Читать книгу Sweetheart Lost and Found - Shirley Jump - Страница 10

“JARED? Jared Townsend? Is that you? Oh…Wow.” She inhaled, her breasts rising with the action, along with Jared’s internal temperature. “My goodness. What a…a shock.” Callie stopped in front of him, clutching a large box to her chest, her mouth shaped in an O of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh…” His brain fired, sputtered, fired again. “Research.”

She smiled. “Let me guess. You’re trying to determine the best beer for forgetting a broken heart?”

“Coors,” Sam put in. “Best in sh-sh-show.” Then he sent the two of them a wave and headed off to the rest rooms.

Jared glanced down at his icy mug. Beer hadn’t helped him get over the broken heart he’d suffered after her, but he kept that ancient history buried, didn’t talk about it or drag it out.

Only a masochist dug up a skeleton like that. But damned if his body didn’t start playing archaeologist all the same, resurrecting old feelings…and a lot more. There was nothing analytical, statistical or sensible about it. There never had been, not when it came to Callie.

Still, he reminded himself, she had hurt him—and hurt him badly. If he was smart, he’d simply greet her as an old acquaintance and leave it at that.

“I’m here for work,” he told her. “Really. Even if it doesn’t look it.”

Her smile widened. “It doesn’t, except for the clipboard, which is so…you.” She shrugged, laughed a little, then started to move away. “Well, it was nice to see you again, Jared.”

Clipboard was so him? Well, damn it, maybe it was, but once upon a time she’d thought of him in a very different way.

Yeah, and how well had that ended up?

He shut off his inner voice. No matter what had happened in the past, a part of Jared wanted Callie to see he had grown and changed. Become a different man. One who wasn’t the nerdy professor she had so cavalierly left behind.

A man who could—contrary to his plan five seconds ago—have a conversation with her and be completely unaffected.

Cool with it, even.

“Callie.” She pivoted back. “Are you meeting someone here tonight?”

In the space of time it took her to answer, Jared’s heartbeat doubled. He caught his breath, waiting. And not because it would make a damned bit of difference to the sheets on his clipboard.

Tonight, he’d stepped into unfamiliar liquor-infused territory to analyze couples, to take that data, feed it into a computer then hand the information over to Wiley Games so they could use it to develop the next generation of couple-oriented games and products. Not exactly the high end research Jared had set out to be doing after he’d received his doctoral degree, but the work at Wiley Games paid the bills and kept him in spreadsheets.

Either way, if there was one particular half of a couple he didn’t want to add to his sheaf of papers, it was Callie Phillips.

“No, I’m not meeting anyone, not tonight,” she said.

Not an answer that gave him any indication of her status. Single? Attached? No ring adorned her left hand ring finger, so she wasn’t married or engaged. What happened? Where was Tony?

“Hey, Callie, what brings you by?” The bartender crossed to them, a friendly smile on his face.

Callie raised the box in her hands. “Your daughter is now marrying Clarence instead of Clarice.”

O’Malley chuckled and took the box from her. “Thank you. Glad you guys caught the mistake before we sent them out. That would have been quite the mess.”

“You’re more than welcome. The wedding’s going to be beautiful.”

O’Malley’s face softened. “My Jenny, she’s an angel. I can’t believe she’s going to be a bride. Or that I’m old enough to be the father of the bride.” He laughed, then thanked her again and moved down to the far end of the bar to refill the other couple’s shot glasses.

Callie called a goodbye to O’Malley and turned to go. Before Jared could think about what he was doing—and whether it was a mistake—Jared gestured toward the empty seat beside him. “Would you like to join me?”

What was he doing? Inviting her to stay?

Simple curiosity, that’s all it was. Getting caught up on where she’d been all these years.

“I thought you were working,” she said.

“It’s not busy here, so I’m taking a break.” He waved the bartender over to them. “A margarita, on the rocks, with salt.”

Callie smiled. “You remembered?”

“I did.” He remembered a lot more than just her favorite drink, but he kept that to himself. Jared reminded himself that he and Callie had broken up for a reason—and staying broken up had been in their best interests.

