Tomorrow.
Hours after they left, Jessie and Garrett delivered Rudy to a couple who lived in a spacious home outside of Roanoke. They had everything as prepared as if they were bringing a baby home from the hospital, and both had tears in their eyes when they first saw Rudy.
Jessie and Garrett stayed and had lunch with them, and afterward, Garrett gave them some training tips while both of the dogs romped in a huge yard. When she was exhausted, Lola ambled back over to where Jessie was and lay down in front of her. For a moment, the dog looked up with a plea in her big brown eyes, and Jessie could swear she read what Lola was thinking.
You’re good, but you’re not…my number one.
Her throat closed a little. “I know, baby girl,” Jessie whispered. “I mean, I think I do. Were you left by her? Or…”
Or what?
The question still troubled her on the way home, when she decided to try and answer it.
“Garrett, I have an idea,” she said.
He tipped his doggone hat, obviously in an expansive and happy mood. “Anything you want.”
Whoever had described this man as a son of a bitch had never spent an hour in Rin Tin Tin delivering an adopted dog. “What if we stop at a rest stop and leave Lola in the Jeep with the windows open?”
He shot her a look of pure incredulity.
“We’d be right there, just out of sight. I want to see if she’ll jump out.”
“To what end?”
“If she doesn’t jump out, then she’s content, but if she does, maybe that tells us she was trying to get away from the person who had her.”
He angled his head in pure skepticism, but pulled into the next rest stop. “I predict she’ll stay,” he said as he opened his door. “She’s too pleased with her life now. She has her person.”
Did she? She didn’t want Lola to have the wrong person. Or for Lola’s person to be suffering without her. She wanted to be sure.
At the next rest stop, they parked and stood behind the Jeep. Lola put her face out the open window, stared, and waited for Jessie to come back.
“Not exactly sure what that proved,” Garrett said when they climbed back in. “But I love that you love her so much.”
“I wish I could be her person,” she said wistfully. “But the more I think about taking a dog to that apartment, the more I imagine myself homeless.”
“You can’t move?”
“Wouldn’t I love to. But New York is expensive, and I have a nice place. Nice and small, a third-floor apartment with a big window in my bedroom that looks down on the street.” But then she looked out at the breathtaking foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, spread out like a massive blanket of rolling green and her walkup in Brooklyn seemed inadequate. “It won’t be like this, which is home to me. This part of the country is in my blood.”
“Then why leave?”
“Um…work?”
“You’re a writer. Can’t you do that anywhere?”
“I guess, but I’m so used to going into an office and working for a company.”
He made a face. “Working for a company is overrated. You should freelance. Write books. You know who you should profile? Dogs.”
She laughed. “The Story of Lola. I feel a bestseller coming on.”
“I’m serious.”
She reached over and put a hand on his arm, loving the thickness of it, the feel of a dusting of hair, the warmth of his skin. “I love the idea, but if I get the anchor job, I’ll get a raise. A big one. Maybe enough to afford another apartment where I could keep her. Would you bring Lola to me in Rin Tin Tin and your doggone hat?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said, but there was a hitch in his voice she’d never heard before. Certainly not when he talked about that doggone hat. And definitely not when he was wearing it, like now. “Can I give you a little advice, Jess?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve lived places that weren’t—how did you say it?—in my blood. Well, one place.”
She swallowed. “Seattle?”
He nodded once. “And all the success, money, and job stuff in the world won’t make it home. Hate to be a cliché, but home really is where your heart is.”
“And that’s it?”
“My advice? Yeah.”
“Your story about Seattle.”
He looked straight ahead, and she could see behind his sunglasses that his eyes narrowed on the road, and his jaw tensed like it did every time they neared this topic.
She leaned a little closer. “You’re aching.”
He glanced at her, the look hidden by the sunglasses. “What the hell does that mean?”
Did he notice how edgy and short he got when the subject came up? That was why she kept going back there.
“It’s from a poem I read years ago,” she told him. “I think it’s called ‘The Invitation’ and, I’m sorry, I don’t remember the author. But the first line is something like, I don’t care what you do for a living, I want to know what you ache for. I’m paraphrasing, but…this subject makes you ache.”
“Which makes it like catnip to you.”
True enough. She started to wind up her next question when her cell phone rang, and she reached into the side pocket of her bag to get it. “It’s my boss.” Which was really a buzzkill, but she took the call anyway. “Hey, Mac, what’s up?”
“I need a profile, Curtis. I need a freaking profile now.”
“I have until Wednesday.”
“Broadcast is making the decision tomorrow. Something’s come up.”
“What?” She choked. “My deadline was Wednesday. I have forty-eight more hours.”
“A third party has scooped the holy shit out of us. Remember I told you they had one other person besides you and Mercedes?”
“Yes? Someone from the network.”
“Well, that someone from the network got the effing Prince of England. The redheaded one.”
“No!” That was a get for ITAL On Air.
“All about his dead mother, too.”
“You mean Princess Diana? Have a little respect, Mac.”
