Brenda’s Dreams
Chapter 22

This is my adaptation of “Out Of A Dream” by Diana Stuart.

An hour. She tapped her fingers on the table as she waited for him.

“Great idea,” Jax said, smiling as he came into the kitchen and grabbed a
mug. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

She couldn’t deny that he was good to look at, his blue/green eyes
sparkling, one strand of blonde hair had fallen across his forehead.
Couldn’t deny either the physical thrill that shot trough her at the sight of
him standing over her, naked to the waist, his jeans stretched tightly over
the rest of him.

She cleared her throat. “What was your ex-wife doing here?”

Jax poured himself a cup of coffee and then sat down at the table, facing
Brenda. “Miranda was hysterical when she got here. I took her outside
because I didn’t want her to wake you up. I didn’t see the need to involve
you in her problems.

“Her problems?”

Miranda was told she needs to have surgery and she fell apart. Eventually
she pulled herself together enough to rush over here and tell me about it.”

“Even though your no longer married, and, according to you, the divorce
was far from amicable.”

“She knew I would help her. After all I was married to her.”

“Yes, of course. I should have thought about that.” Brenda did her best to
squash the angry jealousy that soured her stomach, to try to imagine how
frightened Miranda must be at having to face being cut open.

“Well, as you could see, I was able to calm her down.”

I”ll be understanding about this, Brenda told herself. Certainly I’d be
scared if I were Miranda.

“Is her condition serious?” she asked.

“We won’t know until the pathologist gets a look at the tissue.”

He held Miranda in his arms on the beach to comfort her. He was gentle
and tender with her because he knew she needed that from him. Brenda
took a sip of coffee, thinking she ought to admire Jax for his willingness
to let bygones be bygones when his ex-wife came to him in need. Tell
him so, she urged herself.

Instead, she said, “I hate that picture over your bed!”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never paid much attention to it. An old
barn or something?”

“Didn’t you choose the painting?”

“No, it was a house warming gift from a friend.”

“So you didn’t get any furniture from the house you shared with Miranda.”

Jax shook his head no. “I let her have it as part of the settlement.”

“Up on a cliff somewhere,” Brenda said, putting her arms out to either
side. “Soaring. The house I mean. The one that used to be yours.”

He nodded. “I like it better here on the beach. I don’t miss living there.”

But how much do you miss Miranda? Brenda wondered. Was there more
to it than a friend’s reassurance when you held her? More than a friend’s?

“She’s very beautiful.” Brenda said.

“I take it we’re back to Miranda? Brenda your beautiful too.”

Brenda wished she could feel more charitable towards Miranda but she
couldn’t erase the image of her on the beach with Jax’s arms around her.

“When is she having the surgery done?” Brenda asked.

“As soon as it can be scheduled. About a week from now, probably.
She’ll need a lot of support in the meantime.”

“Then it lucky I’m leaving soon, isn’t it? She couldn’t disguise the
bleakness in her voice.

Jax got up and walked around the table and knelt down in front of her.
“Brenda, this has nothing to do with us.” He reached for her hand, but she
picked up her mug to avoid his touch. The coffee was cold and bitter to
her tongue.

“I told you it didn’t matter!” The harshness of his voice startled her. He
pulled the mug from her grasp and slammed it onto the table so hard she
winced.

Jax reached for her, forcing her to her feet as he rose. He put his hands on
her shoulders, and she tried not to look into his eyes. She could smell his
masculine scent and willed herself not to be aroused.

“Brenda.” Her name on his lips was compelling.

She took a deep breath and raised her eyes to his face. His gaze was
stormy, his mouth set.

“Would you expect me to turn Miranda away?” he demanded.

She shook her head, his reasonableness making her feel spiteful and mean.
And annoyed because he made her feel that way.

Jax put his palm against her cheek. “I’ll admit her timing was lousy. It
wasn’t her fault, though.”

His touch ameliorated her annoyance. Brenda longed to turn her head so
her lips would brush his palm, longed to have his arms close around her,
longed for his kiss that would banish everything except the two of them.

“No,” her tone conciliatory, “Miranda couldn’t have known I was here.”

“As a matter of a fact, she did.”

Brenda’s eyes widened. “How did she find out?”

“She noticed a strange car parked in my drive and was overcome with
curiosity, so she asked one of my neighbors.

Brenda bit her lip. The privacy she thought they’d had was an illusion.
Not only Julia and Sonny knew, but probably Jax’s whole neighborhood
knew. Plus Miranda. It shouldn’t matter, but it did.

Another thought struck her. If Miranda was aware that Brenda was
staying with Jax, did that partly explain why she’d shown up at his door
after midnight? It was hard to believe Miranda didn’t have his unlisted
number. Wouldn’t it have been more natural to call him? Miranda was
obviously genuinely upset about her surgery, but was she also playing a
cat and mouse game?

