Little Secrets

Six

Rita had a sister of her own and two older brothers, so she knew what it was to worry about a sibling. To want to help and not be allowed to. She could understand what Cass was feeling; Rita just didn’t know if she was going to be able to do what the Buchanan family hoped she could. Bring Jack back to them.

“I don’t know if Jack told you, but I’m a doctor.”

She came up out of her thoughts with a jerk. “He did mention that. Family practice, right?”

“Right. Well, speaking as a doctor, not a sister,” Cass said, “I can tell you that Jack’s being affected by PTSD, which you’ve probably already guessed.”

Rita nodded.

“There are so many different levels of this syndrome,” Cass said with a sigh. “I’ve done a lot of reading and studying on it since Jack got home. And I know that the men and women affected by it are all different, so what they go through is different, as well. Naturally, treating it is a bitch. No one can find a standard type of treatment because each case is so wildly dissimilar.”

Rita had come to that conclusion on her own. And it made perfect sense, really. Obviously, something horrible had happened to Jack on his last tour. When he left her six months ago, it was with a promise of a future that had been unsaid, but felt by both of them. And he’d come home for good just two months later, a completely changed man.

“I actually don’t like the PTSD label—the word disorder bothers me. Post-traumatic stress I can get behind. But disorder? No.” Cass shook her head firmly and scowled at what was left of her cookie. “That makes these men and women seem...sick, somehow. When what they are is hurt.” She glanced up at Rita and winced. “Sorry. I didn’t even realize I was climbing onto my soapbox.”

Rita studied her for a minute or two. Not only was she a doctor, but she was the very concerned sister of a man suffering silently. “No apology necessary. I agree with you.”

“Good. Thanks.” Cass ate what was left of the cookie. “I knew at the wedding that I’d like you. And if you can help Jack through this, I’ll love you forever.”

Rita’s heart opened up for the other woman. If one of her own brothers was in pain, she would do anything in her power, ask anyone she could think of, to get him the help he needed. Knowing that the Buchanans, in spite of all their money and power and influence, were as close as her own family made her feel more on solid ground. She could understand the driving need to save family and she liked Cass more for what she’d just confessed. “I’m going to try.”

Cass smiled. “That’s all we can do.”

Rita walked to the wall ovens, opened the doors, then slid the bread trays inside, closed the doors and set the timers. As she wiped down the gray-streaked white marble counter, she asked, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’d love one,” Cass said. “If you’ll join me.”

“No coffee for me yet,” she said sadly, giving her baby bump a gentle rub. “But I’ll have some herbal tea and cookies.”

“That works.” Cass grinned a little. “You know, if you haven’t already lined up a pediatrician, I’d love to be your baby doctor.”

Since she really hadn’t chosen a doctor yet, this was a gift. “Who could be better than my baby’s aunt?”

With Cass’s beaming smile lighting her way, Rita walked to the front of the shop for the tea and coffee. Whatever else had happened today, she hoped she’d made a friend.

* * *

“Your wife is here,” Linda announced over the intercom the very next afternoon.

“What?” Jack looked up from the file he was going over. “Rita?”

“Do you have another wife I don’t know about yet?” Rita asked, sailing into the office with a wide smile on her face. “Thanks, Linda,” she threw over her shoulder as Jack’s assistant grinned, backed out of the office and shut the door.

Rita wore jeans, a white dress shirt and a black sweater over it that matched the black boots on her feet. Her brown curly hair was loose and tumbling around her face. Her brown eyes were shining and that smile pulled him in even as he fought against the draw.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked as she walked through a slant of sunlight pouring through the windows to approach his desk.

“Such a warm welcome. Thanks. I’m glad to see you, too.”

He frowned at the jab and her grin widened in response.

“I brought lunch,” she said simply and held up the dark green cloth bag he hadn’t even noticed until that moment.

Just when he thought he’d figured out how to survive this marriage, she threw a wrench into the whole thing.

Every morning, he drove her to the bakery because damned if she was going to be driving herself through the darkness. Once she was safely inside, he drove back to the office and caught up on the dreaded paperwork that seemed to be what most of his days were made of. At the end of the day, he most often tried to just grab something for dinner and then disappear into his office or his bedroom. Jack knew the only way he was going to make it through the next three months was to keep as much distance between him and Rita as possible.

