Chapter Twelve
Tuesday morning Jax left her apartment feeling oddly out of sorts. While she never enjoyed leaving her kids for the week,
this time she felt even more conflicted than usual. She knew part of it was having Gentry remind her about forgetting Harris’s
birthday—a memory not designed to make her feel good about herself. It also meant she didn’t get to be the righteous one when
it came to her divorce. While it was comforting to say all the blame fell on Harris, the truth was she hadn’t been the perfect
spouse, either.
“I’ll be introspective tonight,” she murmured as she walked downstairs. “For now, I have work to do.” And a parrot to take
care of, assuming Ramon was ready to start speaking to her.
Ugh—when had her life gotten so complicated?
She stepped onto the main floor only to come to a stop when she saw Marcus was already there.
“Hi,” she began, only to stop talking and frown. The man had the strangest look on his face.
“What?” she demanded. “Something happened.” Her stomach clutched. “Please don’t tell me you discovered a crack in the foundation.”
Her nerves and her bank account couldn’t handle it.
He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry,” he began.
She groaned. “It’s worse than a foundation problem?” What could that be? Some kind of infestation? Electrical?
“The building’s fine.” Marcus looked at her. “One of my guys stayed late to get ready for the brick removal. He thought he
was helping.”
He paused so long she began to consider shrieking loud enough to frighten him, but told herself shrill didn’t look good on
anyone. “And?”
“He scrubbed the wall.”
Jax waited for the rest of the sentence, but Marcus had stopped talking. Then his words sank in.
“He scrubbed the wall as in . . .” Her breath caught. “No. Just no.” She pushed past him and ran through the store, then came
to a halt in front of the tall wall of bricks. Sparkling clean bricks devoid of any markings at all.
“Oh, God,” she breathed trying to take it all in. The markings that showed whose diary was where had been erased. There were
only clean bricks and nothing else.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus repeated, coming up and standing next to her. “He didn’t mean to create a problem.”
Jax felt her heart pounding in her chest and she was having a little trouble catching her breath. “People trusted us with
their secrets. They’re going to show up expecting to claim their diaries and we won’t know where they are.” She pulled her
phone from her back pocket and quickly texted Cheryl.
When she was finished she said, “We need a plan and my mind is blank.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated for the third time.
She waved away his words. “It was an accident.” A really big one that had created what felt like large-scale disaster.
“If I can help,” he began.
“I haven’t got a clue how,” she admitted. “I can’t grasp the problem, let alone come up with a solution.” She shook her head. “But we’ll figure it out. We always do.” She was trying for cheerful with her tone but had a bad feeling she only sounded five seconds from hysterical.
Marcus stepped in front of her and met her gaze. “This is on me. I want to make this up to you. How can I do that?”
His look was intense and he was standing really close. For a second she got caught up in the fact that Marcus was quite the
looker and being this close to him made her feel . . . something. Not a bad something—on the contrary she kind of liked the
faint quiver of being unsettled because of a man. It had been years and years since she’d felt anything like that and the
sensation was nice. No, better than nice. It made her think about what it would be like to be kissed by him and—
Stop, she told herself. No attraction to Marcus. She had other plans for him, and speaking of them . . .
“Go out with my sister.”
His expression of concern changed to one of confusion. “What did you say?”
“You can make it up to me by going out with my sister.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“But the wall.”
“Still a no.”
She sighed. “You’re making a mistake. Ryleigh’s great. Have you seen her? She’s pretty and funny and smart.” She thought about
mentioning that she was good in bed but held back. While that was probably true, it was something she and her sister had never
discussed. Besides it felt weird to say that about a family member. Not to mention she didn’t like thinking about Marcus and
her sister together in any way. She wanted him for herself, only she couldn’t because, well . . .
“I’m losing my mind,” she murmured. “One day it will just be gone.” She looked at her watch.
“I have to take care of Ramon, then get to work.” Her phone chimed.
She looked at her screen. “Cheryl can’t be here until one, which gives me time to think about what I want to do.
Maybe I’ll text Ryleigh and ask her to stop by after school. ”
“I could—” Marcus began.
She stopped him with a shake of her head. “It’s okay. We’ll deal. And hey, in a few years, this will just be a funny story.”
She headed upstairs and went into Ramon’s room. He was sitting on his perch by the window. When he saw her, he quickly turned
his back on her. She walked up to him and lightly stroked his tail feathers.
