Prima Donna (6 page)

A taxi flew past, its horn blaring, people hanging out the windows waving and screaming drunken New Year’s greetings, but Carter didn’t wave back. Head down, he walked straight past Nick’s street without so much as a blink. How could he go back in there when all he really wanted to do was head straight back to Regan’s apartment and start all over again—with her back against the wall and him doing everything he could to pull just one more of those sexy little sighs out of her.

Ten blocks around the residential area, then through the hotel parking lot, around the elementary school and right past her apartment building. Then he did the loop again, slower.

After the second lap, he gave up on the wind cooling him off and headed back to Nick’s. He let himself in the front door and eased it shut, but what he thought was a stealthy entry brought Duke howling from the far side of the living room. At ten years old, the basset hound wasn’t exactly spry, but he still had a home to protect, and he did it—with gusto.

Carter tried to hush him, but it was too late.

Nick rounded the corner, pulling up his sweats, with Jayne hot on his heels, fumbling to tighten the belt around her purple robe.

“What the…Carter?”

“Sorry,” Carter laughed, covered his eyes, then peeked through his fingers. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Jayne’s face flushed three shades of red. “Where were you? You just disappeared.”

“I…uh…had something I needed to take care of.” He might have gotten away clean on that if Nick hadn’t snorted.

“What do you m—” Jayne’s blue eyes flew wide, her jaw tightened. “Tell me you didn’t go over to Regan’s.”

“Okay, I didn’t go over to Regan’s.” He walked past her to the sink and poured himself a glass of water, but he knew better than to think Jay would leave it at that.

“Carter!”

“What?” His grins were always wasted on Jayne when she was angry, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

“How did you…Nick!” she cried. “Did you give him Regan’s address?”

“Nooo…maybe.” He held his hands up, took a step backward, and caved. “Okay, yes. Is that bad?”

“Yes, it’s bad! Do you have any idea how mad she’s going to be?”

“I dunno about that, Jay,” Carter chuckled over a shrug. “She was in a pretty good mood when I left.”

Another snort ripped from Nick before he caught it and forced a straight face. Jayne’s glare barely breezed over her husband before closing in on Carter.

“She’s my friend, Carter.” Jayne stomped toward him, like all buck thirty of her was a big threat or something. “You can’t just screw around with her like you do with every other woman on the planet.”

“Wow. Nice, Jay.” He looked to Nick for backup, but his cousin just leaned a hip against the island, crossed his arms and waited; a human Switzerland in the middle of a family war.

It was on Carter’s tongue to set Jayne straight, to clue her in to the fact that all of the women he’d hooked up with over the years knew full well he wasn’t going to stick around, and most of them were good with that. Sure, there’d been a few who’d thought…well, he didn’t know what the hell they thought…but they obviously chose to ignore him when he’d told them he wasn’t looking for anything but a night or two.

And while they were at it, maybe he’d shock the hell out of Jayne by telling her it had been months since he’d last slept with a woman. Seven and a half to be exact, but who was counting?

He didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth because Jayne was still yelling at him.

“Save the innocent act for someone else, Carter. When it comes to women, you’re a complete asshole. You don’t care about any of them; it’s all about you, what you want and when you want it.”

“Okay.” Nick stepped forward and wrapped his hand around her arm. “Maybe we should all—”

“No.” Jayne jerked free and stepped out of his reach. “Why her, Carter?”

“Why
not
her? She’s hot.”

How her eyes could harden like ice and blaze fire all at the same time, he’d never know, but for a second there, when her hands balled into white-knuckled fists, he thought she might actually hit him.

“Don’t you dare,” she finally ground out. “Don’t you dare treat her like that. I’ve never said a word about any of the women you’ve been with, though from what you’ve told me, you’ve picked some doozies. I figured if that’s what you needed to do to deal with it, and everyone was consenting adults, then…
fine
.”

“Deal with what?” Nick frowned, but Jayne ignored him.

“I love you, Carter, and I get why you do it, but I’m not about to stand by and watch you treat Regan like that. She deserves better.”

“What are you talking about? Do what?” Nick took a step closer, frowning at the look passing between Jayne and Carter. “Okay, somebody clue me in here.”

