He didn’t answer her and she looked up at him to see confusion mixed in with the hurt in his eyes. “What?”
She shook her head and whispered again, “John, Jason. It’s a long story, but we weren’t really married. I mean married married. I need to explain it to you. It’s not what you think. We weren’t lovers.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her and he pulled her into the nearby hallway to a banquet room and backed her up to a wall and put a hand on both sides of her head. “What? What are you saying, Kate?”
“I’m trying to tell you why I got married. John was dying and believed his ex-wife and kids would squander the fortune he’d amassed on trivial things. He wanted it put into a scholarship foundation, but the tumor was affecting his brain. He was afraid that once he was gone mentally, they’d come in and take it anyway when he was deemed incompetent. His accountant and his attorney and I worked with him at the end to make sure they didn’t get it and he didn’t die alone.”
The most amazing light started in the back of Jason’s eyes and she could see he was finally starting to understand what she was saying as she went on, “I had a great deal of respect for John, he was a good person. And I did grow to love him as things progressed, but it was never a romantic thing. John and I were just partners and friends. I never slept with him.”
Jason’s face slowly mellowed with an emotion she could only describe as joy and he leaned right into her. “You’re kidding. Are you kidding me, Kate?”
She shook her head slowly all the time meeting his eyes. “I would never kid about something like this, Jase. I couldn’t. I couldn’t kid and I couldn’t go back on my promise to you.” She finally looked down. “At least not again after the night we conceived Kennen.”
He laughed softly and then pulled her almost roughly into his arms. “You’re really not just telling me this?”
At that, Kate’s eyes narrowed. “I would never lie, Jason. Especially not to you.”
“Oh, honey, I know, I just…” He shook his head. “You have no idea… Geez, you can’t even imagine the nightmares I had about… I tried to drown them because they were killing me. I wasn’t even sure I would survive knowing you were married. Aw, Kate, I wish I’d known. I couldn’t even believe it when I went back to your restaurant to find out who you were working for and they told me you and your husband owned it. I couldn’t conceive that you would just leave me behind like that and move on.”
She looked up at him and said, “If I was honest, Jason. I should tell you that I tried desperately to move on. At that time, I thought I would never be able to come home. I did everything I could—short of drinking like you did, to forget you. I’m sorry. Your memory was killing me and I tried so hard. But getting married was simply to help John die as he wished and gain some respectability. John thought it would be easier if I was a widow instead of an unwed mother.” She smiled hesitantly at him. “Which would have worked relatively well, if you and Kennen weren’t nearly clones. You two ruined my whole plan.”
He put his fingers up into her hair. “He has your beautiful curls, babe.” He leaned and kissed her for a long moment and then pulled back with a mellow sigh. “Kate, I can’t even believe what you just told me. I thought things were perfect to have you back, even though I knew you’d married another man. I mean, it killed me, but I knew you would have done what you felt was best, but…” He searched her eyes for a long several seconds. “Kate, are you telling me that the only time… There’s never been anyone but me that night? The night we made him?”
She was too shy to meet his eyes and simply nodded and he pulled her to him again almost reverently. He held her that way and then finally pulled her face up and leaned down to kiss her, slowly and gently, still sighing against her lips.
Somewhere in the back of her brain, she could hear footsteps and she had begun to push him away when there was a gasp and then shattering glass. They looked up to see a very surprised waitress standing in a tangle of broken stemware.
At first her face registered shock and almost anger, but when she saw Jason, she began to beam as she breathed, “Holy Moses, Jason Falcon. What are y’all doin’ back here?”
Jason grinned down at Kate and said, “Having my world unwrinkled in one sweet revelation.”
Kate blushed and in that moment, three other servers appeared around the corner, followed by Cody. She was grateful for her food service background as she shook off her sudden color and said to the moonstruck girl, “We’re so sorry we startled you. We’ll pay for the goblets. Could you find me a broom and I’ll help you clean up this mess?”
