After That Night

She cleared her throat. Loudly. “I can’t just drop everything and go to New York. I have two children who—”

“Don’t play the little-homemaker card with me,” Victoria said in exasperation. “You have a father and two older brothers who dote on those boys, and they’d be quite willing to baby-sit if you asked them. God knows, you do everything for them.”

“Send Lauren.”

Lauren gave her a small smile of commiseration. “I’m already going. To take the pictures.”

“She can’t do the article,” Victoria said. “She might be a genius with her camera, but you know her thought processes can be hopelessly disorganized. Doesn’t allow for good writing.”

Making a face at Victoria, Lauren replied, “Keep it up, and you’ll be looking for a photographer, as well as a journalist.”

Vic reached across the table and squeezed Lauren’s arm. “You know I love you, darling. Desperation always makes me cruel.”

“What about one of the freelancers?” Jenna suggested.

“Aren’t you always telling me we need to watch costs where we can? Why should we pay a freelancer when there’s a perfectly good writer in-house?” Victoria developed an interest in scraping crumbs from her plate. “Besides, there’s no time. You and Lauren have to show up at his penthouse suite tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow!”

Seeing Jenna’s consternation, Lauren decided to speak up. “Come on, Jen. We can do it. Then we can go shopping. Or take in a show. We can have a ‘wild woman weekend’ just like in the old days.”

“The last time I acted like a wild woman, I ended up married to the most inappropriate man in the world.”

“Well, you certainly don’t have to worry about that this time,” Victoria said. “Shelby Elaine isn’t going to turn number six loose without a fight.”

Jenna tried again. “I can’t go anywhere tomorrow. I have an appointment.”

“With whom?” Vic asked suspiciously.

“With a real-estate agent. I wasn’t kidding before. I’ve got to find a place of my own. The boys need it. I need it. Independence Day is long past due.”

How irksome it was to see the open skepticism on both her friends’ faces! Vic, of course, was the first to weigh in with her opinion. “I don’t know why you think you can fool us with all this nonsense about buying a house. You’re not going to move out of your father’s place—at least not until you get married again. You claim to be eager to get back out on your own, but there’s still a part of you that wants to stay there.”

“Why would I want to stay there? It’s too small for all of us. Dad can drive a person nuts. It’s too far from—”

“Because it’s safe.” Vic cut across the conversation.

Jenna stared down at her abandoned dessert. She wanted to refute Vic’s words, but she had no grounds.

She longed for independence, longed to make a home for herself and the boys, but at the same time she was scared to death. Afraid to fail. Afraid to find out she couldn’t manage on her own. It was horrible to be this age, have come this far, and still suspect that deep within, the same old insecure Jenna was sabotaging every move.

She could feel Vic and Lauren’s eyes on her and felt a surge of rebellion. “Why can’t you go, Vic?” she asked, determined to keep the conversation on the problem at hand. “And I want the truth.”

Victoria looked down for a moment, running her fingers through her blond hair in a familiar gesture that told her friends the teasing time was over. When she lifted her eyes, Jenna saw the uneasiness there, tinged with an un-characteristic fear.

“I’m flying out to California tomorrow morning,” Victoria said, the lightness gone from her voice. “I’m not going to let Cara flit off to Europe to ride around on the back of a motorcycle without trying to make her see reason. That guy is no good for her, and maybe face-to-face I can convince her of that.”

During Victoria’s last year in college, her parents had been killed in a car accident. Cara, six years her junior, had been seriously injured. Vic had dropped out of school and come home to take care of her sister. She’d nursed her back to health, settled their parents’ estate and over-seen the sale of the family business. The sisters loved each other dearly. But that didn’t mean Cara would let Vic tell her how to run her love life.

Jenna knew firsthand how such interference could sometimes produce a result just the opposite of the one desired. She leaned closer to her friend. “Vic…are you sure this is the best way to handle the problem? Don’t you remember when everyone in my family tried to persuade me not to marry Jack? We couldn’t get to the justice of the peace fast enough.”

“It won’t be like that,” Victoria replied. She pressed her lips together tightly, as though her anxiety had leaked out before she could catch it. “My mind’s made up, the tickets are bought, so don’t try to talk me out of it.”