Jayne blinked at Carter, giving him a chance to answer; a chance he wasn’t about to take. There was no way she could know; he’d never said it out loud to anyone, not even Nick, whose eyes bulged as Jayne’s next words hung like lead around them.

“He’s afraid he’s going to get sick again and he doesn’t want to drag anyone else through that.” She spat the words out, punctuating each phrase with added force. “But instead of doing what a normal person would do, and maybe talking to someone about it, maybe giving a woman a chance to make up her own mind, he thinks it’s better to avoid any mention of it at all, and the only way to do that is to run from one woman to the next, never staying long enough for any of them to find out or ask questions!”

Arms crossed, head tipped to the side, she all but dared Carter to deny it.

He didn’t. He couldn’t. All he could do was lean back against the counter and try not to lose his grip on his glass.

“I’d bet it’s also why he wouldn’t partner up with Rossick and Jules at the clinic, because he’s scared to commit to anything
just in case
.”

“Wait. What?” Nick squinted through his confusion. “Your blood work’s been clean for years, so why would you even think…”

He never finished, maybe because Jayne and Carter were ignoring him, or maybe because he didn’t want to know the answer. Either way, Carter was relieved. It was too much to hope Jayne would take Nick’s lead and let it drop, but at least she eased up a little.

“Please don’t use her like that, Carter; she’s too vulnerable right now.”

When he frowned, Jayne sighed long and loud.

“Seriously? It’s shocking how stupid you are sometimes. She just closed her business, her mom’s not well, and her best hope for a job in this town is working the register at the CozyMart or T-Squared’s.”

“She doesn’t know one end of a hammer from the other,” Nick muttered. “There’s no way T-Squared’d ever hire her.”

A slow knot began to pinch Carter’s gut. Regan had said as much herself about where she’d end up working, but he’d been distracted by the way her blouse brushed against her breasts when she moved and the way her freckles stood out when she blushed.

And she’d blushed a lot. Damn, she was cute.

“How do you think that feels?” Jayne asked, jarring him back. “Her whole life is up in the air right now, so to say she’s feeling a little vulnerable is probably a bit of an understatement. The last thing she needs is you running full-court press on her right now. Got it?”

She stood toe to toe with him, jabbing her finger into his chest with each word.

“He gets it.” Nick wrapped his arm around Jayne’s shoulders and gently pulled her back a few steps. “It’s late, we’re all tired, and it’d probably be better if we talked about this tomorrow. Let’s go back to bed.”

They were halfway across the kitchen when Jayne sighed and shook her head. “So help me, Nick, if he hurts her—”

“He won’t.” Nick shot Carter a pointed look, kissed the top of Jayne’s head, and steered her around the corner.

Carter could have called her back, could have told her that this hookup wasn’t his fault. Regan was the one who turned that kiss into something more, she was the one who told him to close the door, and she was the one who dragged him into her bedroom. Not that he was complaining.

Instead, he stood right where Jayne had left him, leaning against the counter, his entire body sapped of adrenaline. He should have known she had him pegged all these years; that out of everyone, she’d be the one to figure him out.

All those weeks in the hospital, there’d been three people next to him: his mom, who cried her eyes out every time the doctors hooked him up to a new chemical cocktail because she knew it meant days of watching her son puke it all back up. Nick, who brought magazines and doughnut holes and talked about everything except the fact they were spending day after long day in the oncology ward. And Jayne.

While everyone else had bent over backward to make his life easier, she’d never put up with his pity parties, no matter how much he thought he deserved one. Instead, she’d forced him to suck it up and use every last bit of energy he could muster into getting better. He’d spent most of that year hating her, and he hadn’t been shy about telling her, either, but she’d shown up every day and pissed him off enough that he had no choice but to fight back.

She’d put up with a lot of shit from him, but she’d also helped save his sorry life, so as far as he was concerned, she’d earned the right to rip him a new one once in a while.

He poured himself another tall glass of water and had chugged almost all of it when Jayne scuffed back into the kitchen, her hands fisted around the ends of her belt. She stopped a couple feet away, the fire still burning in her eyes, but not nearly the inferno as before.

“I’m sorry I called you an asshole. I didn’t mean it, I’m just mad.”

