Her Heart's Divide Read online

  “Jack, you do always come in the back door without knocking,” I said, feeling mellow. “That’s why we lock it when we need to slow you down a little.”

  “I know this all sounds insane to you, but cut me some slack, guys. Two hours ago I was looking forward to coming home to my wife. My wife. Now I’m standing here in my home, and my wife is married to my best friend. And I’m…” Jack turned away.

  I didn’t know what he was, but I was feeling terrible for him. His pain and confusion were too raw to be faked.

  “Look, Jack,” I said, trying to be gentle. “Why don’t we go down to the E.R., get you checked out? You said you almost wrecked the truck. Maybe you hit your head or something.”

  He didn’t turn around. “I didn’t hit my damned head. I wish I had.” The words had a strangled sound, like he was choking.

  My husband leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Honey, I’m going to go change, get out of these work clothes.”

  “Don’t leave me alone with him!”

  “I’d cry if I thought I lost you, but I wouldn’t want anyone to see me crying.”

  “Sweet talk about crying gets you nowhere, mister. What am I going to say to him?” I hissed.

  Ryan shrugged. “He seems like the same guy except for this weird memory thing, so just talk to him like you always talk to Jack.” He kissed me on the forehead and patted my ass for good measure.

  Jack hadn’t moved. I sat down on the futon and sighed. “So.”

  “So.”

  “All right, let’s say this is real. Your truck is the same. The world’s basically the same, since you didn’t think anything was wrong until I hollered at you. What’s different?”

  “Besides the fact that my wife isn’t my wife?”

  “Jack.”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head and stood up a little straighter. “Do you mind if I sit down next to you?”

  “Not at all.” I patted the couch, hoping he didn’t see the awkwardness that I felt. We heard the shower come on in the next room, and Jack relaxed even as I grew more nervous.

  He flopped down. “So, how’d you meet Ryan in this world?”

  “You introduced us, actually. My first day at work when you gave me the tour.”

  “Wait, let me back up. How did you and I meet?”

  “Well, I was working at the newspaper, selling space in the special advertising section. I called and asked if you’d be interested in a half-page feature on your new dealership, and you bought a whole page because you said I had a nice voice.” I smiled at the memory. “Then when they cut my job, you said I ought to use that nice voice for someone who’d appreciate it, and you offered me a job as the dealership receptionist.”

  “That’s how I remember it, yeah,” he said slowly.

  “But we never dated. You were always kind and friendly, but you never flirted with me.”

  He snorted. “No. I was terrified of being a stereotype. Besides, you never flirted with me.”

  “Well, you were my boss, you know. I wasn’t going to sit on your desk and show you any leg. But I did flirt a little bit back at the beginning.”

  “The only flirting I ever noticed was at the company Christmas party.”

  Blood rushed to my face. “Oh, damn.”

  He stared at me. “What happened at the Christmas party from your point of view?”

  “Other than I acted like an idiot?” I jumped up and went into the kitchen.

  “You did not,” he called after me.

  “Maybe in your world!”

  “Everyone was drinking, Lila, not just you.”

  “You want anything to drink now?”

  “I better stick with water, thanks.”

  I came back with two tumblers, the ice clicking against the sides. “I got a little too festive, and you saved me from myself.” I handed him a glass and took my own over by the sliding glass door. I wanted to look at the river, not Jack. I had considered the incident forgotten, but it turned out every face-burning detail was as fresh as it was the Sunday after the party.

  Only six months into the job, I’d felt like I’d been at Jack Stevens Chevrolet for my whole life. The team was small and more like a family than a company. Allison, the woman who handled the office stuff, welcomed me. At first it was because the business had grown too much for her to handle everything from the paperwork, to the phone, to greeting customers, and she needed me. Then it was because we’d become friends.

  She was a little flaky with some far-out ideas, and she and I often argued over whether there was magic in the world, but the Jack I knew wouldn’t have called her a nutcase. He loved her and called her his sunbeam.

  At any rate, it wasn’t just Allison who liked me. The other people at the dealership were all great, from the salespeople to the mechanics. When the Christmas party rolled around, I’d felt at home. I’d been so busy talking to everyone that I’d forgotten to eat. I’d also forgotten to watch how much I’d been drinking.

  I remember starting the carol singing and then running off to use the restroom. The one off the main showroom was occupied, so I headed upstairs to the private one across from Jack’s office. When I came out, he’d been standing there. He was looking out the window at the moon, and he turned when he heard my footsteps.

  “Oh, hey, Lila. We had the same thought at the same time.”

  “We were both admiring your ass?” I had blurted out.

