Back in the Soldier's Arms (36 page)

“Such a nice boy, Daniel,” exclaimed Nan. “I was always surprised how well he turned out considering his mother.”

Bewildered, Pat looked at Jo.

“Nan, this is—”

“I’ve always said that woman would much happier if she stopped blaming her husband for everything that’s wrong with her life—oh, are we at the garden center already?” Looking beyond a dumbstruck Pat, Nan started fidgeting with her seat belt. “Help me unbuckle this.”

Nudging Pat aside, Jo retrieved one of the plants and showed it to Nan. “We’ve already picked up some lovely vegetable seedlings, see? And now we’re leaving.”

Rosemary took the plant and settled back in her seat. “Well, get a wriggle on, they’ll need watering.”

Jo shut the car door and turned to Pat. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “She doesn’t realize what she’s saying most of the time.”

“Forget about it.” Pat tried to smile. On impulse Jo hugged her. She looked as though she really needed a hug.

“It’s not true, you know.” Pat’s voice was as small and plaintive as a little girl’s. “If I wasn’t taking responsibility I wouldn’t have asked for a divorce.”

“You can always change your mind.”

Pat gave a choked little laugh. “Has Dan ever told you what Herman calls our granddaughter? Attila. And yet he’s so terrified I’ll change my mind he’s prepared to spend a week in Auckland with her to avoid me.”

“Jocelyn,” Nan called impatiently, “what are we waiting for?”

“Coming.” Jo looked at Pat. “If you need someone to talk to …”

“Oh, I have a hundred girlfriends, don’t worry. Or I can phone one of my daughters. Nice to see you again, Rosemary,” Pat called, then with a nod to Jo, walked back across the road, her platinum hair glinting like a helmet in the sun.

“Who was that?” Nan asked, when Jo got into the driver’s seat.

“Someone I feel like I’ve met for the first time. Let me make a quick call.” She keyed in Dan’s number.

“Jo.” Husky, sexy … and wary. He’d said her name a thousand times but this was the first she’d gone weak at the knees. Good thing she was sitting.

“Dan, I just saw your mother. I think she regrets asking for a divorce. Maybe you should tell your dad?”

There was a moment of silence. He’d expected another argument. “Hell, no. I learned my lesson. I’m staying out of it. Anyway, it’s not as bad as Mom thinks. Meredith’s having marital problems and Herman’s sticking around for a few days to watch the kids while she and Charlie thrash it out. My sister doesn’t want Mom charging in so we’re keeping that quiet.”

“But they had the perfect marriage,” Jo said, stunned. “Well, Meredith is perfect,” she amended. Dan’s sister was gentle and sweet, the opposite of her bombastic husband.

“I like that you’re already biased toward the Jansen side,” he approved.

“At least phone your mother. I really think she needs moral support.”

“Are we doing dinner?”

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” But Jo had already decided her best shot at talking him out of the wedding was to get together to do just that: talk.

“I prefer to think of it as lovemail,” he teased and Jo began to understand why he always got his girl. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

As she rang off, Nan said, “Now how on earth did I do that?” She was gazing at her cast with a puzzled expression.

Jo braced herself. “You had a fall.”

“Did I?” Nan might have forgotten, but Jo would always remember she’d let her own emotional needs take precedence over her grandmother’s best interests. Never again would she allow her heart to overrule her head.

Back in the Soldier’s Arms/Here Comes the Groom

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SWEAT TRICKLING DOWN her breastbone, Jo removed her cardigan and tried to concentrate on Chronicle paperwork. The late afternoon sun beat on her head making it difficult to concentrate. On a sunny autumn’s day, Pops’s glass-walled conservatory addition was a heat trap, but all the files she needed were stored in this room.

Vince Bugatti crooned in the background, alleviating the ache left by Nan’s absence. She’d be glad when the house sold. It wasn’t the same without her grandmother and anyway the money was needed for her care. Opening the monthly accounts book, Jo’s mind drifted. She’d rent somewhere close to the sea. Dan would visit and they’d lie on the beach, soaking up rays like this….

On impulse she stripped off her long-sleeved T-shirt, felt the sun’s caress on her skin. Lovely.

This past summer had mostly slipped by unnoticed. Nan wasn’t a beach person. Jo shook her head at her pale arms and stomach, then caught sight of a faint redness near her navel. What..? She looked closer and smiled. Beard burn.

