Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,62

of Jack’s parting words. This is kinda weird. I’m happy, yet I appear to be awake.

It was definitely kinda weird, because the thought of meeting Jack tomorrow made Arlene feel happy, too.

Happy and hopeful, even though, in a month, she was going back.

Her head still on Arlene’s lap, Maggie stirred, waking just enough to look up at Arlene and murmur, “I love you, Mommy.”

Arlene’s heart clenched as she smiled down at her daughter. “I love you, too, monkey-girl.”

PART II

CHAPTER TWELVE

The day was perfect. The sun sparkled in a brilliant blue sky, and the ocean air was fresh and clean as Jack parked in the lot for the Baldwin’s Bridge hotel, which had an awesome restaurant overlooking the water.

They’d talked about his kids nearly the entire ride. Jack had focused—hard—on keeping his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road as he filled Arlene in on the latest exploits of Luke and Joey. After the breakup, the boys had moved with their mom to California, to the little town north of San Francisco where she’d grown up. Becca had done it in part in retaliation, to make it harder for Jack to see his sons; and in part to live closer to her parents, which was not a bad thing considering her still less-than-stellar mental health.

The end result, though, was that Jack saw his kids about as often as Arlene saw Maggie.

“Technically, we share custody,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice even as Arlene climbed out of the car and stretched. She was totally killing him—and had been from the moment he’d spotted her, waiting for him on the front steps of Will’s apartment building, from the moment her eyes had widened as she’d seen him in the Zipcar, even before she’d smiled.

His mouth had gone dry and his heart had pounded. And then she’d gotten into the car and sat there, so close and warm and sweet-smelling, with those long, pale, smooth, gracefully shaped legs.

She was dressed for a warm day at the seaside, in modestly cut shorts and a not-too-snugly-fitting T-shirt, half socks with pom-poms on the back and sneakers on her feet. Despite the soccer-mom look, he couldn’t stop thinking about sex. And not just everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill sex, but sex with Arlene, which, the one night he’d had it, had nearly blown off the top of his head.

“Although,” he continued in that same even voice, because dropping to his knees, weeping, and begging her to skip lunch and just check into the hotel with him was not going to achieve more than very shortsighted, non-long-term immediate gratification, “because money’s so tight, that translates to me finagling an assignment on the West Coast and then working my ass off to get the story written in half the time humanly possible, so I can spend a few days with my kids.”

“We all do what we have to do,” Arlene said simply as she gazed back at him over the top of the Zipcar—and Jack knew she was well aware that his driving it meant he no longer owned his own transportation. He, who’d always loved his car, had made the choice to give it up because the cost of garaging it in the city was exorbitant.

“I’d be lying,” he told her quietly, “if I didn’t mention, right about now, that I’ve been thinking about relocating out there.”

“California,” she said as something flickered in her eyes.

Jack nodded. “Maggie, um, suggested it. You know? Like as part of the master plan.”

Arlene laughed at that, but it wasn’t because she thought it was funny. “Oh, my God.” Tears filled her eyes. “She’s really willing to give up everything—her friends, her life—”

“Whoa, hold on there, she’s not giving up her life,” Jack said as he came around the car to pull her roughly into his arms.

She didn’t resist. In fact, she clung to him as he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.

“What she’s got now,” he continued, “it’s … It’s a half-life, Leenie. You made a deal, I get it, I do, and your honoring it is admirable, but the sacrifice is Maggie’s, too.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Arlene whispered, and when she lifted her head to look up at him, he knew the next words out of her mouth were going to be a request for him to take her home.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he told her, talking quickly, and putting one finger against the softness of her lips