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Her eyes flashed suspicion. She didn’t think he was telling the truth, but for once in his life, he was.
JENN WATCHED ELLIOTT SULLIVAN’S EYES as he spoke about his work. He dismissed it as boring, something she wouldn’t want to hear about, but she found it fascinating. He’d done an internship at the CDC labs in Atlanta during college, and he’d gone to work as one of their scientists as soon as he’d graduated from medical school. Just that would have widened Jenn’s eyes with amazement, but he hadn’t stopped there.
After working for five years on studying flu vaccines and antiviral drugs, Elliott had moved up to the D.C. offices to work with the CDC branch of Health and Human Services, preparing for and fighting global outbreaks of the disease. He was like a modern-day superhero, working every day to save lives.
He paused as if he’d finished a point, and Jenn realized she’d been too busy staring to hear what he’d said. A blush rose up her face. He was waiting for an answer and she didn’t know what to say.
Elliott’s face fell. “But enough of that—”
“You’re amazing,” she blurted out. “I mean…what you do? That’s amazing.”
“I…” He shifted, taking his glasses off and putting them back on. “It’s just a lot of paperwork.”
“But it’s…” She wouldn’t tell him it was like being a superhero. That would be ridiculous and geeky and all the things she normally was with a man. And she didn’t want to be ridiculous with Elliott. He was serious and smart. Jenn took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “What you do is so important.”
“Ah, well. So is maintaining the sewer system.”
He said it like it was a joke he’d heard before, but Jenn laughed in shock. “What?”
“Actually the sewer workers are more important. If cholera made a comeback, no one would be worried about the flu.”
“You’re hilarious!”
“Really?” he asked, then shook his head. “I’m thinking you don’t get out much.”
“That’s true,” Jenn agreed, “but you’re still funny.”
It was impossible to tell if he was blushing. The firelight bathed them all in warm yellows and golds. But he did look embarrassed as he leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the armrest.
Jenn’s heart pattered in her chest. He was out of her league, of course. A successful scientist. A serious man with an important job who happened to be cute, too. She had a sudden urge to ask if he was married. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but sometimes that meant nothing. She couldn’t just ask, though. That question was loaded with all sorts of hints and suggestions.
Now she didn’t know what to say, and he seemed lost in thought, probably happy she’d stopped talking. But what if—
“Maybe it’s all those accountants you hang out with.”
“What?”
“Maybe you’ve spent so much time with them that you find bad science jokes funny.”
“Ha! Maybe. But I’ll have you know I work on international auditing. We’re like the 007s of corporate accounting. Last year’s seminar was in Hong Kong.”
“Wow!” he exclaimed, and suddenly Jenn felt ridiculous. He’d probably been to Asia a dozen times. He probably traveled all over the world for his work.
She was so awful with men. She always had been.
“So—” Elliott started, but Jenn jumped up to her feet.
“Pardon me for a moment. I’ll be right back.”
It was her dad’s fault, she thought as she walked toward the cabin stairs. He’d been a high-level salesman, selling multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment to factories all over the globe. A slick talker who thought that the world revolved around him. And he’d traveled for weeks at a time, gone more often than he was home. Jenn had suffered a bad case of hero worship for her handsome father, desperate to be close to him whenever he was home, yet unable to think of anything to say that could engage his interest. Of course, it didn’t matter who was talking. Her father had a habit of starting a story right in the middle of another person’s sentence.
He was good at talking. And really, really bad at being a father. Or a husband.
She rushed onto the porch and through the door, relieved once she was alone. She was fine around her girlfriends. Completely normal and just as interested in men as they were. She could talk the talk, joking about having sex with hot strangers, but she failed miserably at walking the walk. Once she became interested in a man, her brain stopped working properly. Horrifying, not just because it was embarrassing, but because she was smart and independent and capable in all areas but this one.
Needing a few minutes alone, Jenn slowly washed her hands to get the last of the marshmallow off them. She stared at the mirror, hating the delicate features that often attracted the wrong kind of man. Wolflike men who looked at her and saw weakness and vulnerability. Elliott Sullivan didn’t seem like that kind of man, which was why he wouldn’t make a move. He probably liked strong scientist women in intimidating glasses and trim lab coats. Women who could talk nucleotides and DNA strands during postcoital conversation.
Jenn looked like one of those gangster molls from the twenties whose preferred method of communication was breathless, high-pitched exclamations of alarm.
Also, she’d clearly had one too many beers.
Disgusted with herself, Jenn dried her hands and turned off the light. But on her trip back through the living room, she spotted a green light blinking from the coffee table, like a bomb about to go off. Heart sinking, she picked up her cell phone and stared at the little message icon. Crap.
News from the outside world, and there was no chance it was good. Jenn called up the message and told herself everything was fine as the beep sounded in her ear.