The girl didn’t even register that Kate had spoken and was still staring at Jason in a fog and Kate turned to the next young man and made her request again as Jason grabbed a nearby tote and leaned to begin gathering up the largest pieces.
By the time they made it to their table, Kate was beginning to seriously worry about the girl who still hadn’t come out of her stupor. Kate had to laugh as she and Jason sat down and Jennika innocently said, “I’ve heard a good hard slap in a situation like this brings them out of it. Maybe you could help her out, Kate. You could say it was doctor’s orders.”
Kate decided she was really going to like Cody’s heart throb. If anyone could side Cody Rawlings, it was this quick witted vixen. She apparently knew just how Kate felt. Regardless, Kate still wasn’t going to try to eat with this mindless waitress standing there staring and she got up and went in search of the manager and requested a more experienced server. A middle aged male would be nice.
Actually, Jason appeared to be in a bit of a zone himself. Every few minutes he would get quiet and introspective and then he’d look at Kate and give her a small smile and lean to kiss her. Eventually, Cody and Jennika started making fun of them and mimicking him and he finally came out of it some.
Back at his Porsche, he waved the others off and then backed Kate against the car once more just as he had inside in the hallway. She looked up at him, wondering why he was doing this instead of simply opening the door as he usually did. He had that mellow joy on his face again and she wasn’t quite sure how to take him as he leaned to kiss her, the deep green of his eyes looking liquid this close. His kiss was more insistent than she expected and she pushed at him and then looked around. Jason wasn’t usually prone to public displays of affection like this. “Jase, we are like standing in a parking lot in broad daylight. What are you doing?”
“I can’t help it, Kate. I’m so happy about you not being uh really married I almost feel guilty. He sounds like a nice guy who tragically died young but . . . I almost wish I could somehow thank him except I’m still a little jealous of him.”
“You needn’t be jealous. And he really was a nice guy. He made me promise to think about coming back to you someday.”
“He’s sounding better all the time.”
Jason leaned in to kiss her again and she put her hands on his chest and looked up at him one more time. “Jason, let me go and let’s get into the car. We’re starting to get spectators.”
Without backing off a bit, he whispered, “Kate, can I just tell you how grateful I am that you are the kind of girl who honors promises and doesn’t take intimacy lightly? Knowing that you didn’t… That I’m the only one you’ll ever…”
She put a gentle hand up and covered his mouth. “Jason, don’t. Don’t finish what you’re saying. We can’t talk about this. Not right now. Not with how volatile the attraction is between you and me. It would be foolish and it would be wrong. We need to be so careful not to play with fire. You know that.”
He sighed. “You’re right. But…” He looked down at her and she looked up at him and he finally groaned and pushed his fingers up into her hair and pulled her to him to kiss her once, almost desperately. He pulled away and said, “Falcons mate for life, Kate. You are my mate. Not talking about it isn’t going to change that.”
“Jason, I don’t want to change it. Just, tell me on our wedding night, not right now.
We need to be careful.”
“I know.” He took her hand and pulled her away from the car so he could open the door and help her in. Once she was in and he’d come around and gotten in as well, he turned to her and gave her a long, long look that was almost searing before starting up the car.
Kate sat down on the edge of her bed and rolled her neck. This had been the longest Tuesday of her life. Okay, probably not really, but it had been a long, long day. It had to have lasted more than twenty four hours.
The carpet layers had taken two full days and then the movers had brought the furniture and other things and the four of them had been moving and rearranging furniture and putting things away for hours and hours with Kennen napping and looking on from his playpen. At least when she and Jennika had finally left, Jason’s new house really felt like a home.
Then she had just wished the gate between the yards had already been installed. She was honestly too tired to want to go out and load into the car and drive around the block to come home. She was really glad she didn’t have to get up and go to a job in the morning.
