by Tamryn Ward
“How long have you known Jane?”
“Only a few months but we’re best friends. We do almost everything together.” She paused for a moment then added. “Turn right at the next light. My house is at the end of the street.”
“Okay.”
They rode the remaining distance in silence. Jason dropped her off and insisted on leaving Jane at Lori’s house. Lori was politely stubborn, declining a houseguest for the night. She gave him concise directions to Jane’s home then stumbled inside and closed her front door.
Jason followed the directions, pulling up to a quaint house converted into a multi-family. He found her door around the back. After returning to his car, he tried to wake her but when she remained unconscious, he rummaged through her purse for her keys then walked around to unlock the door before carrying her inside. When the door swung open, he found a long, extremely narrow staircase. That would be a bear to navigate with a limp woman in his arms.
Curious, but not wanting to leave Jane snoozing in the car for long, he dashed up the stairs and opened the door at the top. He found a cramped but homey apartment. Traditionally furnished with soft chenille couches and feminine draperies and rugs, it was exactly what he’d imagined her home would be like. The kitchen was tidy but used. Baked goods and a bowl of fruit sat on the counter. Back in the living room, he noticed the French door opening to what looked like a terrace overlooking the front of the house.
He stepped outside and checked his car, parked almost directly below. Everything looked okay. He could take just a minute more to snoop…no, find the bedroom. He would need to turn down the bed so he could put her right to bed when he carried her up.
Yeah, that was it.
Back inside, he opened the only door off the living room, finding a small room with only two pieces of furniture—a small dresser and the largest four-poster bed he’d ever seen. There was almost no space to walk around it and ultra-feminine, it wouldn’t normally be something he’d appreciate. But he had to admit it was beautiful, romantic. Dressed in filmy white sheers with tiny red ribbon roses embroidered throughout, it beckoned him. He sat and ran his hand over the ivory satin comforter.
A person’s bed, especially their pillows, usually held their scent. He lifted a pillow to his nose and inhaled.
Heaven and lavender.
“Jason? What are you doing in here?” Jane slurred as she staggered into the room, bouncing off of walls and furnishings like a pinball.
He dropped the pillow and, totally awkward and uncomfortable for being caught on her bed, he jumped to his feet. “I was going to turn down the covers for you.”
“Oh, that’s sweet.” She smiled and staggered toward him, looking like she’d fall over any moment.
He reached out and caught her before she did and supported her as she took the last few steps toward the bed. As she hobbled around him, she stomped on his healing foot and he bit back a cry of pain. Even after three weeks, it was still a little sore.
She dropped onto her bottom then fell backward, leaving her legs hanging over the side. He forgot his pain.
Bent backward like she was, her short skirt barely covered her vitals and he had to force himself to look elsewhere. She was wearing black lace panties. He loved black lace.
Her eyes closed, she said, “I don’t feel so good. I think I had a little too much to drink. I hate being drunk. Why did I do this to myself?”
“You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“Oh, I remember now,” she said, answering her own question, or so he assumed. She drew her legs up onto the bed and rolled to her side. The neckline of her top slid down, exposing her matching black lace demi-bra and the tantalizing swell of one breast. “You aren’t leaving right now, are you?”
A mountain-sized lump formed in his throat as his gaze glued itself to that smooth ivory skin. He could even see the pink of her nipple through the lace. It was erect. So was one particular part of him. “I should be going.”
“Won’t you stay for just a little bit? I’m tired but I need to tell you something. I know I won’t have the nerve to tell you later.”
“Okay. I’ll stay for a short time.” He looked around the room for a chair. Of course there wasn’t one.
Jane patted the bed. “Do you want to sit?”
“No thanks.”
“Please? It’s making me dizzy looking up at you like this.”
“All right.” He sat on the very edge of the mattress as far as he could from that exposed breast. To further remove temptation, he pointed at her chest. “Your top.”
“Yeah. It’s new. Do you like it? It’s a very bright color. I don’t usually—“
“No, I mean it’s a little…needs to be fixed.”
“Oh.” She glanced down and quickly made an adjustment. A soft pink stained her cheeks. “My goodness. You weren’t lying. Better?”
No. “Yes. Thanks.”
“Anyway. I wanted to tell you something.” She rolled over onto her stomach.
“Yes, you said that.”
“You’re probably going to think I’m crazy,” she said, picking lint off the soft blanket. “But I swear I’m telling you the truth.”
“I would never think you’re crazy.”
“We’ll see about that. Um…I don’t know how to say this.”
“Just spit it out,” he suggested, noting how nervous she appeared. Her gaze was fixed on the blanket she was practically picking apart.
“Okay. It’s about Monica and me. You remember when you asked me about the time at your house?”
“Yes.” He wondered where she was going with this.
“Well, you were right. It was me. I was there.”
Ah ha! I knew it. I wasn’t going crazy. “How? Was she wearing some kind of wire?”
“Oh no. Nothing like that. I was her. I mean, I was the one at your house that night. You were talking to me.”
Huh? “Oh?”
She looked up, her watery, bloodshot eyes searching his face. “I don’t blame you for not believing me. It’s pretty much impossible.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“I’ll go back to the beginning. Do you remember my question about wishing on stars? We were at the cider mill.”
