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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
The Third Highway Series Part 20:
Payback's a Witch
Chapter 1
Witch1
Parker Residence
Blue Cove, Delaware
She woke up swearing, yanking the covers back and fumbling for the alarm clock. Three twenty-eight, A.M., and whoever was pounding on her front door was DEAD, that much she knew for certain. She pulled on a silk robe, fuming, wondering what poor son of a bitch had thought whatever it was couldn't wait until the morning--the real morning, the one when people were actually awake.
On the way to the door other possibilities rose upward through her rage, and she bit back the anger as worry diluted it. There was always her father to consider, perhaps he'd come to his senses and was running away from that woman he'd proposed to like a total, flaming idiot. By the time she jerked the door open she was expecting anything but who she saw standing on her front step.
Jarod.
"Truce?" he said warily, with a small, rather cynical smile. A smirk, actually, that damned smug little smirk of his. She noticed his downward glance even though he tried to hide it and was pleased that he was frightened enough to look for her gun. Which she didn't have, of course: no, that would be too easy.
She bit her lip, standing there looking at him, almost surprised she hadn't expected it would be him. This was the fourth time it had happened, him just showing up in the middle of the night. It wasn't as though it had become a habit--yet--but they had developed what amounted to a set of rules:
No guns, no handcuffs--even in play--nothing that might be misinterpreted. No shop talk, no discussion of the Centre at all, no questions about where he'd been or was going, none about her alleged efforts to find him. She'd learned that if she broached the subject of her mother's death, he became infuriatingly smug, teasing her by clearly with-holding whatever information he had. It annoyed her so much she'd decided not to go near that subject, either.
And he'd learned not to seek comfort beyond the pleasure her body gave him. Anything like genuine tenderness was unacceptable, to ask for or try to give. He suspected she was fully capable of compassion, but not to him, not now, not here. Perhaps never, he couldn't tell.
In fact, mostly they didn't talk at all. It reminded him of how it had been at first between himself and Laura: sex without words, sex without even friendship.
Which of course was why he kept coming back, and she knew it. It was a game, really, an elaborate, dangerous game, where they flaunted the risks they were taking and dared each other to keep going further with it. She liked that, and, standing there, looking at him, she couldn't help but smile in a predatory, silken way. She enjoyed having something he wanted so badly he'd take those risks and no matter how self-assured he acted, she enjoyed the feeling that she was really the one in control.
Of course, she didn't know the other part of it, that Jarod was arriving as soon as he could after leaving Laura, that he'd gone as directly as humanly possible from her bed to Parker's house. He only wished he could get them physically closer together. The full fantasy--both women in his bed at the same time--had taken complete hold of his libido some time before.
The most difficult part was trying to keep Laura from finding that out. She'd told him--and he believed her--that she could no longer read his thoughts the way she once had. Once she'd fallen in love with him, that ability got confused, evidently. Still, he was careful to keep his fantasies of a three-some a bit below the surface while he was making love to Laura. Not that he was certain how she'd react, she was still unpredictable to him. Possibly she'd be amused, or even willing to give it a try. You never knew, with Laura: she seemed willing to explore the world of the senses as fully as possible.
Parker, though, that was a different story. He suspected she thought he'd started coming to her because he'd left Laura. He instinctively knew she'd kill him if she knew the truth.
Which only made the entire fantasy that much more exciting, of course.
She reached out and grabbed his jacket, pulling him inside the house.
"Is this your idea of foreplay?" he asked slyly as she tugged him after her toward her bedroom.
"You're the one who keeps coming back for more," she replied huskily.
"Only because you don't know how to find me," he told her, turning her around to face him and pushing the robe off her shoulders and down her long, slender arms.
She was wearing a wisp of silk underneath--a pale blue chemise with thin straps over her shoulders. He reached down and kissed her naked skin just above the nightgown's deep neckline, and then moved back to breathe against the small, firm mound of a breast, watching the fabric tighten as she strained forward toward his lips and the visible erection of her nipple. He ran a fingertip lightly around it, feeling her shiver, then pushed the narrow straps off her shoulders so the chemise drifted down over her body and unto the floor.
He liked that, her being naked while he was fully clothed. It made him incredibly aroused, her vulnerability, the slim, elegant body, all hard planes and smooth skin.
She grabbed his head in both her hands and drew him upward, kissing his mouth, rubbing herself against him, her tight, hard nipples tracing a pattern on the black leather of his jacket.
He tugged his belt undone and worked the zipper of his fly down with one quick motion, meanwhile shoving her backward, walking her toward the rumpled bed, pushing her down on it and kneeling between her sweetly spread legs. He was as undressed as he planned on getting for awhile. He ran his hands lasciviously down the length of her body again and again, ending up with his hands under her firm buttocks, pulling her pelvis into his.
She guided his erection into her warmth and wetness without any further preliminaries, and that reminded him of Laura too, how sex was a demand that was made of him, with an implied threat. Do me right or get out. Fuck me good or I'll kill you. He wasn't sure what it was, actually, but he knew that with both women there were things required of him that didn't have much to do with affection.
Jarod levered himself up off her and looked down at her, drawing a fingertip over the flatness of her abdomen and downward through the crisply curling pubic hair to find the small, hard little button of her clitoris. She arched her back and pressed her pelvis up higher, but he withdrew all but the final inch or so of his penis.
"Oh, god, I want you to fuck me!" she demanded with a moan, pushing against him. But when he paused and started to move his hand away, needing to thrust himself into her deeper, she literally growled at him: "Don't stop doing that!"
"Make up your mind," he teased, fighting admirably for self control, "I can't do both at the same time."
"That's what I want," she panted, "I want everything!"
Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he recognized that was the truth, that she and Laura both wanted just that: everything.
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Suquamish Island, Washington State
Laura was standing on the deck looking out over the sound toward Seattle--she could see the faint glow in the sky that marked it's presence. She sighed, shivered slightly and pulled her sweater more tightly around her as the breeze off the water chilled her.
What she was, she realized, was lonely--and depressed--a feeling that was as unfamiliar as it was uncomfortable. She turned and looked back inside her house through the big windows, trying to see it with fresh eyes. She'd lived there nearly three years, and it was difficult not to simply see 'home', but to try to appraise it objectively. All the stuff she'd acquired--furniture, books, photographs--seemed cold and unsatisfying as she glanced around the living room from outside. She walked further along the deck and looked into her bedroom and it seemed cold somehow, as well, in spite of being cozily lit. It was empty, utterly, irredeemably empty, and it made her sad.
Joe was spending the night at the house he'd just bought on Lake Washington. She could have gone there, of course, it wasn't that she was unwelcome. In fact, he'd been pressuring her for months to spend the weeknights there with him. He'd tried living on her island full time, but the commute back and forth to his office in Seattle was simply too much, not to mention the times he'd been called out on emergencies in the middle of the night. Laura hadn't thought plastic surgeons GOT emergency calls, but she'd found out that when some idiot had a car wreck and needed his face sewn back on, Joe was more often than not the one who got the call. Plus there were his regular patients, who turned out to be a bunch of total wimps as far as Laura was concerned: no one could handle even slight discomfort, people completely panicked over the slightest post-op pain, and they all wanted the big strong doctor to hold their hands while they whined.
How people who signed on for totally elective surgery could justify their continual whining about how they felt afterwards, Laura couldn't fathom.
The result, though, was the house on the lake and Laura spending a lot more nights alone than she wanted to.
As for Jarod, who knew where he was? That certainly hadn't changed. He had showed up--just when she'd thought she was finally getting over him, with Joe's help--but of course he'd then disappeared again without warning or explanation. One morning she woke up and he was simply gone. She never had gotten around to explaining about Joe. She'd meant to, she really had. Fortunately, Joe had been out of town for a few days looking at private schools for his daughter. Of course, it was pretty clear a man had been living in her house: Joe's clothes were in the closet, his stuff in the bathroom. Jarod had nonchalantly moved things aside to make room for his own. He hadn't asked a single question. It had been, actually, really weird.
