She glanced over at Jack's balcony, which was identical to hers. He'd left the slider open, and his curtain fluttered out in the breeze. She hoped he'd enjoy the weekend, being out of Manningsport in the land of sunshine and ocean. He really was an awfully good guy.
The lawns of Rancho de la Luna spread out before her, dark and green. The whip-poor-will called again, lonely in the quiet. The breeze was jasmine scented, a fragrance Em well remembered from her childhood, and she thought she could catch the sound of the gentle Pacific lapping at the sandy shore. Or maybe those were cars down on the Pacific Coast Highway. Either way, Rancho de la Luna certainly had a prime location. God only knew what this wedding would cost. The place itself had to be top dollar, let alone the food, band, flowers and activities.
Em's wedding was going to have been in her parents' house. Mom and Dad had worked side by side in silence each weekend for a year, getting the yard ready. Dad had even built a trellised archway, an adorably crooked little structure.
Boo-hoo-hoo. There were worse things in the world than being jilted by a fiance. She knew that. She'd made a nice life for herself in Manningsport. Loved her job. Loved her boss, loved Carol, even loved the dopey Everett. She had friends. She had a dog.
It was just that feeling of being alone. Coming home to an empty, dark house night after night. Week after week after month of not finding anyone she could picture spending a lifetime with.
Seemed like Kevin had been the love of her life. Old Kevin, that was.
She sighed and looked at her watch. She'd been awake for an hour already. Well, the Kindle hadn't been invented for nothing. "Elmore Leonard, here we come," she muttered.
She jumped at the sound of a thud from Jack's room. A really loud thud. "Jack? You okay?" she called.
He didn't answer.
"Jack?"
Emmaline went back inside. A door joined their rooms, and she knocked. "Jack? You okay?"
Nada.
Then there was another crash and some glass breaking.
The door was locked. "Jack! Open the door, buddy."
She didn't hear any movement inside.
She knocked again, more loudly this time. "Jack, it's Emmaline. Open up, okay?"
Five seconds, and no answer.
Okay. Time for some police work.
*
HE HAD JOSH DEINER by the arm now, and he was pulling him up. And really, this wasn't so hard after all; why had he been dreading going down here? It wasn't even cold, which was weird, because Anderson Cooper was on the shore narrating the action, and he kept saying how cold it was.
The car was deeper than Jack remembered, but that was okay, because it was warm and there were sea otters and the Deiner kid was even smiling a little, as if this was almost a joke between him and Jack. He wouldn't open his eyes, though. The other boys had. They'd swum as gracefully as the otters, but Josh was pretending to be unconscious, probably because he wanted to be an actor. Jack knew that because Anderson Cooper had said so.
Then all the sea otters darted away, like fish do when the shark is coming.
But it was cold, all of a sudden, and Jack looked up. Maybe he shouldn't have swum so far down, because the surface was far, far away. Weird that he could hold his breath this long. Actually, he couldn't, could he?
Suddenly, his lungs felt like chunks of coal, and it was getting dark; oh, shit, the ice was closing over them, a solid ceiling of ice blocking out the purple and red sunset, and Jack heard it close, it closed with a crash like glass, and he really, really needed to breathe now. He looked at Josh, and Josh's eyes were open now, and he was smiling, but it wasn't a nice smile. He grabbed Jack's arm and started sinking, pulling Jack down because Josh was already dead and furious that Jack hadn't saved him, and he wasn't going to be dead alone. Jack tried to pull free, tried to hit Josh in the face, but his arms were too heavy and slow, so he pinned the boy against the car--
"Jack! Jack! You're okay. You're dreaming, that's all."
There was a woman here. Underneath him.
"Hi," she said. "Wake up, buddy."
Right. Emmaline. He was gripping her wrists, the sheets twisted around him, and had her half pinned. The small lamp on the desk had been turned on.
He jerked back, releasing her wrists. "I'm sorry," he said, and his voice was hoarse. He ran a hand through his hair and found that it was sweaty. He was sweaty, in fact. All of him.
