Comments about how Pete had invited him to work for his Red Cross Rescue team.
She liked Pete. He had a charming smile, wore his blond hair long and behind his ears, and exuded a slight Montana aura, maybe due to his western drawl. He sat with his arm propped on the back of his fiancée’s chair. Jess could have been a model, with her tall, willowy figure, a peacock-blue dress that could stop a crowd, and her blonde hair left long and golden. But she had real SAR chops, showing up today to work with the K9 team Pete had assembled, led by a woman named Dani Masterson. Pete and Dani showed them some cool new tech they used with the dogs to track their searches, like Kevlar paw protectors and orbital cameras, and that was interesting, but her ears perked up when Pete suggested Orion join his team. Ham and Pete had a good-natured verbal tussle over Orion, and she simply tried to stay calm while her heart tried to leap, screaming, from her chest.
Please. No. She’d joined this team because of Orion. Because she wanted to be in his life.
Because he gave her a fresh start, and because, most of all, she felt whole with him.
Until, of course, being with him made her realize she could never truly be whole. Wow, she so didn’t see that coming.
God sure knew how to blindside her. And deservedly so. She should have realized the truth before she dove into a relationship with this amazing man.
She had no business dreaming of the kind of future Orion wanted. He deserved better. And she would not be the cause of his leaving.
Jackson finished her speech and introduced her running mate for president, Senator White.
He started in on his speech, more blah, blah, blah about the Red Cross, although probably super interesting if a gal wasn’t fine-tuned to everything Orion was doing.
Leaning back in his chair. Sighing deeply, as if in pain.
She couldn’t take it. Wadding up her napkin, she got up, ducked her head as if trying to remain unseen, and left the room.
The room was half-darkened, but as she slipped out, walking past six hundred or more eyes, she drew in a full breath, every bone in her body thin and brittle.
Outside, she leaned against the wall of the hallway, pressed her hands against it.
“Jenny, are you okay?”
The voice surprised her—mostly because Scarlett Hathaway might be the last person Jenny thought would follow her. The communications expert had joined the team just recently, and even then this had been her first training event. Still, Jenny liked her. Petite, with short dark hair and dark brown eyes, she seemed tough, no-nonsense, and just the kind of person they needed to direct verbal traffic during a rescue.
Now, Scarlett wore a simple black-and-silver sequined dress that caught the lights of the room, something spunky and surprising.
Maybe Jenny should have tried harder than her simple black dress, her hair in a braid down her back . . .
It didn’t matter. The more Orion noticed her, the more the pain sharpened between them.
She sighed. “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to go back to my room.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“No, that’s okay—”
“Listen. White already has my vote. And . . .” Scarlett made a face. “I know I don’t know you that well, but is there something going on between you and Orion? Because, I thought you two were dating—”
“We broke up.” The words slammed into her. We. Broke. Up.
Had they? Probably. But suddenly her eyes filled and her throat tightened, and shoot, now she really needed to escape to her room.
She pushed away from the wall.
“Jenny?”
“I . . . I just . . .”
“Want to talk about it?” Scarlett had stepped back but kept her voice low. “Because I know a little bit about loving a teammate, and the ways it can go south.”
Jenny looked at Scarlett, frowned.
“Ford and I used to be on the same team, sorta. And . . . well, we’re still working it out, but we had our dark moments.”
“Orion asked me to marry him.” Oh, she didn’t know why she said that—it just burst out of her.
Scarlett’s eyes widened. “And?”
“I said no.” She winced, her hand covering her mouth.
“Okay, yes, we’re talking.” Scarlett grabbed her hand and marched her down the hall to the elevators. “Are you on the eleventh floor too?”
Jenny nodded.
Scarlett practically pushed her into the elevator, and Jenny pressed her fingers under her eyes to stop the stupid flow of tears as they rode up. “I’m fine, really—”
“I know,” Scarlett said, looking at the numbers. “The kind of fine that needs a room-service pizza and maybe a pint of chocolate ice cream.”
Jenny gave a pitiful laugh-cry that dissolved into weeping.
Scarlett took Jenny’s tiny clutch out of her hand, opened it, and pulled out her key. “Which room?”
“1101.”
She headed down the hall, opened her room, and dropped her bag on the bed. “Comfy clothes, pronto. I’ll call room service.”
It felt a little like being back with the military, but Jenny obeyed, changing into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt.
By the time she came out of the bathroom, Scarlett had taken off her shoes and was scanning through the television channels. She settled on Cake Boss, muted the television, and curled up on the blue Queen Anne chair, pulling her feet up beneath her.
Jenny sat on the bed and grabbed a pillow.
“Should we start at the beginning, or just the moment when you decided to tell the man you love that you won’t marry him? And don’t tell me you don’t love Orion, because not only did I see the way you looked at him tonight when he walked in, but hello, he has hero written all over him. Orion is one of the sweetest, most thoughtful—”
“Generous, giving, and brave men I know. And more. He’s a man of faith, he’s a rescuer, he would be a great husband—”
“And father?”
“Yes, absolutely. And that’s the problem.” Jenny took a breath. “I don’t want kids.”
A beat, and then she looked at Scarlett, who was nodding. “I get it, I guess. Kids complicate things. Orion and you would probably have to choose between the team and your family—”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, I . . . I really don’t want children.” She made a face. “Truth is, I guess I never really admitted it to myself—more of a feeling than an absolute, but . . .” She sighed. “When I saw the way Orion reacted to Aggie, I could see him with a child—a bunch of kids, really, and I knew he would be a great dad. And he deserves to have a child.”
“And you don’t?”
Jenny looked away. “I just don’t think I’d be a very good mom.”
“What? Why?”
She shook her head. And no, she didn’t know Scarlett well enough to dive into all of it, so, “My mom didn’t really want to be a mom, and she tried, but it was a big fail. I was more of a mom to her than she was to me.”
“Oh, I had one of those moms,” Scarlett said. “I was raised by a single mom, and she tried, but she was a disaster.” Oddly, her eyes filled. “She died recently, but it’s made me wonder about the whole mothering thing too. Although, that probably won’t happen for a while, with Ford’s lifestyle.”