Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good Man\Promises Under the Peach Tree\Husband by Choice (71 page)

“Oh, my...I'm so sorry, Jenna. Such a little girl, too young....”

Renee had tears in her eyes.

Jenna shook her head. “No, really, it was a long time ago,” she said, wishing she hadn't said so much.

She never said that much.

Not even to Max. It served no purpose. Except to make people feel sorry for her.

She folded. And stacked. And moved another load from the washer to the dryer.

“I imagine, being the only one left behind, would be a hell all in itself. Even apart from losing your loved ones.”

She'd had counseling. “I had things left to do here.”

Renee's arm slid around her waist and, surprised at the contact, Jenna jumped back and dropped her towel.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” the other woman said. “But this isn't just another room and another conversation, Jenna. I've trusted you with my deepest pain. And you understood, without judging. It was the greatest gift anyone has given me.

“And I'm thinking maybe you need a gift, too. Maybe you need someone to understand that someplace inside you you're still that little girl who's had to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders all alone.”

“No.” She shook her head. Picked up a towel. “I'm fine, really.”

“There was a young woman at church once who was having a hard time staying out of trouble. Brian counseled her in our home and I couldn't help overhearing a few things through the door. She and her twin sister had been out in a storm and a tree had been struck by lightning and fallen. The twin sister was struck in the back and was paralyzed. The girl blamed herself. And spent the next several years involving herself in every destructive behavior she could think of, punishing herself....”

“Luckily, I got counseling.”

“You don't think denying yourself the right to ask for what you want, to demand what you need, is destructive?”

Renee didn't know that that was exactly what Jenna was doing. She was demanding her right to be done with Steve, once and for all.

“You blame yourself, don't you? For not dying with them?”

She'd wondered many times why not her. “I just know that I was left on this earth for a purpose and so I try, every single day, to give as much of myself as I can give to those around me, hoping that I'm fulfilling that purpose.”

“To justify living when the others didn't?”

Counselors didn't get as in your face as Renee was doing. But anyone who'd been through counseling would be able to ask these same questions. She'd been through them all. More than once.

“To make lemonades out of lemons,” she said, quoting the slogan of The Lemonade Stand. She glanced at the wall opposite them with the full mural of a lemon grove and the words painted in colorful script winding through the trees.

She knew she was on the right course. She'd applied herself to the programs and counseling.

If she'd blamed herself for anything, it was that she'd lived and Chad hadn't.

But she knew that it had been fate that had taken her little brother, not she.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

M
AX
KNEW
THAT
Chantel was off on Monday. He just didn't expect her to be in Santa Raquel. He'd suggested, the night before that, until there was something more to go on, she stay home and get caught up on her life there.

He'd been trying to tell her nicely that he didn't think it was a good idea for them to be spending so much time together.

For her to be staying over so much that Caleb was getting used to having another woman there.

It had been two days since the toddler had asked for his mother. He hadn't asked for Chantel, either, but when she showed up at their door just before nine, catching him watching the end of yet another Disney movie with his son—keeping the boy up an hour past his bedtime to boot—Caleb said “Chan,” from his place on Max's hip.

“Hey, Caleb,” Chantel said, pulling a teddy bear from behind her back. “This is Henry. He's a friend of mine and he wanted to meet you.”

“Hen'y.” Caleb took the bear, but didn't smile. He was sizing up Chantel. And when she leaned in a little farther toward him, he leaned back.

“He's a tough egg to crack, isn't he?” she said, depositing her duffel bag on the floor as she walked into their home.

“He's a lot like his mom,” Max said. He needed Meri there.

“I know I'm taking a huge liberty packing a bag and showing up without calling first,” Chantel told him, following him into the living room where the movie was on pause.

“Ca....” Caleb made the demand without an ounce of little boy excitement. “Ca,” he said again, as though to be sure that Max had clearly understood what had to happen next.

Max picked up the remote control and restarted the
Cars
video for him.

“I've got news, Max,” Chantel said, sitting on the edge of the armchair perpendicular to the couch.

His gaze flew to her.

“That's why I'm here. Wayne's off in the morning and I'm meeting him to check out a few places.”

“Is it—” He glanced toward Caleb.

“She's fine. Still at the same place,” Chantel said. “Planning a pool party from what I understand.”

“She told Wayne to tell me that?”

“No. Just something he overheard and told me.”

“Because he doesn't think she's on the run. He thinks her reasons are the ones she gave.” He chose his words carefully, in the remote chance that his son was following any part of the conversation.

“Correct.”

“But she knows that Wayne is reporting to me?”

