An Indecent Marriage (9 page)

The waiter came and removed their plates, and she dimly heard Jack asking for coffee. When the man left Jessica finally raised her eyes and found Jack staring at her, his expression unreadable.

“Why did you do that?” she asked him, her voice shaking. “To humiliate me?”

“Do you feel humiliated?”

“Yes, and ashamed. You can’t resist the urge to punish me, can you?”

“Why should I resist it?” he demanded angrily.

Her eyes flashed to his face. “Because we’re in a public restaurant with an audience,” she answered heatedly.

The waiter, who seemed to have a knack for appearing at inopportune moments, arrived with their coffee. They avoided looking at each other while he rattled china and silverware, and it seemed an eternity before he left.

“Would you like some dessert?” Jack asked neutrally, as if the previous exchange had not happened.

Jessica shook her head.

“Ah, you’ve lost your appetite because I upset you,” he said with mock sympathy.

“I wasn’t really hungry.”

He sighed. “And here I was hoping that my, shall we say, biting comments had had some effect on you. Overestimating my impact on your emotions, as usual. I suppose I should have known better.” He raised his glass and downed its contents.

Jessica eyed him levelly, weary of the verbal fencing. “I’m tired. I think I’d like to go home.”

Jack summoned the waiter immediately and signed the check. On the way out he gave the stub for their coats to the attendant. When he helped Jessica into hers it seemed that he rested his hands on her shoulders not a fraction of a second longer than necessary, but that may have been her imagination.

Outside the night was cold and clear, spangled with stars. A crescent moon hung in the black velvet sky like a crystal sickle. As they waited for the valet to retrieve Jack’s car, he took a deep breath of the invigorating air and said, “This is real football weather. I half expect to suit up tomorrow.”

“Do you wish you were still playing?”

He shrugged. “Every time I do my knee kicks up and I remember why I’m not.”

“Is it painful?”

He turned to look at her. “No, not usually. I just can’t run anymore, and if I exercise it too much it lets me know about it.”

“It doesn’t seem quite fair. Having such a talent and being unable to use it.”

“Life isn’t fair,” he said abruptly, as his car glided to a stop in front of them. “You taught me that.”

So much for opening a line of communication, Jessica thought bleakly. Every time it seemed she might be getting through to him, he brought her up short with his athlete’s reflexes. It was like a dance: spin, turn, step away, or a boxing match: punch, counterpunch, dodge. He was always protecting himself. From her? Was she an enemy, and such a formidable one that she required these defenses?

The drive back to the house was silent, heavy with their separate thoughts. Jack pulled up to her front door and sat looking at the facade for several seconds before he said, “When I first came to Bright River I thought the mayor lived here.”

“He did,” Jessica replied quietly. “In those days my father had more power than any mayor ever elected in this town.”

“My mother never got the name straight. She still calls it ‘Shiny River.’ At least that’s what the translation means.”

“How charming.”

“Or ignorant, depending on your thinking.”

“I never felt that way. About her, about any of your family.”

“Such egalitarian views,” he said derisively. “Actions speak louder than words, Jesse, remember?”

Jessica studied his profile in the yellow light from the porch. “Right,” she murmured. “I’m just like my father, and your neat little plan for the mill was meant to humble both of us.”

He shifted his weight in the seat, moving toward her, and she could see his fixed, set expression. “I will own what he spent his whole life building, the fruits of all his labors. And he’ll be finished.”

“Jack, revenge will never bring you what you want,” she said sadly.

“How do you know? I don’t have what I want now, so I might as well give it a try,” he replied, and yanked open his door.

When Jessica went in the house, Jack followed her into the living room. Jean had left the overhead light on, but other than that the house was dark. Jessica unbuttoned her coat and Jack slipped it off her shoulders.

“I’ll see you at the meeting with Ransom,” he said.

“Yes. Thank you for the lovely dinner.”

His brows arched. “Lovely?”

“Well, I’m sure the food was.”

“And my company?”

“As you said earlier, Jack, you were never dull,” she replied with the barest trace of a smile.

He took a step toward her. Like a soldier reacting to a remembered drill, she closed her eyes. She felt him bend toward her. When his lips touched hers she almost sobbed with the exquisite relief of it, the satisfaction of her subconscious desire.

He kissed her expertly, with none of the rough eagerness of his youth, but she could still recognize him in the caress. He opened her mouth with his tongue, and she slid her fingers into his hair as he drew her closer. The embrace deepened, and then he turned his head, kissing her cheek, her neck, pressing his lips into the hollow of her throat. She yielded, letting her head fall back over his arm, and at that exact moment he released her. She reached out for him with both hands, trance-like. He stunned her by seizing her wrists and holding them up before her face as if she were manacled. His expression was frightening.

“You flatter yourself,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “Did you think one kiss would make me forget? When this whole town treated me like dirt, ridiculed my family and acted like I wasn’t fit company for a dog, you made me think you were different. You comforted me, helped me, said you loved me. And then when Daddy decided that his little princess should marry one of her own kind, you dropped me like a discarded toy and never looked behind you.” His grip tightened and she winced. “Did you really believe your allure was so powerful it could wipe all that out of my mind?”

Jessica twisted away from him, her eyes filling. “You’re hurting me,” she gasped.

“Good,” he said, and let her go. “I want you to know how it feels.”

He turned for the door and was through it before Jessica had recovered enough to move. She heard his car start up outside as she made her way slowly into the living room. She sank onto the couch, aware that she’d been in a contest of wills—and lost.

