Flirting With Forever (13 page)

“I’ve seen this in my own life, how easy it is to nurture the beginning, to revel in it and we absolutely should. But there is so much more beyond the beginning, beyond hoping the marriage, the partnership never ends. That’s what we’re here to talk about tonight, the good stuff that comes long after the spectacular beginning.” I looked at the gigantic screen to my right, the technical guy’s cue cut to show the first email I received from a fan.

I stuck to the format for the rest of the show, but didn’t look at the teleprompter. I stumbled at times. Laughed at myself when I screwed up. When the lights came up for the audience participation portion of the program, I couldn’t see very far into the crowd. The Janzen people collected the cards, gave them to Jake and me about an hour before curtain. We rifled through them, picked about a dozen that would be read by the audience members who wrote them in the Q&A portion.

The last question came from a woman who looked to be in her fifties. The Janzen rep shoved a microphone in her face and I felt for her. She looked more nervous than I’d been earlier. “I’ve been married for thirty-four years. What if any advice…What if any…,” her voice breaking. She looked up from the card. “What if your partner has given up?”

“Then you find another new beginning, and when you do, you and your partner make it last.”

‡

T
welve cities and
three weeks into the tour, I was more comfortable with the
fucking itinerary
as Jake lovingly called it. Actually, the itinerary was the only bother I had because I had Jake Randall in my bed every night. As long as he was with me, I felt like I could do anything, including entertain an arena full of people just by reading to them.

I was back in Charlotte, with book signings at the Barnes and Noble stores around town and two sold-out shows at the Belk Theater. I’d wired Marsha the thirty-five thousand dollars I owed her and let her know I’d gotten my check from Penguin for my romance series. I wasn’t surprised when she called, but she was surprised I still wanted to invest my money with her.

“Don’t be silly, Marsha. I trust you. Besides, you stuck by me after Jim left.”

“God, I’ve missed you, Tara; I want to see you. Noticed you’re not staying at the house.”

“No, we’re at the staying at the Westin. It really is good to hear your voice. I want to see you too.”

“Looks like the real estate market is picking up here. I’ve seen a bunch of couples going through the lake house. How are things going with the beach house?”

“I got an offer a few days ago. My lawyer’s trying to contact Jim so he can sign the papers. I filed for a divorce, too.”

“Sounds like you’re taking good care of yourself, although I do hate to see you leave town. But you looked so happy with Jake, Tara, happier than I’ve seen you in a long time.”

“We’re still trying to figure things out as far as his work and mine, but I love him, Marsha.”

“I’m glad, honey. You deserve to be happy, but I sure miss you.”

“Me too. I called to see if you’d like some tickets to the show tonight.”

“I bought some online the minute they went on sale, and still ended up near the back of the theater.”

“Give those to someone. I’ll leave two on the front row for you at Will Call. Maybe we can have dinner and catch up afterwards.” I was excited about seeing Marsha and her seeing the show. I wondered if she’d bring Mike or if she would come with one of my old girlfriends who never called after Jim left.

Jake could see
Tara was nervous. He wanted to put his arms around her, but knew he couldn’t. At least not now. “You’re on in fifteen minutes.” The tech at the CBS affiliate in Charlotte miked Tara up and then hurried into the studio, leaving him and Tara sitting at a bar top table in the large room that overlooked the news set.

She’d done several local TV appearances in the past few weeks in much bigger markets, this one shouldn’t have been any different. Maybe she was nervous because she said she used to watch Megan Miranda on Saturday mornings and sometimes on the afternoon news. Tara said on camera Megan seemed nice and fun, the kind of person you’d want to grab coffee or go shopping with, but she was still a journalist. Jake was smart enough to have a healthy distrust for her kind.

Tara had sat down with some of the biggest news people in the country since she’d started the tour, with Barbara Walters no less, but being back in Charlotte had made her more than a little nervous.

“You’re going to be great,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“You must be Tara.” A pretty blonde woman entered the room and offered her hand to Tara. “I’m so glad you’re here. I adored The Perfect Marriage, but I’ve got say, I’m hooked on your romance series too. Please tell me, does Angelica ever get her man?”

“I hate to be the spoiler, but she does,” Tara said. “I love your work too. I’ve told Jake all about you.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Jordan.”

Jake laughed and shook her hand. “Jake Randall, Tara’s publicist.”

“Really?” Megan looked embarrassed and surprised. “Sitting here together you look so—Are you sure he’s not your husband?” Jake laughed along with everyone, but inside he was beating himself up. He was a professional for God’s sake, and he damned well better project he was all business.

The same tech who’d ushered them to the green room stuck her head out the studio door. “You’re on in five.”

“Well, that was embarrassing, it’s just that you—look like a couple,” Megan said. “Anyway, my bad. I’ll see you on the set.”

The moment the studio doors swung shut behind Megan, Tara looked at him. “She knows.”

“You’re being paranoid. She doesn’t know.” He wasn’t so sure about that, but he needed to keep Tara calm before she went on camera.

“I’m telling you, Jake, I know that ah-ha look on a woman’s face.”

“This is local TV.” Out of habit, he started to reach for her had but then thought the better of it. “She’s not after some big exposé. You’re just going to talk about the book, maybe the romance series and then say the shows are sold out. That’s it.”

The interview went just like Jake said it would, and Tara was right. Megan Miranda was really good and she did exude the kind of kitchen-table type persona that made Tara like her. He waited off camera until the break and then gathered up Tara’s briefcase and purse. “Thanks for having us, Megan.”