"Want a drink of water?" she asked, oddly calm for a woman who'd just been grabbed by a naked sweaty man.
Oh, yeah. He was naked, too. He always slept that way.
She didn't wait for an answer, just got up and went into the bathroom. He sat against the headboard and straightened the covers. Looked around, his breath still coming hard.
Actually, he had a glass of water somewhere. Ah. There it was, shattered on the floor, alongside the lamp.
Fourth time this week he'd had the same dream, more or less. The sea otters had been new.
"How did you get in here?" he asked when she came back in the room.
"I did knock," she said, handing him the glass. "You didn't answer, so I climbed onto your balcony. Very cat burglar of me. By the way, you should lock your doors at night."
"Figured the odds of an intruder would be low."
"Not low enough," she said with a grin. She bent down and picked up the lamp, turned it on, then started picking up the pieces of glass.
"I'll get that," he said.
"You stay in that bed," she said. "I bet you sleep naked as a frog, and I don't want a show just now."
He would've made a joke, except Josh's face was still burned in his mind, that unforgiving, ruthless smile.
Emmaline put the fragments of the glass on the table. "Do you have nightmares a lot?" she asked.
"No. Not really."
"Sounded like a doozy."
"I don't remember what it was about."
She gave him a look as if she knew he was lying. Better that than having her go all Dr. Freud on him.
He should be over this by now. The accident had taken place twenty days ago. Three of the kids were as right as rain.
Josh Deiner was holding his own.
If you could call a coma holding your own.
"Move over," she said, and he did.
She sat next to him, on top of the covers, and took one of the many pillows the hotel provided, holding it on her lap. Looked at him. Pushed her hair off her face. It was a utilitarian gesture--hair is obscuring vision: fix. So different from Hadley's sex-kitteny moves.
But Emmaline had something going on nonetheless. Her hair was dark and thick, and she had on sock-monkey pajama bottoms and a tank top. Nice rack. He tried not to notice.
He sensed he was about to be lectured on the importance of getting counseling, maybe something on post-traumatic stress disorder, or a pat on the shoulder and a reminder that all four kids would've drowned without him, not just Josh, and even Josh was holding his own, and he couldn't beat himself up.
"Want some chocolate?" she asked. "I'm starving."
Without waiting, she got up, unlocked the door that apparently connected their rooms--Jack had hardly noticed it--and came back a second later with a Hershey bar. With almonds, no less. She plunked herself down next to him and unwrapped the candy bar. "I brought a stash. Don't tell on me, or they'll make me do sit-ups or something." She broke the bar in half and handed him his chunk.
He took a bite of the chocolate. Hadn't had one of these in a long time. "So why did you say yes to this wedding, Emmaline?" he asked. Yes. Talk about something other than him.
She shrugged. "Stupid pride. Morbid curiosity, too." She took a bite of the Hershey bar. Her half was bigger, and it made him like her more for some reason. "You know. Is your ex really over you? Are you really over him?" She shot him a glance. "You must know what that's like."
"Not really."
"Does it bother you, having Hadley back in town?"
He finished his half (his third, really). "I'd rather
she wasn't, but she is."
"Does she want to get back together?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "Think you'll give her a chance?"
"No. Would you give Kevin another chance?" he asked.
She finished her candy bar and licked the wrapper, and Jack felt a jolt straight to his groin.
"I probably would," she said. "The Kevin I fell in love with would be worth a second chance, blah blah, who cares." She was quiet a second. "But he's New Kevin now. I guess people change. Right?"
"I don't know."
"Did Hadley?"
Maybe it was the dim light and the late hour or the intimacy of sharing a candy bar, or just to think about something else, but Jack found himself answering. "She probably didn't," he said. "But I saw what I wanted to see."
"Men are stupid that way," Emmaline concurred, and, much to his surprise, he laughed.
"How are women stupid, then?"
"They go to their ex-fiance's wedding, hoping for something that will probably never happen."
"And what would you like to happen? For him to leave the trainer and beg you to take him back?"
"That's fun to picture," she admitted. "But no. I guess just some kind of...apology, maybe?" She blushed.