“Jenn,” a hushed female voice said. “It’s Anna.”
Crap. Jenn pressed a hand to her forehead.
“Things are getting crazy here. I really think the mature thing would be to tell Chloe the truth. The reporters and police… This isn’t just about you. Or her. She needs to know, and I think you’re making this worse by hiding it from her. Chloe is an adult. She’ll be fine. I know she will. Just… Call me back, all right? You may be able to live with this, but I can’t.”
Jenn hit a button to cut off the message then deleted it with a shaking hand.
She wasn’t going to tell Chloe a darn thing and she’d be damned if she’d let Anna anywhere near her with that kind of talk.
The e-mail icon blinked also, so Jenn took a deep breath and opened the folder. She let the breath out on a rush when she saw the in-box. Nothing from Anna. Just a link from Google Alerts.
Stupid of her, but she’d set up a Google Alert for Chloe’s name, and even though every hit drove her crazy, she couldn’t stop looking at them. This one linked to a slang dictionary site. She knew what it would say. She knew it would throw her into pained fury, and still she looked.
“To pull a Chloe,” the dictionary entry said. Jenn’s shoulders fell as she read the words that would forever define her best friend as the worst kind of lunatic bitch. “To become a Bridezilla so demented that the groom would rather jump from an airplane than jump into the marital bed. Based on Chloe Turner’s disastrous engagement to Thomas DeLorn.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her aching head. The lying was killing her, but she could do it. She had to do it. Because the whole world had turned against Chloe.
Some people—people like Anna—believed those stupid clichés about the truth setting you free. What she didn’t know was that the truth sometimes beat you down and chewed you up and ruined your life.
Chloe didn’t deserve that. She’d been through enough. And Jenn wasn’t about to let the ugly truth ruin such an important friendship.
To be very sure that didn’t happen, Jenn turned on Chloe’s cell phone and checked the messages on that one, too. Sure enough, Anna had called and asked Chloe to call her back. Jenn deleted the message and blocked Anna’s number, her heart burning as she did, then she went back outside to have one last beer. She might not make it to Funtown tonight, but maybe she’d at least get some sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_968183c1-f11c-513a-a8f0-d998b1d2b84e)
“WHAT’S HE DOING?” Jenn asked as she brought her breakfast out to join Chloe on the porch.
Chloe watched Max Sullivan carefully, trying to puzzle him out, but also trying very hard to predict what each of the muscles of his chest would feel like beneath her fingers. “I think he’s…digging a hole?”
When Chloe had come out, two small boys had been playing on the beach, digging furiously at the sand as if they’d been commissioned to break through to China. A half hour later, only their necks and heads had been visible, and that’s when Max had jumped in to help them out.
What had his brother said? He likes to be in the middle of everything. Even digging a fort with two five-year-olds.
“Does he know them?” Jenn asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I guess you shouldn’t be too flattered that he’s tagging along on our dive trip, huh?”
Chloe reached over and gave Jenn’s shoulder a halfhearted shove. “Meanie. So tell me about the other Sullivan brother. He’s a little reserved.”
“He’s sweet.”
“Really? I was going to guess stern.”
“No! He’s serious, yes, but really nice.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Chloe nodded sagely. “Nice enough to get it on with? Because you were looking at him last night like he was a big old hunk of man candy, darlin’.”
Jenn’s face blazed scarlet. “I was not! Oh, God, I was. He’s so sexy that I can’t even think when I’m looking at him.”
“You should— Wait.” Chloe tilted her head toward the open window behind her. “Is my phone ringing? I thought I’d turned it off.”
“Oh!” Jenn started to spring to her feet, but her plate was still on her lap and it tumbled down to the porch, misting her legs with powdered sugar.
“I got it.” Chloe stepped over her and walked inside. She didn’t know why she was looking for the phone in the first place when it was as likely to be a reporter as anyone else. But answering the phone was a Pavlovian response, she supposed.
She found it on the coffee table and glanced at the number, which sent an immediate shock through her system. DeLorn Limited. It was Thomas’s mother…or Thomas.
Stomach clenching into a ball of cement, Chloe pushed the button and croaked out a hello.
“Hello, Chloe,” the voice said. Though Mrs. DeLorn’s deep voice was nearly the same timbre as her son’s, her old-school Virginia accent immediately gave her away.
“Mrs. DeLorn,” she said a bit breathlessly. The woman ruled over her empire with an iron fist, but somehow Chloe had always liked her. And strangely enough, Mrs. DeLorn had liked Chloe. “You look a bit like my younger sister,” she’d said the first time they’d met. And because her sister had died as a teenager, Chloe had seemed to fill a place in the woman’s heart. They’d been close. Or so Chloe had thought. “It’s been a long time.”