Yesterday she wouldn’t have done this, but today she pulled off her top and sat in the sun in her bra. Leaning back in the armchair, Jo raised her arms above her head, welcoming the stretch in her shoulders and spine. Enjoying the return of her sensuality.

Where once she used to sleep naked, now she even wore a bra to bed under her nightdress. She’d become alienated from her own body. Jo looked down at the pretty lace hiding her disfigurement and took the bra off. Reclining the chair, she lay back with her eyes closed. The sun soaked into her bones, warming her torso without discrimination. Dan had kissed her scar.

Tentatively Jo stroked a hand over it. When the usual emotions came—distaste, horror, rejection—she replaced them with acceptance. This wasn’t something she’d fix overnight, but if she tried.

Gently she touched her remaining breast, wanting to integrate it with the flat in D‡side, then swept both hands up and over the front of her torso.

Some sixth sense made Jo open her eyes. Dan stood outside the conservatory. Instinctively she covered her nakedness. He didn’t move, didn’t react. He could have been a part of the landscape. Jo’s panic subsided. She uncrossed her arms and returned her hands to her body. What had begun as exploratory became increasingly sexual. His eyes darkened.

Playfully, Jo rolled her nipple between her fingers, watched his ribs expand in a deep breath. It occurred to her she could use sex as a bargaining tool in the wedding argument, but she instantly dismissed it. She wouldn’t sully this with politics.

Her other hand slid down her belly to the snap on her jeans. One button, two. Dan’s eyes went to the triangle of white lace revealed, then lifted with a heat that sucked all the oxygen out of her lungs. Standing up, Jo discovered her legs were unsteady. She stepped forward and unlocked the conservatory ranch slider, then turned and walked upstairs to her bedroom. Dan followed. Neither of them spoke.

Jo lay down on the lurid green cover of her virginal single bed. “Hurry,” she said.

DAN DIDN’T NEED TELLING twice. He hauled off Jo’s jeans and panties, fumbled with his zip and freed himself enough to lie between those sweet legs. He’d give Jo what they both craved.

Only when he was inside her, only when she was wrapped around him, did he finally get enough control to stop and think about slowing this down.

He was still more or less fully clothed and Jo was naked under him. She was breathing as hard as he was, that little gasping pant that had him moving again before he was aware of it.

He was an hour and a half early for their dinner date, had puzzled the dogs by feeding them midafternoon and done the absolute minimum in terms of work. But he was in love for the first time in his life and incapable of staying away. He’d arrived with some idea of wooing her into marriage—women loved that stuff—but the moment he saw her, half-naked in the sun getting reacquainted with her body, he’d wanted her.

Good thing she wanted him.

The sex was hard and fast and furious and when they were done, the lime-green bedcover was on the floor. So were all the pillows. One hand holding Jo, Dan groped for a blanket and covered their bare asses. Jo chuckled. “You still have your shoes on.”

What do you know? He did. “And they’re hanging off the bed. How do you sleep in this thing?”

“When I move I’ll buy a new one.” “You won’t need to,” he reminded her. “You’ll be sleeping in mine.”

“Sometimes I will, sometimes I’ll be in my own bed.”

“Are you deliberately trying to piss me off?”

Jo sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. “Getting angry isn’t going to change my mind about marrying you.”

Dan pulled her back to his chest. “Then tell me what will.”

“Nothing,” she said firmly. But he didn’t believe her. There had to be something. She was right in one thing, though. Anger wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“We’ll work this out,” he said, because women like9;lÑ€† to hear a guy being reasonable. Jo gave him a squeeze of approval.

“I saw Mom today,” he said, wanting another one. Pathetic. Love was making him pathetic. “You should have warned me about her hair.”

“I hope you told her you liked it.”

“Even Blue barked at her.”

“Dan!” But he felt her silent laughter against his body. One of her feathery curls tickled his chin; he wrapped it around his index finger. “You didn’t cut your hair to this length, did you?” he said quietly.

“No. I wore a wig when it started falling out during chemo, then when it grew back enough, appeared with a radical new style. It came back wavy though. Chemo does that sometimes.”

“I like it.” Gently, Dan kissed the soft, baby-fine strands, but he was unsettled.

Jo stirred. “We need to talk about canceling the wedding.”

“No. We’ll only argue again.” Getting up, he straightened his clothing and pulled up the zip on his jeans. “Here’s an idea. Let’s give ourselves some breathing space for a week. Enjoy this. Then we’ll review.”

