Read You Don't Know Jack Online
Authors: Adrianne Lee
You Don't Know Jack
© 2012 Adrianne Lee. All rights reserved.
For Kim, always in our hearts, never forgotten.
Special thanks to Gail Fortune for always believing in me.
Hello. My name is Jack B and I'm a recovering man-o-holic.
My drug of choice: Wrong-for-me men.
When it comes to the opposite sex, I haven't the sense God gave my favorite hoop earrings. In my defense, the affliction is genetic, passed down to me by my mother and two aunts, and probably their mother, and her mother. All I know is, I started kindergarten boy-crazy and reached my teens as snagged as a stiletto heel in a nylon carpet.
Just shy of eighteen, I laid eyes on my first naked man... fully aroused... and it was then that I finally understood the power of natural beauty. I looked. I touched. I impulse-shopped like Victoria Beckham at Fashion Week — until men were credit cards I'd maxed to the limits on unwise purchases I couldn't return.
Only when it was too late did I realize that what catches your eye isn't always a good investment of your time. Your money. Or your heart. Lesson learned: Sex doesn't guarantee a lasting relationship; sex doesn't equal love.
But knowing the pitfalls doesn't curb the addiction any more than resolve squelches desire. I have to be pro-active. Quit men cold turkey. It's my only hope, the only thing I can think of to protect myself against my inbred bad judgment. To this end, I formed Man-o-holics Anonymous, an organization not unlike AA... except I'm the sole member.
Whenever the temptation to indulge my addiction becomes unbearable, I hold a meeting with myself and repeat the MA mantra —
I don't do men, I don't do men, I don't do men —
until the itch to hunt down and bed the worst of the bad boys abates.
I needed to get my mind off men and onto the job I was doing today. Look at my notes and the photos I'd taken. Of course, that would not get all men off my mind, only
my men
.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I jumped. My mouth dried at the readout. Private caller. Fourth such call in as many hours. Always the same. Heavy breathing. Static. Then nothing.
Warily, I answered, studying the other passengers on this ferry traveling from Bainbridge Island to Seattle, thinking maybe it was one of them phoning me. "Jack B."
Breathing in my ear.
"Who is this?"
More breathing.
"What do you want?"
Static. The line went dead.
Spider feet tracked my spine. Crank caller? Wrong number? Maybe.
As though my nerves weren't stretched thin enough, I glanced up and spied an unwelcome sight bearing down on me. A gorgeous version of some NYC fashion magazine's idea of a Scandinavian cowboy. My ex-husband. What was he doing on my ferry? I groaned and, hoping to avoid him, escaped to the wind-thrashed foredeck.
Like the dog he is, Lars Larson heeled to my side.
I raised my gloved hands to shield myself from the pheromones wafting off him. I was already rattled. Whatever he wanted, I wanted no part of.
"I don't do men," I said, needing to hear the words outside my head.
"Ah, darlin'." Lars Larson tilted his pristine white Stetson back from his brow, his tawny moustache twitching in amusement. "That's like saying
I
don't do men."
That's right — my ex was deeper in the closet when we married than last year's Jimmy Choos.
"I thought that was your old Mustang below deck," he said.
Note to self: earn enough money to buy unrecognizable car. "What are you doing on this ferry, Lars?"
"You don't seem pleased to see me, darlin'."
What I was was suspicious. "Did my mother tell you where'd I be this morning? Did you follow me?
He burst out laughing. "Good heavens, no. I'm returnin' from a research trip. Just fate that put us on the same ferry."
"Fate?"
"If you ever checked your voice mail, you'd see I've been tryin' to call you."
Don't ask why. Don't ask why. "Why?"
"I want to hire you to look into something for me."
As desperate as I was at the moment for some ready cash, I was already looking into something for someone and working for Lars might incur a conflict of interest. "Whatever it is, I'm not interested."
"Darlin', live up to your name, for God's sake."
I blanched at the low blow. It's a tradition in my family for the females to be named after former first ladies. But why hadn't my mother foreseen the awful possibilities when she tagged me Jacqueline Bouviér Smart? Why not Jacqueline Kennedy Smart instead? Or Jacqueline Onasis Smart?
Anything but
Jack B Smart
.
A name like that demands certain expectations, prospects a girl needs to live up to. The scorecard tilts to the I have nots. "Go away, Lars."
"If you don't help me, Jack B, Bruce will be murdered."
Spider feet on my spine again. "I am not getting involved with anything to do with murder. Don't act like you don't know why."
"But—"
"No."
"I'm not askin' you to interact with a murderer, darlin'. Just to do what you're good at."
"You mean writing novels?" I asked, knowing full well that's the last thing he expected me to say. A life-long aspiring writer, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven when I first attracted Lars' attention.
He is exactly what I aim to be: a genuine, successful, published author.
"Bruce is cheatin' on me."
