Fix You (30 page)

             
“
Damn it
.” How was he too inadequate to catch this little shithead?
How
?

             
Chris dug his boots into the grass and launched after his prey. The corner of the house loomed ahead and beyond it, light from the cottage spilled across the drive. It would be the best place to bring him down. Maybe even the last place because if the guy reached the woods again, Chris would lose him.

             
Camera still clenched tight in one hand, the slight, leggy little peeping tom was quick. He barreled past the back steps and toward the drive, legs churning.

             
Shit
, Chris thought, cursing the tendons and ligaments in his right leg, wishing he’d pushed himself the way his physical therapist had wanted him to and spent more time on the treadmill.

             
If he didn’t catch this pervert…if he had to go inside, head hanging, and tell Jess that he’d slipped away again…

             
Something long-legged and shadowy dove out from its hiding place around the corner of the house, taking out the cameraman in a full-body tackle that sent both of them rolling and sprawling across the grass. Chris caught a glimpse of jet hair and long legs and knew it was Tam. Jo’s husband had his hands curled into claws, certain and committed to his violence, grappling with their stalker without restraint. He wasn’t afraid of getting hit. But he didn’t have the finesse of a man who’d been trained to fight – only the passion of one who’d been forced to.

             
Their peeping tom got in a lucky elbow and went scrambling away, making Chris think that he probably had some sort of self-defense training. He didn’t have the upper hand anymore, but Tam had provided enough of a distraction for Chris to catch up. And what his leg prevented him from doing, his hands made up for.

             
He caught the man in the side of the throat with the edge of his hand, sent him stumbling to the side. He snagged him by the forearm, pulled him in close while he was still disoriented, and landed a blow against his temple that left his knuckles throbbing. The cottage lights caught the flash of the man’s eyes as they rolled back in his head and Chris caught him under the arms as he went boneless. The camera hit the gravel with a clatter.

             
In the silence that followed, Chris listened to the competing rhythms of his and Tam’s breathing, berating himself for being soft and out of practice.

             
“Is he out?” Tam asked, panting.

             
“Yeah.” Chris dropped the creep and he hit the grass in a lifeless jumble of elbows and knees. “Go tell Jess to drag one of the kitchen chairs into the great room. And bring me back some duct tape.”

**

              The man who’d been lurking outside her house wasn’t large: shorter than Tam’s six feet, thin in a way she thought of as “wiry,” laced with lean muscle. In her mind’s eye, he’d begun to look something like the Wolfman, but in the middle of her great room, illuminated by the standing lamps in the corners, he was just an ordinary, unremarkable man. His nose was large, his forehead accentuated by a fast receding hairline, his mouth small and weak. Two reddish ovals flanking the bridge of his nose hinted that he wore glasses most if not all of the time. He was in a black long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans, cheap, off-brand black cross-trainers like her grandfather played shuffleboard in. He looked like he was fortyish. And he looked, hands bound with duct tape behind the chair Chris had dropped him in, like a frightened rabbit.

             
“He’s not what I was expecting,” Jess admitted quietly as Chris lingered beside her in the threshold of the great room. With one arm banded around her middle, the fingers of her other hand playing along the taut lines at the base of her throat, she flicked a glance up to her contractor, to the man in her life she now looked to for comfort, and asked a dozen silent questions.

             
His expression was grim and she had the distinct feeling it wasn’t relevant to the man they’d taken prisoner. “Me neither,” he admitted. “Bastard’s quick , though.”

             
And, unlike a few moments before, he was awake now. His startled eyes rolled around the room, touching on the three of them, a convulsive swallow working the muscles of his throat.

             
Tam, twitchy as a junkie and excited in a sick, dark way that Jess never could become accustomed to, cracked his arms as he stretched them up over his head. “Let’s see if he feels like talking.”

             
Jo was the only one who ever had a hope of reasoning with the man when he was on guard like this, so Jess turned to Chris. “Are you going to water board him in my living room?”

             
He twitched a smile. “No. But you might want to wait in –”

             
“I’m staying.”

