Reconsidering Riley (34 page)

"Jayne? But isn't this...Uncle Riley's
room?"

A pause. "We...switched. Riley let me use
his room last night, and he...was more than welcome to use
mine."

Jayne couldn't even lie properly, he
noticed. She was probably too softhearted to tell a fib to
Alexis.

"Hmmm. Well,
anyway
," his niece said,
"I guess you could probably give a message to him, if you see
him?"

There was another pause. Riley imagined
Alexis in her purple braces and thirteen-year-old-diva's clothes,
then pictured Jayne in her nightie and ridiculous feathered shoes.
He'd be damned if he'd stay in here like a cast-off gigolo, waiting
for his lover's beck-and-call. He felt unwanted. Discarded. Used.
He rattled the closet doorknob.

Jayne coughed to cover the sound. "Sure,
I'll give him a message."

"Okay." A pop of bubblegum. "Just tell him
his driver radioed ahead, and his Suburban will be here in like,
half an hour. So he'll have plenty of time to make it to Sedona for
his flight to Antigua."

Riley froze.
Damn
!
Antigua
.
He'd meant to explain all that to Jayne this morning, when they
woke up. But they hadn't actually
slept
much last night. And
afterward, probably because of all the hiking they'd done over the
past few days...well, afterward he guessed he'd just crashed.
Nothing short of Full Pink Nightie had had the power to awaken
him.

"Antigua?" Jayne asked.
"Riley's going to
Antigua?"

He yearned to open the stupid closet door,
to stop this disaster before it went any further. But when he
rattled the bars of his impromptu cage, Jayne only buried the sound
in another, fiercer cough. And when he started to call out, her
voice overrode his.

"I didn't know that," she said slowly. "I
thought he'd changed his mind."

"Nope." He could well imagine Alexis's
shrug. "He's got some National Explorer assignment there.
Photographing emus, or something."

"Emus."

"Yeah. So, you'll tell Uncle Riley? 'Cause I
don't want to have to track him down to give him the message. Lance
is waiting for me."

"Right. Okay." Jayne sounded dazed. "I'll
absolutely
give Riley the message. As it turns out, I've got
a few things
I
want to say to him, too."

Uh-oh
. Mad. She was definitely mad.
At the realization, Riley felt trapped. There was nothing that made
him feel more helpless, more useless, than when Jayne was mad at
him. She'd want to talk, and talk, and talk, and he'd be
tongue-tied, with only his prepared statement for defense.

I've planned this trip to Antigua for
months now. It's a good opportunity. I'll see you when I get
back
.

Okay, his statement sucked. He needed more
time. Turning, Riley pushed past the clothes hanging on the closet
rod. If he could only find a trapdoor in here. A secret passageway.
An escape hatch, from the—

Outside the closet, the women said their
good-byes. The bedroom door closed with a decisive clunk. Feminine
footsteps trod across the bedroom floor.

Jayne was coming.
Think
, he commanded
himself.
Explain this so she understands
.

The closet door swooshed open. A warm block
of sunlight fell into the space, illuminating the dire lack of
emergency exits. Feeling the heat on his back, Riley turned, the
cedar block he'd been using to shove clothes out of his way still
in hand.

Jayne stood there, arms crossed and
high-heeled slippered foot tapping. She raised a brow.
"Antigua?"

He should have expected it, but he hadn't.
The minute he saw Jayne, every syllable of Riley's prepared
'statement' flew right out of his head.

Chapter Twenty-One

Alexis strode down the lodge's hallway
toward the dining room, where Lance was waiting. Already this
morning she'd fixed her hair twice, shaved her legs once, and
totally
gone wild with the makeup Jayne had lent her
yesterday. She wondered if Lance would notice the way her eye
shadow coordinated with the jeans from her restored luggage, and if
he'd like the CK One she'd spritzed on.

Jayne had. She'd complimented Alexis on her
eye shadow
and
her perfume...before she'd gone all schizo
about the Antigua thing, that is. The shock on her face when she'd
learned about Uncle Riley's trip had been
obvious
. Alexis
wondered if Jayne and Uncle Riley had hooked up last night, and
decided they probably had. After all, they were totally in
love.

