Reckless

And where she had been good she was now bad.

“You’re so judgmental, Heidi. If you’re not careful you’re going to be a bitter old woman by twenty-five.”

The words were a familiar refrain from her mother and, lately, her sister.

She’d never paid much attention to them and their opinions because, well, she’d always been in the right. She wasn’t the single mother of five children from three different men, only one of whom she’d ever been married to. And now her younger sister appeared to be following in their mother’s footsteps, marrying as soon as she found out she was pregnant and then divorcing before the kid was even born.

Melody lived on and off with their mother in the same cramped clapboard house where Heidi had been raised, with little more than two nickels to rub together between them at the end of the week.

“And now I’m one of them.”

She snapped open her eyes, the words serving to jerk her out of her state of shock.

Everything had happened so quickly she’d only thought about how her actions would impact her life with Jesse. She hadn’t stopped to consider the soul searching she would have to do to understand her actions.

She’d struggled to be such a good girl all her life, but the struggle hadn’t been about defeating temptation. Every child born with the name Joblowski had a soiled reputation from day one, and Heidi was determined hers wouldn’t be justified. But even though she’d never shown interest in any of the boys throughout middle school, she’d been called Heidi Ho merely through her relationship with her mother and her younger sister Melody, who had enthusiastically lost her virginity at thirteen and rushed headlong into womanhood without a care in the world.

It wasn’t until high school and meeting Jesse that she’d achieved any kind of identity of her own, separate from her family. And she’d always be grateful to him for that.

She rubbed the heel of her hand against her forehead, trying to loosen the tight knot there.

Gathering her wits about her, she slowly got to her feet. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but whatever it was, losing Jesse wasn’t an option. She loved him. He loved her. And there was no reason not to proceed with their plans.

She moved toward the bedroom, realizing she hadn’t turned on any of the lights since she’d arrived home, relying on familiarity to find her way.

But what was familiar in her life now? Certainly not what she’d done at the café.

And what about Kyle?

She stumbled over her own feet.

What agenda might Kyle have after tonight? As Jesse’s best friend, would he feel compelled to tell Jesse what had happened?

Kyle would go back to being nothing more than Jesse’s good friend, she told herself firmly.

KYLE HAD MANAGED to avoid running into Jesse all morning, but couldn’t miss the meeting set before lunch because it was the final review of the Kitchner house. He did, however, arrive late, happy to find that things were already moving ahead without him.

“There he is,” Jesse said by way of greeting. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me today.”

Kyle knew he meant it as a joke. He only wished that it weren’t true.

God, what in the hell had inspired him to sleep with his best friend’s girl?

The question had kept him up most of the night and he found himself alternately picking up the phone to call Jesse…and Heidi.

He’d awoken to find he hadn’t come any closer to an answer than he’d been the night before.

“Do you have the prints for the kitchen redesign?” Jesse asked.

Kyle unrolled the drawing Jesse was looking for on the worktable set up in the foyer of the thirteen-thousand-square-foot mansion they were building together. Jesse was the head of the construction team, Kyle the head architect.

“As you’ll see,” Jesse was saying to the owner, pointing at the redesign, “when we reconfigure the scheme the way you want, there isn’t room for the industrial-sized double-door refrigerator that you chose. One solution—”

Kyle peered at his friend. The issue he was discussing was two design revisions ago.

Thankfully Jesse seemed to catch himself and grimaced at Kyle before pretending the prints were upside down and turning them right again.

“Why don’t you explain it to him, Kyle?” Jesse said, looking at his watch. “There’s another appointment I need to make in fifteen minutes.”

“Sure.” Kyle stepped up, clearing his throat to regain the attention of the five men crowded around the table who were watching Jesse instead of the prints. “As you see here…”

He began explaining the proposed adjustment to the room dimensions and offered up alternatives and cost overruns. As soon as he had everyone’s attention, he switched to autopilot and watched as Jesse took off his hard hat and then climbed into his truck cab, looking as distracted as Kyle felt.

Was it possible that he knew what had happened last night? Had his friend stopped by the café? But the door had been locked, and so far as he could tell there was no way to see inside the kitchen from the parking lot.

Jesse’s tires kicked up gravel as he left the site.

Kyle frowned and finished up. “If you decide to pursue the changes, completion date will be pushed back at least five days.”

“Five days?” the owner said.

Kyle began rolling the print back up and shrugged. “It is what it is. The skeleton has already been built and the team already moved to another site. We’d have to pull them back…” He could recite the words in his sleep because he’d run into similar setbacks in nearly every project he’d worked on. Either the wife decided she wanted an Olympic-sized bathtub instead of the regular whirlpool in the original design, or the husband wanted a larger work area. It always meant delays and cost increases.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

He fished it out and started at the caller ID even as he finished up his spiel. Heidi.

“If you’ll excuse me a minute, gentlemen, I have to take this call.”

“I THINK Jesse knows.”

Heidi nearly dropped the plate of boneless chicken breasts she was planning to turn into croquettes for a barbecue that night. She lowered the plate to the counter then stepped away for fear of doing even more damage in her distracted state.

“What do you mean you think Jesse knows?”

“I’m not sure. Did you say anything to him?”

“Me? I haven’t even talked to him yet.” Heidi realized she was whispering even though she was alone in the house. She paced into the living room. “How about you?”

“I just saw him at a meeting, but he left quickly—like a man with something on his mind. I think he might be on his way to see you.”

“Here? Me?”

Heidi stopped cold in the middle of the living room, no longer whispering but bordering on shouting.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

“Heidi? Are you still there?”