“What are we going to do now?”
Joleen asked the question in a low, tight voice. It was some time later. Jonas and Emma had left for the day, and the nanny had taken the children back upstairs.
Dekker set down his coffee cup without drinking from it. It seemed crystal clear to him what they would do now. “We’re going to Baja.”
“But we can’t just—”
“Why not? They’re all supposed to think we’re happy newlyweds, remember? And this is the kind of trip happy newlyweds would jump at.”
She looked away. “Well, I…I think I’ll have to tell Emma that though there is nothing I would love more than a week alone with my new husband, we just are not going to be able to go.”
“Why not?”
She coughed, nervously, into her fist. “I’ll say that I don’t think I can leave Sam for all that time.”
“You’ll say that.”
“Yes. I will.”
“You’ll say it, but it’s not the truth, not the real reason you don’t want to go away with me.”
That gave her pause—though not for long. After a moment or two of heated silence, she said carefully, “Sam is only a year and a half old, and it makes perfect sense that I wouldn’t want to go away for a whole week without him.” She was watching him sideways, as if she didn’t quite dare to look him square in the eye.
He dared. He stared at her dead-on. He was so damn sick of whatever had gone wrong with her, whatever had made her stop wanting to be with him, to talk to him. He hated this, whatever it was.
And he wanted it gone.
He said, “So it makes perfect sense. Fine. That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Dekker, I don’t think it matters what—”
“Let me ask you directly. If you said that you couldn’t make yourself leave Sam here for a week, would it be true?”
“What does it—”
“So it would be a lie, wouldn’t it? Because Sam would do just fine without you for a week. He’s a well-adjusted kid. You said it yourself—zero separation anxieties. And he’s made himself at home here. He likes the nanny and he likes playing with Mandy. And he will be safe. You know it. Safe from harm. Safe from that SOB grandfather of his. Because if there’s anyplace in the world that no one could touch him, it’s right here at Angel’s Crest.”
She started to speak. He went on before she could get anything out. “On the other hand, if he did have a problem, if something came up, if he got sick or whatever, we could be back here in a matter of hours.”
“Dekker, I don’t—”
He cut her off that time with a short, chopping motion of his hand. She turned to follow the direction of his gaze. A maid carrying a silver coffeepot came toward them through the archway that led to the kitchen. She brought the pot to the table, refilled their cups, scooped up a few empty dishes and then left them the way she had come.
As soon as she was gone, Dekker stood. “Let’s talk about this upstairs.”
Joleen stared up at him.
She wanted to scream—just throw back her head and let out a long, loud wail. She felt so…trapped.
Trapped. And frustrated.
And confused.
And dishonest.
And just plain terrible about herself.
She spoke in a charged whisper. “I am fed up with worryin’ about what the maid thinks. I do not care what the maid thinks.”
His gaze bored through her. If looks could burn, she would be nothing but cinder and ash.
“Upstairs,” he said. “Come with me. Now.”
* * *
He confronted her as soon as they got through the door of the room they had been forced to share.
“You’ve had three days,” he said, shoving the door shut. “Three days to ‘think it over,’ three days to ‘deal with it’—whatever the hell ‘it’ is.”
She put up a hand, palm out, to keep him at bay. “Please. Can’t you just wait?” She backed away from him. “Can’t you just let it be, let me work this out in my own time?”
He went after her, each step slow and deliberate. “No. I can’t take this anymore. There is no damn thing in the world you could say to me that I can’t deal with, can’t find a way to understand.”
She reached the center of the room, between the bed and the sitting area, and she hovered there, emotions chasing themselves across her pale face—indecision, anger, outright misery. “I just don’t…I can’t—”
He didn’t stop until he was right in front of her. “You don’t what? You can’t what?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shook her head, her eyes too big, too sad, too hopeless. “Oh, Dekker…”
And something snapped inside him. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging in. “What, damn it? What?”
She winced.
They both froze, staring at each other. Remorse burned through him. If he had hurt her…
He uttered her name on a ragged whisper, tried to pull her close.
“No!” She jerked away, gasped, put her hand across her mouth.
All he wanted was to reach for her again—to yank her against him, to make her take the comfort he needed to give her.
This was going nowhere. Better to get out.
He started to turn.
