Chapter Twelve
“Occasionally wine should flow free. But make sure you’re with trustworthy friends when it does.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #81
Jill rolled to her back and wiped at the gunk in the corners of her eyes, but she refused to actually open them. She could tell the sun had come up, without needing to look for verification, and she’d decided sometime during the night that she didn’t intend to adult today.
She and Heather had left their dates at the bar the night before, and when Jill had brought Heather home, instead of simply dropping her off, she’d come inside. The next thing she’d known, they’d been two glasses deep into their third bottle of wine, and neither of them had been looking for a way out. They’d touched on several topics before stumbling to their beds, but the one to leave the sharpest sting had been Jill’s mother.
For some reason, Jill had claimed to understand her mother.
Yet Jill had never understood her mother. The woman had been focused on one thing, and one thing only, her whole life. And that had been to have a man. She’d think she’d have one, swear he was the man of her dreams . . . and then something would happen and he’d leave her.
And Jill knew why it happened. Even back then. Her mother had been too needy.
But last night, in a very inebriated state, Jill had confessed to Heather that she finally understood what having that kind of need was like. Because apparently, she’d felt needy herself.
The very idea terrified her.
She also remembered admitting to being lonely, and to hoping that Doug would have turned out to be her type. As if she had a type. Yet there she’d sat, spouting out things to one of her best friends in the world that she’d had no clue she’d been thinking. And with each confession, she’d become a little more unclear about who she even was.
She didn’t want to date, did she?
And lonely? Since when?
But she was tired of being angry. She’d tossed that nugget out, too. And she didn’t regret saying that one. It was time to find a way beyond the anger.
She rolled back to her side and decided that if she stayed in bed long enough, Heather would leave for her yoga class, and then she could sneak out without having to face her foster sister just yet. Some days were better spent alone.
Only, the sheets rustled at her feet.
So much for avoidance. She kept her eyes firmly closed and her nose buried in the covers. Heather was always perky early in the morning, too much wine or not. She probably thought she could talk Jill into going to yoga with her.
“Go away,” Jill grumped. “I’m still asleep.”
Heather didn’t answer.
“I mean it, Heather.” She’d pried her eyelids open. “I don’t want to—”
That wasn’t her foster sister staring back at her. It was Cal!
In the next instant, Jill pushed up toward the headboard. But the second she was fully upright, she yelped and crumpled back to the mattress. She clamped both hands over her head. “Oooohhhh,” she moaned. “Crap. Why did I do that?”
“What did you do, exactly?” Cal’s deep baritone seemed to rattle inside her skull.
“Close the blinds.” She flapped a hand toward the window behind him while keeping the fingers of her other hand firmly clasped over her eyes. “And don’t talk so loud.”
The room dimmed into shadows . . . and then the bed dipped. Right beside her hip.
“Get out,” she growled. “Why are you here?”
Cal captured her free hand and placed something in her palm, and after snatching her hand away from him, Jill peeked out of one eye to see what it was. Ibuprofen. Four of them.
“Drink up,” he told her. He held a glass of water out to her.
She didn’t want to get up, much less drink up. But she hated wine headaches worse than she valued maintaining illogical stubbornness, so she grudgingly accepted the water. And though she slowly pushed herself back into a sitting position, she kept her eyes closed. She also turned her face away from him, as if doing so would negate the fact that the man was in her bed.
Once the pills were down, she blindly held out the glass, and when it disappeared from her hand, she reattacked the gunk in the corners of her eyes. Her head got stopped up anytime she drank too much wine, and aside from clogging her sinuses, her eyes also oozed grossness.
Why she ever did this to herself, she had no idea.
When she’d finished clearing the worst of it, she finally opened her eyes all the way, but she kept her chin tilted down.
“Better?” Cal asked.
“No.” She scowled up at him. “Why are you here? And how did you get in here?”
His stupid massive shoulders shrugged. “Heather let me in.”
She was going to kill her foster sister.
“And?” she asked.
“And what?”
“And why are you here? Why did she let you in?”
“She let me in because I asked her to.”
Jill groaned. The man could be as hardheaded as she was.
He put a hand to the bed and leaned in then, dipping the mattress even more, and Jill barely kept from tumbling into his lap. “And I’m here because I wanted to know something.”