Laura sighed again, staring at the big, relentlessly empty bed. She knew that huge blocks of her life had been spent waiting around for some man or another to show up and want to lie down there with her, and it wasn't making her happy. It was just like Jarod, actually, to pretend not to notice Joe's stuff, or whatever he'd been doing. And it had pissed her off so much that Laura got equally stubborn about not bringing it up. Still, it hadn't furthered anything but unhappiness, all the way around. Jarod had left as suddenly as ever, leaving her wondering what exactly she would have done if Joe had come back sooner than expected.
She was having difficulty making even the simplest decision, lately, and trying to decide between Jarod and Joe seemed as impossible a task as trying to decide whether or not to move into Joe's new house at least part time. The island was her home, and she loved its incredible privacy, as well as its beauty. She really didn't want to give that up, even only during the week.
Of course, it was more than that. By moving into Joe's house she'd be making a clear choice and, in a sense, leaving Jarod. He certainly would no longer be able to just show up whenever he felt like, stay as long as it suited him, and then disappear again. Technically, he shouldn't be able to do that now, not with Joe living with her part time. And yet she'd let him.
Laura had known even before she'd heard the distinctive low purr of the Boston Whaler as it approached from her dock on the mainland--it had been in her thoughts that morning as soon as she awoke--that Jarod was on his way. She'd seriously considered hiding Joe's clothes, but then given up on the idea. Right up until the moment Jarod bounded up the steps from the dock and scooped her up in her arms she'd been absolutely certain that she was going to tell him about Joe as soon as she saw him. Laura was going to sit him down, very grown up and serious, and tell him she'd met a great guy and fallen in love, that he'd left his wife and kids for her and had been talking about marriage a lot and she was going to go for it. She'd practiced what she'd say, over and over again, while waiting for Jarod to show up:
"Look, Jarod, it's been wonderful--you've been wonderful--and I DO love you, but I need to think about my future. What we have together only works if I don't ask for more than what you can give. Which is a lot when you're here, but how often is that? Then there's that Parker bitch. What do you really expect me to think about that, when I damned well know that as soon as you're done screwing me you're there, screwing her?"
She'd planned it all so carefully. there was even a long passage about how she'd always love him and would--of course!--always be there if he needed help or a place to stay, but that now she needed to move on as far as love went, and she'd fallen so hard for Joe she really didn't feel any sexual desire for Jarod anymore anyway.
Within three minutes of his tying the Whaler up at the dock he was inside her--they hadn't even made it in off the deck--and, while she had by no means forgotten Joe, who was a passionate lover, himself, she had certainly forgotten all her pretty speeches about acting responsibly and maturely.
And since then she'd pretty much given up, not on Jarod, but on herself, given up on ever being able to make the 'right' decisions or even know which ones they were. She had great sex with Joe, and she had great sex with Jarod. She was madly in love with Joe, and she was still insanely crazy about Jarod. Nothing had changed nothing, she realized, and her only decision was that she couldn't decide.
The only bright spot in the whole mess was that she'd begun to understand why Jarod couldn't leave that Parker woman alone. He'd told her repeatedly that he loved both of them, and now she realized that was probably true. Of course, she partly suspected a lot of what both she and Jarod felt for the others in this four-way love affair was a hopeless clinging to fantasy. Jarod wanted the childhood he'd had stolen from him, and loving the woman who he'd dreamed of possessing one day was his way of trying to grasp that impossible chimera and hold on to it.
And Joe, Laura realized, was perhaps her last shot at fitting in, however tenuously, to normal society, to having anything like a normal life, with a husband, step-kids, in-laws, the whole schmalz-ridden, unrealistic, Disney-fried ball of hopelessly boring wax.
And she wanted it desperately, she ached for it as much as she ached for Jarod. She'd gone with Joe to watch his son compete in some stupid prep-school tennis tournament, for god's sake, and she'd agonized over what to wear, actually buying more 'sensible' looking shoes, and been so ridiculously proud and happy to sit demurely next to Joe in the stands, pretending to care what the score was, even though she could feel the whispering all around them about the 'witch' that had stolen that good, kind man from his dear, sweet ex-wife.
If only they knew, she'd thought with a warm, malicious inner grin, if only the pin-headed, status-obsessed, conservative-shoes-wearing, knee-jerk-Republican-voting, big-stupid-car-driving, brain-dead lot of them KNEW, knew what she really was, knew what she could do if she let it rip. She'd been tempted to try to conjure up a thunderstorm--or maybe try for having it rain frogs for awhile--or levitate a few of their white bread asses right out of the bleachers.
Joe had run a hand up her thigh under cover of the printed program, and she'd felt him shiver a bit when he discovered her garter belt. He'd become as obsessed with her lingerie as Jarod had ever been, and she'd watched him shift the program over to his lap with a sly smile. "I could do you right here," she'd whispered, "right now." But she doubted he knew how sincerely she meant it.
She could have, she'd had sex with Jarod in front of a crowd--and they'd applauded, too! Joe, she knew, didn't really get it, either, he had no idea what or who she really was. There was some kind of special joy in that for Laura, although it was cold comfort when she looked into Joe's eyes and realized that she was--once again, would she ever learn?--as caught by her own love spell as he was.
She had no idea where any of it was leading. She was as gaspingly in love with Jarod as ever, and now she was just as head over heels about Joe. On some level there was reassurance in that--she figured things really couldn't get a whole hell of a lot worse--but there was also a component of sheer panic in her recent behavior. She'd been acting impulsively, even for her, buying things she didn't need, snapping at people irritably, going back and forth between extremes of joy and uncharacteristic despair. She'd developed a bizarre tendency to burst into tears without good reason, and a sappy, romantic streak that she'd never guessed was hidden inside her had lately been creeping out. That was Joe's fault, she figured: he had the most charming way of saying and doing things that she would have found trite and silly in another man, and turning them instead into wonderful, genuine emotional connection between them.
He sent her flowers, for example, with gushy notes. He said really complimentary about her, intentionally, in front of other people. He had a way of looking at her, with lingering, loving eye contact, that made her actually blush in public. It wasn't because it was sexual, it was exactly the opposite: he looked like he loved her, as a person, not just as a sex doll. It was, she realized once she'd met his kids, the way he looked at THEM. That realization had shocked her at much as anything in her life. And she doubted it had anything at all with the love spell she had cast on him: a spell could create need and desire and obsessive lust, but it couldn't make someone actually LIKE another person.
And then there was the whole doctor thing. After all, specialty aside, he was an MD, first of all, and it showed. He was honestly a caring person, he hated to see anyone in pain or discomfort, and would do whatever he could to help others. Compassion oozed out of his pores, and it was never the fake kind, which is always so obvious. Joe liked people, he had a natural empathy for others, and he was kinder to Laura on a simple, day-to-day level, than anyone had ever been to her in her life.
And she reveled in it, basked in it, breathed it in like air, like life itself. He made her feel safe.
Not that it wasn't also about sex. They had remarkable sex, actually: once he'd gotten over his almost brutal initial need for her, Joe had turned out to be as empathetic in bed as in an exam room. Laura had begun to suspect that his connection with others was a psychic skill--he certainly seemed to be able to reach her thoughts and needs when he made love to her. They'd developed that, over time, and both sensed the deep bond between them, although neither had succeeded in putting it into words.
And yet when Jarod had showed up she'd put all of that at risk instantly, without thought. Partly, of course, because she never knew, with Jarod, when it might be very literally the last time. What he did was inherently dangerous--at times almost ridiculously so--and she knew that there were those at the Centre still panting for a chance to lock him up again, even if the Parker woman seemingly had developed her own, personal agenda as far as Jarod was concerned. So Laura had never willingly given up a chance at him, at spending time with him or just fucking him, because it could always be the last time.
Still, that didn't fully explain why she'd blithely risked losing Joe. She understood that she was ambivalent about her possible future with him, that part of her didn't want to give up her utter freedom and bite-me attitude about life. She liked being able to do whatever she choose, and she knew that whether she actually married Joe or not, there would need to be compromises made. Which is where things got muddied in her mind.