Just like her and Lance. Alexis spotted him
near the breakfast-piled sideboard in the dining room. She
performed a last-minute breath check, then happily headed toward
him.

He glanced up with a Powerbar in one hand
and a shelf-stable chocolate soymilk in the other. A wide smile
spread over his face—a smile that was for
her
alone. The
sight of it made Alexis feel kind of giddy—sort of like when she
watched 'N Sync on "Total Request Live." He handed her the food,
then choose some for himself.

"You, uh, look great today," Lance said.
"That makeup makes you look sort of like Mandy Moore."

Mandy Moore was
totally
cute! Psyched
by his compliment, Alexis chirped out a "thank you" and followed
him to the dining table. All around them, various adventure
travelers and guides sipped coffee, ate toast and oatmeal, and
talked. The hum of the different conversations was comforting. It
made Alexis feel less conspicuous—although she did notice Doris and
Donna nod approvingly when Lance pulled out a chair for her. He
even waited until she sat down to take a seat across from her.

Lance was a gentleman. Unlike Brendan. He
was sweet, too. She hadn't done a thing to make him like her,
Alexis thought as he unwrapped her breakfast and handed it across
the table, and still he
did
like her. In fact, she
considered further as she chewed, she'd pretty much been as
obnoxious as possible to Lance, and it hadn't made a bit of
difference. He'd liked her, all the same.

With Brendan, she'd had to change her whole
schedule around to be with him—occasionally even ditching her
Spanish Club meetings to spend time with him. With Brendan, she'd
had to watch what she said so he wouldn't think she was a geek.
With Brendan, it hadn't mattered
what
Alexis had done—in the
end, he still
hadn't
liked her. Not enough, anyway.

Puzzled by the difference, she peered at
Lance. He smiled at her and shyly inched his hand closer along the
tabletop. His fingers closed tentatively around hers, and a jolt of
excitement whooshed through her. Lance didn't even care who was
watching when he held her hand! He didn't complain that
hand-holding was for wusses, or pretend to hold her hand then ask
her to pull his finger. (Gross.) Instead, Lance just...touched her,
in the nicest way. Like he wanted to be nearer to her.

Halfway through her soymilk (she and Lance
were considering becoming vegetarians together), Alexis had a
revelation. Maybe it didn't matter what she did—people would like
her (or not) for all kinds of reasons. Because of who
they
were. Not because of who she was (or wasn't). Some people were
loving, like Uncle Riley and Nana and Gramps. Some were sweet, like
Jayne and Lance. Some were immature, Cinnabon-wielding buttheads
with gold chains, an Xbox fixation, and no neck...like
you-know-who.

Wow
. All this time, she'd thought she
needed to change herself. She'd thought she needed the "Fifty Ways
To Look Smokin' Hot" article in Cosmo, and maybe a personality
transplant, too. Now, Alexis realized she didn't. She was fine! If
someone didn't realize exactly how
fine
she was...well, that
was
their
problem, not hers.

It all made perfect sense. Feeling immensely
better, Alexis finished her Powerbar. She started to rise to get
another one, but Lance beat her to it.

"Still hungry?" he asked. "I saw one of the
chocolate peanut butter ones over there. I'll go get you one."

"Okay, thanks."

Propping her chin in her hand, Alexis
watched Lance lumber over to the sideboard. He took his time
choosing another Powerbar for her, his big hands hovering over the
selection. He obviously wanted hers to be the
ideal
Powerbar.

She wished her Mom would put that much
thought into what Alexis wanted. Sadly, she considered what it
would be like to have a mother who cared about the details, who
asked about homework and enforced a curfew and
noticed
things about her daughter. Instead, her mom was too busy running
off to Mexico with the boyfriend
du jour
.

Feeling discouraged again, Alexis moped as
Lance made his selection. He waved it in the air with a smile,
which she returned half-heartedly. Her mom was the
worst
.

And then it hit her. Her mom was...just who
she was. A globe-trotting, divorced, forty-something Britney
wanna-be who liked lots of boyfriends. The fact that she rarely
spent more than ten minutes on the phone with her only daughter
didn't mean there was something wrong with that
daughter
.
Maybe her mom
didn't
dislike her, the way Alexis had
secretly feared. Maybe she simply wasn't good on the phone.