His tone had softened, and Jill slowly blinked. “And what was that?”
“If you went home alone last night.”
It took a second for his words to register, but when they did, her anger spiked.
Seriously?
She pulled back, putting a couple of inches between them, then shot him her snottiest smirk. “In case you missed it, I didn’t even go home.”
Why in the world would Heather have let him into the house, much less into the bedroom? This was the very room where the two of them had first—
She snapped off her thoughts and adjusted her look to a glare.
Heather was fully aware of what had once happened in this room. Her foster sister was as good as dead.
Then Cal lowered his gaze, and it traveled along the rumpled sheets before lingering on the pillows. Jill held her breath, wondering if he remembered what had once gone on in there, too. The house had been deserted at the time, and the covers had been dusty from not being used for a while. But that hadn’t stopped them.
He brought his gaze back to hers. “So, did you?”
She couldn’t believe he had the nerve. “Do you see anyone in here with me?”
He lifted the covers and ducked his head to look under.
“Stop it.” She smacked his hands.
“Well, how would I know for sure if I don’t look?”
“Get out, Cal.” She thrust her arm toward the door, but the quick motion sent a sharp stab of pain through her skull, and she once again grabbed for her head. “As you can see,” she gritted out, “no one is in here but me. Now leave.”
He didn’t leave. “I didn’t like watching you with another man last night.”
“Are you kidding me?” She gaped at him, eyes burning from the trickle of daylight making its way through the blinds. “I’ve watched you with other women for years.”
“I know. But I never have, and I didn’t like it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Did you go anywhere else before coming here? Was anyone here before you went to bed?”
“I cannot believe—”
His fingers snagged her chin and brought her face to his, and that’s when she finally saw the anger simmering just below the surface. “You didn’t show up at the house this morning.”
“That’s because I’m taking the day off.” She slid her gaze to the clock beside the bed, and realized that the sun had been up for hours. “And I was sleeping in,” she finished in a grumble.
Then it occurred to her that she probably looked just as bad as she felt and that her breath was no doubt atrocious.
And Cal still held her face right up next to his.
She jerked out of his grasp. “Nothing happened last night, okay? Or every other night of my life, if you’re so hard up to know.” She made a face at him. “And speaking of going home alone, I’m sure Marci wouldn’t appreciate knowing that you’re currently in my bed.”
“Marci broke up with me.”
That caught her off guard. “Really?” She wouldn’t have expected that.
But then she remembered Loretta sitting in Cal’s lap the night before. Loretta must have been aware of the breakup. Therefore, she was back and looking for action. And given her and Cal’s history . . .
“Did you go home with Loretta, then?”
He shook his head. “I went home alone. And I thought about you.”
“Stop it.”
“I’m just stating the facts.”
“You shouldn’t be thinking of me.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Is that why Marci broke up with you?” Marci had claimed that Cal had been different lately.
“Marci broke up with me because it was time. Every woman I date eventually breaks up with me.”
She blinked to focus better. “Every one? Why?”
And why was he in there telling her this?
How had he even known to find her there?
He broke eye contact then, dropping his gaze to the bed once more. But he didn’t seem to be looking at it this time, so much as he was lost in his own thoughts. When he finally lifted his gaze, his eyes gave nothing away, and Jill once again found herself holding her breath.
“They claim I don’t care enough,” Cal told her, his words as expressionless as his dark eyes.
Jill swallowed. “And, do you?”
“I want to.”
The three words together didn’t say a lot, but at the same time, it felt to Jill as if they should be telling her more. In her disheveled state, though—and with her head still pounding out a rhythm any drum soloist could be proud of—she couldn’t clue in to whatever the big revelation might be.
Cal picked up the empty bottle of wine from the floor and studied it, and she remembered bringing the last of the bottle to bed with her. Heather hadn’t been able to down another ounce, but Jill had still been busy bemoaning the fact that her libido had reawakened and that it seemed to be pointed in only one direction.
She’d managed to keep that tidbit from Heather, however. Though given the way her mouth had been running, she had no idea how. But as Cal sat there beside her, she found that she couldn’t deny it. She wanted him.
