Forty Candles (6 page)

Blushing, and feeling exposed, she dropped the sheet and yanked on clothes. “Jack, I’m having sort of a shitty day.”

The knock at the front door startled her. Dropping the shirt she was about to tug on, she spun. “I’ll get it. Put your shirt on. We’ll talk about it.”

Striding out of the room, and looking entirely too comfortable for her peace of mind, Jack vanished around the corner.

Great. Husband leaves, I practically have sex with my ex-boyfriend, and now someone’s at the door just in time to see me looking like I just crawled out of bed.

Today rocks.

Breathing hard, and unreasonably filled with a sense of impending doom—what worse could happen?—Chloe followed Jack’s path to the door. His body blocked her view of the visitor and she couldn’t tell, at first, what they were saying.

Then a shift of Jack’s shoulders allowed her a glimpse of the state highway patrolman. The officer looked at her, asked her name, but all she really heard him say was one word.

“Dead.”

It solidified out of the quiet conversation and she gripped the wall. Jack closed the door with a soft click and didn’t turn around. “Jack?” He would tell her it wasn’t what she thought. His face, when he turned, told her more than she wanted to know. “No.” As if she could make it not true by denying it.

“He died, Chloe. In a wreck.” Jack looked stunned, as if he wasn’t sure what to do, which was weird because Jack always seemed to know what to do. It had to be bad, had to be real, if Jack looked like that.

She shook her head. “He was just here. A little while ago. He was just here.”

Again, she found herself in Jack’s arms, but this time her body seemed washed in ice, numb, unable to take the comfort he offered. “It was fast, Chloe. He didn’t suffer.”

“Why do people say that? Is it supposed to make it okay?” Pushing away from him, she headed to the kitchen. This was all some weird nightmare. She’d wake up tomorrow and tell Gary about it.

Well, except for the sexual bits with Jack. Those she might not tell anyone about.

“Chloe, talk to me.”

Pouring a shot of whiskey, she swallowed it, reveling in the burn.

Dead.

Gary couldn’t be dead. Closing her eyes, she found she’d cried herself dry. Pouring another shot, she slung it back, still not answering Jack. Three shots in, the blur in her mind began, rivaled by the burn in her throat and the churning of her stomach.

Facing her best guy pal, she made a decision. “We tell no one he wanted a divorce. No one has to know.”

He nodded, looking all big and adorably helpless. “If that’s what you want.”

Straightening her shoulders, she found resolve. “It’s what I want. No one ever knows.”

“You know I keep your secrets, Chloe. Even when I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

He would. He was right. And that was why she could never let herself love him. This she could survive. Jack?

That might break her
.

Shaking off the dregs of the past, she wiped at tears she hadn’t even realized she’d shed. She was going to have a nice night with her friends and put this all behind her. Even if she also had to accept that she was old, unattractive, and couldn’t even manage friends with benefits, apparently.

***

Stark came up out of the pond, wet and smelling like fish, a log in his mouth. The dog quickly abandoned the log when he saw the golf club in Jack’s hands.

“Mr. Wilkerson’s gonna be pissed if you fill his pond with golf balls.” Dylan leaned on the truck, eyes trained on Harper, not Jack and his dog.

“Not the kind I use. Talked to him about it. They’re water soluble. They dissolve if I can’t retrieve them…which hasn’t been a problem since I met Stark, here.”

“That so?”

Jack couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah. Watch this shit.”

Hitting the ball with a satisfying thwack, it sailed into the air. The dog’s head arched back, following the tiny white dot into the sky. Entire body shaking in excitement, in a second, he was off, into the water.

Swimming like a large black seal, the dog was halfway into the pond before the ball hit with a plop and splash.

Catching it in his mouth, he headed back with the ball.

“So you’ve got a golf caddy and a dog.” Dylan now grinned, too.

“Helluva dog.”

Jack forced himself not to turn when he heard the engine sound that signified Chloe made it to the picnic spot.

“Before she gets out, and while my wife is distracted with the tennis racket, you want to tell me how the ‘plan’ is going?”