“Yeah, that one. And you want to know who’s dead? We are if you don’t have something better.”
She hated to ask, but she had to. “What about Mercedes?”
“In the same boat as you, only I’m pretty sure she’s going to sink.”
Well, there was that. “I have some pages, but nothing…not what I want to send.”
She felt Garrett’s gaze on her. He knew what was missing. And yet he held back.
“You can kiss this opportunity goodbye if I don’t have something I can edit the crap out of by tomorrow morning. Even your first draft. Gimme eight or ten thousand words so I can confidently plan on the story.”
Ten thousand words? “All right. I’ll work all night. I’ll have something in your inbox in the morning.”
“Don’t give me a bio, Jessie. I want secrets. I want emotion. I want a side of this guy that no one has ever seen before. Our only hope is that the prince interview goes south and yours sings. Got it?”
She glanced at Garrett, studying his profile. If only he’d let her. “Got it.”
When she hung up, she let out a noisy sigh. “My guess is you gleaned enough from that conversation to know what we have to do.”
He put his hand on hers. “Why don’t we get some dinner, take it up to your room, and pull an all-nighter together?”
Seriously? Now? “Garrett, I’m not sleeping with you tonight.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
He exhaled slowly and noisily before answering. “Bring your pickaxe, wall-breaker. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Everything?”
“You can’t use it, you can’t print it, and you’ll understand why when I tell you, but it’ll give you the, you know, the beat thing.”
“The beat thing.” Like her heart was doing right that minute.
Chapter Sixteen
>
He had to help her, of course. She needed help, and her big promotion was obviously hanging in the balance. He trusted her and believed she’d understand why he avoided the land mines of Seattle.
As they settled into her cozy suite, finished a light dinner, and started a fire, Garrett poured a big glass of red wine and offered it to Jessie.
“Can’t,” she said. “I’m going to be up all night writing. But knock yourself out.”
He had a feeling he was about to. He took a deep drink and walked over to the fire, standing in front of it, wishing it weren’t gas.
That was so fake. Like his marriage.
“I’m ready when you are,” she announced.
He looked over his shoulder to find her on the bed, her laptop open. He wanted to be near her when he told his story.
Wordlessly, he crossed the room and set his wine down. He took the computer, slid it out of her hands, turning to place it safely on the dresser.
“You can listen only. You can find your theme or emotion or whatever, but everything I tell you is absolutely confidential, and you’ll see why. Then you can write your story.”
“Okay.”
Kicking off his boots, he eased himself on the bed and wrapped his arms around her to bring her close and whisper his confession.
“I was married before.”
She blinked in surprise. “You were? How could that not come up in any search about you?”
“Because it was annulled. So, legally, I’ve never been married. But, technically, I was married. Briefly. Like, a week. Actually, nine days. And a few hours.”
A smile flickered. “But who’s counting?”
“Obviously, I was.”
She studied his face in the firelight, and he imagined what she saw. The stark pain of the memory, no doubt. It felt good not to hide it anymore. “So, why was it annulled?”
“Don’t you want to know anything about her first?”
She stroked his face, the touch already soothing him. “You know I’m a why person, not a what person.”
“It was annulled because…it was a mistake. A big, crazy, impulsive, fat mistake.” His voice caught when he said the last word, because it really hadn’t been a mistake for him. “A Las Vegas mistake.”
She choked softly. “Like, you eloped? To Vegas? When you were living in Seattle?”
“Old enough to know better, right?”
“And recent enough to explain the hurt in your eyes.”
He closed them instantly. “Yes,” he admitted. “It hurt very, very much.”
“A Las Vegas ‘mistake’ isn’t usually mired in, you know, deep emotion.”
Of course she’d go right there, to the heart of the situation.
“I mean, I’m generalizing, but there’s usually more infatuation or alcohol or desperation than…love,” she said. “Am I right?”
“No alcohol. I was completely infatuated. And she was desperate. All in all, a bad combination.”
“What was she desperate for?”
He turned his head enough to look at her. “A father for her baby.”
He could hear her breath catch. “You better start at the beginning.”
“Her name was Claudia Cargill, and she was the chief financial officer of FriendGroup and deeply involved with the long negotiation process for them to acquire my company.”
“Claudia?” She lifted a brow, and he imagined her brain clicking through what he’d just said. And came up with conflict of interest, no doubt.
“I fell hard and fast and furious for her, not going to lie. From the moment I met her, I was attracted. She’s beautiful, smart, funny.”
“And she was pregnant?”
“She didn’t know that when we met. We were both single and working very closely together, side by side for long days and late nights.” So many of both, he thought, pausing to sit up and take a much-needed drink of wine.
“It started as a friendship and developed into more,” he continued, lying back down. “But we didn’t sleep together,” he added, because it was so important she know that. “We both were waiting for the deal to go through. If someone on either side found out we’d had sex, the whole contract negotiation would come under scrutiny and might not even have gotten past shareholders. You don’t sleep with the woman handling the finances of a multimillion-dollar deal.”
