“Hi, Jack.”
Oh, shit on corned beef. It was Hadley. The beautiful ex-wife with the wicked cool name.
“I saw you sitting here and just thought I’d come over and say hey.”
She was gorgeous. Em had forgotten just how much. Crikey. Emmaline practically had a crush on her, she was so flippin’ beautiful. She smelled fantastic, too. Huge brown eyes, silky blond hair, pink cheeks, heart-shaped face, full, soft lips. She wore a soft green knit dress, tan leggings and cool suede ankle boots on her tiny little feet. Em guessed that her own h*ps were about twice the width of Hadley’s. In fact, if Hadley turned around, Em wouldn’t have been surprised to see wings sprouting from her shoulders, the better for her to flutter away to sprinkle fairy dust.
“Hadley.” Jack stood up, towering over her. “This is my friend, Emmaline Neal. Emmaline, you might remember my ex-wife.”
The blonde gave her a sunny smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hadley Holland. So nice to meet you.”
So she hadn’t dropped the last name. Interesting. “We’ve met, actually.”
“Have we? I’m so sorry. I see you’re a police officer?”
“Yes,” Emmaline said.
“I always admire women who can go into a male-dominated field. Me, I’d never last! I guess I’m just not tough enough. I can’t imagine having to run after a criminal and tackle him. My goodness! You must be so strong.”
“Are you hitting on me?” Em asked.
“Oh, bless your heart, no!” Hadley laughed merrily. “It’s just that I’m an interior decorator. No guns or tackling involved in that! More like painting and fabric choices, making a house into a home.”
Em had to admire the skill with which Hadley had just drawn the line. Hadley—delicate and artistic. Emmaline—manly and brutish.
“What can I do for you, Hadley?” Jack asked.
“I was just...checking in, I guess,” Tinkerbell said now. “How’ve you been, Jack?” She gave his arm a squeeze. Nice manicure.
“I’m great.” His face was completely neutral.
“I’m so glad to hear that.” Hadley smiled (beautifully, tragically). A Yankee would’ve recognized Jack’s response as the cold shoulder, but Hadley was Southern, and Southerners could make conversation with a block of wood, it seemed. “Jack, I talked to Frankie today. You know how she just adores you. Even more now, after your big save. Why, she was bragging to all her friends that you’re her brother-in-law!”
“Ex-brother-in-law,” Jack said.
“Well, now, she doesn’t think of you as an ex anything,” Hadley said smoothly. “But shoot, I didn’t mean to interrupt y’all’s evening. Jack, I’ll call you about having dinner. Bye, Evelyn! So nice to meet you!”
With that, Hadley fluttered her fingers and floated away. Jack sat back down and took a sip of beer. Emmaline noted he hadn’t turned down the dinner invitation.
“So,” he said. “When do we leave?”
“Right. That’s another thing. The wedding’s Saturday. It’s in Malibu, so of course I’ll pay for your plane fare and hotel and stuff.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Not necessary.”
“I’m paying for your flight, Jack, or you’re not going.”
He shrugged. “Fine. So we’ll go, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend—”
“No, no,” Emmaline said. “No. Like I said, I just want a pal.” She sighed, then rubbed her eyes. “You really don’t have to come, Jack. Allison Whitaker would love nothing more than to leave her kids and come with me.”
“But you want to go with a guy, or else you wouldn’t have been looking at mug shots with Carol.”
“Well, yes. If I take Allison, my parents will never believe I’m straight.”
“Are you?”
“Yes! I was engaged to the groom, okay? I’m straight!” Must use inside voice. “It’s just...they think I’m not.”
Jack wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was on Hadley, who was perched alone at the bar, trying to get Colleen’s attention. “Excuse me a second,” he said and got up from the table. He went over to Colleen, said something and then came back. Colleen sighed hugely, then pulled out a menu, went to Hadley and handed it to her.
Based on her excellent powers of deduction, Emmaline would guess that Colleen was ignoring the former Mrs. Jack Holland, and Jack had just asked her to knock it off.
So. The Princess of Beautiful Land was back in town and sprinkling her fairy dust on Jack. And while everyone knew Hadley had cheated on him, men were generally stupid about things like this. People who looked like Hadley (and Naomi Norman, for that matter) got away with some very stinky crap.
“So when do we leave?” Jack asked, sliding back into his seat.
“Thursday?”
“Thursday’s great.”
She paused. “Okay. Thank you, Jack.”
“My pleasure. It’ll be nice to go somewhere warm.”
“Malibu is beautiful. Every day of the year, more or less.”
He finished his beer. “Send me the info on the flight and hotel so I can make a reservation, okay?”
“I’ll make it for you. You’re not spending one thin dime on this trip.”
He smiled at her so suddenly that it was like being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket. “And blah blah blah blah,” he said. Well, he probably said actual words, but Em couldn’t quite hear at the moment, as she was rendered close to death by the beauty of that smile, those crinkling, pure blue eyes, the tousled blond hair, the...the...the glory that was Jack Holland.
