“How are ya, big guy?” Jack asked as B.J. waved his arms frantically in the air. “Here…” He walked quickly around the car, opened the passenger door, and, ignoring the grease and marinara sauce covering his son, unbuckled the seat belt and slid into the passenger seat. “You’re a mess,” he said, holding the boy, and Beej, the traitor, laughed and showed off all thirteen of his teeth.
“Dad-dee!” B.J. said again, his face shining with delight.
Cissy’s headache thundered.
“I’m sorry about Eugenia.” Jack touched her on the shoulder, and she tensed.
He seemed sincere, but then he’d always been able to play the part of the attentive boyfriend, romantic fiancé, or loving husband if he wanted to.
She wasn’t buying his act. She knew him too well and how pathetically easily he charmed her. Even now, when she was grieving and guilt-riddled, she felt that ridiculous male-female connection that had always been a part of their relationship. Damn him with his open-collared shirt, thick, mussed hair, and dimples that creased when he smiled. The trouble was Jack Holt was too damned good-looking for his own good. For her own good. She should have known better than to ever get involved with him. From the first time she’d set eyes upon him at that benefit party for Cahill House, a home for unwed mothers established by her family years before, she’d been intrigued. And doomed. She’d sensed he’d been the only man with a touch of irreverence in the whole damned ballroom, the only person, other than herself, who had found the stuffy affair boring.
Even after Jack’s father introduced them, Cissy had avoided Jack. She was just putting in her time at the affair. However, he soon figured out that she too wasn’t “into” it and kept trying to strike up a conversation with her. At first cool, she’d eventually had to laugh at his wry, self-deprecating humor. She’d even ended up flirting with him, and, of course, he’d responded. They’d escaped that damned party to start what should have been a short fling and ended up in Las Vegas a few months later with a quickie marriage and promises of love ever after.
What a joke!
A mistake of immense proportions.
Except for B.J.
Their son was the only part of their ill-fated marriage that was worth the heartache. As lousy a husband as Jack was, he did seem to adore his kid. The feeling was obviously mutual, and the one thing she hated about the separation and impending divorce was that B.J. wouldn’t grow up under the same roof as his father.
“What happened?” Jack asked, his brows slammed together, his blondish hair artificially darkened with rain.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think Gran fell down the stairs. She could have tripped or had a stroke, I guess. The thing is, she always took the elevator. I never saw her on the stairs. She didn’t even consider it. So how…?” Sighing, she leaned back against the seat and fought an overpowering sense of guilt. “I was late. Our furnace was acting up all day, and I couldn’t get a repairman out cuz it’s the weekend. Then B.J., contrary to how he’s acting now, was fussy as all get-out. Nothing made him happy. Nothing…well, except obviously you, now.”
Jack flashed her a grin.
“So I waited for the pizza-delivery guy to come, then drove over an hour or so later than usual, and…and…” In her mind’s eye she saw her grandmother’s tiny, broken body sprawled upon the tile floor, the pooled blood beneath her short hair. Cissy’s stomach churned. “And by the time I got here, I found her on the floor of the foyer. I knew she was dead, but I called 9-1-1 and…” She clenched her teeth. “I think that if I’d gotten here earlier, when I was supposed to…maybe things would have happened differently. Maybe she’d still be alive.”
“Don’t go there, Ciss. It’s not your fault. You know that.”
She nodded shortly, fighting emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time when he touched the back of her neck, she didn’t shrink away.
She would like, for just a few minutes, to not reopen her eyes, to push the pain aside and let someone, even Jack, comfort her. Just until she could pull herself together.
“Can I get you out of here?”
“Blocked in.” Blinking rapidly and running a finger under her eyes, she shot a look through the foggy back window. The crime-scene van, Paterno’s car, a fire truck, and several police cars, their lights still strobing the night, were parked behind her, clogging the driveway and the street. More people had crowded around the gates—two neighbors whom she recognized, a jogger, and someone walking his dog—all congregating under the spreading bare branches of the ancient oak tree across the street. All their faces appeared ghostly in the watery blue illumination of the flickering streetlight that her grandmother had always complained about.
“My car’s out front,” Jack said. He smiled faintly at her in the darkness. “We can escape.”
Like Marla, she thought but didn’t say it.
“I think Paterno wants to talk to me again.”
“The homicide dick? The one who put your mom away?”
“One and the same.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed as the windows of the car continued to fog. “But I thought he left town. What the hell is he doing here? What’s he got to do with this?”
“I don’t know.” The headache Cissy had been fighting all day intensified, pounding at the base of her skull again. Lately, Jack had that effect on her.
“But homicide? As in murder? Jesus, what is this?” His jaw turned hard as stone.
“I said ‘I don’t know.’” She lifted a shoulder, realized he was still touching her, and looked pointedly at his hand.
Jack got the hint and pulled it back to wrap around B.J., who was still happily munching on his squeezed piece of pizza. Plopped as he was on his father’s lap, the kid was happy, really happy, for the first time all day. Great. Cissy didn’t want to think about the future and what that might spell.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He shot her a glance that begged to differ, and she realized she looked a mess, mascara running from her eyes, hair matted from the rain, grief probably etched all over her face.
“This’ll only take a second.” He started to get out of the car.
“Wait a minute,” she said, but resisted the urge to grab his arm. “How’d you get here so quickly?”
“I was looking for you. I called several times, but you didn’t answer. I knew you came here on Sunday nights, so I thought I’d surprise you.” For the first time since he’d shown up, there was a bite to his words, something more than just casual conversation.
“What was so all-fired important that you would interrupt my dinner with Gran?”
“Not interrupt,” he corrected. “Join.”
“Join?” She gave him a cool look.
His jaw clenched a little harder, and his intense eyes seemed to drill a hole right through her. “Because I was served today.”
Her stomach lurched. Of course. “The divorce papers.”
“Yeah. The divorce papers,” he said with more than a bit of acrimony. He shoved his damp hair out of his eyes, and a muscle began to work in the side of his jaw, just like it always did when he was angry.
She winced. “And you thought discussing it in front of Eugenia would be a good idea?”
“I don’t think anything about it is a good idea,”