DAC_II_GenVers_Sept2013 (22 page)

“None,” Morrie said sadly. “None at all. I think you should tell Jane about Shira and clear the air between you. Nathan comes sniffing around her every once in a while, hoping Jane will take him back. If you want to scare some jerk away from Jane, scare Nathan Waterfield.”

Eli nodded. “Done—but I haven’t seen him yet.”

Morrie reached over and pounded his son on the hand. “I’m glad you’re back, Elijah. Lydia wants to have you over to dinner soon. She’s become a hell of a cook.”

“Are you happy with her, Dad?”

“Happier than I thought I would ever be again after your mother died. I still miss Evelyn, but I’m appreciative to have a wonderful woman to spend the rest of my life with,” Morrie said.

“Well, I’m inspired. I hope Jane is too. One of us is bound to get it right sooner or later. You and Mom set the perfect example.”

“Some grandchildren eventually would nice, but I’m very proud of you, Eli. You’ve done nothing less than honorable as far as I can tell. Many men don’t live their lives so honestly,” Morrie said.

“So is the glaring Walter honorable when he isn’t being a schmuck?” Eli asked.

“In most ways,” Morrie said, his mouth twitching a little at Eli’s search for a less offensive term. “Like everyone else, I honestly believe Walter adores Jane. He made her come back to life. That’s why this stupid misunderstanding is just the pits.”

“How much of a kid is he, Dad?”

“Evidently more of one than Jane wants to deal with, since she didn’t find him and shove the truth down his throat. I think that worries me more than anything else. Jane only gets depressed on personal hurts. I’m afraid she’ll pull so far inside this time that no man will ever get into her heart again,” Morrie said.

“If there’s anything I can do, all it will take is saying the words,” Eli said.

Morrie nodded. “Keep watch over your sister for now. Things have a way of working out as they’re meant to. She went after him and failed. Walter will have to be the one to fix this.”

Eli walked his father to the door and hugged him as he left. After closing the door, he looked at the pretty house his sister now lived in alone. It bothered him to think of Jane ending up old and lonely just because every man she loved ended up breaking her heart.

“Yeah Dad, things have a way of working out when some person takes it upon themselves to make sure it does. I think this may be one of those times where I need to be that person. Walter Graham, I hope you’re ready for a little Jewish brother enlightenment.”

***

Daniel scowled at the waiter when he brought over two more drinks for Walter. He watched his stupid friend motion for them to be lined up with the other six on the table already.

“If I rule out the matching ones due to lack of imagination, that leaves three unique ones. I’m feeling in a green mood tonight. What did the waiter say the green one was again?”

“It’s called trouble, you moron. Any one of these is trouble for both of us. Amanda said if I let you leave with one of the crazy women that I might as well not come home myself. You’ve put me in a hell of predicament, Walter. Your asinine behavior has pissed off my angel. My path to heaven is blocked and I’m getting more angry with every passing day. Something has to change, my friend,” Daniel warned.

Walter ignored Daniel’s irritated ramblings, thinking about the dates he’d had for the last three nights. He’d finally managed to bring himself to kiss one of them—for about two seconds. Her fingernails on his neck had turned him off. That had to be it. Who knew he had an aversion to glitter polish? It also hadn’t helped that she’d talked about her fingernails all through dinner like they were a piece of artwork.

“Walter,” Daniel snapped fingers in front of his stupid friend’s line of vision. “You’ve had two sips of wine. I know you’re not drunk yet. It takes at least a whole glass, you freaking lightweight.”

Walter scooted all the glasses and his wine away to make room to lay his head down on the table.

“You better not be crying into your red wine. That’s all I got to say,” Daniel said, crossing his arms. “I told you to listen to her. I told you. Now look at you. I knew you’d be miserable.”

Walter raised his head. “Did you not hear me? The man was naked.”

“I thought you admitted that he was just shirtless. Shirtless is not naked,” Daniel argued. He couldn’t believe they were going to have this same stupid debate for yet another time. They’d had this debate at least once a day for almost two weeks.

“Same difference,” Walter insisted.

“No. No it’s not,” Daniel said, crossing his arms and glaring until Walter laid his head back down.

“Hey, Walter. Tell me about the guy’s tattoo again. It circled his arm, and had what on it?” Daniel asked, eyeing the man borrowing a chair from a nearby table.