My mouth dropped open. Was this ironic, or what? Even though I'd long ago accepted that Lars could no more help his sexual orientation than I could mine, some small, petty part of me relished the thought of Bruce cheating on him.
Does that make me a bad person?
"At least I think he is. He's exhibitin' all the signs," Lars said.
"You ought to know," I muttered. But there was no bite in my voice. I was over my spite. My bitterness. I no longer felt as desirable as a spat out lemon drop that landed in the dust bunny barnyard beneath our bed.
I gazed across the dark, choppy waters of Puget Sound, grappling the urge to push Lars overboard. Okay, I still harbor a
bit
of animosity... probably for the agony I'd suffered worrying that his betrayals had inflicted on me the worst of the STDs.
"Even if he is cheating, what do you expect me to do about it?"
Instead of answering, he said, "He's not comin' straight home after the last set like he used to. He swears he's workin' on new routines, but I don't believe it. He's keepin' secrets."
TMI. The last thing I wanted was to be sucked into Lars' love life. Didn't he
get
that? That would be like thinking of my parents' doing it. Ewwww. I'd need to steel wool my brain. "There are private investigators who specialize in this sort of thing. I could give you the number of—"
Lars wasn't listening. To my horror, he began pouring out details I didn't want to hear. I tuned him out, hummed loudly inside my head. My gaze locked on the looming Seattle skyline, its familiar face never ceasing to fascinate me with its energetic mix of seaport industry and high tech financial centers, from Pill Hill to the University of Washington, the Columbia Tower, the Farmer's Market, the Space Needle. A cityscape of buildings old and new rising side by side from the water's edge up the sloping hills, reaching into the gray morning, its sidewalks shared by the focused, the aimless, the homeless.
Lars seemed disinclined to take my silence for dismissal. I supposed only the direct approach would penetrate the rock between his ears. Before I could respond he said, "I don't want a real P.I. I want you."
Me? What? "Why?"
"You have certain... qualities... that a stranger won't have."
"Qualities?"
He nodded. "Shall we call it... delving? into the lives of others and... relieving? them of their secrets?"
Had he just called me a Class A Snoop? I resisted the impulse to knock him upside the head with the digital camera nestled in my coat pocket. I suggested he dial 1-800-MIRACLE EAR. "I'm not going to spy on Bruce. Now, if you don't mind... the ferry is about to—"
"Would you do it if I buy you a computer and a printer?"
The offer was incredible coming from someone as tight fisted as Lars, and I realized he was truly desperate to hire me, which again raised the question: Why me?
"Believe it or not," I said. "I've managed to acquire those things on my own." Of course they were used, refurbished, but dear to me in a way that new, paid-for-by-someone-else never could be.
He caught my sleeve. "I'll quadruple your usual fee."
Air whooshed from my lungs. Now that was temptation money. I supported myself with a variety of odd jobs, and business had been off the last couple of months on all work fronts. Rent was due on my apartment. Today. I'd left too early this morning for my landlord to hit me up for it, but he'd be waiting when I returned home. Bills had gone unpaid this month. My bank account looked moth-eaten. Cold hard cash would ease my every financial worry, but instead of gratitude or acceptance, I blurted, "Why not just bribe me with a year's living expenses?"
A shiver of alarm shot through me at the glint that flashed into his eyes. Good lord, he was considering it.
He pulled his checkbook from inside his jacket. "It's a deal. I always felt bad that never took any alimony."
Like hell he did.
He dug a pen from the same inner pocket and frantically glanced around for a surface to write on. "We'll call it an old debt finally settled."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't stop him. It was my every fantasy come true. Like being offered a seven figure book contract,
and
a truckload of calorie free Godivas,
and
the deed to my own shoe store. A strange, wonderful giddiness swept through me at the thought of all that money sitting in my bank account. At the thought of the unlimited amounts of time it would give me to stay home and write.
In the next second, a sharp blast of wind hit like a face-slap catching me up short. Sobering me. Had I deserved more from our marital assets than I walked away with in the divorce? Probably. But that destination was crossed off my travel itinerary long ago; I didn't intend to revisit it ever again. I liked supporting myself even when times were tough. "Put your checkbook away. You can't hire me for any amount of money."
He kept writing and cast another lure. "You have to. You're the only one I know who might talk some sense into Stone Maddox."
Oh, shit, Stone Maddox! The name resounded in my ears as jolting as the sudden blast of the ferry horn. If Lars is the beer of my addiction, Stone is the Dom Perignon. After the divorce, Stone had salvaged my shattered ego, shown me the joys of being a sensual, sexual woman. He is six feet of mouth-watering sin.
The one man I still want more than any other.
He is also the reason I've sworn off men.
"What? What kind of sense? You think Bruce is cheating with Stone?" I laughed at the absurdity.
"God, no. Maddox is the poster child for hetero bad boys. Okay, maybe I lied about Bruce cheatin'." He sighed, his eyes going earnest. "Truth is, he's been sucked into Maddox's investigation."