Funny. She wasn't bothered by him lying on top of her or the fact that he was indeed naked as a frog under the covers, or the fact that he'd been thrashing around breaking things. But she blushed admitting all she wanted was a simple "I'm sorry."
"What does he have to be sorry for?" Jack asked.
She wadded up the candy wrapper and tossed it neatly into the wastebasket. "Three pointer." Another shrug. "I don't know. Nothing. The comment in People, maybe."
"What comment in People?"
"God, Jack, with three sisters, I figured you'd be up on town gossip."
"They're white noise as far as I'm concerned."
Another blush. "He said I was unsupportive."
"That's it?"
"Well, I wasn't unsupportive, Jack! I was supportive! I was 1950s girdle supportive."
"I'm getting that you were very supportive," he said, biting down on a smile. "Supportive of what, again?"
"God. You're a terrible date. Of him losing 150 pounds."
"Really. Well, good for him. So it changed him, did it?"
"Yeah. Old Kevin was pretty fantastic. New Kevin is a self-obsessed idiot." She gave him an assessing, coplike look, one he recognized from Levi. "You okay now?"
Jack felt his smile turn to wood. "I'm fine. Thank you. Sorry I woke you."
She shrugged. "I was awake anyway." She stood up. "Hope you sleep better the rest of the night, Jack."
"I'd walk you to the door, except I'm naked as a frog."
She smiled over her shoulder and unlocked the door that connected their rooms. "Call me if you need me." Her tone was matter-of-fact and not unfriendly.
She didn't lock the door behind her.
Jack considered that.
It had been a long time since he'd slept with a woman.
Emmaline smelled nice. She didn't talk too much. She didn't ask those stupid date questions, like what was his ideal evening and did he see himself with kids in five years. She didn't seem to be assessing him for genetic potential of her future children, and she hadn't flirted with him once. She didn't ask questions about the accident.
Him being naked as a frog hadn't had any effect on her.
She was simply...nice. Well, no, that wasn't the right word.
She was easy to be with. She was honest. He liked the edge she had to her and the tolerant affection she had for her family, so clear and yet meted out with eye rolls and snarky comments.
She smelled good.
She had a spectacular ass.
Her upper lip was a little fuller than her bottom lip, and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her.
And if he had her in bed with him, he'd have something to think about other than the Deiner kid.
CHAPTER NINE
EMMALINE DECIDED TO embrace her California roots the next morning and go for a run on the beach trail.
It was early. She was still on East Coast time, and she figured she'd be safe. Also, running had always been her thing. She wasn't fast and she didn't go terribly far, but there was something about the simple action of running--you didn't have to be good at it to have it work. That and a kickboxing class kept her in shape for her job. If she stopped eating like a college football player, she'd probably slim down a bit. Be a size eight, maybe. But the time she'd spent with Kevin when he was losing weight had made her hate dieting in all its forms. Besides, Ben & Jerry's would fold without her.
Em had never really had an issue with her figure. Overall, she liked how she looked. She was tall and big-boned and strong.
But around people like Naomi, she felt grotesque. Colleen O'Rourke was also gorgeous and slim and perfect, but there was a difference. Every time Emmaline had ever seen Naomi, she was in some sort of pose that emphasized her perfectly muscled arms or flat stomach. Colleen, by comparison, was normal. Also, Naomi wanted people to feel crappy about how they looked. It was her job to prey on people and make them think they needed her to direct their every move.
Sure had worked on Kevin.
Kevin, who had once told Emmaline that every morning when he woke up next to her, he wondered what he'd done to get so lucky.
"Snap out of it, Neal," she said to herself. She pulled on her running shorts, sports bra and Body by Ben & Jerry's T-shirt, then pulled on her Nikes and headed out.
No one else was around. The hot yoga people were not in sight, thank you, baby Jesus. A bleary-eyed waiter gave her a perfunctory smile as he set out a tea station. Dang. That's right. No caffeine. Hard to believe people paid money to stay here.