Damned hard though when she fought him at every turn. She insisted on breakfast at four in the morning. When he could, he avoided having dinner with her and simply escaped into his room or his office and stayed there until she was in bed.

He was living like a fugitive in his own damn apartment. And now, she’d hunted him down at work.

“Nice idea, but—”

“I called Linda to check,” Rita said, interrupting him neatly as she began to empty that bag onto a table set between two overstuffed leather chairs. “She assured me your next appointment wasn’t for two hours, so we have plenty of time for lunch.”

He bit back a curse. What good would it do at this point? Sometimes, he reminded himself, surrender was your only option. “What’ve you got?” he asked.

She flipped her hair back, turned her head to smile at him. “I went to your favorite Chinese place. I’ve got beef and broccoli, chicken chow mein and shrimp fried rice.”

As she opened cartons to spoon the food onto two plates she pulled from her bag, Jack took a breath and drew in the delicious scents. Well, hell, he had to eat sometime, right?

He pushed up from the desk and walked across the room, took one of the chairs and accepted the plate Rita handed him. She grinned at him and his insides rolled over. The woman had power over him, for sure. He was achy and needy most of the time now and he had her to thank for it. Her image was always in his mind. The hunger for her never eased. And having her in his house and still untouchable was harder than he even imagined it would be.

Jack was starting to think she was deliberately trying to seduce him just by acting as though nothing was going on between them. And damned if it wasn’t working.

“Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, and sat down in the chair opposite him. She dug into the bag again, and came up with two bottles of water, two sets of chopsticks and a stack of napkins.

“So,” she said, “how’re things in the megabusiness world?”

The food looked delicious and smelled amazing. He took a bite, savored it, then said, “Buying, selling. How’s the bakery?”

She shrugged. “Measuring, mixing, baking.”

Her eyes were shining, her smile was hypnotic and she smelled even better than the food. Jack was on dangerous ground already. Having her invade the office he thought of as his own personal cave wasn’t helping anything. Now he’d be seeing her here, even when she wasn’t. There had to be boundaries. For everyone’s sake.

“Why’re you really here?” he asked. “Isn’t the bakery busy enough for you?”

“Oh, it really is. But Casey’s a great manager.” She took a sip of water. “As you said yourself, I’m the boss, I can take a break when I want to.”

Tough having your own words thrown back at you and used against you.

“I can’t,” he said, but he kept eating the chow mein. It really was good. “Look, I appreciate this, but it’s not something that should become a habit.”

“Really?” She tipped her head to one side. “Why not?”

“Because we both have work,” he said and knew it sounded lame. But off the cuff it was the best he had.

“Uh-huh.” Thoughtfully, she took another bite of her broccoli, then asked, “Sure it’s not because you’re trying to avoid being around me?”

“If that were true,” he countered, “why would I have married you?”

“Such a good question.” She took another bite. “Have an answer?”

This was not going well. He was losing a battle he hadn’t even been aware he’d entered. “You know why we got married.”

“The baby.”

“Exactly. This wasn’t about us having lunch or dinner together,” he pointed out, but hadn’t stopped eating yet. “This isn’t about cozy nights at home, Rita, and you know it. It’s an arrangement with an expiration date.”

“Hmm. And, it wasn’t about you driving me to work every morning either and yet...” She shrugged again, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Well, he’d stepped right into that one.

“That’s different,” he argued. “You used to live above the bakery now you have to drive to work—”

“Six miles,” she threw in.

“This isn’t about the distance, it’s about safety.” He took a drink of water. “I’m not letting you drive through the city alone in the middle of the night when it’s just as easy for me to drive you.”

“So you’re worried about my safety. That doesn’t sound disinterested to me,” she mused, taking another bite.

“Being concerned doesn’t mean worried.” Though he was. Hell, the thought of her driving alone through the city in the middle of the night gave him chills. What if she got a flat tire? Or the car just died? Or something happened with the baby?

