Steadfast (True North #2) Read online

  Not even from me, who’d loved him best.

  Jude was a convict now. That was never going away. It killed me to know his criminal record was a permanent mark against his character, because there was a lot of good in Jude.

  He might tell you to your face that he wasn’t a nice guy, but I knew that was just a front. And here I was, making lasagna, thinking about Jude. Again. Gah.

  At least now I was thinking about his character. I’d spent much of the last four days thinking about his naked body. Monday I’d caught myself staring into space at work, distracted by the memory of his strong arms bracing me against the dresser. When he’d taken off his shirt, I’d been stunned to see all that muscle. He looked like Super Jude. And in the mirror, I’d watched his expression as he’d teased me. He’d closed his eyes and turned his face to the side, the way you turn your eyes from a harsh light. But his beautiful mouth had fallen open with pleasure, and his chest rose and fell with each labored breath.

  He was beautiful. And as much as I regretted acting like a crazy woman, I’d be savoring that image for a long time.

  Denny showed up to help with the cooking, and that got me out of my head a little. He had taken most of the day off at the hospital to do school work. “How’s the thesis-writing going?”

  “Good. How are you, anyway? You’ve been quiet this week.”

  “I’m fine. Just busy.” Busy thinking about the sex I had with the man I’m not supposed to want. And busy feeling grumpy that my family forgot my birthday.

  If I told Denny it was my birthday, he’d whip up some kind of impromptu celebration, probably involving a marching band and a piñata. But I didn’t want to be that girl, and a twenty-third birthday wasn’t all that important.

  Still, the people who are supposed to love you ought to remember.

  I’d spent the morning grinning at my phone, since my college friends all sent me funny pictures and jokes. My besties asked me when I was going to come and visit them in Philadelphia, Boston and L.A.

  “Maybe after my graduation is official,” I’d replied. If I were jobless, I’d have the time for a trip, if not the cash.

  My graduation would be another thing my parents would ignore. Since my brother never got his, it would be too painful for them to acknowledge mine.

  Denny helped me with the cooking. He boiled the noodles while I finished browning the meat. Then we began opening giant cans of sauce.

  “That’s a good look for you,” I teased Denny, pointing at the frilly apron he’d put on over his clothes.

  “Sauce stains,” he complained. “It’s the only apron I could find.” Gamely, he layered the noodles into one giant pan while I did the same in another.

  “What are we serving on the side?” he asked.

  “There’s spinach. A farmer donated the last of his crop. But it needs to be washed and chopped.”

  “Should I ask…?” His eyes flicked toward the back corner.

  Jude had not appeared the first ten times I’d looked for him. But now I turned my head and there he was. Jude stood behind the prep counter, tying a bandanna over his hair. He wore a tight-fitting T-shirt reading “Norwich Farmers’ Market, Est. 1977.” His biceps flexed as he fiddled with the knot behind his head.

  A fine sweat broke out on my back.

  Fuck.

  “Soph?”

  “Right,” I said a little too quickly. “Yeah. He should, um, take care of the veggies. The spinach is in the, uh, walk-in.” I gave Denny a little shove in Jude’s direction.

  For the next hour, I tried to steer clear of Jude. But it didn’t work out so well. The eggs I needed to stir into the ricotta cheese were stacked up on the prep table. When I headed back there my traitorous eyes locked on his big hands as they piled cut spinach into a kitchen bin. Those hands had been all over my body in the very recent past.

  Yikes.

  “Evening,” Jude said, his voice low and steady.

  “Evening,” I repeated as casually as possible. Nope! I’m not thinking about you bending me over any furniture right now. No sir. I picked up the carton of eggs.

  “You have any garlic?”

  “What?” I raised my eyes.

  His gorgeous eyes blinked down at me. “Fresh garlic. For the spinach. It will taste bland otherwise.”

  “Um, I’ll check.” Setting the eggs back down, I spun around and headed into the supply closet. Alone inside, I took a deep breath and scanned the shelves for garlic. There was garlic powder, but that wouldn’t taste nearly as good. It took me far too long to notice a cardboard box at my feet filled with—wait for it—about two dozen bulbs of garlic.