Then he stood up, squeezed her shoulder and left, waving at the O’Rourke twins and nodding at his ex-wife, who positively beamed and fluttered, butterfly-like, back at him.
Which took away some of the glow.
Even so, it was a good five minutes before Emmaline trusted herself to stand up.
Do not fall for this guy, she warned herself. Very sternly.
But her shoulder still buzzed from the warmth of his hand.
This was a disaster waiting to happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“LET ME DO that for you.” Jack gave his date his very best stern big-brother stare. It didn’t work. It never did, now that he thought about it.
“I’m fine. I can put my own stupid suitcase away.” Someone was in a foul mood, but he couldn’t blame her, given their destination. There was a pause. “No, thanks, I mean.”
“I’ll get that,” said a flight attendant, wrestling the bag away from Emmaline. “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back with some champagne.”
“Why did you do this?” Emmaline hissed.
“Because I’m six-three and the seats in coach only fit very skinny dwarves,” he said, sinking into the leather seat.
“Fine. But why did you upgrade me?”
“Because you’re not a skinny dwarf.”
“Is that an insult?”
“Is it? Would you like to be a skinny dwarf? Because even though you’re acting like Grumpy—”
“Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll sit here. But I don’t like it.”
“Of course you do. It’s first class. Relax, Emmaline.”
She flopped into the seat, and Jack had to smile. She was so far from relaxed it was almost funny.
For himself, he was downright thrilled about this wedding. He loved Kevin and the bride for having a wedding, for inviting Emmaline to bring a date, loved that it was across the entire continent. He hadn’t felt this good since before the accident. He’d be away from people wanting to shake his hand and buy him beers, from the food that Sam Miller’s mom kept bringing over, from the hospital parking lot, from his well-meaning but omnipresent family, from Hadley popping up every other day. If his seatmate was grumpy, that was a small price to pay.
The flight attendant came by with two glasses of champagne. “Thanks,” Jack said.
“You’re very welcome.” She smiled at both of them. “Are you a nervous flyer?” she asked Em.
“I am today,” she answered, chugging her champagne. “Oh, shit! I forgot my hair slime!”
“Surely they have stores in L.A.,” Jack murmured.
“Not this stuff. I order it online. From Sicily. It’s hard-core. Sicily understands hair frizz. You can’t even buy it in America.”
“Made with angel wings and freckles?”
She took his champagne and drained that, too. “And the blood of infant fairies, yes.”
The flight attendant kept up with her unflagging, slightly creepy smile. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.” She moved down the row.
Emmaline fiddled with her phone and rebuckled her seat belt a few times. Pulled out her hair elastic and then put her ponytail back in. Opened the shade. Closed the shade. Tried to put her champagne flute in the seat pocket. Put it on her tray. Took it off her tray.
“Will you stop fidgeting, please?” he said, taking the glass from her. “Just calm down. Your hair will be fine. We’ll have fun.”
“My hair will not be fine, Jack. And this is my ex-fiancé’s wedding. It will be as fun as a hanging.”
“The food will be better, though.”
“Hardly. They’re vegans.”
“Now you tell me. When I’m trapped on a plane.”
Emmaline was pretty enough when she smiled, Jack thought. Granted, she looked a little on the homeless side at the moment—scraggly hair and no makeup, gray sweats that screamed don’t look at me—I’m sexless.
He wondered if she was. She always seemed pretty sparky to him. Granted, his contact with her had been limited to “Hi, Em/Bye, Em” at the police station or O’Rourke’s and the occasional body check during a hockey game (much more fun than checking Gerard Chartier), but she seemed to have a little something going on.
“We don’t know each other that well, do we?” he asked.
“I guess not.” She started fiddling with the tray back again, so he took her hand.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s not like we’re flying off to face the firing squad.”
“That would be a cakewalk compared to this.”
The plane began taxiing down the runway. Emmaline took her hand away so she could clench the armrests. “So do you like having sisters?” she asked.
“No. You want some?”
“I already have one. Angela. You’ll like her. She’s very beautiful.” Her knuckles were white.
“Tell me about the bride and groom,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “Right. Kevin Bates and Naomi Norman.”
“The Norman-Bates wedding?”
Another smile tugged at her lips. She had a pretty mouth, pink and full and sweet.
Ah. She was talking, her words rapid-fire. “Yeah. So, he was my boyfriend from eighth grade on. We went to the same college and lived together and seemed pretty happy, more or less. I was, anyway. Then he fell for someone else and...that was that.” She shrugged and looked out the window.
Jack had grown up around females. He’d been the date for a lot of women in the past few years. Actually, he’d always been good for that sort of thing. He’d asked Eve Mikkes to the prom many years ago because Eve was nice and funny and had been in a fire when she was younger, which had left some pretty severe scars on her face and hands. He’d gone to five high school reunions in the past few years, three weddings and a fiftieth wedding anniversary. He had the aforementioned sisters.
So he recognized a woman who’d had her heart broken.
“The love of your life, huh?” he asked.