She hustled to the bathroom, grabbing her suitcase on the way.
This. Had been. A mistake.
Pity fu— Okay, not that. Too ugly a term. Courtesy copulation, is that better? Yep. Jack Holland, god of Manningsport, had done her because she’d been in the throes of the most pathetic moment of all pathetic moments. Jilted single woman, desperate to feel attractive, drinks homemade vodka with Russians and overdoses on Skittles.
Well, maybe the homemade vodka and Skittles were unique, but otherwise, no.
All those thoughts that Emmaline had ignored in the loo last night were making themselves heard now in a very bossy and disappointed tone. Things about sleeping with someone for the sake of sleeping with someone. About going easy on vodka and wine. So what if the resort stocked condoms in the night table drawer? That wasn’t carte blanche to go cartwheeling through Horny Land, was it? No. It was not.
She yanked her hair into a ponytail, took a marine-fast shower and pulled on her clothes with angry jerks.
Stupid, slutty, stupid. And wrong. She had used Jack for sex. Oh, sure, he didn’t hate it—he was a guy, and it was sex. But here was a man dealing with some serious issues back home, not to mention an ex-wife looking for a reconciliation. He’d come here out of the goodness of his heart, and Em had done something that made her cringe.
She made him feel sorry for her.
A knock sounded on the door, and Em jumped. “What?” she demanded.
“Open the door and talk to me.”
She opened the door. “Yeah. Listen. Last night was...thank you. Job well done.” Automatically, she reached for her gun.
“You gonna shoot me?” he asked.
“Oh. Sorry.” She put it back in the suitcase.
“Why do you even have that?”
“Because I’m a law enforcement officer, and I can bring it if I want to.” She closed her eyes briefly. “We really do have to hurry.”
“You can give me two minutes. Are you freaking out because we slept together?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Bad idea, fun time. Just...” A frustrated growl came from her throat. “It’s just I don’t want a relationship right now.”
“Fine. That’ll be four hundred dollars, then.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You were worth at least a thousand.”
“Wow.”
She winced. “Jack, look, I’m sorry. You’re a nice guy.”
“I’m so tired of people saying that.”
“Okay, you’re not. You’re horrible.”
His mouth tugged on one side, and Em’s uterus responded in kind. Slut. She was a slut.
She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “I imagine that you, being a very nice though horrible guy, want to be chivalrous and ask me out because your image of yourself doesn’t have one-night stands. Plus, you have sisters and a niece you wouldn’t want them to have a one-nighter with someone. I can’t say that I’m the one-night-stand kind myself. But let’s not go there. Let’s just chock this up to a very brief vacation fling and never speak of it again, okay?”
“No. Not okay.”
“You don’t want a relationship right now. You have stuff. And things.”
“Don’t we all have stuff and things?”
“Yes, we do. But you never asked me out before. You’re only here because I was desperate, and you wanted to get away from Manningsport. Also, you’re invested in your ex-wife.”
“You really know everything, don’t you?”
“Am I wrong?”
At that moment, his phone chimed.
“Bet that’s her,” Em said. “How many times has she texted or called you this weekend?”
His face hardened. “A few.”
“A few? More than a dozen?”
He didn’t answer. So it was way more than a dozen.
“Let me see your phone,” Em said.
“No.”
“Chicken.”
“Fine.” He handed it over, and Em took it.
“What a surprise,” she said. “It is from Hadley. ‘Just taking a bubble bath, drinking Blue Heron wine, missing you. The bubbles are sliding down my—”
He grabbed the phone back. “Point taken,” he said. “She’s a little...intense.”
“Is that code for crazy?”
“Maybe I like crazy,” he answered, reaching out and taking something from her hair. A Skittle.
“Then get back together with her.”
“That will never happen. She was mean to my cat.”
“Look. We should go. Thanks for the shag. I really do appreciate your...attention.”
He looked at her a minute longer, his eyes beautiful and unreadable, and just as she was about to apologize and maybe ask to start over, he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” and went into his room, closing the door behind him.
It was for the best.
She wondered if he slept with all the women who asked him to weddings and reunions, then squelched the thought. That wasn’t fair. Also, if it was true, so what? He was single; he was straight. Women threw themselves at him. If he caught them, as he’d caught her last night, who could blame him?
Part of the Bitter Betrayeds’ speculation on Jack Holland was that he’d married Hadley because he wanted someone different. He’d never been serious with anyone local, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. His wife had been different, all right—as out of place, beautiful and useless as a butterfly in a February snowstorm.
But he had loved her. Em had seen them together. She knew what love looked like.
Em hurled her toothbrush into the suitcase.
Theoretically, she wanted to find someone. She definitely didn’t want to be a Bitter Betrayed forever. And sure, this wedding had brought up stuff. And things. Maybe she wasn’t ready for a relationship. Maybe she needed more time to get over the guy she’d loved for half her life.
Maybe, too, she was just chicken.