They all subsided into thoughtful silence. The rest of their desserts remained uneaten. Jenna stared down at the picture of Mark Bishop, seeing nothing but the potential for disaster. She would do anything to help the magazine and her friend. But this? How could she hope to succeed?

Eventually the silence became charged and uncomfortable. Jenna picked up the picture again, releasing a huge sigh. “Lord, he looks so intimidating.”

“Debra Lee says he’s a prince to work for. And he’s fallen in love since that picture was taken,” Victoria said. “He’ll be a pussycat.”

Jenna opened her mouth to refute that, but Lauren touched Victoria’s sleeve and said, “Give her some time to think about it, Vic. You know Jenna. She likes to weigh everything very carefully. I’m not surprised she’s hesitant, the way you’ve sprung this on her.”

Victoria looked back at Jenna. “All right. I’ll give you until tonight to make up your mind.”

“And then what happens?” Jenna asked.

“And then I start begging.”

Lauren laughed, but Jenna frowned. She wouldn’t go. She just couldn’t. No more thought on the matter would make a difference.

And she wasn’t going to let this foolishness keep her from enjoying a dessert the company was paying good money for. She picked up her fork again and deliberately placed a sizable bite of Chocolate Sin into her mouth.

The icing was thick, cloying. She tried to savor its richness, but all she could see were Mark Bishop’s dark eyes staring up at her from his picture beside her plate.

“Don’t look like that,” Vic commanded. “You’re not being sent to the executioner’s block.”

Maybe not, Jenna thought. But the cake sure tasted like part of a condemned man’s last meal.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME Jenna got home that afternoon, her mind was more made up than ever. There was no way she could face a powerful, sophisticated businessman like Mark Bishop and ask him a bunch of silly questions about love and romance and how he’d found the girl of his dreams.

But at the same time she couldn’t help sympathizing with Vic and her dilemma with her sister. The easiest solution, Jenna decided, was to farm out the article to one of FTW’s many freelancers. Even on such short notice, one of them would be glad to take the job. She could start calling them right after she got the boys settled down for the night. If she had to, she’d pay for the piece out of her own pocket. End of problem.

That decision made, Jenna turned her attention to dinner. She would have preferred to take a warm bath and put her feet up with a good book, but no such luck.

Her older brothers were coming over. Christopher had been in a major funk this week because his girlfriend, Amanda, was out of town visiting her family. Trent, now a full partner in the family construction business, wanted to celebrate the completion of their most recent job, a large office complex on Magnolia Street. Jenna’s sons, Petey and J.D., always enjoyed having their uncles in the house, and her father was eager to try out his new grill. The evening promised to be noisy, lively and exhausting.

She fixed a salad and baked potatoes to go with the steaks her father grilled. While Christopher and Trent roughhoused with her sons in the living room, Jenna slipped peach cobbler into the oven and swallowed two aspirins to quell the headache building behind her eyes.

The meal was a success. The fellows were always appreciative of her cooking and had the good sense to remark on it. Afterward, as Jenna placed the cobbler and ice cream on the table, there were groans that they were too full, but she noticed that this didn’t stop them.

Her father launched into a speech about barbecuing techniques. Christopher said that Amanda had called him and missed him already. Trent was helping the boys scoop ice cream while they playfully fought over who got the biggest helping. The closeness, the good-natured ribbing, the relaxed laughter—it was into this familiar family patter that Jenna brought her own contribution to the conversation: Vic’s attempt to coerce her to go to New York.

Talk at the table ceased as if someone had just discovered a bomb planted in the centerpiece. Five pairs of eyes turned in her direction.

After a lengthy silence, Trent was the first to speak. “Wow,” he said as he returned to scooping ice cream. “Victoria must be really desperate.”

Jenna was momentarily speechless. Maybe it was her headache. Maybe it was the heat from the kitchen that had caused an unpleasant line of perspiration to form along the small of her back. Or maybe it was just the offhand, incredulous way Trent had said it, as though Vic’s suggestion was unthinkable. Whatever it was, her brother’s comment rankled. Why was it so impossible to believe his kid sister might be able to handle the interview?