             
She wanted to know why she’d been stalked, and he understood that, nodded. He paced away from her, went to the mantel where he’d left the high-dollar, long zoom digital camera the creeper had been carrying and turned to face the man, dangling the Canon by its neck strap. “This is a nice camera.”

             
Straining against the tape at his wrists and ankles, the man snapped upright against the back of the chair. “Don’t damage it.”

             
Chris lifted his brows, his face locking down tight like it had the night before, sending a little shiver across Jess’s skin. She traded looks with Tam; her brother-in-law seemed impressed.

             
“Please,” the stalker amended, wetting his lips. “Please don’t. I dunno what you want, but I need that camera for work and I can’t afford another one.”

             
“Work?” Chris asked. “Good to know: I get outta the service and have to go into business for myself. But at least a run of the mill pervert can get a job.”

             
The man sighed and shook his head, some of the anxiety leaving him. “I’m not a pervert.”

             
“My bad. I just assumed, what with you looking in girls’ windows and all…”

             
“Shit,” their captives said on an exhale. “No, I’m…” He frowned, considering, then continued. “I’m a private detective.” He twisted as far as his bonds allowed, head turning, gaze falling on Jess. “Your husband hired me,” he said, and Jess held her breath. “He wanted me to take some surveillance photos.”

             
Chris seemed to get larger, drawing up, expression darkening further. “Photos to do what with?”

             
The stalker – the
private investigator
– twitched a glance between them, pausing on Tam a moment, licking his lips again in a nervous gesture. He faced Jess when he finally spoke. “He wants to prove that you’re having an affair.”

23

              “
I
don’t think he’s gonna press charges,” Tam said as he climbed the front porch steps. He twisted around and watched the thin finger of shadow that was Dylan’s PI making his way down the drive toward the street. “Jesus – he’s looking in
your
goddamn windows and he’s telling us we’re lucky
he
isn’t pressing charges. Shithead.”

             
Jess barely heard him. She’d pulled a light sweater on over her tank top and stood barefoot on the slick new porch boards, arms crossed over her fluttering stomach, hating Dylan and wondering how she could possibly outmaneuver his latest play.

             
“Well,” Chris said, “I did break his camera.”

             
Tam grinned, a fast flash of white teeth in the shadows. “Shoulda shoved it up his - ”

             
“Goodnight, Tam,” Jess interrupted, and imagined his blue eyes narrowing at her. She didn’t care. Let him get offended. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

             
He exchanged glances with Chris through the dark, then shrugged and started back down the stairs. “Night.”

             
Chris shifted beside her; when Tam was across the driveway and almost back to the cottage, his arm went around his waist.

             
Jess stepped away from him, moving out of his grasp. When she turned to face him, there was a tight knot of stress in her chest, the all-too-familiar burn of tears hiding behind her eyes. Moonlight came in under the porch roof and slashed across their knees, but she couldn’t make out any of the details of his face. Considering what she had to tell him, it was probably for the best that they couldn’t see one another. If he gave her one of his searching looks, she’d lose her resolve.

             
She took a deep breath. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

             
“I’m…gonna get a bill from that guy’s lawyer for a new camera?”

             
She ignored his attempt at levity. “Dylan’s trying to prove I’m having an affair.”

             
“Yeah, cause he’s an asshole.”

             
Jess didn’t want to hear him say stuff like that – it made this harder. “Because,” she said sternly, “he’s trying to prove that he isn’t the only one who was unfaithful. If he has photos – photos of us; of us kissing and screwing and –”

             
“Hey, calm down.” His hands came through the gloom and landed on her shoulders. “So what if he has pictures?” His voice hardened with contempt. “Maybe the dumb fuck will realize what he’s missing.”

             
Stop
, she willed him.
Just stop being this guy who cares. I don’t want a white knight
. “The pictures,” she said around the lump in her throat, “would prove that he and I both went outside the marriage. He’ll make it look like we’re both to blame for the split and he won’t look like the bad guy. He won’t,” she finished in a stressed huff, “have to pay the settlement I’ve been banking on. Women who cheat don’t get alimony.”

