“About ten years younger than her?” Colin asked.
“Yeah, but then I guess you’ve met him.”
Colin wanted to say “I was him,” but he didn’t. He knew Jean had no siblings, and that the only living relative she had was her mother. “An only child of only-child parents,” she used to say.
Colin knew that if he’d been jealous of the young man she was introducing as her brother, it meant he still had feelings for her. The truth was, he was glad and that made him realize that it was time to finally break off their friendship. He dreaded the tears his mother was going to shed. She’d always been so sure Jean was going to be her daughter-in-law, but Colin couldn’t help that. Part of him knew that as long as he had Jean as a companion, he would quit searching for someone to share his life with.
When he met Gemma, it was as though his prayers had been answered. If he were a superstitious man, he would have said the Heartwishes Stone was at work.
When he’d seen her sprawled on the floor, pens and papers all around her, she made him smile. When he spent time with her, he was nearly joyous at what he saw. She was quiet, so very much the opposite of Jean’s up-and-down moods and her craving for excitement. Even Jean’s cooking was done for drama. He well knew that she’d never scramble a couple of eggs. “How boring!” she used to say. “Call the deli.”
But Gemma had made him an omelet and had cared enough that she’d told him to take a shower at her place. And she’d gone with him to the grocery, driven his car, which had been souped-up by Lanny, and she’d helped him rescue a child. Colin had seen the fear in her eyes that day, but that hadn’t stopped her from climbing on him and grabbing the boy. Colin would never tell anyone, but he’d replayed that YouTube video at least fifty times.
As for what had happened the morning he showered in her house, it was true that at first he hadn’t remembered their brief moment together. However, he knew his sleep had been restless that night and that he’d been having a dream about Gemma. When Lanny had woken him up in her house, Colin had fought against it.
“Whatever the hell you’re dreaming about, I’d sure like to share it with you,” Lanny said.
Colin, still not awake, almost hit his brother. To Colin’s foggy mind, Lanny was saying he wanted a threesome with Gemma.
Later, when Colin saw her again, he was amazed at the joy that shot through him. When Gemma looked at him as though he were the lowest piece of slime on earth, he didn’t know when he’d ever been so devastated—and bewildered. What in the world had happened to make her despise him?
He tried to get her to tell him, but she’d wanted nothing to do with him. Before he could find out, Jean showed up at the barbecue, uninvited, and he’d wanted to tell her to go away and never come back.
When Mike asked Colin to help with the big side pad, Colin was glad to get away from her. But his happiness soon left him when Gemma made her remark about being “smart and brave.”
Everything hit Colin at once and he realized what he’d done—and he’d been truly horrified. He thought that in one of his dreams of lust he’d pulled Gemma into her own bed and . . . He didn’t want to think what he’d done. She wouldn’t have physically been able to get away.
Later, she would have worried that if she told, she’d lose her job, the one she so very much wanted.
He’d stood there by the tree, unable to move away, and watched Gemma frantically pound away with her kicks and punches. When Luke called time, she kept on going. That he, Colin, had been the cause of her hurt and anger made him feel ill. Mike had to hold her to get her to stop hitting.
Colin had nodded at Mike, letting him know that he wanted to be alone with Gemma. She didn’t want to see or speak to him, but he had to let her know that no one had a right to attack a woman and get away with it. Even if it meant that Colin’s career and his life as he knew it would be over, he was going to do right by her.
When she told him she hadn’t been “forced,” it was all he could do not to pick her up and kiss her. She had gone after him.
As soon as she said it, images began to come back to him.
When Jean came to him, he could hardly bear the sight of her. He knew that the way she’d slipped her arm around his was a show of ownership. How Colin regretted their friendship of the last year!
He got rid of Jean and took Gemma away so they could talk in private. It hadn’t taken long to find out that Gemma’s only real objection to him was Jean. Right then, he’d wanted to take the time to tell Gemma the full truth about him and Jean, but he’d only told her a bit of it. First, he needed to get everything straight between Jean and himself, then he could go to Gemma and tell her all of it.
15
WITH RELUCTANCE, COLIN got out of his car and made his way up the back stairs to his apartment. He knew Jean was waiting for him because her silver Mercedes was still in the parking lot.
The first thing he saw when he opened the door to his apartment was his suitcase on the floor. She came out of his bedroom carrying a tiny tube of toothpaste.
“There you are,” she said cheerfully. “I waited to see you but you’re so late that I was beginning to think I was going to have to drive home in the dark. Hope you don’t mind if I borrow a piece of your luggage.”
“Jean, I . . .” He trailed off, not knowing how to begin. She was going through the old cabinets against the wall.
“Colin, dear, have you been lashing yourself over this? But of course you have. Your deep desire to always do good must be tugging at you. So how was the rest of your little get-together with your Edilean friends? After you sent me away?”
“Fine,” he said. It was obvious that even though she hadn’t been in his apartment in months, she was searching for any items she’d left behind. “Let’s sit down and talk, all right?”
“No,” she said. “I think that everything has been said. I just wish—” She put up her hands. “No, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. It is as it is.”
“Jean, please sit down and let’s talk about this.”