“I told you. I didn’t see it clearly. I was too upset,” Walter replied, his answer muffled by the tabletop.

The scraping of a chair being drawn up to their table had Walter raising his head and looking straight into the eyes of his nightmare.

“It’s a gang tattoo for New York which is why I’m sounding a little funny for Virginia. It was part of some undercover work I was doing. Man, I hope this Yankee dialect goes away soon. I hate being looked at so funny every time I open my mouth to talk,” Eli said, returning Walter Graham’s blue-eyed glare with his own hard brown one.

“Hey, Walter. I think the tattoo on Jane’s naked guy is a dragon tattoo,” Daniel said, slapping Walter on the arm to direct his friend’s glare to him for a few seconds.

“Naked? Who was naked? I was looking for a clean shirt when Mr. No-Game here lays on the doorbell like we’re all deaf. So finally I give in and answer it despite having no clothes. I don’t see what the problem is. A man’s got a right to answer his door any way he wants, right?” Eli asked.

“
Your door?
” Walter repeated, straightening in his chair. “What do you mean
your door
? That was Jane’s door.”

“Did I say my door?” Eli asked Daniel, who he could see was starting to warm up to him. Maybe Daniel was the intelligent one. Walter still wasn’t taking the hint.

“It was inferred by the ‘man’s got a right’ comment,” Daniel supplied.

“It was? Oh—my bad then. I’m obviously not as well educated as your giant, blond friend here. It was not
my door
, at least not exactly,” Eli explained, shrugging one shoulder.

“Who the hell are you?” Walter demanded.

“
Oh now you finally ask
,” Eli said, lifting his hands like it was a miracle. “You might have saved yourself the grief you’re about to have if you had let your brain handle that the moment you saw me instead of your damn dick. Jane even went after you to explain the situation, but I’m guessing you didn’t bother to listen to her since you’re here crying into your. . .is that wine? What a manly drink for someone like you, Walter. Listen stud, when it matters enough to a woman for her to come after you to explain something, you might ought to hear her out. Ain’t that right, Daniel?”

“I tried to tell him. Walter’s normally hard-headed, but he’s stupid stubborn about Jane Fox,” Daniel supplied.

Walter turned to glare at his friend, then back to glare at the man across the table. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“What does it matter now, hotshot? You already screwed up. Jane’s out tonight with some cheesy lawyer in a Mustang. Man, I thought you were some bad news, being a punk ass kid. That guy loves his car more than is normal, if you know what I mean,” Eli said, happy that the angry color was finally rising in Walter Graham’s way too youthful face.

“Tell me your name. Don’t make me beat it out of you,” Walter declared.

“You’re welcome to try,” Eli said quietly, glaring back fiercely, secretly liking that the blond giant never wavered. “I wouldn’t advise it though, Walter. Besides, what do you need with Jane anyway? You got all the women in the bar tonight buying you drinks. Oh look—here comes some more. Yeah, we’ll take those too. Look at this, Walter. Three more fruity ones. Let’s see. I believe that’s eleven. You must be really picky. Most men would have settled for one from the first round.”

Walter took a deep breath, telling himself that he was not going to turn over the table, and not going to put the guy on his ass, no matter how smart his mouth was. At least he was not going to do it until he found out the truth. He had survived Nathan Waterfield dressed for Wall Street when he tried to come crawling back. He would find a way to survive this guy.

“Well, I would love to string Walter here along more for making Jane cry for a solid day and night. However, I can’t see that helping anything ‘in the big picture’ as my father would say. Dad is a stickler about looking at the whole of a situation before jumping to any conclusions,” Eli declared, sticking his hand across the table over all the drinks that stood untouched. He waited until Walter had taken his hand, and then gripped hard to get the blond giant’s attention. “I’m Elijah Jakob Fox. I’d like to say nice to meet you, but the truth is I’d like to kick your pretty teeth out for being the second worthless asswipe to break my sister’s heart.”

“You’re not Jane’s brother. Her brother is at seminary. You have never seen the inside of a seminary,” Walter said, easing his hand away when the guy finally let go.