Before Carter could open his mouth, she threw her arms around him and huffed out a tired breath.

“Why can’t you just let yourself be happy?”

“I
am
happy.” He barely had time to give her a quick squeeze before she pulled back and looked up at him with one of her
you’re-so-full-of-shit
looks. Carter pointed to his mouth, forced up in a wide toothy grin, and spoke through gritted teeth. “See? Happy.”

“Liar.” With a low grunt, she turned around and shuffled back to her bedroom, leaving him staring after her. Carter waited until she closed the door behind her, then he let out a long, soft whistle. In all the years he’d known her, Jayne shied away from any kind of outward affection. The only person she ever willingly hugged was Nick—and that had started only this past summer—so what the hell would possess her to hug Carter when she was so mad at him?

The new year must have tipped the world a little off its axis or something.

Lying in bed a while later, he folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. Regan’s taste, a heady weird mix of toothpaste, beer, and deep-fried mozzarella sticks lingered on his lips and made him grin into the dark quiet of the room. There weren’t many girls who chugged beer from a bottle or ate as much fried cheese as she did. Most of the girls he’d been with sipped pink martinis and nibbled carrot sticks. And her scent—some kind of light honey-vanilla combination, barely noticeable—almost drove him crazy trying to inhale enough of it.

More than anything, it was her eyes. A green so soft, so distracting, it would have been easy to stop right there and not look deeper, to not notice the wariness that lurked behind her smirks. She put up a hell of a front, no question, because everyone at the party seemed to believe her when she said she was fine, but that wariness reflected what Carter’d known for a long time: it was easier to let people believe you were fine than it was to admit how freakin’ scared you were.

He pressed his fists against his eyes and exhaled slowly.

If he tried hard enough, maybe he could pretend not to recognize that look and everything would go on as it usually did. Except there wasn’t anything usual about Regan; not in the way she looked, moved, spoke, or smiled. She’d all but told Carter he looked like shit and she hadn’t thought twice about kicking him out of her bed when she was done with him. He liked that. He liked it a lot.

God he was messed up.

By the time Carter got out of his long cold shower the next morning, Jayne had a huge stack of blueberry pancakes waiting for him. He was risking her wrath, but before she moved away, he dared to lean in and kiss her cheek in what he hoped she’d take as both a thank-you and a peace offering.

The last time he’d kissed her cheek—Christmas Day for crying out loud—she’d shoved him so hard, he’d cracked his funny bone against the door frame. This time she glared for a second, then shook her head slowly, but before she turned away, the tension in her face eased a little.

“So what’s the plan for today?” Nick asked over a mouthful of pancakes.

“I have to meet Rossick and Jules at the clinic this morning.” Carter winked his thanks when Jayne handed him a steaming cup of coffee. “And then…I’m, uh, not sure yet.”

He offered a half grin, but Jayne didn’t smile back. She unplugged the griddle, stood it on end in the sink, and sighed, but before she could launch into her next lecture, Carter stopped her with a raised hand, then pointed at his mouth.

In yet another move that was so unlike her, she gave in and let him swallow without ripping into him.

“I’m just going to swing by her shop and say hi. Maybe buy her a coffee if she’s up for it. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Jayne’s forehead puckered slightly. “I thought she was done down there.”

Carter nodded over the rim of his mug. “She is, but the guy’s coming to pick up the chairs and stuff.”

“She told me the guy was picking all that up tomorrow.” Jayne’s sigh was heavy and long, her words slow and pointed. “I shit you not, Carter, if you hurt her, I will personally rip out your heart and feed it to Duke.”

“Jeez, Jay,” he sputtered. “D’you kiss my cousin with that mouth?”

“Not in the last couple of minutes.” Nick’s whine was immediately rewarded with a quick peck on the cheek, but when she went to step back, he grabbed her, pulled her down on his lap, and kissed her properly.

Jayne came up blushing, but in a much better mood. No matter how tense it might be between Carter and Jayne at the moment, it was hard not to smile at her when she was with Nick. Carter had known his whole life they belonged together, but it took them twenty-five years to figure it out, and now that they had, they weren’t about to waste another second on anything but being happy.