Man Behind The Voice
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So he shouldn’t feel anything but relief in escaping Colorado.
As he emerged onto concourse B, Jack heard their flight being announced and breathed a sigh of relief. He and One-Eye had arrived in time to board, but were late enough that Jack wouldn’t have to sit in the terminal and ponder the strange events that had brought him to this place. Within hours he would be in Los Angeles, back in his apartment, back in his normal routine.
Jack dodged around the other travelers, taking the escalator steps two at a time, while One-Eye trotted after him like a devoted puppy.
As soon as they arrived in Los Angeles, Jack would arrange some time off for himself. After a few weeks of rest and relaxation, he would be fine. He was sure of it. He wouldn’t think about Denver. Or Eleanor Rappaport. He wouldn’t wonder what could have happened if he’d stayed for one more day….
Stay. Just one more day, something inside him whispered.
No. He couldn’t. He needed to get back home.
“Your ticket, sir?”
Too late he realized he’d been standing in front of the check-in counter, staring into space while a pretty airline employee waited to process his boarding pass.
“Your ticket?”
“Sure.” He dragged the crumpled documents from his breast pocket, but as he handed them to the flight attendant, he was suddenly loath to let go. He became abruptly aware of the throbbing of his head and the aches of his weary body.
Funny, but when he’d been talking to Eleanor, he hadn’t remembered his injuries. He’d been so involved with her he hadn’t given himself another thought.
“Sir?”
Blinking, he stared at the too-pretty face of the flight attendant. But even as he stared at the woman, he found himself struck with a sudden thought. How was Eleanor going to take care of a child? What steps had she taken for the baby’s arrival? It was obvious that Eleanor had adjusted to a life alone, but what about the challenges of caring for an infant as well?
“Is something wrong?”
“No, I—”
The throbbing in his head increased. A tight band of worry tightened around his chest.
One-Eye touched his arm in concern. “Jack? What is it? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.”
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Nothing, I—”
But he couldn’t finish the sentence. If he left, he would always wonder about Eleanor and her baby. Hell, he didn’t even know for sure if she was alone. He knew nothing about her other than she lived with two elderly women in an aging brownstone.
So who was the baby’s father? Had Eleanor been abandoned? Had she been abandoned because of her blindness?
Nausea gripped his stomach, and his anxiety increased.
Holding the ticket more firmly, Jack tried to extend it again, but as he did the sickness intensified. The clerk nearly tore it from his fingers, but he barely noticed.
Dammit all to hell, what was happening to him? He had no business insinuating himself in Eleanor Rappaport’s life.
The attendant peered at him in concern. “Your friend is right, sir. You do look pale. Are you sure you don’t want me to…”
The words flowed around him like thick honey, but Jack couldn’t grasp their meaning. Not when he was being flooded with an overwhelming dread. In an instant he knew that if he stepped on that plane, he would be making one of the biggest mistakes in his life.
“Dammit,” he whispered to himself.
Go back, a voice whispered inside him. You have to go back to her.
“No.”
Too late, he realized he’d spoken the word aloud, because both the flight attendant and One-Eye were studying him strangely.
Cursing under his breath, Jack turned and strode in the opposite direction.
“Sir? Your ticket!”
He didn’t stop. He didn’t pause. Vaguely he heard One-Eye running after him, but all Jack could think about was that he would have to confront Eleanor Rappaport again. Soon.
JACK HAD ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED that once his decision was made, he would grow comfortable with the thought of seeing Eleanor Rappaport again. But he wasn’t.
That fact alone was completely unsettling. He was a man who was accustomed to putting his life in danger. He made a living from such a practice. So why should a mere slip of a woman unsettle him so completely?
Shying away from an answer he sensed he wasn’t quite ready to examine, he vowed to approach this problem in a logical manner. He would plot each angle, investigate every possibility, just as if Eleanor Rappaport were a stunt to be choreographed.
That planning brought him to a boutique located among the exclusive shops lining Larimer Square.
Jack sipped from the foam cup of coffee he held and shoved his free hand deeper into his jacket. The sky was overcast and threatened more rain. The air hung thick with the scents of spring—damp earth, new buds and grass. A restlessness was in the air, a thrumming anticipation. As if there were something waiting for him, just out of reach.
And then he saw her. Eleanor Rappaport.
She was quite lovely, he had to give her that. She had long, thick hair the color of rich chocolate. Her bone structure was delicate, her carriage ethereal, her body slim and lithe. Even in the last stages of pregnancy, she walked with the grace of a dancer, her hand resting in the crook of her mother’s arm. The two of them were laughing as they came to a stop in front of Regina’s shop. Victoria’s Closet suited them both, with its old-world facade and vintage-style displays.
Jack slouched a little deeper into the bench where he sat. Pulling the brim of his baseball hat lower over his brow, he remained quiet and still, the coffee forgotten, as the women stopped, bussed each other on either cheek, then said their goodbyes.
It wasn’t until they’d parted and Eleanor had made her way nearly a block down the street that Jack stood. From the opposite side of the street, he followed her for a hundred yards to where she stopped in front of an ornate movie theater. He saw her take a ring of keys from her pocket and open the door, then enter and lock up again.