Lead Me On (19 page)

“Seriously,” Jane muttered to her mother. “This is ridiculous.” Her shoulders burned with tension. The deal wouldn’t be final for two days, and Greg was acting like a wounded bear. He was going to show up at her office the next evening, demanding a date and rabbit sex, and she was going to turn him down. What would that mean for Jessie?

Jane rounded on her mother. “He’s going to jail, Mom. It’s not something to celebrate.”

“You know how close he came to something far worse. We are celebrating, Jane, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

Jane glanced over to where her stepdad was carefully coaxing the briquettes to a perfect glow in his grill. He didn’t look happy, but there was a less rigid line to his shoulders. He was relieved. He’d even allowed Jessie to set foot on the property, but only for this special occasion. After he’d served his time, Jessie would have to find his own place to live. Mac would never let him live in his house again.

But for tonight, the men of her family had called a truce. And Jane felt like a traitor in their midst. Did she really have the right to put her nonexistent virtue above Jessie’s future? She’d spent years having sex with men she barely knew. Why was it so hard to consider sex with Greg?

Her gut burned. She wanted to get out of here. At least it wasn’t crowded. Who did one invite to an “our son is going to jail instead of prison!” party, after all? Grandma Olive was there, of course. And Arlo. And that girl named Eve who was apparently a girlfriend of Jessie’s. But his best friends weren’t there, because Mac wouldn’t allow it.

This was her whole family. How could she let them down? She could either sleep with Greg one last time—just enough time to finalize the plea deal—or…

She looked down at the bright green shoots of spring grass poking through the brown mat of dead leaves. Maybe Greg wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Maybe she could turn this around.

For the first time all day her heart beat hard with an emotion that wasn’t fear. She couldn’t stop Greg from ruining her reputation, but she could stop him from ruining her family.

Raising her chin, she looked up to see Mac taking a long swig from his bottle. When she walked closer, the glow of the fire pressed against her skin. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna break down and buy a new grill one of these days.” He’d been saying the same thing for eight years.

“You’re not mad at Mom?”

He shrugged. “She meant well.”

“Regardless, you can still be mad at her.”

He shot her a measuring look. “Yeah, I know that. I’m plenty mad. But she does her best. She’s a good woman.”

This was uncomfortably close to a conversation they’d had years before, and Jane’s neck tightened with remembered tension.
She’s a good woman. She might not have been the perfect mother, but she did her best
.

Her best.

Across the yard Jane’s mom pulled Jessie into her arms and held him tightly. When Jane had been little, her mom had held her like that, too. Then Jane had discovered anger and bitterness and rage, and a good portion of that had been directed at her mom. And after the bitterness and rage had gone, there’d been guilt.

Somehow Jane had never been able to bridge the gap she’d created. “I know she’s a good woman,” she murmured. “It’s just hard for me.”

“I know.”

She’d never understood how Mac could comfort her with so few words. He was a simple man, yet he’d always understood her most complicated feelings.

“You want a beer?” he asked, divining her deepest need once again.

“Heck, yes,” she said with a sigh.

He reached into the cooler, twisted off the top and pressed the icy wet bottle into her hand. Mac to the rescue once again.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

Before she’d gulped a quarter of the bottle, she heard the sound of a door slamming above the Eagles music blaring from the kitchen window. When the two new party guests walked around the side of the house, Jane was darn glad she had a beer.

“What is
he
doing here?” she gasped.

Her mom shouted a hello from the far side of the yard. “Oh, the Chases are here. I’m so glad you could make it. Thank you so much for everything you did for Jessie.”

Chase made the rounds, shaking hands, introducing everyone to his dad.

He looked right at home as he strolled past the skeletons of dead bikes lined up along the shop wall. Totally comfortable as he shook hands with Mac.

When his father stopped to grab a beer and stand over the grill with Mac, Chase continued the last few feet toward Jane. “Hello, Miss Jane.”

“Did my mom invite you?”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry. This party is kind of…inappropriate.”

Chase opened his mouth as if he’d say something, then glanced toward Jessie and seemed to change his mind. “Your mom is relieved, and she should be. Your brother has the chance to turn his life around.”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s a convicted thief now. I worry that…My stepfather was wrongly convicted. The state never acknowledged it, but the evidence is clear. He didn’t do it. But Jessie did. He’s a criminal. A thief. I’ve never known any thieves who went on to good futures, have you?”

“I…” Chase’s head cocked as he frowned down at her. “I’m sure…”

Jane waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. It could’ve been so much worse. Thank you for bringing your father in to help us.”

