The First Wife
“I…” Jane’s eyes revealed uncharacteristic hesitancy when she raised her head and met his gaze. “Can I tell you something?”
“You know you can.”
“It’s personal and embarrassing and…”
“Then this is probably the day for it.”
She hesitated a moment longer and then said, “What James did—the mental cruelty, the infidelity—it killed my ability to…you know…want…things.”
She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. Not Jane. She was femininity personified. Gorgeous. A head turner. And…
“Are you saying you don’t want…things?”
They were up on a private wooded hill, away from the rules of life. The rules of Brad and Jane. What they said here would be forgotten once they descended to real life.
And he’d all but bullied her to confide in him.
She shook her head. “I haven’t had so much as a tingle…down there…since my divorce.”
Brad was shocked. He knew she hadn’t dated, but…
Thinking of Jane sexually was taboo. So he hadn’t. But in the back of his mind, he’d assumed she…something. He’d never thought beyond that.
And didn’t have any solid thoughts now, either. Their hill had turned into quicksand. An electrified quicksand for him.
“Have you talked to anyone about it? Professionally?”
“Yeah. But it didn’t do any good. It just happens that way sometimes. More often with women, I’m told.”
“It’s probably just because you haven’t been on a date in so long,” he blurted, thinking of all the women he’d been with since he’d met her.
Brad liked sex. A lot. And he made no apology for that. The idea of being unable to experience those sensations…
“It’s not like I don’t get invitations,” Jane said dryly. “I don’t date because I’m not the least bit interested in the men who ask me out.”
“You should meet more men, different men.” His mind tried to fight its way out of the thickness encasing him. “I’ve got a couple of friends from law school. I could…”
He shouldn’t have been relieved when Jane shook her head, preventing him from having to finish the offer. But he was.
“I know fine men, Brad. Successful, fun, funny men. Smart, introspective men. Older men. Younger men. Good-looking. Great-looking. Okay-looking…”
“And nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe you’re wired the other way,” he suggested, hardly recognizing the tinny sound to his voice. Yeah, let her be gay. That would make him a hell of a lot more comfortable.
It would safeguard their friendship forever. Unless they both fell in love with the same woman.
“I’m not a lesbian.” Funny how four words could weigh a man down and lift him up all at the same time. “I think, with as much time as I spend around women, I’d know if they pushed my buttons. They don’t.”
Brad’s throat was too dry to speak. So he sat there, hands resting nonchalantly on his knees, wondering what the hell was the matter with him. He talked to a lot of women about sex—those he was having it with, and some he wasn’t. He was completely comfortable with the topic.
“I was perfectly normal,” Jane continued as though now that her demon had been unleashed, she felt better letting it all out. And he understood fully the old saying about being careful what you asked for.
He’d pushed her to open up to him, egotistically certain that he was the one who should be there for her in her time of need.
“And you…felt things.” Some masochistic part of his soul made him ask. He didn’t want to picture Jane with another man. Didn’t want to picture her naked. Or sexual in any way. She was Jane. His Jane. Asexual.
Which was exactly what she was telling him. The asexual part.
And that wasn’t right. This beautiful, warm woman asexual?
“Oh, yeah. So much it made me his slave.” Jane’s eyes widened as she spoke, and Brad knew he would never forget the stricken expression that came over her face. “And when James betrayed me, when he kept telling me that his infidelity was my fault, I…”
She stopped and Brad waited, focusing on the slight breeze that had passed over their picnic site.
“I haven’t been the least bit interested in sex since,” she finally said. “He killed it, Brad. And it’s kind of hard to have a truly intimate relationship without that.”
“I’m sure it’s not dead, sweetie,” Brad said now, grasping for anything that would keep his head above the sand. “You know the drill better than most. After any kind of mistreatment, these things take time. And the right person. The feelings are in there.”
“I don’t think so.” Jane’s eyes were clouded again. “It’s been five years since my divorce.”
“Jane, don’t do this to yourself. Relax. I’m sure you’re fine.”
