Valentine's Child Read online

  But Sherry Sterling didn’t respond like he’d imagined. Her eyes narrowed as she slowly and deliberately pulled her arm free. For an awkward moment he expected her to say something, but she merely hung onto her bag and waited for him to leave.

  “I’ll try to work on my vocab,” he told her. She didn’t respond, so he was forced to return to his groupies who were waiting in the wings. Confounded, he refused to look back, although it killed him to walk down the hall without her.

  Months passed, the end of sophomore year came, then summer, then football season once again. Junior year and he was with Caroline. He’d gotten over that weird thing with Sherry Sterling, or so he told himself, and although his antennae seemed to twitch whenever she was around, he made a pact with himself to stop thinking lustful thoughts about her. He’d been a kid last year. Stupid and eager and somehow attracted to this girl who wasn’t even in his league. Besides, all he wanted was sex, wasn’t it? No strings attached. Sherry Sterling possessed a killer body and time had only added to its desirability.

  Enclosed in this self-protective fog, Jake wandered around clueless for weeks, certain he knew how he felt. But slowly he realized that he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Sherry Sterling’s various attributes. Other guys slid her surreptitious looks, only now she was sliding them right back.

  What had once been Jake’s secret passion was suddenly everyone’s newest craze: Sherry Sterling, Super-Hot Babe. He heard her name on his friends’ lips. They spoke of her in terms of body parts: eyes, legs, breasts, butt. They repeated clever things she’d said to them — not the cold remark she’d tossed his way, but the nice words and compliments that made his friends’ eyes glaze over when they were recounted and enjoyed anew.

  Even Ryan was particularly smitten. He babbled on and on about her. About how he hoped she would take a job at Bernie’s Pizza. About how he was working on it. About how smokin’ hot she was.

  Jake could scarcely stand it. Time and time again he felt a passionate rage lick through him when some guy mentioned Sherry. Ryan was bad enough, but other guys weren’t as nice about it. Once Jake nearly picked a fight with Tim Delaney, the team’s wide receiver, for making a crude remark about what he would do to Sherry Sterling when he got her into bed. Bets were placed on when that would be.

  Jake ground his teeth and reminded himself that it was just guy talk and he didn’t give a damn about any of it.

  Homecoming came and Jake threw a dozen passes into Tim’s waiting hands. They were an awesome team on the field, making mincemeat of the opponent and showing up the lazy seniors who were big on bragging but small on talent. Off the field Jake and Tim couldn’t stand each other, however; a battle that had begun long before Sherry Sterling.

  Still, for that night they slapped palms like old friends and grinned deliriously at their success. It was great to be on top. To be the best of the best. To be J.J. Beckett, all–star quarterback.

  He went to the homecoming dance warm with satisfaction. People paid court to him, and he ate it up. But somewhere during the evening he realized he felt vaguely dissatisfied. Checking around inside himself, he couldn’t come up with an answer to his problem. Here he was with blonde, popular Caroline Newsmith on his arm, his buddies, Ryan Delmont and Matt Hudson, hanging nearby, and Tim Delaney, his worst rival, a friend for tonight at least, as they basked in their shared triumph.

  It should have been perfect.

  “Hey,” Caroline whispered, reading his mood. “You were awesome out there.”

  “Yeah?” He tried to pay attention. She smelled good, her hair shining gold beneath the colored lights. Inhaling deeply, he wondered with a certain amount of alarm why she didn’t stir his blood. Maybe it was a good thing. Sexual involvement with Caroline would be a major problem. She just wasn’t that kind of girl.

  But why not? Why not feel just a little healthy lust?

  “I’m hoarse from cheering,” Caroline continued, resting her head on his shoulder. “Did you hear us? Annie and I were screaming at the top of our lungs and some older people told us to quiet down. We didn’t, of course,” she added, though she looked scandalized. This was the height of true rebellion for Caroline.

  Jake dragged her closer until the contours of her body melted into his. Inside, his own rebellion seemed to be heating up, burning like molten steel. He hadn’t slept with a girl since Tina, and he was beginning to feel angry and frustrated.

  He thought, I want a bad girl…

  Caroline squirmed at the pressure, but she tried not to let him know. Instantly he eased up, mad at himself. Just as instantly she relaxed against him again, peering up at him sideways, searching his expression.

  “You want to leave?” he asked abruptly.

  “I’d kind of like to stay.” Her brows knit in confusion. She was totally at sea about his feelings and that bugged Jake, too.

  “I’m over this. I gotta get going.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I can drop you off, or somebody’ll take you home.”

  She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I can catch a ride with Annie,” she responded frostily, and although Jake should have felt remorse, he was too anxious to feel much of anything but relief.

  He drove for hours, the car window down so that the bite of fall air cleared his head, the radio up so that music throbbed and deafened. He circled Oceantides in erratic loops, passing by all the hangouts, consumed with an urgency that was almost violent. For the first time in his life he wanted to drink and fight and indulge in meaningless sex and damn the consequences. He yearned for relief from this nameless demon that rode him.

  What the hell was the matter with him?

