by Nina Crespo
The guard’s stern expression didn’t waver. “If you don’t have an authorization badge, I can’t let you in.”
“I don’t want to go in. I just need someone to see if Ethan can step out for a minute. I’m—”
The phone at the desk rang, and the guard turned away to answer it. While she waited, the elevator doors opened and she studied the people walking out of it, looking for a familiar face. When they scanned their badges to open the lab entrance, she peered in praying she’d see Ethan. The door closed and sense of hopelessness opened up in her chest. Her cell dinged the arrival of a text message, and she glanced at the screen. It was Tab. FYI—Straightened out Brenda’s text messaging etiquette.
A reminder came into her thoughts. She’d never deleted Brenda’s text. As her finger hovered over the list of messages, warnings flooded into her mind but she ignored them. She clicked on it and stared at the photo of Greg and his girlfriend smiling down at their baby girl. For the past year, she’d fortified herself with thoughts of him being unhappy. Clearly, she was the only one left with losses and regrets. Jasmine closed her eyes for a moment and they stung with unshed tears.
Damn it, I’m not going to cry over this again! I have to move on.
“Look,” the guard said. His expression was slightly sympathetic. “VIPs from Washington are in the lab today. Unless it’s an emergency, he’s probably not going to be able to come out and talk to you.” The man laid a pen and pad in front of her. “Write him a note, and as soon as things settle down, I’ll make sure he gets it.”
A collage of memories from her past flowed through her mind. Ted was right. This was it. This was her second chance, and as much as she cared about Ethan, she couldn’t let her heart get broken again because of unrealistic dreams about a relationship that wouldn’t work.
Swallowing past the large lump forming in her throat, she picked up the pen and started to write.
…
Ethan stepped out of the simulation room into the lab and blew out an irritated breath. Doing his best to control his impatience, he handed over the test weapon and held his arms out to his sides, giving the techs and engineers access to the closures on the body armor covering his chest and legs. The last-minute VIP visit had added a demonstration to the schedule and messed up his entire morning.
Damn it.
Now that he only had forty-five minutes for lunch, he didn’t have enough time to work on the plans he’d come up with that morning for his talk with Jasmine. Flowers, wine, that chocolate dessert she’d fallen in love with at the bakery up the street, and of course the one move she couldn’t resist.
Dinner.
He smiled. Why mess with perfection?
If he pushed the speed limit, he could make it to the bakery, but the rest would have to wait until after work.
As soon as the techs finished removing the equipment, he jogged out of the room and went down the hall to “cube land” where he shared office space with the tech division staff.
After retrieving his phone and keys from his desk, he hurried out the lab. As he walked toward the elevator, he checked for a voicemail message. There wasn’t one.
“Hey Ethan, I got something for you.” The guard at the reception station laid a folded piece of paper on the counter.
Wariness started to seep into his thoughts as he walked over and picked it up. He unfolded the paper and immediately recognized Jasmine’s handwriting.
I’m sorry, but…
He skimmed over the rest of the note and stalled on a sentence toward the bottom of the page. He started to feel sick.
It’s best we end things here and call this week what it was…
Anger started settling in his gut. He’d set himself up for this. Sex was sex, he knew that, and her note had just made that understanding crystal.
He released a bitter laugh and raked his fingers through his hair.
Isn’t this a kick in the ass? He’d let all that crap about love being worth the risk and having someone special get inside his head. They didn’t need to have a long, honest talk about anything. They weren’t Bill and his wife or Dario and Elaina. They weren’t in love.
A strange feeling close to pain spread through his chest.
But he cared about her, and he’d honestly thought she cared about him.
A mix of emotions started to funnel through him, things that would tear him to the ground right then and there if he let them. He closed his eyes and focused on the one he understood. Anger. It was time for him to get his head out of the fantasy world he’d let himself live in for the past week and get back to reality. He spun on his heels and headed back for the lab. Right now, the best place for that to happen was in the simulator blasting away at virtual targets.
…
Ethan walked into the guest apartment he’d been assigned and dropped his bag on the floor. He inhaled deeply and took in the scent he’d come to welcome over the past two days—nothing, just a functionally furnished, squared-away place with no memories of Jasmine. He should have been downstairs clearing his things out of the apartment she’d stayed in, but every time he thought about the tidy little arrangement Jasmine had made with Vanessa about where and how to hand off the apartment key, he got ticked all over again. She’d made a clean getaway and didn’t have a reason to talk to him.
A simple damn conversation. Was that too much to ask? Leaving him a message to say she was taking a last-minute trip for her job, okay, he could handle that. But they’d practically lived together for over a week. Didn’t sharing a closet and bathroom space at least rate a phone call to tell him how she felt instead of writing it in a note?
The same answer that had plagued him for the past two days popped into his mind. Call her.
And say what? Thank you for making me feel stupid for wanting to be with you?
Disgusted with the chatter in his head, he went out on the deck for a talk with a few shots of whiskey. The first shot went down ugly, the second a bit easier. By the third, his throat was numb from the sting of the alcohol, and warmth pooled low in his belly. His thoughts slowed, but only total obliteration would take them away. He leaned back in the chair and looked up at the darkened sky. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t get drunk. He still had one last wake-up and a few hours of work in the morning before he could point his truck north to South Carolina.
