…
If she were eighteen years old, he would court her ruthlessly. He would use every trick in the book to get her to fall in love with him, too. He would take her out, buy her presents—hell, he’d even seduce her. He would tell her and show her in every way possible that he loved her. He would make love to her endlessly. And then he would get down on his knees and beg her to marry him.
God, he actually wanted to marry her, as in ’til death do us part, as in happily ever after. There was just one problem. She wasn’t eighteen years old. She was sixteen. Jailbait, as Kevin had so indelicately put it.
For one wild moment Jax wondered if Nolan and Lori O’Brien would give their daughter permission to marry him now. But as quickly as the thought entered his mind, he pushed it away. It wouldn’t happen. Kelly’s parents would never agree to it. They would say that she wasn’t old enough. And they would be right.
There was just no getting around it. Kelly was too young.
That left him only one option. He’d simply have to wait for her to get older.
“This is strange,” Kelly said. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you so quiet.” She laughed softly. “Usually I can’t shut you up.”
“Sorry,” Jax said. “I was thinking.”
“About the job offer you got from that London magazine?”
He looked over to find her watching him, her face serious. “What do you think about that? Should I take it?”
She was quiet for so long, he thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer. But when he glanced back at her, she was still watching him steadily.
“I can’t answer that fairly,” she finally said. “See, when I think about it, I can find all kinds of reasons why you should take that job. I mean, come on, T., you’d be living in London. That would be so great. You could spend your vacations in Europe.” She looked away from him, out the window, at the spring wildflowers that were growing along the sides of the road. “It’s true it’s not a lot of money,” she continued, “but you’d be paid to write. After a couple of years as a staff writer for the magazine, you’d have name recognition, so if you ever started working on that novel you keep talking about, you’d probably have an easier time selling it.”
She was quiet, and he glanced at her again. “But…” he prompted her.
“I’d miss you,” Kelly said simply. “That’s why I can’t answer your question fairly. I don’t want you to live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Happiness exploded inside of Jackson. “Then I won’t go. I’ll find a job in Boston.”
“Tyrone, don’t tease.”
“I’m serious.”
“But—” she started, then stopped, her eyes widening as Jackson pulled his sports car into the parking lot of the Breckenridge Inn, the fanciest restaurant in the area. “Whoa, T., what’s this?”
“This is where we’re having dinner.” Jax pulled into a parking space at the edge of the big lot.
“But this is too expensive—”
“You’re worth every penny.”
“I would’ve settled for Bertucci’s,” she said.
“Why settle?” Jax pulled up the parking brake and turned off the engine as he smiled at her.
Kelly’s eyes danced with delight. “Why don’t you have women falling all over you, T.?” she asked. “You’re so smooth, you put James Bond to shame.”
“It’s the name.” Jax sighed. “Winchester,” he said in his best Sean Connery. “Tyrone Jackson Winchester the Second…No, see, my name’s way too long. By the time I finish saying my name, all the gorgeous women have either fallen asleep or they’ve gone off with the guy with the shorter name.”
Kelly laughed again and Jax glanced at the dashboard. The digital clock read 5:35. The prom didn’t start until eight o’clock. There were two hours and twenty-five minutes before he could dance with Kelly, before he could hold her in his arms. He wasn’t sure he would survive until then.
Of course, compared to the four hundred and fifty-nine days he had to wait until she turned eighteen, two hours and twenty-five minutes was a piece of cake.
She was looking at him, her lips moist and parted slightly. God, he wanted to kiss her. God, he wanted to…
“Shall we go inside?” he asked, opening his door. But Kelly put her hand on his arm. Even through his jacket and shirt, her soft touch made him freeze.
“Jackson—” she began to say, then stopped, pulling her hand back onto her lap.
“Uh-oh.” Jax tried to be light, turning toward her. “You only call me that when you mean business. What’d I do?”
Kelly sh
ook her head. “There’s something I want to ask you, and I’m not really sure how to.”
“You’ve never had a problem being direct before. Just ask.”
She looked down at her hands for a moment, then shook her head again, laughing softly. “This is stupid, but…” She looked up at him. “Is this a real date?”
Kelly was looking directly into his eyes, and again Jax had the sensation of drowning. He was being pulled under again. Sooner or later, he was going to go down, and he wouldn’t make it back up. “I think so,” he said slowly. “What’s the definition of a real date?”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and Jackson’s eyes were drawn to her mouth. He couldn’t look away—he was hypnotized.
“A real date is when you go out with someone that you like enough to kiss good-night when it’s over,” Kelly said softly.
When, oh when, did the inside of his car get so tiny?
Jax pulled his eyes away from the delicately shaped lips that were only a few scant inches from his own mouth. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “This is a real date.”
“Could you—” Kelly said haltingly. “Could we—” She laughed self-consciously and started again. “T., this is going to sound really weird, but the thought of kissing you is making me really nervous and—”
“Then I won’t kiss you,” he said quickly.
“No, that’s not what—” She shook her head, laughing again. “See, I was just thinking if you kissed me now, I could stop being nervous about it.”
“Now,” Jackson repeated. He held on tightly to the steering wheel, afraid that if he let go, he’d lose his balance. She wanted him to kiss her. Now.
“I mean, it would take some of the pressure off, don’t you think?”
No. No, he did not think that it would take any kind of pressure off at all. Not for him, anyway. Still, when he looked into her eyes, he knew there was no way on earth he could turn her down.
He felt himself lean toward her, closer, closer. He reached out his hand to cup her face. Her skin was so soft underneath his fingers. He ran his thumb across her lips.
Letters to Kelly Page 5