Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

"No, they're going to keep the news to themselves," he interrupted quietly. Catching a damp strand of hair dangling over her left eye with a gentle fingertip, he looped it behind her ear. "They agree with you that it's your business." The same finger stroked a nerve-rich patch of skin below her earlobe. "And they're real impressed with the publicity you garnered for yourself with those honky-tonk drop-ins. Also, since your sales are apparently soaring, they've decided there's no such thing as bad publicity. So they'll leave it alone unless you say otherwise. They don't want to lose you."

"Why would they assume they would?"

"I, uh, might have mentioned that could be a result of treating you like you don't know what you're doing."

She thumped him on the chest. "Damn you, J, I don't know whether I oughtta thank you or knee you in the nuts."

"I vote for the former." But he took a step back and his expression erased faster than a fire-hosed blackboard.

She could have screamed. She'd honestly thought that if nothing else came of Jared's unexpected drop into her life, she'd at least finally get some closure on a few of her more ancient dreams. "Why do you do that?" she demanded.

"Do what?"

"That." She waved at his face. "That bland expression. That big mental step back you take. What happened to you? You used to be so open."

A harsh laugh exploded out of him. "I was never open."

"Yes, you were. With me, you were."

He gave her anare-you-for-real? look. "You think? Well, look where that got me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He merely gave her the blank-eyed stare again and she shook her head in frustration. "Tell me!"

"What is it that you want to hear, Peej?" he asked and stepped closer again. But he stopped out of reach. "That you were the best friend I ever had? Fine. You were. For about five minutes." His eyes were dark and shuttered as he looked down at her. "Then you gave me a phony phone number and disappeared from my life."

She jerked in shock. "That number was real! Mama just packed us up and moved a couple days later."

"Uh-huh. And you never got another phone?"

"I-"

"No, wait, I believe you did. But somehow you never called to give me that number, did you?"

"I-"

"I got it anyhow, you know. Rocket tracked you down to Wyoming."

"You had the Wyoming number?" She blinked up at him. "You never called me." She wondered how different her life might have been if he had.

"I was going to. Until I found out you'd given the number to Gert. Not to me-Gert." He met her eyes with a cool, bored gaze. "Then I wised up. Never let it be said this boy can't take a hint."

"I wanted to call you!" she cried. "You don't know how much I wanted to. But you were so educated, so:rich."

"What?"He shook his head. Then his eyes went from cool and disinterested to flat-out furious and between one heartbeat and the next he was towering over her, radiating so much rage and heat she was surprised she didn't go up in flames. "What difference did the size of my trust fund make? You and I shared something no one else could truly understand, but you waltzed off because I wasrich? Youknew that didn't matter."

"Yes, it did!" She could still remember exactly the way she'd felt when she'd learned he had a cook like someone in the movies, when she'd seen the Colorado Springs mansion he'd called home and heard him correct her grammar. She hadn't needed Mama's whispers that a rich boy like him would have no use for a girl like her to make her feel unworthy. "You lived in a palace. I lived in a trailer! You had your sister and John and your niece and your baseball buddies. You were exonerated of your father's murder. You didn't need me. Your life was perfect. Mine was-"

"Perfect?" he roared. "Fuckingperfect? "

Her driver poked his head out the bus door. "You okay, Miz Morgan?"

"Yes, thank you, Marvin," she said, barely sparing him a glance. Her attention locked on the hint of pain peeking out of Jared's eyes. Her heart beating an erratic tattoo, she began to suspect she had been wrong all those years ago. "I'm fine."

"Okay, then," he said with palpable reluctance and directed a hard glare at Jared. "Yell if you need help." He withdrew back into the bus.

Jared wrapped his hand around her upper arm and marched her away from the vehicle. When they'd reached a point he apparently found sufficiently removed, he dropped his light grip on her as if she were covered in toxic waste and casually slid his hands in his pockets. The pain she'd glimpsed was neatly tucked away once more and he gazed at her with that recently familiar lack of emotion.