  His eyes widened and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  I’d long since noticed that my boss was gorgeous. He was tall and he almost always wore a dark blue tie that accentuated his dark blue eyes. He had thick sandy blond hair that was a little long. And at that point in our friendship, I knew he’d played college football. While he still kept himself in shape, he’d said that he’d assessed his chances of going pro, found them minimal, and started a business with his best friend instead.

  I also knew that his best friend was Ryan Crosse, a darkly handsome guy who ran the service department. But at the Christmas party, Ryan wasn’t yet a boyfriend or a lover. He’d been coming by my desk and cracking jokes nearly every day but hadn’t made a serious move.

  So I was single, with a happy buzz on, and apparently my subconscious mind had been thinking of my boss as a handsome man, not an employer.

  And that man smiled at me. “Why, thank you.”

  “Oh, my god, Jack, it just sort of slipped out there. I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t really see his face, with the moonlight at his back shining so brightly.

  “Don’t be.”

  His voice had sounded very strange. We stood there for a moment, and then I took a step forward. My heel caught on the rug, and I would have hit the ground face-first if Jack hadn’t caught me. His arms were so strong and his skin was warm. His cologne was as rich as the expensive shirt he was wearing. I’d snuggled into his broad, muscular chest. Under his cologne, I could smell him, a delicious mix of soap and something like cinnamon. His steadying grip had turned into an embrace, and then his hands had started moving down my back.

  But then he’d paused, with the big strong hands of a former wide receiver snug against my waist. “How much have you had to drink, Lila?”

  “Oh, a bit.”

  “I think more than a bit, actually. Come on, you. Let’s go get some water. Uh…actually, I still need to hit the bathroom. Hit the lights, will you?”

  By the time he’d come out of the bathroom, I’d found the light switch, and in the bright overhead lights I was sobering up rapidly. “Jack, I, uh…”

  “Never happened, Lila.”

  And we’d gone back to the party. He’d never mentioned it again or been awkward about it, so I assumed it really had been forgotten by Jack, if not by me.

  Now I stood in my living room in front of him, and he had clearly not forgotten. “So tell me what happened at the party, Lila.”

  I took a few steps closer to him. “I was a little drunk, I blurted out something about your ass in your office, and then I fell on
you.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. You caught me, commented on my drinking and took me downstairs for some water. And you said it never happened, and until now you never brought it up again,” I said with a meaningful look.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “Wow? Is that all you can say?”

  “That’s not how the evening ended, as I remember it.” He stopped and I glared at him.

  “And?”

  “You gave me that…compliment, and you immediately started apologizing. I managed to not blurt out that I’d been admiring you for weeks.”

  I felt myself blushing again. “You had?”

  “Good god, yes. You were and are one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. And at the Christmas party, you were stunning. The way your dress sparkled and clung to your body had me dying to talk to you alone all night.”

  “Jack, I had no idea—”

  “Seeing you in the moonlight almost killed me. You were everything I ever wanted.” His voice was raspy, and it dropped to a whisper. “When you fell into my arms, it was like a sign. I held you, and you snuggled right in. It seemed like you wanted to be there.”

  “I did. But you stopped everything!” I burst out.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t.” He stood up. “I thought for a second you were more drunk than you’d seemed, the way you’d fallen like that—”

  “My heel caught on your office rug.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said in the morning when I asked.”

  I froze. “The morning?”

  He gave me a slow smile that made me shiver. “Lila, after that kiss in my office, there was no way, no way in hell I was going to let you go home alone.”

  “Jack,” I said weakly, “I promise you that we did not kiss that night or ever.”

  “And I’m telling you we did. It was fantastic too.” He leaned forward a little. “Long and slow, just the way you love first kisses. You told me that too.”

  He was so close that I could feel the warmth of his skin. A thick lock of hair had fallen forward near his eyes, and almost against my will, I lifted my hand to brush it away. My heart was pounding. His eyes were dark with longing.

  We both heard the shower stop and we jumped.

  “God, Jack.” I tried to laugh. “You really had me going there for a second. I almost believed that evening ended totally differently.”

  “Damn it, Lila, I’m trying to tell you it did end differently. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not an idiot, and only an idiot would have let you go that night.”

  “You didn’t let me go. You walked me downstairs and didn’t leave my side until I’d eaten a plateful of food!”

  “Why do I keep coming in to see you two yelling?”

  Jack and I turned to see Ryan in the doorway. He was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, and he was rubbing his thick black curls with a towel.

  “I’m out of my head, man. I’m sorry. Both of you, I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I’m tired and confused and taking it out on you guys. I’m glad you’re both still two of my best friends in this world, but I don’t understand why this world isn’t my world.”

  Whatever was wrong with Jack, the friendship between the men was the same, and Ryan was fast on the uptake. “Why don’t we take a walk, buddy?” Ryan asked. He punched Jack in the arm and grinned. “I’ve got some questions, anyway.”

