Dream Chaser (38 page)

She felt faint with relief. When he stood and moved closer, she flung herself into his arms. “I do love you, Jonathan. And it’s what I want to do. Come back to the ranch. If I could just get through to Penny.” Now that she’d said how she felt, she couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“But I’m not good at confrontation. It never worked with Brad. He was always so angry with me, bullying, actually. And now Penny. I need to talk with her, and I will. I don’t ever want you to…
think you’re not what I need, what I want.” She looked up at him, her eyes brimming. “I can’t lose Penny, but I don’t want to lose you, either.”

He
stroked her back while holding her close
.
“You
can do it, convince her
.” He rocked her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “
Stop thinking you can’t tell Penny what you want.
I can’t do it
for you. It wouldn’t be right
.”

She relished the feel of him, thinking how they would make love tonight, just like the night before he’d had to leave for the seminar. She looked forward to lying in his arms, safe, secure, loved. But then he slid her arms away from his body, and stepped back so that only their hands were touching.

His eyes turned dark again, his voice low and intense. “I was hoping when I came to see you, that you’d cleared things up with your daughter. You said you love me, except I get the impression it’s with a giant ‘but.’ Not here except in the guest room, and maybe only at my place, where she can’t get to you.” He dropped her hands and eased himself toward the door.

“But I will. I promise.” Her pulse began to climb.
I have to tell her. If only I had before.

Jonathan backed toward the door, not taking his eyes off her. “I don’t open myself up to many people, Suzanna. I guess you know that. And why. I love you. I meant that.” He raked a hand through his hair as he looked around the room. “I want to believe you love me, like you said. You don’t strike me as a woman who would make love with someone you didn’t care for.”

“I do love you, Jonathan. You know I do.” She stood there, biting her lip, willing him to believe her.

He brushed a hand against his forehead, hesitating. “So many different times last summer I did think that.” His voice softened. “You know the times.”

But his next words were encased in ice. “You’re letting your daughter run your life, allowing what your husband did to you, said to you, to govern how you think about yourself. He’s still doing that. Through Penny. Even though he’s dead. And I can’t compete with a dead man,” he said, his frustration reflected in those last words.

His words stung. Her heart stood still. Was he going to leave her, tell her good-bye and never come back? She opened her mouth to say something, but he had already turned toward the door.

She followed him, trying to think what to say to make him stay. His flight wasn’t until tomorrow.

Jonathan shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his eyes downcast. “I don’t want another woman coming to the ranch only to leave again because she’s unhappy. If you don’t really want to be with me, then we need to end this. Now.”

He picked up his suitcase, opened the door and shut it behi
nd him. Without saying goodbye.

Chapter 20

“What are you doing here?” Jamie opened the door.

“I need a place to stay,” Jonathan replied. “Just for tonight.”

“I thought you …never mind.” He stepped back to let Jonathan in. “Obviously, a change of plans.”

“You could say that.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll have a drink and relax.”

Jonathan set down his suitcase. Jamie’s place looked like a bachelor pad again. Why it struck him now, he wasn’t sure, but no woman would feel comfortable here without a major redo. Maybe that’s what he needed, too, a major redo. So he could stop thinking he wanted a woman in his life again.

A sixty-inch widescreen dominated one wall of Jamie’s living room. Two oversized leather chairs and a matching sofa formed a half-circle focused on the television screen, and four or five touchpads were scattered on the table near one of the reclining chairs, along with months-old magazines. The bookshelves in the corner were of the bricks-and-boards type the two of them had used in college—when neither of them had any money for decent furniture.
When is Jamie going to grow up?

But Jamie didn’t have to. He wasn’t in love with a woman who was being held hostage by her daughter’s unreasonable demands. Jamie wasn’t ready to pull his own hair out over Penelope Wallace’s interference. Jamie wasn’t the one with the problem. He was.

Jonathan commandeered the nearby seat, pushed the chair into the reclining position and closed his eyes.

“Have a beer and talk to me,” Jamie ordered.

He never listens.
“Didn’t I say I wasn’t interested in talking?”
Correction. He listens too well.

“Well, you better. You’re not at Suzanna’s like you planned. Why’d you leave when the two of you couldn’t seem to take your eyes off each other through dinner? What did you do that she booted your ass over here?”

