The Guy Next Door

chapter EIGHT



JESSE SAT AT HIS DESK. He stared out the window at the banyan tree, his first cup of morning coffee in his hand, still reeling from what had happened with Gail the night before. What his agent just told him hadn’t improved his mood any, either.

His publisher had said no on the two-week extension request. They wanted the manuscript by 10:00 a.m. the next day. But for good reason, Beverly told him in an excited voice. They’d moved up the pub date of that book by six whole months. And they’d decided to send him out on tour with his summer release.

“This is a sure sign that they believe in you, Jesse, that they’re certain you can turn those numbers around.” Beverly waited for some type of enthusiastic response from him, but when she didn’t get one, she continued on. “I’m not sure you realize how big this is. Authors aren’t getting this kind of support right now, Jesse, not in this economy. And they’re behind you even though your numbers are down.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Jesse? Do you hear what I’m saying? Isn’t this fabulous?”

Not exactly.

Gail was leaving in twenty-four hours, the exact same time his publisher expected to have his completed manuscript in hand. How was he supposed to send in a halfway decent manuscript and win Gail back at the same time?

Jesse got up from his chair and began to pace. “So I guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that I was about to ask for a two-week extension on top of the two-week extension they just nixed?”

Beverly didn’t answer right away. “No,” she eventually said. “That wouldn’t be smart.”

He walked back and forth in front of the eight custom-framed book covers hanging at precise intervals on his office wall, knowing in his heart that Gail had been right. He was a dipshit.

His agent had one more point to make, apparently. “I have to ask you, Jesse, what’s going on in your life that’s more important than your career? You seem quite distracted. You’re not having more problems with that crazy tourist, are you?”

He stopped pacing and leaned a hip up against the windowsill. For some reason, all he could think of was the moment Gail first slipped her hand into his, just before he took her on the moped tour. Before that day had ended, she would have revealed her heart to him, made him laugh and pranced around in a dental floss bikini for him.

Jesse stood straight, the truth of it suddenly hitting him like a boat anchor upside his head. When he’d told Gail he was falling for her, he’d meant it. But it was more than that. Gail Chapman was the only woman he wanted. She was the one he’d been looking for. And it was as simple as that.

“Did I lose you, Jesse?”

“Nope,” he told his agent. “Still here.”

“Is everything all right in your world?”

Jesse laughed. He could never tell Beverly what was going on. If he told her that a really special woman was staying in the rental house next door and he’d fallen in love with her, his agent would dump his ass as a client. Then she’d send an emissary to Key West to track him down and shoot him where he stood. And Jesse wouldn’t blame her one bit.

“Everything’s fine,” he said.

“Then get the manuscript to them by tomorrow morning.”

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. How had he gotten into this mess? He had to finish a book and win Gail back—at the same time. “Fine. Tell them it’s on the way.”

He hung up. He sat down at his desk once more, knowing he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.





HOLLY SCOOTED THE CHAIR closer to the desktop computer and signed in to her Internet account, warning everyone that her typing might not be up to snuff on a strange keyboard.

“Then let me do it,” Hannah said, pulling up the chair to her right.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Holly shook her head. “This is my mother’s heartache, so it’s only right I should get the honors.”

Gail took the seat to the left of her daughter, cautiously sipping at the hot cup of coffee in her hand. It had taken some convincing, but she’d agreed to accompany the girls to the Internet café in Old Town to do a little research on J. D. Batista, master of fiction, in both his books and his life.

She had nothing else to do. They were leaving the next morning. Besides, she’d cried so much that they were out of tissues at the house.

“Okay, girls!” Holly said in what Gail thought was a voice far too perky for the occasion. “Get on Google and let’s search the living crap out of him!”

A couple of clicks on the keyboard, and there he was. That sure didn’t take long. Gail had to admit that Jesse looked exceptionally handsome in his publicity shot, and that yes, the picture did look familiar. She’d probably seen his face and his books in a dozen bookstores over the years, but since she didn’t read that stuff, it never registered with her. She peered closer to the photo, deciding something looked off about him. He wasn’t wearing his little silver earring, for starters. He was clean-shaven. And his eyes seemed friendly but empty somehow. Flat.

Gail sat up straight. Her chest pulled tight. The reason Jesse’s publicity picture looked strange to her was that it wasn’t the Jesse she knew. What she was looking at was his public face, and she’d seen him only on his home turf. Gail had become accustomed to Jesse’s eyes when he looked at her—when they made love, danced, laughed together, or walked hand in hand. Maybe he’d been himself with her that week, after all.

“Check this out!” Holly pulled up several articles about Jesse’s legal troubles. Gail had to admit the woman who made the charges was easy on the eyes. She looked elegant. She looked believable. But when Holly read aloud some of the ugly details, Gail felt nauseous.

