The Escape Clause (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

They were getting married. Pete couldn’t be happier as he watched his bride walking toward him. The veil covered her face, but he knew who it was.

Family surrounded them. Birds chirped in nearby trees and his best man gave him a solid slap on the back.

Pete looked up at him, but who was he? Certainly if he were marrying Avery he’d have chosen Spencer to stand with him.

“Who are you?”

The man smiled and said, “I think you are in my space.”

His accent was deep and heavy. French.

This wasn’t his wedding. Avery wasn’t walking toward him though he still couldn’t see her face.

Suddenly an enormous crash pierced his ears and Pete sat up in a cold sweat. He was on his couch, in the living room, and it was daylight.

The man was gone. The bride to be was gone. He was alone.

“Shit!”

He heard the word yelled from the backyard and it took him a moment to realize someone was outside.

Pete scrambled to his feet and ran to the backdoor.

In the driveway, he could see a big, old, blue Ford pickup truck full of boxes. Knelt down beside the truck was a woman with a blonde ponytail high on the top of her head bent over a box of broken plates.

“Can I help you?” Pete called from the back porch, his eyes batting to focus in the sun.

“Sorry. I dropped this box and of course it had all my dishes. They’re just Walmart dishes, but I think I might have broken every single one of them. This is the worst.” She rolled her head from side to side. “Well, in hindsight it isn’t really bad at all. It’s just some cheap plates. I can eat off of something else for a few days until I can buy a new plate. Start small, you know. One at a time.”

Pete batted his eyes again, but this time to try and clear the cobwebs out of his head.

The woman finished loading the few shards that had escaped back into the box, then stood and stretched her back.

“This is a lovely morning, isn’t it? It’s days like this I wish I were a runner.” Then she laughed and looked down at herself. “Right, as if I’d ever run.”

He gave her a look. She was soft—yeah, soft. But he was sure she was criticizing her body. Women, his sisters mostly, did that all the time.

“Anyway,” she stopped, pushed the sunglasses from her eyes and rested them atop her head. She looked him over and smiled. “You must think I’m a nit. Here I am screaming obscenities early on a Saturday morning and you obviously were sleeping. Trust me, I’ll be a very quiet neighbor. This really isn’t like me at all. I don’t usually…” She stopped, took a breath, and started toward him.

Pete blinked again against the sun as the woman walked up the steps of the porch.

She reached out her hand. “I’m Jill. Jill Yance. I’m going to be living downstairs.”

Pete nodded as she shook his hand and then realized the entire time he hadn’t had a chance to say anything.

“Pete.”

“Nice to meet you, Pete.” She smiled a smile that was nearly as bubbly as her personality and Pete realized he might have smiled back. “I’ll let you get back to sleep and I’ll try to be quiet.”

Pete nodded as she pulled her hand back and started down the steps.

“Hey, Jill.” He heard his own voice call out to her. “Let me brush my teeth and I’ll come help. Those stairs are steep.”

“Awesome!” she shouted back to him as she pulled the sunglasses back down over her eyes—which were a baby blue.

He’d noticed her eyes.

He’d noticed her.

Okay, he thought as he headed back into the house, he wasn’t dead from a broken heart.

Pete returned fifteen minutes later. He had two cups of coffee, one in each hand, and a plate tucked under his arm.

“I thought you could use some coffee and I had an extra plate,” he said as he walked up to the back of the pickup truck where Jill was moving boxes.

“How attached are you to that plate? You see I’m not any kind of good luck charm.”

Pete laughed. He actually laughed for the first time in a month. “No sentimental value attached.”

Jill rested her fists on her hips and looked at him. “Are you attached to the mug?” She nodded to another box of broken items. “I could use one of those as well.

Now the laughter rolled from him. Was there some kind of God that knew he needed a breath of fresh air? Jill seemed to be that today.

“Cup is all yours,” he said lifting it in the air so she could reach it. “I didn’t flavor it or anything, but I have some cream in the house if you want some.”