Jenna decided she had to know.

“Why wouldn’t she ask me?” she said. “I’m an equal partner at the magazine. We share a variety of jobs. I can still carry on an adult conversation. Unless, of course, I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Yeah, but…” If he’d missed the sting in her words, Trent certainly couldn’t have misinterpreted her frown of displeasure. He subsided with a grumpy scowl of his own and focused on his bowl of ice cream.

Her father made the situation worse. “New York?” he exclaimed, as though he found the words offensive. “You can’t go there.”

Jenna turned her frown on her father. “Why not?”

“We need you here at home.”

“That’s a lousy reason and you know it. It’s two days. I’ll be back before you and the boys finish the leftover cobbler.”

Her father’s chin set in the same stubborn lines that used to irritate her mother so much. “I don’t like it. It’s much too dangerous. You’re a small-town girl, and the big city’s not the place for you, Jenny-girl.”

Jenna could feel the spoon in her hand cutting into her palm she gripped it so tightly. “For heaven’s sake, it’s New York, not Bangkok. I commute into Atlanta five days a week. I think I can handle it.”

William McNab apparently failed to notice the irritation in his daughter’s voice. “Big-city Atlanta is not the same as big-city New York. Things are different here in the South.”

She batted her eyelashes dramatically. In a heavy Southern accent, she said, “Land-sakes, Papa. I think I can handle being among those darned Yankee carpetbaggers. But if I can’t, why, I’ll just skedaddle back here to the plantation.”

Trent chuckled around a mouthful of cobbler. “Make up your mind, Jen. Are you Lois Lane or Scarlett O’Hara?”

“Knock it off, Trent,” Christopher warned softly, obviously sensing trouble ahead.

Trent looked momentarily confused. Her father sighed, then tossed his oldest son a humor-her look. “Explain the difference to her, Chris.”

Christopher was an Atlanta police detective and could probably regale them with a dozen grim tales from the mean streets of New York. But Jenna, feeling more annoyed by the minute, wasn’t willing to listen. She raised a hand to stop him, then addressed her father.

“You know, Dad, I’m a grown woman now. I’ve been married and divorced, and I’m the mother of two children. What I am not anymore is Jenny-girl. I am not a child, and I am perfectly capable of conducting this interview and hailing cabs and riding the subway and— J.D., stop that!”

Six-year-old J.D. had been trying to start a duel with his brother using a spoon that still dripped ice cream. He jerked his head up guiltily. Jenna gave him “the look,” then went around to his side of the table to wipe at the spot he’d made on the tablecloth. She kept her head down, focused on the task at hand because her throat was suddenly clogged with frustrated, angry words unfit for the boys’ young ears.

Used to defusing potentially dangerous situations, Christopher spoke up. “Take it easy, sis. Dad didn’t mean anything by it. He just worries about you. We all do.”

She glanced up, looking at her brothers and her father in turn. They didn’t appear a bit apologetic, only surprised by her attitude. She was a little surprised by it herself. Just how long had this resentment about the way they saw her been boiling up inside?

Next to her, seven-year-old Petey finished scraping out his bowl. He smiled at her. “I think you’ll be great, Mom. You can do anything.”

Probably just a ploy to get a second helping of dessert, Jenna thought. But she couldn’t help feeling a swell of ridiculous pleasure. At least someone at the table thought she was an adult capable of more than baking a passable peach cobbler.

She leaned over, captured her son’s tousled blond head with one arm and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said as he reddened and squirmed out of her grasp. “You believe in your mom, don’t you, honey?”

“Uh-huh,” Petey replied. “You can tell him all about us. How you ran the pumpkin patch for school last year and how you got Randy’s dad to pay for Little League uniforms and the special Easter baskets you made for Gramma Resnick’s nursing-home people…”

“And how you’re a good cook,” J.D. offered.

The smile froze on Jenna’s face. Neither one of the boys had a clue what conducting an interview was all about. It was also horribly clear just where they thought her talents lay.

