Secret Kiss (2 page)

“Shoot! Where is it?” Jane Marshall frantically searched her desk as she mumbled under her breath, which caused the mud mask she’d forgotten she’d applied to her face an hour ago to crack around her mouth.

She’d been waiting up for this call, and now, she couldn’t find her phone. Seriously?! Why hadn’t she watched a little TV like she normally did on Sunday nights while awaiting her weekly check-in call? Why hadn’t she read one of her self-help books? Why had she decided to catch up on work, which, for her, was the equivalent of falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland?

The answer to that was easy, even if Jane didn’t want to admit it. Tomorrow was the first day a certain dark-haired, light-eyed, drool-worthy consultant would be sharing an office with her. Not next door to her. Not down the hall. Nope. The man who had been starring in her nighttime—and daytime—fantasies since she’d first laid eyes on him three weeks ago was going to be inhabiting the same office space with her.

Yesterday, when she’d stopped by the office to pick up some files to go over this weekend and Nikki, her boss, had informed her of this, her first response had been a fairly natural one.

“Wait…what?!”

Nikki had smiled a smile that, despite the fact that Jane had been accused more than once of not picking up on social cues, she’d easily deciphered as amusement.

Nikki had gone on to explain that there was no extra room in their limited office space. This was only partly true. When they’d leased the space a year ago and moved the headquarters of Latch Key to Success to Hope Falls, they’d started out with one substantial shared space and four smaller offices. But Nikki and Mike had remodeled to create larger, more open offices for each of them, which left Jane out in front in the spacious common area.

They had made it clear that they didn’t consider her a secretary and she was only in the front area because of the layout. Not that she cared about what her title was. When she had started working for Mike as an intern on his campaign eight years ago, she’d done so because she believed in him and what he stood for. Yes, politics had always interested her, but she’d gravitated towards the young congressman because he inspired her. Over the years, Mike hadn’t let the game of politics corrupt him. If anything, he’d dug his heels in even more, rooting himself further in his values and convictions.

So, when he’d decided to retire from politics and focus all of his energy and resources into his nonprofits and charities, it was a no-brainer that Jane would follow him. The fact that he’d decided to move to a picturesque town nestled in the Sierra Nevadas was just a bonus. At least, it was for her.

“Ahh! Found you!” Jane exclaimed as she located her buzzing iPhone. She swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call, lifted the phone to her ear and exclaimed happily, “Hi!”

Her grandmother’s voice came loudly through the speaker. “Hello? Jane?”

“Hi, Nana. It’s me,” Jane confirmed to her hard-of-hearing grandma, who refused to get a hearing aid.

“Jane? Bunny? Is that you? I can barely hear you.”

“Yes, Nana. It’s me,” Jane spoke louder. “How are you?”

Since Jane had moved to California ten years ago, every Monday morning (East Coast time), her grandparents would call to check in. The older they got, the earlier the calls got. They used to wake up at five a.m. Now, they were usually up by four a.m. So, nowadays Jane didn’t even go to bed, she simply stayed up to wait for the call.

“Oh, I’m doing good, bunny. How are you? Your papa is worried about you, you know.”

“I know. But tell him I’m doing fine, Nana.” Jane knew that both of her grandparents were worried about her, and she hated it.

“Tell him
what
?” her nana asked.

“That I’m fine,” Jane said, her voice rising in hopes that her nana could hear her. “Tell him I’m fine.”

“
What
?” her grandmother asked.

In the background, she heard her grandpa shout, “She said she’s fine, Dolores. I can hear her from across the room.”

“You can?!” Her nana sounded genuinely surprised.

Jane smiled as warmth spread through her. She could picture her grandparents sitting in the front room of their small condo, which sat on a lush, green golf course. Clear as day, she could see her papa in his reading chair, a newspaper on his lap, and her nana on the couch next to their landline, curlers still in her hair from when she’d set them the night before, in her housecoat, which was her fancy name for robe.