She was frightened she would prove inadequate, that when push came to shove and she would be required to give up even a small part of her independence, she'd bristle and get her back up about it. She had a long, bitter history of being hostile to authority figures, especially male ones. And Joe could be rather demanding. To a degree, he expected other people to accommodate his needs, his very traditional family background had been reinforced by his job and part of his aura of confidence and competence hinged on the respect he got from society. He was a doctor, after all, and society groveled a bit to all MD's. His (mostly female) patients did, and his (entirely female) staff did , as well. Even his nurse, who'd worked with him for nearly eight years, still always called him "Dr. Marchione", even outside of the office.
Laura had never treated him like that. She'd respected his abilities, as a doctor, but it hadn't made her feel inferior to him. She often thought the simple equality with which she treated him was part of why he'd been attracted to her, that it was refreshing. But she'd learned that there were times when Joe expected her to fit her schedule to his, and she wondered if in time that would make her resentful.
But it didn't, yet. She found that she enjoyed having to take another person into account when making plans. For her, THAT was 'refreshing'. Still, the future concerned her, and she knew that her immediate, reckless response to Jarod's return into her life was exactly the sort of acting-out behavior that could sabotage all her hopes of having a stable life with Joe. But she also knew that if Jarod showed up again, at that moment, she'd do the same thing again.
She sighed and closed her eyes in despair of finding an answer. As lame as it felt to admit it, this was a classic 'what will be, will be' situation. She didn't like it, but it appeared only time what tell where the whole messy soap opera that her life had become was headed.
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
Sydney certainly hadn't been expecting the call, but, at the same time, it hadn't surprised him to hear Jarod's voice, either. Their bond had, in many ways, never been broken--Jarod had seen to that. And at times it felt as if literally nothing had changed, when Jarod reached out for guidance, just as he always had.
Still, Sydney had to admit that there was an irony in Jarod seeking him out for advice on this particular subject.
"How do people know, Sydney, when they want to marry someone?" Jarod had begun the conversation by asking, with no preamble.
He had answered by making a rather obvious point: "But I've never been married, Jarod. What would make you think I could answer that question?"
"You would have married Michelle if the Centre had let you, Sydney," Jarod had reminded him.
"That was a very long time ago," Sydney had countered. "I'm not sure my personal memories of those feelings--"
"Cut the crap, Sydney," Jarod had impatiently interrupted. "'Those feelings' are still THERE, and you know it! Besides, all I'm asking for is some sort of reassurance that anyone ever really knows . . . for sure . . . "
Sydney sighed and shook his head slightly. Jarod had always posed impossible questions, and that had not changed. Besides, there was the matter of who exactly Jarod was talking about, another perilous consideration.
"Perhaps if I knew more about the particular circumstances, Jarod . . . For example, this woman, is it anyone I know?"
It was Jarod's turn to pause. He knew exactly what Sydney was thinking, and understood the degree to which Sydney disliked Laura. He couldn't resist a small bluff:
"What would you say if I told you it's a co-worker?"
Sydney's eyes opened wide in disbelief. He had for some time suspected that Parker had some personal dealings with Jarod. She of course had never confided in him about it. And he understood that they had a special, long-term attraction to each other. He even knew that it had, since Jarod's escape, become frankly sexual. Still, even the idea of Jarod proposing marriage to Miss Parker was . . . ludicrous. There was no other word for it.
"Jarod, this is hardly a matter for jokes," Sydney sternly reprimanded.
"What do you know: you actually got my joke! You may have a sense of humor after all, Sydney," Jarod replied quickly. But there was a sadness behind the words, and Sydney heard it.
"Jarod, I can only say that if you are referencing the . . . person I suspect you may be . . . " he let the thought die out unfinished.
It was Jarod's turn to sigh. There was a bit of a challenge in Sydney's statement, and he knew it. Either he loved Laura enough to face Sydney's anger at the idea of his marrying her, or he didn't. Sydney had trapped him. The conversation was no longer clinical and objective, and safely about other people, as he had intended. It was now about himself and Laura, and that's where Sydney would keep it. If Jarod had honestly hoped that Sydney would provide a real answer to a real question, he was once again proven wrong.
"I wanted to know about what other people feel, Sydney," Jarod pressed, trying to salvage the conversation. "It's a question about human nature in general more than about . . . "
"Laura," Sydney finished the sentence, "in particular."
There was a long pause. Neither man knew where to go with the increasingly uncomfortable conversation.
Finally, Jarod simply hung up.
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Suquamish Island
Once again, he had managed to surprise her. The caterers had called from the mainland asking her to send a boat over for them, but it had taken the owner a great deal of effort to overcome Laura's suspicions and paranoia. He never had directly given her a name--part of the deal was keeping that secret--but he'd had to give Laura some pretty broad hints before she accepted that the whole thing wasn't a setup by the Centre to kidnap her to get to Jarod.
Once on the island, they had taken over her kitchen and dining room, literally blocking her from entering either room. They'd brought a florist, as well, and the house was suddenly filled with flowers. She'd seen armfulls of blooms disappear into her bedroom, and the boat had made a return trip to bring over a veritable tropical forest of full-sized exotic plants, along with a string quartet who had set up in one corner of the living room. They were playing something lush, baroque and sparkling: Vivaldi, she guessed, although her knowledge of classical music was minimal and she fully intended to keep it that way.
The house filled with wonderful cooking smells, candles were lit everywhere by two bustling young women in traditional black and white uniforms, and she felt anticipation knot her stomach in a not-unpleasant manner. She was as much a sucker for big, romantic gestures as any other woman, although she tried to pretend otherwise. Jarod knew that all to well. And so did Joe. Which led to a rather unusual situation as she heard the second Boston Whaler approaching once again through the chop of the Strait.
She had no idea which man to expect. Both were fully capable of orchestrating this almost operatic stageplay of over-the-top romanticism. Both had demonstrated their love of surprising her. Both had developed their proclivity for showing up on her door step unannounced to a fine art.
Laura had decided to fully exploit the mood, putting on a boned, black velvet bustier whose long sleeves started only at the level of it's low décolleté, leaving her shoulders bare. She'd added a poufy, full length skirt layered from shimmering, metallic organza that swirled around her as she walked, the whole Jessica McClintock fantasy accented with an antique pearl choker and six carat diamond pendant Joe had given her, and pearl and diamond drop earrings from Jarod. She ran a hand nervously through her hair as the Whaler drew up to the dock in the twilight. She caught the flash of black and white: whoever it was, he was wearing evening clothes.
And she had no idea, at that moment, who to hope it was, just starting up the steps toward the house. For once, life seemed to have dealt her a win-win situation.
"God, you look great!" Joe said. He kissed her throat, then her mouth. "Surprised?" he asked.
She looked at him with innocent eyes. It took no prevarication whatsoever for her to answer, "Completely!" Until she'd seen his face, she'd decided it all had to be Jarod's doing, that even Joe didn't have a deep enough romantic streak to pull this off.
He laughed. "As if you didn't know the instant the caterers showed up!" he told her. He caught the flash of guilt that played across her face, though, and added: "Or do you have another guy stashed away who would go through this much trouble just to get lucky tonight?"
Laura smiled disingenuously, hoping her panic didn't show. As far as Joe knew, she hadn't seen or heard from Jarod in months. "I'm just surprised you still think I'm worth this much bother, Joe," she said, which wasn't a lie. "By now you should know I'm easy."
But he held her chin for a moment, tilting it up so he could look into her eyes. "You do know I can be insanely jealous, right?" he asked.
She saw his little smile but also heard the edge in his voice. There was something there, she knew, a suspicion. She had refused to spend the weekdays with him in his house, saying she liked the island's privacy too much to give it up. He hadn't ever said that made him mistrust her. Suddenly she understand it had.
But she only shrugged lightly. "So it's true what they say about Italian men . . . " she said, and let the thought trail off.
He smiled, then, and let go of her chin. "As long as you know that," he said, "as long as you realize there's a reason for all those clichés."
