They both turned and smiled at her.
"Hey, baby," Sam called back. "What are you working on today?"
"I"m cleaning the dining room walls to paint them next. I need to talk to you a minute, though."
They exchanged looks and walked over to where she stood. She took a step back when they crowded her. This only made them smile.
"What is it, Jackie?" Mitch asked, flicking away a strand of her hair that had glued itself to her cheek.
"Look, my soon-to-be ex has hired a detective to watch me. He got a picture of us last night that was not exactly flattering for me in my case. We can"t be alone together while I"m trying to get this divorce. I greatly appreciate your help, but if that"s going to be a problem, then I understand if you would rather not help anymore."
"Someone took pictures of us last night?" Mitch demanded.
"Yeah. So I would rather that didn"t happen again."
"f.u.c.k!" Sam walked off and then walked back. "How did you find out?"
"Stewart called me this morning to enlighten me of the situation. He"s going to fight me on the divorce. I can"t fight back if he has enough evidence to suggest that I"m having an affair as well."
"Maybe we should pay Stewart a visit in Billings," Mitch suggested.
"No! Don"t you dare make this any worse than it already is for me." She rubbed a spot between her eyes that pounded. She had never taken anything for her headache, and it was beginning to get worse.
"So, do you want us to leave?" Sam asked in a quiet voice.
"No, not unless you can"t handle behaving like we"re friends. That"s all we can be right now."
"You"re saying we can"t touch you." Mitch dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
"Yeah, you can"t touch me, hug me, kiss me, or whatever else you have up your sleeve."
Sam laughed and held up his arms. "I don"t have on any sleeves right now."
"Funny. Do we have an agreement?" she asked.
"Yeah, we"ll act like choirboys around you," Mitch said in a disgusted voice.
"I"ll come paint your ceiling in the dining room if you want," Sam offered.
"Let me clean the walls and baseboards. Then you can paint for me. I"ll leave the back door unlocked. I have to go to town about a job this afternoon anyway."
"You get a job already?" Mitch asked, looking shocked.
"No, but I have another couple of places to put in applications."
"Good luck," Sam said, poking Mitch in the ribs.
"Yeah, good luck." Mitch returned to the boards they were working on and left Sam with her.
"He"s not taking rejection too well," Sam explained.
"I don"t have a choice if I want this divorce to go through as fast as possible."
"I know, Jackie. Don"t worry about him. He"ll be okay."
"I"ve got to go so I can get the dining room finished in time to go to town."
She turned and walked back to the back door. She heard Mitch cursing when she rounded the barn to head back to the house. As she walked inside, she could hear her phone ringing in the dining room. She hurried to catch it and answered in a breathless voice.
"h.e.l.lo?"
"Is that you, Jackie?"
"James. Hi, yeah, I ran to get to the phone. It was in the other room."
"Look, we need to talk. I received a rather compromising picture of you this morning in my in box."
"I"m coming to town this afternoon anyway. I know all about the photo. Stewart called and woke me up this morning telling me about it. He wants to reconcile for some d.a.m.n reason, and is threatening to fight me over the divorce."
He sighed over the phone. "Jackie, I told you not to keep anything from me. Had I known about this beforehand, I could have prepared for it."
"There"s nothing to prepare for. Nothing is going on. They made a play for me, and I turned them down. I wasn"t expecting it. They"re helping me with getting the house back together is all. I promise, nothing is going on. I"ve had a talk with them, and they know how important it is for them not to jeopardize my divorce proceedings.
"We still need to talk when you come to town. Just drop by when you have time. I"m pretty much free this afternoon anyway." James hung up, leaving Jackie feeling like a teenager having been chastised by her father.
She sighed and began cleaning the walls in the dining room in earnest. She scrubbed away her frustration and aggravation until the water in the bucket was a murky, pea green color. She emptied it feeling a small sense of accomplishment. It also served at having gotten out some of her anger while cleaning the walls and baseboard all at the same time.
Jackie took a quick shower and dressed in new gray slacks and a cool pink sleeveless blouse. She arrived in town during a lull in traffic and was able to find a parking place almost directly in front of the grocery store. She drew in a deep breath and got out of the car to apply for the cashier position still advertised by the sign on the door.
"We"re looking for someone who can work any hours we need. Are you free to do that?" the manager asked her.
"Yes, I can work any hours. I don"t have children, so that"s not a problem. I don"t have any grocery cashier experience, though."
"You don"t have to have any. Most of the help I hire are teenagers, and they don"t have any experience in anything other than each other. When can you start?" he asked.
"Um, just about any time, I guess."
"How about tomorrow morning? Thursday mornings are usually pretty slow. It will give us time to teach you the ropes."
"Sounds good to me. What time?"
They discussed her hours and a tentative schedule that would get her approximately thirty hours a week. She could make ends meet on the salary at that, but it would be close. She really needed that thousand dollars a month from Stewart for a year to get on her feet and find a more permanent job.