  I grabbed a few of them and trotted back out to the kitchen, proud of myself. They landed with a thunk on the prep table.

  It wasn’t until I returned to the ricotta cheese that I realized I didn’t have any eggs. They were back on the prep table.

  “Forget something?” Jude asked when I returned for them.

  “Uh-huh.” I watched as he raised the flat side of the knife, then brought it down with a smack onto a big clove of garlic. I was just about to ask why he’d do that when he picked up the clove and casually flicked the skin off of it. That was a neat trick. Removing the skin from a clove of garlic usually took me ten minutes and at least as many curses.

  And now I was staring.

  With my eggs in hand, I ran off to go back to work. I broke eight eggs into a mixing bowl. But the Gods of awkwardness weren’t done with me yet. I needed a whisk, and those were kept in one of the drawers under the prep table. Probably.

  Once again, I circled the prep table, where Jude was mincing salt and garlic together into a fine paste. I tapped one of the drawers. “If you could take a half step to the right…” My face was burning up again—just the side effect of my stupidity.

  Jude moved and I opened the drawer only to find it full of chopsticks.

  “Um,” I said, closing it. I walked around behind him to the other side. “Sorry…”

  He shifted his body out of my way for a second time, his hands still busy with the knife and cutting board.

  There wasn’t quite enough space for me to get the whisk. “Jude, I really just need another inch.”

  His response came in a voice so low that I almost couldn’t hear him. “That’s not what you said the other night, baby.”

  I grabbed the whisk from the drawer as his words sank in. But when my feeble brain took in the ridiculous joke he’d made, I positively erupted with laughter. First, a gasp. Then a choked-out snort.

  Then? Unrestrained giggling.

  Jude kept on mincing garlic, but I saw the sides of his mouth twitch.

  The problem was that I couldn’t stop. All the stress I’d held in these past couple of weeks came pouring out. Howling now, my stomach contracted against my will, and I had to put a hand on the counter to steady myself. Trust Jude to make that joke in a church.

  For a minute there, I couldn’t even breathe. Trying to calm down, I watched Jude scrape the garlic into a ramekin. “You gonna be okay?” he muttered.

  Was I? It was probably too soon to tell. I flicked tears off my face and forced myself to quiet down. But even as I took a deep breath, shudders of follow-up hysteria threatened. Clutching the whisk, I pushed off the counter. In a tiny show of solidarity, I touched his arm on my way past him.

  I felt a tingle of warmth in my body from even that ridiculously brief contact. God, I was such a wreck.

  Back at my own workstation, I whisked the eggs and tried to breathe slowly. But I still felt the twitch of raucous laughter threatening me. And when I turned around, I caught Jude watching me, his eyes twinkling. And a new burble of laughter escaped from my belly.

  “What on earth is so funny?” Denny asked, the ruffled apron askew on his waist. That too made me want to laugh.

  “Nothing,” I gasped. “Just… let’s not forget to make one of these pans vegetarian. I think there’s some zucchini.”

  That only made me wonder what rude jo
ke Jude might make about zucchini. I held in another bout of laughter while Denny stirred ricotta cheese into beaten eggs. I felt lightheaded from all the laughter and more than a little crazy. But alive. That was the effect Jude had always had on me. He made the world a weirder, rowdier, more unpredictable place.

  “Let’s cheese up these babies,” Denny said, holding a spatula like a sword, pointing it into the lasagna pan.

  “Lead on.”

  If you’d asked me five years ago where I’d spend my twenty-third birthday, I would have guessed I’d be out clubbing in the Big Apple or performing on Broadway. That’s where I’d always thought my life would go. There were a whole lot of complicated reasons why it hadn’t.

  Instead, I served at least two hundred rectangles of lasagna. As it happens, handing a plate of hot food to someone who needs one is really a lot of fun. Maybe working at a Community Dinner isn’t very glam, but I’d recommend it as a birthday activity to anyone who’s borderline depressed. There were two hundred happy people at my birthday party, even if none of them knew we were celebrating.