             
The crickets chirped. A breeze riffled through her hair. She shivered.

             
When Chris spoke, his voice was so matter of fact it left her teeth grinding. “You didn’t ‘go outside the marriage.’ That’s bullshit. He can’t prove it.”

             
“He doesn’t have to prove it. It’ll be his word against mine and he’ll have a picture of me…” she couldn’t finish.

             
“Where’s he live?”

             
Jess blinked in the dark. “What?”

             
“Where’s Dylan live? I’ll go change his mind.”

             
Somehow, she’d stumbled into a relationship with an older, harder, military trained Tam. That, or she’d unwittingly done what all women were said to do and was falling for someone like her father…

             
Falling? No.

             
“Yeah, that would work great. You gonna beat my alimony out of him?”

             
“I – ”

             
“You should go.”

             
It got silent again, the crickets filling in the space their words had left empty. Chris’s boots shifted over the porch, the new, tight boards creaking in a healthy way. “Why?” he asked, and the question had a bite to it.

             
She was angry at herself, but not at him. “You know why,” she said gently. “This inn has to be a success…for me…for Tyler…I can’t be tangled up with you because Dylan is obviously going to use you against me.”

             
“Nobody
uses
me.”

             
“He will,” she said, again, gently. “He is. And I’m sorry, but I just can’t risk that.”

             
He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Are you
firing
me?”

             
“No.” Firing him might have been easier than this. “I just think we should go back to a very separate living arrangement.”

             
“Separate,” he repeated, and she imagined the harsh non-smile that accompanied his tone. “Get my shit and get out, huh?”

             
“Chris.” She massaged the back of her neck. “Don’t make this more difficult. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

             
“Good,” he snorted. “’Cause you’re not.” He stepped away from her, the solid, black shape of him turning and heading through the shadows along the wraparound porch, feelings definitely hurt.

             
“Chris,” Jess pleaded, following. “Stop and think about this for a minute. Think about what I’m saying. You know I’m right.”

             
He halted and she collided with his back, was unsteady when he swung around and caught her wrists in his hands. He had big, strong hands: sweet with her, severe with the PI he’d rendered unconscious. Warm and rough and callused. He didn’t say anything, but held her fast, his face hovering over hers in the dark, his breath rustling the loose strands of hair around her face.

             
Jess waited for him to say something, heart thudding in a slow, wounded rhythm. “You know I’m right,” she repeated. “Trust me, I don’t want to do it this way. But Dylan - ”

             
“I know what he is.” Chris released her and presented his back again, walked down the long stretch of porch to the place where the stairs fed onto the yard.

             
Jess stood, hugging herself. “You’re not being fair,” she accused, hurt by his refusal to act rationally about this whole damned mess.

             
He’d reached the top of the stairs, had emerged beneath the eave, and moonlight fell like watered down milk across him, casting sinister shadows along the lines and planes of his face. “Oh, and you are?” he shot back. His scowl, she could now see, was more injured than she’d even expected. “You didn’t even ask me!”

             
“Ask you
what
?”

             
“So what if you don’t get your settlement?” he challenged. “Or alimony. It’s not like you’d have to fend for yourself, Jess. You didn’t even ask me!”

             
Her mouth fell open. “I’m not asking you to bankroll me! Have you lost your mind?”

             
“Yeah. Yeah I fucking have.”

This time, when he turned away from her, he didn’t turn back. She watched him slip around the corner, too stunned to move. Ask him? Ask him to look after her financially? She couldn’t come to grips with that offer. That kind of generosity didn’t seem possible, let alone sane. She still marveled at it – humbled and frightened and disbelieving – when he left the house a moment later, his duffel slung over his shoulder.

He didn’t glance her way, but said, “Go inside before you get kidnapped or something,” his voice heavy with bitterness.

             
“Chris.”

             
“Go inside.”

             
Life, it seemed, would never consent to be easy.