She missed her grandparents terribly. They were the only parents she’d ever known. When she was six, her parents were killed in a plane crash, and her paternal grandparents had stepped up and taken her in. Her grandfather had retired shortly after she’d gone to live with them, and while she’d been growing up, they had showered her with love and attention.

She’d never wanted for anything. Well, except friends her own age. In sixth grade, her grandma had taken her out of public school and hired a private tutor to homeschool her at a school counselor’s suggestion. Jane had been so far advanced in her studies that her teachers were having a difficult time challenging her. She remembered finishing assignments in minutes, while it would take her classmates all day.

Hindsight being twenty-twenty, Jane had to agree with her grandparents’ decision on an academic level. She’d graduated high school at age fifteen. Had her bachelor’s degree by seventeen and her master’s by twenty. The only drawback was that, socially, she’d always felt out of place, and when she’d inevitably found herself in social situations, she’d felt like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

“Yes, I can hear her. Ask her if she’s changed her oil,” her grandpa yelled loudly.

Last week, he’d told her that she needed to get her oil changed—how he knew that when he was in Florida and she was in California, she had no idea. But she had done it. Because, when Walter Marshall spoke, if you were smart, you listened.

“Yes, Papa! I did!” Jane yelled so that her grandpa could hear her.

“Good,” he said clearly. Then he murmured something unintelligible, but Jane was sure it was some variation depicting his dissatisfaction for her choice to move to Hope Falls.

“You shush, Walter. It’s her life to live. Not ours,” her grandma came to Jane’s defense.

Her grandpa had more to say, but again, Jane couldn’t make out what it was when he started coughing loudly.

“Walter!”

Jane heard a loud smack, which she assumed was the phone being set down.

After standing up from her desk, Jane paced her living room. Her grandpa had high blood pressure as well as respiratory issues. When he got upset, both would usually flare up. In moments like these, Jane questioned her decision to live across the country. Who knew how much longer she’d have with the two most important people in her life? And she was wasting precious time by living thousands of miles away from them.

There was a rustling sound before her nana’s voice came back over the line. “Bunny? Are you still there?”

“I’m here, Nana!” Jane shouted over the line so she could be heard. Heavily weighed down by guilt, she wiped at the tears in her eyes. “Is Papa okay?”

“Oh, yes. He’s fine. He shouldn’t get so worked up over things. He’s just worried about how you will ever meet a man now that you live in the woods.”

Her grandparents had always been so supportive of her decisions. The only thing they ever nagged her about was settling down. They wanted her to have the quintessential American dream. Husband, two point five kids, and a white picket fence. They had started bringing it up in her early twenties, but since she’d moved to “the woods” and her thirtieth birthday was around the corner, they’d really upped their campaign for Jane to meet a “nice boy.”

The heartbreaking thing was they weren’t meddling. She could hear the worry and genuine concern for her well-being in their voices. Sadly, her relationship track record was bad. Really bad. So bad, in fact, that she only referred to her exes as Disasters #1 – 5. Thankfully, her grandparents only knew about Disaster #2 and Disaster #4. If they’d found out about 1, 3, or 5, they both might have had heart attacks.

When her grandpa started coughing again, she blurted out, “Actually, I’m seeing someone.”

As socially awkward as Jane was, she was an even worse liar. So when she heard the words come out of her mouth, she was just as surprised as her grandparents at her announcement.

“You are?!” her nana squealed. “Did you hear that, Walter? Our Janie bunny is seeing someone.”

“Of course I heard it. I’m not the one who’s deaf,” her grandpa said gruffly, but his tone was lighter after her false declaration—a.k.a. big, fat lie.

“Well, who is it? Not Michael?” her grandma asked.

“No, Nana. I told you Mike got married to Nikki, remember?”

Her grandparents might have been getting up in age, but both had memories like steel traps. Nana knew that Mike was married. She’d just had it in her mind that Jane would end up with her employer. Which had never been on the table. Not that Mike wasn’t a great catch. He was. But there had never been that zip, zap, zing she’d always heard her nana describe when she talked about seeing her grandpa for the first time. Jane wanted the zip, zap, zing.

