The Trouble With J.J. (6 page)

Less than two years after their marriage, Jared had given her a generous divorce settlement and walked out of her life, returning only to pick up his daughter for his regular visits specified in their separation agreement. He and Elaine had managed to destroy whatever fragile feelings they had had for each other, but one infinitely precious gift of their relationship remained. Alyssa. Leaving her was the only thing he regretted about his divorce; she was the only good thing he had to say about his marriage.

Jared heaved a sigh, carrying the letter and a Bullwinkle tumbler half full of Irish whiskey out onto the front porch. He sat on the step and stared out at his striped lawn, feeling helpless.

Sometimes he believed he’d stayed in the fast lane all these years just to spite Elaine. Or maybe it
just had taken him this long to grow up. Whatever the reason, he’d become disenchanted this past year. He was tired of city life, night life, and being the life of the party. He’d changed his priorities, matured. He was ready to settle down. He wanted a real home, a dog, a wife maybe. And his daughter. More than anything, he wanted his daughter.

Would Simone Harcourt really be able to take her away from him?

What could he do to prevent it?

Twilight was gathering around Tory Hills. Jared swatted a mosquito on his arm and breathed deep the scent of newly mowed grass coming from the Ralstons’ lawn next door. In his own yard two squirrels chased each other up and down the birch trees. Across the street, Michael Dennison, Amy and Brian’s oldest son, was going after their shrubbery with a hedge trimmer. A silver car turned the corner at the end of the block. Genna.

J.J.’s secret agent—Amy—had told him Genna was heading into Hartford today in search of a summer job. After nearly a week of searching, she’d struck out in Tory Hills and the nearby Hartford suburbs.

He knew how she felt. He wasn’t doing so hot trying to win her over. Half the time she looked at
him as though he were a piece of meat gone bad. Then he would manage to crack through her defensive line and make her laugh, only to have her pull away from him. He was reasonably certain she was attracted to him physically, but that didn’t cut much ice with a lady like Genna, especially since she seemed determined to keep her distance from him.

Amy had hinted that Genna’s reluctance was the result of a soured relationship. If that was the case, he’d have to tread carefully. He needed to win her trust. If only he could think of a way to help her out that would keep her around so he could figure out how to gain some yards toward winning her heart.

The evening breeze fluttered the letter in his hand.

Suddenly inspiration hit him over the head like a baseball bat. If his plan worked, he would end up with custody of his daughter and Genna too.
You’re a genius, Hennessy
.

Genna’s car came up the driveway and disappeared into her garage. Minutes later Genna came out looking like a wilted flower, her pink linen suit limp and wrinkled, a dejected frown on her face. Even her usually bouncy chestnut hair looked sad
and droopy. Jared’s heart went out to her. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her and cheer her up.

“Hey, Genna!” he yelled, standing up. He didn’t want to leave the porch for fear Alyssa would wake up and he wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Come on over!”

Genna groaned. Why him? Why tonight? “Why me?” she muttered, limping across Jared’s lawn with her pink pumps dangling from one hand.

“Where are your crutches?” he asked, concerned.

“They didn’t go with my outfit,” she said wearily, leaning against a white pillar. She felt like a dishrag and was sure she looked like one too. She really wasn’t up to J.J. tonight.

Shooting her a look of reproach, he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk, his hands tenderly examining her nylon-clad ankle. “It’s puffy. Hot too. You really shouldn’t be walking on it, especially in heels.”

“Yeah, well, I might as well get used to it, because walking is going to be the way I’ll get around if I don’t find a job.”

Jared stood and leaned against the same pillar
with his hands stuffed into his pockets. “No luck, huh?”

“The word doesn’t belong in my vocabulary.”

He bit his lip. She sounded so depressed. Poor thing. He almost felt guilty at being glad she hadn’t found a job. Almost.

“I know what you need,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

Genna eyed him suspiciously. He was wearing baggy khaki shorts and a pink T-shirt that said
REAL MEN EAT QUICHE AT FRANCESCA’S
. “Don’t pull out a tool on me, Jared. I’m liable to kill you with it.”