He took a deep breath. “Dad was happy to do it, and it was good for him.”

They both watched as his dad twisted open a second beer. He’d made quick work of the first. Jane winced. “Maybe he could work for Ms. Holloway as an investigator.”

“Maybe,” he said, then shook his head. “He doesn’t have a driver’s license, and he can’t do that kind of work without one. Anyway, it would get boring after a while, and then…You know what? I’ve come to realize that I can’t fix him, so I try not to think about it.”

“How did you manage that? Getting over his drinking?”

“I don’t know if I’m over it. I guess I…A few years ago I was in a long-term relationship. She needed to move to Utah and I let her go, because I was afraid to leave my dad. I’d taken care of him from the time I was nine, and I couldn’t leave.”

Jane just nodded. She had no idea what to say. It felt strange to imagine Chase in love with some unknown woman. Holding hands and watching movies and taking her out for explosion dates. It felt more than strange. It felt awful.

“Frankly, I was kind of a mess last year. I was so worried about my dad that I couldn’t sleep. I felt guilty when I didn’t see him, but when I did he’d ask me to bring beer. Then my stomach would hurt at the thought that I was helping him kill himself. I went to a few Al-Anon meetings, and things have gotten clearer. Now I see him, but I won’t bring beer. I don’t feel great about it, but I feel better.”

“But how do you…? Aren’t you mad at him? How do you get over the anger?”

“I haven’t gotten over it. Sometimes it sneaks up on me and I just want to shake him, yell and scream. I used to have a real dad, you know?”

Jane took a sip from her beer so she wouldn’t cry.

“But now this is the dad I have, and I can either accept it or kill myself fighting it.”

She nodded again.

“You must’ve had a lot of anger toward your mom.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So how did you get past it?”

Jane looked at him as if he was crazy. Couldn’t he see the truth about her? “I didn’t. I never have. Every single day I think about what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been raised within spitting distance of razor wire. What it would’ve been like to be normal, not the girl who got dressed up once a month to visit scary strangers in scary places. To have had a real father instead of a pen pal. I think about what kind of choices I would’ve made and…”

She swallowed hard. “I was mad at her for so long, but it’s past time to let it go. And I just keep thinking once I have everything I want, it’ll be easier to reconnect with her.”

“Will it?”

“Probably not. I keep pushing her further away.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and the touch swept over her like sunshine. “Is that what you want? To push her away?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She honestly had no idea anymore. Run away or get closer? She’d didn’t know.

“You were right,” Chase said. “You are a mess.” That startled a laugh out of her, and Jane was grateful for that. He did that often, she realized. Made her laugh when she was close to crying.

“Say there, boy!” a voice wobbled from across the lawn. They both turned to see Olive looking right at Chase.

He raised his hand in greeting. “Hey, Grandma Olive!”

“Get me a beer and come over here.”

“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “Wish me luck.”

Grinning, Jane watched Chase jog over to get a beer before he headed for Olive.

“Where’s
my
beer?” the old woman yelled before he’d made it halfway across the big yard.

“It’s right here,” he answered, holding up the bottle.

“Then where’s your beer?”

Jane followed casually behind him, eavesdropping, and heard him say “I don’t drink.”

Grandma Olive’s eyes snapped to narrow slits. “What kind of man doesn’t drink beer?”

Chase shrugged.

“You a mean drunk? Can’t hold your liquor?”

“No, ma’am. I just don’t drink.”

“Pansy?” she snapped.

“Um, no.”

“Hmph.” She snatched the beer from his hand and eyed him up and down. “Well, I suppose, considering the size of those hands, a woman can forgive a few flaws.”

Jane jumped in before Olive could explain her theory about the relationship between the size of a man’s hands and his “private pieces.” “There’s nothing wrong with not drinking, Grandma Olive.”

“Thins the blood,” she replied, as if thin blood were the epitome of good health.

“No wonder you almost bled out from that cut the other day,” Jane muttered.

“Never been sick a day in my life.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “You were in the hospital with pneumonia last year.”

“Hmph,” Olive grunted in disgust. “That was asbestos poisoning from that dust I inhaled when they remodeled the supermarket.”

Well, there was nothing to say to that, but at least they weren’t discussing Chase’s privates.

“Say, did you see that new movie about that big robot?” Grandma Olive asked, and she and Chase fell into a ten-minute conversation about science-fiction movies, which ended with Olive hanging on his arm and laughing so hard she had to hold her dentures in.

Jane’s heart beat hard as she watched the scene play out. Mac put his arm around her shoulder. “If Grandma Olive likes him, maybe you should keep him around.”