She took another bite and watched him as she chewed and swallowed. Sunlight filtered through the windows and made her dark hair shine with golden highlights. Just watching her chew had his body going on red alert. It was that mouth, he told himself. That full, generous, completely kissable mouth that was doing him in.

“You work so hard to pretend that you’re oblivious to me and your family, but it’s not working.”

His frown deepened and rather than argue, he took another bite of his lunch.

“Look it up in a dictionary, Jack. Concerned means worried. And that’s exactly what you are. Worried, I mean. Oh, don’t say anything,” she said, waving her chopsticks when he started to deny it, “I know it bothers you to be worried, so that’s almost the same as not being, unless you think about it carefully and then it’s exactly the same thing and you don’t want to recognize that, do you?”

Jack stared at her. “What?”

Shaking her head she took a sip of water, “Nothing, never mind. Doesn’t matter right now. I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but your sister came to the bakery to see me yesterday.”

His head snapped up. Suddenly, her conversation was taking several different paths at once and none of them were making sense. “Cass?”

“You have two sisters as well as two wives?” she asked, teasing.

“Funny.” That smile was really hard to resist and he was pretty sure she knew it since she kept flashing it at him.

“A little, maybe.” She shrugged again. “Anyway, Cass wanted to talk about you, big surprise.”

Well, there went the appetite. He set his plate aside, reached for his water and took a long drink. “That’s what this visit is about then,” he said. “What Cass had to say.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, sending those brown curls into a wild dance that made him want to spear his fingers through them. “I was coming to surprise you anyway. This just gives us more to talk about.”

“No, thanks.” He took another drink, half wishing it was a beer. “I’m not interested in conversations and besides, I have to get back to work.”

“No you don’t,” she said, setting her plate aside, too. “You’re just trying to get rid of me again.”

“Again?”

She sighed. “Jack, you avoid me every chance you get. The penthouse is big, but not so big that we shouldn’t run into each other more often. But you see to it that we don’t.” She ran one hand lovingly over her baby bump, but her gaze never left his. “Even when I trap you into breakfast in the morning, you just bolt it down and dodge every attempt at conversation.”

“Four thirty in the morning, not the best time for chats.”

“What’s your excuse then for dinner?” Still shaking her head, she said, “Usually, you grab an apple or something and disappear into your office. Or if you do sit down with me, we don’t talk. Heck, you hardly look at me directly.”

It was too damn hard to look at her. To want her so badly it was a constant, driving ache inside. He was paying, daily. His atonement continued and he could only hope that he survived it somehow.

“Rita...”

“Your family’s worried about you.”

He scraped both hands across his face, then stood up, unable to sit still any longer. “You don’t have to tell me about my own family.”

“Are you sure?” She stood up, too, and faced him, toe-to-toe. A part of him admired that spine of hers. He’d liked it right off, from the moment they met and she hadn’t been afraid. But right now, he wished she was more cautious, less ready for a confrontation.

“They want to help you and they don’t know how,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

“I didn’t ask for help,” he reminded her tautly. “I can deal with things my own way.”

“Not so far,” she countered and folded her arms across her middle.

His eyes narrowed on her. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“Then tell me,” she challenged, moving closer, tipping her head back to meet his eyes. “And if not me, Jack, tell someone.”

“Therapy?” He laughed, shook his head and shoved one hand through his hair. “Yeah, not needing a couch, or some stranger poking around in my head. No, thanks.”

“Tough marine doesn’t need anyone, is that it?”

He glanced at her, read frustration clearly in her eyes but there was nothing he could do about it. “Close enough.”

“Well, you’re wrong, Jack,” she said and this time when she moved closer, she laid one hand on his chest, right over his heart. Silently, he wondered if she felt the staccato beat beneath her palm. If she had the slightest clue what she did to him.

“Even marines are human, Jack. Even marines can’t fix everything solo.” She stared up into his eyes and he was unable to look away. “People need each other. That’s why we have families, Jack. Because we’re stronger together. Because we can count on each other when things get hard.”

He ground his teeth together and fought for patience. He knew she meant well. Hell, he knew they all meant well. But they couldn’t help unless he talked and he wasn’t going to talk about it. About any of it.

