Once and for All (18 page)

She stepped back and stared at the door, running through options in her head. Pretty simple. Open the door or leave it closed.

The doorbell rang again. And again. Then he started knocking. Next thing, the neighbors would be complaining, and she’d be talking to the condo board.

Get it over with.

She unlocked the door and pulled it open, letting her hand drop from the carved brass knob as she took a step backward. For a moment she and Sam simply stared at one another, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out that he was pissed off in a royal way.

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?” he asked without stepping inside.

“Come in,” Jodie said, moving back another few feet.

“Why?” he repeated, not budging.

“Damn it, get in here,” she said.

He took three steps forward, just enough so that Jodie could close the door behind him.

“I don’t understand what happened,” he said.

“I know,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Then why don’t you fill me in?”

“There’s something you don’t know about me.” Jodie glanced away momentarily. “Something bad.”

“How bad can it be?” Sam asked, in a surprisingly gentle voice that made Jodie feel rotten for having strung him along as she had. Damn, but she’d done a number on him.

She squared her shoulders. “I defended Colin Craig. I’m the one who got him off for his third DUI. He would have gone to prison if I hadn’t done that.”

The expressions that crossed Sam’s face were easy to read, because Jodie had felt every one of them herself multiple times since learning the truth. Shock, anger, incredulity. Pain. Lots of pain. Only her pain had come slowly, amplifying as she’d fallen for Sam.

“How long have you known?”

She forced herself to meet his eyes. “For a long time,” she whispered, preparing herself for what had to come next. “Before we made love. I’ve essentially been lying to you for weeks now.”

Sam stared blindly across the room. Jodie’s fingers started to ache and she realized she had a death grip on the back of the ebony chair she’d tossed her jacket onto earlier. She let go and crossed her arms in front of her, hugging herself.

“At least I understand why you left.” He turned back to her, his face pale. “I need to think about this.”

“What’s to think about, Sam?”

“Will you let me in when I come back?”

“Don’t come back, Sam.”

“Will you let me in?” he asked again.

Jodie’s shoulders rose and fell as she inhaled, exhaled, wished there was some way out of this. “I don’t know how you got into the complex in the first place,” she said numbly.

“I walked through the gate when a car drove through. Your security sucks.”

“The gate code is the last four digits of my phone number. And yes…I’ll let you in.”

It was the least she could do. Let him rage at her before he disappeared from her life.

It was soon obvious that Sam didn’t need the gate code. He never left the complex. For over an hour he sat on a chair in the courtyard under the palms and simply stared into the distance, while Jodie occasionally went to her window and stared at him.

She wanted more than anything to make him stop hurting.

She couldn’t.

When Sam finally stood, she figured the odds were fifty-fifty as to whether he’d go back out through the gate or come up to her condo. He started for her building and Jodie’s heart sank.

Well, at least it would all be over soon.

She went to wait by the door. Sam only had to ring the bell once before she opened it and stepped back to let him in.

The verdict wasn’t at all what she expected. Instead of cold anger, Sam simply said, “You should have told me what happened.”

“In hindsight, I can see that,” she answered coolly. “I was selfish.” Incredibly, monumentally selfish.

“We could have faced this together. Talked about it.”

Jodie stared at him, stunned. “Talked about it?” she asked incredulously. “Are you crazy? I pretty much killed your brother.”

Anger flashed across Sam’s face. “Did you hold the bottle to Craig’s lips? Put the car keys in his hands?”

“I made sure he was in a position to do just that.”

Sam inhaled deeply. “You know what really bugs me?”

“I slept with you?”

“That you have so little faith in me.”

“What?” Not the answer she expected. What did faith in him have to do with anything?

“Yeah. You could have told me,” he reiterated. “Granted, we’d only been together for a while, but…” His mouth tightened as the words trailed off. “I thought we had the beginning of something that could grow strong.”

“And then things changed,” Jodie said bitterly. She felt the sting of tears and turned her head away so she wasn’t looking at him. “You cannot have a relationship with someone who killed your brother.”

“Stop saying that!”

“And stop being so damned noble. No matter how forgiving you might be now, don’t you think this is going to matter just a wee bit in the future? Don’t you think Tyler and Beau are pretty much going to hate me when they find out?”

“It won’t be easy,” Sam agreed.

“It would be impossible. I know.”

“How?”

“Just trust me. I know.”

“Damn it, Jodie.” He crossed the space between them and took hold of her shoulders. Jodie winced, from guilt rather than pain, and he instantly released her.

“We could at least make an attempt to work this out instead of just abandoning all possibilities.”

“Sam,” she said wearily, “think about what you’re saying.”

“Jodie—”

“Bottom line, Sam. I won’t do this to your nephews. I won’t do it to you. We are no more.”

“Tell me one thing.”

Her belly tightened at his tone. She knew what was coming. “What?”

“Did you feel like you were falling in love with me? Before?”

She still felt as if she was falling in love with him, which made the situation that much worse. “It doesn’t matter.”

She’d expected him to demand an actual answer, as her father would have. He didn’t.

Instead, he crossed to the door. “Would you consider answering my calls in the future?”