He laughed, his diamond earring sparkling in the twilight. “Now don’t get homicidal on me, Gen.” He picked Candy the mannequin off her lawn chair and dumped her unceremoniously on a shrub. “Pull up a chair. I’ll be right back.”

He dashed into the house and returned thirty seconds later with two cold soft drink cans.

“Root beer?” Genna questioned, accepting the can and sinking down gratefully onto the lawn chair.

“Nothing beats the blues better.” He sat on the porch floor facing her, leaning back against a pillar with one long leg dangling down the step, the
other knee drawn up. “It’s my secret passion. You have any secret passions, Gen?”

“Hmmm?” She found her gaze drawn to an alluring gap in the leg of his shorts. Was he the underwear type or not? Abruptly she realized he was waiting for an answer. She blushed furiously. “No. None.”

He grinned and swigged his root beer. “I have to confess, I’m sort of glad you didn’t find a job today, because I have a proposition for you.”

Genna sat stock-still, afraid to let her imagination loose to decipher his comment.

Jared’s smile died a slow death as he picked up Simone Harcourt’s letter and tapped it on his knee, trying to think of the best way to phrase his offer. “I—a—I’m in kind of a bind. I need an image consultant.”

“An image consultant? I don’t understand.” She was too innately polite to agree with him right off the bat. Besides, he seemed perfectly happy with the image he had, bizarre as it was.

“This letter is from my ex-wife’s sister. She wants custody of Alyssa,” he said, all humor gone from his voice.

“What?” Genna felt as if she’d suddenly had the wind knocked out of her. Despite what she claimed
to think of Jared, she knew he adored his daughter. She’d watched him play with Alyssa in their backyard the last few days. He was endlessly patient with her, gentle and tender. Maybe he was a little too indulgent, but that was to be expected under the circumstances. He never looked at that little girl with anything but love in his eyes. It was there now as he looked up at Genna, love for his daughter, and that hint of vulnerability that tugged at Genna’s heart so.

“She doesn’t think I’m a fit parent.”

“Not a fit parent?” she asked with indignation.

“She doesn’t think I’m ‘normal’ enough.”

“Uh-oh,” Genna thought out loud.

He gave a harsh laugh. “You don’t think so either?”

“It’s not that I agree with her,” she hastened to clarify. “I think you do a fine job with Alyssa. It’s just that you’re not … normal. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” he said, sighing. “You’re right.”

He sat up, leaned his elbows on his knees, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I’m not normal. I’ve never had to be. Nobody in my family is what you would call average. But I don’t see why that should matter. I really want to settle down, you know. That’s why I brought Alyssa here. I
thought a small town, a big house, a lawn—that’s how I want my daughter to grow up.” He reached out and absently stroked the head of a flamingo. “I believe in individuality, but I need to fit in, Genna. I have to learn how to be normal, at least appear normal, or I could lose my little girl.”

The strain in his voice on those last words almost broke Genna’s heart.

J.J. turned toward her with hope in his eyes. “You’re a teacher. You’re normal. You need a job …”

She caught on to the direction of his thoughts and shook her head. “Oh, no. Not me.”

How could she take on a job like that, be with him every day without succumbing to this weird attraction she had to him? Yes, she had finally decided to be honest enough with herself to admit she was attracted, but she still couldn’t stand him.

“Please, Gen.”

“No. Really, Jared, shouldn’t you hire a man for the job?”

“No!” He abandoned his root beer and got on his knees in front of her lawn chair. One big hand wrapped around her wrist as he gestured with the other. “You’re perfect for the job! Women are always telling men what to do!”

“Not this woman.” Not that she wasn’t
tempted. She thought of Eve—she’d been tempted and look what had happened to her. Of course, a little voice nagged her, succumbing to this temptation probably wasn’t going to sentence all of humanity to eternal damnation or anything. She steeled herself, shutting out the little voice. “No.”

“Come on, Gen,” Jared begged unashamedly, his thumb stroking Genna’s wrist. “It’s the perfect job for you. You don’t have to dress up or drive to work. You could set your own hours. It’d be for only the summer.”

She was getting a crick in her neck from shaking her head.

“You’d be getting paid to boss me around.” He could tell she was tempted, like a fish eyeing a lure. Patience, J.J., he reminded himself. He gave her a devilish smile. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Genna tried without great success to take a steadying breath. She felt as if he had his hand around her throat instead of around her wrist.

