Flirting With Forever (14 page)

“Do what you have to do.” He knew she’d let him finish out the tour. With Tara at the top of the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists, the last thing anybody at Penguin wanted was to piss her off. Not that he was hiding behind Tara, but he’d be damned before he apologized to anybody for falling in love with her.

One thing was
for sure, Jake wasn’t looking forward to having dinner with Marsha and her asshole husband after the show, but he hoped by now the old guy would see that Jake wasn’t going anywhere.

Last question of the night. He couldn’t wait to tell Tara about his plan to spin the book and how they met, how the end of her marriage had become a new beginning for the two of them. Tara was as sick of hiding their relationship as Jake was, and he was glad to have his resignation out of the way so they didn’t have to anymore.

A slender blond woman in the back of the orchestra section stood up. The Janzen guy in the red jacket, handed her the mike. “What advice would you give to couples just starting out?” Jake had picked that question; he wanted to see what Tara would say. The camera stayed trained on the woman as Tara answered.

Jake knew she couldn’t see very far into the crowd because of the lights. The woman sat back down in her seat. That was when Jake got a glimpse of him.

“Shit.” He grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Security. The guy behind the blond that was just up on the screen. Mid-fifties, gray hair, khaki jacket. Get him out of the theater. Now.”

Jake wanted to strangle the bastard for what he’d done to Tara. She was still closing out the show, unaware that Jim Jordan was in the house.

‡

T
he head of
security looked bewildered when I walked up. “What do you want us to do with him, Jake? We can’t hold him, not legally. He bought a ticket.”

“Jim’s here?”

Jake nodded. “Will you excuse us?” he said and pulled me aside. “He says he wants to talk to you.”

“Fine. He can come to our room in a half hour, but I want to talk to him alone.”

“I don’t like that, Tara.”

“I need to do this, Jake. It’s better this way.”

Lou Rosen was right about Jim showing up, but after being gone over three months, I hoped she was wrong that he wanted revenge. Maybe my lawyer had finally been able to track him down. Maybe he wanted to talk about the contract on the house. Maybe he was ready to talk about the divorce.

I left the theater feeling pent up, so we left the car parked at the theater and walked back to the hotel. The worry was apparent on Jake’s face. “I know you don’t want me to see him, but I have take care of the business that’s left between me and Jim. And that’s all that’s left, Jake. I promise.” He didn’t deny it, just waited until we were alone in the elevator and kissed me, reminding me that I belonged to him. “There’s nothing he can do or say that can make me stop loving you.”

We stepped out of the elevator and walked toward our room. “I gave my notice. I told them after tonight, I’d save the company some money, just get one hotel room from here on out. My boss wasn’t happy about me finishing the tour, but Erin was cheering in the background.”

“I’m so happy, Jake.”

The hotel room door closed behind us and we stood there holding each other. There was a knock at the door. I stiffened in Jake’s arms.

“Are you afraid of him, Tara? Should I stay?”

“No. But I need to do this on my own. Promise me you’ll stay out of this.”

I could see in his face that was the last thing he wanted to do, but he promised.

He kissed me again, then opened the door. Jim did a double take. In less than three seconds, everything clicked with my soon-to-be ex-husband, but Jake pushed past him and closed the door behind him before Jim could say anything.

“Well, I see you’ve moved on.” Jim gave if-looks-could-kill a whole new meaning, but it had nothing to do with being served divorce papers or a book that had embarrassed the hell out of him.

“We never fought, Jim. Not really. And I’m not starting now.”
Breathe. Don’t get sucked into his game.

“How old is he?”

“Old enough,” I snapped and then chided myself. “Look, I don’t want this to get any uglier than it already is. The fact is that you left me. I don’t care that you took the money—”

“My money.”

“Whatever. I don’t even care that you took my advance. You can have it. I just want to get on with my life.”

“With him?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I gave you fifteen years of my life and this is how you thank me?” he screamed. “You humiliate me. You—.”

“I’m not going to stand here and listen to this. Either be civil or leave.”

“After what you did to me? I’ll leave when I’m good and goddamn ready.” He pushed me up against the wall, face just inches from mine. “And where do you get off telling me what to do? Oh, that’s right, you’re all high and mighty now. But it wasn’t so long ago that you were nothing, a nobody. And you’ll be a nobody again when I’m through with you.”

I spun away from him and ran to the bathroom. I tried to close the door, but he pushed it open and blocked my way when I tried to get out.

His face was bright red, his breathing was too fast. “The Perfect Marriage? Not with you, you ungrateful bitch.” He was holding his left arm. “And you think you’re going to get that with him? Does he know how old you are?”

“I’m not going to listen to this. I’m happy now—”

“Happy? You know what? I’m glad we’re over. I’m glad I fucking lied to you all those years.”

“What are you talking about?”

“And now you’re old, and dried up, with your pretty boyfriend.” His bitter laughter made me sick. “All those years you couldn’t get pregnant, it wasn’t you, sweetheart.”

“But I went through all those treatments. My doctor even said—.”

“What I told him to say,” he screamed.

I’d tried so damn hard to have a baby, but I never even got pregnant. After five years of trying, my doctor, Jim’s best friend, pulled me aside at a cocktail party and told me it would be easier on Jim and me if I just accepted that I couldn’t have a baby. Things had been so rough, I thought he was being compassionate. But it was just a sick good-old-boy way of making life easier for Jim.

