Troubleshooters: Headed For Trouble Part 17

"It might not be a bad idea," Will suggested, "for you to go over, too. Meet Lizzie's parents."

"I want to get Maggie safely home first," Arlene said. "Believe me, I'll be meeting Lizzie's parents in the very near future."

"Maybe Jules should go with Dolphina," Robin suggested. "In case Maggie's uncooperative. He could play the FBI card."

Jules was shaking his head. "I'm not here in an official capacity," he said as Jack opened his cell phone, checking to see if Maggie had texted him back. His last text should have elicited some kind of response from her.

"Yeah, but Lizzie and Mags don't know that," Robin countered.

"I've kinda already played that card," Jack spoke up, and everyone turned to look at him. "I've been texting Maggie," he explained, "telling her that she better get home, stat, or else-" but he didn't get any further, because the front door opened, and Maggie herself burst into the apartment, followed by a dark-haired girl who no doubt was Lizzie.

"It's all my fault," Maggie announced. "Don't arrest Will."

"No one's going to..." arrest me, Will started to say, but Jack kicked him in the ankle. "Ow!"

Jules Ca.s.sidy was on the ball, good man. "It's lucky you came back when you did," he told the girl in what had to be his official FBI agent voice, crisp and cool. "Or I would have had to bring Will in."

"For what?" Lizzie apparently wasn't as gullible as Maggie, att.i.tude dripping off of her. "No one's done anything wrong."

"For neglect of a minor," Jack supplied the made-up excuse he'd texted to Maggie several minutes earlier, before Jules could answer.

Lizzie crossed her arms. "Then maybe you should arrest Maggie's mom. Talk about neglect."

Ouch. Arlene flinched as if the girl had struck her across the face.

Maggie looked stricken, too. "No," she told her friend, "you don't understand."

"She's never home," Lizzie argued. "You know, this is the first time I've met your mom? I mean, G.o.d, Mag, your mother's supposed to take care of you, and all I ever see is you taking care of her, sending her packages, worrying about her ..."

"You don't understand," Maggie said again.

"You're my best friend, and you live your life in total terror," Lizzie said just as hotly. She turned to Arlene. "No one should have to live that way. You joined the reserves, not the Army. This wasn't supposed to be your career, and you shouldn't have to go back. And you don't have to. All you have to do is-"

"Lizzie," Maggie said. "Stop."

"Have a baby," Lizzie finished.

"It was stupid," Maggie told her friend, "thinking I could set my mom up with Jack, thinking she would just ... fall in love with him." She turned to her mother, with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be in love to make a baby," Lizzie said, disgust in her voice. "My little brother's proof of that. People have kids for stupid reasons all the time. Why not have one for a good reason?"

"Liz, just go home." Maggie was defeated. "You're making things worse."

"If you die," Lizzie told Arlene, "when you die, you won't have to be here to see what it does to Maggie. Or maybe you'll come home without your legs, and Maggie will have to take care of you for the rest of her life and-"

"Lizzie, go home!" Maggie shouted.

And everyone leapt into action. Dolphina grabbed the outspoken Lizzie with one hand and Will with the other. "Will and I are going to walk you across the street."

Jules and Robin were right behind them, going out the door. "Call if you need anything," Robin told Arlene, who wasn't paying anyone any attention. She was looking at her daughter, tears in her eyes.

Jack alone hesitated as the door closed behind them all.

"I'm so sorry, Mommy." Maggie started to cry. "Liz doesn't understand. Her parents are rich. They don't-"

"It's okay, baby." Arlene wrapped her arms around her daughter.

"And I'm sorry about e-mailing Jack," Maggie said through her tears. "He was just so nice when I met him at the wedding. When he talked about you, and he told me he's been madly in love with you since you were like, sixteen, and all I could think was ..."

Maggie kept talking, her words punctuated by her sobs, but Jack stopped paying attention to what she was saying, because Arlene lifted her head and looked at him, surprise in her eyes. Surprise and disbelief.

Great.

Yeah, it was definitely time to go.