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Broots Residence
Blue Cove, Delaware
He was paying only minimal attention to Millennium when the phone rang--although he believed in many conspiracy theories, himself, they weren't of the supernatural sort. Besides, he found the very real Miss Parker a whole lot scarier than the fictional killers featured each week on the show--not to mention Mr. Raines, who could make his blood turn to ice water across the room. Still, he found the show interesting enough to waste an hour on, once his daughter Debbie was asleep and he could pop open a beer and relax.
"Hello?" he answered warily, thinking it might be one of Debbie's friends. As she got older, the calls kept coming in later, although it was nearly eleven P.M. and he was planning on telling whoever it was never to call so late again.
"Well, hello, Mr. Broots," Jarod said, as casually as if they spoke every day.
Broots pulled the receiver back and actually stared at for a long moment, he was that surprised. And frightened--he felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise and he shivered. Jarod calling him was NOT good news. Whatever the reason, he knew immediately it would mean trouble, maybe lots of trouble.
"What's wrong, Mr. Broots?" Jarod teased. "Cat got your tongue?" Of all the expressions of speech he had learned since he escaped from the Centre, it was his favorite. He wasn't sure why, except that it always conjured up the most wonderful visual image in his mind.
"Jarod!" Broots exclaimed unnecessarily. "Why are you calling me? You call Miss Parker or Sydney, never me!"
"Now how would you know so much about my telephone habits, Mr. Broots? You haven't been listening in, have you?"
That really made Broots panic: he hadn't of course, and he really didn't want to get into a conversation with Jarod about what he did and didn't know. He was starting to sweat.
"What do you want, Jarod?" he asked in a distraught whisper. "Do you have any idea what they'd do to me, if they knew I talked to you?"
"I can imagine," Jarod replied tersely. "But you can relax. This isn't about business. It's personal: just an innocent phone call between friends. To chat."
Broots swallowed, trying desperately to make sense of a situation he felt was spiraling out of control. He always suspected Jarod meant exactly the opposite of what he said, which placed the call in an increasingly ominous light.
"Chat?" he asked weakly. "I can't talk to you, Jarod! I'm supposed to be--you know, trying to find you. For them."
"Tell me about your wife," Jarod asked, totally unexpectedly.
"What?" Broots blurted in a breathless whisper.
"I should say, 'ex-wife', of course," Jarod continued smoothly, as if the phone call and the conversation were the most normal thing in the world. "How did you meet her?" he asked.
"High--high school," Broots stammered.
"Ah, high school sweethearts," Jarod replied with silken sarcasm.
"Why are you asking me this stuff?" Broots demanded. "Has something happened to her, because, I mean, she may not be a very good mother but she's still Debbie's mom and . . . " He let the thought trail off, unsure where he was going with it.
"Nothing like that, nothing at all!" Jarod answered quickly, no longer teasing. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm not Raines or Lyle, you know. I don't go around hurting innocent people."
Broots felt contrite--and relieved. Whatever was going on, it wasn't something awful. Jarod was right, and he knew it: he wasn't at all like Lyle or Mr. Raines. Besides, he owed Jarod a debt of gratitude: Jarod had given the judge the evidence that resulted in his getting full custody of Debbie.
"I'm sorry, Jarod," Broots said, and he meant it. "I'm just . . . it's just odd. You calling me. I'm . . . nervous about it. You've gotta cut me a little slack. This doesn't happen everyday. Thankfully. What--what was it you wanted to know? About my ex?"
"Why you married her," Jarod replied.
Broots paused again, slightly insulted. No matter how badly she had at times acted, she was still his daughter's mother, and not all that bad a person. In fact, if it hadn't been for the gambling and drinking she would have been a good wife. Well, and the other men, too, of course, that hadn't helped.
He stood there for a moment, clutching the phone, wondering not only how he could ever explain that to Jarod, but why he had to try. What was going on?
"Why did you, Broots? Marry her?" Jarod asked even more directly.
"She was . . . she was pregnant," Broots explained, unsure why he was offering such personal information to Jarod. It made no sense, but, then again, the entire phone call made no sense.
Jarod was silent. Broots sensed he'd given an answer Jarod hadn't wanted.
"Was that the only reason?" Jarod pressed after a long, awkward moment.
"What's this about?" Broots demanded, suddenly angry. None of this was in any way Jarod's business. In fact, it wasn't right that the other man had called him at all. He was at home, off duty, he had a right to some measure of privacy, even if the Centre allowed him none.
"I wanted to know . . . I thought you could help me understand . . " Jarod sighed. He wasn't even sure how to word the question and was hugely disappointed that this call, too, was evidently a dead end. "I've been wondering how people decide to get married," Jarod explained, deciding to tackle the matter head on. "I thought--since you were married--you could help me understand it."
Broots felt suddenly embarrassed that he'd gotten angry. He tended to think of Jarod as being omnipotent, supremely competent. like some kind of real life super-hero. He forgot Jarod was also a human being who had very limited experience with many things people take for granted. There were a lot of things, Broots guessed, that Jarod still didn't understand, about the way the world worked, about human motivation.
"People get married, mostly, because they love each other," he explained.
"But you didn't?" Jarod asked. "You didn't love your ex-wife?"
Broots thought about it. It wasn't a question he'd asked himself in a long, long time, and he was inexplicably concerned that he explain this to Jarod correctly. Oddly, he felt a bit the way he did when he tried to explain things to Debbie, with the same sense of the seriousness of the moment and unwillingness to screw up.
"Yes," Broots answered truthfully. "I did, then: love her. She was different, then. So was I." He paused again, trying to make sure he got it right. He owed that to Jarod, honestly and an attempt to explain so he could understand.
"We weren't high school sweethearts," he continued. "I didn't have a girlfriend then. She was popular--she had lots of friends. She went out with the popular boys. She was beautiful and . . . well, she had a reputation for being friendly, but only with the right boys. I was a nerd. I was a nobody. Then, after college, I met her again. She was working at a grocery store. I never thought about it, in high school, but her family didn't have any money. She never went to college. She married this guy, he used to hit her. So she was divorced. It took months of me going in there and buying food I didn't want before I asked her out. Even though I had a good job and all, I still felt . . . unworthy or something. She was always so pretty. Which is why Debbie is, too. No way she got that from her old man!"
He was surprised to hear Jarod chuckle over the phone. It occurred to him the pretender was completely silent, hanging on every word he spoke, as if all this really mattered to him.
"You loved her," Jarod said, simply.
"Well, yeah," Broots answered. "That was before she really started drinking hard, before the gambling, before--" he stopped short. No way he was telling Jarod that she'd cheated on him. Some things deserved to be private.
"How did you ask her?" Jarod then asked.
Broots of course immediately knew what the other man was asking. Society had all those rituals--getting down on one knee, the ring--no doubt Jarod had seen all that in movies and on TV. Still, guys didn't usually talk about how they'd proposed. It was a girl's subject, and sort of embarrassing.
But Broots did want to help Jarod, and it really wasn't such a big deal to talk about.
"I took her to a nice restaurant. I had a ring. She knew, though: it was no surprise." He wasn't going to tell Jarod she'd pawned the ring eventually, either.
"Were you sure--absolutely sure--it was the right thing to do?" Jarod asked seriously.
"Well, she was pregnant!" Broots explained. "I mean, that certainly affected my decision, if you see what I'm saying."
"You had doubts?"
Broots expelled his breathe a bit derisively. 'Doubts'? Had he had 'doubts'? He'd sweated bullets with doubt for weeks before--and after.
"Look, Jarod, my marriage wasn't a fairy tale. I don't know about other people. Some people seen to be certain and sure . . . not to mention making it work. Somehow I don't think I'm the person you should be asking this stuff."
He heard Jarod sigh. "No, Mr. Broots, I think you're exactly who I should be talking to. The fairy tale version of life, I used to believe that was real. Since I've been out I've learned that life isn't so simple. Simplistic. What you've told me has helped. It really has. Thank you."
Broots felt an actual glow with the words, even if he couldn't fathom how exactly he'd helped Jarod. He thought all he'd done was confuse him more. But Jarod's 'thank you' had sounded completely sincere.
