This Time Around, page 3
He nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth again for fear of what might come spewing out. Maybe he’d start talking about bank balances or how much he’d spent on his last car.
He should probably ask her about her own career, since she’d posted surprisingly few details on her Facebook page over the years, leaving him pretty much empty-handed when he had tried to cyberstalk her. Or maybe he could talk about something benign like food, since that’s a subject she’d always loved. He was preparing himself to ask about good restaurants in the area when Paige burst into the room.
“Daddy! Don’t forget to call your girlfriend at seven.”
Allie kept her face frozen in a mask of practiced nonchalance. In a ten-minute span, she’d gone from thinking Jack Carpenter had a beautiful wife named Paige, to realizing he was a widowed father, to knowing he had a girlfriend serious enough to require a phone call in the middle of a dinner party.
She held the most neutral expression she could, unwilling to let any of that rattle her. She was secure with herself and her place in the world. She didn’t need a man or a million-dollar bank account or an adorable daughter with dimples that matched Jack Carpenter’s.
There was no trace of the dimples as Jack turned to her with the tiniest hint of sheepishness in his expression. Or maybe Allie was imagining it. He held Allie’s gaze for an uncomfortable instant, then looked back at his daughter. “I don’t have a girlfriend, sweetheart.”
He was talking to Paige, but Allie sensed the comment was meant as much for her. She said nothing, though she was holding her breath, not wanting to miss a word of this conversation.
“Dad,” Paige said with the exaggerated patience of a preteen girl. “Lacey. Lacey is your girlfriend and you said you’d call her at seven.”
Jack shot another glance at Allie, and she concentrated on looking bored, like she didn’t care one way or another if Jack Carpenter had a girlfriend. Or if he had a million girlfriends. It made no difference to her.
Not now, anyway.
“She’s been on this kick lately,” he said to Allie. “Her best friend’s mom let them binge-watch a bunch of old Full House episodes and now she’s obsessed with boyfriends and girlfriends and wanting me to date someone and—”
“Hey, it’s none of my business.” Allie shrugged and glanced toward her kitchen. Wade stood there looking like he might explode with laughter, which meant he’d heard the whole conversation.
For a lawyer, Wade had a surprisingly lousy poker face. She shot him a warning look and turned back to her guests.
“No worries if you need to make a phone call,” she said. “I need to put the finishing touches on dinner, so you can make the call outside or step into the guest room. It’s the second door on the right down that hall.”
Jack looked at her a moment, then nodded. “Thank you.”
Paige gave a smile that made Allie’s ovaries ache just a little. “Do you need any help with dinner?”
“I think I have it covered, but let me check.” Allie bit her lip, stupidly unsure of herself. Was it okay to let a ten-year-old slice bread or snip the stems of the sunflowers Jack had given her? She had no idea, but it was probably best not to hand her any sharp objects until she knew for sure. She hated how undone she felt at the sight of a kid. Allie had always assumed she’d have children of her own by now, that she’d instinctively know what sort of snacks they ate or what activities were age-appropriate.
But instead, she was thirty-six years old and completely clueless about kids. And Jack Carpenter wasn’t. How the hell did that happen?
“You can help yourself to the tapenade,” Allie offered. “The um—the stuff right there on the table? It’s really good on those crackers.”
Did kids eat tapenade? Paige looked dubious.
“Thank you,” the girl said politely. She glanced at the fig and olive mixture Allie had stayed up late making the night before, then picked up a cracker.
Allie let her gaze drift to the glass clutched in Paige’s other hand, and she grimaced at the words printed on the side. You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.
She glared at Wade, who pretended not to notice. Feeling like the world’s worst hostess, she marched into the kitchen and began bustling around, trying to ignore the way her hands were shaking. She snipped the ends off the sunflowers and stuck them in another crystal vase her parents had somehow managed to save when the Feds liquidated their estate.
She set the flowers on the dining room table, then turned to start pulling things out of the fridge—clams, broth, the tarragon pesto sealed up tight in a glass container. She flipped on her gas stove, wondering if she should just stick her head in the oven and get it over with.
When a hand touched her elbow, she jumped.
“Easy there, Albatross,” Wade said. He shoved a glass of white wine in her hand and Allie wrapped her fingers around the stem.
“Thanks.” She took a fortifying sip.
“You okay?”
Allie nodded, then darted a glance toward the living room.
“Don’t worry,” Wade murmured. “She’s in the bathroom throwing up the tapenade, and he’s rifling through your underwear drawer.”
“Wade—”
“I’m kidding. He’s still on his phone in the guest room, and the kid is drinking apple juice and flipping through your Glamour magazine in the living room.”
Allie frowned. “Where did you get apple juice?”
“That big brown bottle in the fridge. Smelled like apple juice, anyway.”
“Wade! That’s kombucha. Doesn’t kombucha have alcohol in it?”
He took a step back and held up his hands in defense. “Like a tiny little fraction of a percent. Less than orange juice that’s been left out on the counter too long.”
“I wouldn’t give her that to drink, either!”
“I’m sure it’s fine. I see kids drinking kombucha all the time.”