  “I’ll just bet you do, but I don’t kiss and tell.”

  Ryan’s laugh filled the room. “Let me grab a shirt and we’ll bail.” He left.

  Jack turned to me. “Li, be patient with me. Two hours ago I thought you were my wife, and I was the happiest man in the world. Now I’m seeing that someone else is the happiest man in the world. And you’re telling me we’ve never even kissed.”

  “We haven’t, Jack,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked straight at me. “If you feel bad now, think about how you’d feel if you knew how good our kisses are.”

  His husky voice made my lips tingle, but there was nothing I could say.

  Chapter Three

  Ryan emerged from our bedroom and kissed me goodbye. I watched the two men disappear down the path along the water, talking animatedly. I shivered. I hadn’t thought about Jack in a sexual way since that Christmas party. He’d shut me down pretty thoroughly and yet with so much kindness that I hadn’t felt hurt for very long. I’d assumed he wasn’t interested. And Ryan…Ryan was very interested and started showing it soon after that party.

  But the look in Jack’s eyes as he told me about our first kiss wasn’t the look of a man who’d turned down a young, tipsy receptionist. Instead, his expression had been hot and knowing, like he remembered exactly what it was like to make love to me.

  I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed my terry robe from the bedroom. I went out on the wraparound deck and shoved the cover off the hot tub, because if anyone needed to relax on their stupid freaking day off, it was me.

  Before long I was up to my neck in warm, bubbling water, watching the last of the sunlight reflect off the river. My body was relaxed, but my mind kept replaying the afternoon. Had I responded in any small way to Jack’s touch? I’d definitely responded to his description of my favorite sexual fantasy, so much so that I’d been more than ready for Ryan. And the memory of the Christmas party. So embarrassing, unless it had ended…differently.

  I could still feel his hands on my waist from seven years ago. What if, instead of resting there, he’d continued the slide down my body until those hands had been cupping my ass? What if instead of looking at my face to see if I was drunk, he’d closed his eyes and opened his lips? Would I have continued to hold him close, or would I have had my own second thoughts?

  My second thought wouldn’t have been to stop. It would have been to let his tongue into my mouth and to press my body against his.

  I shifted a little in the hot tub and closed my eyes. I hadn’t had a new fantasy in ages, and this one was hot. My hands traced the sides of my breasts as I imagined Jack’s hands running over the front of my silver party dress. I would have encouraged him and leaned into his palms. He would have found that I wasn’t wearing a bra, that my small breasts didn’t need one.

  My nipples rose up under my teasing touch, and I pulled them gently, flicking the tips with a fingernail. My lips parted and I ran my tongue over them, thinking of how his kiss might have gained urgency with his hands on my breasts.

  I felt a short spasm lower down at the thought. My thighs clenched and I took a deep breath. I moved my hands slowly from my breasts to my legs and ran my hands up and down the soft, tender skin on the insides of my thighs. In Jack’s office, if he’d kissed me that night, he might have pushed his knee in between mine, urging me to straddle his powerful thigh. My pussy would have been pressed into his hard leg.

  Now I was squirming on the hard plastic seat in the hot tub, and I opened my legs. I braced my feet up a little higher and reached down. In my fantasy, Jack was holding my ass, clutching me tightly to his tall, strong body. In the hot tub, I was rubbing my mound in slow, firm circles, the way I would have been grinding on him.

  I could almost hear him saying how much he wanted me and feel his warm breath on my neck. I moaned and tried to increase the pressure. But it was hard. I kept forgetting to brace myself in the water, and readjusting was making it hard to focus on my fantasy lover.

  I flipped over. There was a cluster of adjustable jets I’d had aimed at different points on my back. In a second, I had one spraying gently across my breasts and some pulsing harder directly between my legs. I whimpered as the steady, tireless streams of water flowed across my tender skin. Now I could think entirely about Jack, Jack’s hand on my breast or on my ass, his hot tongue everywhere at once. I could feel his khaki pants bulging out in the middle and him telling me to ride it, ride it hard, telling me to come for him like he’d always imagined.

  The water pounded against my clit, and I finally succumbed. The o
rgasm was massive, sending shocks all through my body until even my toes were clenched. I clutched the side of the tub, trying not to scream. I let the jets hammer out every last quiver. Finally, I floated up a little and flipped back onto my back.

  Night had fallen. We lived far enough from town that we had thousands of stars to light up the night. I would have made a wish on every one of them, if only I’d known what to wish for.

  Movement at the edge of the trees caught my eye. It was Ryan and Jack, back from their walk. I stretched like a cat and climbed out. With my robe tied snugly around my waist, I went to the railing and waved.