The woman’s claims made Jesse sound like a monster. Granted, Gail had known him only for nine days, but never once had she seen any of the traits his accuser described. Gail had seen only generosity, tenderness and passion. Until last night, that is, when he dropped the “full disclosure” bomb on her.

“I don’t like spying on him like this,” Gail suddenly announced, rising from her seat near the computer. “I’ve seen enough to know that Jesse told me the truth about who he is and what happened with that woman. I don’t need to know anymore.”

“Ah, c’mon, Ms. Chapman!” Hannah said, smiling. “If you’re getting back into the dating scene, you’re definitely going to need to know how to do this!”

That sure buoyed her spirits. “I’ll be over by the window. Let me know if anything really bad comes up.”

Holly looked at her as if she was crazy. “This isn’t bad enough for you?”

Gail took a deep breath. How was she going to explain this to her daughter? She never wanted Holly to think it was all right for a man to deceive a woman, because it never was. That had been the central lesson in Gail’s catastrophic marriage to Curtis.

But Gail knew that the older a person got—and the more complicated their history became—the less black and white the world was. Jesse hadn’t told her the truth about his career. Fine. But if she’d been in his position, would she have done things any differently? Perhaps not. And he’d shared everything else with her, hadn’t he—his home, his city…his heart?

“Look,” she told the girls. “Jesse fell for that woman there on the computer. She trapped him, blackmailed him and tried her best to destroy his career.” Gail shrugged and turned toward the window table, speaking more to herself now than Holly and Hannah. “The whole thing made him wary. So when I showed up, he did what he had to do to protect himself. Unfortunately I got hurt in the process. But unlike the woman who set out to destroy him, Jesse didn’t hurt me intentionally. He just didn’t think of the consequences of his actions.”

“Thanks for that teachable moment, Mom,” Holly said.

Gail collapsed into a chair in the sunshine. She stared out the window of the café, remembering the talk she and Jesse had their first day together, when he’d arranged for their private luncheon. She’d asked him how he could afford his lifestyle, her worst fears being drug smuggling, embezzlement and the mafia. She’d never even thought to ask him about popular fiction.

She sat quietly, drinking her coffee, while Holly and Hannah continued their cyberinvestigation. When they believed they were sufficiently informed, Gail said she was going to take a walk to the bookstore. Curiosity had gotten the better of her. “Do you want to come with?”

“Sure,” Holly said, smiling. “Nestor and Luis are working today. We were going to stop in anyway.”





“MAY I HELP YOU?”

A short, round man with a friendly face wandered over to Gail as she perused the aisles. It seemed odd to her that the books were spaced so far apart on the shelves, as if the bookstore owner had depleted his inventory or was preparing to go out of business.

“Yes, hi,” Gail said. “I was looking for J. D. Batista’s novels, and I assumed that you’d carry them, since he’s a local author. Do you know if the other bookstore in town has them in stock?”

The man’s eyes bugged out, but he said nothing, which Gail found odder still. Just then, Luis and Nestor spotted the girls and strolled over, trying to look cool when they were clearly thrilled that they had visitors.

“Hey,” Hannah said, playfully grabbing at Nestor’s arm. “Why didn’t you guys tell us who Jesse was?”

Nestor shrugged. “Because Dad told us he’d kick our asses to Cuba if we—”

“That’s enough.” Obviously, the man was the boys’ father and Jesse’s friend. It was all starting to make sense to Gail.

“Get outta here. Take the day,” he said to his sons, and they were happy to oblige.

“Bye, Mom, we’ll check in later!” Holly said, heading for the front door of the bookstore. Suddenly, she stopped and turned. “You’ll be okay?”

“Absolutely,” Gail answered her.

Once the group had gone outside, the man sighed deeply and extended his hand to Gail. “My name is Santiago, but my friends call me Chago,” he said, smiling. He motioned for Gail to walk with him. “This is my store.”

“I’m Gail,” she said.

“Yep, I figured as much,” he said with a chuckle. “Jesse said you were beautiful, and he was right.”

She smiled tightly. “How sweet of him.”

“So, he finally told you everything, huh?”

Gail nodded. “What a dipshit,” she mumbled.

Chago laughed so hard she feared the few remaining books would come tumbling off the shelves. “Yeah, my friend wasn’t thinking straight, unfortunately. He was determined to wait a few days until he told you who he was.”

She nodded. “So it seems.”

He led her to the stockroom, warning her to stand back. The room was packed floor to ceiling with books. Chago cleared his throat before he spoke again. “If it helps at all, Jesse told me that you were really special, that he could see something happening with the two of you, something long-term.”

