Sing Me Back Home (10 page)

Maya finally reached
Jack late that night. At first, she got his voicemail, but before she could hang up in frustration, he came on the line.

“Maya?”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I know it’s late, but I haven’t been able to reach you all day.”

“No, that’s okay. Where are you?”

“Los Angeles.”

She heard rustling. “Sorry, dropped the phone. Los Angeles as in California?”

“Yes, I had an emergency business trip. My assistant was ill and I had to take over for her.”

“Do you have to do this often?”

“Not often, but occasionally. Anyway, I’m sorry it took so long to get in touch. I’ll be home late tomorrow afternoon.” She could imagine him right now, lying in bed shirtless, the stubble on his jaw making him look a little bit scruffy and a lot wicked. She wanted to be there with him. Badly.

In fact, she’d missed him far more in the hours since she’d left Marietta than she would have believed only a few weeks ago. You’d think she was madly in love.

Oh, crap. She
was
madly in love. With Jack Gallagher. Again.

“Maya? Did you hear what I said?”

“Sorry. Something about the football game tomorrow night?”

“Gina is going with Mattie and a group of girls that Gina says includes Carmen. Charlie Guthrie’s taking them and then they’re spending the night at Mattie’s.”

“I remember now. But Charlie just had them spend the night. Is she sure she wants them all again?”

“She said since it’s an away game they’d be back late, so they might as well all sleep over.”

A big smile spread over her face. “I don’t suppose you want to come over tomorrow after I get home?”

“I don’t suppose I would. I know I would,” he said.

They talked for a while longer and then hung up. Maya felt giddy. Ridiculous at her age, but that’s how she felt. She hugged her pillow and shivered, thinking about making love with Jack again. And when she fell asleep, she dreamed of him.

*

Maya had called
Jack from the airport and he was waiting for her at her house when she drove up. Minutes later, he had her backed up against the wall, his hands sliding beneath her dress and hers already wrestling with his shirt buttons.

Her lips clung to his. His hands were busy unzipping her dress, then pulling it down. He unhooked her bra, pushed her panties down her legs and suddenly she was standing there wearing only her suede platform sandals. His mouth left hers to cruise along her jaw, her neck, heated kisses pressed against her pulse, then dropping lower to her breasts. Maya wrapped her legs around him and he strode to the couch. He let go of her and dazed, she watched him unbutton and unzip his khakis, slide them off along with boxers in one smooth motion.

She pulled him down beside her, barely gave him time to roll on the condom before she straddled him and lowered herself onto him. He was hard and hot and felt so good she wanted to scream, and when his hand slipped between them to caress her, she did scream. He kissed her, put his hands on her hips and helped her rock until she was flying again, higher and higher. Jack groaned. She moaned. She squeezed tight, feeling him shudder, as he said her name and pumped inside her one last time before he came.

They didn’t speak for a long time. Eventually, she bit his shoulder gently and sighed. “That was some welcome home.”

“I don’t think I can move.”

“Me either. Why do we have to?”

“Food,” Jack said. “I need food.”

“I have frozen pizza.”

“Yeah? What kind?” She told him. “Diet pizza? Really?”

“Of course. What did you expect? I may not be at my model weight, but I still have to work at it to be able to get in my clothes. Did you think I was just magically slim?”

“Yes.”

Maya laughed. “I eat what I want when I go out, but at home I’m usually very careful.”

“Don’t you have anything else?” he asked plaintively. “I could call for a pizza delivery, but we’ll have to get dressed. Or one of us will.”

“I’ll get dressed. You can order. I like vegetables,” she added as she picked up her scattered clothing and went to her bedroom to find something comfortable to wear.

They ate pizza and watched a movie, part of one, anyway. They talked about Maya’s business trip and whether she needed to hire another assistant, and about Jack’s nurse’s running feud with one of his patients. He wouldn’t tell her who his patient was but she knew anyway, since Vera’s and Mrs. Delaney’s feud over the bake-off was common knowledge.

They made love and talked and made love again. Maya hadn’t been this happy in a long, long time. The night was magical. Marvelous. Perfect.

Until she told him she loved him.

‡

M
onday afternoon Maya
met Amy at the Java Cafe. “Let’s sit outside,” Maya said after they picked up their lattes.

Amy looked at her curiously. “Okay, but it’s a little chilly.”

Maya didn’t care about that. She needed to talk and she wasn’t anxious to broadcast what she had to say to every person in the cafe.

“What’s wrong?” Amy asked when they sat down.

Maya sipped her latte, burned her tongue and frowned. “I did something stupid. I knew it was a mistake the moment I said it, but by then it was too late. I’d already opened my big mouth.”

“Just guessing, but does this stupid thing you did have something to do with Jack?”

“Who else?” she asked glumly.

“Is it really that bad?”

Was it? “I think so.”

“What did you do? Why do you think you screwed up? Last I heard, you two were well on the way to being madly in love.”

