Red Delicious
A/N: Welcome to the sequel to my fic, "Red Ryder." You don't have to read that one first, but it might fill in some blanks. I think I explain enough back story to get you by, so, if you are new to my writing, please go ahead and give this a try, then decide if you want to go back. Either way, I hope you enjoy this first chapter.
Chapter 1
Jane had forgotten what happiness felt like, but as he walked into CBI Headquarters that Monday morning, he remembered that it felt…warm. He felt it in his hands, his face, his heart. Warm and…light, like he could walk on air, float on a cloud, and all those other trite metaphors he was so fond of poking fun of.
I'm in love with Teresa Lisbon.
He said it in his head for about the millionth time, but his true feelings for her would remain unspoken until she was ready to hear it, and to say it back. But memories of their recent stay on a certain island made it difficult to keep his word.
He'd kissed her and seen her naked and slept all night in her arms. It was just a matter of time before Lisbon invited him into her apartment and into her bed. Contemplating that brought a new ache, a little farther south of his heart. His grin widened, and the dreamy look in his blue eyes drew the attention of every woman he passed on the building's ground floor. He nodded at them, said hello, dazzled them with the beauty that was Patrick Jane in love. But all they knew was that the man was obviously in a good mood, and his grin covered some sensual secret they would be shocked to learn involved the lead agent in the Serious Crimes Unit.
It had all seemed too good to be true, so, of course, experience should have told him that it was. In hindsight, Jane should have known better. All the happy whistling and the spring in your step couldn't stop reality from kicking you in the ass sometimes. Or, in Jane's case, reaching out and ripping out his heart.
As he got off the elevator, his pathway to the bullpen brought him by Lisbon's glass windowed office. The anticipation of seeing her again made his heart pound and his palms sweat, despite his outward calm. The shock of seeing her in the arms of Walter Mashburn slammed into him like a physical blow, depriving him of breath and making him stop short in the middle of the hallway, narrowly escaping being run over by the mailroom guy and his cart.
"Excuse me, Mr. Jane," said the young intern.
Jane was too flummoxed to respond. He could only stand and stare at the spectacle that Lisbon didn't seem the least bit embarrassed to be a part of. Their hug turned into a fond kiss Mashburn planted on her cheek, and he pulled away politely, but still stood very much in her personal space, her hands in his, returning Lisbon's welcoming smile.
The reality, of course, was that Walter Mashburn, millionaire playboy, had already planted his tent pole in Lisbon's front yard, so to speak. When Jane had visited him in his hotel suite last time he was in California, he knew Mashburn had been hiding something in the other room. The next morning, when Lisbon had shown up at a crime scene wearing the same clothes she'd worn the day before, there had been no doubt in Jane's mind that she'd slept with him. At the time, he'd tried his best to be happy for them. He liked Mashburn, although he was clearly a womanizer, and he was sure Lisbon hadn't had a man in her bed in some time. A wealthy, intelligent man like Walter Mashburn would be just the person to sweep her off her feet and take her out of her comfort zone. He'd really thought they would be good for each other, so it was with some surprise that Jane had felt the sting of jealousy. Naturally, he blamed himself for allowing it to happen. He'd encouraged their relationship, feeling at the time that it was better for her to be romantically involved with another man rather than risk Red John hurting someone else he loved. God, how could I have been so stupid?
He watched as Mashburn released Lisbon and sat in a chair across from her desk. She sat too, and they began talking animatedly, still oblivious to his presence in the hall ten feet from her office. Jane's first instinct was to run away—to the restroom, up to the attic, back down to his car. His second instinct tapped into his violent streak, as a vision formed of pummeling Mashburn into a bloody pulp. But it was calm, cool, and collected Jane that took over, as did his instinct for self-flagellation whenever an opportunity arose. So before he could act on instinct number one, he walked to Lisbon's door and tapped lightly.
Two pairs of eyes flew to his, one pair with welcoming affection, the other impassive and blank. Jane automatically put on his mask of good-natured humor—there was nothing a sunny smile couldn't hide.
"Patrick! So great to see you!" Mashburn stood and shook Jane's hand emphatically.
"Walter. What brings you by the CBI. In trouble again?" Jane was only half-kidding, and Mashburn picked up on it easily.
Mashburn laughed. "I know, not a surprising leap, given our recent history. No, just was in the neighborhood. Got back earlier than planned from some business in Europe, and wondered what you guys were up to."
"Come on, Walter. That's a very thin cover story. You came to see Lisbon, of course."
"Jane—" said Lisbon in her trademark tone of warning. Both men ignored her.
