Loe raamatut: «Just Friends To . . . Just Married»

CHAPTER ONE

IN A state of shock, Kimberly sank to her knees in the middle of her empty condo. “This can’t be happening. He can’t be gone. I thought…” Her words faded into nothingness. Clearly she thought wrong. Her boyfriend of two years, the man she’d believed to be “the one,” had moved out, taken everything.

From her vantage point on the cold wood floor, in the middle of what once was their living room, she amended the “everything” part. He hadn’t taken quite everything. The gifts she gave him over the past two years lay in a neat pile nearby. The sports shirts, the half-used bottles of cologne, even the silk boxers covered in red hearts she bought one Valentine’s Day when she felt a little wicked.

She noticed absently that he had left the two landscape prints on the wall that she had bought when a local furniture store had closed down. Numb, she scanned the pile of rejected gifts and noticed a folded sheet of paper sticking out from beneath one of the cologne bottles. The handwriting was Perry’s. “If it says you’ve moved out, sweetheart, it was a waste of paper. I get the message.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, praying there was a good explanation in that note. Foolish, fleeting hope swelled in her heart with the fantasy that it would read, Honey, I’ve been transferred to Paris. Couldn’t reach you. Follow me soonest! Love, Perry. “And I bet there’s a P.S. that says, Didn’t have room in my suitcase for these treasures. Please bring them.” With great reluctance, she unfolded the sheet of notebook paper, muttering to herself, “Dream on, Kimberly.”

She sat on her feet, terribly uncomfortable. But when a person drops to the floor in shock, comfort isn’t the first consideration. Now, with pain shooting through her arches, she shifted her legs out in front of her, her slim skirt not giving her many options. With trembling hands, she smoothed the paper on a thigh. Hesitant to read the words she knew were there, she smoothed it several more times.

She’d come home from her trip so pumped up, so full of good news, with big plans to celebrate. Her fledgling career as a professional meeting planner took a big step forward today. After the unblemished success of the chiropractor’s conference in Las Vegas she’d organized, she’d landed a big client, the owner of a chain of hardware stores. He’d hired her to plan his company’s next corporate confab for January. That left plenty of time for a well-deserved vacation.

So, tonight she’d envisioned a quiet dinner, just the two of them, romantic candlelight, a little wine, and for dessert, making love on the rug in front of a crackling fire.

She glanced at the brick hearth, empty and cold and gray with soot, and blinked back tears. The only thing that would lie naked in front of it tonight would be the bare floor. She forced herself to look at Perry’s note, to focus, read.

“You’ll probably hate me for doing it this way,” it began, “but you shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve had the debate often enough. Face it, Kim, you’re commitment phobic. I wanted marriage, but for two years you put me off. Well, I’ve had it. I’ve found somebody who isn’t afraid to commit. Good luck with your life.” It was signed, simply, “Perry.” He added what looked like a hastily scrawled postscript which read, “Besides, I’ll never measure up.”

Miserable and baffled, Kim murmured, “Never measure up? What do you mean?” Her voice quavered with tears. “Measure up to what—to whom?”

She stared at the cryptic sentence, wiping away tears. After a long, silent struggle to get her mind around the ragged hole that had been shot through her life, she lifted her gaze to take in the gaping void that so suddenly shrouded everything. Perry’s abandonment was a painful lesson of how little she’d given to their life together, at least materially.

“But…but I did care for you!” She picked up her favorite of his colognes and spritzed the air, inhaling. All at once, there Perry stood. Tall, blond, athletic, grinning that smirky grin that made her go gooey inside. Amazing about scents, the way they could conjure up a human being with only a few molecules of biochemical extracts. Suddenly disturbed by the smirking image, she waved her hand through the mist, trying to disperse the scent and erase him from the room. She succeeded only in perfuming her fingers. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand that smell again,” she muttered, wiping her hand on her linen skirt. “You reek, Perry,” she said. “You lousy coward.”

She didn’t want to believe anything in his note had the slightest ring of truth. Commitment phobic? Not a bit. True, they did discuss marriage several times. She’d patiently explained she wasn’t ready. She didn’t like fighting, and never let one of their marriage discussions escalate to an argument. But even so, each time they “discussed” it, she pulled away a little more. Couldn’t they simply be the compatible couple they were, enjoying the same movies, the same music, the same Chinese restaurant? Why did he have to rock the boat? He knew disagreements upset her.

Anger destroyed.

Hadn’t she seen it enough with her mom, who spent Kim’s formative years committing serial marriage? Her mother brought five husbands into their middle class tract house, interspersed by a few not-quite-so-committed boyfriends. Each of those relationships had been briefly happy, too soon deteriorating to volatile and unsettling. She grew to hate fighting, so the more Perry harried her, the more resistant she became.

She took in a shuddery breath, caught his scent and made a sour face. Glancing back at his note, she reread the postscript. “Besides, I’ll never measure up.”