“I’m sorry, my dear. This has all just been so tragic. You know I had to take to my bed when we first got the news about the crash and then…Well, my word. I don’t know what to say. I honestly don’t.”
Chloe could believe that. And she hadn’t exactly reached out to Mrs. DeLorn, either. Her heart softened a little. “I know you must be feeling pretty low.”
“Oh, you can’t imagine,” she said. “But how are you getting along, Chloe? I suppose the investigators have been hounding you day and night?”
“Um.” Was investigator some old-fashioned word for paparazzi? “The press has been giving me a hard time, yes.”
“Oh, the press. Yes, they are awful, awful people. They scurry around outside our office building like cockroaches. I wish I could squash them all under my shoe and be done with them.”
“Yuck. Well, I’m sorry to hear they’re bothering you, as well.”
Mrs. DeLorn abruptly changed the subject. “Do you remember that trip we took to the Cherry Blossom Festival this spring?”
“Oh, of course.”
“We had such a lovely time and the hotel suite was so nicely outfitted.”
“Yes.” Did she just want to stroll down memory lane? The trip had been nice, but not exactly the highlight of the year. Chloe had lobbied for returning to Richmond that night so she could sleep with her fiancé instead of in the bedroom next door to his.
“Well, I’m sure you remember…Thomas was going on and on about that all-terrain vehicle he wanted for this fall’s quail season and I gave him a little extra to help him out.”
“Um. Okay.” Chloe made a face at a watercolor painting of seabirds that hung on the wall. What the hell? Maybe all the stress was proving too much for the old lady.
“You remember that?”
“I remember him talking about the ATV, yes.”
“And when you two dropped me off at my place?”
“Yes?” Chloe asked shortly, belatedly remembering that one of Mrs. DeLorn’s pet peeves was one-word sentences. We’ve lost all the elegance of our language, she would complain. Which maybe had something to do with Thomas’s strange tendency to speak in full sentences during sex. Oh, yes, Chloe, I love how it feels when you do that.
She managed to choke back a laugh, but her amusement was made worse by Mrs. DeLorn’s irritated huff. “Well, I was only calling to remind you of the money I loaned Thomas.”
Chloe couldn’t hide the incredulous shock in her voice. “Mrs. DeLorn, I don’t know anything about that. Are you trying to imply that I share part of the debt? Unfortunately, I’m kind of high and dry right now. I put a lot of money into the wedding. I’m sure you remember?”
She’d never been rude to the woman before, but she couldn’t believe this was the conversation they were having after her son had turned Chloe’s life upside down. When Mrs. DeLorn had left those messages, Chloe had expected some sort of plea for forgiveness on behalf of Thomas. What the hell was this?
There was a long enough pause that Chloe was left wondering if Mrs. DeLorn had hung up, but then she finally made a little humming sound in her throat. “I’m so sorry about that, dear. You know, why don’t you let me take care of those bills?”
Chloe pulled the phone away from her face to look at it in shock. When she pressed it back to her ear, Mrs. DeLorn was still talking. “—Always been generous with both of you when you needed help. I won’t begrudge you a little cash any more than I’ve begrudged Thomas all the gifts I gave him.”
What in the world? She was tempted to just agree, but it felt a little like being bought off, so Chloe thanked her for the offer and told her she’d consider it once all the bills were sorted out. Thomas owed at least half of the deposits, after all, if not all of them.
Then she hung up the phone and stared at it for a little while longer.
“What was that all about?”
She spun to see Jenn standing in the doorway, legs still streaked with white. “I think Mrs. DeLorn is losing it.”
“That was Mrs. DeLorn?”
“Why do you look so freaked out? You don’t even know how weird she was being.”
Jenn’s shocked look quickly turned to nonchalance. “What did she say?”
“She was just talking about some money Thomas owed her. It was strange as all hell. So what’s Max doing?”
“Still digging.”
Chloe tossed her phone back on the table and went out to watch the show.
MAX SULLIVAN WAS HOT on land, but on a boat…on a boat he approached nuclear levels of hotness. Chloe watched him with the complete freedom offered by her dark sunglasses as he spoke with the diving guide. He looked perfect out here, hair tossed by the sea wind, sun glinting off the golden hairs on his strong arms. His mouth widened with a laugh as he slapped their guide, Jacob, on the arm and shook his head.
A few words drifted to her ears, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Names of dive sites or harbor towns, she assumed. The guide’s eyes took on a starry look of admiration as he shot questions at Max.
Ten minutes of excited conversation later, with a couple of miles of sea behind them, Chloe half expected the guide to turn and ask if they’d be willing to skip their lesson so he could dive with Max Sullivan. Instead, he shook Max’s hand and gestured generously toward the tanks lined up against the side of the boat.