“I was thinking just the opposite.”

“Good point.”

She leaned her head into his arm as the shade of the trees darkened into dusk.

“He’s a nice guy,” Mac said. “I like him.”

“Me, too. But I’m not sure he’s what I’m looking for.”

“I thought you might say that.” His arm squeezed her closer.

Jane sighed. Mac was good at that—offering silent comfort and no judgment.

“Sometimes, baby, you’ve got to stop thinking and go with your gut.”

She kept her eyes closed and her cheek pressed to his chest. It was good advice. Except that her gut had always been the thing telling her to run far and fast to escape her beginnings.

Now she had no idea what to do.

Jane could help Jessie, but she couldn’t save herself. She was resigned to that. There was no way to put that dirty little genie back into the bottle. All she could do was try to soften the blow and mitigate the impact.

Strange, but she felt fairly calm in the face of her worst fears coming true. Her pulse didn’t even quicken when she rose to knock on her boss’s open door.

“Mr. Jennings?” she said. “I need to speak with you.”

“Hey,” he murmured as he clicked around on something in his drafting program. Jane sat on one of the chairs in front of his desk and waited patiently. A few moments later he looked up, frowning.

“Jane, what’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath, clutched her hands together and leaped. “The reason I’ve been out of the office is that my brother was arrested for larceny. He’s going to plead no-contest tomorrow and start serving his nine-month sentence. Also, my stepfather is an ex-con. So is my real father. And before I turned eighteen, my name was Destiny Alexis MacKenzie. I changed it on my eighteenth birthday.”

Mr. Jennings didn’t move. He watched her as if he were waiting for more.

“That’s who I am,” she said softly.

His brow furrowed. “Okay.”

“I wanted to tell you the truth. I acted out as a teenager. I wanted to leave that behind, so I changed my name.”

“To Jane Morgan?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He shook his head, frowning harder. “So…that’s the truth about the past, but Jane Morgan is the truth now.”

Her heart twisted. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand. Were you afraid to tell me this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Why? Because despite her earlier calm, she felt as if she was going to throw up and cry and run away, all at the same time. “Because nobody knows.”

He smiled at that, a wide grin that stretched across his face. “Well, I’m glad you trust me, then. I won’t tell anyone. You’re not going to ask me to hire your brother when he gets out, are you?”

“Oh, God, no!”

“Do you need tomorrow off to go to his hearing?”

“Just an hour or so.”

He nodded. “All right, then.”

And that was it. She’d done it. She’d told Mr. Jennings the truth. It hadn’t been terrible at all really, but it was just the beginning. Three people in Aspen knew the truth about her now. More would find out. Things were going to change, and the harbinger of that change was walking into the office with a disarming smile when she closed Mr. Jennings’s door behind her.

“Hi, Jane,” Greg said so cheerfully that she was struck with a moment of vertigo. He was trying to blackmail her into sex, so why did he look ready for a real date?

Jane stared at Greg, forcing her face to stay impassive. “One moment,” she said as she sat down and picked up the phone to take care of the last bullet point on her to-do list. A phone call to her least favorite surveying manager. The man was rude and foulmouthed, but for once she didn’t want the conversation to end. She waited until the contractor hung up and the line began to beep before she set the receiver down.

“Are you ready?” Greg asked. His eyes swept down her plain black jacket, and the sight tightened his mouth a little, but he didn’t say anything. Had he expected her to wear something low cut?

Arrogant dog.

“Are you really going to do this?” she murmured.

His smile betrayed no hint of guilt. “I’m just trying to reconnect with my girlfriend. What’s wrong with that?”

Jane got up and stepped around to the front of her desk so there was no chance of Mr. Jennings overhearing them through his door. “Just a few days ago you made clear I wasn’t good enough to be your girlfriend. I’m trash, remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” he said happily.

Great.

Greg’s eyes slid toward Mr. Jennings’s office. “Are we going out or not?”

He couldn’t threaten her with Quinn Jennings now, but Jane grabbed her purse and headed for the door regardless. She needed to get this over with before she chickened out, but her blood was singing with alarm.

This was dangerous. It was real. She was furious and afraid and hurt. But her face was blank as glass as she walked to his car. She could feel the cool stiffness.

He opened the door for her before circling around to the driver’s side. “I’ve missed you,” he said, still looking pleased with himself as he leaned in to peck her on the lips.

She felt nothing at the kiss, not even disgust. Maybe she could salvage something. Maybe this didn’t have to get ugly. “Greg, I am so sorry. Honestly.”