“I have a crisis I have to deal with, which doesn’t take away what happened with Lucy. I was wrong to get you a cat when you
said you didn’t want one. I was wrong not to listen. You’re my guy and I love you. I made a mistake. I thought I was helping.”
Unexpected tears filled her eyes. “I can’t take you being mad at me,” she whispered. “It hurts my heart.”
He fluttered his feathers before turning to face her. She felt a tear slip down her cheek. Ramon flapped his wings again,
indicating she should put out her hand. She did and was gratified when he hopped onto her fingers, then waddled up her arm
to press his beak to her cheek.
“I love you,” he said in a faintly British accent.
“Thank you. I love you, too. Want to help me with my new crisis? We could brainstorm.”
“Breakfast, please.”
“Right. Food, then brainstorming. I can’t wait to hear what you think we should do.”
“This is so bad,” Ryleigh said, staring at the brick wall.
Jax tried not to wince. “Maybe you could phrase that differently so I can get rid of that sick feeling in my stomach.”
“Oh, it’s a disaster,” Cheryl offered cheerfully. “We just have to accept that and move on.”
“I was hoping for more concrete suggestions,” Jax murmured as Ramon flew over and perched on a nearby shelf.
“Tomorrow is another day,” he told her.
“Again, not helpful.”
“How many diaries do you think there are?” Cheryl asked. “More than a hundred?”
“Closer to two hundred,” Jax said. “Maybe more.” And many of the owners would be showing up in the morning to collect their
diaries. There had to be some way to make the process work—but without the markings how would anyone find what was theirs
without learning someone else’s secrets?
Marcus joined them. “I’m here to help. Just tell me what to do.”
“You could ask my sister out for coffee,” she said absently.
“What?” Ryleigh spun to face her. “Stop it. I mean it. Leave me and Marcus alone.” She looked at him. “No offense meant.”
“None taken.”
He shook his head, then walked away. Ryleigh waited a couple of seconds, then moved close to Jax.
“What are you thinking? Don’t offer me up to that man. We’re not interested in each other.”
“You don’t know that. You barely know him. What if he’s the one? He’s good-looking and a nice guy. He has a sense of humor,
a successful business and he’s single.”
“Sounds like you’re the one interested in him.”
Jax pressed her lips together as she tried not to look away. “I don’t date.”
“And why is that? You’re not still getting over your divorce. You finished dealing with that months ago. Why aren’t you interested
in having more in your life?”
Her sister’s tone was mild enough but Jax still felt a little attacked. She took a step back. “This isn’t about me.”
“I get that. You want me to find someone so I won’t think about moving. Which isn’t supportive, but we won’t go there. My
point is you’re single, too. Maybe it’s time to do something about that.”
“But I don’t matter in this discussion. You do. I just want you to be happy.”
“You make me insane.” The words were delivered in a faintly conciliatory tone.
“I don’t mean to,” Jax told her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Admit you’re interested in Marcus.”
“What?” Jax took a step back. “No. He’s my contractor, nothing more.”
“Uh-huh. You’re lying.”
“All right, girls, let’s focus on the real problem,” Cheryl said in a faintly stern teacher-voice. “The diaries. How are we
going to deal with people finding their diaries? We can’t let them randomly pull out bricks. Unless they’ve done something
special to the cover, they won’t know if a diary is theirs without reading part of it. Do we really want that?”
“No,” Jax and Ryleigh said together.
They stared at each other.
“I could read them to find out whose is whose,” Cheryl offered.
“What? You can’t.” Jax shook her head. “We have to protect the secrets.”
“Yes, but I’m a retired first grade teacher and therefore trustworthy.”
A point, but Jax wasn’t sure it was a good one.
“Wait a minute,” Ryleigh said, pointing to the wall. “Most people have been writing in their diaries for years. They always
put it back in the same place, so they’ll have some idea where it is.”
Jax got what she was saying. “You’re right. The sample is kept over here.” She touched a couple of bricks. “I don’t know the
exact spot, but I could guess within one or two bricks.”
Ramon flew down and settled on her shoulder, then started playing with her hair.
“Right. People can point to a specific area and tell us their diary is probably there.” Ryleigh walked to the wall. “So how would we work it? Give them a four-by-four brick area to check?”
Jax pulled a piece of chalk from her back pocket and marked a four-by-four area on the bricks. “That gives someone sixteen
chances to find their diary.”