Misplaced Innocence (12 page)

“I thought maybe if I left New Jersey I would have a chance. I thought maybe he was just so imbedded in everything that no matter where I went in New Jersey he would be able to find me. And you know, that’s how I ended up here. I left New Jersey in the middle of the night and drove until I thought I might be safe. Because, really, what doesn’t feel safer than Carlton?”

There was a sharpness to her voice now, an accusation that laced her words. Carlton should have been the safest place in the world for her, and even that had proved not to be safe enough.

“So here I am,” she flung her arms out, encapsulating the entire house, “In the cheapest, most run down house I could find, not even in what passes for the town, with blankets on all my windows and a half a dozen locks on my door because I do not know what else to do.” She let her arms fall down alongside her body. Her breath escaped her in a whoosh and she was left looking utterly defeated.

And suddenly Jared didn’t think Charisma was being strange at all. Every one of her oddities was making a perfect, terrifying sort of sense and he was sorry that she had been experiencing it alone. Before he could stop himself, he was thinking he should have listened to Bill from the very beginning, and that was always a mistake. In fact, maybe she had even been reduced to this strangeness. Maybe underneath all the pot-wielding, neurotic behaviors, she was the determined art student who learned to be self-sufficient when she was still a child.

“It happened last night. I got another phone call. I’d just gotten off the phone with Bill, I thought it was him. I thought, you know, he had forgotten to tell me some juicy little tidbit you know he lives to tell, so I just picked it up and there he was. Just like always. And I didn’t know what else to do. So I called you.”

Jared almost smiled at the displeasure that had crept into her voice, as though he were a meager substitute for someone who could really have done something to stop the phone calls.

“And of course I couldn’t be like, “Oh Jared, I know we’ve barely met, but I’d like to divulge my entire sordid history to you in the hopes that you’ll come over and sleep on my couch so I won’t have to be here sleeping alone.” So, instead, I thought Scruffy would be my alibi, but of course Scruffy is healthy like a horse and can’t even look sick when I need her to!”

Jared did smile then. All of it brought to mind a pretty humorous scenario. Because, really, what would he have said if she had said that to him on the phone? He would have been hanging up so quickly her ears would be ringing and he would be thinking what he always had: each time he ran into Charisma things just kept getting stranger. “We better not tell Bill about this.”

Her laughter exploded, loud and refreshing after the tense minutes of her story. It echoed into the soft sounds of giggles before returning to silence. “Are you kidding, it’s the most exciting thing to happen in Carlton...ever. The whole town would know before dinner and that would definitely not be helping the town’s opinion of me or keep me under the radar. I have a feeling a secret like that out loose in this place would be like walking around with a neon sign over my head.”

He laughed at the dryness in her voice. “Something like that.” After all, he was staying quiet about his experience in New York for the same reasons. He couldn’t really blame her for what he’d also been trying to do. She leaned forward, propping her chin in her hands, and what little laughter had filled her face began to dissipate.
 

“It’s just, you know, I was getting used to it here. I even liked it here. I had Bill and Scruffy and, well, I guess that’s about it. But it was more than I’d had before. I had my studio, a house in dire need of being painted... And now I’ll have to try somewhere else. Again.”

Jared found himself frowning. The idea of her up and leaving was becoming increasingly less pleasant. He brushed it away, found a rational explanation for what it might be. “I don’t know. If you were found here, what makes you think you won’t be found somewhere else? You can’t just spend the rest of your life packing up and moving every time you get a phone call.”

Charisma’s frown mirrored his own. “I don’t know. I mean, he has to get tired eventually. He has to find someone else, forget all about Candy, all about me....” Her voice trailed off, and even though it had been a statement, there was a pleading to it that Jared found heartbreaking. He hated to tell her it didn’t have to be that way. He hated to remind her that any man who was going to do what he had already done to her, follow her the places she had already been, would certainly not be thinking about letting her go on in peace.
 

Instead he shrugged. “You never know. What if he doesn’t?” He didn’t have to say the rest because it was clear she had been thinking about it a long time. What if he wouldn’t stop until he had her, whatever that might mean to this man who sent empty envelopes, flowers, and phone calls that could send a chill even through an adult man? She looked even smaller, even lonelier than she had before, the table too big, the chair too big, like she was a child getting ready for an hour of imaginary tea time.

He sighed. “Let’s not think about it here.” He was talking before he even had the time to think about what he was really saying. “Why don’t you pack some things, and we’ll head over to my place.” He followed her glance to Scruffy, sprawled at her feet. “Of course, she can come too. I’m not a vet because I hate animals.”

There it was again. That smile. The smile that made him think maybe the Candy really had been an element of her life and she was standing up from the table and looking like a new person. “Really?”

“Really,” Jared repeated, feeling like he had just granted the sole wish of a Mother Theresa type.
 

She was already out of the kitchen. He could hear her in the other rooms in a rush that sounded like she was arbitrarily throwing things into a bag. Scruffy heaved a sigh from her place on the floor and Jared was suddenly feeling like his life had taken a crazy, impossible turn.
 

When she returned to the kitchen she was clutching a stuffed fox wearing a fishing cap.

On second thought, maybe Charisma behaved strangely regardless of her history.

She raised it in his direction. “I hope you don’t mind. I have this big project I need to be finishing up for my publisher.”

He almost laughed, the words seemed so professional and here she was gesticulating with a dead animal wearing clothes. He would have never imagined his life could ever be so fantastical. Instead he said, “Of course not.”
 

“Are you ready then?” She had the fox tucked under one arm, a bag that seemed disproportionately heavy over one shoulder and a sack of dog food she had procured from somewhere clutched in her hands. She looked like an overeager camper.
 

