Fix You (25 page)

             
It was only a matter of seconds before Tam was striding across the lawn, the security light casting his shadow nine feet long in front of him. He had an aluminum softball bat in one hand.

             
Jess watched, her sense of helplessness acute, as her brother-in-law stalked around the back of the property. There was a flutter of movement at the hollies, and then she lost sight of their creeper. “He’s leaving,” she said. “He’s gone.”

             
Tam wasn’t done poking around, though. They gave him ten minutes and then braved the back steps again, waiting for Tam when he finally admitted defeat and joined them, bat propped on his shoulder, dark brows set at a grim angle in his pale face.

             
“I locked the cottage up tight before I came out,” he said by way of greeting, and his eyes went to his wife, fierce with concern. “What’d you see?”

             
Jo told him, and then Jess felt the full force of his stare as it hardened further and turned on her.

             
“Nice place you brought us to, Jess. I love how
safe
it is.”

             
She couldn’t argue with him and folded her arms across her middle.

             
“It’s not her fault,” Jo said, swatting at his arm. “It didn’t say ‘complete with yard stalker’ in the ad, Tam.”

             
It was her fault, though; she’d not only leapt headfirst into something stupid, she’d dragged her family along with her. If they were in danger, it was very much her fault.

             
After Tam had checked the window and door locks, given her another accusing look and taken his wife back to their cottage, Jess stripped down and climbed between her sheets. Sleep evaded her for hours, and all she could think, amidst her guilt, was that she wished she was brave enough to call Chris and tell him how lonely she was.

17

             
T
he next morning, Chris traded waves with Tam Wales through their windshields as they passed each other at the top of the drive. As he parked and headed for the main house, he ran a half a dozen scenarios through his head, wondering what sort of shape Jess would be in after their moment in front of the TV. He wasn’t expecting what greeted him: an empty kitchen and a locked door.

             
He had his own key to the mansion and let himself in, something very much like dread mingling with his curiosity. “Jess?”

             
The kitchen wasn’t just empty, but cold, too, and odorless: no coffee, no breakfast for Tyler.

             
Slowly, so the treads of his boots made no sound, Chris went past the walk-in pantry, ducked into the hall of the staff quarters and paused at the half-open door of Jessica’s bedroom. He put his fingers against the panel and eased it open a fraction, and then another. His ears buzzed, straining in the absence of sound. From the threshold, he took stock of the room: tidy as always, a butter-colored panel of sunlight falling in through the open drapes that reached just shy of the bed. And Jess, was, incredibly, asleep.

             
Before last night – before he’d found out what her mouth tasted like – he would have cleared his throat from the threshold and startled her awake. But after last night – this morning – he crossed to the bed.

             
She was on her side, the covers down around her waist, wearing the white bra he’d put his hand against last night. Her skin was soft white cream; he imagined what it would feel like in aching detail. His eyes tracked over the sleek contours of her stomach, her back, the deep inward flare of her waist, her lean arms, the swells of her breasts, rising and falling as she breathed. In sleep, her face was relaxed; she looked younger, sweeter, flawless roses and cream. Her hair streamed across her shoulders and the pillow, the color of spun gold.

             
It was a damn shame to have to wake her, mainly because he knew her face would harden and her eyes would shoot sparks and all this sleeping innocence would be gone. Chris just knew she would try to pretend last night had never happen. She wouldn’t let him so much as hope for a repeat performance.

             
He watched her, eyes willing the sheet to slip down over her hips so he could see what kind of panties she was wearing, when an idea occurred. With a self-satisfied smile, he leaned down, brushed the flat of his hand along her head and her silk hair, and kissed the corner of her mouth.

             
He meant to wake her. He didn’t mean to scare the hell out of her.

             
Jess leapt beneath him and Chris straightened, shocked to watch her bolt upright, clutching the covers over her breasts, eyes darting wildly. She sucked in a huge breath and pressed herself back against the headboard. She was terrified.

