“Jane’s not holding up well. I’m afraid she’s going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“She’s doing that badly?”
“I stopped by her work yesterday. She took one look at me and ran for the bathroom. She shut herself in and wouldn’t come out.”
The depth of her own concern surprised Skye, considering how vehemently Jane hated her. “What about her little girl, Kate?”
“She’s fine. She spends a lot of time with Oliver’s mother.” He drank a sip of his ice water. “I’m thinking of talking to Noah’s wife, Wendy. She was pretty tight-lipped throughout the trial, but she seemed to take it all in and process it with some objectivity. Something tells me she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She might listen to reason.”
“Maybe she’d be more receptive to me.”
His eyebrows rose. “Are you kidding? You’re the devil incarnate, as far as Oliver’s family is concerned.”
“I know. But I’m not as threatening as a police officer. And of all his family, Wendy was the only one who looked at me with any kindness during the trial.”
“You think she believed you?”
“No, I think she believed him—that I attacked him while I was on drugs. But she knew I was telling the story I thought to be the truth.”
David scowled. “I wouldn’t want Noah to see you talking to her.”
“I wouldn’t want him to see me, either.”
“And he has kids, so you can’t go to the house.”
She toyed with her silverware, wondering how she was ever going to eat. She was too uneasy about Noah’s possible involvement and Jane’s desperate state. And then there was the baby, always in the back of her mind. I’m carrying your baby. “Where, then?” she asked.
“Her work, I guess.”
“Where does she work?” He had razor stubble covering his jaw, as if he hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning, and there were fatigue lines around his eyes. Skye couldn’t help noticing—and worrying about him.
“She’s a substitute teacher.”
“That’s going to make it pretty hard to track her down.”
The waitress brought their food. “I’ll see what I can do and give you a call once I’ve selected a good time and place.”
“Okay.” Skye reached for the salt at the same moment David did. When their hands brushed, she expected him to draw back immediately. He’d been all business since the fund-raiser, one hundred percent back to his former self. Obviously, he wanted to make sure that what had happened at the Hyatt didn’t happen again. But he didn’t withdraw. His fingers interlaced with hers and his thumb stroked her palm, a motion that was both erotic and tender.
Skye shivered as sexual awareness skittered through her.
“You are so beautiful,” he said.
“Weren’t you the one who said this kind of thing isn’t going to help?” she responded. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.
“I can’t fight it anymore.”
Her chest grew tight with anticipation. “What do you mean?”
“I want to spend more time with you.”
“What about Lynnette?”
“I’ve already told her.”
She looked at their entwined hands. Would he enjoy the next week or two with her, then go back to his ex-wife? “I don’t know, David,” she said. There was so much more at stake now. Skye didn’t want a brief affair. She wanted to marry him and settle down.
But a long-lasting relationship had to start somewhere, didn’t it?
“Is that a no?” he murmured.
“Do you have Jeremy this weekend?”
“Not this weekend, no.”
She met his steady but inquiring gaze. “Then why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?”
He gave her a sexy smile. “What time?”
“Seven?”
“Okay,” he said. But when he released her hand and she started her meal, she could’ve sworn she glimpsed Lynnette standing outside the door, staring at them through the glass.
“What is it?” David asked, following her gaze. But the woman was gone before Skye could get a good look at her.
“Nothing,” she said distantly and finished her food.
Noah didn’t call her. Jane waited, thinking he must’ve heard the phone ring last night, heard his wife talk to her. He’d probably been lying in bed right next to Wendy. But if he had heard, he didn’t care. Jane finally became so overwrought she could scarcely work. How could Noah tell Wendy about them? That was such a betrayal, so unfair. Now he got to be the repentant one, the one with an opportunity to apologize and try to make it up to her. And Jane was the slut who’d caused it all, someone to be shunned by both of them.
“What’s wrong with you today?” Danielle snapped when Jane dropped her scissors on the floor and had to resterilize them for the third time.
“Nothing,” she grumbled. Danielle wouldn’t understand. A single mother who’d lost her only living parent last year, she didn’t have an easy life. But no one had problems quite like Jane’s. Jane had lost her mother long ago, as well as the aunt who’d raised her. She’d never known her father. And that was before she married Oliver Burke.
As soon as Jane finished the haircut she’d been working on, Danielle pulled her aside. “You need to calm down or you’re going to end up hurting yourself with your own scissors.”
It already looked as if she’d hurt herself. She’d been biting her cuticles so badly she had sores on almost every finger. She had to cover them with Band-Aids when she came to work so she didn’t scare the customers.
“I-I’m trying.” She craved a cigarette even though she’d had one only twenty minutes earlier.
Danielle’s expression softened as she gazed at Jane’s bandaged fingers. “Look, why don’t you take off early? I don’t know how you can cut hair with all those on, anyway. I can manage on my own.”
Jane couldn’t figure out what to make of this kindness. At the shop, it was pretty much a dog-eat-dog world. They were all too mired in their own difficulties, struggling too hard for survival to do many favors for each other.
“You’re sure?” she asked. She knew it’d mean that Danielle would have to stay late, that she’d get less time with her son, which was all she cared about, but Danielle nodded and shoved Jane toward her station.