The Lovers (18 page)

I don't want her to be able to do this to me. Things are confusing enough with Jack. As much as I want to be with Jack, I still
want
Audrey. I don't understand it.

We stay for maybe another hour, wandering the stalls, Viviane and Patrice crowing over the gorgeous fruits and
vegetables, the bargains. They've loaded Leo up with two heavy canvas bags as we walk back to the car. In the parking lot, Jack finds us. I'd almost forgotten he was there.

No, that's a lie. But I'd certainly tried to.

“Why don't you ride with me, Bettina,” he asks, surprising me. “I'd rather not do the drive by myself. And I want to ask you some questions about a story idea I have. It's something I think you can help me brainstorm.”

“Why me?” I ask.

“Oh, go with him,” Audrey says. “It's too beautiful a day to drive up the coast alone. Go on, Bettina.”

She gives me a gentle shove in his direction, just her small hand on my back, and I feel the heat of her in my bones. I turn to look at her, but her smile is entirely guileless.

Jack grabs my hand. “Come on,” he says, then more quietly, “I promise not to bite.”

I'm not so sure of that, but I go, anyway.

His dusty black truck is parked nearby, in the same lot. Jack silently holds the door for me. The truck is huge, and I have to hang on and pull myself up onto the seat. I set my small Indian-cotton purse down on the seat between us as Jack goes to the other side, climbs in and starts the engine.

We pull out of the lot and head to the 101, making our way back up the coast toward the small town of Bacara and Viviane's house. Jack has turned the stereo on, and the cab of the truck is filled with the low murmur of a Puccini opera. Not quite what I expected, but there are a lot of things about Jack that surprise me. It's one of the things I find most interesting about him. But it also makes me nervous. Except when I'm in bed with him. Then everything just flows and I am as unselfconscious as I've ever been in my life. Wanton.

I slip my sunglasses on and from the corner of my eye I look surreptitiously at his profile, which is outlined against
the noontime sun shining over the ocean to our left. The sky is a brilliant, incredible blue, the ocean that lovely mixture of green and gray, going darker as my eye follows it out toward the horizon. In the far distance is the tiny silhouette of a ship. But my eye is drawn back to Jack when he turns his head, catching me watching him.

“Hey, Bettina,” he says, not really saying anything at all, but his voice is low, husky, and it sends shivers through me.

“Hey,” I answer.

“I saw you and Audrey hanging out today.”

“Did you? I didn't see you after you left this morning.”

“I was around. I didn't want to bother you.”

“You wouldn't have bothered me.”

“No?” he asks, raising one brow at me before turning back to the road. “You didn't give me that impression before you had your coffee.”

“Yes, well, I hadn't had my coffee yet.”

“Yeah, so you said.” He's quiet a moment, just driving. “Was that it, Bettina?”

“Was what…what?”

He lets out a long sigh. “Okay. We can talk about something else. But you sure are stubborn.”

I smile at him. “I can be. I like to think of it as one of my more charming qualities.”

He laughs, and just like that, the tension is gone. I feel my shoulders dropping, my neck relaxing, even my jaw.

“So, no bags from the farmer's market?” he asks me.

“Nope. Viviane and Patrice are kind of territorial over the produce.”

“Yeah, they are.”

“I don't mind. I just like going, looking at everything, watching the people.”

“I like to people watch, too. It's a favorite pastime of writers, I think.”

“It is. How else are we going to create our characters if we don't have an enormous well of personalities to draw from? I love to watch people in places like that and make up stories about them. I like to try to figure out what goes on in everyone's head.”

“We're a weird lot, aren't we?” He's grinning, and I find myself wishing I were on his other side, so I could see the dimple flashing in his cheek.

“Yes. We do seem to be. Most of the writers I know have these strange childhood stories. Or at least, the way we respond to things that happened in our childhoods is maybe a little different from the average person's.”

“You think we're more sensitive?” he asks.

