Unforeseen Danger (11 page)

“Jake, don’t take this the wrong way—” Darcy hesitated.
 
“It’s really hard for me to say this, because Nikki’s like a sister to me, but please think twice before you rush back into things with her.
 
I know her better than anyone does, even you.
 
Nikki looks out for number one.
 
I don’t know what she’s told you about her relationship with Derek, but she did him the same way.
 
I begged him to stay away from her, but he couldn’t.
 
Nikki knows how to get what she wants, and she doesn’t realize the people she hurts to get it.
 
That’s just the way she is, and it’s not really her fault.
 
She learned from the best.”

Jake nodded, thinking about the selfish, callous woman who was his mother-in-law.

“She knew how Derek felt about her and she used it to her advantage.
 
Frankly, I was relieved when she stopped dating him and met you, but then you and I became friends.
 
You’re a good guy, Jake, and I hate to see you hurt.
 
I told Nikki a few weeks ago that you didn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily.”

“So it hadn’t been going on for too long?” Jake asked, wondering why it mattered.

Because it’s one thing to know that she slept with this guy.
 
It’s another to think she loved him.

“Maybe a couple of months.”

“You don’t have a guess as to who he might’ve been?” Jake asked,
then
realized he was thinking of the guy in the past tense.
  

“No, but…” she hesitated again and he could see her cringe.
 
“It’s somebody that you know, Jake.
 
She was mad when he first started coming on to her, but he kind of wore her down with his attention and gifts.
 
You know how Nikki always needed to be the
center
of attention.”

Jake nodded.
 
He glanced at Darcy again and noticed how pale she was.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.
 
“You look a little under the weather.”

A  tear glinted in the corner of Darcy’s eye, and she impatiently brushed it away.
 
“Ah, it’s just all this.”
 
She gestured with her hands.
 
“And I’ve been thinking about Derek today.
 
It’s been two months now.”
 
Her voice cracked and Jake wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Darcy pulled back, looking a little embarrassed.
 
Jake knew she wasn’t the type to cry easily.

“You know, you’re a real keeper, Jake.”
 
She brushed a kiss on his cheek and said lightly, “
Nik
used to always steal my best boyfriends, but if I’d met you first, I would’ve fought her for you.”

Jake took the keys from her hand and unlocked the car door.
 

She grabbed his hands and said, “Hey, Blue Eyes, I just want you to be careful.
 
I don’t know if Nikki really meant all that stuff about wanting to leave, but – just take it slow, okay?”

Jake’s heart nearly stopped in his chest, and he could only nod at her.

Even before he forced her hand, Nikki had been planning to leave him
.

The thought hit him like a punch in the gut, but he struggled to keep his face impassive for Darcy’s sake.
 
It was obvious that she thought he already knew.
 
She was still talking, and Jake had to force himself to concentrate on what she was saying.
 
She squeezed his hands again.

“Oh, Jake!” she said.
 
“I know this sounds awful, but I’m glad you finally know.
 
I’ve felt so guilty these last few weeks, knowing what was going on and even that she used me as an excuse sometimes so she could get out of the house.
 
We haven’t even spoken in the last couple of weeks because of it.
 
I never wanted to hurt you…”

“I know.”
 
Jake gave her a pained smile.
 
He hugged her again, and then watched her get into her car.
 
She started it up and Jake was walking off when she rolled down her window.

“Hey, this may be crazy of me, but…if the body from the car isn’t him, please be careful.
 
I don’t know if Nikki realized it, but he was obsessed with her.”
  

Jake watched her drive off, wondering if the guy had been obsessed enough to try to kill him.

***

Nikki was thinking about the phone call when Jake appeared in the doorway.
 
He stared at her in that intense way of his, and Nikki could barely breathe.
 
She was having a hard time trying to catalogue all the things she felt when she looked at him.
  

“Nikki, you’re shaking.
 
Are you okay?”

She started to lie, to say that she was fine, but the concern on his face crumbled her
defenses
.

“Jake, I’m so scared.
 
This is awful!
 
What if I never remember?
 
I can’t stand this—
”
 
She
knew she sounded hysterical, but she couldn’t keep the panic from her voice.

“Hey.”
 
He lowered the bedrail and climbed in beside her.
 
Nikki found herself wrapped in those strong arms again.
 
She buried her face in his soft flannel shirt and clung to him like a drowning woman.
 
One of Jake’s hands wound in her hair, while the other stroked her back.

“You’re going to be okay,
Nik
, I swear it.
 
We’ll make it through this.
 
I’m here for you, for as long as you need me.”

What an odd thing for a husband to say
, she thought.
 
Everything in her life was crazy and skewed, but the man who held her was the biggest enigma of all.

Jake pulled back a little and cupped her face in his hands.
 
Another teardrop escaped, trailing down her cheek, and time seemed to slow as Jake leaned to kiss it away.
 

Nikki’s heart thumped in her chest, her tears all but forgotten.
 
The look in his eyes paralyzed her as he brushed his lips across hers.
 