“Meanwhile you’ll carry on organizing the wedding,” she said drily. “I don’t think so.”

He sat on the bed. “I promise I won’t do a single thing on the wedding. It all stops.”

“All right,” she said. “But only if I get ten minutes a day—no interruptions—to argue my case for cancellation.”

“We both do.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

“Our days are too busy to spend any real time together.” He picked a dress out of her wardrobe, one he’d always liked. “I’m thinking nights.”

“Sleepovers?” The way she said it made him want to get naked again.

“With Herman away, they’ll have to be at the farm.” When she looked suspicious he said patiently, “Jo, you have a single mattress.”

She still wavered.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll forgo my ten minutes’ talking for it.” He’d do his persuading in bed. Their bed.

“Give me your ten minutes and we have a deal.” She really thought she had a shot at talking him out of this. He tried not to be offended. “Tough negotiator,” he said bitterly. “You know the saying … all’s fair in love and war.”

“Glad we understand each other.”

“Dan,” she dropped the sheet and came over, soft, naked and vulnerable. “You will keep an open mind about this, won’t you?”

“If you will,” he said and watched his soft, naked and vulnerable bride look away.

“Of course.” She kissed him. He kissed his little Judas back.

“And you won’t go organizing the wedding behind my back, will you?” “I promise,” he said. There was nothing left to do.

“I AM PICKING UP a hottie tonight.” Her red dress swirling around her sturdy calves, Delwyn shimmied off the dimly lit dance floor and wiggled into the booth next to Jo, smelling of peach schnapps and Anaïs Anaïs.

Gulping at her cocktail, she flicked back her long dark hair, fired a lopsided wink at a group of guys at the bar and repeated her new mantra, “Being single is the bes’ thing ever.”

She’d talked Jo into a quiet drink at Shaker’s after work, knocked back two cosmopolitans, then pulled a compilation CD of female empowerment anthems out of her handbag and persuaded the DJ to play them.

Mired in her own Mexican standoff with Dan, Jo hadn’t the heart to say no to Delwyn’s post-Wayne recovery plan, even when her sales rep dragged in fresh recruits—Dan’s sister Meredith and Pat, who’d been having a quiet dinner in the adjoining restaurant.

So far, they’d danced to “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves,” “Ladies’ Night” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Three of the four were drunk. And it was only 8:15 p.m.

Resolutely, Jo pushed her cocktail aside in favor of her water glass. Delwyn plonked her highball on the table and frowned. “Why aren’t you drinking your Sloe Comfortable Screw?”

Across the circular table, Meredith smothered a laugh, drawing the sales rep’s attention. “See, Merry, Merry—” leaning forward, she tucked her bright pink cocktail parasol behind Meredith’s ear “—I told you it’s fun be’n’ unattached.”

Dan’s younger sister was a very pretty woman but with her dark hair pulled back and wearing a conservative yellow blouse, the gaudy parasol made her look like a spinster on her last prayer.

At the reminder that she’d just separated from her husband, Merry sucked on her straw like it was an intravenous drip delivering morphine. The sound spurred Delwyn to another slug of her own drink. “Wonder what Wayne’s doing?” she said sadly.

The mechanic had put down his tools and listened politely when Jo had tried to mediate, then equally politely told her to mind her own business. “Like I’m minding mine with you and Dan.”

She couldn’t argue with his logic. “Just keep the lines of communication open,” she’d advised. “That’s how we’re working things out.” Yeah, right. She’d left the garage feeling like a hypocrite. As friends she and Dan had always been able to work through stalemates, but as lovers they were treading new ground—all of it mined.

Jo found herself reaching for her cocktail again and in desperation, picked up a congealing cheesy potato wedge from the shared bowl on the table.

Spending more time with Dan had only reinforced her conviction that they should wait. He barely slept, worked himself to the bone and made love with an intensity that initially made Jo wonder if, despite his optimism about her cancer, the possibility of a recurrence haunted him. When she’d raised the subject he’d finally admitted he was fighting depression over Steve and Lee’s deaths.

His unresolved guilt was another good reason not to get married, but he flat out refused to talk about it again. It was sensible to wait and Dan didn’t want to be sensible. He wanted to throw himself into commitment. AnailÑ€†d while Jo loved him for his courage, she wouldn’t be swept into doing something that might be the opposite of what he needed.