And she wanted only him.
“How’s Rodney?” she asked. She had to get her mind on something else.
At the question, Cal brought his gaze back to hers. Cal had quit drinking years ago because his uncle drank enough for both of them. He’d never shared his reasoning, yet she’d known.
“He’s fine,” he replied. Subject closed.
Jill showed her disdain for his easy dismissal with a shortened version of a smirk.
He set the bottle on the bedside table and refocused on her. “How about your anger?” he asked. “You didn’t get angry about anything before you left last night, did you?”
“Cal.”
Her frustration grew. Was he serious? She hadn’t been that person in over a decade.
“Stop it. You’re just being ridiculous now. Nothing happened last night. I didn’t want anything to happen. And you of all people know that if I had gotten angry, even less would have happened.”
“Less?” His eyes burned into hers. “So something did happen?”
He’d never once been this jealous when they’d dated.
But then, she’d also never looked at another guy after her first experience with that sledgehammer.
She couldn’t resist teasing. “He did give me a kiss good night.”
Cal’s eyes narrowed.
“A very hot kiss,” she added, though nothing more than a hug had actually been exchanged. “Little Red certainly knows what he’s doing.”
She grimaced at the name. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. It totally took away from the point she’d been hoping to make.
“No more dates with Little Red,” he told her.
“Fine. I’ll find someone else to date. Now, thank you for checking in on me, but as you can see, I’m fine. I might look like something the cat dragged in, but in reality, I’ve never been better.”
When he didn’t move, she looked at the door.
“My cue to go?” he asked.
“You’ve kind of overstayed your welcome. Plus, I need to get up. I may not be working today, but I can’t sleep the day away, either.”
Even if she really did want to.
Cal grudgingly stood and moved to the door, but before stepping through it, he fired a look over his shoulder. “For the record”—his gaze skipped to the T-shirt she’d borrowed from Heather, which had a faded stegosaurus in the middle of it—“you look far better than anything my cat has ever dragged in.”
He disappeared without another word, and one thought passed through Jill’s head.
Cal had a cat?
After the door closed at the front of the house, Heather poked her head into the room, with Trenton’s face appearing just above Heather’s shoulder.
Jill jabbed a finger at Heather. “You are in so much trouble.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Not let him in!” She shoved the covers off. She was suddenly far too hot.
“But he had a look about him,” Heather protested. “I’m not sure not letting him in was an option.”
“And then, what? You called Trenton so she could witness my humiliation, too?”
“I was up at the house,” Trenton informed her. “So you can retract your claws. Aunt Blu’s getting a new girl tomorrow, and I was helping get the room ready. I saw Cal’s truck when he pulled in.”
“I don’t even know why he was here,” Jill told them both. “Or how he knew that I was here.”
What had happened between them when she hadn’t been looking? One encounter with a ghost, and she forgot to be angry?
“He was here because he’s practically green with jealousy,” Heather told her. She looked at Trenton. “That was not a happy man watching her out with Little Red last night.”
“But he has no right to be jealous. He’s dated other women for years. Not to mention, he and I are not together.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter.” Heather sat on the bed with Jill, and Trenton circled to the other side. “Especially since he went to so much trouble to seek you out this morning. He apparently went to your house first. And then to Little Red’s.”
Jill’s jaw dropped. “He went to Doug’s house?”
“Don’t worry,” Heather assured her. “Doug was at work already, on another jobsite. I called him while Cal was in here with you. But before I let Cal in, he told me that he’d gone by there before thinking to check here.”
“But . . .” Jill looked from Heather to Trenton. “Why go to all that trouble to begin with?”
She understood jealousy. She’d even felt a little of it last night. Cal may not like watching her dating another man, but the thing was, watching him with other women didn’t do anything for her, either.
“Honey.” Heather leaned in and put a hand on Jill’s knee. “Don’t you get it? He obviously still has feelings for you. And I think you . . .” She looked at Trenton as if seeking out help, but she didn’t have to say more. Jill understood loud and clear.
“No.” Jill shook her head. “I don’t. We covered this already, remember? I don’t feel anything for him. Not like that.”
“But we know you,” Trenton told her. “And something is going on with you. You’ve been different around him lately.”