“Am I?” Clearly skeptical, she looked him up and down. “Take you for example,” she said. “You’re gorgeous. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t see you and at least entertain a thought…feel some kind of attraction…”
What did a guy say to that?
“We… I’ve… It’s been two years. We’re together all the time. And I’ve never once…”
Good thing Brad’s ego could afford the hit. Good, too, that relief eased some of the unintentional sting from her words.
“Maybe I’m not your type. And as for other men, you just haven’t been open to it,” he told her. “You’ve blocked that part of yourself. When you’re ready…it’ll be there.”
“I wish I believed that. But after all this time, I just don’t.”
She sounded so…insecure. So lacking in worth. As though she had nothing of value to offer. So unlike the woman who’d, over the past two years, become the first person he called when he had news. The first person he thought of when the electricity went out, when he heard sirens and hoped no one was hurt, when he woke on Christmas morning.
Sex didn’t define a person’s value anyway. But Brad didn’t say so. He knew it would be pointless. He knew from all the work he’d done with abused women that women had a tendency to intermingle personal worth with sexual attractiveness.
“You’re wrong.” His words were forceful. They needed to be. “Unless you don’t do anything about it,” he said, concerned for her. “If you shut yourself off, if you believe you’ll never have those feelings again, you might not.”
“I haven’t shut myself off. I’ve…tried. With partners. And by myself. I even bought a toy off the Internet.”
Jane’s face turned red, but she didn’t look away. She was sitting there, staring at him, completely open, and believing every word she said. Dictating her own life sentence.
Brad couldn’t let that happen. Not to Jane. And he knew he could help her. Just like that.
“Then you haven’t tried hard enough,” he told her. He wasn’t going to let her give up on herself.
“I have. I—”
“Listen.” He cut her off. “I’m going to do something, and when I’m done, you’ll know that you’re all right. And then we’re going to forget it ever happened. Okay?”
She watched him with her eyes wide. And while he stopped breathing, she nodded.
“We will never mention this…interlude. We will never repeat it.”
She nodded again.
He could do this. No problem. He was the perfect choice because he wouldn’t take advantage of her.
Brad was confident until he really looked at the woman sitting next to him. Her dark brown eyes. Perfect skin. Breasts that were so much more than they should be if he was going to not be attracted to them. Why had he never noticed them before?
His fingers brushed her face, her neck, slowly gliding over the softness.
“What are you doing?” Jane stared at him, but didn’t pull back. If she had he would have stopped.
“I’m going to show you what you can feel.” He was strangely unembarrassed by the hoarseness in his voice.
His body was hard and straining against his zipper. He knew how to ignore it.
“Are you game?”
“You’re wasting your time.” The near whisper sounded like a challenge to him.
“I don’t think so.”
“Brad?”
“Shh.” He traced her lips with the pad of his thumb and they parted.
This wouldn’t take long. The rational thought comforted him. One kiss should do it.
He leaned in, touched his lips to hers and lost himself to the burst of fire that shot clear down to his feet.
Brad had had enough women to appreciate when the sex was hot.
And yet when he felt Jane’s lips against his he experienced a jolt so shocking, he felt like a first-timer.
Her eyes were still open, so he deepened the kiss, taking her lips fully with his. And when she didn’t moan with need, he pushed a little further, opening her lips with his tongue.
She tasted of salt and strawberry. And something unknown, but very, very good. He played with her tongue. Teasing it. Exploring.
Alone.
She didn’t resist, but she didn’t join him, either.
Brad pulled away, not sure what he was going to do, and got a glimpse of Jane’s face. Her eyes were almost closed, her features more relaxed than he’d ever seen them.
And yet not. Her mouth was slightly open. Waiting.
She might not be there yet, but she was getting there.
He kissed her again. And when her tongue still remained uninvolved, Brad moved his hand under the hem of her T-shirt, sliding his hand slowly up along the slender curve of her waist, lightly brushing the side of her breast. He thought she jerked a bit at his touch, but he couldn’t be sure.
He couldn’t stop, either. Not until he’d slid a finger inside her bra. Touched her nipple, made it hard and…
It was already hard.
So they were done. He’d aroused her.