             
“Whoa, it’s me,” he said, and made a reach for her.

             
She gulped in another breath. “Chris,” she said, finally placing him. She sighed, pushed her hair back off her face, and stared at his offered hand. Then her eyes came to his face. “What are you doing in here?”

             
He dropped his hand away. “You weren’t up when I got here, so I came to see where you were. You were asleep.”

             
“I thought you were…” she trailed off, the haze of sleep leaving her eyes. “Wait, what time is it?”

             
“Just after eight.”

             
“Oh, damn. I can’t believe I overslept, I - ” She snatched the sheet tighter to her chest and gave him a harassed look. “I can’t believe you did that.”

             
He ignored her. “Who did you think I was?”

             
Her eyes flickered away. “Excuse me,” she dismissed, “I need to get dressed.”

             
Chris settled his hands on his hips. “Who?”

             
She studied her fingernails a moment.

             
“Jess.”

             
“That
guy
was back again last night,” she admitted with a sigh. “And I guess I’m a little rattled.”

             
Chris didn’t like the jolt of alarm that went streaking through him. “Back? Where? Where’d you see him?”

             
Her face went blank at his tone, surprise smoothing her frown lines. “Closer to the house than before. He started over by the lake, but came all the way up to those hollies at the edge of the yard. Tam went looking for him,” she said when he started to interrupt her, “but he couldn’t find him.”

             
Chris formed and rejected a half a dozen possibilities as he stood watching her. Most likely, her creeper was one of two options: some local freakshow who’d noticed a beautiful blonde move in and who wanted to get some peeping Tom action; or, more likely, he was someone Dylan had hired or coaxed into watching his ex-wife. Either way, Chris was struck with the urge to do physical harm to someone.

             
“I’m sure it’s not anything to be worried about,” she said, but her green eyes were still wide, still frightened. In a way, he appreciated her bravery, even if it was stupid.

             
“Don’t say that,” he told her firmly. “When women say that they do stupid things to prove how they’re not scared.”

             
“I’m not going to do anything ‘stupid.’”

             
“Good. I don’t want anyone fishing your body out of the lake because you felt the urge to go for a midnight walk.”

             
“I stayed inside with the doors locked,” she said, exasperated. “I’m not going to be starring in a horror movie anytime soon, okay?”

             
“So long as you’re sure.”

             
“I’m sure. Now can you please get out so I can get dressed?”

             
He wasn’t done talking about her creep, but he wasn’t going to argue anymore about it now. “I’ll be in the great room,” he told her, and headed for the door.

             
He stole a glance over his shoulder, though, right before he stepped out into the hall. Jess was standing beside her bed, stretching her arms up over her head, painting him a spectacular living portrait. Her panties, he noted with a smile, were buff-colored lace.

**

             
“Dylan does not deserve to be your one and only.”

             
Jess couldn’t erase her sister’s words from her brain. All day, as she worked alone because Jo was on kid duty now that Ellie was out of commission, those words ran like a news ticker across her mind. As she picked and peeled and scraped and cursed the wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom at the top of the stairs, she remembered how Chris’s lips had felt against hers last night…and this morning. She was not, nor had ever been, a female enslaved to her libido; she worked efficiently, quickly, dampening and removing great long strips of textured paper without any hindrance from her busy mind. But she was unsettled. Twitchy. Restless inside and too attuned to the sounds of footfalls and voices down below as Chris and his guys put up new drywall in the great room.

             
There was nothing to do for it, she decided, except get over it. And to do that, she’d have to work doubly hard to keep things professional between the two of them.

             
She avoided him as much as possible that day, something he seemed to notice; late that afternoon, as he heaped his tools against a wall in the dining room and prepared to leave, his face was creased with some sort of negative emotion. Jess pegged it as anger or disappointment, but she wasn’t expecting the sulky sound of his voice as he asked, “So you’re just not going to talk to me anymore? Is that it?”