“So, who is this mystery man you’re seeing?” her grandma asked with excitement bubbling up in her voice.

Sweat broke out on the back of Jane’s neck and her palms. Her heart raced, her mouth went dry, and her head started spinning.
This
was why she never lied. Because she wasn’t just horrible at it—it made her physically ill. Stepping to the front window that was open, she hoped some fresh air would help her lie-induced symptoms.

“Adam?!” Jane exclaimed in surprise as Adam Dorsey pulled down the garage door of the cabin—the
vacant
cabin—across the road. From her large picture window, she could clearly see the side of his chiseled face, not to mention the lines of his biceps, which were stretched thin from his T-shirt.

Zip. Zap. Zing.

“Adam! That’s a great name. A biblical name!” her nana exclaimed. “Walter, his name is Adam. Jane’s boyfriend is Adam.”

“No… I’m not… I mean…” Jane was stumbling over her words when the source of her stumbles turned to face her. Gulping, she dropped to the ground.

Turning so that her back was leaning against the wall below the picture window, she caught her reflection in the stove. Her green, masked reflection.

Mortified. That’s what she was. Now, her heart was racing, her palms were sweaty, she was lightheaded, and her mouth was dry, but it had nothing to do with the lie she’d told. The lie she’d inadvertently given a name to.

“All right, bunny. Well, your papa needs his medicine, so I’ll let you go. But we are both so happy that you finally met someone. Adam sounds amazing. You tell him I said so. Love you, bunny. Talk soon!” Her nana’s voice was filled with joy and happiness.

With that, the phone disconnected.

What had she just done? She’d lied to her grandparents; that’s what she’d done. Her mind was spinning. Okay, yes, she’d told a big whopper of a lie, but what was the harm, really? Her grandparents were happy. So they thought she was seeing someone. Someone named Adam. Technically, at the time she’d made that confession, she had been
seeing
someone named Adam. Sure, it was pretty much stalker-status through a window, but that was who she’d been looking at.

Jane walked back to her desk to shut her computer down before heading to her bathroom to wash the over-dried mask off her face. She knew she was making excuses for her behavior. But, honestly, if it made her grandparents happy to think she had a boyfriend, then the fact that she was now going to Hell for the lie she’d told them would be worth it.

Right?

‡

A
nother yawn claimed Adam. He shouldn’t have been surprised that he was exhausted. He’d spent the few hours he could’ve slept trying to figure out if his mind had played tricks on him or not.

Last night, when he’d finished assembling his weight bench and row machine, he’d closed the garage door, and when he’d turned around, he’d noticed a shadow in the small cottage on the hill across the way from him. The shadow had looked exactly like Jane, the woman who worked with Mike and Nikki. The woman he’d seen several times around town. The woman whose golden-flecked eyes made him forget that he’d sworn off the opposite sex.

All night, he’d tossed and turned, the image of the figure standing in the window burned into the backs of his eyelids. Every time he’d closed his eyes to get some rest, he’d seen her. No matter how many times he’d rubbed them or shook his head, hoping the picture would erase like an Etch A Sketch, he’d had no such luck.

This morning, as his feet pounded over the dirt trail, he was still having a difficult time clearing his mind. The silhouetted impression was seared into his consciousness. Normally, mind-clearing was exactly what his morning runs did for him. They silenced his brain, which was always active. Always assessing. Always analyzing.

Before Adam had joined the Army, he hadn’t been particularly physically active. But, in boot camp, he had learned that physical exertion was better than any therapy. For him, at least. When he was pushing himself to the limit, whether it was running or rowing or lifting weights, his mind went from a raging storm to a calm sea. It was the one thing that worked. When he was a teenager, he’d been placed into foster care and misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The medications he’d been given hadn’t done what the doctors had claimed they would. He hadn’t been more focused or able to sleep—if anything, his symptoms had worsened.