Payback's a Witch
Chapter 1
Witch1
Parker Residence
Blue Cove, Delaware
She woke up swearing, yanking the covers back and fumbling for the alarm clock. Three twenty-eight, A.M., and whoever was pounding on her front door was DEAD, that much she knew for certain. She pulled on a silk robe, fuming, wondering what poor son of a bitch had thought whatever it was couldn't wait until the morning--the real morning, the one when people were actually awake.
On the way to the door other possibilities rose upward through her rage, and she bit back the anger as worry diluted it. There was always her father to consider, perhaps he'd come to his senses and was running away from that woman he'd proposed to like a total, flaming idiot. By the time she jerked the door open she was expecting anything but who she saw standing on her front step.
Jarod.
"Truce?" he said warily, with a small, rather cynical smile. A smirk, actually, that damned smug little smirk of his. She noticed his downward glance even though he tried to hide it and was pleased that he was frightened enough to look for her gun. Which she didn't have, of course: no, that would be too easy.
She bit her lip, standing there looking at him, almost surprised she hadn't expected it would be him. This was the fourth time it had happened, him just showing up in the middle of the night. It wasn't as though it had become a habit--yet--but they had developed what amounted to a set of rules:
No guns, no handcuffs--even in play--nothing that might be misinterpreted. No shop talk, no discussion of the Centre at all, no questions about where he'd been or was going, none about her alleged efforts to find him. She'd learned that if she broached the subject of her mother's death, he became infuriatingly smug, teasing her by clearly with-holding whatever information he had. It annoyed her so much she'd decided not to go near that subject, either.
And he'd learned not to seek comfort beyond the pleasure her body gave him. Anything like genuine tenderness was unacceptable, to ask for or try to give. He suspected she was fully capable of compassion, but not to him, not now, not here. Perhaps never, he couldn't tell.
In fact, mostly they didn't talk at all. It reminded him of how it had been at first between himself and Laura: sex without words, sex without even friendship.
Which of course was why he kept coming back, and she knew it. It was a game, really, an elaborate, dangerous game, where they flaunted the risks they were taking and dared each other to keep going further with it. She liked that, and, standing there, looking at him, she couldn't help but smile in a predatory, silken way. She enjoyed having something he wanted so badly he'd take those risks and no matter how self-assured he acted, she enjoyed the feeling that she was really the one in control.
Of course, she didn't know the other part of it, that Jarod was arriving as soon as he could after leaving Laura, that he'd gone as directly as humanly possible from her bed to Parker's house. He only wished he could get them physically closer together. The full fantasy--both women in his bed at the same time--had taken complete hold of his libido some time before.
The most difficult part was trying to keep Laura from finding that out. She'd told him--and he believed her--that she could no longer read his thoughts the way she once had. Once she'd fallen in love with him, that ability got confused, evidently. Still, he was careful to keep his fantasies of a three-some a bit below the surface while he was making love to Laura. Not that he was certain how she'd react, she was still unpredictable to him. Possibly she'd be amused, or even willing to give it a try. You never knew, with Laura: she seemed willing to explore the world of the senses as fully as possible.
Parker, though, that was a different story. He suspected she thought he'd started coming to her because he'd left Laura. He instinctively knew she'd kill him if she knew the truth.
Which only made the entire fantasy that much more exciting, of course.
She reached out and grabbed his jacket, pulling him inside the house.
"Is this your idea of foreplay?" he asked slyly as she tugged him after her toward her bedroom.
"You're the one who keeps coming back for more," she replied huskily.
"Only because you don't know how to find me," he told her, turning her around to face him and pushing the robe off her shoulders and down her long, slender arms.
She was wearing a wisp of silk underneath--a pale blue chemise with thin straps over her shoulders. He reached down and kissed her naked skin just above the nightgown's deep neckline, and then moved back to breathe against the small, firm mound of a breast, watching the fabric tighten as she strained forward toward his lips and the visible erection of her nipple. He ran a fingertip lightly around it, feeling her shiver, then pushed the narrow straps off her shoulders so the chemise drifted down over her body and unto the floor.
He liked that, her being naked while he was fully clothed. It made him incredibly aroused, her vulnerability, the slim, elegant body, all hard planes and smooth skin.
She grabbed his head in both her hands and drew him upward, kissing his mouth, rubbing herself against him, her tight, hard nipples tracing a pattern on the black leather of his jacket.
He tugged his belt undone and worked the zipper of his fly down with one quick motion, meanwhile shoving her backward, walking her toward the rumpled bed, pushing her down on it and kneeling between her sweetly spread legs. He was as undressed as he planned on getting for awhile. He ran his hands lasciviously down the length of her body again and again, ending up with his hands under her firm buttocks, pulling her pelvis into his.
She guided his erection into her warmth and wetness without any further preliminaries, and that reminded him of Laura too, how sex was a demand that was made of him, with an implied threat. Do me right or get out. Fuck me good or I'll kill you. He wasn't sure what it was, actually, but he knew that with both women there were things required of him that didn't have much to do with affection.
Jarod levered himself up off her and looked down at her, drawing a fingertip over the flatness of her abdomen and downward through the crisply curling pubic hair to find the small, hard little button of her clitoris. She arched her back and pressed her pelvis up higher, but he withdrew all but the final inch or so of his penis.
"Oh, god, I want you to fuck me!" she demanded with a moan, pushing against him. But when he paused and started to move his hand away, needing to thrust himself into her deeper, she literally growled at him: "Don't stop doing that!"
"Make up your mind," he teased, fighting admirably for self control, "I can't do both at the same time."
"That's what I want," she panted, "I want everything!"
Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he recognized that was the truth, that she and Laura both wanted just that: everything.
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Suquamish Island, Washington State
Laura was standing on the deck looking out over the sound toward Seattle--she could see the faint glow in the sky that marked it's presence. She sighed, shivered slightly and pulled her sweater more tightly around her as the breeze off the water chilled her.
What she was, she realized, was lonely--and depressed--a feeling that was as unfamiliar as it was uncomfortable. She turned and looked back inside her house through the big windows, trying to see it with fresh eyes. She'd lived there nearly three years, and it was difficult not to simply see 'home', but to try to appraise it objectively. All the stuff she'd acquired--furniture, books, photographs--seemed cold and unsatisfying as she glanced around the living room from outside. She walked further along the deck and looked into her bedroom and it seemed cold somehow, as well, in spite of being cozily lit. It was empty, utterly, irredeemably empty, and it made her sad.
Joe was spending the night at the house he'd just bought on Lake Washington. She could have gone there, of course, it wasn't that she was unwelcome. In fact, he'd been pressuring her for months to spend the weeknights there with him. He'd tried living on her island full time, but the commute back and forth to his office in Seattle was simply too much, not to mention the times he'd been called out on emergencies in the middle of the night. Laura hadn't thought plastic surgeons GOT emergency calls, but she'd found out that when some idiot had a car wreck and needed his face sewn back on, Joe was more often than not the one who got the call. Plus there were his regular patients, who turned out to be a bunch of total wimps as far as Laura was concerned: no one could handle even slight discomfort, people completely panicked over the slightest post-op pain, and they all wanted the big strong doctor to hold their hands while they whined.
How people who signed on for totally elective surgery could justify their continual whining about how they felt afterwards, Laura couldn't fathom.
The result, though, was the house on the lake and Laura spending a lot more nights alone than she wanted to.
As for Jarod, who knew where he was? That certainly hadn't changed. He had showed up--just when she'd thought she was finally getting over him, with Joe's help--but of course he'd then disappeared again without warning or explanation. One morning she woke up and he was simply gone. She never had gotten around to explaining about Joe. She'd meant to, she really had. Fortunately, Joe had been out of town for a few days looking at private schools for his daughter. Of course, it was pretty clear a man had been living in her house: Joe's clothes were in the closet, his stuff in the bathroom. Jarod had nonchalantly moved things aside to make room for his own. He hadn't asked a single question. It had been, actually, really weird.