“I remember that night with Monica, yes.”
“That was me then too. I asked that question for a reason. One Monday night a while back I made a wish on a falling star…or a meteor…or something. Anyway, the next morning I woke up in Monica’s bed.”
That sounds…kinky…but what does it have to do with anything? “Really?” he asked, not able to disguise the doubt in his voice.
“Yep. I swear it’s the truth. I don’t know how it happened. I’ve always been jealous of her. Of her fancy cars and rich boyfriend and what I thought was her sheltered life. I thought she had it so much better than me and I envied her. Anyway, somehow some fairy godmother or pissed-off god or someone switched us by magic and I was her and she was me for a while. Kinda like that Freaky Friday movie. Did you see that by any chance?”
“No.”
“Me neither. I was wondering how they were switched, thought it might shed some light on how it happened to me.”
“You think it was your fairy godmother?” he asked, recalling his earlier conversation with her girlfriend, in particular the part about the green spacemen.
She chuckled. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. I believe in fairy godmothers too.”
Her smile was broad. Her eyes sparkled, despite the dilated blood vessels making them look blood-red. She rolled over onto her back and settled her head on a pillow. Her hair fanned out around her face like liquid mahogany. Her eyelids fell to halfway cover her eyes. “You do?”
“Sure.” Despite the almost excruciating urge to curl up with her in that bed, he drew the covers up over her and stood. “Thanks for explaining. Now how about going to sleep?”
Still on her back, she raised herself
on her elbows. “Are you humoring me?”
“Absolutely…not. Go to sleep. I’ll see myself out.”
“But doesn’t this mean anything to you?” She sat up. He swore her eyes were sloshing around in her head like an ice cube in a stirred glass of water. She’d feel like heck tomorrow morning. He wished he could be here to take care of her, give her some aspirin, an ice pack for her pounding head.
“Sure.” He patted her knee.
She caught his wrist with one hand and held her head with the other. “Yikes. Can’t move too fast right now. Stop moving so I can focus, would ya?”
He remained motionless for a moment.
“That’s better. Thanks. Now I can ask you, don’t you see what I’m trying to tell you?” She tipped her head and looked up at him with round eyes. Her expression was so serious, so innocent. Her lips were soft, glistening wet, tempting. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her.
He needed to leave. “Yes. I understand. It was you. Now, lay down. You need to get some sleep.”
She gave his wrist a sharp yank. “But I was the one eating the ice cream and talking about babies and farms and marriage and all that other stuff. So I need to know…which one is it?” He gaze searched his face and he could read the desperation in it.
“Which one what?” he asked, knowing what her answer would be but unable to face it.
“Which one of us do you love, Jason? Monica or me? I need to know.”
Jason couldn’t answer her question. Not at the moment. There were too many peoples’ hearts at stake. Too many lives potentially shattered. He had to think things through. He had to do what was right for everyone. That did not involve a hasty answer to a drunk woman’s desperate question. Yet, he couldn’t hurt her feelings either.
A quick retreat was his best bet. Maybe her friend was right and she had a crazy imagination. Maybe she didn’t know what she was saying.
Like a chicken, something he never prided in being, he headed for the door. “Jane, get some rest and we’ll talk about it later.”
“Promise?” she said behind him as he made his getaway.
“Promise,” he answered, hoping by morning she would have forgotten all about it. Or better yet, come to her senses.
There was no such thing as fairy godmothers. And wishes—even made by lonely little boys on falling stars or on extra-special, limited edition coins thrown in wishing wells—didn’t come true.
He had indisputable proof of it.
Chapter Fourteen
Jane saw neither hide nor hair of Jason throughout November and half of December. Monica didn’t send her on any more excursions to check out banquet halls and he didn’t make an appearance at her wedding shower.
She guessed whatever had happened the night she’d gotten tanked, both Monica and Jason had decided she shouldn’t be near him any longer, or vice versa. She was almost glad she didn’t remember what she’d said or done—she tended to get amnesia from imbibing too much. From the aftermath, she guessed it had probably been pretty darn stupid.
Tonight, as she did her hair for the annual company Christmas party, she tried to convince herself she’d have a good time. Again, she would probably be the only one there without a significant other, but it was becoming tradition. Why change it now? Besides, who would dance with Mr. Kaufmann’s aged father? In his nineties and still going strong, the man could dance the night away with the best of them.
She made sure she had a dress she could move in without exposing anything important and heels that wouldn’t make her lame in fifteen minutes then headed out to the car. She’d briefly considered sharing a ride with Lori and her boyfriend but quickly dismissed that idea as downright stupid. The last thing she needed to be tonight was a third wheel.
Tiny snowflakes, glittering like diamond chips, were falling from the sky, coating her car, the grass and the road in a thin layer of white dust. Not bothering to brush it off the windshield, she put the gaily decorated package she carried in the backseat, then got in her car, started it and flipped on the heat and the wipers.
Bone-chilling air blasted her in the face, doing nothing to melt the snow that coated the windshield. Luckily, it was light, versus the thick heavy snow that came later in the winter and accumulated by the foot. The wipers did the trick, whisking away the thin layer in one swoop. She didn’t wait for the heat to warm up before she put the car into gear and drove to the banquet hall where the party was being held.