“I’ve simply been around him. That’s all. You haven’t seen that since I was a teenager. But nothing is going on with me. I promise you. I’m exactly the same as I’ve always been.”
“Well, something is definitely going on with Cal,” Heather stated emphatically. “Though I wonder if it ever stopped. We were still here when he came back from Vegas, remember? That was one messed-up man.”
“You mean when he left me in Vegas?”
“Yeah. But I’m just saying it wasn’t easy on him, either. He had strong feelings for you.”
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t hard for him.”
She and Cal had had a fight the morning after their quickie wedding, and she’d gone out to burn off some steam. When she’d returned—granted, it had been hours later—he’d been gone. And in his place had been matching quickie divorce papers.
“Not even twenty-four hours of marriage, remember?” She shook her head, unbelieving that only last night she’d been having thoughts of jealousy concerning the women he dated. How ridiculous could she be? “No,” she said again. “I do not feel anything for him. Nothing at all.”
Heather patted her leg. “Okay.”
Jill didn’t believe the sentiment for one minute, so she jerked her leg out of reach.
“Just let us know if Trenton needs to kick his ass again.”
Jill almost smiled at that as she recalled the comment Trenton had tossed out at the Bono House the week before. “When did you ever kick Cal’s ass?” she asked now. Trenton was tough, but Jill could not imagine those two going at it.
“Two weeks after he came back.”
“And she actually landed several punches,” Heather assured her. “I was there. We went to his uncle’s house because Cal wouldn’t return our calls.”
“Why were you calling him?”
“Because you weren’t calling us.”
“Oh.” Jill sat back at the words. She hadn’t been returning their calls, because she’d been humiliated and hell-bent on proving Cal wrong.
“It had been two weeks,” Trenton reminded her. “And no one had heard from you.”
“Cal really told no one anything about that trip?”
When she’d come home, Jill had been floored to discover that no one seemed to have a clue about what had happened in Vegas.
Heather shook her head. “I suppose he could’ve told Pete. They’ve always been tight. But Pete wasn’t talking, either.”
“So, what were you thinking?” Jill asked. “Why go over there?”
Heather studied her quietly for a moment, and when she spoke, the mood in the room shifted. “We didn’t know what to think, Jilly. Your phone’s in-box was full, you hadn’t called us in two weeks.”
“We were concerned that something might have happened to you,” Trenton added. “That maybe . . .”
Jill’s eyes went wide. “You thought Cal had done something to me?”
Why had they never talked about this?
And then she registered the guilty look in Trenton’s eyes, and she understood exactly why they’d never talked about it. “You thought I had done something to me?” Jill guessed. Just like her mother had.
Heather swallowed. “We didn’t really think so, but we also knew how much you’d been looking forward to running off with him.”
“To starting your life.”
They’d known that she’d saved up money and had been planning to surprise Cal with the fact that they could move to LA right away.
“And then Cal was back,” Heather continued.
“And I wasn’t answering my phone,” Jill whispered, finally understanding the fear they must have felt.
She closed her eyes. Even when Cal had called her after two weeks, furious because no one had been able to get in touch with her—and equally ticked because he’d been worried that she might have done something to herself—it had never occurred to her that Heather and Trenton might have been thinking along the same lines. Maybe Aunt Blu, too.
And it had never occurred to her because Cal had been the only one to know that she’d ever considered doing anything like that.
“I’m sorry I worried you.” She reached out and hugged them both. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry we grew apart.”
Heather squeezed her tight. “And I’m sorry we didn’t get on a bus and come out there to be with you.”
Jill pulled back slightly, and looked at two of the three people her world wouldn’t be complete without. “But we have each other today.”
Trenton nodded. “And that will never again change.”
“That is one impressive swing you’ve got, Mr. Reynolds.”
Cal kept an eye on his uncle as the man showboated for the cameras. Rodney had shown up on the jobsite at the same time Cal had returned from making an ass of himself looking for Jill, and the crew had been following him around since. Rodney had helped to get the new quartz countertops in, then he’d gone to the upstairs bathroom, and demonstrated how to install the underlayment for a heated tile floor. But now . . .