By the time she left the grocery store, she had her smock with her name badge and a time card with her name on it. She sighed and walked down the street to James, Jr."s office. The secretary smiled at her and asked her to take a seat.
"He"s on a phone call, but should be finished in just a few seconds."
"Thanks, I can wait."
Five minutes later, the secretary escorted her in to James"s office. He stood up and offered her his hand.
"Glad you could come in, Jackie. We really are going to have to talk."
"What"s going on, James?" Unease immediately sent a cold shiver down her spine.
"Let me show you the pictures I have." He pulled out an envelope and slid it across the desk to her.
Jackie opened the envelope and pulled out three pictures. All three were of her and Sam and Mitch in very compromising positions. Even to her, they looked very intimate. Still, all of her clothes were on. She sighed and slipped them back into the envelope and handed it back to James.
"I agree, it looks bad, but there will be no more and nothing happened, like I said."
"Stewart"s lawyer called me this morning and said he wants to reconcile, and will fight you over the divorce."
"If the thousand is off the table?" she asked.
"No deal."
"Why would he want to reconcile?" She couldn"t think of a single reason he would want her.
"Well, I did some digging, and I found out that he is up for full partnership in his firm soon. They will probably look down on his being divorced."
"So, I"m a means to an end. That really makes me feel special." She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. "So, what are my options?"
"There are only two that I can come up with. That is provided you really have no intention of reconciliation." James leaned back in his chair.
"There is no way I will ever go back to that poor excuse of a man," she a.s.sured him.
"Then we can fight him as it is and, provided you keep the pictures from getting any worse, you can expect it to take at least a year to get a court date with everything he can throw our way.
"What"s the other way you mentioned?" she asked, appalled.
"We can ask for everything you could possibly want and fight him for it. Make it public and he"ll cave in to get you off his back. You could quite possibly ruin his chances of ever becoming a partner."
How long do you think that will take?" she asked.
"It could take as long as a year, but I would put money on him backing down within a few months."
"I guess I don"t really have much choice." She sighed and crossed her arms. "Let"s take him to the cleaners."
They spent the next hour drawing up a counteroffer asking for half of everything he owned, down to his favorite horse. The detective that James had hired already had some compromising pictures of Stewart with Julia in a hot tub and in the living room of the house on the couch. She could look at them and it not upset her as much as it had when she"d walked in on them that night. She was already over him. She"d probably been over him long before that.
He had slowly been killing their relationship since nearly the beginning, by tearing down her self-esteem. He belittled her until she felt an inch tall. Well, she was worth a lot more than what he owned, and if he was going to put off the divorce, she would own as much of him as she could.
"Thanks for helping me with all of this, James. Let me know what happens. I"m going to be working at the grocery store starting tomorrow."
"You"re kidding," he said.
"No, I need a job, James. It"s honest work." Suddenly she felt as if she were defending herself.
"Hey, I"m not knocking it. I"m just surprised with your degree you couldn"t get something more along those lines, is all."
"Well, there haven"t been a lot of openings in the paper."
"You can always find another job later when one comes up," he suggested.
"That"s my plan." She walked over to the door. "Thanks again and I"ll talk to you when you know something new."
She thought about her so-called marriage all the way back home. She should have realized early in their marriage that it wasn"t going to work. Instead, she"d dutifully worked harder and harder to please Stewart, thinking that she just wasn"t trying hard enough. Then when she knew she would never please him, she"d resigned herself to living that way because she didn"t believe in divorce without a d.a.m.n good reason. Well, she got her d.a.m.n good reason slapped in the face.
When she pulled into the drive, Sam"s truck was gone. She sighed, a little disappointed, but knowing it was for the best. She let herself into the house and found not only the ceiling painted in the dining room, but the walls as well. They"d finished her dining room for her.
Tears formed in her eyes as she realized they actually did care more for her than she thought. They"d even cleaned up all the paint supplies and put everything back like it had been. She was totally floored. They were not only handsome, hot-bodied, s.e.xy men. They were also thoughtful. How would she ever be able to resist them? Did she even want to?
Chapter Seven.
She pulled out her cell phone before she could talk herself out of it and called the house number. It rang three times, and Mitch answered it.
"h.e.l.lo?"
"Mitch? It"s Jackie. I wanted to thank you and Sam for finishing my dining room for me. I really do appreciate it."
"It was his idea. It didn"t take long at all. It"s not that big of a room."
"It helped me tremendously, though," she said.
"We still have a few more boards to replace on the barn before we can paint it."
"Do I need to go ahead and get paint them for it tomorrow?"
"We got the paint already. You can pay us back after we finish with it." Mitch"s voice sounded strained.
"I can"t thank you enough."
"So how did the job interview go?" he asked.
"I start work at the grocery store in the morning. I work from seven till three tomorrow."
"Doing what?"
"Cashier. I"ll check groceries."
"That"s beneath you, Jackie."