“But you wanted to.”
“Yes.” Could she hear the understatement in the single syllable? “And then the bomb dropped two days before the deal closed.” He turned to her. “She was six weeks pregnant.”
“And…obvious question coming.”
“Yeah.” He stuck his hand in his hair and dragged it back. “She said it was a one-night stand before she met me.”
“She said? But it wasn’t?”
He rolled on his back and stared straight up at the ceiling. “Yes and no.”
“Garrett,” she chided softly.
“I know, I know. It was a one-night stand. She got drunk, got crazy, got…pregnant.”
“Oh wow.”
He understood the reaction and knew she probably had a million questions, like why would someone be so careless?—except he doubted she’d been careless at all.
“What about the father?”
Yeah. The father. “I assumed, based on things she said, that she didn’t really know the father, that he was a stranger and she didn’t want to tell him.”
He felt her tense. “Not that I’m judging, but I’m judging. This does not make me like the woman. Not that you’re asking me to.”
He wasn’t, but he understood. “She was scared, Jess. Just terrified at the whole idea of being a single mother. And I really cared for her. I…I thought I loved her.” He blew out a breath, as if that could get rid of the self-disgust and regret rolling through him.
“I did love her,” he corrected. “And I suggested we get married, as fast as possible, the very minute the deal closed with FriendGroup and PetPic. She could put my name as the baby’s father on the birth certificate, and I would be, legally and morally and spiritually and emotionally, that child’s father.”
“Oh.” She put her hand on her chest in shock. Maybe something else. “That is so incredibly noble.”
Was it? He’d loved her. There was nothing noble about it.
“She agreed.” Not for love, but he’d convinced himself that would come. “The FriendGroup acquisition went through, and Claudia and I secretly went to Vegas and got married at the Chapel of the Bells.” He turned to add a rueful smile. “It was good enough for Mickey Rooney.”
She didn’t smile back. “What happened, Garrett?”
“Nothing,” he said wryly. “Not even on our wedding night. She was sick, throwing up every couple of hours, and I fed her saltines and club soda.”
“Of course you did.”
“Because I’m an idiot.”
“Because you have a good heart. Then what happened?”
He snorted softly. “We came back from Vegas, and she insisted we not tell anyone yet. Not my family, not anyone. Which pissed me off enough that we had a huge fight, and she dropped the bomb on me. She was still in love with the father of her child, who she finally told me was the man I currently worked for.”
“Jake Chamberlain,” she said with the sound of someone finally putting pieces together. “When you said Claudia…I wondered if she was Claudia Chamberlain.”
Of course she’d done her homework. She knew exactly who Jake Chamberlain was, along with his beautiful, photogenic wife.
“Now Jake is the one you should interview,” he said, bitterness in every word. Because the short-lived marriage wouldn’t even be part of a profile of Jake. The man couldn’t bare his soul about things he didn’t even know had happened. “Get a hold of that ego and, man, you’d have yourself a story. What Jake wants, Jake gets.”
“So is that what happened? He decided he wanted her for himself?”
“They’d dated off and on a long time ago, then broke up about
a year before I showed up on the scene. They were cool to each other in public, and I knew they’d had a thing at one point, but he is such an arrogant prick, I honestly didn’t think that thing had been serious.”
He swallowed and shifted, the old pain searing again. Claudia had lied so completely, so effectively…until the minute she’d said “I do” in that chapel. And right then, he could see she regretted the decision. It took her a day or so to come clean with him.
“After that argument, I left her house, just…destroyed. I had to look at that man every single day and know he was the father of a child I was completely prepared to treat and raise as my own. I went home to stew, and she went to Jake.”
“And told him you got married?”
“And told him she was pregnant, leaving out the whole ‘I married Garrett Kilcannon’ part.”
“That’s horrible!” she said.
“Not for Jake,” he replied. “Seems he wanted a baby and wouldn’t dream of not marrying her as soon as humanly possible.”
“But she was married to you.”
“Enter Shane Kilcannon, attorney extraordinaire who is now an expert on how to arrange a fast and secret annulment.”
Confusion darkened every feature as she sat up now. “So, you just let her go?”
He looked at her, not sure how to answer that because, sure, he looked like a pushover. But he’d only done the right thing for someone he thought he’d loved.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “What if Lola’s owner walked in here now and said ‘I want her back.’ What would you do?”
She blinked at him. “I’d let her go.”
He tipped his head, case made.
“But Claudia isn’t a dog, and Jake isn’t her owner.”
“But Claudia didn’t love me. I was a substitute. She was happiest with Jake, and I wanted her to be happy more than I wanted her to be my wife.”
“Because you are made of good,” she said, stroking his arm. “So she never told him that you married her?”
He sighed again. “No, and her reasoning actually made a lot of sense, and it protected me. If it got out that we had a personal relationship, stockholders could have blocked the acquisition, or at least sent it to court for years. It would have cost me millions, really, and I think she thought silence was being fair to me for what I’d been willing to do.”