  By the time Mrs. Walters and I were nearly through scrubbing baked-on cheese from the lasagna pans, I was tired but not unhappy.

  “Don’t anyone leave just yet,” Father Peters said as he passed by. “There’s something I need to show all of you. Give me five minutes.”

  I was just wiping down the serving station’s glass sneeze guard when I smelled a whiff of something like matches or fire. Given last week’s disaster, that had me turning around in a hurry. But the only thing on fire was a candle. And it was sitting on top of a gorgeous chocolate cake decorated with cherries.

  In a big baritone, Father Peters began to sing. “Happy birthday to you!”

  Well, crap. My eyes started watering immediately. Denny’s face broke open in surprise, and then, singing along, he darted over to the sink to get me a tissue.

  There were quite a few voices singing now and, goddamn it, a tear rolled down my cheek. “Happy birthday to you!”

  Father Peters slid the cake onto the countertop. “Make a wish, my dear.”

  A wish? What a fraught concept. If you strung together all the things I’d ever wished for over a birthday cake, it would be a pretty funny list. Toys. A Pony. (Didn’t happen.) The starring role in the high school musical. (That one came true.) And Jude. (Also a win. And then a loss.)

  The old birthday wish was a tricky proposition. I closed my eyes and wished my twenty-fourth year would be just a little less complicated than the few that came just before it.

  But really, what were the odds?

  I blew out the candle, and my handful of well-wishers cheered. “This is beautiful,” I said, truthfully. “Let’s eat it.”

  Denny got out some plates, and old Mrs. Walters muttered something about the extra dishes. So I served her a fat slice, which she ate. I cut slices for everyone except Jude, who had disappeared just after I blew out my candle.

  I was stuffed by the time we got around to hand washing the plates and forks, but a quarter of the cake still remained. “I’ll grab the box from my office,” Father Peters said. “You have to take that home.”

  When he returned, I thanked him profusely for the cake. “You just kill me sometimes,” I added. “This week has been rough, and…”

  He held up a hand. “My dear, I would happily take credit. But I’m not the one who remembered your birthday, and I’m not the one who brought you a cake. But I do hope you have a happy birthday and a wonderful year.”

  For a second I could only blink at his watery blue eyes. “It wasn’t you?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t be trusted to remember everyone’s dates. It’s Mrs. Charles who sends out the parish birthday cards.”

  “So… who did this?” I looked down at the bakery box in my hands.

  Father Peters smiled. “It seems that he prefers to remain anonymous.”

  He. It wasn’t Denny—he’d given me a “why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” speech. And Denny just wasn’t that good of an actor.

  That only left Jude.

  “Good night, Father Peters,” I said slowly.

  “Good night, love. And happy birthday.”

  I left my car behind the church, and I walked to Nickel’s Auto Body. For the second time in a week, I climbed the wooden stairs behind the building. I knocked on the door and then held my breath.

  A few beats later I heard a ragged voice say, “Yeah?”

  After a moment’s hesitation I tried the knob, and the door gave way. Except for a single lamp burning in the corner, it was dark inside. I heard the low pulse of a song by Citizen Cope. But I didn’t see the man I was looking for. “Jude?”

  “Right here.” I looked down and found him on the floor, shirtless, his feet tucked under the rail of the bed, his hands behind his head. My eyes got a little stuck on the unfamiliar six-pack he was sporting these days. Jude tightened his abs and sat up, and I realized that a set of sit-ups was responsible for this mouthwatering moment. “Something wrong?” he said, tilting his head and considering me.

  It took another second until I could drag my gaze away from him and back to the box in my arms. “Um, did you get me a birthday cake?”

  He let out half a chuckle and got to his feet. “I plead the fifth.”

  “Why? I mean… you didn’t even stay for a piece of cake?” I stepped all the way in and closed the door behind me.

  Jude sat on the edge of his bed, his chest still expanding rapidly from the workout I’d interrupted. “I don’t know. I wanted you to have something nice, but I didn’t need the credit.”