“I have to admit it holds a certain appeal … but … no, I’m sorry.” She tore her gaze away from his smile and congratulated herself on regaining her self-control. “I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”

Jared reined in his impatience. No one ever
caught a fish by yanking the bait away. His grandfather had told him that. His grandfather had also pointed out the similarities between fishing for trout and attracting a woman. He offered up silent thanks now to Grampa Jace for his lessons.

Jared eyed Genna shrewdly, looking for the weakness in her defense system. Under his thumb her pulse was racing like a rabbit’s. “What are you afraid of, Gen?” he asked, knowing he’d hit the mark when she practically bolted. “It’s a good honest job offer,” he said to reassure her.
Slow and easy, J.J., don’t scare her off
. “It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me or anything.”

“Afraid?” she laughed hysterically. “Why would I be afraid?”

Scared witless, maybe. But wasn’t she adult enough to control her own responses around him? Of course she was. And he’d said himself that he wasn’t asking her to marry him. He probably wasn’t interested in her as a woman at all. Men like Jared never were. She was too ordinary and sensible.

Even if he were interested, she told herself, she would just explain to him that he wasn’t her type. Simple. No problem.

She thought of the stack of bills on her dining room table. This was a genuine job offer. Lord
knew it was the only one she’d had. What would be worse—spending every day with Jared or having her car repossessed?

“Fifteen hundred dollars salary,” he offered.

“Fifteen hundred?”

“Two thousand.”

“Two thousand!”

“Twenty-five hundred. I’ll pay the taxes on it at the end of the year too. And an unlimited budget to make me into Normal Norman.”

Genna’s head swam. Twenty-five hundred dollars. That would cover a lot of car payments. And wouldn’t it be fun to make Jared mow his lawn properly and get rid of the flamingos and the punk hair?

“You’re perfect for the job, being a teacher and living right next door. You know the neighborhood. You know what the PTA types think of as good, normal parent material. And we’re friends—sort of—aren’t we?”

“I guess.” Damn, he made a good argument. Those eyes of his should be declared lethal weapons, she thought, as the expression in his beautiful baby blues became soft and pleading.

“I need your help to keep my little girl,” he said huskily. He was dead serious about the job. If Genna could coach him through a successful
summer season of being normal enough to please the custody court, he’d give her every cent he had. Spending time with her was just going to be a bonus for him. “Please, Genna.”

His free hand landed on her knee. Lightning went straight to her heart, then exploded and zipped down her arms and legs. The sensation excited her breasts and swirled between her thighs. Her heart raced, her breath caught in her throat. Their gazes locked. So much for controlling her own responses.

“No,” she gasped, a feeble attempt at self-preservation.

A plaintive cry from inside the house broke the negotiations. Jared was on his feet and through the door before the second call of “Daddy.” Concerned, Genna followed him to Alyssa’s room.

Jared flipped a switch that lit a carousel lamp beside the white canopied bed. “What is it, sweetheart?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his sleep-dazed daughter in his arms.

“I don’t feel good,” Alyssa whined, pressing her head against his shoulder.

J.J. frantically felt her forehead for a sign of fever. “Where don’t you feel good, honey?”

“My tummy.”

He looked up at Genna, his face a mask of concern. “It’s her tummy. Do you think it’s her appendix? It could be her appendix.”

A veteran in dealing with the maladies of five-year-olds, Genna came forward calmly and bent over them, brushing Alyssa’s bangs back. “What’d you have for supper, honey?”

“Sausage-anchovy pizza and a chocolate shake,” Jared answered.

Genna stared at him in horror.

He looked wild. “It had something from all the food groups!”

She shook her head and sighed resignedly. “I’ll take the job.”

After they had Alyssa settled back in bed with her doll and a tummy full of antacid, Jared walked Genna out onto the porch. Night had draped its black cloak across the sky and sprinkled it with stars. The corner streetlamp’s pale silver light didn’t quite make it to Jared’s house. He settled his hands on Genna’s shoulders and smiled down at her with his warm, winning smile.

“Thanks. You’re a life saver.”