But now Maggie was speaking directly to him, pulling free from Arlene to face him. "I'm so sorry," she told him, tears running down her face. "I just wanted ..."

"It's okay, honey," he told her. "I know. I got a little caught up in the fantasy, too. But you can't just snap your fingers and make someone change everything they believe in. Your mom, she's one of the heroes and ... I had a shot at making her fall in love with me a few years ago, and I screwed it up. I wish I hadn't, because I'm pretty sure that I could've talked her into marrying me and ... Having a baby right now might've been the right choice for all of us." He shook his head. "But she and I, we're both different people now and ... And you can't just make someone fall in love with you, especially after letting them down in the past. Life doesn't work that way."

Maggie nodded, subdued. "I know."

Arlene spoke. "You've really been in love with me for seventeen years?" She was standing with her arms crossed, looking at him as if he were roadkill.

"Something like that," he said, through a mouth that was suddenly dry. "I know you don't believe me, but-"

"It never occurred to you to tell me that? To say the words? Hey, Arlene. How have you been? I'm kinda in love with you ...?"

Yeah, like he was going to walk in here, cut open his chest and toss his heart onto the floor? "I asked you to marry me."

"Out of pity," she countered.

"What? No," Jack said. "I asked for the reason most men propose marriage to the woman that they ..." He had to clear his throat, and even then the word came out on a croak. "Love."

"You asked her to marry you, but you didn't tell her you love her?" Maggie was deeply unimpressed. "What are you, an idiot?"

"Apparently," Jack said.

Maggie turned to her mother. "He loves you. Madly. He told me. I asked him how he knew it was really love, and he told me he knows because he's felt it forever and it won't go away. He said he dreams about you, and that's the only time he's ever really happy and-"

"Maggie." Jack cut her off. "That doesn't change anything. Except it maybe makes me feel like even more of a loser-"

"Because you love my mom?" Maggie asked. "Why?"

"Because I'm nearly forty years old," he told her, a tad impatiently, "and I should know when it's time to give up and go home." He met Arlene's eyes again. "But every time I look at you," he whispered, "I find myself thinking, How can I leave when I'm already home?" He took a deep breath, and said it. "I love you, Leenie. I always have, and I always will."

Chapter Nine.

Arlene Schroeder had gotten pregnant when she was nineteen, and had married her college boyfriend, Ted, even though she knew it would never-could never-work out.

But he was Maggie's father, and she'd tried, for years, to make it work.

Tried and failed.

But she'd learned a lot from the experience. First and foremost, she'd learned that one person, working alone, couldn't possibly make a relations.h.i.+p succeed. It needed, she suspected, to be a joint effort, a combined endeavor.

And she'd learned that there needed to be a whole h.e.l.l of a lot more than s.e.xual attraction to make a romance last. Respect, honesty, and friends.h.i.+p were key ingredients to a deep, abiding love.

But here she was, standing in the apartment her brother shared with her daughter, gazing into the eyes of a man who claimed he loved her, a man she'd loved for d.a.m.n near forever, too. Loved, but didn't really respect or trust.

But as she stood there, with Maggie watching, wide-eyed, Jack got back on his knees.

"Marry me," he begged her. "Not because I want to get you pregnant-although that's definitely on my wanna-do list. But marry me because I love you, because I've always loved you. Marry me because I just can't shake the sense that you've always loved me, too. If you really, truly feel that you've got to go back to Iraq, well, okay. I don't agree with you. I don't think we should've gone there in the first place, and I think the sooner everyone comes home, the better. But if you think otherwise, for whatever reason? I respect you, and I respect your choices. I'm going to be scared s.h.i.+tless until you come home, and you G.o.dd.a.m.n better e-mail me every freaking day, but don't not marry me, Leen, just because you're doing something hard. If I'm wrong, and you don't love me, not even a little? That's why you shouldn't marry me, but on the other hand, I've been here on my knees more than once tonight. Obviously pride's not a big thing for me, so feel free to marry me out of pity. I'd be good with that."

As Arlene gazed into Jack Lloyd's whiskey-colored eyes, she could feel Maggie slipping back, out of the room, into the kitchen.