“I’ll eat, dance a few with old man Kaufmann then head home,” she told herself, dreading the evening and wishing it was over before it began. At every turn, she considered going back home and forgetting the whole thing, but the fifteen-dollar ticket tucked safely in her clutch kept her from actually going through with it.
Money was money. She rarely spent so much on a night out. Also, she knew Lori would not let her get away with pulling a no-show. She’d call every minute until Jane answered the phone and agreed to come. Friends could be real pain in the you-know-what sometimes.
By the time she pulled into the parking lot, she was prepared to make her entrance. She parked, sucked in a long breath to try to wash away the last bits of regret for showing up, and walked inside.
The first face she saw was the last one she’d expected—Jason’s. He was standing smack-dab in the center of the foyer, looking toward the door. Monica was nowhere to be seen but had to be there somewhere too, perhaps the ladies room. Neither had been expected to show up. According to rumor, Monica had said she wouldn’t be attending the Christmas party.
Why did she have to change her mind?
When her gaze locked with Jason’s, Jane felt her face heat up. Desire washed away the dread and she felt herself being drawn across the room toward him, as if pulled by an invisible rope. To stop herself, she gripped the closest stationary thing she could find, the door handle, and hung on, hoping the temptation to throw herself at his feet and beg for a hug would pass.
Just one little hug. That would be enough to last a while, at least a week…okay maybe not.
Someone outside rapped on the door and she reluctantly released it so they could enter the building.
Forcing a smile, she walked toward Jason and nodded. “Hello, Jason. It’s good to see you again.”
“Hi, Jane. You too.”
As she continued past him, she forced herself to look straight ahead, toward the room at the opposite end of the hallway and the sign sitting on the easel that read, “Kaufmann”. She felt his gaze on her back, whisper-soft and warm, like a caress.
She sighed. “Well, if that wasn’t awkward!” she murmured to herself. This night was going to be even worse than she’d thought. Even more reason to eat and make an early escape—and above all avoid alcohol.
She saw the usual characters as she paused just inside the door and scoped out the scene. The people who rarely saw each other during the normal workweek chattered with each other like old friends. Mr. Kaufmann junior was sitting at the bar, tilting a little to the left already, nudged by a few brandies, she guessed. His father was on the dance floor, practicing his moves to the mood music playing on the speakers. The DJ wouldn’t start playing the dance music until after dinner, but the elder Mr. Kaufmann was always anxious to get his groove thang loosened up early. For that, he needed a partner. Jane knew her goose would be cooked the minute he saw her, so she tried a stealth maneuver toward the closest seat, at a round table about ten feet from the door.
Right away she spied a familiar purse sitting on the chair. This was not the ideal table to sit at. She glanced up to see if the dancing man had spied her yet.
Nope. But his gaze was headed in her general direction. If she dared try for another table, he’d see her for sure. She was not about to get out there and dance to orchestrated 1980s tunes in front of the entire office…again.
She hunched over a little and headed to the next chair she could find with no purse or napkin signifying possession by some roaming individual and sat in it. Determined to make this
temporary and find another seat as soon as possible but suffering a throat as dry as the Mojave, she tucked the wrapped gift for her Secret Santa under the table and reached for the metal pitcher of ice water.
“Over here, honey,” she heard Monica say.
Jane’s mild case of dread developed into a severe one. She guzzled the water, which seemed to miss the dry spot in the back of her throat as she swallowed and frantically searched the room for another empty seat.
Maybe dancing to the elevator-music version of Like a Virgin wasn’t such a bad thing.
Monica sat beside her and smiled. “Jane! I’m so glad you made it. And I’m glad you decided to sit with us. You remember Jason.” She pointed over her shoulder at a red-faced Jason who was standing behind her, playing the gentleman by pushing in her chair for her. The huge rock on her left ring finger glittered in the light from the table’s centerpiece candle as she pointed. Even after all this time Jane couldn’t help noticing it.
“Yes, I remember. We bumped into each other out in the lobby when I first came in,” Jane said, trying hard not to stare at his handsome face. Was it possible he’d gotten better-looking since she’d last seen him? Her heart ached as memories of moments shared alone with him buzzed through her mind. “I was surprised…to see you came this year. This has to be the first time, isn’t it?”
Jason took his seat on the other side of Monica, too far away yet not far enough.
“Yes. I usually avoid these kinds of gatherings like the plague. But every year I hear all the stories about this party and regret not coming, so this year I decided no matter what I’d have to come. Have you had a drink yet?” Monica asked, stirring a tall glass of something with a swizzle stick that looked like a candy cane. “I can send Jason to the bar for you.”
“Maybe later. What’re you having?” Jane asked, eyeing the glass with suspicion. “That’s not your usual water with lemon.”
“Long Island Iced Tea. I’ve heard they’re fabulous.” Monica took a sip and wrinkled her nose. “Whoo. Strong.”
“More like lethal,” Jane summed up as she tried to get a glimpse at Jason. He seemed to be hiding behind Monica.