“I've always thought so. Maybe all creative personalities are. Painters, musicians. Maybe that's why we're able to do what we do, because we attach more emotion to things than others do. I don't know, maybe I'm being presumptuous.”

“No, I think you're onto something. But I think it's good stuff as well as the bad that we feel more of.”

“What good stuff have you responded strongly to in your life, Jack?” I ask him.

“Ah, that's easy. My sisters.”

“I didn't know you had sisters.”

“Eliza and Katie. They're twins, four years younger than I am.”

“I always wanted to have a sister.”

“Oh, don't get me wrong. They're a pain in the ass.”

I can hear the pride, the affection, in his voice.

“So, you're close?”

He nods. “They're too far away. I don't like that. I can't keep an eye on them from a distance, which I remind them of
regularly. It drives them crazy, especially since I'm not actually willing to move to be closer, so they think I'm being hypocritical. Maybe I am. And I know I go overboard in wanting to protect them. If we lived in the same city they'd really learn to hate me. Katie came to Portland for a few months, but she fell for a guy in L.A. and moved away. She's been with him ever since. They got married last year, so I guess it's a good thing. She's a teacher, like my mother was. Eliza still lives in the small town in Oregon where we were raised. She writes, too. Children's books.”

“I didn't know you were raised in Oregon. I got the impression you've only been in Portland a few years.”

“About eight years. But I was raised in Coos Bay, right on the Pacific. It's beautiful country, but too quiet for me. I spent too many years traveling to go back there. But I've always loved the ocean. That's one reason I love to come here every summer.”

“Where have you been, Jack?” I ask him, wanting to know. Wanting to know everything, suddenly.

I can't get enough of him, in any way, on any level. And it's so cozy in the cab of his truck, with the music playing softly, the brilliant day outside warming me. And Jack opening up to me, telling me about his life.

“All over Europe. Spain, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic. I did that right before college, did the hostel-and-backpack thing, then went back a few years ago once I started to make money off my writing. I saw France and Italy again. It was like a whole new experience, staying in hotels. I'm still not sure which trip I liked better. I've also spent some time in Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil. And I've been to Japan. Really loved Kyoto.”

“You set one of your books there. The one that came out two years ago.”

“Yeah.” He turns his head, giving me a strange look, as though he thinks it's odd I would know.

“What's your favorite place?” I ask him.

“There's something I like about every place I've been, but you know, I love New Orleans. That city is just magic. But it's too hot to live there. I like Portland. I like the fog, the grayness of it. I like the loneliness of it. The sadness. Maybe that makes me macabre.”

“Well, I don't think that's what makes you macabre.” I laugh and he turns to flash one of his dazzling grins at me. “But that's one of the things I love about Seattle, too. I love feeling insulated by the fog and the gray and the rain. I think it's the only sort of place I could live.”

“So, what about you, Bettina? Where have you been?”

“Not far. I'm just now getting to a point in my life where I'm feeling brave enough to see something of the world. This trip is sort of where I'm starting.”

“You mean you've never been out of Seattle?”

“Not much. I've gone up to Victoria a few times. I've been to San Francisco. I loved it there. It has my fog.” I laugh again, and he laughs with me, and I feel too much that we are on the same page, somehow.

Don't get used to it.

“You have to travel, Bettina. You absolutely have to do it.”

“I know. I hope to.” I shift in my seat, my hand finding the cool glass of the window, my fingertips resting there.

“No, you can't hope to. You have to
make
it happen.” His voice is certain, passionate. He glances over at me, his eyes a blaze of green, before focusing on the road once more. “We should go somewhere. We should take off from here at the end of the summer and just go. Where would you like to see?”

I'm certain he's not serious, so I play along.

“I'd like to see New Orleans, actually. I hear the food there is fantastic.”

“It is. And the architecture is incredible. There's an aura about that city that's unlike any other place in the world. It's sad and tragic and romantic.”

Why does my heart pound hearing him say that last word?