Morning. She didn’t really want to think about tomorrow morning. Jason was leaving early for a four day road trip to Arizona and California. She kept having to remind herself that four days wasn’t that long because from tonight’s perspective, it seemed interminable. She lay back on the bed as she said, “Get a grip, Kate. You lasted two whole years without him. You can handle this.” How she had ever managed to survive being apart had become a mystery to her.
The next morning, she and Kennen had only just gotten out of bed when her doorbell rang. Expecting it to be Elise, she was surprised when she opened it to find Jennika on her porch. “Jennika, this is a surprise. Come in. Honestly, I’m still tired and Kennen and I are just finishing getting dressed. Would you join us for breakfast?”
The pretty, petite physician nodded. “I’ll take you up on that. As long as you’re not having something terribly rich. I have a huge day ahead. I’m working a twelve hour shift.”
As they walked into the kitchen, Kate asked, “Do you have to do that very often? That seems brutally long for a trauma surgeon. I’d imagine what you do takes it out of you.”
“It does. Even an eight hour day can be grueling. I don’t usually work twelves.”
“We were thinking of pancakes, sausage and fruit, but if you’d rather have something lighter.”
Jennika shook her head. “No, that sounds heavenly.”
They’d been eating for several minutes before Jennika brought up what she’d come for. She’d been pushing her food around with little interest and then tentatively asked, “Kate, can I ask you a question? Do you ever have a hard time dealing with the whole member of a famous band thing?”
Kate’s gut reaction was to roll her eyes and laugh, or cry, one of the two, but she resisted it. She wanted to down play the negatives as much as possible if it would help Jennika. From all appearances, she was in this for keeps and Kate hoped and prayed it would be easier for Jennika than it had been for her.
In a way, it should be. Cody had already learned to cope with the fame and money and seemed to be handling it. They wouldn’t have to wonder if he’d still love the flavor of Jennika when he got huge. He already was.
But in a way, for Jennika it might even be worse. She hadn’t had much of a chance to get used to all of this slowly. She hadn’t even listened to country music before meeting Cody.
After hesitating a second, Kate nodded to her new found friend and admitted, “At times it was very hard for me, Jennika. Sometimes it still is. I’m sure their fame had a lot to do with me leaving when I did. What is it that you’re struggling with?”
“A couple of things, really. I know this is going to sound so paranoid, but sometimes when I hear things or read the magazine covers or occasionally even when I watch the news, I wonder how Cody really is when he’s away from me. I know that sounds like I don’t trust him, but how do you know? And how do you learn to handle the sheer numbers of girls who are in love with them? It seems like we can’t even leave the house without being interrupted by some adoring female fan.”
Kate’s heart went out to her and she smiled sadly. “I hope it helps to have empathy, because I don’t have a miracle fix, Jenn. I’m sorry to have to tell you that. At least the one good thing is that you can know for sure Cody’s sure about you. He’s never been like this about anyone I’ve ever seen in the nearly twenty years I’ve known him.”
She smiled sadly and patted Jennika’s hand. “I’m not sure how to comfort you, Jennika, because how Jason was when he was away from me was the reason I finally walked, even as good a man as he is. And I’m still struggling with the fame and all it brings.”
“So then how can you be as happy as you seem to be with him now?”
“I am happy with him. When I’m with Jason and it’s just us or us and you two, it’s no different than when we were growing up. He’s just my Jason and I’m his Kate. Those times are heaven. And yes, it’s different now than before I left and had Kennen. I’m not even sure I can explain, but somehow the time apart has made us realize what we have is precious and we have to treasure it and protect it. I don’t wonder any more if Jason is hanging out partying around with a bunch of girls with back stage passes when he’s on the road. He wouldn’t risk losing Kennen and me again, and he knows now I would go if he did.”
She shrugged. “I have to be honest with you and tell you that before, Cody was a partying machine. Who he was with or what he was doing didn’t seem to matter much to him. He seems completely different since I’ve been back with Jason, but I couldn’t tell you how he really is on the road.”