My husband had slurred his last words like he was drunk. I knew he was having a heart attack, but I stood there unable to move. His back slid down the wall until he was sitting on the bathroom tile. He gripped his chest, fighting to breathe. His face had already drooped to one side, eyes no longer angry, but pleading. “Help me.”

I bolted out of the bathroom to call 911 and crashed into the thick glass coffee table. My skull smashed into the end table, snapping my head back. I was paralyzed by the rhythm of the pain taking me to the edge of consciousness and back. Blood gushed down the side of my face. My cellphone was on the floor, within reach, it was ringing. Jim was dying. Someone opening the hotel room door.

I could see his legs from where I was on the floor. I punched in the numbers—911. The pain traveled up my legs to my brain, swimming with the pain of everything Jim had taken from me. I hated him. I could have hit the Send button; I could have saved him. But when the next beat of darkness came, I let go of the phone and let my husband die.

‡

“T
ara.” I opened
my eyes. Jake was holding my hand. A lady in a uniform waved a foil packet of smelling salts under my nose. I reached for him. The pain constricted around my head like a hungry snake, making me gag. I had already vomited, I could smell it down the front of my clothes. Everything started to go black again. “Stay with me, Tara.”

“Mrs. Jordan,” the paramedic said. “My name is Dee. You hit your head. You’ve got some bruises on your legs. We’re going to take you to the ER and get you checked out. My partners are working on your husband.”

I looked at Jake. He was blurry and then beautiful and then blurry again. “Jim’s dead,” I cried. “I killed him.”

“No, Tara, you didn’t kill anybody.” Jake’s voice. I loved Jake’s voice.

The gurney magically rose and I floated down the hallway with the pretty lights overhead. Jake was beside me. I love Jake. Jim is dead. I killed Jim.

Then we were outside and the gurney was low again. I was being lifted into the truck. Jake let go of my hand. He tried to get into the ambulance, but the lady stopped him. “Are you family?” Yes. Jake. You are family. You are the one. You are home.

Jake was terrified.
He parked the car and sprinted toward the ER to find Tara, but he knew with privacy laws, there was a good possibility that wasn’t happening. With that bastard in the same hospital as Tara, they knew Jim was her husband. Jake would have no chance at getting any information. He slowed his pace as he got to the automatic doors, in full-blown obnoxious New Yorker mode.

“I’m Jake Randall,” he said to the woman at the information desk. “My client, Tara Jordan, was brought in just a few minutes ago. I need to see her. Now.”

The woman was about sixty and Jake knew he was pretty much dead in the water when she didn’t look at him like other women do. “Have a seat. I’ll let them know you’re here.” She didn’t pick up the phone right away, but shuffled some papers about and took a couple sips of her coffee to make him pay for his attitude. Maybe he should have been honest with the woman, but his guess was that wouldn’t have gotten him any further.

Finally she picked up the phone and talked to someone for a few minutes. She hit the button under her desk and the door to the ER room opened. “Room twenty-seven.”

He hurried down the hallway. When he got to the small room, his heart stopped. No longer streaked with blood and mascara, Tara’s face was ghostly pale. Eight tiny stitches marked the jagged cut above her left eye. Her hands were cold; he warmed them pressing them against his neck. Why had Jake let things get so out of hand? Why didn’t he run next door the minute he heard the bastard shouting at Tara? And why in the hell had Jake done what he had done after he burst into the hotel room?

Her eyes fluttered open and then closed. She smiled a little. “I’m so sorry, Tara.”

There was a soft knock at the door and a doctor came into the room. She looked to be about Jake’s age. “Are you her husband?” If he had anything to say about it, yes.

He shook the doctor’s hand and introduced himself. “I’m Tara’s publicist.”

“She’s got some nasty bruises on her legs and a severe concussion. We stitched up the gash on her head while she was out. She’s in and out of consciousness, but the fact that she was out for more than a few minutes is concerning. She’ll need to be admitted. At least for tonight, but she should be okay.”

“Thank God.”

“Judging from the bump on her head, she must have been running at full tilt when she hit her head. We’ll know more about her injury after the CT scan. Until the swelling goes down, she’ll need to be monitored.”

The doctor had been looking at her notes the whole time she was talking, like she knew if she looked at Jake, she’d say more than the law allowed. But then she did and her demeanor softened. “I know it seems bad, but it’s not serious enough to induce a coma. As she recovers, the best medicine is physical and cognitive rest. So when she wakes up and asks for her laptop, cellphone, et cetera, don’t give it to her.”

“What else does she need?” Jake knew he sounded a little too desperate. He saw it on the doctor’s face, like she’d suddenly remembered all those privacy laws and they’d made her rethink being so candid with him. But Jake was desperate.

“I understand her husband came in with a heart attack.” She emphasized the word husband and looked up from her clipboard for a reaction. Jake took a different tact.

“How is Jim?” he asked. “He looked like he was in pretty bad shape when he left the hotel.” There. That sounded like he knew Jim too, like they were one big happy family.

The doc wasn’t buying it. “He’s in bad shape,” was all she would say. “We’ll get Mrs. Jordan up to a room as soon as there’s one available.” Jake could tell the doc felt sorry for him, but she didn’t want a lawsuit on her hands. “You can stay with her if you want,” she said, and then she left.