She nodded, acknowledging Chago’s loyalty to his friend. It was sweet. Then she looked around the stockroom and laughed out loud. “Let me see if I get the picture here,” she said. “Jesse actually told you to hide all his books? So I wouldn’t see them on display?”

Chago chuckled again then pointed behind Gail’s back. She turned to see a huge poster-sized version of his publicity photo propped against the wall.

“That ugly mug would’ve been pretty hard to miss,” Chago said with a shrug. “Be careful where you step, Miss Gail. Maybe you should tell me which book you want and I’ll get it for you. Probably safer that way.”

“I have no idea what I want,” Gail said, immediately aware of the appropriateness of that statement.

“Ever read any of his stuff before?” Chago asked.

“Nope.”

“You should probably give him a chance, you know,” Chago said.

“I’m here to buy his books, aren’t I?”

A frown marred Chago’s pleasant face as he looked up at Gail. “I meant him as a person, not his books. There are plenty of a*sholes out there who write good books. Trust me on that.”

Gail laughed.

“Jesse is a real decent guy, though,” he said. “He always has been. He has his eccentricities and all that, sure, and he locks himself away like a monk when he’s on deadline, which takes some getting used to, but he treats everyone in his life real good. If he doesn’t deserve another shot, I don’t know who does.”

Gail swallowed hard. Suddenly, it was all she could do not to cry. How could something so wonderful have gotten so messed up, so fast? “All right, then,” she said, trying to sound sprightly. “Which book do you recommend?”

Chago smiled. “Start with his first one so you can familiarize yourself with the characters.” He reached over and grabbed a hardcover book with a dramatic dust jacket, the image of a menacing storm bearing down on a small boat.

Gail held it in her hand then flipped it over, finding the same publicity photo. She couldn’t help but smile seeing his face. “How many books are there in the series?” she asked.

“Eight, and number nine is set for release later this summer. He’s writing number ten now.”

Chago nodded toward a dozen cartons stacked near the back fire exit. “I’m not allowed to put the new one out yet.”

“I’ll take all eight,” Gail said.

Chago’s eyes went big again. “You sure? You need some help getting them home?”

Gail shook her head, showing him her large straw bag. “Fill ’er up,” she said.





BY 4:00 P.M., HE’D LEFT six messages on her cell phone and sent flowers and chocolates to the house, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him. She wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed.

Would tomorrow be the end of something fun but foolish, or the start of something with potential?

Gail did what she always did in times of indecision. She called Kim and laid out the whole story for her, edited for modesty’s sake, of course.

“Holy shit,” Kim said after hearing everything that had happened in the last few days. “I love that guy’s books!”

Gail rolled her eyes.

“And you said you wouldn’t let anything happen to you down there,” Kim added. “Boy, were you wrong!”

She laughed softly. “Kind of looks that way.”

Kim had some logical advice, as always. She told Gail that giving Jesse an opportunity to redeem himself wasn’t a sign of her own weakness or gullibility. “The man made a bad call, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Curtis Chapman clone,” Kim said. “He’s already apologized, right? He knows he screwed up. So whatever you do, don’t get on that plane without talking to him. Hear him out.”

“All right,” Gail said.

“What kind of chocolates? What kind of flowers? You didn’t say.”

Gail laughed at her friend again. “Three dozen yellow tulips and a dozen truffles from a local chocolatier.”

Kim didn’t say anything. Gail couldn’t even hear her breathe. For a moment, she thought she’d lost cell phone reception. “Kim?” she asked. “Are you there?”

“Not Curtis Chapman, not Curtis Chapman…” Kim said in monotone. “Just keep repeating that phrase over and over to yourself.”

When they hung up, Gail leaned her head back against the comfortable poolside lounge chair. The sun was hanging low in the sky. She’d be flying back to Philly in eighteen hours.

Gail’s eyes dropped to the hardback book in her lap. As it turned out, Jesse’s first novel was extremely well written. The story was full of double crosses and characters the reader didn’t know if they should trust. It had great sex and witty dialogue and a plotline that made Gail never want to leave the world she’d entered.

In other words, Jesse’s first novel was a lot like the week she’d just spent in his company.

She sighed, twisting around to look up and behind her, trying to see through the thick foliage to Jesse’s house. It looked as if the lights had just come on upstairs.

Kim had been right—he wasn’t Curtis. And Chago had been right—he was a decent guy who deserved another shot.

Besides, there was no point in denying the most important reality of all. Gail had broken the number one rule for any spring breaker. She’d gone and fallen in love.

She was totally sprung.





A LOUD BANGING JARRED Jesse out of his writing stupor. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if the sound was real or if it had happened in his head, where an entire city block had just gone up in a cloud of black smoke as part of the climactic action sequence.

