When she got it, she dialed. In her anticipation, a little of the ponderous sadness loosened its grip around her heart. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then a message came on. “Jaxon Gideon is unable to come to the phone. Please leave a brief message after the beep and he will return your call.”
She managed a tremulous smile at the comforting familiarity of his baritone voice. His message was short and to the point, too. Nothing frilly or cutesy for Jax. She only hoped she could make it through her message without bursting into tears. “Hi, Jax,” she began, almost in a whisper. “Guess who!” She shook her head at herself for the childish silliness. She laughed out of embarrassment. It sounded odd in her ears, a melancholy, almost a puppy whine of a noise. “Sorry. I won’t make you guess. It’s been way too long,” she said solemnly. “It’s Kim. Look, I—” She broke off, hesitating, unsure of how long her voice would hold out before it broke. “In all honesty, I could use a friend right now.” She stopped, grimaced, facing facts. A phone call simply wouldn’t be enough. “On second thoughts, I’m coming to see you.” She congratulated herself on her brilliant idea. “I’ve gone way too long without my Jax Fix.” She smiled to herself, amazed that she even could. It was Jax. All Jax, making her smile. “Okay, then,” she said, feeling less like her emotional destruction had been total. “I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up and scrambled off the hard floor. “Jax Fix, here I come!” She headed for the entry where she’d dropped her suitcase, then stopped, twisted around and grabbed up the pile of Perry’s cast-off shirts. In a fit of pique, she threw them into the fireplace. “They’ll make perfect kindling for my next fire,” she muttered. Hurrying into the entry she hoisted the suitcase she’d so recently lugged in. “Meanwhile, I’m catching the first flight to Chicago.”
Jax was dog-tired when he got in from his long, tedious client dinner. Sometimes being a business productivity consultant reaped great rewards, both monetary and emotional. Other times, like tonight, it was like pulling teeth to get a company CEO to believe him when he outlined all they needed to do to increase productivity.
“He wants my expertise, but he doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it on the muted green suede sofa, then headed upstairs to his bedroom. Loosening his tie, he noticed his answering machine blinking. Strange. Everybody knew his cell number and left voice mail. He didn’t even know why he still had the antiquated answering machine and land line. The truth was, he hadn’t had the time to get rid of them.
Though he figured it was a telemarketer or a solicitation for donations, he pressed the button to hear the message. The instant he heard that voice, he froze in the act of pulling his tie from around his neck.
It was Kim.
After all these years of getting nothing but a few scribbled lines in Christmas and birthday cards—it was Kim. Her voice was so familiar it had become a part of him, a part he both loved and hated. As the message ended, he took a couple of steps backward, staggering slightly, and sat down heavily on his bed. “Hell.”
Jax had only harbored one great passion in his life—Kimberly Norman. As a kid he’d been a distracted geek, way too intense, oblivious to the subtleties of high school social politics. But Kim never seemed to notice his shortcomings. She’d been his friend, laughed at his dumb geek jokes.
She never seemed bored when they were together, even when he went on and on about circuitry or motherboards. She helped build more than one of his Science Fair projects, even though she never knew what he meant when he explained them to her. Or cared, for that matter. He always thought she was terribly cute that way.
He knew about her unsettled home life, so his company was doubtless the lesser of two evils. Even so, she seemed to genuinely like being around him. And he loved having her around. Kim, the freckle-faced day-brightener, girl-next-door. He didn’t think she ever quite understood how lovely she was or how lucky he felt to be on the receiving end of her smiles.
As a youth he adored her quietly. Years passed, years when he hoped for more than a friendship. But after he was kindly—but definitely—shut down following a few fledgling dates, he faced the fact that Kimberly needed him as a friend. She certainly didn’t need him as a suitor. By the time she was seventeen she had plenty of those. Her carrot-red braids had become a flowing, sexy mane of auburn flame. And no matter how much she hated the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, in truth they were a charming enrichment to her delicate features.
When she came to him after breakups with boyfriends, he soothed her, grateful for that part of her she gave to him. But having her near, knowing she cared—but not enough—not in the way a man wants a woman to care, wore on him. He’d grown into a man, and a man could only stand so much. Finally, he’d had all he could stomach of her rebounding off him.
That’s why he left St. Louis. That’s why he wrapped himself in his dot.com business. Then, after he sold that and became a consultant, he buried himself in his new enterprise. One day, he hoped to forget Kim, find some other woman who could fill the hole in his heart that he’d wanted her to fill.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t happened.
Not yet.
He glared at the answering machine; the message light no longer blinked. “Why the hell couldn’t you have been a telemarketer.”
He ripped off his tie and threw it to the carpet. “Did it never occur to you that your little ‘Jax Fix’ pop-in might be a problem for me?” He started to unbutton his dress shirt, then stopped, ran both hands through his hair. Moments ago he was bored and weary. Now he blazed with a crazy mixture of bitterness and longing. What was he going to do? “I’ll call her back,” he thought aloud. “Tell her I’m going out of town—on business.” He shoved himself up to stand and headed for the phone to check his caller ID for her phone number. “Better yet, I’m leaving the country, for—for a month.”
He lifted the receiver, began to punch out the numbers. As he did, something strange happened. With each successive button he pushed, he slowed. By the last number, he had gone stock-still, his finger suspended above the number. “What’s wrong with you, man?” he gritted out. “Punch it! Before she leaves!”
He winced at a sudden thought and checked the time she had made the call. Five-thirteen. He flicked a narrowed glance at his wristwatch. Ten-thirty-five. Reality lashed like a whip. Heaving an exhale as raw as a blasphemy, he lowered the phone to the ebony bedside table. If he knew Kimberly at all—and he knew her well—she was on her way.
The doorbell chimed, thundering in the quiet like a tractor-trailer truck barreling through his bedroom. He wheeled toward the sound, resentful, infuriated, yet on fire for her. “Damn it, Kimberly!” he ground out in a burst of frustration and rage. “I refuse to be your rebound man again. If you can’t be my life, I want you out of it!”
He headed for the front door. With every step he repeated his manifesto to resist her.
Could he?
This time?
“Of course you can, you stupid ass.”
Stark, lung-constricting, muscle-cramping doubt twisted his insides.
CHAPTER TWO
THE instant Jax opened his door she leapt at him. Womanly curves registered cruelly on every nerve ending her body touched. Arms encircled his neck and feathery kisses dampened and
