Headed for Trouble

CHAPTER TWO

Jack was totally screwing this up. Considering he was an award-winning journalist, he’d just delivered the lamest, vaguest declaration of love in the entire history of the world.

And he could see from the disbelief in Arlene’s eyes that she was seconds from losing it and kicking his well-dressed ass out the door.

“You told my daughter—”

“That I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he finished for her, afraid to be more precise in defining exactly what he was feeling and had felt for going on over a decade now, because it was clear that Arlene wasn’t going to fall into his open arms in the immediate future. He’d had that chance, two years ago, and had completely blown it back then. “Yes. We were talking and … I wanted to know how you were.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” she shot back, “although still missing my favorite pair of underpants.”

And there it was—the moment of truth. “Okay,” Jack said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and calm. “Good. Let’s put everything out on the table. Let’s talk about that night. I want to tell you about what happened to me the day after.”

She shook her head vehemently. “Let’s not. Let’s stay on topic and …” He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “Will told me he saved your life,” she said. “Last November. That you were in Afghanistan and—”

“He’s got nothing to do with this.” Jack knew where she was going. She assumed Will was the mastermind of this crazy plot. Truth was, he hadn’t even mentioned it to Will. Probably because Will would have shut it down, fast, and Jack had had this completely insane spark of hope that Arlene would welcome the chance to stay home—after getting over the initial shock that her daughter had approached Jack for stud services. “This was all Maggie’s idea.”

Arlene wasn’t convinced. “Why are you dressed up?” she asked suspiciously.

He looked down at his wool-covered legs, at the bright silk of his tie. “I wanted to, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Look nice?”

“So that I’d have sex with you,” she concluded. Good old point-blank Arlene. Why couldn’t he be attracted to the shy, reserved type? “You wore it because you were wearing a suit that night.”

He had been. That night.

He’d just won an award for a newspaper story he’d written on the health-care crisis. He’d been giddy, not just from the award, but because he was being recognized for writing about something that mattered.

After the award dinner, purely by chance, he’d run into Arlene downtown, near Copley Square, getting out of work from what she said was a temporary second job, filling in for a waitress friend at a local restaurant. She’d been wearing jeans and a clingy tank top, sandals on her feet, her red curls loose around her shoulders, her smile filled with sunlight and …

But Jack couldn’t for the life of him remember the underwear she’d had on that incredible night. Black or purple. He’d have thought the color would have been permanently burned into his brain. Black—or purple—against the paleness of her smooth, perfect skin, as she’d tumbled back with him, onto his bed.

As he’d done what he’d been dying to do for years and years and years—to bury himself inside of her, to see her beautiful hair spilled across his pillows, to know that the smile that sparkled in her eyes was just for him.

Her eyes weren’t sparkling now. In fact, they were narrowed. She was looking pretty grim. And tired. Haunted, no doubt, from all she’d done and seen over the past long months, living in a war zone.

And Jack knew that if he had any chance at all here, it would come because he told her the truth, so he said, “Yeah. I wore the suit because you told me that night that I looked good in a suit, that it made you want to, you know, take off my suit and—”

“I remember what I said,” she cut him off, then swore, because her redhead’s complexion made it impossible for her to hide a blush. Yeah, she not only remembered what she’d said, she obviously remembered what they’d done after she’d said it.

Jack remembered, too. Vividly. In glorious Technicolor. Except for the color-of-her-panties part.

“I didn’t call you back,” he told her quietly, “because Becca threatened to kill herself. I made a really bad mistake, a few nights before you and I hooked up. She came over to my place, and … I thought it was … you know, once more for old times’ sake? It was stupid. I was stupid—I’ll be the first to admit that. I should have known better. But then when she …” It had been a nightmare—his ex-wife’s phone calls, her threats, his fear that she just might be crazy enough to do it. His twisted reasoning that she truly must’ve still loved him … “She’s the mother of my kids, Leen. I thought I needed to give it one more shot—regardless of what I really wanted. Which absolutely was you.”

She didn’t believe him. He could tell from the way she was nodding. “You could have written a note. Sent my panties back.”

Crap. “Would you believe me if I told you I wanted to keep them?”

She laughed in his face. “For Becca to find? No.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been bad,” he admitted. “But I did. Want to keep them. That’s not why I didn’t send them to you, though. It’s actually …” He just had to say it. “See, I, um, found two on my floor. Black and purple. I didn’t know which was—”

“That,” Arlene interrupted him, standing up and crossing toward the door, “I believe.”

Jack stayed in his seat, determined that she hear him out. “The others were Becca’s, and … I swear, Arlene, that night? I was certain my marriage was over and done. We’d been separated for six months. I spoke to a lawyer earlier that week—”

“Thanks for dropping by.”

He tried a new tack. “Maggie says you’re home only for a month.”

She opened the door. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. It’s time for you to go.”

“You know, if we worked hard at it, I’m pretty sure I could get you pregnant in that timeframe.”

“Joke’s over, Jack.” Arlene was getting seriously pissed.