"Don't go far," she called to her daughter. "You and I have a lot more to talk about before this day is behind us."

"I know," Maggie called back, resignation in her voice. "I thought maybe it would be a good idea if we all had dinner. I'm starting the rice and setting the table."

The hope radiating off of Jack was so palpable Arlene could practically smell it. Or maybe that was Maggie's hope she was getting a whiff of.

"Get up," Arlene told him.

He shook his head. "I'm fine down here."

"Hey, Jack," Maggie called from the kitchen. "Do you like ranch or Italian on your salad?"

"Jack can't stay," Arlene called. "He's got an article he needs to finish writing tonight because we're going to drive up to the North Sh.o.r.e to have lunch tomorrow."

Jack's smile was like suns.h.i.+ne. "So no to a lifetime, but yes to lunch." He nodded. "Okay. I'm going to call it a victory. A small one, yes, but that's good enough for me-for now."

Arlene held out her hand to pull him to his feet, but once he was up, he didn't let her go. He tugged her close enough to reach out with his other hand and push her hair back from her face, his fingers warm as he tucked her curls behind her ear.

"Thank you," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow. How about I pick you up at nine?"

Arlene had to laugh. "For lunch?"

"Gotta get there early to get a table on the deck," Jack told her. "I'll bring coffee for the ride. Large, but half decaf, skim milk, one sugar, right?"

She blinked at him. "I can't believe you remember that."

Jack shrugged. "In love with you for seventeen years." He laughed. "That's getting easier to say, which is a little scary, I've got to admit."

And there they stood. Arlene gazed up into his eyes as his familiar smile quirked at the edges of his generous mouth. It was the uncertainty she saw there that made her heart beat harder. As much as he tried to pretend otherwise, he wasn't as c.o.c.ksure as he often seemed.

"I guess I've kinda gone all in," he told her.

"Dark roast," Arlene said, still holding his gaze, "black, three, count 'em three, Sweet'N Lows. That stuff is going to kill you, Jack."

He laughed, but then narrowed his eyes at her. "So what are you saying?" he asked. "That you've been in love with me for seventeen years, too?"

She shook her head no. "Twenty," she said and he laughed his surprise. She could tell from the sudden heat in his eyes that he was seconds away from grabbing her and kissing her, so she put her hand on his chest to keep him at a safe arm's length. "But I'm pretty sure I was only in love with the idea of you," she admitted. "You know, my big brother's super-hot best friend. I guess I'm willing to take a little time to see how the real you compares."

And with that she took her hand away.

But Jack was wary, clearly afraid to push his luck, so Arlene stood on her toes and brushed the softness of his lips with hers.

"Yesssss."

Jack smiled down at Arlene, the laughter lines around his eyes crinkling. "Was that Maggie or me? Because it was exactly what I was thinking."

She pushed him toward the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Nine o'clock," he verified as he opened the door.

Arlene had to laugh. "Sure. Why not?"

He went through the doorway, but stopped in the hall to look back at her. "Huh," he said. "This is kinda weird. I'm happy, yet I appear to be awake."

It was, without a doubt, one of the sweetest, most romantic things anyone had ever said to her. "See you tomorrow," Arlene said past the lump in her throat.

"Don't be too hard on Maggie," he told her.

And with that, he was gone.

Chapter Ten.

Robin carried Jules's overnight bag into their house.

"We should make a point to spend more time with Maggie," he told Jules as he followed him into the kitchen. "You know, next month, after Arlene goes back. I'll invite her to the set. It's good to keep busy, be distracted. Not that it really helps-although it does help pa.s.s the time."

Jules put the pizza they'd picked up on their way home onto the kitchen counter. "It's still really hard for you, isn't it?" he asked. "When I'm gone."

Robin shrugged. "It is what it is. Although I definitely prefer it when you spend four weeks in California. As opposed to a war zone. That really sucks." He crossed to Jules's side of the center island. "Let's eat. Later."

His smile was pure s.e.x, but Jules had more to say.