“Measure up?” she whispered, as though trying to get a handle on what Perry meant. “Measure up?” She shook her head, bewildered. Hunched there, in the gathering darkness, her mind took her back, way back, to her next door neighbor, her best friend for all her growing-up years, Jaxon Gideon. Jax was three years older than Kim. He’d always been tall, even as a youngster. Since she couldn’t count on a loving father in her life, Jax was the guy she ran to, blubbering, when she scraped her knee. And later, in high school, she still ran to him when a boyfriend dumped her, or even when she dumped a boyfriend, and simply felt down and alone.

Jax was also the guy she went to when she won something, like a class spelling bee, or the time she got her picture in the paper for writing the best essay in a city-wide contest on the topic, “Why I love St. Louis’s Gateway Arch.” Her mother was so busy cooing and panting over her latest husband she didn’t even notice. But Jax was genuinely happy for her, even though he’d entered the contest, too. Of course, Jax was a science and math brain, which she never was, so their relationship never got competitive.

Childhood memories filled with Jax flashed by. She experienced a spark of warmth in her cold, desolate heart. Funny, but Jax had such a special place in her life that even thinking of him soothed her tattered spirit. She could hardly believe she’d let herself get out of touch with him over the past decade. Decade? Could it really be that long?

Well, she blamed Jax. After all, didn’t she still live in St. Louis? He was the one who left to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, where he had stayed. Of course, they were grown-ups now. He had his life to live and she had hers. Their paths inevitably had to diverge. Which, to Kim, was a sad thing. She could use Jax living next door right now.

Back in high school, she’d sensed he had a crush on her. They went on a few dates, but Kim resisted a romance. She didn’t dare put Jax into the “boyfriend” category. A person could lose a boyfriend, and Jax had been the only stable friend and confidant she’d known in her life. Her mother’s many marriages, with all the fighting and the breaking up, scarred her. She hated upheaval so Jax became her rock, her comfort and solace. For that reason, she kept their dating casual and occasional, terrified that upping him to boyfriend status would throw him into the realm of chaos, where she spent too much of her young life. She couldn’t risk it.

“I wonder what Jax is doing these days?” After graduating from Northwestern he started up a dot.com, made a bundle and got out before the bubble burst. She didn’t know what he was doing now. Some kind of consulting, she’d heard, still in Chicago.

The last time she saw him was when her engagement to Bradley ended. Jax was in his third year at Northwestern, and she’d just started at a local junior college. Thinking her life was over, she fled to him and, as usual, he consoled her, told her it was “for the best,” which, in hindsight, couldn’t have been more true. Like magic, Jax got her back on track. After a week of crying on his broad, capable shoulders, she returned to St. Louis, into the chaos that ebbed and flowed through her world, leaving Jax solidly in his essential “friend” status.

She sniffed and swiped at a tear as she scanned the emptiness again. Her misery began to mutate into anger. Sucking in a shuddery breath, she cried, “How could you, Perry? How could you sneak out of our relationship like a thief in the night?”

All of a sudden she had a brainstorm. The shock of finding Perry gone had to be the worst disaster in her life to date. If she ever needed Jax, it was now. “That’s absolutely what I need! My Jax Fix!” Not only would talking to Jax make her feel better, he would be happy for her when he found out about how well her business was doing. They could laugh and talk and…well, it would be like the good old days.

Before she knew she’d even moved, she grabbed her cell phone from her handbag and dialed directory assistance. She cleared her throat, struggling to sound like she wasn’t on the verge of hysteria. “Hello—” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat again. “I’d—uh—like the phone number of Jaxon Gideon in Chicago.”

When she got it, she dialed. In her anticipation, a little of the ponderous sadness loosened its grip around her heart. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then a message came on. “Jaxon Gideon is unable to come to the phone. Please leave a brief message after the beep and he will return your call.”

She managed a tremulous smile at the comforting familiarity of his baritone voice. His message was short and to the point, too. Nothing frilly or cutesy for Jax. She only hoped she could make it through her message without bursting into tears. “Hi, Jax,” she began, almost in a whisper. “Guess who!” She shook her head at herself for the childish silliness. She laughed out of embarrassment. It sounded odd in her ears, a melancholy, almost a puppy whine of a noise. “Sorry. I won’t make you guess. It’s been way too long,” she said solemnly. “It’s Kim. Look, I—” She broke off, hesitating, unsure of how long her voice would hold out before it broke. “In all honesty, I could use a friend right now.” She stopped, grimaced, facing facts. A phone call simply wouldn’t be enough. “On second thoughts, I’m coming to see you.” She congratulated herself on her brilliant idea. “I’ve gone way too long without my Jax Fix.” She smiled to herself, amazed that she even could. It was Jax. All Jax, making her smile. “Okay, then,” she said, feeling less like her emotional destruction had been total. “I’ll see you soon.”

