Fix You (38 page)

             
One night, sharing a blanket on the couch, Willa asleep between them and Tyler passed out on the rug at their feet, Jess had admitted as much to her sister. Jo’s eyes had been huge and translucent in the glow of the TV, and for a moment, she’d looked older and wiser than Jess had ever thought possible.

             
“Jess,”
she’d said
, “you’re a good girl. You were married and now you’re not and, well…I think you’re just having some kind of…phantom worry that you’re doing something wrong. What’s important,”
she’d sounded like Mom
, “is how he treats you. He looks head-over-heels when he’s in front of me, but I don’t know what goes on – you know. Only you can know that. I just hope he makes you feel the way Tam makes me feel.”

             
And Jo, Jess knew, hadn’t been talking about sex. She’d been talking about the intangibles that existed in the moments of rapture. She’d been talking about that unnamed thing Jess had witnessed the afternoon, years ago, when she’d pushed open the door of Jo’s room and found out that her seventeen-year-old sister hadn’t been alone.

             
She’d been too shocked to turn away. Tam Wales naked and tangled with her sister, on top of the covers, in the bald, brave sunlight, had been stamped across her memory that day. Worse than seeing it had been what followed: the jealousy. After that, she’d longed for her own unabashed tangling in the daylight. Dylan had always been stiffly romantic – there’d never been anything of a Wednesday afternoon grind about him. Perhaps his perversions had always been so severe that holding them in check had left him cold and aloof. Perhaps it had been her fault…

             
Or perhaps it hadn’t. Perhaps Chris was her Tam, because he made her feel beautiful and because there was never any questioning how much he wanted her.

             
He settled over her again, hand going between her legs, cupping the barely-there lace of her thong. “I like it.” He kissed her neck, right beneath her ear. His voice had a delighted laugh threaded through it: “Roll over and lemme see the back.”

             
“There’s nothing there.”

             
“I figured.”

             
She rolled, the comforter crinkling, and propped her head on her folded arms, watching over her shoulder as he trailed a hand down her spine. His thumb flirted with the string that rode her hips and she shivered.

             
“You look
damn
good tonight.” His hand was firm as it sculpted her bottom. He was breathing just a little hard. “Every woman down there wishes she looked like you.”

             
Her eyes stung. Just when she thought he was about to tell her that her ass was “fine” or some such, he was so sweet in his own backward caveman way. She rolled again and reached for him, pulling him down with a double fistful of his shirt and stretching to be kissed.

             
It was hotter this time, more urgent, and as his tongue plunged into her mouth, she climbed his abs with her hands, pushing up his shirt as she went. He helped her with it. His tool belt hit the rug. His belt buckle rattled, the zipper went down on his jeans, and then he was settled between her legs again, his hand sliding down the flat of her belly. He stroked her through the rough lace of her thong a moment, until her hips lifted, then a finger slid beneath, slipping against her wetness.

             
“Okay,” Jess breathed in a rush. “I’ll finalize it.”

             
His face was harsh with waiting, but his eyes sparkled. “You’re not just saying that because…?” A finger dipped inside of her, pressing deep; her breath caught and another joined it.

             
“
No
.”

             
“You sure?”

             
“Damn it, Chris…”

             
He went still, the sudden lack of movement capturing her attention. Poised over her, his fingers inside her, he waited until their gazes were locked and then asked, face tense with more than restraint, “I just want you to be sure. I want it to be what you want.”

             
Okay
, she thought again, melting. Her hands were on his shoulders and she clenched them tight, fingers digging into hard muscle. “It’s exactly what I want,” she said, and restraint left him.

             
They knew each other now, the ways their bodies fit together. When he entered her, her thighs wrapped tight to his denim-covered hips and her fingers threaded through his hair as his mouth went to her throat; no doubt, he intended to leave another calling card that wouldn’t be covered with makeup.

             
The threat of a houseful of guests, the raw fear of her ended marriage leaving them alone together – something – set a furious pace. Because of that, or because of karma, Jess held tight to him, never hearing approaching footsteps until the door swept inward.

             
“Jess –  ”

             
Jo!
In a wild tangle of logic versus lust, she registered her sister’s voice.

             
There was a short, sharp bark of laughter and Chris went grinding still. “Oh my God!” Jo laughed. “Wait’ll I tell Tam.” The door closed, and so too did the moment.

             
“Oh my God,” Jess repeated her sister’s words, dropping a hand over her eyes.

             
Chris withdrew and rolled onto his side next to her, his silent question something she could feel.

             
“I’ve had this coming a long time,” she groaned.

**

              Jordan hadn’t dressed up for Halloween since he was ten, and he hadn’t seen a reason to break that habit now. His missus, though, had set a pointed witch hat at an angle over her tumble of chocolate hair and turned her black sweaterdress and knee-high boots into a costume that looked better-planned than it was. The twins she’d dressed as her flying monkeys, with tiny little felt wings she’d sewn onto their footie pajamas herself. Randy held Jane in the crook of one massive arm and Beth had Lizzy while Ellie looked on with a smile that threatened to split her face in two.

             
“If you ever need a break,” Beth said, “so you can concentrate on your writing –  ”

             
“Mom,” Jordan sighed.

             
“I’ll offer if I want to.” She scowled at him.