"Yes," he agreed coolly, "I had my family and that was great. But my baseball friends were left behind when we moved up to Denver. And would you like to know what most people remembered about my father's murder, Priscilla Jayne?"

Nothing good, she was guessing, if the remote look in his eyes was anything to go by. Still she nodded.

"It wasn't that I was exonerated or that someone else was ultimately convicted. It was that I was accused of it. People don't remember the retractions, honey. They remember the headlines and the talking heads rehashing the manhunt for suspected murderer Jared Hamilton night after night."

"I'm sorry." Reaching out hesitant fingertips, she stroked them along his forearm. His skin under her hand was warm and firm.

He slid his arm out from beneath her touch. "Not a problem," he said carelessly. "It was a long time ago. So, listen, it's been real, but I've got some packing to do."

He started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. "Jared, please," she said, hanging on when he merely stood and gazed at her gripping fingers as if they belonged to a stranger. "I don't want to part like this."

"Then we won't," he said with that careful politeness. "My flight leaves tomorrow night from L.A., so I'm going to ride down there with you. We'll chat. Catch up."

Yeah, sure they would. It didn't take a genius to see that was never going to happen and her temper started to percolate.

Maybe it was his well-mannered distance that put her back up. Maybe it was-she didn't know-something else entirely. His refusal to show a genuine emotion for longer than two seconds running, perhaps. Whatever it was, if this was goodbye, they were damn well going to say it her way.

"We'll have to do that," she agreed with a polite smile of her own. "But before you go, I have something to say."

"What?"

"Get your head down here," she snapped. "I'm not going to scream this out for any Tom, Dick or Harry who might be hanging around to hear. I'm on enough tabloid covers as it is."

He dipped his head obligingly and, reaching up, she slid both hands into the soft, cool strands of his hair. Then, yanking his head closer yet, she rose onto her toes and locked mouths with him.

She wasn't sure what she'd intended-or, okay, if she'd planned anything at all. But if she had, she was pretty sure it would've been something along the lines of a brief, hot kiss that she directed. Instead she lost control of the situation the minute their lips touched. Between one moment and the next, it seemed, it was all teeth and tongues and runaway heat. She found herself plastered to the hard warmth of Jared's long body while his hands splayed over her butt, keeping her close.

And, oh God, it felt good.

Too good. She could barely think. Ripping her mouth free, she stepped back.

"Take that with you when you go," she said, and if her voice sounded even raspier than usual, well, it couldn't be helped. Head held high, she whirled on her heel and strode back to the bus.

It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to not look back.

"DID YOU SEE THIS SHIT?" Furious, Hank stormed onto the stage and thrust the tabloid at Nell. "Shocking secret life, my ass. Something's gotta be done about P.J.'s old lady."

Taking the paper, Nell skimmed the article. "Jodeen doesn't seem to actually reveal any shocking secrets," she murmured when she finished. "Funny how that's often the way with these rags, isn't it?"

He snorted. "Like there's anything to reveal. Something's got to be done," he repeated.

"Like what? You going to take out a contract on her?"

He pretended to consider it. "Not a bad idea." Her startled look dredged forth a faint smile. "No, I'm not planning anything violent. But why the hell doesn't P.J. do something?"

Nell gave him a level look. "What's your mom like?"

"Mine?" His smile grew. "She's great."

"Thought you were wonderful, told you you could accomplish anything you applied yourself to?"

"Yep, that's my mama."

"P.J.'s mama pretty much ignored her or told her what a burden she was up until the day Peej showed signs of becoming a money machine Jodeen could cash in on."

He scowled. "My point exactly."

"Oh, you don't think you would've spent a good part of your life hoping your mother would somehow turn into the kind you were lucky enough to be raised by?"

"Hell, n-" But he cut himself off and thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe."

"I have a friend who's an E.R. nurse. She sees abused kids way too much, kids with broken bones whose X-rays show too many previous breaks to be accidental. And the one true constant, she once told me, is that they all deny their parents had anything to do with their injuries. It's a built-in defense mechanism, because the truth is just too ugly to admit."