             
Jess picked her head up from the figures she’d been calculating on a sheet of graph paper and stared at him, blinking. This was the second time he’d asked her that; clearly, he didn’t handle the cold shoulder well. His face, she realized, was lined not with anger, but with a little boy’s sense of hurt indignation. She had tried her best to ignore him that day, and he’d noticed, and his feelings were injured because of it.

             
She rested the tip of her pencil against the paper and flashed him an emotionless smile. “Feeling neglected?”

             
He didn’t answer, frowning.

             
“We were both very busy today,” she reasoned. “I can’t afford,” she tapped her pencil, “to sit back and let your crew do all the work. I’ll be in the poor house if I do.”

             
His expression softened. “Oh.”

             
“I’ll see you in the morning?” she asked.

             
“Yeah. See ya.”

             
Proud of herself, and a little bit triumphant, Jess happily ignored the black, burned crust on the bread Jo contributed to dinner and enjoyed the time with her family. With Jo and Tam and Willa and Tyler around her table, it almost felt like she wasn’t living on the other side of the looking glass.

             
After dinner, Tam watched cartoons with Tyler while Jess and Jo cleaned up.

             
“You’re in a good mood,” Jo observed.

             
“I am,” Jess smiled down at the pot she was scrubbing. She was about to admit why, semi-giddy with her own self-control…

             
When she glanced up and saw a man’s face in her window.

18

             
T
here were things, Jess was learning, that you did not argue about with Tam Wales. His family’s safety was at the top of that list.

             
The next morning, she watched wispy tendrils of steam curl up from her coffee mug and bore silent witness to the conversation unfolding at her kitchen table.

             
“What’d the cop say?” Chris asked. He’d become as serious as a character in a bad mystery novel and Jess might have laughed if she hadn’t found his concern intimidating. Hand curled around his mug of black coffee, elbows on the table, frown severe and professional, he looked every inch the detective. He sat with Jo’s husband, her own stand-in protector, like he had every right to be there.

             
“The usual,” Tam said, disgusted. “It was ‘probably nothing’ and we should ‘call back’ if we have more ‘trouble.’ He suggested a burglar alarm.”

             
“Douche,” Chris said.

             
Tam snorted in agreement.

             
Last night, after Jess had cut herself off mid-scream and the face had disappeared, after Tam had searched the yard himself, a lone officer had shown up with a flashlight and a blatant case of I-don’t-give-a-damn. Thumbs hooked in his gun belt, he’d done a cursory stroll across the backyard and told them there was nothing he could do unless their “friend,” as he called him, had stuck around to get himself caught. Tam had been seething. Still was, but it was more controlled. He was pretending he wasn’t a loose screw in front of Chris.

             
“I have to do something,” he said, a bit of his crazy peeking through; Jess could see it in the hard glazing of his blue eyes. “I don’t know what this guy wants or what the hell he’s willing to do to get it. I will not,” he thumped the harvest table with the tip of his index finger, “allow anything dangerous around my girls.”

             
Chris nodded and scratched at his goatee. “You know,” he said, “it’s been a long time since I did anything more exciting than hang shelves. Since the cops are useless, I wanna take a crack at this guy.”

             
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jess asked. “’Crack at him?’”

             
He turned to her, gaze still too intense, his interest not at all appropriate. “I wanna catch him and find out what he’s after.”

             
“Oh, okay. So you’re just going to catch and question him. Good plan, Chuck Norris. You know that’s illegal, right?”

             
Chris twitched a patronizing smile. “Yeah.”

             
“Jess,” Tam said, “this isn’t your call.”

             
Every time she tried to let herself forget it, her brother-in-law reminded her that he had an obnoxious habit of going alpha dog when it came to Jo. It had started when he was twenty-one, when she’d walked into Jo’s room and found the two of them naked and shameless in broad daylight. He’d faced off from her across the kitchen table that day, and had kept doing it since; was doing it now.

             
“Really?” she said. “I’m going to be the one to bail you two out of jail when it happens.”