But he still didn’t move. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. “I should have called you,” he said. “I was wrong, and I regret it. If I could do it over, and do it differently, I would. I would call you and I would explain, and I would …” He had to clear his throat. He closed his eyes and he just said it. “I would tell you how much that night meant to me, and how badly I wanted to have other nights, just like it, for the next fifty years.”

She shook her head, unrelenting, but then said, “You broke up with Becca a year ago. It never occurred to you to call me then?”

Hope shifted inside of him, just the slightest spark of life inside a miniscule seed, ready, with the least bit of encouragement, to grow. She’d obviously kept track of him. Asked Will for information.

“You were seeing what’s-his-name,” he pointed out. “Peter. The idiot.”

“If you thought he was such an idiot,” she countered, hands on her hips, “why not kick down my door and—”

“I thought you were in love with him. Will told me it was serious.”

She laughed her surprise, turning it into a scoff. “It wasn’t.”

“Yeah, well, Will told me it was.” Jack was unable to hide his frustration. “He told me you were happy and I …” He held her gaze, imploring her to believe him. “I wanted you to be happy, Leen, so I stayed away.”

That shut her up. In fact, she shut the open door, too, coming back to stand in the middle of the living room. But now her arms were folded across her chest—he was far from winning.

“So when you found out that Peter was a thing of the past,” she finally said, “you immediately emailed me …? Except, wait, you didn’t.”

“I found out that Peter was a thing of the past,” he told her, a touch testily himself, “when Maggie emailed me, asking if I was interested in knocking you up.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s going to call, in about two minutes, to tell you to have dinner without her—that her rehearsal’s going to run late.”

Arlene was horrified. “You didn’t actually tell her that you’d—”

“Yeah, right.”

She was apparently unable to process sarcasm right at that moment, so he clarified. “Of course I didn’t. But I did tell her I was going to come here and …” The ring he’d bought was burning a hole in his inside pocket, but he wasn’t supposed to throw the damn thing at her. He was supposed to go heavy on the romance, get down on his knees. No, there was a time and place for everything, and that ring box was staying deep in his pocket. At least for now. “Talk to you,” he finished, since she was waiting, impatiently for the end of his sentence.

“Hey, how are you. It’s been a while. Let’s have sex so I can get you pregnant, because a thirteen-year-old thought that would be a good idea.”

Okay. Apparently he was wrong. Arlene was completely capable of dishing out the sarcasm, even if she wasn’t able to take it.

“No, actually, my plan was to say, Hey, how are you? It’s been a while. I’m still as crazy about you as I’ve always been and for the first time in what feels like forever we’re both single at the same time, so what do you say we put a new spin on the relationship thing and see if we can’t get it to work by getting married—to each other this time.”

And that had done it—Jack had completely stunned her. He’d managed to stun himself, too, having all but resolved, mere seconds ago, not to mention the M-word.

But now that he had, he might as well go big. He reached into his jacket pocket for the ring box, opened it, and set it on the coffee table, in front of her.

She slowly lowered herself into Will’s ugly-ass Barca-Lounger, her eyes huge in her too-thin but still-beautiful face. She didn’t say anything, she just stared at him.

And okay. If he were going to be rejected, he might as well make his humiliation complete. He got down on his knees on the carpeting in front of her and took her hand. Her fingers were cold as he interlaced them with his own. “Marry me, Arlene,” he whispered.

“That’s crazy,” she breathed, but she didn’t look away. And he knew, just from gazing into her beautiful eyes, that she was still as attracted to him as he was to her. That spark they’d flamed to an inferno on that amazing, unforgettable night was still ready to ignite. “You’re crazy.”

Jack shook his head. “All these years, our timing’s been off—”

“And you don’t think it’s a little off now?”

“No,” he said. “I think it’s perfect.”

“In less than four weeks, I’m going back to Iraq.”

“Maybe not,” he pointed out.

“No,” she argued. “I am. I definitely am.”

“Arlene—”

“Jack.” She was holding tightly to his hands now as if trying to squeeze some sense into him. She was gazing into his eyes, too, to make him understand. “I have to. If I don’t go back, they’ll send someone else. Someone who hasn’t been as well trained, someone who hasn’t learned how to keep the kids in my unit safe. And even if that didn’t matter to me …? God, I’m not sure I even want to have another baby. And I’m certainly not having one unless I’m married to someone I know is going to be there for the next twenty years.”

He opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off again. “I’m not going to have a baby just to … have a baby. So, nice try. Good attempt. I don’t know what Will is blackmailing you with, but you can tell him you did your best.”

“Leenie—”

“Shhh.” She reached out and brushed his hair back from his face, her fingers cool against his skin. “Let it go, Jack. That night? The sex was great, but …” She shook her head. “We’d drive each other nuts.”

It was then that the phone rang—Maggie, right on schedule.

Arlene let go of Jack’s hands, and pushed herself out of the chair, stepping over him to go into the kitchen. She picked up the phone and didn’t even bother to say hello. “You get your butt home, young lady. Right now.”

She didn’t wait to hear any excuses or counterarguments. She just hung up the phone with some force.

“You should definitely not be here when she gets back,” she called to Jack.