She shook Jake’s hand and blushed a little. “Sorry about earlier.” But her smirk said,
but you do make a cute couple
.

We went back
to the hotel and made some calls. I waited for Jake to finish the one he was on before taking his hand and leading him out the hotel room door. “Time for lunch, cowboy.”

“Noooo.” He stopped me in the hallway and kissed me senseless. “I want to eat in the room.”

We’d gotten less and less careful about being cozy together, but our bravado didn’t extend far past the hotel room door, and I’d never been happier. I had my career and Jake was working on a PR strategy that would allow us to be together in front of God and everybody. I pulled him toward the elevator against his will.

“Where are we going?”

“To church,” I said.

For a Wisconsin boy, he sure took to the food at the United House of Prayer. Monday through Friday, the church on Mint Street serves up some of the best southern comfort food in the city, cafeteria style. We gorged ourselves on fried chicken and mac and cheese, and I watched Jake fall in love with fried okra. I knew I’d probably regret it, but I topped off my meal with a great big slice of sweet potato pie and he had the same with a side of peach cobbler.

“If there’s a pool somewhere near here,” he said on the way back to the hotel, “I need to find it. Now.”

I elbowed his rock-hard abs and agreed. Since Jake and I had been traveling together, I learned that whole thing about waiting thirty minutes after you eat to swim is an old wives’ tale. I took a book to the Mecklenburg Aquatic Center to read, but couldn’t take my eyes off of him slicing through the water. Neither could a handful of gabbing young mothers who’d brought their little ones in for swimming lessons.

He swam freestyle for almost an hour, stopping occasionally to look at the lap clock and drink some water. The final lap, he made sure I was watching when he pushed off the end of the pool, his gorgeous chest rising out of the water. Arms spread wide, the first powerful stroke of the butterfly. By the time he reached the other end of the pool, I’d all but come. Judging from their gaping looks, the mothers were on the verge.

He got out of the pool, and came over to me, still breathing hard, and kissed me on the cheek. The women looked awestruck at him and then at me before they started gossiping again. They could say whatever they wanted. Jake Randall had made it clear that he belonged to me.

The nerves I’d
felt about coming back to Charlotte were gone, and I don’t think I’d ever been more self-confident in my life, although coming back was more than strange. I’d started out in this town, going to writers’ conferences and critique groups, questioning if anyone would ever read what I wrote. Was I was good really enough to publish? But at seven o’clock when the lights of the Belk Theater came up, I read to a full house of more than two thousand people for almost an hour, laughing and crying along with the audience at e-mails and letters I’d gotten from couples all over the country.

Sure, I started out a little shaky, but the longer I went into the program, the more comfortable I was. By the time the house lights went on and I started taking questions from the audience, I was bulletproof.

I let go of the worries about how Jake and I were going to navigate our future because I had embraced every word in my book. If my book had been a fabrication of what I had with Jim when I wrote it, it had turned into a premonition of what I was to have with Jake. And it had become a roadmap of possibilities for couples to find what they needed in their own marriages, and permission to say things that needed to be said before it was too late.

Jake watched the
show from one of the private balconies of the Belk Theater and had to admit, the Janzen people knew what they were doing. The format had worked beautifully in every city so far and never got stale. Of course Tara had a lot to do with that. She was amazing with the fans, with the crowds in the theaters, with the press. But after being pulled in so many different directions, at the end of the day, she belonged to him.

It had been a brutal tour. Sometimes they were so tired, they just checked into the hotel and watched a little TV. Once she’d dragged him to a bar to dance. She didn’t believe him when he told her that watching a six-foot-four guy dance wasn’t a pretty sight, but now she did. Some nights she wrote, and he’d been doing some writing too. The new romance she was working on was really good. Jake thought the series that was selling like crazy in stores everywhere was good, but the new one really showed how much Tara had grown as a writer. And her career was so hot, her agent, Kit, could have pitched Tara’s grocery list, and it probably would have been a bestseller.

Lately, Tara had been curious about what he was working on. He read her stuff all the time, but he wasn’t ready to show her anything, yet. She was sure Jake was writing the great American novel, but he wasn’t. He was writing his and Tara’s story down for someday. He didn’t imagine it being anything corny like The Notebook, but he liked the idea of putting the words down on paper. How, with the exception of Jake playing the part of the asshole, they’d been drawn together from the beginning.

Sometimes he wondered what his life would be like if Erin hadn’t called him that day. He liked to believe that somehow, he would have found Tara anyway, that the pull he’d felt from the beginning would have eventually drawn him to her. He’d felt a version of that with Kate, and as much as he’d loved her, that part of his life had happened so long ago, it almost felt like fiction.

Jake watched the spotlight follow the Janzen employees as they zipped around the Belk Theater with wireless mikes to pre-selected couples, doing a good job of making the Q&A portion of the show look impromptu. The audience didn’t seem to have any idea that the questions they’d written down on index cards while they waited to get into the theater had been sorted and analyzed, most of them handpicked by him and Tara. The women especially seemed to love seeing their faces on the jumbo screen to the right of Tara’s podium as they read their questions, glancing up at themselves like people do when they’re on camera.

Jake had thought it would be hard for Tara, coming back to Charlotte, but she’d amazed tonight him by being confident, almost triumphant.

Tomorrow, after the show, they’d leave for Miami, but he’d tell her tonight that he’d given his notice to his boss in New York and told her about their relationship. He’d been on speakerphone with Sylvia until she yanked up the phone to ream him out. Erin was on the call too, laughing hysterically and taking full credit for their love story.

“I should sack you now, Jake Randall,” Sylvia had snapped.