             
“Nobody’s going to jail,” Chris said, rolling his eyes. “You just worry about wallpaper and we’ll handle this.”

             
She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping against her new hardwood, and shot to her feet. “You did not just say that.”

             
“Believe it, sweetheart.”

             
Jess snatched up her mug, pretended the coffee that slopped over the edge and down her hand didn’t burn like a bitch, and marched outside, across the drive and into the cottage where Jo was having breakfast with the kids.

             
Bit by bit, the cottage was transforming into a place that belonged to Tam and Jo. Their furniture was hand-me-down, but Jo was acquiring other things: pots and pans from the rack above the stove she didn’t know how to use, picture frames and knick-knacks. Every day it looked cleaner, brighter, newer. At the table situated between the small kitchen and living area, Jo, Willa and Tyler made a sweet, pretty picture in the new morning sunlight, coffee and Pop-Tarts steaming.

             
Jo looked up in silent inquiry as Jess pulled out the chair beside Tyler and sat.

             
“Men,” she explained, sucking at the burn on her hand.

             
“Ah, yes,” Jo said. “Men. What are ours planning?”

             
“Yours and the other one,” Jess corrected with a frown. “There is no
ours
.”

             
Jo smiled.

             
“And they’re planning something stupid.”

**

              The tables were turned. All that day, Chris was the happy, silent one; every time Jess brought up his “plan,” he shrugged and fed her a non-answer that left her teeth grinding together. He was infuriating! She had avoided him the day before to prevent any more embarrassing lapses in judgment. He was avoiding her with smug satisfaction, keeping her in the dark on purpose.

             
Wallpaper
, she thought, angrily, as she stripped off her work gloves and chucked them in her caddy of tools. He’d told her to worry about her wallpaper and leave the important stuff to him.
Damn him
. Done for the day, fingers cramping, two of the upstairs rooms now stripped clean and ready for inspection, she went down the groaning, narrow staircase with every intention of ripping into her contractor. Her anger had percolated all day and now it wouldn’t be contained any longer.

             
She was denied the satisfaction, though, because Chris was gone. His guys were gone; his truck was gone; he was gone. Without so much as a “see ya.”

             
“Damn it,” she hissed, and told herself she cursed because she’d wanted the chance to curse at him, not because she wished he’d told her goodbye. She wasn’t him; she didn’t need him to speak to her. She was glad he was gone. She didn’t want him hanging around longer than necessary, acting like a macho tool and playing protector.

             
She was totally convinced of all this until his truck pulled back into the drive a half hour later.

             
She was tossing a rubber bouncy ball back and forth with Tyler in the grass when she saw Chris’s white Ford and her immediate reaction shocked and frightened her: The moment she recognized him, a great, sweeping tide of gladness swept through her, uncertain excitement fizzing in the pit of her stomach. Jess scowled to herself, missed the ball Tyler tossed to her, and gave herself a mental diatribe as she retrieved it. By the time she met Chris on the driveway, she’d regained her cool.

             
“Why are you back?”

             
He’d changed – she smelled soap as he moved past her along the bed of the truck and she knew he’d showered too – and wore clean bootcut jeans, boots that hadn’t seen a day of work, and a green, soft flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. As he reached into the bed and his shirt rode up, her eyes went to the slice of tanned, exposed skin automatically…and her gaze locked on the gun wedged in his waistband. “I’m camping out,” he told her, but she was still staring at the gun. “Jess,” he said firmly, and her gaze tore from the weapon, bouncing up to his face.

             
His expression was exasperation veiled with patience. He pulled a duffel bag from the back of the truck. “I’m gonna hang around and see if your creeper shows up.”

             
“What’s in the bag?” she asked tightly. “Ammunition?”

             
He gave her a flat look. “Don’t gimme the goody-two-shoes bit about the gun. I’m a damn good shot and I’d never use it unless I had to.”

             
Jess blinked, taken aback by the even, authoritative ring to his voice.