“It’s all right,” he said easily. “I forgive you.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m sorry that I had to end it, but I’m not in love with you. Please don’t do this.”

His jaw tightened.

Heat washed over her face. “Whatever I’ve done, it doesn’t give you the right to threaten my brother.”

He shrugged. “You were in my bed two weeks ago. It’s no big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal. It’s blackmail.”

His smile was gone as if it had never existed, and a flush of guilt crept up his cheeks. “You made me wait for months, and that guy…Were you sleeping with him when you were with me?”

“
Who?
Chase? No, of course not.”

“So you made me wait, but not someone like him, huh? Not some fucking low-class criminal loser? I’m not as good as
him?
”

“It’s not…Chase isn’t a criminal.”

Greg snorted. “He’s just as bad as the rest of your family, which is probably what you like. Lucky for him he got caught before he was eighteen.”

“Wha—?” She cut off the word and snapped her mouth shut, hoping he hadn’t noticed her shock. What did he mean?

“Ready?” Greg asked, flipping the car keys around in his hand.

“No,” she whispered.

“Just drop it, Jane,” he snapped. “I don’t know what kind of game you were playing with me, but you certainly haven’t been restraining yourself since we broke up. Now that I know what you are, I want another taste. So let’s stop pretending it would offend your morals.”

“It would!”

“You were my girlfriend, Jane. It’s no big deal. Let’s just have a good time.”

“Or what?”

He started the car, ignoring her. “I should’ve known what you were the first time I saw that body. It’s in your fucking blood.”

Jane clutched the edges of her purse harder. “I’m saying no,” she insisted.

“No, you’re not.”

“Or
what?
”

“Let’s go out and have a few drinks. It’s nothing you haven’t done before. Your brother’s hearing isn’t until tomorrow. Things could still go wrong.”

“I see. Just one night, then? That’s all you want?”

“No. You’ll go out with me until I’m ready for it to be over. And in return, I’ll keep your secret safe.”

Jane took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of rage and hurt tumbling in her chest. “It’s too late. I already told Mr. Jennings the truth.”

Greg’s eyebrows flew up. “Really? You told him about your past?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. Well, let’s be clear that you won’t be banging him while you’re with me, all right?”

“He wouldn’t—”

“But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant that none of your old classmates know your new name, Ms. Morgan, and I’m sure you’d like to keep it that way.”

The world lagged, as if this were a slow-motion scene in a movie she was watching. This was exactly what she’d feared her whole life. People pointing, sneering, calling her trash. Seeing through her facade of Jane Morgan to the sick, worthless girl inside. Men looking at her and seeing someone who deserved to be used.

That was what Greg was thinking. She could see it in his eyes.
You’re going to sleep with me because that’s what you’re good for
. She’d seen that look often enough to recognize it.
You’ll do it because you have no pride
.

What a complete bastard. “This is blackmail and it’s illegal.”

“Blackmail?” His face paled a little, but he smiled and shook his head. “Hardly. Come on, Jane. You’re single, I’m single. What’s the harm of meeting up for a few drinks?”

“You threatened me.”

“With the
truth?
You
are
Dynasty MacKenzie. You’re the one who’s been lying to everyone. You’ve been dishonest and sneaky.” Greg watched her for a long moment. “You lied to me throughout our whole relationship.” Pain flashed in his eyes. “I can’t just let it go and pretend it never happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane said, reaching for the door handle. She was halfway out of the car before he had time to react.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She slammed the door just as Greg opened his. “Get in the car, Jane.”

“Nope.”

“I’ll tell everyone.”

“Do it.”

“I’ll stop your brother’s plea deal.”

Hand on the door to her office, Jane froze. She turned back toward Greg and measured the distance between them. Ten feet. That was safe enough. “No, you won’t. You won’t do anything like that. You’re going to be too busy fighting for your job.”

He sneered. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means there’s a nifty little cell-phone program that works like a mini recorder.” She tugged the phone from her purse and held it up. “You’re on tape. And you’re never going to bother me again.”

All the color in his face blanked to a sick white. “What? You can’t…You didn’t really—”

She opened the door. “Us white-trash sluts are sneaky. It’s our nature. Goodbye, Greg.”

“If you send that to my boss, I’ll—” The door closed and she locked it from the inside, just in case. His face was like a mood ring now, skin flushing from white to magenta as she watched. She flipped her phone closed as Greg was tugging his from his suit pocket. When her phone began to ring, she turned it off.

She could no longer hide from Dynasty. But she was Jane Morgan now, and she was determined to prove it.