In being a mom. Not a real person at all. Just the family facilitator who made sure they got to school every morning with full stomachs and clean clothes. The one who carted them to soccer practice. The one who read them stories at night and cried silly tears over the pictures they drew. Just being a mom.

At the other end of the table, her father and Christopher remained judiciously silent, but Trent, never one to catch subtle changes in the air around him, couldn’t help grinning at her. “There you go, Jen,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Offer the guy some peach cobbler. He’ll spill his guts about romance faster than one of Christopher’s collars trying to beat a rap.”

This time all three men laughed. Even the boys joined in, not fully understanding the conversation, but tickled by the goofy face their uncle made.

Jenna ignored the laughter, refusing to make the discussion any more unpleasant with the boys present. She retreated to the kitchen to wash the dinner dishes while Trent helped Petey with his homework and her father flipped on his favorite television program. Perhaps sensing her irritation, Christopher made a half-hearted attempt to clear the table and help with the dishes, but she shooed him into the living room to join the others.

She usually ran the dishwasher, but tonight she filled the sink with hot, soapy water and slowly lowered the dishes into it. She wasn’t that eager to join the rest of the family. Maybe tonight she’d distance herself entirely from them. Even the boys.

It didn’t matter that some of the things they’d said were the same arguments she’d used at lunch with Vic. They should have been supportive. They shouldn’t have made fun of the idea. At the very least, they should have pretended to think she could do it. For heaven’s sake, she was a college graduate. A working mother. She wasn’t stupid.

She supposed it was her own fault if her family discounted her, tried to run her life. Growing up, she’d allowed her brothers to do most of her thinking for her. It was habit with them now. And since her mother’s death a few years ago, her father had become more protective of her, as well.

The circumstances of her failed marriage hadn’t helped. Jack Rawlins had been the sweetest-talking, handsomest man she’d ever met. He had dreams of running away from the ho-hum world of corporate accounting, living in wild, indolent grace on some tropical island. The unreliable heat of physical desire had sparked and flared between them, and over the objections of her entire family, they had eloped.

For a while, even after the boys came, they’d both worked toward that fairy-tale goal. Jack had bought a boat to fix up. He wanted to sail around the world, and Jenna could see herself on the deck, warmed by the sun, her hair tangled with salt spray as she kept a journal detailing their escapades. They would share a life bigger and grander than anything hot, humid Atlanta had to offer.

But by the fifth year of their marriage, Jenna had begun to modify that dream a little. The boys needed roots. They would be in school soon. The house they’d bought required repairs that were more crucial than the rotting, rusting boat sitting in drydock in the backyard. Could you really support yourself on a small island in the Pacific? Live on coconuts and fish? Maybe it was time to consider occasional vacations, instead of a permanent relocation.

Foolishly, she’d thought Jack had come to that conclusion, too. Passion became a missing ingredient in their comfortable, suburban lifestyle, but Jenna was certain that Jack still loved her. That whatever hopes they’d had to compromise, it would be all right. Sooner or later, didn’t everyone have to accept reality?

And then she woke up one day to discover that Jack hadn’t settled at all. That he’d emptied their bank account, run up their credit cards and booked a flight to Tahiti.

For two.

Evidently his secretary had similar dreams of an adventurous life.

The divorce had been painful, but mercifully quick. The boys had been spared the details of their father’s desertion. Jenna had sold the house, moved back in with her father and begun to rebuild her credit. Her family had closed ranks around her, and she’d been so devastated she’d gone right back to letting them take care of her.

Her one moment of spiteful retaliation? Jack’s boat, left behind because it simply wasn’t grand enough, had mysteriously burned to a crisp. She wasn’t a saint, after all.

Yet she couldn’t honestly say she missed Jack all that much. He’d been so emotionally distant for so long. The boys were finally getting used to the fact that he never called or wrote. Not even a card to them on their birthdays or at Christmas. Those were the only times Jenna thought she could really hate the man.

Perspiration beaded her forehead from the dishwasher’s steamy heat. She swiped it away with one arm. The moonless night had turned the window over the sink into a mirror. She caught her reflection in it, and her submerged hands stilled.

Who is that woman?

