The Misconception (32 page)

“Exactly!” Tracy nodded and waited for him to continue.

“About, uh, insignificance,” Jax finished.

“The significance of insignificance, to be exact,” Tracy said. “We were trying to get across that every item, no matter how small, has significance.”

“Right,” Jax said, finally understanding. Sort of.

Marietta’s laughing eyes met his, signaling she knew he hadn’t a clue what the play was about before Tracy told him. He winked at her, and her eyes laughed harder.

“I thought it was very clever,” Ryan said.

Tracy squired in her seat. She fiddled with the skinny straw in her gin and tonic. Time to lighten the atmosphere with a joke, Jax thought.

“Speaking of clever, here’s one for you,” Jax said. “What would you do if a five-hundred pound gorilla sat in front of you during a play?”

Ryan was already starting to grin, reminding Jax of one of the reasons he liked him so much.

“What?” Ryan asked. A pleasant surprise. When Jax was telling a joke, most people were silent.

“Miss most of the play.”

Ryan laughed so hard he slapped his thigh, then he slapped Jax’s, which, after all, was only an inch or so from his. Jax joined in on the laughter, wondering how Tracy had ever let a great guy like Ryan go.

A short, burly man appeared at their table, glaring at Marietta. Jax and Ryan stopped laughing.

“You’re that sex professor, aren’t you? Dalrumple something or other,” the man said in an overly loud voice. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal more dark hair than was atop his head. His jaw was beefy, his mouth slack with drink. While he waited for her answer, he swayed.

“It’s Dr. Dalrymple,” Marietta corrected, holding her chin high. “And I’m a biologist specializing in matters related to sex and evolution.”

“You have the damn stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard,” the man spit out. “What do they call you? A bio-dummy?”

“Hey, watch your mouth.” Jax’s temper spiraled like a tornado. He usually left his aggression in the ring, but damn if he didn’t want to pound the other man’s face. “You owe the lady an apology.”

“The bitch owes me an apology,” the man shouted. “Where do you get off telling pregnant women they don’t need a man around? Huh? What right do you have talking fucking nonsense like that?”

“It’s not nonsense—,” Marietta began.

Jax cut her off by rising to his feet and standing chest to chin with the smaller man. The man’s eyes traveled upward and filled with fear. Jax nearly growled.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Jax asked in a low, menacing tone. “You owe the lady an apology.”

Nobody, and he meant nobody, was going to call the woman he loved a bitch. The thought stopped Jax cold, and his knees nearly buckled. The woman he loved.

He loved Marietta.

He supposed he should have recognized the signs, starting with that lightning bolt that had struck him through the heart the first time they’d been together. But, as infuriating as Marietta was, the bolt had been easy to dismiss.

Still, he should have realized he was in the market for more than a baby when he’d moved next door to her, when he’d laid awake remembering the exhilaration of making love to her, when he’d found himself admiring a brain that thoroughly confounded him. When he hadn’t been interested in any of those come-hither women he used to find desirable.

“Come on, man.” The pleading voice seemed to come from a great distance, and it took Jax a moment to realize the smaller man was speaking. “You can’t agree with that shit—”

Jax recovered his bearings and glared.

“I mean that stuff she says,” the man amended. “She’s telling our women we have no more control than animals.”

At the moment, Jax’s control was stretched so tight he wished he were an animal. Then he’d have an excuse to tear into the man.

“Dr. Dalrymple is not only brilliant, she’s spent years researching her ideas and forming her opinions. She deserves respect, and you’re going to give it to her. Right. Now.”

The man appeared about to say something else, then apparently thought better of it.

“I’m sor. . . sorry,” he stammered an apology and disappeared into the crowd.

Jax’s insides shook with the discovery he’d just made. He looked down at Marietta, wondering if she could figure out he loved her by his awed expression. “You okay?”

Her face was white, and she looked as shaken as he felt. She shouldn’t be here in this semi-smoky bar with the professor-bashing patrons.

“Let’s get out of here,” he told Marietta.

She nodded.

“Sorry to cut the evening short,” Jax told Ryan and Tracy as he helped Marietta out of the booth. Despite the apology, a roomful of pro wrestlers intent on committing carnage couldn’t have stopped him from leaving with the woman he loved.

“Go.” Ryan barely refrained from helping Jax along with a push. All evening, he’d been plotting to get Tracy alone. The perfect opportunity had presented itself, and he meant to seize it. “Go, and don’t worry about us.”

Jax and Marietta uttered a couple of quick good nights, and then they were gone. Ryan’s eagerness at getting Tracy alone wasn’t reflected in her drawn, unhappy face. She looked at the salt-and-pepper shakers, at her nearly empty glass, at the vacant space in the booth across from him. Anywhere but at him. Disappointment descended over Ryan like the curtain at the end of a play.

“I really should be going too.” Tracy started to scoot across the booth.

Ryan’s disappointment turned to panic. She couldn’t leave. Not when they were so close to putting things right again. Not when his happiness would disappear with her. His hand shot out, trapping hers beneath it. She immediately stilled.

“Please don’t leave, Trace.” His voice was pleading and so soft he barely recognized it. “At least, not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said automatically.