He kissed her once more, just to seal the deal with a response from her tongue.
It still didn’t dance with him and he doubted himself. He knew a lot about women. He knew, for instance, that arousal wasn’t the only reason nipples hardened.
And he knew that there was one sure way to tell if a woman was turned on. Brad reached for the button on Jane’s jeans with only one thought in mind. Turn her on and get out.
He had to hand it to her. She was trying as hard as he was. She lifted her body, giving him easier access. And when it became obvious that it wasn’t enough, she lifted her butt off the blanket and let him pull the pants down to her ankles. He took her panties, too, just for the sake of getting the task done quickly.
And when he started to salivate at the sight of her, he ignored the sensation. He had a job to do for his friend.
This wasn’t about him or his needs. His body wasn’t involved. Wasn’t going to do anything. At least not now and never with Jane.
He was simply helping his friend.
At his urging, she spread her legs and his fingers went to work, knowing exactly what to do.
He found his mark on the first try. And discovered that she was already wet.
He could stop.
As soon as he made certain that Jane knew, without a doubt, what she was capable of feeling.
He didn’t look at her face. Couldn’t meet her eyes. He just focused on making her feel good.
And as soon as she’d climaxed, he’d get up and walk away. Let her put herself back together.
That’s what he intended. That’s what he told himself was going to happen.
It didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
MONDAY MORNING Jane was up, showered, had fed Petunia, her delicate and fragile rescue bird, and was on her way into the city from her Chicago suburb home before she was usually out of bed. She had a nine-thirty meeting with her art people and needed to stop at Durango on the way. She’d promised Josie Barker, one of the shelter’s current residents, that she’d help her with her résumé that morning. Josie was applying for a job that could change her life.
And no matter how Jane managed to mess up her own life, she was going to make sure other women had a chance to improve theirs.
Josie was a lucky one. She’d gotten out of her abusive marriage early, before there were children. And before her self-esteem had been irreparably damaged.
“Jane?” Stopping on the steps up to Durango—a nondescript home close to Chicago’s downtown with absolutely no signage or other giveaway characteristics to alert anyone to its true purpose—Jane glanced over her shoulder as she heard her name. Spinning, she recognized the woman coming up the street.
“Kim! What are you doing here?” And then, with a sick feeling in her stomach, she asked, “You aren’t staying here again, are you?”
“No! Don’t worry, I’m fine.” The redheaded, freckle-faced woman stopped at the bottom of the three cement stairs, her hand on the black wrought-iron railing. “I was just coming to drop this off for Josie.” She held up a hanger covered in dry-cleaning wrap. “For her interview. I’m early, actually, but Jason spent the night with my mom and I had way too much time on my hands this morning.” Kim’s cheer seemed forced, a state Jane knew well from her work with damaged women.
“I’m a little early, too,” she said now, her own troubles fading. “Tell me how things are going.”
“Good.” Kim’s red ponytail bobbed. “Really good. Brad’s fantastic, just like you said he would be. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for setting me up with him.”
“Brad volunteers here regularly,” Jane reminded her. “You’d have met up with him eventually if I hadn’t called him.”
Brad. She’d spent all of yesterday trying not to think about him. And all of last night, too.
“But who knows where I’d have been by the time he made his next visit.” Kim shrugged self-consciously. “Anyway, I know he thinks he can’t discuss my case with you, even though I told him he could, so I wanted you to know that I hired a second attorney, Christine Ryan, just to represent Jason.”
“Why?”
The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Because I’m too messed up where Shawn’s concerned to know if I’m doing right by my son, or just knee-jerking. And I need Brad to be looking out for me.”
Shawn. The husband. Whose actions had driven his wife to call the domestic abuse hotline and, with their young son, seek shelter at Durango.
“So he’s still trying to get shared custody?”
“At the moment, I think he’d settle for visitation rights. And I don’t know, Jane. I mean, he never hurt Jason. He really loves him. And Jason misses him so much…”
“Shawn might not have hurt him physically, but I can assure you, Jason has suffered greatly from his father’s aggressive actions.”