             
“And I’m not playing bodyguard unarmed. Fair enough?”

             
In truth, she had no real opinion of firearms. She knew she didn’t want Tyler around anyone who flaunted them or used them irresponsibly, but Chris with one didn’t truly worry her. She shrugged. “Fair enough.”

             
Chris had dinner with them that night, and when it grew late and she finally, yawning, retired to bed, he lingered in the kitchen, the lights off, his shadow imposing at the table. There was something a little bit frightening and thrilling about the thought of a man sitting up in the dark of her house, watching, protecting. She slept better that night than she had in months.

**

              They fell into a pattern: Chris spent the night, awake long after he sent her to bed, and she found him on his sleeping bag in the mornings, snoring and dead to the world. He hadn’t sighted their nighttime visitor, and he hadn’t so much as glanced at her suggestively. It seemed, almost, like their kiss in the TV room had been a figment of her imagination.

             
Until Friday.

             
When she wasn’t stripping wallpaper and scrubbing woodwork, Jess spent her week on the phone with her attorney, battling against Dylan’s custodial demands. Finally, near tears and choking on her fury, she realized that she couldn’t keep her son away from his father. She had to cave, not for Dylan, but for Tyler.

             
Friday afternoon, she stood at the edge of the drive and tidied an already tidy lock of Tyler’s dark hair. There was a lump in her throat and a burn behind her eyes, her heart thudding painfully in her chest as she ran her eyes over his loved little face and his grass-stained jeans and t-shirt. One of his sneakers was unlaced and she knelt to tie it, not caring that he could do it for himself, just wanting to do one more maternal thing for her baby before she sent him off to the man who’d hurt both of them so badly.

             
“Ty,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady, “if for some reason you start to feel sad, or unhappy, I want you to call me, okay? Or tell Daddy that he needs to call me. I’ll come pick you up if you don’t want to stay.”

             
She tipped her head back to study his face and her heart squeezed when she saw his innocent smile. “Daddy’s gonna take me to look at cars. He said so. I won’t be sad.”

             
Oh, sweetie
, she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him not to count on Dylan, not to believe what he said, because Dylan was full head-to-toe with lies. But she gathered Tyler into a hug instead, squeezed him until he struggled to get away.

             
When she set him back at arm’s length, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel and needed more time. Her baby was so young, so innocent, and she was about to send him off with an adulterous pervert. It was too soon, and she supposed it would always seem that way.

             
Tyler turned away from her as Dylan’s Infiniti settled to a halt and the engine died. “Daddy!” he called, breaking into a run, overnight bag slinging against his legs, as Dylan stepped out onto the drive.

             
Jess stood, arms curling across her middle, hurting, as she watched Dylan greet their son with a distant half-hug. His dark eyes flicked across the top of the car and landed on her without interest.

             
“Jessica.”

             
“Dylan.”

             
“I’ll bring him back Sunday night.”

             
She loathed making any kind of request, but couldn’t help herself. “Have him call me, please. I want to check in with him.”

             
A muscle twitched in Dylan’s lean cheek, but he nodded.

             
She watched, heart in her throat, as Tyler was loaded up. She waved at him, thankful he waved back, and watched the dust settle long after they were gone and the drive was empty.

             
The shadows were long across the grass, birdsong swelling, a breath of sweet coolness in the breeze that stirred the leaves, hinting at a fall to come. Jess heard footsteps behind her and willed them away, wanting another melancholy moment to stand out here alone. But Chris never did what she wanted him to, and he continued to approach, until he was right behind her, his presence something she could feel.

             
“What?” she asked, hating how choked her voice sounded.

             
He moved, stepping up to stand beside her, and she dashed at the corners of her eyes, not wanting him to see her emotional.

             
“You okay?” he asked.

             
“I want to murder that man,” she said. “And tell Tyler he ran off to California and never have to deal with this ever again.” She couldn’t believe she’d admitted as much and stared at her toes, not wanting to meet the gaze he’d settled on her profile.