Laura sighed again, staring at the big, relentlessly empty bed. She knew that huge blocks of her life had been spent waiting around for some man or another to show up and want to lie down there with her, and it wasn't making her happy. It was just like Jarod, actually, to pretend not to notice Joe's stuff, or whatever he'd been doing. And it had pissed her off so much that Laura got equally stubborn about not bringing it up. Still, it hadn't furthered anything but unhappiness, all the way around. Jarod had left as suddenly as ever, leaving her wondering what exactly she would have done if Joe had come back sooner than expected.
She was having difficulty making even the simplest decision, lately, and trying to decide between Jarod and Joe seemed as impossible a task as trying to decide whether or not to move into Joe's new house at least part time. The island was her home, and she loved its incredible privacy, as well as its beauty. She really didn't want to give that up, even only during the week.
Of course, it was more than that. By moving into Joe's house she'd be making a clear choice and, in a sense, leaving Jarod. He certainly would no longer be able to just show up whenever he felt like, stay as long as it suited him, and then disappear again. Technically, he shouldn't be able to do that now, not with Joe living with her part time. And yet she'd let him.
Laura had known even before she'd heard the distinctive low purr of the Boston Whaler as it approached from her dock on the mainland--it had been in her thoughts that morning as soon as she awoke--that Jarod was on his way. She'd seriously considered hiding Joe's clothes, but then given up on the idea. Right up until the moment Jarod bounded up the steps from the dock and scooped her up in her arms she'd been absolutely certain that she was going to tell him about Joe as soon as she saw him. Laura was going to sit him down, very grown up and serious, and tell him she'd met a great guy and fallen in love, that he'd left his wife and kids for her and had been talking about marriage a lot and she was going to go for it. She'd practiced what she'd say, over and over again, while waiting for Jarod to show up:
"Look, Jarod, it's been wonderful--you've been wonderful--and I DO love you, but I need to think about my future. What we have together only works if I don't ask for more than what you can give. Which is a lot when you're here, but how often is that? Then there's that Parker bitch. What do you really expect me to think about that, when I damned well know that as soon as you're done screwing me you're there, screwing her?"
She'd planned it all so carefully. there was even a long passage about how she'd always love him and would--of course!--always be there if he needed help or a place to stay, but that now she needed to move on as far as love went, and she'd fallen so hard for Joe she really didn't feel any sexual desire for Jarod anymore anyway.
Within three minutes of his tying the Whaler up at the dock he was inside her--they hadn't even made it in off the deck--and, while she had by no means forgotten Joe, who was a passionate lover, himself, she had certainly forgotten all her pretty speeches about acting responsibly and maturely.
And since then she'd pretty much given up, not on Jarod, but on herself, given up on ever being able to make the 'right' decisions or even know which ones they were. She had great sex with Joe, and she had great sex with Jarod. She was madly in love with Joe, and she was still insanely crazy about Jarod. Nothing had changed nothing, she realized, and her only decision was that she couldn't decide.
The only bright spot in the whole mess was that she'd begun to understand why Jarod couldn't leave that Parker woman alone. He'd told her repeatedly that he loved both of them, and now she realized that was probably true. Of course, she partly suspected a lot of what both she and Jarod felt for the others in this four-way love affair was a hopeless clinging to fantasy. Jarod wanted the childhood he'd had stolen from him, and loving the woman who he'd dreamed of possessing one day was his way of trying to grasp that impossible chimera and hold on to it.
And Joe, Laura realized, was perhaps her last shot at fitting in, however tenuously, to normal society, to having anything like a normal life, with a husband, step-kids, in-laws, the whole schmalz-ridden, unrealistic, Disney-fried ball of hopelessly boring wax.
And she wanted it desperately, she ached for it as much as she ached for Jarod. She'd gone with Joe to watch his son compete in some stupid prep-school tennis tournament, for god's sake, and she'd agonized over what to wear, actually buying more 'sensible' looking shoes, and been so ridiculously proud and happy to sit demurely next to Joe in the stands, pretending to care what the score was, even though she could feel the whispering all around them about the 'witch' that had stolen that good, kind man from his dear, sweet ex-wife.
If only they knew, she'd thought with a warm, malicious inner grin, if only the pin-headed, status-obsessed, conservative-shoes-wearing, knee-jerk-Republican-voting, big-stupid-car-driving, brain-dead lot of them KNEW, knew what she really was, knew what she could do if she let it rip. She'd been tempted to try to conjure up a thunderstorm--or maybe try for having it rain frogs for awhile--or levitate a few of their white bread asses right out of the bleachers.
Joe had run a hand up her thigh under cover of the printed program, and she'd felt him shiver a bit when he discovered her garter belt. He'd become as obsessed with her lingerie as Jarod had ever been, and she'd watched him shift the program over to his lap with a sly smile. "I could do you right here," she'd whispered, "right now." But she doubted he knew how sincerely she meant it.
She could have, she'd had sex with Jarod in front of a crowd--and they'd applauded, too! Joe, she knew, didn't really get it, either, he had no idea what or who she really was. There was some kind of special joy in that for Laura, although it was cold comfort when she looked into Joe's eyes and realized that she was--once again, would she ever learn?--as caught by her own love spell as he was.
She had no idea where any of it was leading. She was as gaspingly in love with Jarod as ever, and now she was just as head over heels about Joe. On some level there was reassurance in that--she figured things really couldn't get a whole hell of a lot worse--but there was also a component of sheer panic in her recent behavior. She'd been acting impulsively, even for her, buying things she didn't need, snapping at people irritably, going back and forth between extremes of joy and uncharacteristic despair. She'd developed a bizarre tendency to burst into tears without good reason, and a sappy, romantic streak that she'd never guessed was hidden inside her had lately been creeping out. That was Joe's fault, she figured: he had the most charming way of saying and doing things that she would have found trite and silly in another man, and turning them instead into wonderful, genuine emotional connection between them.
He sent her flowers, for example, with gushy notes. He said really complimentary about her, intentionally, in front of other people. He had a way of looking at her, with lingering, loving eye contact, that made her actually blush in public. It wasn't because it was sexual, it was exactly the opposite: he looked like he loved her, as a person, not just as a sex doll. It was, she realized once she'd met his kids, the way he looked at THEM. That realization had shocked her at much as anything in her life. And she doubted it had anything at all with the love spell she had cast on him: a spell could create need and desire and obsessive lust, but it couldn't make someone actually LIKE another person.
And then there was the whole doctor thing. After all, specialty aside, he was an MD, first of all, and it showed. He was honestly a caring person, he hated to see anyone in pain or discomfort, and would do whatever he could to help others. Compassion oozed out of his pores, and it was never the fake kind, which is always so obvious. Joe liked people, he had a natural empathy for others, and he was kinder to Laura on a simple, day-to-day level, than anyone had ever been to her in her life.
And she reveled in it, basked in it, breathed it in like air, like life itself. He made her feel safe.
Not that it wasn't also about sex. They had remarkable sex, actually: once he'd gotten over his almost brutal initial need for her, Joe had turned out to be as empathetic in bed as in an exam room. Laura had begun to suspect that his connection with others was a psychic skill--he certainly seemed to be able to reach her thoughts and needs when he made love to her. They'd developed that, over time, and both sensed the deep bond between them, although neither had succeeded in putting it into words.
And yet when Jarod had showed up she'd put all of that at risk instantly, without thought. Partly, of course, because she never knew, with Jarod, when it might be very literally the last time. What he did was inherently dangerous--at times almost ridiculously so--and she knew that there were those at the Centre still panting for a chance to lock him up again, even if the Parker woman seemingly had developed her own, personal agenda as far as Jarod was concerned. So Laura had never willingly given up a chance at him, at spending time with him or just fucking him, because it could always be the last time.
Still, that didn't fully explain why she'd blithely risked losing Joe. She understood that she was ambivalent about her possible future with him, that part of her didn't want to give up her utter freedom and bite-me attitude about life. She liked being able to do whatever she choose, and she knew that whether she actually married Joe or not, there would need to be compromises made. Which is where things got muddied in her mind.