Couldn’t get your heart broken if you didn’t fall in love.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FIVE DAYS AFTER they got back from sunny California, Jack was sitting in the hospital parking lot once again. Twice, he’d gone into the lobby. He thought about what he would say to the Deiners. Debated over bribing a nurse. Jeremy Lyon was the Deiners’ family doctor, and he’d once been engaged to Faith... Surely that meant he owed Jack a little insider information, right?
Okay, not that.
If he could just see Josh, then...then...then what? He could apologize? Did he really think Josh would wake up from his coma and say, “Hey, thanks for pulling me out! You’re the best! No worries, man—I’m doing great!”
Jack sighed, his breath fogging the windshield.
It was as if Malibu had never happened. There was a foot of snow on the ground, it was fourteen degrees out, Josh Deiner was neither better nor worse and his family had just filed a lawsuit against Jack, saying that as an EMT, Jack should’ve recognized that Josh’s needs were greater than the other boys’. They were also suing the town for not having a better guardrail in place and for not having a faster response time to the 911 call.
Not that they could win, Jack’s lawyer had assured him. Josh had been doing sixty-four miles an hour in a thirty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Without Jack, the kid would certainly have died. No, this was just a grieving family lashing out in whatever direction they could.
Unfortunately, it did cause a collective gasp among the good people of Manningsport, and, once more, Jack was the topic of conversation. It was enough to make Jack wish Prudence and Carl would get caught for public indecency again.
And then there was Hadley.
Jack had glimpsed her the first night he’d been home. He’d been driving back from the hospital again and had to stop at the intersection on the green, where an ice-carving demonstration was taking place. Several dozen people stood bundled up in parkas and boots, watching Carlos Mendez carve a wolf out of a massive chunk of ice. Jack caught a glimpse of some of his family, and for a second thought about joining them.
But there were Sam Miller’s parents, and rather than have them hug him and choke up with gratitude once again, he stayed in his truck.
Then he saw Hadley. She had a bag of groceries in her arms, and she was standing on the street, just outside the crowd. A few people streamed past her, and there was such a look of yearning on her face, such loneliness, that Jack almost called out to her.
She had no one in this town who cared about her. Except him. He did care; he just didn’t want to get involved again. But he didn’t want her to be shunned, or lonely, or miserable.
Fortunately, she went on her way, up the steps to the Opera House, and Jack continued home.
Unfortunately, he saw her again the next night, when she dropped off some dinner (bought from the caterer who had just opened in town) and stood shivering on his doorstep until he let her in. Just into the foyer, and only for six minutes till he told her she had to leave.
Speaking of difficult women, he was a little...mad at Emmaline.
Jack wasn’t used to being rejected by women. In fact, he had the opposite problem. There was the time Shelayne Schanta hid in the back of his truck like a serial killer. The time Shannon Murphy wrote her college essay on being in love with an older man (him), resulting in two extraordinarily furious parents threatening to castrate him, despite the fact that his interaction with Shannon had been limited to robbing her of a home run last spring during a baseball game. There was the time Lorena Creech Iskin cornered him at O’Rourke’s and told him in vivid detail about her husband’s erectile dysfunction and how all she needed was fifteen minutes of his time.
So being thanked for a good time and sent on his way... That was new.
On Wednesday night, they’d had a hockey game. He’d said, “Hi, Emmaline,” and she’d said, “Hey, guys.” That was it. She didn’t even hip check him.
He started as someone knocked on his truck’s window. He rolled it down. “Hey, Abby.”
“Hi, Uncle Jack.” Abby volunteered at the hospital. “Guess you’re wondering about Josh, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know anything. Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”
“I know. But thanks.”
She reached in and patted his shoulder. About a year ago, Josh Deiner had gotten Abby drunk. He’d been one of those kids who was too spoiled, too indulged, always bored, always looking for trouble.
Didn’t look like he was going to be able to atone for any of that.
“You need a ride, Abs?” he asked.
“No, no, I’ve got Mom’s car. You know what I found in it last week?”
“Do I want to?”
“No, but I feel like someone should share my pain, and you could use a distraction. You ready?” She paused for effect. “A riding crop.”
“Please tell me she’s taken up horseback riding.”
“She has not.”
“You’re a cruel child, Abby.”
She grinned. “Have a great day, Uncle Jack. Get out of here. Go do something with people your own age.”
He watched to make sure she got to her car okay, and that it started, and then tailed her back to town to make sure she didn’t speed or break any traffic laws (or careen into a telephone pole or a lake).
She didn’t. Turned onto Old Farm Road with no problems.
But his breathing was getting shallow and fast, and he recognized the signs.
He couldn’t go home. Not that his cat was bad company, but he needed humans. O’Rourke’s it was.
“Hey, Jack!” said Colleen and Connor in unison as he came through the door. He nodded, figured he’d sit at the bar, maybe hang out with Lucas, who was there, as well. If things were slow, Connor might come out and have a beer with him.