And then what would he do? Go home and feel sorry for himself over the weekend? That definitely didn’t sit right. He had to get back to normal. Mitch always had something going. Hadn’t he sent him an email about something happening this weekend? Needing a wider view than the screen on his phone, he went inside and dug his laptop out of his bag. He sat down at the dining room table, and moments later, he was in his email account. He hadn’t checked it in a while and as he scrolled through, he deleted the ones he wasn’t interested in along the way.
Horse track. He stared at the email header, and his heart bumped hard against the middle of his chest. The email address was obviously Jasmine’s, and it was dated the day before she’d left. Not giving himself time to think, he clicked on it, glanced at the photo of them at the horse track, and dropped his gaze to the words she’d written underneath.
Luckiest girl on the track, greatest guy in the world, best day ever!
He sank back in the chair, numbed by shock and alcohol. He just stared, but then something sparked inside him, and it all burned away. He shot up from his chair and paced. Each glance at the photo as he passed by the table made him madder by the second.
Luckiest girl…greatest guy in the world, best day ever—and then she’d left him that fucked-up note the next day? His skin grew so hot the top of his head tingled.
Oh, hell no! He wasn’t giving her a pass on this one. She couldn’t say that, and then pack up and leave like it didn’t matter.
He unclipped his phone from his side and as he tapped in the security code, he paused.
No, it wasn’t going down like this. Notes, text messages, emails, he was tired of
it. A phone call would be just another way for her to hide. Greatest guy in the world…he had a right to know if she felt that way about him, because if she did, she’d pretty much lied in her note to him. He wanted to know why, and he wanted that explanation face-to-face.
Chapter Seventeen
Jasmine stirred a third packet of sugar into her iced tea and watched the tiny white granules turn her glass into the equivalent of a snow globe featuring ice and lemon peels. What she would give right now for a straight-up glass of Southern-style sweet tea. It was almost as much as she would give to be on a plane flying out of the airport in San Diego instead of cooling her heels at a nearby restaurant due to another canceled flight.
Her whirlwind tour of Bode-Wynn’s facilities had left her exhausted. When the opportunity had presented itself to leave a day early, she’d jumped at it, but a freak thunderstorm was conspiring against the plan.
“And then, this big ol’ hunk of a green Martian said he’d spare my life if I slept with him.”
She shot a look across the table at Tab, her only saving grace from boredom during the past three hours.
“And of course you agreed.” She took a sip of tea and grimaced. Glancing down at the sugar caddy in the middle of the small table, she debated between more sugar or adding in artificial sweetener. She decided against both.
“Very funny, but don’t even try it,” Tab said. “You’ve been distracted ever since I picked you up curbside thirty minutes ago at the airport.”
“I’m just tired. It’s been a long three weeks and I just want to go home.”
“I have to agree you do look like hell on heels.” Tab’s gaze dropped from her face to the wrinkled white button-down shirt she’d paired with her skinny jeans. “Your hair needs a good conditioning treatment, and out of all the cute shirts I personally stocked in your closet, that’s the one you chose to put on?” She shook her head. “Well, at least you got the shoes right. You can’t be my best friend and run around looking like that. You’ll hurt my reputation as a stylist.”
A fact Tab never let her forget.
It was hard to believe the energetic redhead dressed in a fashionable blue pantsuit was once a sickly pale, awkwardly skinny kid with wild hair and braces. One thing hadn’t changed, though; she was still a mouthy, opinionated pain in the butt.
Jasmine took a long sip of iced tea and set her glass back on the table. “You know as well as I do my hair frizzes up in the rain, and this is my last clean outfit so give me a break.”
“So this is how you pay me back for taking a day away from one of my top clients to drive all the way from San Clemente to see you off?” Tab released a long sigh and sampled a few grapes from the fruit plate sitting in the middle of the table. “Not to mention I’m buying you that turkey sandwich you just turned into bird food.”
Jasmine glanced down at the picked-apart sandwich sitting in front of her on the plate. Just like with her tea, she’d debated whether to eat both slices of bread or just one, to use mayo or spicy Dijon, or adding on lettuce and tomato. In the end, she’d just lost her appetite altogether. What was wrong with her? Ever since she’d left Florida, she couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the simplest decisions.
“Come on, you can’t fool me any more than I can fool you.” Tab plucked another grape from the cluster, but before bringing it to her mouth, she pointed at her. “You have the look of a woman suffering from man troubles. What happened?”
Jasmine opened her mouth but balked at saying the words. When she was in Montana, she’d run into Jax and when he’d asked her about Ethan, it had opened up an awkward conversation she’d barely managed to limp through. Then, when Devin had taken her around the new facility in California, she’d brought out her phone to take pictures and saw the one of her and Ethan at the track in the saved file. She’d almost fallen apart. While she loved Tab, she wasn’t going to risk turning into a bawling mess in public.