She snorted. “Yes, that would be the problem.
One
of us was. I told him I loved him.”

“Oh.” Amy looked at her for a moment. “Not a good idea, I take it.”

Maya drummed her fingers on the table. “I told him I loved him and he said . . . nothing.”

“Nothing?” Amy repeated.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Awk-ward,” Amy said, emphasizing the first syllable.

“Tell me about it,” Maya said. Thinking about that moment still made her want to cringe. “Then he kissed me. Every time I started to open my mouth, he kissed me.”

Amy laughed. “And that’s a problem?”

“You’re damn right it’s a problem. It’s called avoidance.” She fell silent, thinking about it.

“So what happened after you told him?” Amy prompted.

“Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about it. So, we didn’t. We both spent the rest of the night pretending I hadn’t said the ‘L’ word.”

“I’m impressed that you managed not to say anything else. I’m sure I would’ve had to say something.”

“I started to ask him if it was too soon, but I didn’t want a repeat of him staring at me with nothing to say.” She smiled briefly. “I seduced him instead.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Amy said, laughing.

“The rest of the night was okay. In fact, it was good. But ever since he left the next morning, things have been weird.”

“Define weird.”

“It’s more of a feeling I get than anything he’s actually done. He hasn’t broken things off or anything like that. He hasn’t been mean or combative. He’s been a little distant. Stand-offish. Then last night I asked him and Gina to come over for dinner and he said no. He said he had to make early rounds today.”

“Maybe he did,” Amy said reasonably.

“Ha! He makes early rounds all the time. This is the first time he used it as an excuse not to see me.”

Amy frowned. “When did this happen?”

Wrapping her hands around her cup, she said, “I told him late Saturday night. Early Sunday morning technically.” She drank some more coffee, stewing over Jack’s reaction to her confession. She shouldn’t have told him. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same. Or, at the least, he wasn’t ready to hear it. Maya didn’t know what had possessed her to blurt out her feelings. She used to have more sense. Of course, she hadn’t ever been so madly crazy about a man either. For sure not her ex-husband. Not that she remembered, anyway.

At first, she’d shrugged off Jack’s reaction, or done her best to. He’d seemed fine later that night. Better than fine. They spent the remainder of the night, or most of it, having fantastic sex. And if Jack wasn’t on the same page about the great sex, then he was the best faker she’d ever known.

Amy laughed. “Oh, Maya. You’re overreacting. It hasn’t even been two days.”

“Trust me, I’m not overreacting. You didn’t see his face.” Nothing had been the same since. “I thought our relationship was going somewhere. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he just wants to have fun.”

Amy patted her hand. “Why don’t you just ask him? Talk to him, instead of jumping to conclusions.”

Was she jumping to conclusions? There was one way to find out. “You’re right. I’ll go see him tonight.”

*

“Hey, Ms. Parrish,”
Gina said, answering the front door. “Come on in. Is Carmen with you?”

Oh, man. Maya’s here,
Jack thought, looking up from the toaster he was trying to fix. Maya. In the flesh. In the very beautiful flesh, wearing tight black leggings, man-killer black boots and a cream-colored sweater that kept slipping off her shoulder.
I am so screwed
.

“Not this time,” Maya told Gina pleasantly. “Why don’t you go call her?”

Gina took off for her room. Leaving Jack, and the toaster, alone with Maya. She walked over and stood beside the couch, looking at the toaster parts spread all over the coffee table.

“What in the world are you doing to that toaster?”

“Trying to fix it.” And doing a mighty crappy job of it.

“I think it’s dead. Why don’t you just throw it out and get a new one?”

“It was a wedding present,” he said, immediately wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. For reasons he didn’t understand, Brianna had loved the stupid toaster.

“I see.” She said nothing else, but sat beside him and crossed one long, gorgeous leg over the other. The sweater slipped again and he saw smooth, creamy flesh. Why had he wanted to avoid her? Oh, yeah.

Maya had told him she loved him.

“We need to talk,” she said.

Talk. Exactly what he’d been trying to dodge. He continued fooling around with the toaster, which really was hopeless at this point. Maya was right. He should throw it out, but he knew he wouldn’t. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I’m fairly sure you know.” Maya tilted her head, considering him. “I’ve never seen you so uneasy.”

Jack started to deny it, but couldn’t.

“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” she continued. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable.” Which was as big a lie as had ever come out of his mouth.

Maya hitched up her sweater. He couldn’t figure out why. She’d simply switched shoulders, exposing the skin of the other one.

“Call it what you want, but ever since I told you I loved you, nothing has been the same between us.”

Jack looked into her eyes. He did not want to talk, and he sure as hell didn’t want to talk about love. Why did Maya have to complicate matters? Why did she want to label what was between them? Why couldn’t they just continue on, enjoying each other, having fantastic sex, and not have to
talk
about it, for God’s sake?