Not turning to Dylan, Jack ruffled the dog’s wet fur and got his ball back. Preparing to hit it again, he answered. “Well, she jumped me yesterday.”

“Define jumped,” Dylan ordered.

“I’m not detailing my sex life for you. If you’re already bored with Harper…”

Jack expected the swift hit to the back of his head and, laughing, dodged the next punch.

***

Country music filtered out of one of the boys’ trucks, the smell of burgers frying in the boat house filtered on the breeze, and bugs zipped across the water.

As the guys laughed, low and rumbling, and began to tussle, the dog’s barking added to the melee, and all of it seemed like the soundtrack to her youth.

 Chloe sat for a moment in the car, windows down and soaked it in. It felt good.

Especially since nothing else in her life made sense right now. She had to accept the fact that she was old. Unattractive.

Then again, when she was with Jack, she felt neither. She felt lovely. She felt irresistible. She always had felt beautiful when he had his big calloused hands on her. Blowing out a breath, and wishing she could banish the thoughts of him with it, she opened the car door, snagging the small cooler off her front seat and trudging up the dock to Harper.

Harper waved a hot pink tennis racket and squealed when she made it to her side. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Wasp!” Harper shrieked.

“And you’re trying to take it out with a tennis racket? Ever heard of Raid?” No sooner did she finish speaking than Harper made contact with the bug with a snapping and show of sparks.

“Ha! Got him.”

“Harper Dean, what the hell is that?” Chloe moved closer to inspect the now zapping racket.

“Got it up at Wally World. It’s a bug zapper tennis racket. Pretty cool, right?”

Chloe looked at the now electrocuted bug and at her best friend. “I guess?”

“Wait, watch this.”

Moving to the edge of the deck, Harper leaned the tennis racket over and shook the dead insect into the water. Fish immediately swarmed and gobbled it up.

“Fish like fresh fried bugs.”

“Aha.”

The sound of thundering footsteps along with the shifting of the dock announced the men joining them at the boat house. Chloe didn’t look at them, instead setting the small cooler down and tugging off her tee shirt.

“Harp, why am I friends with this asshole?” Dylan asked.

“Because you’re just as big of a jerk,” Harper answered.

Glancing back, Chloe watched Dylan, the golden boy, scoop up her best friend by her elbows and kiss her stupid. “You were saying, wife?”

“Love you.”

Rolling her eyes since they were about to go saccharine enough to rot teeth, but smiling because it was good to see Harper happy, Chloe stepped out of her shorts and laid them next to her flip flops and tee shirt.

“Goin’ for a swim, Chloe?”

Looking up at Jack, standing next to a wet and happy looking dog, Chloe bit her lip. She was safe, she decided. He was still wearing jeans and a tee shirt.

“Thinking about it later, after I get some sun.”

“How ’bout now?”

“Jack, don’t—”

The words weren’t out before water closed over her head. She should’ve known. His hands still caught her waist. He could have just pitched her into the pond but, no, he’d taken them both into the fish smelling water. Banking on him not throwing them in the water because he was still dressed apparently was an epic fail on her part.

Coming up sputtering, not because she swam there, but because he shoved her above the surface, she smacked him on his bald head. “Dylan’s right. You’re an ass.”

Laughing, he swam away from her. “You’re it.”

“I’m not playing water tag with you. We’re adults.”

“So what you’re saying is you can’t catch me.”

Shoving her hair back out of her face, she considered her options for a moment. She could ignore him. Be the mature one and just float calmly in the water which felt delicious against her skin after the hot day. Or she could kick his ass in the water, the one place where she outclassed him by a long shot.

She didn’t want to be mature. She already felt old. Why not play and feel good for a minute? Slicing under the water, she moved fast and invisible. Catching the wet denim of his leg she grabbed him, pulled him under, pinched his ass and then streaked away. Coming up a few yards away, she glanced back to him, just coming up sputtering where she’d tagged him.

“You’re it,” she called, laughing, before she dived again.

***

The sun setting over the trees lit everything in gold and red light, making it almost surreal in its beauty.

Reclined in a folding chair, dog at his feet, Jack figured this was happiness.