What is the matter with me? Brenda asked herself. I’m really acting like
a jealous shrew, questioning Miranda’s motives. Except it was difficult
to think of the beautiful woman as poor Miranda.

Jax cupped Brenda’s face in his hands, his eyes becoming bluer with
desire. “The neighbor’s nosiness doesn’t matter. Nothing matters when
we’re together.”

He bent his head to kiss her softly, insistently, and her hot surge of
response burned away all thought of Miranda. She swayed towards him,
her body needing the comfort of his. His arms locked around her, holding
her close. She pressed against him, wanting to be even closer, wanting to
become part of him.

He tasted of coffee and himself, an erotic mix. His skin was warm under
her stroking hands, and he groaned when she eased the tips of her fingers
under the waistband of his jeans.

“If you had gone back to bed like I asked you to, we’d be there now,” he
said hoarsely, his hands cupping her buttocks to mold her to his hardness.

A chill filtered into her desire-dazed mind. That darn picture hung over
his bed, the nightmare picture. She couldn’t return to that bed.

She could tell him she preferred the guest room bed, couldn’t she?
Brenda waited to be submerged again in the swell of passion swirling
between them but, for her, the spell was broken.

She tried to pull away and he tightened his grip.

“No,” she said unevenly. “Jax, please...”

He let her go. “What’s wrong?”

How could she explain about the picture, how remembering her nightmare
had changed how she felt?

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, turning away from him.

Jax took a deep breath and let it out slowly, doing his best to hang onto
what patience he had left...which wasn’t very much by now. What a bad
time for Miranda to show up. It wasn’t her fault, however.

Why couldn’t Brenda see that? Why did she draw away from him?

He badly needed to hold her, to lose himself in the magic between them.
Earlier it had been like the Cape all over again. Only Brenda had made
him feel an uncanny sharing of that intense passion.

He watched Brenda walk into the living room, growing angrier with every
step she took away from him. He strode after her.

“How soon will you be able to let me know about the record company?”
she asked, facing him with her arms folded across her chest.

“Brenda, I don’t want to discuss the record company right now,” he
growled.

“I do.”

He stopped himself from reaching for her, aware he’d better not touch her
in his present state of mind. Instead he kicked over the stool by the settee
and tumbled it over. Brenda glanced from the overturned stool to him, her
disapproving frown clearly telling him she thought he was being childish.

His control snapped. “I think your jealous,” he said.

“Jealousy?” Her voice rose. “I’m not jealous!”

“Doesn’t the lady protest a bit too loudly? If you had any sense you’d
know there’s little reason to be. But, no, you have to get up on you high
horse--you spend a lot of time up there, it seems to me.”

You...you insensitive clod!” she cried. “I thought Sonny was bad but
you’re the most arrogant male I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting!”

He felt his blood actually come to a boil in his veins when he heard her
compare him to Sonny. He didn’t want that name mentioned, couldn’t
bear to think of her with any other man.

He glared at her, clenching and unclenching his fists, and she took a step
back. Jax gritted his teeth and strode towards her, past her and out the
front door into the predawn light.

***

Brenda caught a 9:00 a.m. flight to San Francisco. Jax hadn’t returned to
the beach house by the time she was ready to leave. She’d left him a note
asking him to call Lois with his decision about the record company. She
couldn’t help wondering if he had gone to Miranda’s

As she watched the earth pass below her, Brenda told herself it was
obvious he wasn’t over Miranda. How could he commit himself to her
when he was still emotionally involved with his ex-wife? If she’d had any
idea that Jax was still in love with Miranda she’d never have stayed with
him at the beach house. She should have had more sense, anyway.

She really didn’t know Jax. As Julia had pointed out on the phone, he was
practically a total stranger. Yet when the bond formed between them she
felt she knew Jax better, more intimately, than she’d ever known another
person.

Had she only imagined the bond? Jax hadn’t mentioned feeling anything
of that sort.

She sipped the airline’s lukewarm coffee, thinking its taste was no more
bitter than the ache in her heart. She’d walked into this affair with her
eyes wide open so she had no one to blame except for herself. Hadn’t she
foreseen returning alone to San Francisco, never to return to Los Angeles,
to Jax?

His image swirled into her mind: his blonde hair aglow in the sunlight, his
aquamarine eyes beguiling, his strong and beautiful body inviting her into
his arms.

How could she bear not to see him again? Not to touch him? Never to
feel the thrill of his embrace?

Yet if it had to end, wasn’t the abrupt cutoff better then the agony of
watching love die slowly and painfully?

Love. Neither she nor Jax had mentioned the word. Didn’t she mean
passion?

She didn’t know what she meant. She only knew she hurt terribly. Like a
wounded animal, all she wanted to do was crawl into a dark and secret
place and suffer until she died or became whole again.

No, she wouldn’t die. As Shakespeare had pointed out centuries before:
“Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not
for love.”

She would go on somehow. She had no choice.