“I was married to you for fourteen months. I know you well enough to tell when something’s wrong.”

He looked down at the small, long-fingered hand under his, remembering how she’d once used it to transport him to the dizzying heights of passion. Now she drew her hand away and clenched it in her lap, breaking their connection.

“This isn’t working, Ryan.” Her eyes finally rose, and they looked sad.

He made himself ask the next question. “What’s not working?”

“This. . . friendship.” She indicated the two of them with the sweep of her hand. “I tried, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be your friend.”

A fist clenched his heart and squeezed. “Is it something I did? I tried not to push you. I tried to give you space.”

“It’s nothing you did.” Tracy shook her head, misery evident in her eyes. “It’s just that. . . Well, it’s too hard. We’ve been lovers, Ryan. I can’t be around you without remembering how good it was to be with you that way.”

Hope leaped in Ryan, brighter than a flaming torch. He’d taken more cold showers in the past month than in the rest of his life combined, but it was paying off. By not touching Tracy, he’d shown her how difficult it was to live without his touch.

“Then be with me,” he said simply.

“What?” Her head snapped up.

“We can be lovers again, Tracy, if that’s what you want. It’s what I want.”

He saw her swallow, saw her consider the possibility, saw her reject it. “I can’t.”

“Why? Why can’t you?” He pounded the table, caught himself, uncurled his fingers. “We’re not divorced yet. You said yourself you still want me.”

“I do,” she cried, and tears shimmered in her eyes. “I do still want you, but that doesn’t mean wanting you is smart. It doesn’t mean wanting you is right.”

“This is because you think I’ll hurt you, isn’t it?”

“You’ve already hurt me.”

“Did I? Or did you hurt me?” Ryan wanted Tracy to believe in him enough, to trust him enough, to take it on faith that he wouldn’t cheat on her. But maybe he was expecting too much. After all, he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion when she walked into Paddy’s Pub with Jax. If Tracy asked what happened that day, maybe he should pull out all the stops to ensure she believe him. He took a chance by giving her a chance. “You never asked, Tracy, not once, about that day at the hotel.”

“That’s because I don’t want to know.” Tracy closed her eyes. He imagined her shutting her ears, too. “Seeing you with that woman hurt so much I don’t want to know the details.”

“The details might change things.”

Her eyes snapped open. “What, Ryan? What would they change? Nothing can change what I saw. I don’t want to hear some explanation you’ve had almost a year to dream up. I don’t want to hear anything about it at all.”

Ryan stared down at the table. “That’s your final word on the subject?”

He sensed her nod. “It’s my final word.”

“Then you’re right. We shouldn’t see each other anymore.” He withdrew a few bills from his wallet and threw them on the table. “I’ll sign the divorce papers and have my attorney mail them to you. You won’t need to have any more contact with me.”

He strode out of the bar with a heart that felt as though it had been torn from his chest. He’d tried to be patient and let Tracy see what kind of man he was, but she still didn’t trust him.

This time, their marriage really was over.

Chapter 20

“There.” Jax carried the tall glass into his leather-intensive family room and handed it to Marietta. “One hot toddy, as promised.”

Marietta stared down at the steaming white liquid, brought the cup to her nose and sniffed. Then she took a sip. “I thought a hot toddy had liquor in it.”

Jax shrugged his good shoulder. “This one’s a
virgin
hot toddy, made in honor of pregnant women who have been rudely accosted at tacky bars.”

She smiled at him and wrinkled her nose. “Pregnant women aren’t virginal. Unless I’m mistaken, hot toddies are made with boiling water, not milk. I bet you didn’t even put the sugar in.”

He raised the hand not in a sling. “Guilty as charged. I thought a virgin hot toddy sounded more appetizing than a glass of warm milk.”

She forced down a swallow of milk. Jax was being so sweet she was loathe to tell him she had begun to despise the white stuff. Her refrigerator was stocked with calcium-fortified orange juice, and she made a point of eating calcium-rich foods so she wouldn’t have to drink more milk.

But after the way Jax had stuck up for her tonight, she’d do just about anything for him. Including choking down a glass of milk. She might even moo if he asked.

She walked over to the mantle above his fireplace and picked up a photograph of two outrageously good-looking young men with the same flyaway blond hair. Jax’s brothers. Billy and Drew. If you discounted their lofty cheekbones, they didn’t much resemble Jax. Aside from the stunning symmetry of the halves of their faces, that is. Symmetry, it seemed, ran in the family.

“They’re handsome, your brothers.” She took another sip of milk and barely refrained from gagging.

He nodded. “They’re good kids, too. You’ll like them.”

He made the statement as though her life had stopped running parallel to his and had converged with it. Exactly the way their lives had converged at the Chrome and Mirror when the drunk had insulted
her
, and
he
had taken it personally.

As though he cared about her and had a stake in whatever happened to her. Deep in thought, she put the picture down.

“You do want to meet them, right?” He raised his perfect eyebrows, reminding her there was so much about their imperfect relationship they hadn’t yet decided.

“Of course I do.”

He reached out his unrestricted hand and laid two fingers on her lips. “Stop right there. Don’t say you only want to meet them because they’re related to our baby.”