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “Oh, wait…” She let go, with a swiftness that stunned him, as if to touch him burned her. But then she gave a small cry. “Oh, please. I hate this, too, I hate what has happened between us. I hate it as much—no, more—than you do. Oh, Dekker, don’t go.…”
He faced her. And he waited. A kind of grim acceptance had settled over him. He saw no reason to push her further for answers. Either she would tell him. Or she wouldn’t—and he would turn around once more and this time he would leave.
Her face, so pale a moment before, flooded with color. “I…can I ask you…?”
“Anything.” It came out a growl. “You know that.”
“The other night. Friday, our weddin’ night?”
“Yeah?”
“When you—” she hesitated, swallowed, as if the next word almost choked her trying to get out “—kissed me. At the table, in front of the window, when we thought a reporter was—”
“I remember, Jo.”
“Okay. Well, Dekker, um…you…” She ran out of words, lost her courage again.
He couldn’t stop himself from prompting, “I…?”
“Well, you—” She sucked in a long breath and let it out in a rush. “I felt your tongue, Dekker. You used your tongue. A little. You did.”
He thought he understood then. He felt like a worm. “It was a sleazy move, huh? God. I am so sorry. You probably think I’m putting the moves on you, taking advantage of our situation to—”
“No. Wait.”
“What?”
“Please. Don’t be sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I do not think that you are putting any moves on me.”
She shook her head. Her soft cheeks were the deepest pink he had ever seen them. “I just…I want to know, um, why you did that?”
He was completely in the dark all over again. “Wait a minute. For three days you’ve hardly spoken to me…because you wanted to know why I used my tongue when I kissed you…and you were too embarrassed to ask?”
She clasped her hands in front of her and stared down at them as if she were trying to see through to the bones. “No. No, that’s not it.”
“Then what?”
She lifted her head, cried, “Oh, I am getting there. I am trying to get there. If you would just—”
He patted the air between them, palms out. “Okay. Sorry. Take your time. It’s okay…”
“I…”
“Yeah?”
“I just want to know why you did it. That’s all I’m asking right now.”
“Why I…used my tongue when I kissed you?”
“Yes. Exactly. Why?”
He studied her face for an endless moment as he realized he didn’t have the faintest idea. “I, uh…”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted the kiss to look convincing to the guy outside the window. I did what I had to do to make it that way.” Hadn’t he?
“But your back was to the window. Whoever was out there couldn’t tell if there were…tongues involved, or not.”
He wondered, vaguely, if he’d ever had such a strange conversation as this in his life. “Hell, Jo. It seemed natural, I guess. A natural thing to do, in that situation.”
“Natural?”
“Yeah. We were playing our parts, right? The bride and groom on their wedding night.”
“But you never, I mean, all these years we have known each other. All my life…”
“Yeah?”
“You never did anything like that with me before.”
“Right. I didn’t. And I apologize. I went too far and I—”
“Don’t apologize. Please.”
“But I—”
“Did you like it?” The words came out in a rush. Her astonished expression said it all. She couldn’t believe she had said such a thing.
He quelled the sudden urge to grin. “Well, yeah.”
She was frowning—a very intense sort of frown. “Are you sure you understood the question? I asked if you liked—”
“I got it. You asked if I liked kissing you, with a little bit of tongue involved.” Her face, if possible, got even redder than it was already. “And I said yeah.”
“It was enjoyable for you, kissing me that way?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yes, I thought you did. I wanted to be sure.”
“Okay, then. You can be sure.”
She unclasped her hands, looked at her palms as if she couldn’t decide what to do with them next. Then she whirled away, strode to the bed and dropped to the edge of it.
He approached cautiously. “Mind if I…?”
“Of course I don’t. Sit.”
“Dekker…”
He made a low noise, to let her know he was there, and that he was listening.
“Something has…happened to me. Something I never expected. Something I never imagined…” She looked down at her feet and added in a tiny voice, “Or at least, I don’t think I imagined.” She let out a tiny groan. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can bear to tell you…to ask you…” She shook her head slowly, wearily, back and forth.
He waited. What else could he do at that point? Maybe Atwood had somehow managed to get through the extensive security network his brother employed at Angel’s Crest, managed to get through and threaten her somehow. Maybe she had some incurable disease.
It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, as soon as she told him, they could face it together.
“I don’t know how to say it,” she murmured. “Except to just say it…”
“Good idea.”
She drew herself up and looked straight at him. He had never seen her look so determined—or so lost.
She said, “Dekker, I…I want you. I know this is a lot to ask, but do you think, maybe, that we could make love together?”