Stay strong, Kim, Jane’s inner voice urged. Remember that what Shawn did was wrong. Against the law.
She’d have said the words aloud, but Kim had already heard them many times. It was up to her whether or not she believed them and made choices accordingly. If Jane pushed, she was really no better than Shawn—browbeating Kim into doing what Jane thought was best.
At this stage, she could give Kim validation. Nothing more.
“Anyway,” Kim said, shaking her head, “I’m glad I ran into you. My pastor came up to me at church yesterday and told me that Shawn had talked to him.”
Jane’s nerves stood on alert. “It’s a violation of the protection order for him to use a third party to pass messages to you. Did you call the police?”
“No.” Kim shook her head vehemently. “Shawn didn’t know Pastor Rod was talking to me. I’m sure he’d rather he hadn’t. Anyway, Rod said he’d really struggled with whether or not to say anything to me because of confidentiality issues, but said that he’d rather have betraying a confidence on his conscience than have someone hurt.”
“So what did he say? Does he think that Shawn’s a danger to Jason?”
“No. He thinks he’s a danger to you.”
Jane stepped back, the heel of her pump catching on the cement behind her. “Me?”
“Pastor Rod says that Shawn told him that this is all your fault. He says that if you hadn’t called Brad right away, I’d have come home and given him a chance to apologize. He says he’s lost his son because of you.”
“He lost his son because he doesn’t know how to be a man,” Jane said, forcing her voice to communicate a calm she didn’t feel. Could Shawn be behind the threats she’d been receiving at Twenty-Something? But what “right thing” could he want her to do?
It wasn’t as if she had any power to influence custody orders.
Still, she’d let Detective Thomas know.
“Shawn’s right, though, in one sense,” Kim said, looking down and then back up. “I probably would have done just like he said and gone home and forgiven him.”
Wishing she could take the young woman into her arms and make her world all better, Jane quietly asked, “And do you regret not doing that?”
“No!” The strength with which Kim’s head shot up couldn’t be ignored. “My gosh, Jane, I thank God every single night for you. If not for you, I’d have gone home again and again until he killed me. And maybe Jason, too.”
“And now, if he comes within five hundred feet of you, he goes to jail,” Jane said. “You keep your cell phone with you at all times, and you call the police if you so much as fear that he’s close, right?”
“Right. I thank God for that phone and the protection order, too. Between those and you and Brad, I actually have hope of a life again. But I’m worried sick about you.”
“Don’t be,” Jane assured her. “People like Shawn are cowards. They pick on those who they think won’t hit back. And besides, we know how to keep ourselves safe and what to do if danger approaches. We don’t have to live our lives in fear.”
Jane had had all the self-defense classes right along with the victims at Durango. For cases just like this one. She might not be married to an abusive man, but she helped women who were.
Kim seemed bemused as she peered up at Jane. “You really aren’t scared, are you?”
“No.” Not of Shawn Maplewood at any rate.
“How do you do it?” Kim’s voice was filled with longing. “How have you recovered so completely?”
“Recovered?” Jane asked, unsure what Kim was referring to.
“From your own abuse.”
“What abuse?”
“Well…” Kim frowned. “I mean, I just…the girls and I assumed that since you were here, at Durango, you were, you know, a recovered victim….”
“No, I’m not,” Jane said, and then, something about the other woman’s expression drove her to continue, to talk about the period in her life that she’d kept private for more than five years. Until Saturday.
“I thought I was once,” she said. The admission was no easier the second time around and she wished she’d kept quiet two days before.
About so many things.
“I was married,” she explained anyway. “My ex-husband used to be on me all the time, telling me what a disappointment I was, that kind of thing. I always seemed to be screwing up around him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes. Enough that I wanted to see a counselor. I wish now that I had.” Jane smiled, but without humor.
No humor in her at all these days. She’d had sex with Brad Manchester. She just couldn’t believe it. And couldn’t forgive herself, either.
She should have known better. She’d just screwed up a friendship that she really needed. But Kim didn’t need to hear about that.
“Instead I just tried harder to make it work,” Jane continued.
