treinta

Paul was right about one thing. Jesse was waiting for me outside the restaurant.

I almost walked right past him . . . not because I wasn’t expecting to see him. I was. Or at least, I’d hoped he’d be there . . . but because when I noticed the dark figure standing in the shadows of the porte cochere, there was a red glow coming from its mouth.

“Jesse?” I nearly dropped my bag in astonishment. “Are you smoking?”

“Susannah.” He leaned forward to stamp out the cigarette in one of the fairy-lit planters. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“We decided to skip dessert. Well, I decided to. Since when do you smoke?”

He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I don’t. Well, I do, obviously, sometimes. But not often. It sets a bad example for the patients.”

“Now who’s been keeping secrets?”

I studied him in the dim lighting. It was late, and so cold out the valets had gone inside to keep warm. We were alone in the cool night air. Now that he’d put out the cigarette, he had his hands shoved into his jacket pockets to keep warm, and was regarding me with a look I could only describe as wary.

“Well?” he asked, finally. “Where is he?”

“He’s paying his four-thousand-dollar dinner bill,” I said. “We’re leaving. Here.”

He looked down at the decorative plastic sack I held toward him as if it might contain explosives. “What is that?”

“It’s a homemade banana nut muffin. Mariner’s makes them for all its dinner guests. You’re supposed to have it for breakfast tomorrow. You left without yours.”

His mouth twisted into a grimace. “That’s all right. You can have mine.”

“What’s the matter, Jesse?” I asked lightly, dropping the muffin into my bag. “Don’t you care to remember your dining experience at Mariner’s?”

“I do not.”

“I don’t particularly want to remember it, either.” I held out my hand. “I’m sorry.”

For a few agonizing heartbeats, we stood there beneath the porte cochere, my hand stretched toward him across the red carpet. There was no sound except for the waves crashing against the beach a few dozen yards below.

What was happening? Was he going to just let me stand there forever with my hand out? Did he have any idea how hard it was for someone like me to apologize?

He did. Finally he lifted one of those hands from his pockets and wrapped his strong fingers around mine.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Susannah,” he said, his voice as warmly reassuring as his hand. “None of this was your fault. It was his.”

“Thanks, Jesse. You still should have had heard about it from me, though. I wanted to tell you, I was just—”

“Afraid I’d get angry,” Jesse said. “Yes, I know. But I should have trusted you, as well. Let’s just say we both made mistakes—not only tonight—and leave it at that.” He’d begun steering me toward Jake’s BMW, which I saw parked a dozen feet away. “Susannah, do you actually believe it?”

“What?”

“This curse. That—”

“Of course not,” I interrupted. “I don’t believe there’s a murderous bone in your body . . . toward anyone but Paul, any-way. But even if it’s true, we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“What?” He looked startled. “David said there was no way to break the curse. He said he’d been looking into it with some friend who—”

“It doesn’t matter. Ninety-nine Pine Crest Road isn’t getting torn down.”

His voice didn’t sound so warm anymore all of a sudden. “Why?”

“Because I own it.”

We’d reached Jake’s car, but Jesse didn’t move to pull the keys from his pocket. He did drop my hand, however. “You own it? How do you own it?”

“Well, I don’t own it quite yet,” I explained. “There’s still some paperwork I’ll have to sign. And apparently there are going to be some tax issues. I suspect I’ll get slammed pretty hard. But Paul’s going to sign the house over to me in exchange for my never revealing that he’s the triplets’ real father, and for my giving them mediator lessons there when they’re older.”

Jesse stared down at me in silence for several beats. It was a little hard to see his face, since the lighting in the parking lot wasn’t that great and the moon was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. But I had the impression that he wasn’t too happy.

This was confirmed when he let out a blistering curse (in Spanish, of course), and said, finally, “You’re the one who is possessed.”

“What?” I stared up at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Everyone is so worried that I have a dark side? You’re the one I think we should be worrying about.”

“Oh, come on, Jesse. You want us to be honest with each other? Then let’s be honest. You had to have suspected.”

“No, Susannah, the possibility of Paul Slater being your nieces’ father never entered my mind, and I’m wondering how you knew.”

“Because Lucia told me,” I said, before I could think.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I saw in his eyes the betrayal I’d inflicted. But it was too late to undo the damage.

“Lucia told you?” Jesse looked as if he’d been slapped. “And you never said a word to me?”

I backpedaled at once.

“I wasn’t going to say a word to anyone,” I insisted. “It seemed like the kind of thing that ought to be kept a secret—”

“From me? We’re supposed to be getting married!”

“What do you mean, supposed to be?” My heart twisted. “Jesse, I can understand you being angry with me, but don’t you think it’s a little extreme to get this angry—”

“I’m not angry with you, Susannah.” He dragged a hand frustratedly through his thick dark hair. “I . . . I don’t know what I am.”

“Use your words.” It was a phrase we’d employed frequently with the triplets.

“Fine.” He glared at me. “I’m disappointed.”