She shook her head as guilt pooled in her belly. “And that issue of Glamour has a bunch of celebrities posing topless. Jack’s been here less than ten minutes and I’ve already gotten his kid drunk and showed her porn.”
“Allie, relax.” Wade caught her elbows in his hands and gave her a squeeze. “You’re doing fine.”
Allie closed her eyes, and her brain filled with that first glimpse of Paige. God, she’d had no idea. A kid? And a dead wife? Why hadn’t she done some homework the instant Jack reached out instead of assuming she knew how his life turned out?
Jack used to chide her for doing exactly that back in college. “To assume is to make an ass out of u and me.” Had she learned nothing these last sixteen years?
She opened her eyes to see Wade watching her. “Tell me honestly, did I look like a total idiot when I opened the door?”
“You hardly batted an eyelash.”
“You’re a good friend, Wade.”
He grimaced. “Please remember that when I tell you I’m going to have to sneak out early to meet Vanessa.”
“Wade!”
“Sh! It’s just that she’s leaving town tomorrow for two weeks and this thing she does with her tongue—”
“You promised!”
“I know! And I’ll stick around through dinner, honest. Maybe even dessert. But now that there’s a kid, maybe you won’t want to stay up late anyway.”
Allie sighed. “Fine. Manwhore.”
Wade grinned and squeezed her arms. He started to let go, but tightened his grip as Jack rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“Oh, sorry—didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” Jack’s gaze darted to Allie’s and she inched closer to Wade, doing her best to look like a woman being pawed by her fiancé instead of a woman whose best friend was trying to keep her from losing her shit.
Maybe it was the same look.
It had been often enough when she and Jack dated. They’d always loved the clichés about marrying your best friend, certain the fact that they’d been friends in high school before they started dating would be their ticket to happily ever after. Every sappy pop song, every Love Is comic strip convinced them they could ride that lustful camaraderie to a land of blissful togetherness.
She’d wanted so badly to believe the fairy tale. God, she’d been dumb.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Allie told Jack as Wade planted an awkward kiss on her forehead. She hoped their total lack of chemistry didn’t show. Back when she and Wade had dated, it was one of a dozen reasons they realized they weren’t meant to be anything but friends. Her toes had never curled when Wade kissed her, but they’d damn near rolled into a spiral when Jack used to touch his lips to hers.
She said a silent prayer Jack couldn’t read her mind.
“Need me to help with anything?” he asked.
“Thanks, but we’ve got it.” She handed Wade the loaf of bread he’d picked up earlier. “Can you slice this up, sweetie pie?”
“Sure thing . . . uh, babycakes.”
Jack laughed and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I see a few things have changed since college.”
Allie blew a lock of hair off her forehead as she tumbled the clams into the simmering broth. “How so?”
“It drove you nuts when couples called each other pet names,” Jack said. “You rolled your eyes anytime I tried it.”
Allie smiled at the memory as she settled the clams to the bottom of the pot and used a wooden spoon to nudge them around. “That’s because your pet names were ridiculous.”
Jack grinned and began piling Wade’s bread slices into the basket she’d set on the counter, the evil dimples making Allie’s gut clench. “My pet names were not ridiculous,” he insisted.
“Lovey yummers?” she reminded him.
“Well—”
“Puddin’ knickers?”
“You have to admit—”
“Canned peach half in heavy syrup?”
Allie didn’t realize she’d started laughing until she caught sight of her own reflection in the copper-rimmed mirror next to her kitchen sink. She wiped a smear of pesto off her cheek and glanced at Wade, who was regarding her with an odd expression. Allie tried to shoot him a loving glance, but probably just looked like she had something in her eye.
“So how did you two meet, anyway?” Jack asked.
Allie started to answer, but Wade spoke first, leaving her to telepathically communicate the importance of being vague while sticking close to the truth.
“We met at my office,” Wade said. “My law firm handled her parents’—”
“Wills!” Allie finished, cutting him off before he could air too much dirty laundry.
Wade said nothing, but Jack gave her the familiar eyebrow lift. “I know about your parents, Allie.”
“Oh?” she stirred the broth, silently insisting her heated face was the result of standing over a gas burner and had nothing to do with the conversation. Maybe Jack didn’t know the whole story.
“It was in the news,” Jack said. “I kept seeing headlines about the trial whenever I’d check The Oregonian online.”
“Right.” She stopped stirring and put the lid on the pot, desperate for something to do with her hands.
“How are your folks doing?” Jack asked.
“Okay. Under the circumstances, I mean.”
“I’m glad. It can’t be easy.”
“It is what it is.”
God, what an inane statement. What did that even mean? Jack stepped closer, and suddenly everything else fell away. Wade, the clams, the fact that Jack had a ten-year-old daughter and a whole history she knew nothing about.
“It’s fine, Allie,” he said. “We all have skeletons in the closet. Secrets, mistakes, things we don’t like to talk about.”
She nodded, not sure she could find her words, but certain she shouldn’t speak the ones tumbling around in her brain.
You don’t know the half of it, Jack Carpenter.