Through gritted teeth, he said softly, “I’m fine, Rita.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” she said. “That’s why you don’t have to set an alarm to get up at four a.m., because you can’t sleep but you’re fine.”

He jerked his head back to give her a glare. “How the hell do you know I can’t sleep?”

“I can hear you, moving around the apartment, going out onto the terrace...”

Apparently, he wasn’t as stealthy as he liked to think. And he had to ask himself, if he’d known she was awake, too, would he have gone to her? Tried to lose himself and the dreams that dogged him in the warmth of her embrace? Would he have given in to the insistent urge to take her, to find the heat and the welcome he’d once found in her arms? He didn’t know the answer and that worried him.

“Sorry,” he said tightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll be quieter.”

“Oh, Jack, that’s not what I meant at all,” she said and rested her hand on his forearm. “I’m right here. Let me in. Am I so scary you can’t talk to me?”

For the first time ever, he was tempted to do just that. To just start talking and in the talking, maybe the images in his head would start to fade. Looking down into those compelling eyes of hers, he could feel himself weakening, in spite of the promise he’d made to himself. That he would never talk about the past, because doing that kept it alive. Kept it vivid. But hadn’t it stayed alive despite his silence?

“I’m not going to do that.” He shook his head and gave a halfhearted laugh. “Besides, one thing you’re not, Rita, is scary.”

“I can be, when pushed. Just ask my brothers.”

Gaze still locked with hers, he lifted one hand, smoothed her hair back and briefly let himself enjoy the silky feel of it against his skin. Her emotions crowded those whiskey-brown eyes of hers and her teeth tugged at her bottom lip. God, she was beautiful. He wished...

“Let it be, Rita,” he said quietly. “Just let it be.”

“You know I can’t.”

She stared up at him and he fisted his hands at his sides to keep from grabbing her, burying his face in the curve of her neck and drawing her scent deep inside him. She made him feel too much and he couldn’t allow that. He was done with caring. Done with letting others care about him. It was the safest way.

Finally, she lifted both hands and cupped his face in her palms. Heat from her body poured into his and still couldn’t thaw the knot of ice he carried deep inside. “Rita, just leave my secrets in the past. Where they belong.”

Looking deeply into his eyes, Rita shook her head. “They’re not staying in the past, Jack. They’re right here, surrounding you, cutting you off from me. From everyone. So no, I won’t let it be. Not a chance.”

* * *

Rita couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the confrontation/ lunch with Jack two days before. Maybe it was the baby, who had decided to start training as a gymnast while still in the womb. And maybe it was just the whirring sounds of her own thoughts spinning frantically in her mind. Whatever it was, though, pulled her from bed and sent her pacing the penthouse.

It was beautiful, she had to admit, though it was a little impersonal for her. Beige walls, gleaming wood floors and comfortable, if boring, furniture. There were generic paintings on the walls and in the penthouse kitchen, the appliances were top-of-the-line, but the dishware was buy-a-box-of-plates-style.

Nothing in the place spoke of Jack. It was as if some decorator had come in, put in inoffensive furniture and left it at that, expecting whoever lived there to eventually make it their own. But apparently Jack had no interest in putting his own stamp on the place. Here, like everywhere else in his life, he was simply an observer. As if he were a placeholder for the real person who hadn’t arrived yet.

Rita curled up on the forest green couch, pulled a throw pillow onto her lap and wrapped her arms around it.

For two days, she’d been determined to make Jack interact with her. She refused to let him lock himself away in his office once he returned to the penthouse. She made dinner and forced him to talk to her over a meal. She told him all about what was happening at the bakery and peppered him with questions about his work.

She didn’t understand half of what he was talking about—with cargo containers and shipping schedules, but at least he was talking. She asked questions about his family and listened when he told her stories from his childhood, the fishing trips, the cabin they used to have in Big Bear.

And though she was managing to keep him engaged, it was a lot of work. The man spoke grudgingly and she had to practically drag information from him. But it was better than letting him brood alone. Still, her heart hurt because she wasn’t getting to him. She wasn’t any closer now to finding the real Jack than she had been when she married him.