Eli winced and shrugged. “Well, the seminary story might have been a tiny, tiny white lie for my sister’s sake. You see she walked in on my fiancée and her husband in
delictum fellatio
. I felt bad about it and took a job where I wouldn’t be allowed to contact my family. Emotion clouds your judgment when you’re in love with someone who hurts you. You following me, Walter? Everyone keeps telling me how intelligent you are.”

Walter nodded in a daze as his mind finally shifted from being in denial to taking it in. This really was Jane’s brother. The magnitude of his mistake took his body on a sickening freefall that hurt worse than falling through several floors of a burning house had.

“Whoever said that was wrong, Elijah Fox. I’m not smart at all. I’m a fucking idiot,” Walter said, rubbing his face with his hand. “I accused Jane of cheating on me. Oh my God, how could I have done that to her?”

“I have no idea,” Eli said. “After what her ex did to her, cheating is not something Janey is likely ever to do—
ever
. And if you accuse my sister of anything like that ever again, and I find out you did, I will make sure you sing soprano for the rest of your life.”

“She’s never going to forgive me,” Walter said sadly. Memories of how angry he had been and what he’d said to Jane came back to haunt him.

He had seduced the perfect woman only to screw up his success at the first obstacle. His jealousy made him ill now to recall it, and his suffering had been for nothing. It was her brother the whole time. Her brother. Damn it. Why hadn’t Jane made him listen? How badly had his words hurt her?

“Never is a very long time away when you’re as young as you are, Walter. Things could still change,” Eli said wisely. “How old are you anyway?”

“Old enough to love your sister the way she deserves to be loved. I’m sorry, Elijah. I overreacted because Jane is everything to me,” Walter said, extending his hand across the table again.

Eli nodded as he clasped it. “It’s no skin off me if you thought I was my hot sister’s sweet scoundrel lover, Walter. She’s the one that ran out in a mad hurry to correct your assumption. I never gave a shit what you thought. We’re good.”

“But what does Jane think now?” Walter asked.

Eli shrugged. “Dude, you’re in it so deep, I don’t even know where to tell you to start shoveling. Jane got a new cell phone to avoid your elderly grandfather. That seems a rather extreme step to take over a simple misunderstanding. After she spent all that time crying over you, I don’t think the issue seems simple anymore to Jane.”

Walter rubbed his face with his hand. “Harrison called her?”

“Several times a day until she got the new phone,” Eli confirmed. “She didn’t even do that when she divorced Waterfield. I think it gave her a sense of satisfaction to hang up on him.”

“How am I supposed to fix this?” Walter asked, turning to Daniel.

“Don’t look at me. I told you this was going to happen. I’m into preventative maintenance with Amanda,” Daniel said. He looked at Elijah. “Forget how Walter looks. He’s too smart for most women to like him. Jane is the most serious relationship he’s ever had. That’s why he screwed up so badly with her.”

Eli nodded, looking at the now humbled man. So Jane was young Walter’s anomaly. He supposed that was promising, if she could get past the screw-up. He could see why his dad liked him.

“I can’t give up. I’ll think of something,” Walter said. “I have to think of something.”

Eli stood, but motioned to the table. “So does this drink thing happen to you often?”

“All the time since Walter was in the fire station pin-up calendar, but he never drinks them. He just buy drinks back and goes home to his grandfather,” Daniel supplied.

Eli nodded. “Yeah, Dad says Waterfield hasn’t been able to replace my sister either. Don’t worry though, I’m watching for him to show up. When I tell Jane about him and Shira, it’s all over. You,” he pointed to Walter, “you get one more chance.”

“Thanks for tracking me down, Eli. I mean that,” Walter said.

“You may not thank me for long. Crashing and burning is going to hurt worse now because you’re going to have to live with what you’ve done to her,” Eli said.

Walter watched Jane’s brother saunter away, looking just like he did the day he first saw him, except with a shirt.

“
He was naked
,” Daniel mocked. “Dude, Jane would not go from you to that kind of man. You had to be thinking with your dick, because your mind is a hell of lot smarter than that.”

Walter laid his head back down on the table and groaned over his stupidity.

“So you were due Saturday two weeks ago?” Dr. Bensara asked.

Jane nodded. “Yes. I had all the symptoms, but nothing happened. It’s probably just stress, right?”

“Have you been sexually active in the last month?”