  “Why?” I asked again. I put the box on the dresser. (The dresser. I was never going to look at that piece of furniture the same way again.) Then, uninvited, I went to sit beside him on the edge of his bed.

  A pair of serious eyes studied me. “It was just a little thing, Sophie. If I got you a cake every day for the next thirty years, I still couldn’t make it right between us.”

  “I really liked it, though.”

  His eyes softened. “I’m glad.”

  “Do you want a piece? There’s plenty.”

  For a second his face remained unchanged, and I panicked. I shouldn’t have come here. He’s going to ask me to leave. I am a fool. But his chin tilted upward and he smiled. I felt it like sunshine on my face. A full-on Jude smile, just for me. “Sure, baby. I’d love a piece.”

  Sure, baby. He used to say that all the time in the same voice—rough and smooth all at once, like whiskey. I got up to get the cake box so that he couldn’t see my face. Dying here, I thought, flipping open the top. To be in this room with Jude was to have memories crash over my head at intervals like waves. And just when I managed to push one out of my mind, a new one would sneak up and clobber me.

  There was a pile of plastic forks and napkins on the bookshelf in the corner of his room, so I swiped one of each before I brought the cake back to his bed and set it down. He looked in the box. “That’s too big to be just one piece,” he said.

  I handed him the fork. “Just do your best. I don’t really feel like taking it home to my parents’ house.”

  Jude stuck the fork into the end of the piece, a naughty glint in his eye. He took a bite. A second later he let his eyes roll back in his head.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s awesome.”

  “They called it Black Forest,” he said, licking his lips.

  “Let’s call it Awesome Forest.”

  He took a second bite. Then he forked up a third and offered it to me.

  Heat rose on my cheeks as I opened my mouth to receive it. Jude fed me the bite gently, and our eyes locked. I felt goosebumps break out on my arms. At the last second, Jude angled the fork to smear my lip with frosting on the dismount.

  “You ass,” I complained, and he laughed. The sound of his laughter—low and naughty—cranked my heartstrings a little tighter. It used to be this easy between us. When Jude and I were alone together, the rest of the worl
d didn’t exist.

  That’s what I’d thought, anyway. Until our little world cracked in two.

  Jude sat back, as if putting a little distance between us. Maybe he felt it, too—the tightening of the invisible cord between us. “So. What did you get for your birthday?”

  I wasn’t quite ready for that question. “Well,” I whispered, feeling my sadness rise to the surface again. “For my birthday I received one Awesome Forest cake.”

  He set the fork down inside the cake box and set the box on the bed, waiting for me to go on. When I didn’t, his brow creased with concern. And then my stupid eyes watered.

  I swear to God, the entire time that Jude and I were a couple, I only cried for sad movies. But now I could not be in the same zip code with him without springing a leak.

  Jude reached for me. He lifted me by the hips into his lap as if I were a little girl. And I hid my face in his neck as if I were one. He smelled of clean flannel and laundry detergent.

  “My girl is having a rough time,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I mumbled, trying to backtrack. “Birthdays don’t really matter when you’re twenty-three. But it just wears on me sometimes—all the petty, dysfunctional bullshit.” And I don’t have anyone to talk to about it, because you left me all alone.

  I was still angry at Jude, and I probably always would be. But the strong arms holding me close took the edge off my anger. With one big palm Jude began to rub my back. His hand slid up to scoop the hair off my neck, and when his fingertips grazed my nape, I shivered.

  I didn’t want to think about my birthday anymore. I just wanted to bask in Jude’s arms. The stubbled skin of his neck tickled my nose, and it was all too easy for me to place a kiss there. So I did. And then I kissed him again.

  Jude’s body went completely still.

  As my lips worshiped his neck, he made a sound of surrender—half sigh, half groan. His arms tightened around me. But still he did not make a move.

  I wanted him too, though. One more birthday present, please. With soft lips, I kissed a line down into the hollow of Jude’s throat. Then I parted my lips and sucked gently on his skin. Beneath me, his breath hitched.