  With a screech of tires he pulled into a viewing spot at the end of Mariner Lane, at the edge of the beach. Tearing off his letterman’s jacket, shoes and socks, he tromped down to the ocean and let the water numb his feet and ankles. Flinging himself into the surf nearly stopped his heart; the water was glacial. Dragging in a choked breath, he didn’t back down. He was on some nameless, self–destructive mission, like lemmings throwing themselves into the sea and he couldn’t help himself.

  He bobbed aimlessly, sometimes floating like a dead man, eyes open to a black, cold sky; sometimes swimming against the tide until his arms felt like lead weights and his breath rasped in his throat.

  He was so cold by the time he fought his way back to the beach he could scarcely stand. His own foolishness finally penetrated his dull brain, and he marveled that he could have tempted fate this far. Was he trying to kill himself? No. Was he stupid enough to put his life at risk because he felt frustrated and disconnected an unhappy? Yes, apparently.

  At the car he couldn’t get the key into the lock. His fingers were yellow–white with cold and his whole body shivered uncontrollably as if it were in its last death throes. He couldn’t move his lips even to swear; his jaw was frozen half–open. Unable to perform this one tiny task that would save him from freezing, he wondered if he would actually die of exposure outside his BMW, keys in his hands.

  At first he didn’t feel her presence; he was way too immersed in more physical problems. But suddenly she was there, her coat flapping against her legs, her hair lifted by the wind and moving seductively against her shoulders like sea foam. He stared at her like the village idiot, unable to move, speak or think.

  “You went swimming,” she observed. “Probably not the choice I would have made on a night like tonight.”

  His teeth chattered in response. The keys rattled in his palsied hand.

  Sherry hesitated for the length of one heartbeat, her brows drawn together in alarm and understanding. Extracting the keys, she made short work of the lock but when Jake couldn’t climb inside, she put her arm around his waist and half hoisted him onto the seat.

  “What in God’s name were you doing out there?” she demanded, puffing from exertion. Her luminous eyes caught a glancing beam of moonlight. Jake felt faint and lightheaded and wondered if he was going to pass o
ut.

  “Do you need someone to drive you?” She demanded.

  He shook his head. Fine, bright lights seemed to dazzle his eyes.

  “Are you certain?”

  Jake fought his shivering but hypothermia had grabbed him in a death grip. He was going under and part of him didn’t care.

  He didn’t feel the slap; numbness overrode everything. But he was suddenly blinking and awake, and Sherry’s open palm explained it all. He thought she might hit him again, but when he looked her way, she ordered, “Stay awake, J.J. Beckett. Do you understand?”

  Oh, he understood. He was in big trouble. He nodded.

  “Stay. Awake.”

  “Okay,” he mumbled but it was just a whoosh of sound from his lungs that didn’t form words.

  “Move over,” she commanded, pushing him until he tumbled over the gearshift and tumbled against the passenger door. He felt so brittle he thought he might break into a million pieces. Climbing behind the wheel, she stated calmly, “I don’t have my license, but I figure this is something of an emergency.”

  With that she twisted the ignition and with a cautious expertise that Jake appreciated much later when he was finally warm and safe again, she drove him home. She made noise about taking him to the nearest hospital, but he adamantly refused and so she drove him up the hill to what she referred to as Beckett Manor.

  The house was dark; his parents were in bed before ten every night. Sherry helped him from the car, through the gates and back door into the kitchen.

  He fumbled with his clothes. There was no hope for it. Sherry hovered by the door, wanting to bolt, but he heard her mutter something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a string of obscenities, and then she was helping him while he stood by, utterly passive. She undid his belt and dropped his wet jeans to the floor. His boxers were plastered to his legs. She pulled his shirt and undershirt over his head in one swoop, then said calmly, “You need a shower or bath or something.”

  He shuffled down the hall, Sherry followed slowly behind, unwilling, he supposed, to abandon her patient until she was completely assured he would live. He was glad she was there. He needed someone, and he realized vaguely that he’d needed someone all night.

  There was a guest room and bathroom — more like a maid’s quarters really — beneath his own wing of rooms. He led the way, Sherry behind him. The shower had been redone in a curve of translucent glass brick and Sherry briskly turned the taps. A rush of hot, moist air filled the room.

  A moment later, she said, “I’m going to leave it on the barely warm side or you won’t be able to stand it.”

  Jake was hardly in a position to argue even if he’d wanted to. Still numb, he hobbled into the shower with his boxers on. Through the glass he could see her wavy form move toward the door. “Wait!” he croaked out.

  She stopped. Jake’s gaze stayed on the distorted colors that were Sherry as the heat from the shower needled into his skin. It seemed as if the water were boiling hot until his flesh began to warm and he realized the shower was barely lukewarm. Slowly he turned up the hot tap, but it seemed like hours before he felt his blood heat. The whole time, his gaze stayed glued to Sherry who hung by the door as if waiting for someone to open it from the other side and free her. Jake chafed at the delay. What if she left too soon? He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her here, with him, and with growing insight, he realized that she was what he’d been waiting for all night.