That being said, it was beautiful. Em ran down the trail toward the Pacific. Coreopsis was in bloom in bright yellow clumps amid the silvery sagebrush, cheerful little beacons in the semigloom.
At the top of the cliff, she stopped.
The sky was still deep blue, but a line of pink cracked the horizon. There were a few cars racing down, but she could hear the ocean, and her hair fluttered in the breeze.
She didn't miss much about SoCal, but she did miss this view. She started running again. No music today--she wanted to hear the birds. The trail was wide and twisting, flanked by the bushy foliage of the area. It was cool this morning, maybe fifty degrees.
It had been kind of nice, sitting with Jack last night, even if he was in the throes of PTSD. He'd have an easier time if he'd acknowledge it. She wasn't the child of psychologists for nothing; her bookcase back home had quite a few books on stress and trauma and people's reactions. She figured it would help with the high-intensity calls that she might have to go on as a police officer.
A coyote ran across the trail in front of her, a scrawny little thing compared with the beasts they had back home.
She glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes in one direction, twenty minutes back... That'd be about four miles altogether (oh, fine, it was closer to three). Who cared? Any activity would absolutely justify a trip into town for some jelly donuts at Nance's Coffee Shop, if it was still in business, please God.
When she hit the twenty-minute mark, she turned around, inspired by the thought of donuts. Then she heard footsteps behind her.
Kevin. A shirtless Kevin, no less.
"Hey, Emmaline!" he said, and damn if the sound of his voice--that friendly, lovely voice--didn't make her heart jump.
"Hey, Kevin. How are you?"
"Great!" He stopped and wiped his forehead with his forearm.
He was shirtless. Had she mentioned that? Oh, yes. All that perfectly perfect perfection had an impact. He looked like a feature in Men's Health or some porno website. Heck, if men in pornos looked like that, she just might start watching.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked, and it was such a normal question.
"Good! Good. You?"
"Great." He smiled. "Want to walk back? I us
ually like to run at least twelve miles, but it'd be nice to catch up with you. Hear what you've been up to."
"Sure." Her heart was jackhammering.
"So how far did you run this morning?"
"Oh, um...just a couple miles."
"Well, you can make up for it later. We're doing a half marathon tomorrow before the wedding."
"Fun."
"Did I tell you Naomi's on the short list to be on The Biggest Loser?" he said.
"No, Kevin. You haven't told me anything. We haven't talked in three years, remember?" And, man, that would really suck, having to see Naomi's face on TV, snarling at sobbing contestants.
"True enough," he said mildly. "Well, you know Naomi--she'd be the best. She has an audition on the thirteenth."
"Good luck to her."
"Luck has nothing to do with it, Emmaline. It's all about work and goals. You set goals and commit to them."
One upside of being dumped--didn't have to hear those stupid sayings anymore. She could also point out that he'd committed to marrying her and hadn't stayed loyal to that. Then again, water under the bridge.
"I'm sorry," he said, surprising her. "I sound like a jerk." He stopped for a second, bent down and picked a small yellow flower. Handed it to her with that boyish grin she remembered so well. "How have you been, Emmaline? I've missed you." His eyes were kind.
Oh, no.
It was a glimpse of Old Kevin. The sweet, thoughtful guy she'd adored for so long.
The stutter twitched in its sleep.
She took a deep breath and thought in a British accent.
"Fine, really. I'm good."
"Your mom says you're a cop?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"And you like the work?"
"I do. It's very--" Intimate, she wanted to say, but the I sound got stuck tight.
The stutter opened its eyes.
Better to say nothing than to mangle a word. She tipped her head as if searching for the right word.
"Rewarding, I'd imagine," Kevin suggested.
"Yes. Exactly."
"And your boyfriend, what does he do?"
Correcting Kevin would require more words than she was willing to risk. "He's a winemaker," she said. There. A complete sentence, no mangling anywhere. Three entire words. Five syllables.
"Really? I don't drink anymore, but that's a very cool profession." He stopped, turning to look at her. She'd forgotten how ridiculously lush his eyelashes were. "Em, I have to admit, I've thought about you so much over the past three years."
In Your Dreams Page 12