Jonathan rubbed his chin and reached for the bottle Jamie was offering. First Penny’s ultimatum then his.
I shouldn’t have done that.
They never work
. He knew that, always avoided them during trade talks, never failed to warn students about how ultimatums tended to backfire.

That girl—so like Chelsea with her demands, always thinking of herself. Was that why he’d reacted so strongly when she’d challenged him, when Penny inferred that Suzanna had already decided she wasn’t coming back to the ranch?

“She didn’t kick me out. I left.” After several minutes during which he drained the beer bottle, Jonathan turned to his best friend. “Suzanna and I have a problem.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Jamie smirked.

Jonathan set the empty bottle down on the floor. “And I didn’t handle it well.”

“Tell me how you screwed up.”

Jonathan gave Jamie a sketchy review of the confrontation at Suzanna’s house, and rubbed his eyes. “What would you do to get through to her? Suzanna’s scared to death of making a commitment to me.”

“Sounds to me like you and commitment aren’t the problem. It’s her daughter and not losing her. From what you described, that girl reminds me of Chelsea.”

Jamie was studying Jonathan’s face. “Didn’t you say Suzanna was coming back to the ranch after the wedding? You could use that time to work on her, show her that she doesn’t have to make a Hobson’s choice, you or the daughter.” He reached for another beer and offered a second one to Jonathan.

He declined.

Jamie’s eyes seemed to bore into Jonathan’s skull. “Your silence tells me there’s more to this than her summer visit. What, exactly, do you want Suzanna to do?”

“
I
want her to
marry me.”

Jamie
sat up in his chair, looking
shocked. “After all these years, you finally decided to take the plunge
again
.”
He tugged at his mustache before taking another long pull on his beer.

The on
ly woman Jonathan wanted
was Suzanna
. After their time together before Christmas, he couldn’t imagine living without her. But this thing with Penny was tearing her apart. And Kevin’s wedding was keeping her here. Too much time and distance, with Penny’s encouragement, for Suzanna to pull away from him and never come back.

“I gave her an ultimatum. Shouldn’t have done that.”

Jamie
relaxed in his chair, his voice confident
. “
I think you just put the problem back in her lap. But we can fix this.”

Jonathan looked over at his best friend. “Easy for you to say.”

“First things first. Tomorrow, call the airline and rebook your flight. Solving this problem may take longer than a couple of hours. We need time to strategize.”

“Nate and Curly are expecting me.”

“Call Nate and tell him you aren’t done here
.
Curly has handled things before. This is important.
We have
to make plans…
to get Suzanna
to see things your way. To not let her daughter run her life. This little delay doesn’t mean you can’t get her to change her mind
.”

“Maybe.”
Encouragement. That’s what she needs, more than what I did.
Jonathan moved the chair into a more upright position, trying to think things through. “Maybe if I knew more about her husband. That daughter of hers seems to take after him. If I knew more about him, maybe I could figure out how to get around her. What do you know about him? Bradley Wallace, attorney at law. Does that name ring a bell?”

Jamie scratched his head. “If he’s the Wallace who was with Boyington and French, he was in a great firm. Small boutique outfit, with a great reputation. One of my colleagues had occasion to use them. Ralph couldn’t say enough good things about the senior partner.” He reached for the laptop sitting on the table next to him and pounded some keys. “Hmmm.”

“What’re you hmmming about?”

“I recall Ralph mentioning the guy was a gladhander, did lots of things in local politics. He was big into corporate work. Let me see what was in the papers about him. It might give us a clue.”

“The man’s been dead almost two years, Jamie. He’s not been gladhanding anyone for at least that long.”

Jamie keyboarded for another minute. “Look at this. Here he is, at some big opening, and no mention of his wife in this article or in the pictures, although why he wouldn’t want her with him beats the hell out of me. Suzanna’d grace anyone’s arm.”

After Jonathan read the article, Jamie scrolled down to another piece. “Here’s something else—shows him at another big shindig. He’s not with Suzanna in this picture, either. Wonder who that curvy gal is, standing next to him. This second shot shows him with the Senator and some chick, but no Suzanna.”

“Maybe that woman was with the Senator.”

Jamie shook his head. “Nope. The old guy’s wife died of cancer about four months ago. Until she got sick, she was always with him at social functions. Word was she kept him on a short leash and she was older’n dirt. No bazookas like on that broad.”

