I was glad Jenna suggested we leave the zoo when she did. The traffic from Dallas to Frisco was moderate, but I could imagine what it would have been like if we had let another half hour pass. Lana was a cute kid, no doubt, but I sure didn’t want to be stuck in a car with her for hours waiting for traffic to move five feet.
All I wanted was to be alone with Jenna. Every time she kissed me, I forgot about why I was here. What I was supposed to be doing would fall away from my mind and she would fill it. That already proved to be a dangerous behavior, so I knew I would have to be more careful. I’d almost made love to her the night before without protection; something I never did. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to make a pit stop after we dropped off Lana. I’d already decided I would stop under the guise of refueling. No way I could be alone with Jenna again until I’d taken the necessary precautions. At this stage in the game, a non-sexual evening stretching in front of us wouldn’t be an option…for either of us.
Of course, after the way I remembered Blackstone looking at her, not having any condoms was the least of my worries.
Almost as soon as we entered the Whitman house, Elaine pulled Jenna away into another room and Lana skipped off. I decided against standing in the entry to wait. Even though I wanted nothing more than to skip the small talk and get Jenna out of her clothes, I knew how that would appear. Instead, I headed to the den where I found Daniel and Lana watching television. It struck me as odd that she could be so wholly engrossed in what she was watching when she’d been home a mere matter of minutes
“Was that really me, Daddy? I look so small,” Lana asked.
Lana’s eyes were filled with wonderment as she spoke to her father. I realized they were watching a home movie of a past birthday party. I sat quietly next to them on the sectional.
“Yes, honey, it’s you there. You look smaller because you were only three.”
I didn’t know most of the people I was watching, but I recognized Jenna when I saw her. She had changed little in appearance, but there was definitely a change in her. When a man walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, she looked happy. It was the kind of joy people rarely found and managed to hold onto in a lifetime.
Conflicting emotions rose from a place inside me I didn’t know existed. In jealousy, I wanted to know how the hell this guy was and why his hands were all over ‘my’ Jenna. From a deeply protective place, I wanted to know why he’d screwed up that happiness for Jenna. I couldn’t imagine she’d done anything to end that. Why would any man dream of leaving a woman like her?
Once Jenna and Elaine entered the room things began to happen in such rapid succession that I could scarcely keep the order of events straight.
“Who’s that with Aunt Jenna, Daddy?”
“That was your Uncle Tony.”
“Daniel, please shut that off,” Elaine snapped.
“That’s right. I remember Uncle Tony. He used to play horsy with me.”
“Daniel, shut it off,” Elaine’s voice was pleading.
“I don’t think I remember him after the party,” Lana said.
Jenna was still.
“Daniel, please…” Elaine was begging now.
“What happened to Uncle Tony, Daddy?”
I saw Jenna’s face go pale out of the corner of my eye.
“He went away, Lana,” Daniel said, quiet.
“When is he coming back, Daddy?”
Jenna fled the room, tears flowing. Elaine chased behind her.
“He can’t come back, sweetie. We talked about this.”
“But I miss him. Where did he go?”
“He went away to Heaven, Lana.”
It was suddenly crystal clear to me why Jenna left Boston so abruptly two years ago.
© 2009, Sydney Katt. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of content will result in dragon attacks.
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