“You aren’t married now,” Kim said, her blue-eyed gaze serious. “What happened?”
“I caught James with another woman. I got out.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. And that you’re here,” Kim said.
“Me, too.” Jane smiled and reached for the hanger Kim had been switching from one hand to the other. “How about if I take that in for you?”
Kim gratefully released it. “Would you? Thanks. A double latte and a walk in the park before work just might be in order.”
Wishing the young woman well, Jane turned to put her key in the lock.
“Jane?”
Kim’s voice stopped her and she looked back.
“Yeah?”
“I owe you everything for saving my life. I’m worried about Shawn. Be careful. Okay?”
The tears that threatened prevented Jane from replying. She nodded instead.
“And for the record? I think that James guy should rot in hell for what he did to you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
HE SHOULD HAVE CALLED JANE. On Sunday, Brad had taken an impromptu forty-mile bike ride instead. If the bike path had been expanded to its proposed seventy-mile length, he’d probably have gone the distance.
He could do that on a bike, no problem.
Going the distance in his personal life was another issue.
Brad had been around enough to know that some people just didn’t have what it took to commit to a monogamous relationship. He wasn’t convinced he was one of them, but it wasn’t impossible.
He’d already broken one woman’s heart. He was not about to risk doing it again.
And he didn’t have sex with women except casually. For mutual recreational pleasure.
Now there was Jane.
It took Brad five minutes to drive from his home to the offices of Border, Manchester and Willow. Monday morning, while on that drive, Brad finally phoned his friend.
She didn’t pick up.
He didn’t blame her. They’d barely spoken on their hike down the hill on Saturday, other than to assure each other that what had happened would be forgotten. And he’d spent the two-hour trip back to town on the phone.
“Jane, hi, it’s Brad.” Great. He’d stopped identifying himself after a month of hanging out with her. “I was just calling to check on the time for Thursday’s flight. Call me.” He ad-libbed about as well as he’d greeted her.
He’d written down the time of her flight when he’d dropped her off Saturday evening. She was flying to Ohio to meet with Sheila Grant and he’d insisted on taking her to the airport.
He always took her to the airport. And picked her up, too.
Maybe by Thursday he would have forgotten Jane’s long, sexy legs wrapped around his waist—her body grabbing hold of him, welcoming him inside. Maybe.
If Thursday took a hundred years to get here.
JANE CALLED HIM BACK just as he was getting out of court. Brad’s first instinct was to let the call go to voice mail. Communicating through technology devices was probably just what the doctor would order were they to go see someone about the mess they’d gotten themselves into.
He seemed to be all about stupid choices this week. “Hi,” he said, sucking in the crisp spring air outside the courthouse.
“I was afraid you were avoiding me.”
“Of course not.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Lie to me. You’ve never lied to me. Don’t start now.”
There was a difference between lying and sparing someone’s feelings. Like if one of his dates wore a dress he hated and he complimented the color. Or the fabric. Or maybe, in an extreme case, the way it matched…something.
“Okay, I’ve been avoiding you.” This was Jane. They didn’t hide or pull punches.
They didn’t sleep together, either.
“Why?”
He’d reached his car, so he climbed in. He inserted the key in the ignition, but sat there without starting the engine “That answer’s obvious,” he said, somewhat dryly.
“No, it’s really not. Having sex was a mistake. We both said so, and agreed to forget it. It happened but now it’s over. It would be a tragedy if we let fifteen minutes of insanity ruin a great friendship.”
“So you’re really okay with it?”
“I’ve had a moment or two, but overall, yeah, I’m okay with it.”
“And with me?”
“I think so.”
“I didn’t mean it to happen, Jane. You have to know that. It was never my intention to have sex with you. At all.”
“I know.” He couldn’t tell if her chuckle was sincere, or if she was just strong enough to fake it for the sake of their friendship.
“I would never take advantage of you. I just—”
“Brad, it’s okay.” She cut him off, still sounding like the Jane he’d always known. “I was there, too, you know. I could’ve said no.”
Right. She could have. And she hadn’t. He’d been so consumed with his own guilt that he’d lost sight of that part.