Jonathan nodded.
Her husband used her when it suited him. No wonder she reacts like she does with Penny.
Could she possibly think he would treat her like that? Had Penny implied that? Thinking of the possibilities was more than he could deal with. “I need to sack out, Jamie. I’m too tired to think this through right now.”

Jamie shut the laptop. “Okay. We’ll tackle things tomorrow. You know where the guest room is.”

Jonathan rose and headed in that direction.

The next morning, Jamie
handed
Jonathan
a plate of eggs
and they resumed their discussion. “Now that you’ve got a new departure date, e
at something. You’ll feel better. Then you can go back to bed and get some sleep.
I heard you pacing last night, or was it early? You
look like hell. And, you’re not sounding like the old Jonathan I know—who never gives up, who always figures out a way to get to a win-win solution. Since when
do you let a woman push you away—assuming you really want her?”

“It’s not that she doesn’t want me. She has to get Penny off her back.”

“So we’ll figure out a way to help her.”

Jamie wolfed down some eggs and munched on a bagel. “Let’s see. We gotta think of this as a
negotiation
—” He ignored Jonathan’s
muttered protest. “H
ear me out
, Jon
. You want Suzanna to
do
something, and she’s
hesitating,
just like
at
the end of the
seminar
—and where, need I remin
d you—you came through as usual,
with all parties on the same page when we finally wrapped things up. If you can
convince those hard-nosed guys,
especially that stubborn Frenchman and the German who kept lording it over the Asian dude, this ought to be a cakewalk
. By the way, the students in attendance were impressed with your technique. I’ve already read the evals
.”

Jamie
grabbed a piece of paper from the stack on the kitchen desk.
“Humor me
here
. Tell m
e who Suzanna talks to,
who she’ll listen to.”

“You’re not going to get any help from them.” He sighed.
“Maybe
Kevin
will, but her son’s about to get married. I suspect all he can think about is his fiancé and the wedding stuff
.
”

“What about Suzanna’s friends? Didn’t you say she was close to some woman who owns a beach cottage?”

“Margaret. I have a feeling she’d be on my side, but I could be wrong. You know how women are—protective, especially if Margaret thinks I’m like the late husband.”

“Okay
, forget about the
friend.
Tell me about Suzanna.
From what I saw when we were at dinner, she’s a classy lady.
What’s she like
when she’s not all dressed up, making you jealous when other men look at her
?
”

Jonathan’s right eyebrow rose.

Jamie chuckled. “Hey, I saw how you glared at that guy at the other table.” He refilled his plate with a second helping of eggs.
“I know…bling
!
You could send her
a note, telling her how much you miss her, and that you know she can do this, along with
some sparkly stuff
, something to wear with that little black number she had on.
How about fancy earrings, or a necklace?”

Jonathan remembered the pin he had given her at Christmas. “She’d throw it back in my face, convinced I was trying to buy
her back—and Penny would tell her that, too
.
Bling won’t work.”

“
What
about music? You said she travelled around the country and liked San Antonio. Is she into Mariachi? You co
uld hire a band to serenade her, maybe with a verse about telling Penny to butt out. Seeing
a bunch of men with oversized guitars singing to her in tight pants
might
do the trick.”

The corners of
Jonathan’s mouth turned up
in response to Jamie’s words
.
“A nice idea, but that would just embarras
s her in front of her neighbors,
and I can only imagine what
her daughter
would say if she thought I had anything to do with that.”

“Ok
ay
, scratch the mariachi band.”
Jamie was sil
ent for a minute. “I’ve got it. Flowers.
All women like flowers.” Before Jonathan could answer, he went on.
“Think of it—white ones and red ones and yellow ones and pink ones.
Swamp
her with flowers!”

When Jonathan didn’
t respond, Jamie turned to him. “Help me out here
, man
. What gets her heart thumpin’—in the right direction?” He winked at his friend. “
Don’t toss that shoe at me. I meant it in a nice way.
” He began pacing.
“I know. Kids! You said she has a son. W
hat about talking to him?”

“
Kevin.
He’s great
—the one I told you about
who’s looking for an Embassy or Consulate internship.” Jonathan reached for
an apple
.

“
Albert told me the Wallace kid shone during
hi
s interview, that he was bright, eager, asked the right questions.” Jamie halted in his pacing. “You didn’t coach him, did you?”

“We talked about the situation our representatives are facing at embassies and consulates these days and I suggested some books to read. He didn’t need any coaching. That boy knows what he wants to do.”