Page 52 of Intrigued
I felt my eyes expand as our tongues and lips continued their deep exploration of each other. Finally, our mouths took a break.
“Get out of here tonight?” I whispered. “And go where?”
“Anywhere in the world. You name it.”
His lips chased mine as I leaned back.
“Jasper, open your eyes.”
It seemed like an arduous task for him to lift his lids, but he did it.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” I said.
He stood up straight and cleared his throat. “I apologize for what I just said.” He sounded more like himself.
I nodded. “It’s okay.” Truthfully, I was relieved he’d only been caught up in the emotion he was experiencing in the moment. That also kept me from confronting him about what Bryn had told me about being promised to another. Of course, I didn’t one hundred percent believe her, but I thirty percent did.
“Would you please have your breakfast in your room this morning? We have family affairs to attend to downstairs.”
“Of course.” I wouldn’t dare intrude.
He calmly walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned back, and his penetrating gaze took me in. My heart skipped a beat. There was something deep about the way he looked at me. I received his message loud and clear. But could it be true? Had Jasper Christmas just shown me that he was falling in love with me?
I pressed my hand over my heart and finished watching him leave my sight. My bottom plopped onto the foot of the bed. Whew, that was heavy. The whole trip had been heavy. I took a few deep and cleansing breaths. I had to stay on track. So I jumped to my feet, went into my closet, and opened my suitcase. It was time to take my evidence to the UPS Store and ship it to the lab.
I found the panties stuffed into a pocket, but I searched every single part of my suitcase, and the bra was nowhere to be found.
“What the hell?” I stood out of my squat. Someone had gotten into my suitcase and taken the bra out.
It could have been Gina. Or perhaps it was Bryn. She must’ve come into my room last night because she’d known I wasn’t there.
“Shit.” I had to think fast. At the moment, I gathered that all the Christmases were downstairs, discussing their father’s death. Truth be told, I’d already had enough of sitting at the table with them. They behaved like spoiled teenagers.
Knowing exactly what I had to do, I rushed into my bathroom and got two more trash bags.
Chapter Eighteen
Ifound Crystal Preacher in the laundry room with two other maids. They were all whispering about something before they saw me. Once they caught sight of me, they all stood at attention, and Crystal asked if there was something she could assist me with.
“Actually, yes.” I asked if I could have a moment alone with her.
The look on her face said she was slightly ambivalent and a little intrigued. However, she agreed to step into the hallway with me. Once I was sure no one could hear us, I asked if she could do me a big favor.
* * *
I turnedto glance into the back seat of my car. Crystal had gone into the kitchen and collected the cups from Bryn, Asher, and Spencer’s morning coffee. She’d even packaged them for me in their own Ziploc bags. Making that connection with Crystal on day one was the smartest thing I’d done in the whole investigation.
Now I was driving back to Providence. Sure, there was a store in Newport, but the farther away I was from the Christmases, the safer I felt about my delivery actually making it to the lab in California.
I wanted to make sure no one was following me. Every now and then, I would check my rearview mirror. Today was actually a good day for my outing since Randolph Christmas had died that morning. What would’ve been a sad affair in any normal family had consumed all the Christmases’ attention.
I thought about the death of my own mother. I’d never broken down and cried about it. Perhaps deep beneath the surface, like Bryn, I had a lot of anger toward my mother, Gayle Henderson. She’d allowed my dad to drag us from one state to another and from one bad situation to a worse one. It had taken me years to realize that she was the sort of woman who lived every day with the hope that one day he would fulfill his promise and transform into Prince Charming.
I didn’t know much about her father, my grandfather, but from the little I did know, he was the sort of man who had made a lot of promises he couldn’t deliver. One day, and I couldn’t remember exactly when, I’d become really honest with myself and admitted that my mother hadn’t given a damn about how I’d been forced to experience her and my dad’s shitty lives. Every day, I had been in danger. Every day, I had felt as if I were the lowest person on their totem pole. I’d been afraid they would sell me for a pack of cigarettes if need be. Now that I was older, I knew that I’d meant more to them than that, but still, the way I had felt then affected how I thought about them now.
Suddenly, my eyes were watery. Perhaps it was the memory in my head. Gayle was lying in that twin-sized bed she and my father had slept in. We were living in a shack at the back of someone’s house. There were two beds in it, theirs and mine. I never knew who resided in the main house because I never saw the people. But my mother was very sick at that point. She was shivering with blankets pulled up to her neck, only the day was hot and humid. My dad, Harper, had been gone for two days. I knew better than to dial 9-1-1 or bother the people in the main house. The doctors had already told Gayle that there was nothing they could do for her. She always said it was best if she didn’t fight death because she was positive a better second life was in her future. The way she talked about starting over made me sure that no such thing as a second chance existed, mainly because Gayle Henderson was always wrong. She had made the wrong decision on the day she’d married my father and decided to have his kid. I’d had an older brother at one point, but she had miscarried him. Instead of taking the loss as a sign that she should stay away from the baby-making business, she had forced me into existence. But still, my mind couldn’t expunge the memory of her in the bed shivering.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. I resembled my mother. We had the same eyes, thick and long light-brown hair, and a heart-shaped face. She had grown up as the pretty girl next door whom all the guys said they wanted to marry but really just wanted to fuck. None of the guys in the neighborhoods I grew up in had known I existed.