I am being totally ridiculous. Just because a man like Jack can say the word romantic doesn't mean he is. Except that he is.

Damn it.

The passion with which he speaks about his travels, his fierce love for his sisters, both of these things tell me he isn't unable to love. So why is it he can't love a woman, other than in the sort of distracted way he loves Audrey?

Horrible twist in my stomach at that thought. But I have to know more.

“How long have you and Audrey been coming to these retreats?” I ask, then wish I'd kept my mouth shut.

“I've been coming for about six years, Audrey for three.” He's quiet a moment. Then, “But what you really want to know is how long Audrey and I have been sleeping together. Isn't that it, Bettina?”

The knot in my stomach pulls tighter. I don't want to admit this to him. I don't want to admit it to myself. But it's too late, isn't it?

“Yes, I suppose so. I know it's none of my business.”

“You're right, it's not,” he says, though not unkindly. “But I don't mind telling you. We've been together off and on ever since we met. It's gotten to be habit, almost. I'm beginning to wonder if it's more that than anything else at this point.”

He looks thoughtful, his dark brows drawn together. I have to force myself not to read too much into this.

I am just so surprised at how he's opening up to me, how he seems to really
talk
to me. I'm not used to men doing this. But I have to stop and ask myself if maybe I haven't been open to it myself, if I haven't allowed that in my life because I've been too busy protecting myself. Until now.

What's changed for me? Is it about who Jack is? Is it about having been in therapy this long, having done some of the inside work?

I think it's all that. But I also think some of it is about Audrey. About her opening me up in a new way, the power of her charm—if you want to call it that, and I don't know what else to call it—sort of forcing me to open up. And not just sexually, but some inner part of myself. Something about her has taught me to take a few risks.

I'm still pretty sure falling for Jack is a poor risk to take. One guaranteed to leave me in the dust. And I'm still struggling with this. I can't figure out if I should stop myself or not. Or if I even can.

“You're quiet,” Jack says.

“I'm thinking.”

“About?”

I laugh. “Do you always do that? Insist on knowing what goes on in everyone's head?”

He turns to me, smiling. He is so damn beautiful, his eyes that deep mossy green in the afternoon light. “Yeah. I always do. You might as well get used to it.”

He says this as though he'll be around. As though we really will travel together, go to New Orleans at the end of the summer. As though he wants to spend more time with me. But on what terms?

How would I feel if Audrey was invited along, too? It's entirely possible.

I don't even want to consider that.

The future is all too uncertain, and I hate it. I like everything to be nice and tidy and predictable, everything in its place. But nothing about Jack—or Audrey—or my feelings or experiences with either of them, is at all tidy. Which is probably why it's been so powerful for me.

Or maybe I'm simply overthinking the hell out of everything.

The sun is blazing when we pull into Viviane's driveway. Her SUV is already parked, and it looks as if everything has been unloaded. I start to get out, but Jack puts a hand on my arm. I shiver with the heat of his fingertips on my bare skin, my sex going damp at this simple touch.

“Want to go for a swim?” he asks me. “It's too hot to stay inside, or to sit on the beach and write.”

He's smiling at me, his palm still warm on my skin, so I can hardly say no. I nod my head.

“Yes. I'd love to swim.”

I'd love to do anything that involves him, frankly.

We get out and pass by the kitchen windows. Everyone is inside, talking, preparing lunch, probably. I'm a little hungry, but I'd rather be alone with Jack.

We walk around the side of the house, coming out on the edge of the back patio, and take the path to the guest cottages, where Jack leaves me with a wave to get changed.

Inside my cottage, I strip quickly, and find my panties damp. I want him again. Need to have him pretty damn soon or I may lose my goddamn mind.

I slip into my favorite bikini, which is a silvery gray with some dark blue embroidery on it, slather sunblock onto my skin. I'm more tanned than I've ever been in my life, but still fairly pale compared to Jack. Or Audrey. I try not to think of her as I grab the big, colorful beach towel I bought before I left Seattle and head outside.