  Eventually he stepped from the shower. She still hovered by the door, looking awfully scared now, although earlier she’d been in maximum control. Grabbing a towel, he wrapped it around his waist and wished he could peel the wet boxers off without spooking her into running like a deer.

  That was what she looked like — a scared fawn. Gone was the steel–voiced woman who acted with such cool determination. This was a new, vulnerable Sherry, and he could tell by the way her lips pursed that she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Thanks,” he said, swiping wet hair from his face. He was glad his voice was back.

  She nodded. “You probably would’ve frozen to death if I hadn’t come along.”

  “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Really.”

  Her sarcasm hit home. Now that the initial crisis was over he felt like a moron. God, what did she think? He practically owed her his life.

  “What were you doing?” she asked. “What’s the ocean temperature right now? Forty degrees? Are you crazy?”

  “Yeah …I guess I am.”

  “You have some kind of death wish?”

  “Not usually.”

  “Was this some kind of macho dare?” she asked, her starch returning.

  “I was just thinking that I wanted to get away from everything.”

  “Permanently?”

  “It wasn’t a suicide attempt,” he snapped. “I just wanted everything — to stop.”

  The words came from somewhere inside himself. What had been eating at him all day, all week, maybe all year, suddenly seemed so clear.

  “Thanks for saving me,” he said quietly.

  “Oh… no.” She shrugged that off. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You mind not telling?” He tried a smile which was too much effort and fell off his face. “They wouldn’t understand.”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “Your friends.”

  “I don’t have those kinds of friends,” she said.

  “Neither do I,” he said, because it was the truth. He didn’t have the kinds of friends he could really trust. J.J. didn’t realize how condescending he might sound until Sherry’s face flushed pink and her eyes glittered.

  “J.J. Beckett doesn’t have any friends?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Yeah?” She arched one disbelieving eyebrow.

  “I said I don’t have those kinds of friends. That’s what you said, and I agreed with you. That’s all.”

  “What about Ryan Delmato? Matt Hudson?”

  “Look, I just said — ”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, okay? I can handle myself. I don’t need you telling me you understand my problems.”

  “Hey.” He lifted his hands in surrender. “Stop being so defensive. Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Silence pooled between them. He was truly baffled by her prickliness. Okay, so she hadn’t been born with a silver spoon stuck firmly between her teeth like he had. Big deal. Some people just come out with inner class and she was one of them. He could appreciate that. Too bad she couldn’t.

  “I’ve gotta go,” she said abruptly.

  “Wait.”

  Without thinking he reached out and grabbed her wrist. Immediately he felt her recoil from his touch. But it was a move he was glad he’d made because he so wanted to touch her, and in a perverse sort of way he could tell that his touch affected her and he needed to know that.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded as he leaned toward her.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted honestly. He was just reacting. Reacting to a long, hard night and a brush with death had left him in a suspended state of unreality.

  She was rigid as steel but warm. She’d tried to freeze him out so many times he’d half believed she was made of ice. But her skin was smooth, supple and hot beneath his hand and because he wasn’t thinking quite clearly, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth.

  If she’d truly thought he was going to kiss her she would’ve pulled away; she told him that later when they could laugh about it. But at that moment she was so stunned that he’d actually dragged her into his arms that her lips parted in a gasp of disbelief. The feel of her half-open mouth was an invitation. Jake thrust his tongue inside its heat and groaned with desire.

  And she bit down for all she was worth.

  “Goddammit!” he howled, shoving her away from him. Blood filled his mouth.

  “You bastard,” she whispered. “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

 
; And then she was gone. Jake was left to nurse his injury and thank his lucky stars she hadn’t tried to bite off his tongue in earnest.

  Later, lying in bed reviewing the scene, he was slightly embarrassed. For a moment he’d believed she was his and that she wanted him, there’d been no question. For a moment…

  With a groan he shoved his head under the pillow and vowed to forget her, but even as he made the pledge, he knew it possessed no teeth.

  He was going to do his damnedest to have Sherry Sterling. She was the one and only thing he’d wanted in a long, long time.

  Now, Jake blinked awake like a sleepwalker. The waves still roiled toward shore outside his windows and the piece of paper with Caroline’s hotel number still lay in his hand. Only he’d crumpled it into a miniscule ball.

  Emotion sang through him, down every nerve fiber. So long ago yet so powerful. It could’ve been yesterday. First loves were impossible to forget, but he wondered if others still felt them as keenly as he sometimes did. It bothered him a bit. What if this was some irreparable flaw in his character that would haunt him forever?

  A moment later he chuckled. Then he threw back his head and laughed. Good grief, he was getting maudlin. So Sherry Sterling had materialized in Oceantides. So what? It wasn’t like she had the power to turn his life inside out again. That was a symptom of his teen years, and he’d been cured of the illness long ago.

  As far as he was concerned, there was nothing Sherry Sterling could do or say that would make any difference to him now. There were no ties between them, apart from a few bittersweet memories.

  With a renewed sense of control he picked up the phone to call Caroline.

  VALENTINE’S CHILD — NANCY BUSH

  Chapter Four