Cal chuckled to himself as he watched the “show” going on in the front yard. Now Rodney stood before an ever-growing crowd, his signature charm on full display, while he demonstrated for the cameras . . . the perfect golf swing.
His uncle was one of a kind.
“Meet me over at the country club,” Rodney told Patrick, “and we’ll play a round. My treat.”
“I might take you up on that.”
“I want to play, too, Rodney,” a woman called out from the crowd, and when Rodney turned to check out the owner of the voice, the woman’s smile let it be known that golf wasn’t at all what she wanted to play.
Cal relaxed for the first time that day. This was the Rodney he’d spent his youth idolizing. Charming, fun. Sober. The man had been a step above the rest.
It was a shame days like this were so few and far between, but as Cal stood there watching—remembering—he found himself hopeful that things could change. Yeah, his uncle had been drunk off his ass the night before. But he’d also left when Cal had. Which had been right after coming in from talking to Jill. Cal had offered to give Rodney a ride home, hoping it would save him from having to go back out in the middle of the night to fetch him, and had been pleasantly surprised when his uncle agreed. Cal had considered it a win all the way around since it had also given him the perfect excuse for not hanging around any longer to watch his ex flirt with another man.
Pete’s truck pulled up as the crowd started clapping, egging Rodney on to make the putt after someone had located an empty soup can and had positioned it thirty feet away as a “hole.”
“Ten dollars says you can’t make it,” a man called out.
“Ten dollars and you can make it with me,” a woman joined in.
Laughter rolled through the onlookers as Pete made his way over to Cal. “Looks like there’s a party going on over here today.”
“It pretty much is. But that’s my uncle for you.” This was the first Cal had seen of his friend that day. He edged a step closer and spoke under his breath. “Problems getting out of bed today, Peter? What happened? You needed to sleep in after last night?”
Pete didn’t rise to the bait. “Some of us can get laid all night long, Calhoun, and still be at work on time the next day. I’ve been at it for hours. Which is more than I can say about you.”
Cal cast him a questioning glance. “You saying I haven’t been working today? Or are you suggesting I got laid last night, too?”
Pete harrumphed. “I’m suggesting you wanted to get laid last night.”
“Yeah.” Cal turned back to his uncle. “Well . . .”
“Well,” Pete agreed. Neither spoke again for several minutes, until Pete finally said, “You want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Didn’t get laid. Got it.” Pete’s voice changed, growing more serious. “So, were you really out running errands this morning?”
Cal looked at his friend. When he’d gone in search of Jill earlier that day, he’d told the guys at the house that he had errands to run. And then he’d charged around town like a man possessed, refusing to stop until he’d found his ex. Just so he could make sure she’d not had another man in her bed.
He had no idea what he would’ve done if he’d found her with Doug.
And he was aware that he had no right to care. Jill wasn’t his. He wasn’t hers.
Only . . . did he want that to change?
“Not so much errands,” he finally admitted.
Pete nodded. He’d guessed right. “She alone?”
“She was alone.”
“You going to keep it that way?”
Pete had been a good friend over the years, and though they rarely broke the surface of seriousness, Cal knew that when it needed to be done, his buddy would do it. Just as Cal would return the favor for him.
“I don’t know,” Cal answered truthfully.
They both refocused on the action in the yard, but as they did, Cal discovered that his uncle had worn down. One of the interns was removing Rodney’s mic pack while several women stood waiting just across the street, and Cal’s slight hope for his uncle’s soberness evaporated. With that many women vying for the man’s attention, Rodney would be buying rounds before the hour was up.
The workers had come outside to watch, as well, and as Cal turned toward the house, they each made their way back inside. Cal and Pete followed, but before they reached the front porch, Pete stopped them both.
“She talking to you yet?” Pete asked.
“She’s talking.” Cal didn’t let himself show pleasure at the thought. “Broke her down Wednesday night.”
“Yet she’s still avoiding you on set?”
He’d like to change that, too. “So far she is.”
Pete nodded, and when he didn’t immediately say anything else, Cal turned for the door. Only, Pete wasn’t finished yet.
“You sure you know what you’re doing with her?”
Cal looked back. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing with her. But he did have sudden clarity on one fact. “I’m flying blind, Pete. But I like the feel of the wind right now.”