She was frightened she would prove inadequate, that when push came to shove and she would be required to give up even a small part of her independence, she'd bristle and get her back up about it. She had a long, bitter history of being hostile to authority figures, especially male ones. And Joe could be rather demanding. To a degree, he expected other people to accommodate his needs, his very traditional family background had been reinforced by his job and part of his aura of confidence and competence hinged on the respect he got from society. He was a doctor, after all, and society groveled a bit to all MD's. His (mostly female) patients did, and his (entirely female) staff did , as well. Even his nurse, who'd worked with him for nearly eight years, still always called him "Dr. Marchione", even outside of the office.
Laura had never treated him like that. She'd respected his abilities, as a doctor, but it hadn't made her feel inferior to him. She often thought the simple equality with which she treated him was part of why he'd been attracted to her, that it was refreshing. But she'd learned that there were times when Joe expected her to fit her schedule to his, and she wondered if in time that would make her resentful.
But it didn't, yet. She found that she enjoyed having to take another person into account when making plans. For her, THAT was 'refreshing'. Still, the future concerned her, and she knew that her immediate, reckless response to Jarod's return into her life was exactly the sort of acting-out behavior that could sabotage all her hopes of having a stable life with Joe. But she also knew that if Jarod showed up again, at that moment, she'd do the same thing again.
She sighed and closed her eyes in despair of finding an answer. As lame as it felt to admit it, this was a classic 'what will be, will be' situation. She didn't like it, but it appeared only time what tell where the whole messy soap opera that her life had become was headed.
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
Sydney certainly hadn't been expecting the call, but, at the same time, it hadn't surprised him to hear Jarod's voice, either. Their bond had, in many ways, never been broken--Jarod had seen to that. And at times it felt as if literally nothing had changed, when Jarod reached out for guidance, just as he always had.
Still, Sydney had to admit that there was an irony in Jarod seeking him out for advice on this particular subject.
"How do people know, Sydney, when they want to marry someone?" Jarod had begun the conversation by asking, with no preamble.
He had answered by making a rather obvious point: "But I've never been married, Jarod. What would make you think I could answer that question?"
"You would have married Michelle if the Centre had let you, Sydney," Jarod had reminded him.
"That was a very long time ago," Sydney had countered. "I'm not sure my personal memories of those feelings--"
"Cut the crap, Sydney," Jarod had impatiently interrupted. "'Those feelings' are still THERE, and you know it! Besides, all I'm asking for is some sort of reassurance that anyone ever really knows . . . for sure . . . "
Sydney sighed and shook his head slightly. Jarod had always posed impossible questions, and that had not changed. Besides, there was the matter of who exactly Jarod was talking about, another perilous consideration.
"Perhaps if I knew more about the particular circumstances, Jarod . . . For example, this woman, is it anyone I know?"
It was Jarod's turn to pause. He knew exactly what Sydney was thinking, and understood the degree to which Sydney disliked Laura. He couldn't resist a small bluff:
"What would you say if I told you it's a co-worker?"
Sydney's eyes opened wide in disbelief. He had for some time suspected that Parker had some personal dealings with Jarod. She of course had never confided in him about it. And he understood that they had a special, long-term attraction to each other. He even knew that it had, since Jarod's escape, become frankly sexual. Still, even the idea of Jarod proposing marriage to Miss Parker was . . . ludicrous. There was no other word for it.
"Jarod, this is hardly a matter for jokes," Sydney sternly reprimanded.
"What do you know: you actually got my joke! You may have a sense of humor after all, Sydney," Jarod replied quickly. But there was a sadness behind the words, and Sydney heard it.
"Jarod, I can only say that if you are referencing the . . . person I suspect you may be . . . " he let the thought die out unfinished.
It was Jarod's turn to sigh. There was a bit of a challenge in Sydney's statement, and he knew it. Either he loved Laura enough to face Sydney's anger at the idea of his marrying her, or he didn't. Sydney had trapped him. The conversation was no longer clinical and objective, and safely about other people, as he had intended. It was now about himself and Laura, and that's where Sydney would keep it. If Jarod had honestly hoped that Sydney would provide a real answer to a real question, he was once again proven wrong.
"I wanted to know about what other people feel, Sydney," Jarod pressed, trying to salvage the conversation. "It's a question about human nature in general more than about . . . "
"Laura," Sydney finished the sentence, "in particular."
There was a long pause. Neither man knew where to go with the increasingly uncomfortable conversation.
Finally, Jarod simply hung up.
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Suquamish Island
Once again, he had managed to surprise her. The caterers had called from the mainland asking her to send a boat over for them, but it had taken the owner a great deal of effort to overcome Laura's suspicions and paranoia. He never had directly given her a name--part of the deal was keeping that secret--but he'd had to give Laura some pretty broad hints before she accepted that the whole thing wasn't a setup by the Centre to kidnap her to get to Jarod.
Once on the island, they had taken over her kitchen and dining room, literally blocking her from entering either room. They'd brought a florist, as well, and the house was suddenly filled with flowers. She'd seen armfulls of blooms disappear into her bedroom, and the boat had made a return trip to bring over a veritable tropical forest of full-sized exotic plants, along with a string quartet who had set up in one corner of the living room. They were playing something lush, baroque and sparkling: Vivaldi, she guessed, although her knowledge of classical music was minimal and she fully intended to keep it that way.
The house filled with wonderful cooking smells, candles were lit everywhere by two bustling young women in traditional black and white uniforms, and she felt anticipation knot her stomach in a not-unpleasant manner. She was as much a sucker for big, romantic gestures as any other woman, although she tried to pretend otherwise. Jarod knew that all to well. And so did Joe. Which led to a rather unusual situation as she heard the second Boston Whaler approaching once again through the chop of the Strait.
She had no idea which man to expect. Both were fully capable of orchestrating this almost operatic stageplay of over-the-top romanticism. Both had demonstrated their love of surprising her. Both had developed their proclivity for showing up on her door step unannounced to a fine art.
Laura had decided to fully exploit the mood, putting on a boned, black velvet bustier whose long sleeves started only at the level of it's low décolleté, leaving her shoulders bare. She'd added a poufy, full length skirt layered from shimmering, metallic organza that swirled around her as she walked, the whole Jessica McClintock fantasy accented with an antique pearl choker and six carat diamond pendant Joe had given her, and pearl and diamond drop earrings from Jarod. She ran a hand nervously through her hair as the Whaler drew up to the dock in the twilight. She caught the flash of black and white: whoever it was, he was wearing evening clothes.
And she had no idea, at that moment, who to hope it was, just starting up the steps toward the house. For once, life seemed to have dealt her a win-win situation.
"God, you look great!" Joe said. He kissed her throat, then her mouth. "Surprised?" he asked.
She looked at him with innocent eyes. It took no prevarication whatsoever for her to answer, "Completely!" Until she'd seen his face, she'd decided it all had to be Jarod's doing, that even Joe didn't have a deep enough romantic streak to pull this off.
He laughed. "As if you didn't know the instant the caterers showed up!" he told her. He caught the flash of guilt that played across her face, though, and added: "Or do you have another guy stashed away who would go through this much trouble just to get lucky tonight?"
Laura smiled disingenuously, hoping her panic didn't show. As far as Joe knew, she hadn't seen or heard from Jarod in months. "I'm just surprised you still think I'm worth this much bother, Joe," she said, which wasn't a lie. "By now you should know I'm easy."
But he held her chin for a moment, tilting it up so he could look into her eyes. "You do know I can be insanely jealous, right?" he asked.
She saw his little smile but also heard the edge in his voice. There was something there, she knew, a suspicion. She had refused to spend the weekdays with him in his house, saying she liked the island's privacy too much to give it up. He hadn't ever said that made him mistrust her. Suddenly she understand it had.
But she only shrugged lightly. "So it's true what they say about Italian men . . . " she said, and let the thought trail off.
He smiled, then, and let go of her chin. "As long as you know that," he said, "as long as you realize there's a reason for all those clichés."
