According to Zack, he’d been in the shower when both the strange woman and Grace had arrived at his hotel room. He’d answered the door when Grace knocked, but didn’t know how the other girl had gotten in. A stolen key card, a bribed member of the housekeeping staff… determined puck bunnies seemed to constantly come up with new ways to get close to the players.
It had been a cruel twist of Fate that brought Grace to the door at that very moment. If she’d been five minutes later, Zack had told them more than once, the woman would have been gone because he would have kicked her and her already discarded clothes out into the hall the minute he found her in his bed.
It was something Gage knew Grace needed to know-whether she chose to believe it or not-but wasn’t ready to hear just yet.
“Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “And once Grace has a chance to calm down and really listen to you, she’ll believe it, too. You just have to give her some time.”
Zack let out another snort, then turned his attention back to the bottle in front of him.
“So what did you do to land in the doghouse?” Dylan asked, getting back to Gage’s original comment.
Gage shook his head, running his thumb back and forth distractedly over the label on his Rolling Rock. “I’m starting to think I’ve been wrong about this whole ‘no kids’ thing.”
“Whoa.” Dylan’s eyes went wide and he rocked back an inch or two in his chair. Even Zack dragged himself away from his wallowing long enough to stare dumbly.
Gage felt his face heat at such close scrutiny.
“That’s quite an about-face. What changed your mind?” Dylan asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Gage admitted, avoiding his friends’ intense gazes by keeping his own eyes slanted down at the tabletop. “I was so sure it was a bad idea. That refusing to have children and letting Jenna go was the right thing to do, the best way to keep everyone safe.”
He drew in a deep breath and threw himself back against his chair. “But I miss her. Being with her again reminded me of how things used to be and how lousy I’ve felt this past year and a half without her. Then I went in to work and started to notice how many of the other guys have kids and happy marriages. Other UCs, detectives, beat cops, the members of SWAT.”
Lifting his head, he met Dylan’s gaze, then Zack’s. “So if they can do it and aren’t afraid something awful will happen to their families, what am I so worried about?”
Dylan leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. “That’s what we’ve always wondered. We tried to tell you that just because bad things happen, it doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily happen to you. Or Jenna or any kids you have.”
Gage’s mouth curled into a self-deprecating grin. “Yeah, I’m getting that. I don’t think I wanted to hear it before, though.”
“You don’t think?” Zack countered. “You were like the Great Wall of China any time the topic came up. I always thought you were afraid something would happen to you and you’d end up leaving Jenna alone to raise whatever children you’d had, but I didn’t think it was worth ruining your marriage over.”
He paused to take a swig of his drink, shrugging a shoulder as he lowered the bottle back to the table before continuing. “I figure it’s better to be with the person you love for as long as you can than be without them forever.” Swiveling his head from Dylan to Gage and back again, his eyes crossed and he said, “That made sense, right?”
Zack might be well on his way to fall-down drunk, but a few of his brain cells were still functioning.
“Yeah,” Gage mumbled. “It does.”
He didn’t want anything to happen to him, to leave Jenna-or any children they might have-alone. And he sure as hell didn’t want anything to happen to them. But being apart was clearly making them both miserable.
What was the point? Why should they be divorced and miserable when they could be married and happy for as long as they were blessed to be together?
They-he-had already wasted too much time, idiot that he was; he didn’t want to waste any more.
Pushing to his feet, he dug out his wallet and tossed a couple bills to the table. “Can you get him home?” he asked Dylan.
Dylan looked surprised, but said, “Sure. Where are you going?”
“I have to find Jenna. I’ve got a couple years’ worth of stupidity to make up for.”
As far as plans went, it could have used a bit more… planning.
He’d stalked out of The Penalty Box full of gusto and determination. It wasn’t until he’d reached his bike and was strapping on his helmet that he realized he didn’t have a clue where Jenna was.
Thank God no one had been in the parking lot to see him remove his helmet, climb back off the bike, and walk back into the bar two seconds after he’d walked out.
To their credit, his friends hadn’t laughed at him-at least not until after he’d left again. Well, Zack had, but Zack was three sheets to the wind and would have laughed at his own shadow at that point.
After asking Dylan if he had any idea where Jenna might be or where the girls might have gone after their knitting meeting since they hadn’t shown up at the Box, his friend had pulled out his cell phone and called Ronnie.
Without telling her why he wanted to know, he’d found out that she and Jenna had gone to Grace’s apartment for a couple of post-meeting, non-Penalty Box drinks before heading home. Gage hadn’t stuck around to hear the rest of the conversation, but had headed back out, this time with a destination in mind.
Now he stood outside Grace’s apartment door, wiping his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans and hoping his heart didn’t jump out of his chest before he got a chance to tell Jenna everything he needed to say.
Sucking in lungfuls of oxygen, he braced his feet slightly apart and lifted a hand to rap on the door. He was about to knock again when the door flew open and Grace stood there, staring up at him. She was dressed in some floor-length white satin nightgown with a matching robe. With her blond hair and full face of makeup, she looked for all the world like a Marilyn Monroe wannabe. Stick one of those long black cigarette holders in her hand and she could have been a twenties starlet.
“Hey, girls,” she called back over her shoulder, “it’s a dick. Should we take a vote on whether or not to let him in?”
Something told him she wasn’t calling him a dick because he was an ace detective, but considering audacious was one of Grace’s regular settings, Gage didn’t waste time trying to decipher her comment.
A second later, Ronnie appeared a few feet behind her-still fully dressed in the skirt and blouse she’d worn to work, thank goodness.
Gage breathed a silent sigh of relief at the sight of her. Of the three of them, she hated him least at the moment and was probably his best shot at acting as a voice of reason with the other two.
But instead of smiling and telling Grace to let him in, Ronnie’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I think we should let Jenna decide,” she said in a voice that swept over him like a blast from the deep freeze.
Uh-oh. This might not be as easy he’d hoped.
A second after that, Jenna walked into view. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans with pink appliqué butterflies running down one leg and a white, scoop-neck top with a butterfly high toward one shoulder. And the boa around her neck of course matched every shade of pink and white in the outfit, bringing it all together in Jenna’s own unique style.
A fist clutched his insides as he took in every detail, from her ruffled black hair to the painted pink toenails peeking out through the open toes of her wedge sandals.