Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(115)

He pulled away as soon as it was over. She lay staring at the ceiling. His desperation…his dark silence…the bleakness of their lovemaking…His book was done, and he’d just said good-bye.

Love me, Jake. Please love me. The words she’d spoken in the throes of lovemaking came back to her, and she felt sick inside.

They lay on the bed, not even their hands touching. Nothing.

“Flower?”

In her mind she saw a long stretch of sun-scorched sand spreading bleak and empty before her. She had so much—her job, her friends—but all she could see was the barren sand.

“Flower, I want to talk to you.”

She turned her back to him and burrowed her face into the pillow. Now he wanted to talk. Now that it was all over. Her head ached and her mouth felt dry and acrid. The mattress creaked as he left the bed. “I know you’re not asleep.”

“What do you want?” she finally said.

He switched on the gooseneck lamp that sat on his desk. She rolled over to face him. He stood next to the desk, unself-conscious in his nakedness. “Do you have anything going this weekend that you can’t cancel?” he said. “Anything important?”

He wanted to play out the final scene, the great good-bye. “Let me reach under the pillow and check my appointment calendar,” she said wearily.

“Damn it! Go throw some things in a suitcase. I’ll get you in half an hour.”



Two hours later they were in a chartered jet flying to God-knew-where, and Jake was asleep in the seat next to her. Was there some basic flaw in her makeup that made her keep falling in love with this man who couldn’t love her back? She didn’t try to slide around it anymore. She loved Jake Koranda.

She’d fallen in love with him when she was nineteen years old, and now she’d done it all over again. He was the only man she’d ever known who seemed to belong to her. Jake, who went out of his way to close himself off, was part of her. Maybe she had a death wish. Again and again, he left her emotionally stranded at the gates of the couvent. He didn’t give anything back. He wouldn’t talk about anything important—the war, his first marriage, what had happened when they were making Eclipse. Instead he deflected her with wisecracks. And if she wanted to be honest, she knew she did the same to him. But it was different with her. She did it because she had to protect herself. What did he have to protect?

It was seven in the morning when they landed in Santa Barbara. Jake turned up the collar on his leather jacket against the early chill, or maybe the prying eyes of a lurking fan. He carried an attaché case in one hand and guided her by the elbow toward the parking lot with the other. They stopped next to a dark maroon Jaguar sedan. He unlocked the door and slung his case, along with her overnight bag, into the back.

“It’ll be a while before we get there,” he said with an unexpected gentleness. “Try to get some sleep.”

The cantilevered glass and concrete house looked almost the same as she remembered it. What a perfect spot for the farewell they still had to play out. “A return to the scene of the crime?” she said as he pulled up in front.

He turned off the ignition. “I don’t know that I’d exactly call it a crime, but we have some ghosts to put to rest, and this seems like the right place to do it.”

She was tired and upset, and she couldn’t help sniping at him. “Too bad you couldn’t find a root beer stand. As long as we’re dealing with the business of lost innocence…”

He ignored her.

While he took a shower, she changed into a swimsuit. After she’d wrapped herself in a warm robe, she went out to test the water in the pool. It wasn’t heated nearly enough to combat the late morning January chill, but she shed her robe anyway and dived in. She gasped from the chill and began to swim laps, but the tension coiled inside her refused to unravel. She got out, pulled an oversized bath towel around her, and lay down on one of the chaises in the sun, where she instantly fell asleep.

Hours later, a small Mexican woman with shiny black hair awakened her and announced that dinner would be ready soon if she’d like to change first. Fleur deliberately avoided the big bathroom with the sunken tub where they’d made love all those years ago, choosing a smaller guest bathroom instead. By the time she’d finished her shower and swept her hair back from her face with a set of combs, her grogginess had disappeared. She pulled on light gray slacks and an open-necked sage-green blouse. Just before she stepped out into the living room, she slipped on the necklace Jake had given her, but then she fastened the button between her breasts so he wouldn’t see she was wearing it.

He was clean-shaven and dressed almost respectably in jeans and a light blue sweater, but the lines of exhaustion around his mouth hadn’t eased. Neither of them had much appetite, and their meal was tense and silent. She couldn’t get past the feeling that everything that had passed between them was about to be resolved, and there wouldn’t be a happy ending. Loving Jake had always been a one-way street.

Eventually the housekeeper appeared with coffee. She set the pot down harder than necessary to protest the injustice that had been done to her meal. Jake dismissed her for the night and sat without moving until he heard the back door close. He pushed himself away from the table and disappeared. When he came back, he was carrying a fat manila envelope. She stared at it, and then she stared at him. “You really did finish your book.”