“I’m ready.” He took the bag of dog food, and God forgive him, the ridiculous looking fox while Charisma called for Scruffy. Out in the sun, Charisma painstakingly locked each of the locks on her front door, and Jared felt another pang for her. She seemed even younger than he had thought she was initially. Young and alone, and he forgot all about the stuffed fox he was putting in his trunk.
 

~*~

Charisma had expected that Jared would live in some sort of bachelor pad. A place where a different woman could stay over every night of the week. Instead she found herself in a homey place that felt like a little lodge, that felt like it had already seen a woman’s touch. She was focusing on one of the small throw pillows on a worn sofa, embroidered with “
Home is where the Heart is”
when Jared said, “This place used to be my parents.” He didn’t offer any more information, and Charisma had the uncomfortable feeling she shouldn’t ask anything more about it.
 

Scruffy made herself at home, hopping up on the blue patterned sofa and propping her head up on the arm rest. She watched as Charisma and Jared made their way through the home, Jared pointing out the kitchen, the bathroom, an honest-to-goodness guest room complete with more embroidered pillows and a bureau. Charisma transferred her clothing into the dresser and arranged her fox next to a bevy of silver frames containing pictures of a child Charisma could easily imagine was Jared. There he was with a little golden pony, and there with a puppy so young its eyes were still closed, there with another little boy who looked just like him. Some brother, or cousin? She wanted to ask, but he wasn’t looking like he was really in the mood to answer that kind of question. She’d watched the way his face had grown dark, closed to her, just when he had mentioned that this house had belonged to his parents. She wondered where they had gone, if they were even still alive.
 

She found him in the living room, the television on. He looked like he belonged there, in his bare feet and faded jeans. Charisma made her way to the picture window that let light spill in on the faded colors of the rug. The house sat on the smallest of a crest, so the yard seemed to roll down from it, and it felt like you were looking down on everything around you, though Carlton was still the flattest place Charisma had ever been. Not too far from the house was a small barn, red and white, the way she always imagined barns would look. But the fields were empty and she wondered how long it had been since there had been animals inside. The sun beat down on everything, as relentless as ever, but still beautiful.
 

She didn’t realize how involved with the scenery she had become, but when she turned around she found Jared had stopped watching the television and started watching her. She smiled, feeling like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and wondered if he had any idea what she had been thinking. But his face was still closed, and she wished he would smile so that she could see the laugh lines at the corners of his blue eyes.

The enormity of what he had done had just settled squarely on Jared’s mind. He had brought a person home for the first time since he had made a reappearance in Carlton. She filled his space and made it seem less empty, less lonely. Her funny looking dog was stretched out on his sofa, already snoring, and he hadn’t felt more at ease in his own place since he had made his way home.
 

He pushed the word content from his mind. Content was not a feeling he could be attributing to this woman and her dog. It was simply not allowed and regardless of how many times he had to tell himself that, it would remain that way.

His cell phone went off, and broke whatever trance he had slipped into. Jenny’s voice filled his ear and he actually welcomed the distraction. When she had finished chatting away about the cookies that were cooling on the counter, he turned to Charisma. “I’ve got a call about a foal.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Apparently he’s walking funny. Or sleeping too much. Or coughing. I don’t know but I’ll find out soon enough.”

And even though he had practically leapt at the chance to leave the house and the strange effect this dark haired, dark eyed Charisma was having on him, now he lingered, reluctant to leave her alone with her fears and in his house. She watched him from her spot by the window, where the sunlight filtered in around her and gave her a backlit glow Jared found it hard to look away from. “I won’t be long, I promise,” he said, and his voice was rough and he was angry that he had added the reassuring words, angry that they soothed something inside of him and angry that they looked like they had soothed something inside of her.

He left her in the living room, still looking out the window like there was nowhere else she belonged more in the world.

Jenny met him down by the mailbox. He had come to expect no less from her. Her hair was swept back off her face so she could take full advantage of her big crystalline eyes, rimmed with spiky lashes.
 

He waited for his eyes to drift lower, settle on the curve of her hips and the way her blue jeans fit like a second skin to perfectly proportioned thighs.
 

But they didn’t. They settled on those blue eyes and stayed there.
 

Only he was busy thinking about a pair of big dark eyes that moved him a way Jenny’s did not.
 

He took a deep breath before swinging open his car door. Apparently his life had slipped totally out of his control and he had no say in anything any more.
 

“Hi, there, Jared.” She swayed gently from side to side, her hands clasped behind her back in a way that should have drawn his attention to the pulling t-shirt.

But it didn’t, and that, he was beginning to realize, was more of a problem than he really wanted to admit.
 

Jared grunted by way of greeting, and tried not to notice the way Jenny pursed her lips in response. If it had been Mary Anne, Jared could have anticipated the way her mind would already be drawing conclusions, already looking toward her next play. But Jenny Doorman was entirely different, and he wasn’t sure he could even come close to imagining what she was planning on doing next.
 

Her eyes grew wider. He hadn’t actually thought it was possible, but Jenny knew how to play the innocent, wide-eyed act. It had always worked for her in the past and Jared was pretty sure it would work for her in the future, even if it no longer worked on him. “I’m glad you’re finally here,” she drawled in a way he was very familiar with; that way that made you imagine you were alone together in a big bed and in the process of becoming very naked.

He had to get a grip. It was making it even worse that none of these thoughts were having any effect on him at all. Everything was suddenly so matter-of-fact about Jenny, even the way she’d propped one hand up on her hip and was leaning to the side so he could see the gentle s shape her body made beneath the fabric of her clothing.
 

“Did you want me to take a look at the foal?”

“Actually, I think he’s doing just fine. My mistake, I suppose.” A smile pulled at her pink lips, flashing bits of white teeth at Jared. He had to give her credit for giving up this sick foal ploy. That wasn’t even close to working any more.