No. The sound was real, he decided. Someone was banging on his front door loud enough to wake the dead. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said to no one. He glanced at his computer to check the time. He was almost going to make it. He’d designated eight hours of his day to rush through one last edit, then he would be emailing the manuscript to New York. He didn’t give a damn how much work it still needed, which was unlike him. Jesse had always prided himself on the fact that he turned in near-perfect manuscripts that hardly ever needed revisions. It was his trademark.

But not this time. If they wanted his manuscript, they could have it. He’d do revisions later. It didn’t matter. He had a life to live.

The woman he loved was getting on a plane in the morning, and there was still a lot to be settled between them. He had a whole lot of apologizing to do. They had plans to make for their future.

The banging continued. “What the f*ck do you want from me?” he asked the gods, raising his arms over his head. He couldn’t break now! He’d built in just enough time for a quick shower before he went over there and professed his love to Gail. If he stopped now, there would be no shower, and therefore a much-reduced chance at winning her back.

The truth was, she hadn’t returned his calls or acknowledged the flowers or candy. She might have decided to go out for dinner, ruining his plans for the night, or she might have even taken an earlier flight, ruining his future. But the last time he looked, she was still over there at poolside, her back to him, reading or sleeping, he couldn’t tell which, but obviously not too distraught over their argument. So he simply couldn’t stop now, no matter who was at the door. He was minutes away from finishing. He was minutes away from emailing this sucker to New York and getting his ass back to Gail.

The banging continued.

“What is wrong with people?” he muttered, getting up from his chair for the first time in at least three hours, shaking his legs to get the blood back in his limbs. “Have you never heard of the sanctity of a man’s home? Do you not realize that some people have f*cking contractual obligations? What the f*ck is wrong with the world?”

Jesse grabbed the door handle and was about to fling it open and continue his diatribe when he was shocked to his senses. It was Gail. She had a thoughtful smile on her face. She stood on his porch in that same conservative cotton sundress she’d worn the day he met her. But she’d accessorized differently today. His first “Dark Blue” novel was clutched to her chest.

“You’re a very good writer,” she said.

Jesse couldn’t breathe.

“You’re still a dipshit, but I’m going to give you another chance, because I know you had your reasons.”

Jesse’s eyes widened. He must look like hell.

“In fact, you’re quite talented.”

She opened the book and began to read a paragraph from the second chapter, using her now-familiar English professor voice. When she was done with her recitation, she closed the book and looked him square in the eye.

“This is beautifully economic use of the language,” she said. “You don’t resort to flowery descriptions or melodramatic dialogue. It’s real. It’s raw, and your sentences have a driving power to them.”

For an instant, Jesse worried he might be hallucinating. Maybe he’d gotten himself dehydrated again. It happened sometimes when he was on deadline.

“It almost reminds me of Hemingway.”

Jesse laughed.

“And I apologize for calling your books trash when I hadn’t even bothered to read them. My thesis committee board would cringe if they knew I’d committed such a sin.”

Jesse smiled. “Apology accepted.”

“Are you okay?” Gail asked. “You look pretty awful.”

Talk about economic use of the language.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, rubbing a hand over his rough beard. “I’d hoped to be better groomed when I got down on the ground and groveled before you.”

She nodded, giving him a once-over. He was still in the robe he’d worn during their fight the night before.

“I love you, Gail,” he said.

She looked up at him, her eyes clear and smiling.

“And I’m truly sorry for not telling you everything about me from the start.” The moment the words left him, Jesse felt the weight of exhaustion and relief press down on him. He had to laugh at how ridiculous he was about to sound. “But here’s the kicker—my publisher just moved up my deadline to tomorrow morning. I was racing through my manuscript so I could spend time with you before you go.”

She cocked her head politely.

“And I don’t want you to go, Gail. I really don’t want you to go.”

She stepped through his doorway and placed herself directly in his embrace. He pulled her tight, smelling her, feeling her heat and the beat of her heart, never wanting the moment to end.

“I accept your apology,” Gail said, the words muffled by his robe. “Why don’t you shower while I make you something to eat? Then you can finish up.”

“Seriously?” he asked her, stunned.

“Sure,” Gail said, easing out of his embrace. “You’re on deadline. I understand.”

Jesse stood in shock for a few seconds. “You do?”

She grinned. “Of course. I love you, too, Jesse.”

Jesse gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her hard and fast. “A half hour, tops,” he said, already heading up the steps. “And you don’t have to cook. I have an eight o’clock reservation for us at the Grand Café. I wanted your last night here to be special. If I hurry, we can just make it.”

“That sounds even better.” Gail grinned at him from the foyer. “I have a good book to keep me company in the meantime.”