* * * *

Jack drove straight to the bluff above the river and parked his car on the lookout level. For a quarter you could view the town below through a telescope. It made the mill and the houses and the water look as close as your hand. But tonight he was not in a sightseeing mood. He shut off the engine and got out, not bothering to don his overcoat. The sky was clouding over, and the wind had strengthened, whipping his jacket about his waist and flapping his tie. He wrapped his arms around his torso to still his clothes and leaned over the metal balustrade, gazing at the choppy, glimmering surface far below.

All his life Jack had had a horror of duplicating his father’s unfortunate fate. He avoided alcohol, except for those occasions when unbearable stress made him grab for a crutch. He had felt that way when Jessica left him and again tonight, when she’d gazed at him across the table with her beautiful, fathomless eyes.

He was handling everything badly, he knew that; in fact, he wasn’t handling anything at all, but flailing around like a lanced bull, wounding indiscriminately. He was competent, even gifted, in the other areas of his life, but Jessica was his weak spot. And if she hadn’t known that before she must be in little doubt of it now.

He must not let her get to him. He’d been seduced once by her beauty, her seeming innocence, and it had almost ruined his life. He must be tougher now, stronger. Tonight’s weakness, the drinking, the obvious struggle to resist her, could not be repeated. He would be damned if she’d make a fool of him again.

It began to rain, a perfect complement to his feelings, and he turned back to his car, thinking about his hi-tech apartment: glossy, stylish, empty. It would seem even emptier now. After he started the engine he switched on the radio and sighed heavily when he heard the song it was playing. Somehow the coincidence did not surprise him. It had been that kind of an evening. He reached quickly for the knob to change the station, and then some masochistic impulse stayed his hand. He listened intently, staring out the windshield at the pelting rain. The singer’s voice rose and fell, the words welling up from an inner source of pain so clear in the sound you could almost touch it. The mournful tone continued until the final line, which Jack knew so well that he sang along with the record softly: “‘Jesse, I’m lonely, come home.‘“

Then, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision, he downshifted savagely and backed onto the road.

Chapter 5

When Jean came downstairs the next morning she found Jessica curled up on the living room couch, using one of the bolsters as a pillow. She shook her sister awake and Jessica sat up, glancing around her and then focusing on Jean’s face.

“Guess I fell asleep down here,” she mumbled.

“You sure did. What happened? Too tired from your big date to make it up the stairs?”

Jessica smiled weakly.

“Well, how did it go?”

“Fine. Mario’s is a nice place.” She kept her voice light.

“I’m not asking you about Mario’s, dummy. How did it go with Chabrol? He didn’t seem to be in a cheerful frame of mind when he picked you up.”

“He’s, uh, moody, I think.”

“I gathered that. Very pretty, though. I wish I had his eyelashes. Without mascara mine are invisible.”

“You have very nice eyes. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessica said, glancing at the clock. “I should call the hospital. Were you planning to make some coffee?”

Jean grinned. “Was that a hint?”

Jessica was already reaching for the phone. “I would consider it a great favor.”

“All right. But when do I hear about last night?”

“Jean, we had dinner and talked about the business. That’s it.”

“Huh. And tonight at sunset pigs will fly.”

“Better watch out, there might be pork in the trees before morning,” Jessica replied, and they both laughed. Their Aunt Emilia had taught them both the couplet, taken from a play she’d seen, and it felt good to evoke their shared heritage.

“I’ll make the coffee,” Jean said, and Jessica dialed the hospital, asking for her father’s floor. Of course his doctor was on rounds and not available, and Jessica was looking up the number of his partner when the phone at her elbow rang.

“This is Dr. Schmitt,” the voice on the other end announced.

Astonished at his quick response, Jessica was afraid that it did not bode well and she was right. Her father’s blood pressure was spiking again, and they wanted to try a new medication. Schmitt regaled her with a charming list of its possible negative side effects, and then asked permission to use it. Jessica agreed reluctantly and hung up the receiver, feeling irritated and impotent.

“What’s wrong?” Jean asked, coming into the room with a tray.

“Oh, Dad is not responding to what they’ve been giving him and they want to change the medicine. How can I say what to do? They could be throwing dice over there in the doctors’ lounge, deciding his fate by chance for all I know.”

Jean poured the coffee and sat next to her sister. “He’s not getting any better, is he?”

Jessica smiled, sorry she’d spoken so thoughtlessly. She could see the effect her depression was having on her sister and was anxious to erase it. “He’s not really getting any worse, either. They just have to hunt around for a while until they find the thing that works.”

“What if nothing works?” Jean asked quietly.

“Something will,” Jessica said firmly. “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed for school?”

Jean got up, carrying her cup with her. “I have phys ed first thing,” she said disgustedly. “Two showers in two hours. On Wednesday I’m always a prune by ten o’clock.”

Jessica chuckled and was pouring herself a second cup of coffee when the phone rang again. More good news, she thought resignedly and lifted the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Hello, stranger, it’s Maddy.”

“Maddy! My sister told me you called. It’s wonderful to hear from you! How did you know I was back in town?”

“Jason Ransom is our lawyer too, and he remembered we were friends. He told Michael you would be in early this week.”

“How is Michael?”

“Busy. Everybody’s car breaks down once the cold weather comes.” Maddy’s husband owned a garage on the outskirts of town.

“And that delightful son of yours?”

“Not so delightful this morning. He’s cutting a tooth and raising hell. My mother-in-law is coming over to watch him for a few hours to give me a break. How about lunch?”

“Great,” Jessica replied. “I can’t wait to catch up on all the news. Where do you want to meet?”