Then again, the view improved if he turned his head just a little…

Hell yeah.

Chloe and Harper shared a sheet on the dock, lying on their backs and talking like the teenage girls they’d once been. Chloe’s hands moved almost as fast as her lips, animated in her conversation. He didn’t pay much attention to what they were talking about, more the sound of their voices breaking into synchronized laughter and the way the light grazed Chloe’s stomach as she rolled to her side to reach for her purse.

A man must have invented bikinis. They drew the eye to just the right parts of a woman’s body and Chloe’s body always got his motor running.

“Chloe told Harper she got that swimsuit from Fredrick’s. You know they made swimsuits?”

Smacking one hand down hard on his best friend’s chest, Jack gave him a dirty look. “Don’t look at her damn bikini.”

“Ouch, fucker. I wasn’t. I was merely noting the direction of your gaze and making an observation.”

 Jack grunted and leaned back again.

“But it’s hard not to notice—” Dylan laughed when Jack came after him, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. “Seriously, just razzing you, man. Pretty damn funny, really.”

“Hilarious.”

“Many a bar fight started because of your daft need to defend a woman who didn’t need defending,” Dylan noted, only a small shift of his head to indicate which woman he referred to.

“She does need defending. She just doesn’t
want
to need it. I think that’s always been something I liked about her. She thinks she is such a hard ass but, under it all, she is one hundred percent lady.”

“Uh huh. She has you twitterpated good, doesn’t she?”

“Bambi? Really?”

Dylan shrugged, giving Jack a pat as he wandered by. “If the pretty little Disney movie fits…”

“You’re a jerk.”

“Are we doing the name calling again?”

 “They’re talking about us, too, you know,” Jack pointed out.

“They’ve been talking about us. Chloe keeps glancing over here. She never can resist, not when she’s talking about you.”

 “She came onto me in the water.” Jack leaned back, took a sip of his beer even if the damn thing tasted warm.

“And you’re still here why?”

Shooting a glare at Dylan, Jack pointed out to the water. “I told you, I’m in for the long game this time. I’m not her rebound. She’s feeling unattractive for some dumbass reason. I’m not a band aid.”

“You wanna be a band aid. You wanna be whatever you can get.”

“Yup.”

“Great self-control.”

“Nope.”
Not hardly. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a callous on my right hand.

“So what are you gonna do next?”

“She agreed to go on a date with me, so I’m still waiting.” Jack grinned to himself.

“How long you think you can last at that? The waiting. Especially if you’re on a date, romance is in the air…all that junk?” Dylan stood and stretched.

Looking at her breasts in that tiny little bikini, the way her ass curved as she lay on the dock, Jack leaned back and closed his eyes. “Not long. Don’t tell her that, though.”

***

Stark made a pretty good cop dog. Sure, he couldn’t sniff for bombs and he was more likely to lick a drug dealer than find the drugs, but he liked drive-thru’s and ate all the crunchy French fries that Jack didn’t want so, all in all, best partner Jack ever had in his cruiser.

Tonight, silence stretched across Jefferson. Not atypical, really. Most nights the sidewalks practically rolled themselves up at nine PM and Jack spent his routine patrol hours cruising around and looking at empty streets.

Made him wish he had a radio in the cruiser.

Ruffling his dog’s fur, he caught a movement in the shadows off Main and turned into the alley between the barber shop and the flower place to see what it was.

Probably a ’coon.

Instead of a raccoon rummaging in the alley, he saw a golf cart.

Since the golf course was over a mile away and it was late, by Jefferson standards, the fact the golf cart was manned, swerving, and in the alley was beyond weird.

Flicking on his lights, he followed the cart.

Slowly.

The cart didn’t slow, continuing its meandering progress over to the all night convenience store where a man got out, dropped a beer bottle, burped, and headed into the store.

Jack called it into dispatch before getting out of the cruiser and following the man into the store.

Blond hair hung in long, lank curls around an unshaved face and the man wore a golf shirt, shorts, and a pair of golf shoes. Seeing him considering the beer selection, Jack bit back a laugh.