“So why did you leave Jason in the first place? Do you mind if I ask?”
“They haven’t told you?”
Jennika shook her head. “All I know, is Jason did something and Cody carries a truckload of guilt about it. For some reason, he feels like all of your troubles were his fault. I think that’s the reason he straightened up in the first place.”
“No, Jennika, Jason’s and my mistakes are all our own. We weren’t four year olds. Cody just wasn’t always the best influence. But even after growing up next door to Jason my whole life, I’d been struggling for a while with wondering if I really knew him before I finally left. He’d been doing some things that just didn’t seem like him and it had been troubling. Then we messed up way bad after they recorded their first big album. We were supposed to be celebrating it and my associate’s degree, but they talked me into some champagne- which I knew better than. It was my own mistake. But we ended up pregnant, which Jason didn’t know, and we were on thinner ice than ever as far as our relationship went.
“Finally, I’d put off telling him about the baby and he had to leave unexpectedly for a road trip and I decided I needed to go to Lubbock and tell him. While I was there, I decided to go to their concert without them knowing I was there and honestly, the way Jason behaved on stage was more troubling than ever. Then when I went to his hotel room after, he came to the door with a beer bottle in one hand and a redhead in the other.”
Even after this long, the telling of it hurt deeply and she struggled not to let it show before she continued. “He tried to tell me the beer wasn’t his, but as awful as seeing him with the beer was, it wasn’t nearly as big a problem as that red head. I couldn’t deal with it. Not when I had a baby to think of. I left his hotel and prayed all the way home and then I left him. I knew if Jason found out about the baby he’d talk me into getting back together and I knew I couldn’t subject an innocent baby to that lifestyle. Plus, I couldn’t face seeing him all the time, so I had to leave.” She wiped at a stray tear and went on, “I put us all through hell, but I felt like I had to. Jason knows how I felt, and thank goodness, he’s forgiven me, but at the time I didn’t have a choice. At least it didn’t feel like I did.”
Jennika looked at her quietly and finally said, “I can’t even imagine what you went through, Kate. And I’m so glad you’ve
been able to get back together. At first, I didn’t really understand, I just knew that Cody was on pins and needles those first couple of days for wondering if he’d done the right thing. You obviously hadn’t wanted Jason to know where you were.”
“No, you’re wrong, Jennika. I’ve always been in love with Jason. I wanted to be with him desperately, I just didn’t think I should. Being back with Jason and having it work at least to this point, is a dream come true. So far, Jason seems to have come back to center as far as being the man I knew and trusted. And make no mistake, Jennika, trust is imperative. At least I think it is. I couldn’t live with the wondering. That’s why I couldn’t get married before any of this happened. And I know just how you feel. I felt so guilty for not trusting blindly, but in the end, verifying was wise. Who knows where Jason and I would be if I hadn’t busted him and left. Even he admits his perspective was skewed then and he had to have a wake up call.”
“So then what should I do, Kate? How do I know for sure what he’s like on the road short of hiring a PI and trying to set him up and see if he messes up? That’s so underhanded and negative. I can’t do it.”
Kate shrugged. “I’m not sure. Going to a concert under the radar and then showing up at his room was what hung Jason, but then I was able to call their manager and ask where he was staying without sending up a red flag. I’m certainly not in that situation anymore. Are you privy to any of that information, or could you ask their manager without him asking what’s going on?”
Jennika considered that and then shook her head. “No, I think they’d figure out I was snooping right off. If I actually went, even without knowing where they were staying, would you be interested in coming at all?”
A ripple rolled across Kate’s heart for just a second or two and then quieted and she nodded. She really did trust Jason now, and she’d do whatever she could do to help Jennika find the peace of mind she knew wasn’t optional if forever was at stake. “Yeah, I’d come with you. I hope Jason and I are past this, but I understand that you need to know for sure. When are you thinking? I don’t even know where they have upcoming concerts right now.”
Falcon Song: A love story Page 28