She could taste the saltiness of her tear as the kiss deepened.
 
Nikki wound her hands in his black hair, urging him closer, deeper, and he pressed her backward in the bed.
 
His tongue teased
hers,
set her on fire as it probed her mouth, gently at first, then more insistently.

There was such need in his kiss, such hunger, that suddenly their roles were reversed; he was the one seeking assurance and she was the one desperately trying to give it to him.
 

She felt him pull away emotionally before he did physically.
 
When he finally looked at her, she saw a myriad of emotions playing across his handsome face, confusion, desire…and even fear.

“I’m sorry,
Nik
.”
 
He averted his eyes.
 
“That isn’t what either of us needs at the moment.”

You’re wrong
, Jake
,
she thought, but she knew better than to push him.
 
Already she had a sense of how fragile the bond between them was.
 
One wrong move and she could lose him forever.
 

Nikki expected him to get up, but he surprised her by lying back in the bed beside her.
 
She laid her head against his shoulder, feeling somehow content even in the uncertainty that swirled around her, and wished she could remember what it had been like to be his lover.

She shut her eyes and Jake moved his arm behind her head, pulling her to him.
 
Nikki snuggled up against him and pressed her face into his hard chest, breathing in the warm, masculine scent of him.
 
He cradled her in his arms and she wondered how many times that they had lain in bed, just like this.
 
Jake stroked her hair and placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
 
The tenderness he showed her touched Nikki, even though it plainly scared him to death to be close to her.
 
She dared to think that they might save their marriage.

***

November 5

“Wow,” Nikki said.
 
“We live here?”

She turned a slow circle in the foyer, taking in her surroundings.
 
Jake thought she was lovely, even with her bruised face and choppy hair, and she seemed so excited to be home.
 
He couldn’t help but be pleased with her newfound admiration for the place.
 
He gave her the grand tour, enjoying her childlike wonder over the things that she had once dismissed so casually.

“You’re so young and I don’t work, so I figured that we lived in some
cozy
little newlywed cottage.
 
I never imagined it would be this big!”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Everything’s so beautiful.”
 
She trailed her fingers on the ornately carved stair rail.

“Well, it was put together by a beautiful decorator,” Jake said with a wink.

“I did this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he grinned.
 
“You picked out every piece of furniture, every picture.”

By now they had made it upstairs.
 
Jake pushed open a door and announced that this was her bedroom.

“Mine?”
 
Her smile faded.
 
“Not ours?”

“Mine is down here.”
 
Jake guided her down the hall to the small guest room he had taken over.
 
“We haven’t shared a bed in weeks,” he admitted.

“Why?” she asked bleakly.

Jake grimaced.
 
He saw no reason to keep it from her any longer.

“Because I found out you had a lover.”

***

A pair of socks.

Jake never dreamed that his marriage would be destroyed by a pair of socks, but it had.
 
He and Nikki had been arguing some, but he never would’ve believed there was someone else until he found the socks.
 

They had been on their way to one of Sara’s political dinners, and Jake had dropped a cufflink.
 
It bounced under the bed and, as he peered under there to locate it, he spied something dark in the corner.
 
He reached to see what it was and found a crumpled pair of men’s navy dress socks.
 
He had none like them, but still might not have thought anything if Nikki hadn’t come into the bedroom at that moment.

Jokingly, he held them up while still feeling for the cufflink.

“Hey, babe.
 
Looks like some guy had to leave in a hurry.”
 

He didn’t look up, expecting some smart little retort, but she was silent.
 
He glanced at her, and was shocked by what he saw written on her face.

Nikki had gone dead white.
 

In his worst dreams and in his most desperate moments, Jake Hawthorne had never been so profoundly frightened.
 
Suddenly, he wished more than anything that he could rewind the last few moments and never look under that bed.
 
Looking at her guilt-ridden face, he had known that the life he knew, the life he loved, was over.
 
Nikki had betrayed him, and the proof wasn’t in his hand, but in her eyes.

***

“Oh, Jake!” the post-Nikki cupped her hand to her mouth in misery.
 
“I’m so sorry.”

She reached for him, but, caught up in the searing memory of that moment, Jake couldn’t bear for her to touch him.
 
He jerked away from her and backed down the hall.

“Don’t!” he said, sharper than he intended.
 
“Please…just don’t.”

He retreated into his room and slammed the door behind
him,
leaving her standing there, convicted and condemned for a crime she couldn’t remember committing.

Jake found her a little while later in the kitchen and had no idea what to say.
 
Her eyes were red, but she managed a smile as she said, “So, what do you have to eat in this joint?”

He admired her spirit and decided that he’d make an effort, too.

“Well, you always said that I make a mean
chili
dog.
 
How does that sound?”

“It sounds great.”

Nikki winked at Jake as she attacked her second
chili
dog.
 
He had thrown everything on it, like she used to like, and she devoured it in sheer delight, even pausing once to lick the messy sauce off her finger.

Jake cleared his throat and said, “Look, Nikki, I’m sorry about before.
 
All this is so new and it kills me to talk about it.