She took the seat, brushing by him as she did. He inhaled, and with the breath came the light, sweet floral scent of her perfume. “Thanks,” she said, when the bartender laid the drink before her.

“No problem, Callie.” O’Malley gave Jared another arched brow, this time one of appreciation that the “geek” had a beautiful woman sitting beside him.

Jared tapped the clipboard and grinned. “Nothing’s sexier than statistics.”

“If you say so, buddy,” the bartender said, then headed down to the fighting couple at the other end, who were working on their second set of tequila shots before gearing up for Round Two.

“What kind of research are you doing?” Callie asked.

“Counting the number of beautiful women who come into a bar alone. I’m up to one. I think I should quit while I’m ahead.” He grinned. “Actually it’s a questionnaire of sorts for couples. A research project for the company I’m working for.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“It’s actually a lot more exciting once you feed all the information into a computer and start manipulating the data, using it to run statistical probabilities and forecasts. And if I get lucky, hopefully I’ll come up with enough data to create some real, hard evidence to bring to a peer-reviewed journal. Something more respectable than the basis of the next ‘Twenty Tantalizing Bedroom Teasers.’”

“‘Bedroom Teasers’?” Callie chuckled, then raised a dubious brow. “This from the man who dressed up as a biker on Halloween in college? What happened to the leather jacket? The boots? The chaps?”

“Probably shoved in a closet somewhere. I’m strictly a suit and tie guy now. No more of that crazy open road, living by the seat of my pants talk.”

His brief, one-night foray into that different persona had been a bad idea. He’d thought that by slipping on a black jacket, climbing on a Harley, he could get Callie to notice him in a way she never had in high school. She had—for a heartbeat—until Tony had stolen her back again, leaving Jared with an extra helmet and a lot of regrets.

No more. He wouldn’t journey that road again.

“Pity.” Callie took a sip of her drink.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “You were a lot of fun when you were a…well, not exactly a bad boy, but a bad-ish boy.”

“You make me sound like a five-year-old who wouldn’t obey his bedtime.”

“If I remember correctly, there wasn’t much trouble getting you to bed.” Then Callie’s face colored and she directed her attention to her drink again.

Jared remembered, too. Remembered too well. One night—a night he’d never forgotten, but she had begged him to never mention again, so that she could marry Tony, with a clear conscience.

Tony—Jared’s former best friend. Tony—the man who had stood between them both and been everything Jared wasn’t.

And everything Callie wanted.

The memory sucker-punched Jared in the gut and he had to swallow hard before he could breathe again. He’d let Callie go, left college, leaving them behind without a second glance, because he’d thought she was better off—

Had she been? Had he made the right choice?

Hell yes, he had. She would have never been happy with Jared—she’d made that clear. Jared thought that after nine years that last night with Callie wouldn’t still sting, would have become some distant memory, fog on his past’s horizon.

But nothing about Callie Phillips was foggy in his mind. And he’d be fooling himself if he thought otherwise.

He cleared his throat and took a swig of beer. “So what are you doing now? I take it you’re not the bohemian I remember.”

She chuckled. “No. I’m now a responsible tax-paying florist.”

“A florist?” He assessed her. “That, I can believe. You transformed that hovel I called an apartment into a respectable home, something that didn’t scream bachelor dive. You always did have an eye for color and design.” Jared straightened his glasses again, then asked the one question that had lingered on the tip of his tongue ever since she’d walked into the bar. Was she still with him? “So, how are things with Tony?” he said, nonchalant, taking a sip of beer. “Did you guys have any kids?”

“We’re divorced. No kids.”

Pain flickered in her gaze, and he wanted to ask more, but they’d only been sitting together for five minutes. It wouldn’t be right to probe. No matter how curious he was, how the need to know nearly overwhelmed him. What had happened? When had the tarnish appeared on the golden couple? And did Callie ever regret what had happened? Did she ever think about how her leaving Jared had affected him?

Jared took a sip of beer and navigated toward safer subjects. “Do you live here, in the city?”