“I landed the contract and had to leave, that’s what happened.”
“So?” Tab shrugged. “No big deal. Just call Ethan and invite him to Dallas.” Her face lit up with an idea and a smile. “The two of you should plan a rendezvous in Miami. One of my clients has a vacation home that’s right on the water.” She reached for her purse. “I’ll call him right now, and we can set something up for a weekend. What about two weeks from now?”
“No, that won’t work.” Jasmine looked down and started tearing one of the small hunks of whole-grain bread into even tinier pieces.
“Okay, what about next month?”
“No.”
“Well, when?” Tab insisted. “Why don’t you send Ethan a text or better yet call him and find out when he can meet you?”
“He won’t.”
“Sure he can.”
Shit…not this again.
Jasmine closed her eyes for a moment and fortified herself with a deep breath. She looked across the table at Tab. “I didn’t say he can’t. I said he won’t.”
She held Tab’s gaze and willed her to understand. She didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want see his face in her mind or deal with the questions that kept her awake at night since she’d left him. When she saw him again, which according to Bode-Wynn’s training schedules was more than a strong possibility, what would happen? Did he hate her? Did he miss her? Would he ever forgive her? How could she see him again and not want another night, another week…another chance?
Tab reached across the table and laid her hand on Jasmine’s. “Relax and stop being all paranoid about it. It’s just a weekend. I’m sure you can convince him to squeeze one in someplace.”
When she didn’t respond, Tab’s expression grew quizzical; then her laughter died away as her perfectly shaped brows arched in surprise, and her green eyes went wide with shock. She snatched her hand back and her mouth fell open. After an uncharacteristic silence, she finally spoke. “Tell me you didn’t…not again.”
Jasmine raised her chin. “I just got promoted. I have a career to think about. It was the right thing to do.”
“What could possibly be right about you walking away from Ethan for the second time?”
Jasmine opened her mouth to speak, but she stumbled over the words. That small hesitation left room for something she’d run away from for days…doubt. She pushed it aside. What was the point? She had her old job back. She didn’t want or need anything else. She’d done what was right, smart…safe.
She met Tab’s accusatory stare and big emotion pushed out angry words. “I know what I’m doing, so butt the hell out.”
Conversations lulled around them and silence spread beyond the private bubble of their table.
Tab’s eyes grew bright, and two red spots bloomed in her cheeks. “Fine.” She grabbed her purse from the back of her chair and pulled out her wallet. “Let’s go. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
Regret washed over Jasmine in icy tingles. “Wait, I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“Forget it.” Tab shook her head jerkily. Fishing out money to cover the bill plus tip, she tossed it next to the sugar caddy and got up from the table without a backward glance.
Tension lay in the space between them during the short, rainy ride back to the airport. Jasmine started to protest when Tab eased the four-door rental sedan in the lane for short-term parking but changed her mind. Disagreements weren’t new to their relationship, but her snapping like that, and Tab’s silence, wasn’t the norm. They’d been friends too long to let what happened ride and not talk it out.
Tab didn’t give her a chance. She parked the car, abruptly got out, and shut the door. Jasmine followed and joined her at the back of the car where she was taking her bags out of the trunk.
“I’m sorry.” She tried to catch Tab’s eye but her friend avoided her gaze. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, but I made the right decision about Ethan. Long-distance relationships aren’t for me.”
“Okay, I get it.” Tab shrugged and handed her the carry-on bag. �
�You have to do what’s best for you.” Suddenly, she slammed down the door to the trunk and water on the surface of the car spattered against Jasmine’s shirt. “Damn it, I can’t do it! I can’t stand here and pretend I’m okay with you lying to yourself!”
Tab whirled to face her, and Jasmine rocked back on her high heels. “I’m not lying about anything. I’m being practical.”
“Practical?” Tab’s voice rose to a higher pitch and cracked. “No, you’re not.” The movements of her hands punctuated her words. “It’s okay to be cautious after what Greg did to you. It’s even okay to scream and cry about it, and it’s definitely okay to call him and his sister every shitty name in the book, but it’s not okay for you to let what happened a year ago stop you from getting all giddy and girlie about Ethan. It’s not okay that you won’t think about the possibility of a week from now or six months from now with him.” Tears welled up in Tab’s eyes as she pointed at Jasmine. “And it’s not okay for you to keep running away from the good things you deserve because you’re too scared to take a risk.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Jasmine slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “I’m not scared to be with…” She tried to bring in more air but there wasn’t room inside her chest.
Ethan.
Something twisted inside her almost to the point of pain, and her bottom lip trembled. Being with him was the best she’d felt in a long time.
“Oh, sweetie.” Tab pulled her into a tight hug. “It’s okay.”
That’s all it took for the tears to fall in earnest for both of them. Cars weaved through the curves of the parking garage, rain drummed down on the pavement outside, footsteps hurried past them while they gripped each other in a sisterly hug. It was the type of uncontrollable ugly-cry they both hated. It guaranteed swollen red eyes, snotty noses, and flushes of heat that melted off every scrap of makeup faster than a blowtorch.