CHAPTER THREE

“Huh,” Robin said. “That was weird.”

As Jules Cassidy inched his way out of the busy airport parking lot, he glanced at his husband of less than a year, who was staring at his cell phone, his movie-star-perfect brow furrowed in puzzlement.

Robin’s hair was jarhead short. Apparently Joe Laughlin, the character—a closeted gay A-list actor—he played on his hit cable-TV series, Shadowland, was “starring” in a war movie as an enlisted Marine.

As usual, Robin had been nervous about Jules’s reaction to the crew cut, since he’d had it buzzed while Jules was away. But, also as usual, Jules loved it, just as he’d loved every haircut and style—long, short, in-between and a multitude of colors—that Robin had ever had.

His spouse was freakin’ gorgeous—and a full triple screaming-bejeezus hot. And it had been eons since Jules had kissed the man, let alone …

The car in front of him was stopped by the car in front of them, and on and on it went, out of Jules’s line of sight, and probably all of the way out of Logan and right to the front steps of their South End of Boston home. Still he tried to mind-control the car at the front of this mess, no matter that it was miles away, willing whoever-it-was to put the pedal to the metal.

“I just called Will’s, to see if Dolphina was there,” Robin was explaining, “and I’m pretty sure Maggie’s mother answered.”

“Arlene, right?” Jules said, as the solid, endless minute they’d been sitting in this exact spot turned to two and began working its way to three. “Does she go by Bristol, or—”

“She’s Schroeder, like Will,” Robin reported.

Jules nodded. That was what he’d thought. Ted Bristol, Maggie’s dad, not only lived across the country in Seattle, but, according to Will, was a textbook functioning alcoholic. Despite being capable of holding a job and paying his rent, his was not the household that Arlene had wanted Maggie to live in for a week, let alone a year.

Years plural, now—because Arlene was being sent back to Iraq for her third tour. Which made Jules’s impatience about the traffic seem petty and selfish, but for the love of God, was he the only one here who was in a hurry to get home?

“She didn’t sound happy,” Robin was telling Jules now—she being Arlene, whom he’d just spoken to on the phone. “And she didn’t wait to find out that I wasn’t Maggie before she young-ladied me and ordered my butt home.”

“You better call back.” Jules was in four-weeks-and-three-days of a hurry to get home, to be accurate. Which was four weeks longer than he’d expected to be gone when he’d packed his carry-on bag last month.

Yeah, kids. Last month.

His meeting in Washington had turned into a meeting in London, which had morphed into an FBI assignment in Afghanistan. Which was not the kind of place where Robin could join him for a long weekend.

Jules had more than half expected Robin to meet him here at the airport with a limousine and driver. If he had, this traffic wouldn’t matter. They’d be in the back, with music playing and the privacy shield up.

“I’m getting one of those circuit’s-busy signals,” Robin reported, and then smiled ruefully as he met Jules’s gaze, as he accurately read Jules’s mind. “Sorry about—”

“It’s all right.” Jules took his life partner’s hand, intertwined their fingers. Robin had broken the no-limo news to him mere seconds after they’d first embraced.

I couldn’t get a limo at such short notice, but Jesus, I’m glad you’re home.

Jules had laughed at the time, thinking that Robin was just being Robin—the king of immediate gratification. When it came to expressing the physical side of their love, here and now was Robin’s mission statement, and Jules often found himself being coerced into receiving and/or giving some of that immediate gratification at times he normally would have considered inappropriate.

In the middle of the day, when they were already both late for work.

In the bathroom at a friend’s house, during a party.

In the back of a limo.

And okay, coerced wasn’t really the right word. He’d never needed much convincing. Still, as Robin often pointed out, Jules always had been something of a Yankee in terms of his definition of inappropriate.

Had been.

But right now, as they sat and sat and sat in traffic, Jules realized that somewhere over the past year or so, the idea of sex—with his wonderful, fabulous, lovely husband—in the very private back of a limo had become not only entirely appropriate but eagerly anticipated.

“God, babe, I missed you,” Robin breathed, as Jules lost himself in the warm ocean-blueness of his eyes.

And even though kissing this man to whom he was legally wed could be dangerous while trapped in a parking lot with lots of other cars and drivers who were also trapped and no doubt angry at the world, Jules leaned forward and caught Robin’s mouth with his.

Because, f*ck it. They kept a tire iron under the front seat, and Jules and Robin both knew how to use it. Not only that, but there were additional items that could be used as weapons in the back of the car. A military entrenching tool, with a little shovel that unfolded, which was allegedly kept in the car in case they got stuck in snow and ice, but was heavy and could do some serious damage if slammed into an attacker’s face. Plus he had his sidearm. Yeah, it was locked in a travel case but he could open it quickly enough and what was wrong with this world that he was sitting here, mentally taking inventory of weapons that he might need to defend both Robin and himself, merely for publicly expressing their eternal, committed love?

Jules shut off his internal FBI agent—well, as much of it as he could—and cleared his mind of everything but the softness of Robin’s lips, the sweetness of his mouth, the love he could practically taste, and God damn, it was good to be home.