She hugged her arms around her even tighter. “No, Sam. That wouldn’t be good for any of us.” She wasn’t taking his calls, she wasn’t taking her faher’s calls.

His face was pale and his jaw was tight when he turned at the door to give her one last long look. “This isn’t over,” he said.

Yes. It is.

Sam shut the door behind him. Jodie listened to his footsteps in the hall until she couldn’t hear them anymore, then crossed the room and turned the lock.

Okay. Sam was going to come clean and then…hell, he didn’t know. He’d figure out some way to clean up this mess. He wasn’t ready to let Jodie go.

“How was your trip?” Beau asked, looking up from loading the dishwasher. He straightened when Sam didn’t respond as expected. In fact, Sam didn’t respond at all.

“What?” Beau asked.

Tyler came into the room carrying a can of air freshener, making Sam wonder briefly just what had gone on in the house while he’d been away. At this point, he didn’t care.

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

The brothers, as always, exchanged looks.

“Serious stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“But not good serious stuff, right?”

“Not good serious stuff.”

“What?” Tyler asked.

“Jodie defended Colin Craig on his third DUI and got him off.”

Sam’s bald announcement was followed by a moment of frozen silence, and then Beau took the plate in his hand and slammed it down on the counter, his face growing red. “You mean…?”

“I mean that Jodie has connections to the guy.”

“No,” Tyler said, coming to life. “You mean that she made it possible for that guy to kill our parents.” He stood with the air freshener can in one hand, gripping it so tightly his fingers were turning white. “Shit!”

There had been no way to sugarcoat the situation. No way to tell them that their trail of logic was flawed, because Tyler had a point.

Beau put his hands on the counter and stood with his head bent while Tyler glared at Sam as if this was his fault.

“I liked her,” Tyler growled. “I liked her and…”

Beau kept mumbling the same foul word over and over again, staring down at the counter between his hands. Tyler turned and walked out of the room. A second later the bedroom door slammed shut.

Beau looked up at Sam, blinking back tears. “I don’t want to see her anymore.” He started out of the kitchen. “Ever,” he added as he disappeared into the hall. The bedroom door opened and shut again, this time with a quiet click that sounded worse than the slam.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment. How in hell was he supposed to handle this?

Give them time. Let them have their anger.
He could hear Paige’s patient voice in his head.

Fine. He’d do that. In the meantime his gut was twisted so tightly he felt he was going to puke.

Until he went to bed. Then he lay awake staring up at the ceiling and wishing that he hadn’t connected with Jodie quite so well. Wishing he hadn’t fallen in love with her. Wishing she trusted him enough to work through this with him, maybe see Paige at some point in the future, maybe give him a chance to work a miracle.

Maybe if Mike hadn’t quit, and she’d continued to show him the lawyer facade, everything would have turned out differently. But it hadn’t. He’d gotten to know the real Jodie and he’d fallen for her. Now he had a problem, because he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers without a fight.

“So what do you think, Dave?” he asked his brother out loud. He’d developed the habit of talking to Dave during the weeks following his death. It had helped him work out the pain and anger, helped him stay strong for his nephews. Dave had been silent over the past several weeks, though. Sam had no idea what his brother would have thought of this turn of events.

He did know instinctively that Dave would have wanted his sons to heal. But how?

The obvious answer was by letting go of the anger. But again, how? Especially when the twins were barely speaking to him. They were angry at him, angry at Jodie.

Sam needed to talk to Paige, who was, unfortunately, on a two-week vacation. Funny how long they’d survived without her, and now her input seemed essential.

She wasn’t going anywhere. It was obvious that the partners were concerned about her lackluster attitude since returning, so she’d confessed what had happened to the senior.

He’d nodded sagely, then told her to get her ass in gear and grind out some cases. Which was what she was doing now. At home, at work.

Damn, but she was tired.

She was asleep when the phone rang. A quick glance at the wall clock told her it was ten o’clock—too early to go to bed, and too late for Sam to be calling. But he was. Jodie hesitated, then pushed the button to receive the call.

Her voice was husky from sleep when she said hello.

“You picked up.” It was almost physically painful to hear his voice.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t when I called before.”

“I’d forgotten my phone at home.” Jodie pressed her fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes. She wished she didn’t feel so strongly for this guy. “So how’s everything there?” Banal words considering the circumstances.

She heard Sam inhale. “Some things are good. Others…”

“Tyler and Beau?”

“Their team took second place in state. Beau was leading scorer.”

“Tell him congratula—” Jodie stopped abruptly. “Do they know, Sam? Did you tell them?”

“Yeah.”

It was her turn to inhale deeply. “How’d they take it?”

“Not too well.”

“I told you,” she said softly.

“They’ll deal with it.”

She continued to massage her forehead, staving off the tension headache building there. “Tell me this…are they angry with me?”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t tell me they’ll get over it.”

“
You
need to get over it, Jodie! The judge and the cops made it possible, too. The bartender made it possible. The man who sold the asshole the car made it possible.”

“I know that. But none of those guys are in a position to be part of your nephew’s lives, are they?” she asked reasonably. “Let this go, Sam. It’ll be easier on everyone in the long run.”

She moved the phone away from her ear and pushed the off button.