She looked down into the mug. “You wouldn’t be offended?”

“No. You wouldn’t be the only woman who took my coffee and made it taste good.”

“Good, because this looks very dark.” She handed him back the mug and jumped out of the back of the truck bed before taking it back. She took the plate from him and stowed it in another box. When she looked back at him, she gave him a satisfied nod. “Thanks for the plate. Now show me the way to the creamer.”

He couldn’t help but take a moment to stare at the woman he’d just met. She was so different from anyone he’d ever known. Her energy was contagious and he found himself smiling at her—which she noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all.”

She slowly nodded. “You’re smiling really weird. Listen, if you’re some kind of creeper I’ll tell that John guy I don’t want to rent this place.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Even if I tell you I’m not some creeper wouldn’t that be hard to believe? I mean a creeper would be hell bent on making sure you didn’t think he was one. What if you’re the creeper?”

Jill rested a hand on his shoulder as she laughed at him. “I’m going to take my chances. Now get me to that creamer before this coffee is cold.”

Pete led her up the back steps and into the house.

Jill stopped as she entered. “This is nice.”

“Thanks. The last tenant left the lacey curtains. I didn’t choose those.”

“Not judging,” she said. “So you know John too? The guy who rented me the basement?”

“I’ve known John most of my life. I’m a family friend,” he added, but he felt as though he should have just said he was part of the family.

“That’s cool. You could fill me in then.”

Pete opened the refrigerator and took out the creamer and handed it to her.

“Thanks. Do you have a spoon too?”

He opened a drawer and took out a spoon.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked as she perfected the coffee and then took the spoon to stir it.

“About a month.”

“John told me the tenant from my apartment moved out and is getting married. What about this tenant?”

Pete swallowed the hard knot that had lodged in his throat. “She moved to France.”

“No way!” She looked up at him. “Moved to France? That’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He wished he could be as excited about it, but that just wasn’t the case.

Jill sipped her coffee, added more cream, and sipped again. “Now that’s the perfect cup of coffee.”

Pete wasn’t so sure. He liked it just the way he’d brewed it.

Jill set the spoon in the sink and replaced the creamer before resting up against the counter. “Why did she move to France?”

Pete shrugged. “Opportunity. Family. Her mother is from there and she wanted to know a different life,” he bit out the words.

A smile formed on Jill’s mouth from behind her cup. “There’s a story there.”

He drank down his coffee, which was growing cold. “Not anymore there isn’t.”

“I get it. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Why share your secrets with the woman standing in your kitchen having coffee, who will hear every time you flush the toilet.”

He laughed immediately. She sure had a way of making him feel at ease.

“She was my best friend growing up. We finally committed to seeing each other and got engaged.”

Her eyes opened wide. “She left you for France,” she simply stated and he saluted with his mug in response. “Oh, Pete, I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“You’re still together?”

He gave it a moment of thought and then shook his head. “I don’t think the forever was meant to be. I dearly miss my friend though.”

Jill drank down her coffee—or mug of cream, he considered. She then rinsed it out and placed it in the sink.

“It’s a good thing I’m moving in. I’m a great friend. Not huge into the dating thing. Not gay,” she added. “My mom keeps asking since she thinks I should be dating—men. Then she follows it up with,
you have a pretty face
, as if that will rid twenty pounds off of me.”

“For the record you do have a pretty face and an infectious personality.”

She studied him. “Infectious as in you’re sick now?”

“As in I could do with a little more of you. I haven’t laughed in a month. I’ve known you twenty minutes and I’ve laughed a few times now.”

“Then that’s good, right?”

“Very.”

“Thanks for thinking my face is pretty.”

He could feel the heat rise in his cheeks. “I noticed your eyes right away too. I don’t see a thing wrong with you, but I have sisters. Girls always think there is something wrong with them.”

“My jean size.”

“See what I mean? I happen to think your jeans look exceptionally nice on you.”

Jill narrowed her eyes on him. “You’re not a creeper?”

“Not even close.”

“Genuine through and through?”