She hung up and scrambled off the hard floor. “Jax Fix, here I come!” She headed for the entry where she’d dropped her suitcase, then stopped, twisted around and grabbed up the pile of Perry’s cast-off shirts. In a fit of pique, she threw them into the fireplace. “They’ll make perfect kindling for my next fire,” she muttered. Hurrying into the entry she hoisted the suitcase she’d so recently lugged in. “Meanwhile, I’m catching the first flight to Chicago.”

Jax was dog-tired when he got in from his long, tedious client dinner. Sometimes being a business productivity consultant reaped great rewards, both monetary and emotional. Other times, like tonight, it was like pulling teeth to get a company CEO to believe him when he outlined all they needed to do to increase productivity.

“He wants my expertise, but he doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it on the muted green suede sofa, then headed upstairs to his bedroom. Loosening his tie, he noticed his answering machine blinking. Strange. Everybody knew his cell number and left voice mail. He didn’t even know why he still had the antiquated answering machine and land line. The truth was, he hadn’t had the time to get rid of them.

Though he figured it was a telemarketer or a solicitation for donations, he pressed the button to hear the message. The instant he heard that voice, he froze in the act of pulling his tie from around his neck.

It was Kim.

After all these years of getting nothing but a few scribbled lines in Christmas and birthday cards—it was Kim. Her voice was so familiar it had become a part of him, a part he both loved and hated. As the message ended, he took a couple of steps backward, staggering slightly, and sat down heavily on his bed. “Hell.”

Jax had only harbored one great passion in his life—Kimberly Norman. As a kid he’d been a distracted geek, way too intense, oblivious to the subtleties of high school social politics. But Kim never seemed to notice his shortcomings. She’d been his friend, laughed at his dumb geek jokes.

She never seemed bored when they were together, even when he went on and on about circuitry or motherboards. She helped build more than one of his Science Fair projects, even though she never knew what he meant when he explained them to her. Or cared, for that matter. He always thought she was terribly cute that way.

He knew about her unsettled home life, so his company was doubtless the lesser of two evils. Even so, she seemed to genuinely like being around him. And he loved having her around. Kim, the freckle-faced day-brightener, girl-next-door. He didn’t think she ever quite understood how lovely she was or how lucky he felt to be on the receiving end of her smiles.

As a youth he adored her quietly. Years passed, years when he hoped for more than a friendship. But after he was kindly—but definitely—shut down following a few fledgling dates, he faced the fact that Kimberly needed him as a friend. She certainly didn’t need him as a suitor. By the time she was seventeen she had plenty of those. Her carrot-red braids had become a flowing, sexy mane of auburn flame. And no matter how much she hated the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, in truth they were a charming enrichment to her delicate features.

When she came to him after breakups with boyfriends, he soothed her, grateful for that part of her she gave to him. But having her near, knowing she cared—but not enough—not in the way a man wants a woman to care, wore on him. He’d grown into a man, and a man could only stand so much. Finally, he’d had all he could stomach of her rebounding off him.

That’s why he left St. Louis. That’s why he wrapped himself in his dot.com business. Then, after he sold that and became a consultant, he buried himself in his new enterprise. One day, he hoped to forget Kim, find some other woman who could fill the hole in his heart that he’d wanted her to fill.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t happened.

Not yet.

He glared at the answering machine; the message light no longer blinked. “Why the hell couldn’t you have been a telemarketer.”

He ripped off his tie and threw it to the carpet. “Did it never occur to you that your little ‘Jax Fix’ pop-in might be a problem for me?” He started to unbutton his dress shirt, then stopped, ran both hands through his hair. Moments ago he was bored and weary. Now he blazed with a crazy mixture of bitterness and longing. What was he going to do? “I’ll call her back,” he thought aloud. “Tell her I’m going out of town—on business.” He shoved himself up to stand and headed for the phone to check his caller ID for her phone number. “Better yet, I’m leaving the country, for—for a month.”

He lifted the receiver, began to punch out the numbers. As he did, something strange happened. With each successive button he pushed, he slowed. By the last number, he had gone stock-still, his finger suspended above the number. “What’s wrong with you, man?” he gritted out. “Punch it! Before she leaves!”

He winced at a sudden thought and checked the time she had made the call. Five-thirteen. He flicked a narrowed glance at his wristwatch. Ten-thirty-five. Reality lashed like a whip. Heaving an exhale as raw as a blasphemy, he lowered the phone to the ebony bedside table. If he knew Kimberly at all—and he knew her well—she was on her way.

The doorbell chimed, thundering in the quiet like a tractor-trailer truck barreling through his bedroom. He wheeled toward the sound, resentful, infuriated, yet on fire for her. “Damn it, Kimberly!” he ground out in a burst of frustration and rage. “I refuse to be your rebound man again. If you can’t be my life, I want you out of it!”

He headed for the front door. With every step he repeated his manifesto to resist her.

Could he?

This time?

“Of course you can, you stupid ass.”

Stark, lung-constricting, muscle-cramping doubt twisted his insides.