It had been years since she’d really evaluated her looks. Now she gave herself the most thorough once-over she could remember. And what she saw made her throat go dry with panic.

Because her mousy-brown hair lacked body, she’d always worn it short, a perky style she’d considered becoming to her long neck. But when had carefree become careless? And her eyes. It wasn’t just the unflattering overhead lighting in the kitchen. There were shadows under them that made her look downright unhealthy. In their dark depths there was no gleam, no energy. Only an unnervingly bleak, fenced-in look.

It was the sight of her mouth that troubled her the most. It had always been her best feature, and truthfully, she was a little vain about it. A lovely bow shape, it curved upward at the corners, the lower lip lush and mobile. In their romantic early days, Jack had told her that it just begged for a man’s kiss.

Of course, he’d probably told his secretary that, too.

But it didn’t matter. What she saw now was nothing she wanted to lay claim to. Her lips seemed thin and down-curving, as though she were the type who constantly manufactured grievances. And tight, as though her teeth were clenched on despair. When had that happened? And how could she have missed it?

She hardly noticed when the dishwater turned too cool to do much good. She kept looking at that stranger in the glass. She knew the divorce had left her pride in tatters, had left her feeling rudderless and finished, but she thought she’d finally come through all that. She was picking up the pieces, moving on with life, moving into life again.

You sure about that, Jen? If that was so, then who was this stranger who stared back at her? And how long before the years took an even greater toll? Once the boys no longer needed her… Once life was filled with more disappointment than fulfillment…

I’m not going to let that happen, she swore to the woman in the glass. I refuse. It’s not too late to change things.

She set the rest of the pots to soak and dried her hands. The family was engrossed in some sitcom blaring on the television and hardly noticed as she made her way upstairs to her bedroom.

She dialed Vic’s number before she could change her mind and was relieved when her friend picked up on the second ring.

“What are you doing?” Jenna asked.

“Packing, of course.” There were muffled sounds from the other end of the phone as Vic readjusted the receiver. “What will take hollandaise sauce out of a white cotton blouse?”

“Try some club soda mixed with baking powder.”

“I knew you’d know. So what’s the answer?”

Jenna didn’t hesitate. “I’ll go.”

Vic whooped with delight. “Terrific! I told Lauren that once you got home and really thought about it, you’d come up with a dozen reasons why you should go.”

Jenna couldn’t resist smiling. “Actually I couldn’t come up with a dozen. Only six.”

“And they are?”

“Dad, Christopher, Trent, Petey and J.D.”

“That’s only five reasons. What’s number six?”

Jenna drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Me.”

CHAPTER THREE

“STOP LOOKING at me like that,” Jenna told Lauren for the third time.

“I can’t help it,” her friend replied with a silly grin. “I’m still in shock.”

They were alone in the small elevator of New York’s Belasco Hotel, headed up to the penthouse suite. The hotel was a pleasant surprise. Jenna had expected someone of Mark Bishop’s wealth and position to be drawn to a place more pretentious, more dazzling. Instead, the Belasco boasted Old World charm and discreet elegance—no doubt at horribly expensive rates—but enchanting nonetheless.

Lauren, whose exposure to these kinds of places was much broader than Jenna’s, didn’t seem a bit impressed by their surroundings. Instead, her appreciative gaze roamed over Jenna again. “When did you find the time to do all this?”

This was the transformation Jenna had attempted to make in her appearance before their plane had taken off that day at noon. She’d decided that if she couldn’t actually lay claim to being a serious journalist, she ought to at least look like one. Confident. Sophisticated. Savvy. Judging from Lauren’s reaction, her efforts had been worthwhile.

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish once you decide to eliminate sleep from your life,” Jenna told her friend. “I raided the cosmetic counter at my all-night drugstore. I did my nails and gave myself a facial. Then I called Max early this morning and promised him a month’s salary as a tip if he’d do something with my hair.”

“The change is incredible,” Lauren said.

Self-consciously, Jenna touched the wispy ends of her new haircut. “You don’t think the blond highlights are too radical?”

Lauren shook her head as though she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “I think they look fantastic.”