“To a fault.”

She nodded. “Are you still going to help me move?”

He laughed again and it was freeing. “I am also a man of my word.”

“Hmmm.” She pushed back from the counter. “I think I could fall in love with you. I won’t,” she assured him. “I’ll think about it, but you’re still in love with the French girl. But we can see what time brings.”

She gave him a wink, opened the back door, and walked out of the kitchen.

There was a little wiggle in her step and he wondered if he’d given her the pick-me-up she’d needed because she’d sure given him one.

Chapter Thirteen

Champagne was chilling in a silver bucket. The bubbles from the crystal flute she held to her lips tickled her nose.

Sea air blew through her hair and the late afternoon sun on her skin warmed her.

Laughter from people on the deck filled her ears. The thought that her mother had taken a yacht out into the French Rivera, or the Côte d'Azur, as she’d been corrected, humored her. It was unbelievable to her that her mother could drive a yacht, or a boat of any kind, and that she’d left Avery’s father there to get home on his own.

Knowing the love they had her mother must have seriously doubted what was to be.

Was she afraid of losing everything? Did she second-guess their affair?

Avery sipped from her glass. Her mother had been very open about that time. She’d wanted the affair to be true love, but she was sure it was only sex. Though, she was sure it was sex for her and a relationship for him.

Avery wasn’t sure, sometimes, if it was good to know all her parents’ secrets. Perhaps that came with being an only child.

She let the sun soak her face with warmth as she thought about her mother living like this every day—shopping, lunching, yachting, and spa-ing. Hadn’t Avery dreamed of this her whole life? Her grandfather was making it a reality. She hadn’t done much but toured facilities since she’d been there. There had been no work done on her part to earn what she was given. Was it possible it would all be too much in the end?

“Perhaps more sunscreen for you,” Marcus sat down in the lounge adjacent to hers, his body turned to sit facing her.

“Am I burning up?”

He opened the bottle in his hand and squirted the white lotion into the palm of his hand.

“Come. Sit up now,” he instructed.

Avery did as he said, turning her back to him. She felt his hands press to her skin and she held her breath.

She missed the touch of a man. Something like this was very intimate, she thought as he slid his hands over her shoulders and down her arms.

“Your skin is very hot. Perhaps we should go in and lie down.”

Avery realized her mouth had gone dry as Marcus moved to her lounge and sat next to her.

He trailed a finger down her arm. “I can make you a nice drink inside.”

She sucked in a breath as Marcus reached his hand to her cheek.

“I make you uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t expecting this.”

Marcus smiled. He lifted his glasses to the top of his head and let his deep, dark eyes lock onto hers.

“Why not? We have been attracted to each other since I accompanied you from Nashville.”

“Is that so?”

“Do not play games with me, Avery. I know you have thought about this.” He moved in closer to her and pressed his lips to hers firmly.

Every muscle in Avery’s body began to shake. This wasn’t what she wanted, was it?

The captain came on the deck walking toward Marcus.

“Sir, Mr. Pierpont is calling.”

Marcus looked up at the captain. “For me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Marcus dismissed him with a nod and looked back at Avery. “I will be just a moment. Do not move.”

She watched him pass by her and head inside. Her heart still hammered in her chest.

She looked around and realized that there was no one even near enough to hear her if something went wrong out on that boat. The only people there were the friends of Marcus’s that he’d brought along. Why was she worried anything would happen? She pressed her hands to her thighs and took in a deep breath.

Where did he get the impression they were romantically involved or that she was interested? Would he have kissed her if he’d thought otherwise?

She pulled her phone from the small bag next to her lounge and walked toward the railing of the boat. Since that morning, when Marcus had told her Pete called she’d wanted to return his call, but Marcus had hovered over her. She hadn’t really noticed, until then, that he’d been doing that for the better part of a month.

Wherever she wanted to go, he was sure to be there or arrange the travel. He decided the restaurants they would eat at and the facilities they would tour. She’d seen many wonderful works of art, but he’d chosen those too.