She nodded. “I settled back in Boston three years ago when Tony got a job in the city. That’s when I was hired to be a florist for the Wedding Belles.”

“The Wedding Belles?”

“It’s a wedding planning company over on Newbury Street. There are six of us, all working for a woman named Belle, hence the name.”

“Wow. We’re practically neighbors,” Jared said. “I live right around the corner from here and the research division of the company I work for is five blocks from Newbury Street.”

“All those times we could have run into each other and never did.”

“Until now.” Jared’s gaze met hers. Heat brewed between them, a connection never really lost, even though many years had passed since they’d last seen each other. “Serendipity brings us together again.”

“Either that or bad taste in bars.” She raised her drink toward his.

“Always the optimist.” He smiled, teasing her, then tapped her glass with his own. “You haven’t changed, Callie.” He paused, and searched her face, looking for the woman he used to know. The one who had made his pulse race, encouraged him to take chances, to think bigger, wilder, to dream of possibilities he’d never dared to have—not until she’d come along. And never dared to have again after she’d gone. “Have you?”

“I should probably go,” Callie said suddenly, pushing her margarita to the side. “You have work to do and this…” She looked around the empty bar. “This was not a good idea.”

“What do you mean?” She’d just arrived and already she was leaving?

“I just stopped by to drop off the invitations. Thanks for the drink, Jared, and the trip down Memory Lane.”

He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. He couldn’t, not again. When Callie had been in his life, she’d brought something special, something he’d never found again. Losing her had hurt, hurt like hell. And for just a moment, even though he knew it was crazy and knew she was all wrong for him, he wanted her. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

“I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow.” She started to slip off the stool, grabbing her clutch purse from the bar.

He reached for her arm, intending only to stop her, to keep her from leaving too soon. But the fire that rocketed through Jared’s veins told him that nothing had died between them, at least not on his end. Every bit of the attraction that had been left undone in high school, barely explored in college, lurked under the surface, like tinder simply waiting for that spark.

“Callie—” He cut off the sentence. What ending did he have? He hadn’t had a “Cool” transplant in the last nine years, which meant he was still the man he’d always been, the kind of man she hadn’t wanted.

Only a fool went for a third strike. Yet, Jared found himself drawn again, wondering if the distance of years would give each of them another shot.

“I should get home,” Callie said, stepping out of his grasp. “Nice seeing you again, Jared.”

And then she was gone. The door shut behind her, whisking in a cool burst of air as a goodbye.

In an instant, regrets blasted Jared. What the hell was he thinking, letting her get away again? At the very least, he should have asked her out, just to see…

What?

He didn’t know, really. They’d been over for a long time—if they’d ever really been anything at all—yet something inside him still wanted to know. Still felt that sense of something undone, that insistent need to complete the storyline.

Why didn’t he just leave the past alone—leave her alone?

When he met her gaze, he knew why. Because a part of him still wanted answers to his questions. Wanted to know how Callie felt about those days. Jared didn’t want a relationship. He wanted closure.

“Hey, where’d sh-she go? The pretty lady?”

Sam. Jared had forgotten all about him. He turned to find the man, looking a little better with his face washed, and a cup of coffee in him. “She had to leave.”

Sam sighed. “The pretty ones always have to go, don’t they?”

“Seems that way.”

Several people trickled into the bar. None of them Callie. Jared didn’t look for couples, no longer cared about his research.

Sam sank onto one of the stools. Jared signaled for a refill of the coffee cup. “My Angie, sh-she’s gone now. Lost her, lost my res-sh-tauraunt, lost everything,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m a…a drunk.” He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. “My Angie, she’d yell at me, tell me to straighten up. Get it together for the grandkids.”

“Why don’t you?” Jared asked, his voice almost bitter and angry. As the words left him, he knew the question wasn’t just for Sam, but for someone else, someone who wasn’t here, and who couldn’t answer.

Sam shrugged, then paused for a long moment, staring into the coffee. “Would they really care?” he asked, his voice low, full of regret. “After all I’ve done?”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “They would.”

