Page 38 of Second Act
Chapter 9
Jessica had spent the whole workday waffling back and forth about whether she should cancel her date with Pete on Saturday. If she did, his expensive hockey tickets would be wasted. If she went to the game, he would believe that she was interested in him as more than a fellow sports fan.
Now she strode along the slushy sidewalk toward her house with the debate still raging. She’d hoped the exercise and the cold would clear her mind, but so far, the circle continued. She decided that she would make a decision before she arrived at her house...and then stick to it.
As she walked up the steps to her front door, she decided to go to the hockey game. Maybe more contact with Pete would start to banish her memories of Hugh.
In truth, she hadn’t thought that Hugh would have such an impact on her, even given their recent intimacies. After all the misery and trauma of the end of their relationship, she should have been wiser about letting him get anywhere near her. Maybe if she conjured up some of the hurtful things he’d said and done, she would remember the real Hugh.
She’d spent so much time trying to forget those awful incidents that it took some effort to open her personal Pandora’s box. When she did, the flood of emotion made her press her hand to her midsection as the pain hit her. A collage of limousine interiors whirled through herbrain with Hugh sitting beside her in his tux or some other carefully chosen outfit as he told her what she’d said wrong at the ceremony or the party or whatever they’d just been to. He’d called it coaching and smiled about it. She, who had once thought of herself as an outgoing, friendly person, had become increasingly mute.
His criticism had hit her hard, because the old Hugh had been her greatest cheerleader. When she agonized over a mistake she’d made at the animal hospital, he would point out all the reasons she couldn’t have known what to do or how someone else had put her in a difficult position. He had shown her how to forgive herself, a gift she treasured.
She shook her head as a fresh wave of longing hit her. That part hadn’t been what she needed to remember.
Pulling herself out of the past, she tried the door. One of the three locks was actually secured, which was progress, she supposed. “Hello, Aidan,” she called as she peeled off her gloves and shrugged out of her coat.
“Oh, hell!” said a voice that was not Aidan’s. “What time is it?”
“It can’t be...” She dropped her coat on the floor and practically ran into the living room.
There Hugh was, standing on a ladder beside her brother, his left wrist raised to check his watch while he held a trowel in the other hand. Plaster dust whitened his hair, red T-shirt, and jeans. “I’m sorry. I lost track of time,” he said, giving her an apologetic look. “Let me just finish repairing this crack and I’ll get out.”
“What on earth are you doing here in the first place?” Dismay—and an uncontrollable thrill of excitement—made her voice sharper than she wanted. How could she shove him out of her mind if he kept showing up in living, breathing full color?
“I texted him for advice,” Aidan explained. “He said he had the day off from shooting so he’d show me how to properly repair the plaster.” He looked from one to the other of them. “Is that a problem?”
“But I thought you were in Boston,” Jessica said, wishing her ex-fiancé didn’t look just as good in dirty jeans as he did in a tailored suit. That was one of the things that made Hugh so in demand as an actor: he could make any role seem intense and sexy, even a handyman.
“Our esteemed director took a dislike to Boston and moved us back here. The writers stayed up all night tearing the script apart to set the scenes in New York.” Hugh shrugged, sending up a little puff of white dust. “They’re still hard at work, so I had some free time. Doing something constructive with my hands was an appealing alternative to sitting around waiting. I meant to be gone before you got home.”
“Why does it matter if you’re here?” Aidan asked.
“Because we’re not engaged anymore,” Jessica said. “So he shouldn’t be working on my house.” But she remembered that Hugh would often tackle a home improvement project to unwind from a difficult day at work on a movie set. He said it allowed him to use a different part of his brain. Maybe he really had planned to leave before she saw him there.
“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Aidan said. “He’s good at this. Besides, it will increase the resale value of your house if you can say that the famous Hugh Baker plastered the walls.” He grinned, but neither of his listeners laughed.
“Let me finish this up and then I’ll clear out.” Hugh turned back to smooth wet plaster over a crack that the wallpaper had covered up.
“Chill, sis,” Aidan said, climbing down his ladder. “Your wall is going to look a lot better because he came over. This kind of repair takes skill and experience.”
Jessica tried to quell the riot of her emotions, but it was impossible not to watch the ripple and flex of Hugh’s back muscles as he swept the trowel across the wall. She forced herself to return to the hall to hang up her fallen jacket. She closed the closet door and stood facing it as she took several deep, controlled breaths.
“I’m done.” Hugh’s resonant voice came from close behind her, and she spun around. He ran his fingers through his hair, creating dark linesthrough the dust that clung to it. “I shouldn’t have come, but I needed to do something real. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“I overreacted,” she said, noticing the shadows clouding his turquoise eyes. “You were just being helpful. I ought to be grateful, as Aidan pointed out.”
“No, you told me good-bye, and I should have respected that.” He gave her a rueful grimace. “I’m a slow learner when it comes to you, Jess.” He half turned away before shaking his head and facing her again. He squared his shoulders and fixed her with a direct gaze. “I’ve been thinking about our past a lot in the last couple of days. I owe you an apology for how I treated you eight years ago.”
She held up her hand to stop him, but he continued. “I’m the one who destroyed our relationship.” He shoved his hands into his front pockets and looked down for a moment while Jessica tried to think of some way to halt the deluge of unwelcome apology.
Hugh lifted his head again before she could speak. “I was so focused on succeeding in Hollywood that the minute I got a toehold, I hurled myself up the cliff face like a desperate man.”
She had known that, even then, had sensed the desperation that had him in its grip. She had tried every way she knew to reach past that, searched for the right words to break through to the person she loved, but he was a man possessed, his gaze turned away from her and locked on the brass ring.
“But I left behind the person who was most important to me. You,” Hugh continued. “Even worse, I hurt you. I can’t forgive myself for that.”
“No more, please,” she said, her heart twisting in her chest. She didn’t want a contrite Hugh. She’d tried to tear him out of her heart eight years ago because she couldn’t bear the pain he’d inflicted on her. This remorseful Hugh would find his way back in all too easily. Then he’d revert to being a movie star and leave her bleeding on the floor again.