To be fair, Alexis thought a little
squirmily,
she
hadn't exactly been Miss 4-1-1, either. She'd
been mad about being left out of the Mexico trip, and she'd wanted
to make her mom pay. Maybe if she hadn't limited her end of the
phone calls to "uh-huh," "no," and "
whatever
," things would
have been different.

Well, they would be different. When spring
break was over, Alexis vowed, she'd make a better effort. Heck, she
might even offer to give her mom a makeover. Britney's look was
getting
so
Seventies. Her mom deserved a better role
model.

Like Mandy Moore.

Alexis was smiling when Lance stopped beside
her chair. He handed over the Powerbar. After she took it, he
squeezed her shoulder manfully—then paused.

"Hey, you smell great. Is that new
perfume?"

Yup, things were looking better and
better, all the time
, Alexis decided smugly. Before she knew
it, she'd be driving
herself
to the mall. She was just
that
mature these days. Look out world! Alexis Davis was on
her way!

Still stunned, Jayne stared at Riley,
waiting for his answer. Waiting for him to say this was a mistake,
he'd cancelled his plans, he wanted to stay. But he didn't. A few
minutes ago, she thought crazily, he'd looked sort of cute amid the
coats and sweaters. Now he only looked like the man who'd betrayed
her trust.

Again.

She was so stupid to have gotten herself in
this mess.

"Antigua?" she asked. "But I thought—after
what we—well, since we've...
Antigua
?"

"I'm not talking about this in here."
Frowning, Riley pushed past the things in his way. He stepped out,
trailing the sheet around his waist.

Jayne followed. "You're not talking about
this, period! I can't believe you've
ambushed
me with this.
I thought you'd changed your mind. I thought things were different
now."

"They are different."

"How? Because it's only taken you six days
to decide to leave, instead of six months? I have to tell you,
Riley, that's not—"

"That's not it." He gritted his teeth.
"Look, I've planned this trip to Antigua for months now."

That was
it
? She was disrupting his
plans
? Hot with fury, Jayne stalked toward him. "Not good
enough."

Looking trapped, Riley ran a hand over his
bristly jaw. "It's a good opportunity."

"So am I, damn it."

His smoky gaze swerved to her face. In his
eyes, Jayne glimpsed both stubbornness and...anguish? What the hell
did he have to feel anguished about? She was the one who'd been
misled, here. She'd trusted him. Loved him. Believed she was
important to him. And how had he repaid her? By treating her like a
fling
.

She'd thrown away her "gift." Risked ruining
her research and disillusioning her breakup-ees. Jeopardized her
book contract. For this. Would she never learn?

"Well?" she prodded. She desperately wanted
to give Riley the benefit of the doubt. But how could he not be
explaining himself? In his shoes, she'd have been talking her head
off. "Well?"

"I'll see you when I get back," he said
confidently.

"Ha!"

"Jayne—"

Too infuriated and hurt to speak, she
tottered to the edge of the bed in search of her discarded clothes.
She had to sweep her arm furiously under the frame—then get on her
hands and knees—to retrieve those items that had the audacity to
elude her.

"You'd better not be ogling my butt!" she
yelled, her voice muffled by the bed ruffle.

"I always ogle your butt." He sounded
hurt.

"Not anymore." Jayne hurled a hiking boot
over her shoulder, not caring if she clobbered him in the head with
it. With dignity, she added, "It's not your butt to enjoy
anymore."

She got to her feet with an armload of
clothes and yesterday's shoes, feeling energized by the activity.
Riley's hurriedly averted glance told her he
had
been ogling
her. At the realization, all sorts of mixed emotions assaulted her.
Anger, that her erstwhile reunited lover dared to lay claim to her
in that way. Pride, that her butt was ogle-worthy. Embarrassment,
at her juvenile proclamation.

She raised her chin. "You can go find
some...some
Antiguan
butt to ogle!"

"I don't want Antiguan butt." His voice was
gentle. Shaking his head, Riley came to her. He raised one hand to
caress her upper arm, leaving the other clutching his sheet. "I
don't. I don't want that."