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Broots Residence
Blue Cove, Delaware
He was paying only minimal attention to Millennium when the phone rang--although he believed in many conspiracy theories, himself, they weren't of the supernatural sort. Besides, he found the very real Miss Parker a whole lot scarier than the fictional killers featured each week on the show--not to mention Mr. Raines, who could make his blood turn to ice water across the room. Still, he found the show interesting enough to waste an hour on, once his daughter Debbie was asleep and he could pop open a beer and relax.
"Hello?" he answered warily, thinking it might be one of Debbie's friends. As she got older, the calls kept coming in later, although it was nearly eleven P.M. and he was planning on telling whoever it was never to call so late again.
"Well, hello, Mr. Broots," Jarod said, as casually as if they spoke every day.
Broots pulled the receiver back and actually stared at for a long moment, he was that surprised. And frightened--he felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise and he shivered. Jarod calling him was NOT good news. Whatever the reason, he knew immediately it would mean trouble, maybe lots of trouble.
"What's wrong, Mr. Broots?" Jarod teased. "Cat got your tongue?" Of all the expressions of speech he had learned since he escaped from the Centre, it was his favorite. He wasn't sure why, except that it always conjured up the most wonderful visual image in his mind.
"Jarod!" Broots exclaimed unnecessarily. "Why are you calling me? You call Miss Parker or Sydney, never me!"
"Now how would you know so much about my telephone habits, Mr. Broots? You haven't been listening in, have you?"
That really made Broots panic: he hadn't of course, and he really didn't want to get into a conversation with Jarod about what he did and didn't know. He was starting to sweat.
"What do you want, Jarod?" he asked in a distraught whisper. "Do you have any idea what they'd do to me, if they knew I talked to you?"
"I can imagine," Jarod replied tersely. "But you can relax. This isn't about business. It's personal: just an innocent phone call between friends. To chat."
Broots swallowed, trying desperately to make sense of a situation he felt was spiraling out of control. He always suspected Jarod meant exactly the opposite of what he said, which placed the call in an increasingly ominous light.
"Chat?" he asked weakly. "I can't talk to you, Jarod! I'm supposed to be--you know, trying to find you. For them."
"Tell me about your wife," Jarod asked, totally unexpectedly.
"What?" Broots blurted in a breathless whisper.
"I should say, 'ex-wife', of course," Jarod continued smoothly, as if the phone call and the conversation were the most normal thing in the world. "How did you meet her?" he asked.
"High--high school," Broots stammered.
"Ah, high school sweethearts," Jarod replied with silken sarcasm.
"Why are you asking me this stuff?" Broots demanded. "Has something happened to her, because, I mean, she may not be a very good mother but she's still Debbie's mom and . . . " He let the thought trail off, unsure where he was going with it.
"Nothing like that, nothing at all!" Jarod answered quickly, no longer teasing. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm not Raines or Lyle, you know. I don't go around hurting innocent people."
Broots felt contrite--and relieved. Whatever was going on, it wasn't something awful. Jarod was right, and he knew it: he wasn't at all like Lyle or Mr. Raines. Besides, he owed Jarod a debt of gratitude: Jarod had given the judge the evidence that resulted in his getting full custody of Debbie.
"I'm sorry, Jarod," Broots said, and he meant it. "I'm just . . . it's just odd. You calling me. I'm . . . nervous about it. You've gotta cut me a little slack. This doesn't happen everyday. Thankfully. What--what was it you wanted to know? About my ex?"
"Why you married her," Jarod replied.
Broots paused again, slightly insulted. No matter how badly she had at times acted, she was still his daughter's mother, and not all that bad a person. In fact, if it hadn't been for the gambling and drinking she would have been a good wife. Well, and the other men, too, of course, that hadn't helped.
He stood there for a moment, clutching the phone, wondering not only how he could ever explain that to Jarod, but why he had to try. What was going on?
"Why did you, Broots? Marry her?" Jarod asked even more directly.
"She was . . . she was pregnant," Broots explained, unsure why he was offering such personal information to Jarod. It made no sense, but, then again, the entire phone call made no sense.
Jarod was silent. Broots sensed he'd given an answer Jarod hadn't wanted.
"Was that the only reason?" Jarod pressed after a long, awkward moment.
"What's this about?" Broots demanded, suddenly angry. None of this was in any way Jarod's business. In fact, it wasn't right that the other man had called him at all. He was at home, off duty, he had a right to some measure of privacy, even if the Centre allowed him none.
"I wanted to know . . . I thought you could help me understand . . " Jarod sighed. He wasn't even sure how to word the question and was hugely disappointed that this call, too, was evidently a dead end. "I've been wondering how people decide to get married," Jarod explained, deciding to tackle the matter head on. "I thought--since you were married--you could help me understand it."
Broots felt suddenly embarrassed that he'd gotten angry. He tended to think of Jarod as being omnipotent, supremely competent. like some kind of real life super-hero. He forgot Jarod was also a human being who had very limited experience with many things people take for granted. There were a lot of things, Broots guessed, that Jarod still didn't understand, about the way the world worked, about human motivation.
"People get married, mostly, because they love each other," he explained.
"But you didn't?" Jarod asked. "You didn't love your ex-wife?"
Broots thought about it. It wasn't a question he'd asked himself in a long, long time, and he was inexplicably concerned that he explain this to Jarod correctly. Oddly, he felt a bit the way he did when he tried to explain things to Debbie, with the same sense of the seriousness of the moment and unwillingness to screw up.
"Yes," Broots answered truthfully. "I did, then: love her. She was different, then. So was I." He paused again, trying to make sure he got it right. He owed that to Jarod, honestly and an attempt to explain so he could understand.
"We weren't high school sweethearts," he continued. "I didn't have a girlfriend then. She was popular--she had lots of friends. She went out with the popular boys. She was beautiful and . . . well, she had a reputation for being friendly, but only with the right boys. I was a nerd. I was a nobody. Then, after college, I met her again. She was working at a grocery store. I never thought about it, in high school, but her family didn't have any money. She never went to college. She married this guy, he used to hit her. So she was divorced. It took months of me going in there and buying food I didn't want before I asked her out. Even though I had a good job and all, I still felt . . . unworthy or something. She was always so pretty. Which is why Debbie is, too. No way she got that from her old man!"
He was surprised to hear Jarod chuckle over the phone. It occurred to him the pretender was completely silent, hanging on every word he spoke, as if all this really mattered to him.
"You loved her," Jarod said, simply.
"Well, yeah," Broots answered. "That was before she really started drinking hard, before the gambling, before--" he stopped short. No way he was telling Jarod that she'd cheated on him. Some things deserved to be private.
"How did you ask her?" Jarod then asked.
Broots of course immediately knew what the other man was asking. Society had all those rituals--getting down on one knee, the ring--no doubt Jarod had seen all that in movies and on TV. Still, guys didn't usually talk about how they'd proposed. It was a girl's subject, and sort of embarrassing.
But Broots did want to help Jarod, and it really wasn't such a big deal to talk about.
"I took her to a nice restaurant. I had a ring. She knew, though: it was no surprise." He wasn't going to tell Jarod she'd pawned the ring eventually, either.
"Were you sure--absolutely sure--it was the right thing to do?" Jarod asked seriously.
"Well, she was pregnant!" Broots explained. "I mean, that certainly affected my decision, if you see what I'm saying."
"You had doubts?"
Broots expelled his breathe a bit derisively. 'Doubts'? Had he had 'doubts'? He'd sweated bullets with doubt for weeks before--and after.
"Look, Jarod, my marriage wasn't a fairy tale. I don't know about other people. Some people seen to be certain and sure . . . not to mention making it work. Somehow I don't think I'm the person you should be asking this stuff."
He heard Jarod sigh. "No, Mr. Broots, I think you're exactly who I should be talking to. The fairy tale version of life, I used to believe that was real. Since I've been out I've learned that life isn't so simple. Simplistic. What you've told me has helped. It really has. Thank you."
Broots felt an actual glow with the words, even if he couldn't fathom how exactly he'd helped Jarod. He thought all he'd done was confuse him more. But Jarod's 'thank you' had sounded completely sincere.