Sam looked up, the bleariness in his eyes cleared and for a second, he seemed as sober as a minister. “You think we all get second chances, Jared?”

Jared’s chest tightened. He hoped so. If his father had lived longer, Jared knew now, with the wisdom of age and experience, that he would have given him a second chance, too. “I’d like to think so.”

O’Malley cleared his throat. “Cab’s here.”

“That’s my cue,” Sam said, rising. He put out a hand to stop Jared from paying the tab. “I’ve got it from here. You’ve done enough. Go after her. Don’t wait too long, like me.”

Jared watched Sam leave. The words “we all get second chances” rang in his ears. Maybe it was possible.

Jared scrambled off the stool, tossed a few more bills onto the pile for the tip and moved to grab his clipboard. As he picked it up, a germ of an idea sprang to his mind.

What if…he combined a little research with the answers he wanted? What if he found a way to not only peek inside Callie’s mind but also use their time together to analyze her reactions? He could do his research—

And find his answers to the past, all at once.

It would solve his problem perfectly. Give him exactly the kind of intimate knowledge his game research needed.

What harm could come of a few days with Callie Phillips? Not a real relationship, just a few dates. After all, Callie hadn’t been divorced for very long. Surely she wasn’t interested in anything permanent. And neither was he. Once his research was done, he’d be hip deep in work anyway, which meant no time for a life—

Again. Which was what he had done in his last two relationships. Yet, even as he told himself this was the perfect solution for both of them, a tiny bell of doubt rang, telling him things with Callie always had been more complicated than that.

Jared ignored the warning signals and strode out of the bar. Had to be the buzz of beer. Or the part of himself that wasn’t interested in signing up for Broken Heart Duty a second time in a decade.

But seeing her, for just a little while—

He couldn’t resist that, no matter how much he tried.

He caught up to her a little ways down the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around herself, to ward off the evening chill. He slipped off his jacket and slid it over her shoulders before she could protest.

“Thanks,” Callie said. “You were always Sir Galahad.”

“That’s me. The nerd in waiting.” He tipped at his glasses.

“You’re not so nerdy, Jared. Just…nice.” She smiled. “And that’s not so bad, or so easy to find.”

Damn, he was tired of her thinking he was nice. Tired of being seen as “just Jared.”

Nice guys finished last. And Jared had been left in Tony and Callie’s dust.

For one brief moment, she had seen him as something—someone else. Maybe he could give her that peek again. His mind scrambled for a way to connect, to find a path back to who she used to be, to the people they had been nine years ago. And in the process find out what had gone wrong. Why she had found him so lacking and Tony, the heartbreaker, such a better choice.

Then maybe that continual ache would stop hurting.

Music drifted out of O’Malley’s bar as the door opened and closed, releasing the fighting couple, who had apparently made up and were now holding hands and snuggling as they left. Other people headed in, the place finally beginning to fill as the night deepened. The music’s volume swelled, bass nearly drumming the sidewalk.

Jared took a step forward, and leaned close, his pulse ratcheting up with the nearness of her. “Do you still do that one thing you used to do?”

Her eyebrows arched. “What one thing?”

Jared took another step closer, invading her space now, inhaling her perfume, his research forgotten, his reason for being here long since left by the wayside. “You know what I’m talking about, Mariah Callie.”

Callie took in a breath, her chest rising with the movement, and it was all Jared could do not to bend forward and kiss her, just to see if she would still taste as she did. Feel like she used to, her mouth beneath his, her sweet lips against his.

Damn. What kind of game was he playing?

“Yes,” she said.

He grinned. “Good. Then let’s go do it now.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” Jared said. “But since when did that ever stop you?”

Callie returned the smile, hers now curving up into one filled with a bit of a dare, a challenge. “Are you sure you can keep up with me?”

Jared leaned forward. His lips brushed against the edge of her hair, nearly kissed the delicate curve of her ear. “Absolutely. I’ve been practicing.”

Callie laughed, the deep, throaty sound Jared remembered, sending his mind roaring down a heady path he thought he’d forgotten. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten it. Not at all.

Telling him his plan had one hell of a serious flaw.