Chantel shook her head.

“So whoever she's staying with is keeping me informed?”

“That's correct.”

Good. They were getting someplace. “So whoever this is must think that there's a chance for our marriage.”

“No.” Chantel's eyes filled with that damned sympathy again and he was starting to feel pathetic.

Is that how he looked? Like some kind of sap who couldn't accept that his beautiful wife had left him?

Is that what he was?

Wallowing in disbelief rather than accepting facts and getting on with his life?

“Wayne understands your concern and doesn't want you to worry that she's in danger. That's all. On another note, we might have something on Steve.”

She had news. That was what mattered. And he had to get his son to bed so that he could find out exactly what Chantel had driven all this way to tell him.

* * *

J
ENNA
FINISHED
WITH
the laundry, walked partway to Renee's bungalow and continued on to her own, her arms laden with clothes. She put her things away. Stopped at the kitchen table to ask her roomies how the brownies were. Latoya had done the baking. And Latoya and Carly were sitting over a plate of them with glasses of milk.

“Good. You want one?” Carly asked, jumping up. “I'll get you some milk.”

“No.” Jenna chuckled. “But thank you. I'm still full from dinner.” Or from the knot in her stomach. She wasn't sure which.

“I cleaned your bathroom and vacuumed your room for you,” Carly piped up. “I hope you don't mind. It was my week to do the living area and your door was open.”

Making a mental note to herself to keep her door shut—not because she didn't trust Carly in her room, but because she wasn't going to have the younger woman think that she had to do special favors for her now—Jenna said, “Oh, Carly, what a sweet gesture. Thank you. You didn't have to do that.”

“I know.” The girl's mouth said one thing, but the almost adoring look in her eyes said another. And Jenna figured a talk between them was in order.

She wasn't a hero. She just wasn't going to have anyone else dying because of her.

“What is it?” Latoya asked as she bit into a brownie. “You just went white.”

“I... Nothing,” Jenna told her, feeling like a deer caught in headlights.
Anyone else dying because of her?

Where had that thought come from?

Had the conversation she'd had with Renee planted it there?

“I...uh...I forgot I have a meeting up at the main building,” she said.

“At nine-thirty?”

“It was the only time that worked. I just wanted to bring my laundry back.” She was backing away from the table. Toward the door. “I'll see you guys when I get back. If you're still up.”

“It's dark out,” Carly said. “I can walk with you if you'd like.”

“No, I'm fine. The walk is well lit and I have my phone.”

“Well, at least make sure you call security for a ride back,” Latoya reminded her. It was a newly instated rule that anyone out and about on the premises after ten o'clock had to be accompanied by security.

“I will.” Jenna was at the door. She reached behind her for the knob and hurried out.

She wasn't sure where she was going. But she needed to think. To figure out what was going on with her. To be certain that she could trust her own mind.

It had been a long time—since leaving the first shelter several years before—since she'd doubted her own instincts.

And that fact, far more than a man at the window in the night, scared her to death.

* * *

W
HEN
M
AX
CAME
out from putting Caleb to bed, Chantel was in the kitchen, doing his dinner dishes.

“I was going to get to those,” he said. There were two days' worth in the sink.

“I'm not good at just standing around,” Chantel reminded him. She'd been known to dust their living room, or mow the lawn when she visited. Anything to keep busy.

He'd asked Jill once why Chantel couldn't ever just chill out. She'd shrugged and said that she was borderline ADD or something. He couldn't remember exactly.

And wished he'd paid more attention.

Coming up behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Really,” he said. “You don't need to do my dishes for me. Sit. Have you had dinner?”

“I grabbed something in the car on the way up.”

“Then how about a beer?”

“You didn't have any last time I was here.”

Neither he nor Meri were big drinkers.

“I picked up a six pack.”

He pulled out a bottle. Opened it and handed it to her before pulling out a second. While she sat sideways on a chair at the kitchen table, hands on the back as she watched him, he finished loading the dishwasher in exactly the way Meri liked. Moving some of the dishes that Chantel had already placed to make that happen.

He washed the pans and plastic container by hand.

And then, also to please his wife, he wiped down every single counter, although he hadn't used them all during his food prep. They'd eaten soup and sandwiches that night.

When he was done, he took his first sip of beer, then joined Chantel at the table.

“What did you find out?” He'd put off knowing for half an hour. Avoiding what he knew he wasn't going to like.

“Steve Smith told someone in the LVMPD, a guy he ran into in a casino about six months ago, that he'd purchased a little place on the beach.”

“Here? In California?” This was bad.

Really bad.