**

The next afternoon, Dylan stopped to pick up Tyler. Jess met him on the drive, seething. “I know what you’re doing, asshole. I met Roger,” she said of the PI. She’d spent a hellish day working in stiff, wounded silence beside Chris. Her house had never looked better; her heart had never been heavier.

Dylan, smug and darkly handsome as always, folded his arms across the roof of his Infiniti and did a slow scan of the empty drive around him. Only the Malibu sat beside her Tahoe: Chris was long since gone for the day.
“Roger? Who’s that? Another of your boyfriends?”

She’d thought, after his ultimate betrayal, that nothing could get her blood boiling any hotter; she’d been wrong. “The next time,” she said through her teeth, “you send someone to spy on me, more than his camera’s going to get smashed.”

His eyes flicked over her head; she heard the back door close. “You going to threaten me in front of our son?”

“You going to give me another reason to?” She pinned him with her most vicious glare before she wiped her face clean and turned to envelop Tyler in a hug. “Bye, sweet boy. You have your phone?”

“Yeah.” He was perky, distracted, not looking at her and already fixated on his father and the weekend they would have.

“Call me and tell me goodnight later, okay?”

He nodded again, slipping from her arms.

She’d thought it would become easier to let him go for these weekend visits, but it hadn’t so far. Tonight, as she watched him scramble into the silver coupe – as Dylan gave her a cutting glance and dropped into his seat – the only thing that distracted her from her sadness was Chris. Poor, kicked-to-the-curb Chris.

Once the car was gone, dust kicked up in its wake, she went inside and changed: pleated navy skirt, white sweater set, Top Siders. She couldn’t bring herself to sex it up – heels and dresses still reminded her of the woman she’d been before: the one who’d tried and failed, who’d been unable to hold her husband’s attention. She fluffed her hair, touched up her lipstick, composed herself in front of the mirror, wondering how wicked she would seem in his eyes.

Tam was home and she threw him a wave on her way to her car. She drove to Chris’s place, as best she could by memory, and had to turn around twice. By the time she pulled into his drive, night had fallen and her palms were clammy.

The little house was dark, but through the front windows, she could see there was a light on in the living room. Its butter glow was infused with a telltale blue flickering: the TV was on. His truck sat beside hers, in front of the carport. It was a Friday, and just after eight, and he was home alone. Guilt twisted her insides, made her brave enough to leave her car and go up the front walk. Clearly – going by the overgrown shrubs that fell over the sidewalk – he used the side door off the carport, but it seemed rude to knock on any door besides the front, so that was where she went. There was at least a year’s worth of leaf litter piled in drifts over the welcome mat, cobwebs glimmering silver in the moonlight between the frames of the sidelights. His bachelor status was unquestionable. Shivering at the thought of spiders, she rang the bell and heard it echo within the small front entryway.

She took a deep breath as a shadow passed in front of the window. She formed an apology as she heard the locks turn. She braced herself for his wounded martyr act as the door swung inward.

But she wasn’t prepared for what greeted her.

Backlit by the lamp over by the sofa behind him, he was shirtless and damp, dressed in breakaway sweatpants with his hands shoved through the short sleeves of a t-shirt. He met her with a set face
: tight eyes, unsmiling mouth, relaxed, indifferent. “Hey.”

Jess realized, ankle-deep in leaves on his front step, that she pr
eferred the impassioned, offended Chris who’d worked alongside her all day to the cool stranger who stood opposite her now. She’d spent ten years married to an unsmiling, unsympathetic man – she didn’t want to see that in Chris.

Her apology shriveled on her tongue. “Did I come at a bad time?” she asked.

He blinked; she saw the sharp lift of his lashes and thought he was about to lie to her. “Maybe. I just got outta the shower. Gonna head out for the night.”

She was dismayed…but didn’t believe him. “You are? Where?”

He shrugged and lifted his arms, pulling the shirt down over his head and into place. “Dunno. Thought I’d head further into town. Hit the bars.”

Hit the bars? Okay, Gramps…
“Pick up a girl?” she guessed.

“Don’t see why not.”