He stared across at the picture window where he’d seen his new neighbor this morning. Considering she’d been scantily clad and her hair tousled, it seemed likely that it was her bedroom window. A filmy white curtain moved with a light breeze, as if in confirmation.
Her window was larger and slightly lower than the one where he stood. At the thought of having a clear view of her bedroom, his sex hardened and pushed against his fly. Did she have flowery sheets? Did she like to sleep late? Did she ever sleep in the nude?
Chev turned away and shook his head to dislodge the image from his mind. He went back to sweeping, putting more muscle in it than necessary. He was losing his mind, playing with fire by indulging these dangerous fantasies. He made his living on the road, moving wherever the best jobs took him, satisfying his sexual urges with the occasional pretty barfly or waitress, partners who were as transient as he was. Not suburban divorcées who tended flower beds.
Besides, if Gemma Jacobs knew what he was thinking, she’d probably have him arrested.
3
AFTER POURING HERSELF a tall mug of coffee and adding milk, Gemma returned to the Help Wanted ads armed with a red pen. Several frustrating phone calls later, she had learned two things: jobs in the immediate Tampa area generally didn’t remain open for more than forty-eight hours, and the majority of positions were filled through employment agencies. So when she spotted an ad for one such agency, she made another phone call.
A chipper sounding woman answered the phone and invited Gemma to come in the next morning for an “assessment of her skill set.” Gemma made an appointment and hung up slowly, feeling as if she were back at the placement office on campus looking for work-study programs that would mete out enough to pay for toaster-oven meals and discount dresses.
When angry tears threatened to undo the progress she’d made, she turned her attention to the cleaning she’d told Sue she’d get to today. The house was musty and dusty and the laundry could no longer be ignored. Gathering cleaning supplies, she threw herself into the task, only to be derailed every time her feather duster encountered a photo of her and Jason, or when the vacuum cleaner unearthed relics of their relationship—a valentine that had fallen behind a table, a cuff link. The yawning emptiness of the house made it feel like someone had died. She considered making paper carnations out of the crumpled tissues littering the floor, but she had to admit, it felt good stuffing the tearstained clumps into a trash bag.
The stack of things that Jason had inadvertently left behind continued to grow—a pair of golf shoes here, a wife there. Gemma made slow but steady progress, although she was hanging on to her emotions by a thread when the phone rang late in the afternoon. Seeing her mother’s number on the caller ID screen did nothing to improve the day’s direction.
But considering that her final divorce papers were on the table next to her Real Simple magazine, it seemed the moment to come clean with Phyllipa Jacobs was at hand.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Gemma,” came the wounded reply. “Is there something you want to tell me and your father?”
Gemma bit down on the inside of her cheek. “I guess you heard.”
“You mean about my own daughter’s divorce? A complete stranger at the local paper called to get my comment. I’ve never been so mortified in my entire life.”
If the newspaper in the tiny town of Peterman had heard about the state attorney general’s divorce, then it had to be on the wire services. Had Jason’s office released a statement? “I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m sorry you found out from someone else.”
“Then it’s true?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. What happened?”
Gemma dropped into a chair and gave a choked little laugh. “I really don’t know.”
“You’re laughing?”
She closed her eyes. “No, I’m not laughing, Mother. I’m telling the truth. It was Jason’s…idea. He wanted the divorce.”
“Jason wanted the divorce? What did you do?”
Gemma flinched. “Why would you think I did something?”
“Because Jason loved you. He gave you a wonderful life.”
“Mom, I—”
“Did you even try to work things out?”
The unexpected attack took her breath away. “Mom, Jason didn’t want to work things out.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Jason I know.”
Meaning Gemma didn’t know her own husband—a direct hit. And true. He had fooled them all. Jason’s parents were deceased, and her parents had welcomed him into the family like the son they never had. They had been delighted and proud that their daughter was married to such a powerful man.
“I know that you and Dad are disappointed, and I’m sorry.”
“But what are you going to do, Gemma? How will you make it?”
She blinked at the utter certainty in her mother’s voice that she couldn’t survive on her own. “I’m going to get a job.”
“Doing what?”
“I do have a college degree.”
“That you’ve never used.”
Gemma put her hand to her temple. “I’m sure I’ll find something.”
A baritone voice sounded in the background, then her mother said, “Your father wants to know if you need money.”
“Tell him no, but thanks.”
“Gemma,” her mother said, lowering her voice, “if things were unsatisfactory in the bedroom between you and Jason—”
“Mom, don’t—”
“I’m just saying that if he looked elsewhere for companionship, it doesn’t necessarily mean that things are over.”
“What’s over is this conversation, Mother. I have to go. I’ll call you soon.”
She disconnected the call and dropped the handset as if it were on fire, still trying to process the surreal conversation. Her mother—the woman who had draped a kitchen tea towel over Gemma’s face while she explained the birds and bees so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact—was giving her advice on how to deal with a sexually unfulfilled husband?
Would everyone automatically assume that she was lousy in bed?
Probably, since she had jumped to the same conclusion herself.
Even in the beginning she and Jason had never lit up the sheets, but their lackluster sex life hadn’t been an issue between them because they were compatible in so many other ways. They made time for each other…usually. His schedule had grown more demanding as the election had drawn near. But he’d sworn to her that no one else was involved in their breakup, and she wanted to believe him.
Two frantic days of tearing apart his desk, closet and credit card statements hadn’t yielded any suspicious purchases or activities. After which she’d lain awake agonizing over what was worse—being dumped for another woman, or being dumped for no discernible reason.
A low buzzing noise sounded from next door. She stood and glanced out the kitchen window to see Chev Martinez wielding the pressure washer on the stucco exterior of the house. He had removed his shirt in deference to the late afternoon heat, providing a heart-stuttering view of his powerful chest, glistening from sweat and mist. A red bandanna covered his head, giving him a roguish appearance. His jeans were soaked up to his knees, and water dripped from his elbow as he moved the wand, removing years of grime from the house one swath at a time. The dark outline of the tattoo encompassed the muscle of his thick upper arm.
Gemma’s body warmed in forgotten areas. The man was exotic and out of place in this sleepy neighborhood, like an animal who had wandered in from the wilds. The tip of her tongue emerged and whisked away the sheen of perspiration on the rim of her lip. But when he turned his head in her direction, she shrank back from the window, feeling foolish, like a sex-starved housewife ogling the pool boy.
She gave herself a mental shake—this wasn’t like her. She wasn’t the woman at the cocktail party glancing across the room to catch the eye of a handsome man, the kind of woman who flirted with waiters and shoe salesmen. She had been physically committed to her husband, had closed her mind to the idea of touching another man, or having another man touch her.
She didn’t know how to behave like a single woman, couldn’t remember the vocabulary, the body language.
Suddenly she felt tired, her lazy muscles taxed from cleaning. She needed to take a shower and start thinking about tomorrow’s appointment at the employment office. She pitched the old newspapers and sorted the rest of the mail, tossing Jason’s magazines and catalogs into a basket, her fingers hesitating over the divorce decree.
Where did one keep their divorce papers? In a box with their defunct wedding photos and marriage license? In a file with other routine documents like tax forms and canceled checks? In a frame, mounted on the wall?
She sighed, postponing yet another decision. When her hand touched the white envelope—presumably from Covington Women’s College—that Chev Martinez had delivered, a nostalgic pang struck her. She had savored her time at the school, had been ecstatic to escape the suffocation of her parents’ close supervision. The young women she’d met there had seemed so much more worldly and more mature than she’d been. Gemma had been content to hover on the periphery of their candid opinions and heated debates about the human condition, trying to soak up their moxie.