CHAPTER THREE
“Everything was delicious, Allie.” Jack reached over from his spot on the sofa to grab his coffee mug off the side table, wincing as Paige rolled over in her sleep and kicked him in the nuts.
Allie gave him her serene smile and sat down on the adjacent loveseat, a good three feet of distance between them. Maybe more. Paige had dozed off a few minutes after dessert, with Allie’s fiancé making an exit a few minutes later. Something about an urgent oral presentation at work, though Jack had seen Allie roll her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking.
So it was just the two of them now, plus one unconscious child. As Jack shifted his daughter’s feet on his lap, Allie balanced a pale-blue teacup on a saucer, stirring it with one of those dainty little teaspoons she always used to leave around their apartment. Jack breathed in the faint scent of Earl Grey, not sure what to say to the woman he’d once been ready to marry.
“Is your coffee okay?” she asked.
“It’s great, thanks.” He hadn’t taken a sip yet. “Actually, I should probably get going.” He set the mug on a coaster and tried to figure out how to move Paige without waking her.
“You said you wanted coffee.”
Allie’s tone was normal enough, but something accusatory rang in it. Or maybe that was Jack’s imagination. Too many years of veiled and not-so-veiled accusations about how he could never decide what he wanted. Never commit to a college major or a career or even what he wanted for dinner. Anything but Allie. Right up to the day she left, he’d always been sure about her.
It hadn’t been enough. Not for her, anyway.
Jack hesitated, then settled back against the sofa. What the hell, it had been sixteen years. A few more minutes of making small talk wouldn’t hurt. He cleared his throat. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thank you.”
“Been here long?”
“Oh, I guess about four years. Something like that.”
She wasn’t offering much, but then again, he was asking pretty dumb questions. Conversation used to flow better between them. Had they changed that much, or were they just out of practice?
He took a sip of coffee, then tried again. “Does Wade have to work late a lot?”
Something flashed in those dark-green eyes, and he tried to decide if he’d sounded judgmental on purpose. No, of course not. He was just making small talk.
“Wade’s in a position to make partner at his law firm,” she said. “It’s important to show everyone he’s committed.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “Gotta climb the ladder.”
Was he baiting her? He wasn’t sure, but certainly his words smacked of insults he’d hurled years ago. “It’s all about the money, isn’t it, Al? That’s all that matters to you.”
He’d both hated and loved the way her eyes glittered with anger. “Well, someone has to figure out how to keep a roof over our heads, and you’re too busy playing video games to contribute anything.”
He’d showed her. Not then, admittedly. Not when it mattered, not until years after they’d split, but still. He started to apologize—for his snark just now or for not pulling his weight sixteen years ago, he wasn’t sure. But before he could say anything, Allie spoke.
“You remember that time we went camping?”
The question startled him at first—an olive branch? He found himself smiling. “Yeah. It was your first time. Camping, I mean. I couldn’t believe you’d never slept outside.”
“Please,” she said, lifting her cup for a sip of tea. “You met my family. Our idea of being outdoorsy was using the crosswalk instead of the Skybridge to get around Pioneer Place.”
Jack smiled. “You were a pretty good sport about it.”
“Yeah, right up until the moment we were attacked by that giant swarm of mosquitoes and you realized you’d packed air freshener instead of bug spray.”
“It did smell nice.” He picked up his coffee and took a small sip. “And all the bugs made for good fishing.”
“I suppose so.”
“Which would have been better if I’d remembered to bring anything to cook with. Or matches.”
“I wasn’t going to bring it up.” She smiled over the rim of her teacup, and Jack had a flash of memory. Allie looking calm and unsurprised in the midst of his latest screw-up—forgetting to register for classes? Not budgeting enough to pay the water bill?
After years of her nagging, it was her eventual calmness that bothered him most. The moment she’d stopped looking disappointed by his failures and started looking like she expected them.
“Well, it’s water under the bridge,” he murmured, not sure whether he was talking about the camping trip or the bigger picture.
“Right. And hey, we got to figure out how to make fire without matches.”
“I still can’t believe we pulled that off.”
“It took half the night, and a little bloodshed.”
“Man make fire,” he said in a caveman voice that always used to get her laughing. “A good life skill for our résumés.”
She smiled and took a dainty sip of tea. She was quiet a moment, and Jack wondered what she was thinking. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. “I was cleaning out my parents’ old storage unit the other day and found one of your boxes.”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant by that. Back then, his idea of housekeeping involved shoving everything off counters and tables and piling it into a box. Junk mail, bills, half-empty packs of gum—all of it got stuffed in a box and lugged to the garage to be dealt with later.
How the hell was he supposed to know there’d be no later for the two of them?
“What was in the box?” he asked, almost afraid to hear.
“Lots of things,” she said. “A pile of clues you made for me. Remember how you used to do those treasure hunts?”
He nodded as something squeezed tight in his chest. “I remember.”
“You’d leave them all over the house. Things like, ‘If you want some good lovin’, go look in the oven.’ And when I’d check there, I’d find another clue that said something like—”
“‘Our love isn’t creepy, so go look by the TP.’” He grinned. “That was my personal favorite.”