             
Ellie was patient in all the ways he wasn’t. “I may take you up on that sometime,” she said, though Jordan knew she wouldn’t. “The cake baking is becoming almost more than Paige and I can handle and I’m getting into my sequel.”

             
“How’s that going?” Randy asked; he’d confessed that he couldn’t comprehend her ability to not just write sentences, but
books
.

             
Her warm flush was answer enough. “It’s going okay. I’m hopeful.”

             
Beth shifted Lizzy up onto her shoulder as she began to fuss. “What about the first one? Delta said it was wonderful.”

             
Jordan recalled three nights before, both of them leaning back against the headboard, Ellie nursing Jane, that same flush in her cheeks and the bravest look sparkling in her gray eyes when she’d turned to him and said,
“I’m going to self publish.”

             
“Actually,” she started, and was distracted by the thumping of feet coming down the stairs behind them.

             
Jordan turned and saw his older sister reach the bottom, spike heels clacking. Her hair was disheveled, cat ears skewed, and her color was high. He grimaced at the telltale signs; it wasn’t something he liked to think of either of his sisters.

             
“Chris!” Randy boomed. “Where you been hiding? I wanted to talk to you about the sunroom.”

             
Jess slunk away, guilty as the cat she was pretending to be, and Chris, Jordan noted with amusement, looked pale as he accepted Randy’s summons. Jordan took Jane from his dad and hoisted her up on his shoulder; she was small and warm and solid in her own little baby way.

             
Now alone with just his mom, he felt the shift in her stare. As Beth glanced between him and Ellie, her eyes sharpened, her smile firmed, some of her bubbly innocence gave way to the stern mother beneath.

             
“So how’s it
really
going, you two?”

             
Jordan traded a look with his wife. The night before, they’d been right at the edge of sleep, naked and plastered together, a smile curving her lips he hadn’t seen in a while. The girls had started screaming, wanting to be fed. He’d fetched them – together and squirming in his arms. Ellie had nursed them on her side, facing him, and they’d talked about stupid things in the dark with their babies between them.

             
“Good,” Ellie answered, smiling up into his face. She reached up and touched Jane’s cheek. “Really good.”

**

              Mike, dressed as a fireman, held a wiped out and asleep Evan who had been done up like a Dalmatian, eyeliner spots drawn on his face, ears and all. He and Cleopatra were the last to leave – Jordan and Ellie already having taken the twins, and Paige, home to bed – and they lingered in the kitchen doorway a moment.

             
“Without a hitch, Jess,” Delta said, still a flawless portrait of Cleopatra at ten till midnight. “I had no idea it would go that smoothly.”

             
Jess’s grin from the sink was wry. “What about all that reassurance before?”

             
“That was all for show.” She grinned. “It helped, didn’t it?”

             
No. “Sure.”

             
“Alright, say goodnight,” Mike said, hefting his doggy son.

             
His wife shot him a look, but she nodded. “Think about my wedding idea,” she told Jess as she turned. “This would make a great venue and it would guarantee you some customer traffic.”

             
Using the inn as a wedding locale was a brilliant idea. “I will,” she promised. “Night.”

             
There was a chorus of “night”s all around and then, to her horror, she and Chris were alone with Tam and Jo. The kids were asleep and there was nothing to shield her from her sister’s smiling eyes any longer.

             
“Jess,” Tam said, and her hands stilled on the serving platter she was washing. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down.” It wasn’t a question.

             
She sighed. “We’re not doing this, Tameron.”

             
“Oh, I think we are.”

             
Dread pounding in her temples, she toweled her hands and turned to face the table. Chris sat at the head, Tam at the foot, Jo to his right. Her cheery chandelier didn’t seem so cheery, the light it cast shadowed and sinister.

Jo was struggling to suppress a smile. When Jess’s eyes fell on her, she drew up in her chair, expression becoming
severe, little nose lifting. “What,” she said, “were you thinking?”

If she’d been able to
, she would have leapt back in time and snatched those very same words out of her own mouth. But because she couldn’t do that, she crossed to the table and slumped down into a chair, pulled off her cat ears and massaged her scalp. “I was thinking,” she said tiredly, “that I had time to finish.”

Jo almost laughed at that, biting hard on her lower lip.

Tam, elbows on the table, fingers steepled together, wore a severe frown. “Jess, this is just so…childish.” A smile blasted apart his expression and Jo elbowed him; he reined it in, wiped it away, and became serious again. He cleared his throat. “We’re so
disappointed
.”

“Is he serious?” Chris asked. “’Cause I’d hate to have to black both his pretty eyes.”

Jo giggled. “Oh, we’re so serious.”

“They’re not serious,” Jess said. “This is payback.”

“For…?”

“I’ve seen things,” Jo said, her grave expression undermined by the twitching corners of her lips. “Things I can’t
unsee.”

“Well then we’re even,” Jess snapped.

“What are they talking about?” Chris asked.

“Jess walked in on Tam and me when I was in high school,” Jo explained.
“And she was so high and mighty –  ”

“Jo –  ”

“ – you’d have thought she was the virgin Mary the way she came down on us.” She pressed a hand to her heart, head tipped back at a dramatic angle. “I was a child! And you,” she glanced at Tam, “ruined me!”

She and Tam both finally gave into laughter
, heads thrown back, hands slapping on the table – the whole bit.