“We don't know. But it bothered Diane enough that she thought I should check it out. I talked to Wayne about it and he agreed that it's suspicious enough that it's worth checking into, so tomorrow he and I are going to canvas areas around here. Tonight, our job—yours and mine—is to search public records of home and condo sales in the area since Meredith has lived here, and see if we get lucky and Steve's name pops up. Though I suspect that he'd have paid cash using an assumed name. Or put the property in somebody else's name.”

Max's blood ran cold. His skin felt clammy.

Had Meri's ex been watching her, watching them, all this time? “I'm not at all sure this'll turn into anything, Max,” Chantel said, arms on the table as she leaned closer to him. And for once he wished she'd reach out and touch him. Because it would be inappropriate for him to touch her, and he could sure use a bit of human contact at the moment.

“According to Diane's source, Smith had been drinking at the casino and the guy wasn't sure whether Steve had been talking big, or if he was being serious. And there are a million beaches in the world....”

But not a million in a town where an ex-wife—whom he'd already stalked through three states—lived.

“Wayne's using official means and time to do this?”

“And working on his own.”

“Why? Surely he's paid off his debt to you by now.”

“You're a citizen of Santa Raquel—one he's sworn to protect. As is Meri. You've expressed suspicions. With your wife's sudden choice to leave you, and your inability to accept that she really just wants out of the marriage, he feels it's his duty to check things out.”

She was playing this down. But he didn't need or want to be coddled.

“Diane's convinced Meri could be in trouble, isn't she?”

“Diane has a dead woman on her mind.”

“And witnesses that make that woman's death look like a murder that was covered up.”

God, Meri, what are we into here? Why didn't you tell me everything?

Did I ever give you cause not to trust me?

They were questions he couldn't answer.

So he thanked Chantel, once again, for having his back. And sipped his beer.

And just before he drifted off into a restless sleep later that night, he sent a message into the air, hoping that by some miracle it would find its way to his wife.

Please stay safe, my love.

* * *

J
ENNA
DIDN
'
T
HAVE
a conscious plan to end up at the door to Lila's private suite after leaving her bungalow Monday night. The managing director might not be there, since she had her own place a few miles from the Stand. But Jenna had seen her heading to her on-campus apartment late in the evening, off in the distance, when she'd been coming back from the laundry room.

She knocked softly on Lila's door, intending to leave as soon as her knock went unanswered. But the door opened before she could think about turning around.

“Jenna!” Lila, dressed in black fleece pajama pants and a T-shirt that said, “Best Mom Ever”, pulled the door opened wide. “Come on in.”

“I'm sorry,” Jenna said, backing away instead. “You're ready for bed. I should have called.”

She was still in the jeans she'd worn to pick weeds that afternoon.

Seemed like a lifetime ago.

“It'll be hours before I attempt sleep,” Lila said. “I was just curled up with a book,” she said, smiling and looking gracious and capable and welcoming. “It's a guilty pleasure when I'm here overnight. At home there's so much to do, so many responsibilities. Laundry, cleaning, bills to pay...but here—” she shrugged, smiling again “—I don't have to do any of those things. Please, come in.”

She'd disturbed the woman. She couldn't also disappoint her.

“I'm not in trouble or anything,” she said, almost stammering. Wasn't that rich, for a speech pathologist to stumble over her own tongue?

Lila had told her to find her if she was in trouble. Not to bother her because she didn't want to go back to her own room and face the voices in her own mind.

“I'm fairly certain you wouldn't tell me if you were,” the older woman said, leading Jenna into her small sitting area.

“Can I get you some tea?”

“Can I have some without milk?”

She moved slowly around the room as Lila disappeared into the kitchen. There were pictures on the walls, but none had people in them.

“Are these places you've visited?” she called out, recognizing Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean Sea.

“No. Just places I've always thought I'd like to go,” Lila said, coming back into the room.

“You hang pictures on your walls, but don't take a vacation and go?”

“I know.” The woman smiled again, looking around the room. “I've got too much else to do right now. But maybe someday.” She left the room again and Jenna heard china rattling. A refrigerator opening and closing.

She wondered about Lila's private life. Her family.

Wondered why she was so dedicated to this place.

And when Lila came back with her tea, curling up in one of the armchairs, Jenna took her same place at the end of the couch.

“How are you doing?” Lila asked, folding her legs beneath her as she sipped her tea, looking as if she'd be happy to sit and chat all night long.

“I'm fine.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear it.”

Jenna nodded. And stood up. Carrying her tea with her, she wandered the small room. Studying pictures, landscapes, she'd already studied.