"Boy, I do admire your directness, Patrick. Yes, you figured me out. I've come once again to try to get Lisbon to go out with me. Even though I'm considered a great catch, she's still resisting me. Can you imagine that?"
"No," said Jane, eyes trained on Lisbon, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable. "But then, she didn't resist you much a few weeks ago, did she?"
There was a stunned silence as Lisbon's eyes widened and settled on his.
"I'm too much of a gentleman to kiss and tell, or to sully a lady's reputation." Some of the humor left Mashburn's eyes.
Jane scoffed, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed defensively in front of him. "Since when? It's hard to get away from those tabloid reports, no matter how hard you try, isn't it?"
The two men regarded each other, both taken by surprise by the change in the air between them. Just three weeks ago, they might have considered each other friends. Mashburn was looking at Jane with new eyes now, marveling at how territorial he'd become in just three short weeks.
"Did I miss something?" He turned to Lisbon, whose face was flushed with embarrassment, her jaw clenched in anger. "Teresa, are you and Patrick…involved?"
Jane waited with great interest for her response. He realized belatedly that he was putting Lisbon in a very tough position, and he felt suddenly contrite. "No, of course not," Jane answered for her. "I'm just a little protective of her, is all. Sort of like a big brother would be. Right, Lisbon?"
She cleared her throat. "Uh. Right. Don't mind him, Walter. He's got a bad habit of saying whatever comes to his mind." She gave Jane a meaningful glare.
Not everything, Jane thought.
"So, does that mean you'll go out with me?" Mashburn asked Lisbon again. "I'd like to take you out on the town, show you off. What do ya say?"
Lisbon looked at Jane, who looked pointedly away. It was her move, her decision. "Don't let me stop you," said Jane under his breath. He was testing her, but she wasn't going to have any of it. No man was going to dictate what she did with her life, not even one whose recent kisses could melt her into a gooey puddle on the floor.
"I would love to, Walter. What time?"
"I'll send a car for you at 7:30. Will you be at your apartment?"
"Yes. The address is—"
"I know your address," Mashburn said with a smug grin. He leaned across Lisbon's desk and gently kissed her cheek. "I'll see you then, Teresa."
He turned to Jane as if expecting some sort of formal protest. "Good to see you as always, Patrick. We'll have to go out for a drink sometime, maybe take a drive in my new car. I always wanted a big brother myself," he smirked.
Jane almost smiled. He hated that he still liked the man so much, despite the fact that Mashburn had had Lisbon before he had.
"See ya around, Walter." They shook hands again, and left Jane and Lisbon in a room brimming with tension. Jane must have made a movement to leave, for Lisbon didn't wait long to pounce.
"Don't even think of going anywhere, Jane," Lisbon said through gritted teeth. "Shut the door and get your ass in here."
Jane raised an amused eyebrow, but did as he was told. She was still his boss at the office, after all.
"What the hell just happened here?"
"Looks like you have a date tonight, Lisbon."
"And whose fault is that? You basically goaded me into it."
Jane laughed humorlessly. "Since when does Teresa Lisbon do what she doesn't want to do? I was there, remember? Accepting his invitation was your decision." She stared at him until he gave in and looked away. Her tone softened.
"So you knew about Walter and me. You never brought it up before…not even on the island."
"Before the island, it was none of my business. He seemed to make you happy, and that's all I've ever wanted for you, Lisbon."
"And it's your business now?"
"I thought so. You're seeing him again, so I guess that makes it pretty clear where you stand with me."
She sighed, one hand moving to pinch the bridge of her nose. One of her famous tension headaches was coming on, and it wasn't even ten o'clock.
"Look, you and I have made no commitments," Jane continued. "You're free to be with whomever you want. Walter Mashburn is a good catch. And you can date him without either of us losing our jobs. Sounds like the better alternative, given your penchant for logic."
"So that's it. You're just giving up then? What about the island?" Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. "We both made some decisions there, didn't we?"
Their gazes held, each remembering the passion, the romance, the revelation of how it could be between them.
"I guess I knew this would happen," said Jane, willfully brushing those images aside. "We'd get back to reality and it would be as if it had never happened. It's for the best, I guess. Go on your date with Mashburn. Be happy, Lisbon." He moved to open her office door.
"Jane, stop. This is—" she fumbled for the right word—"crazy. Why are we so mad? Why are we acting this way?"
"Because Walter Mashburn showed up and you have feelings for him. I'm not blind, Lisbon. I know how the world works."
She picked up the phone and began punching in some numbers.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
"I'm calling Walter, cancelling our date."
"Don't," he said. "Not on my account. Go out with him. See what you'd be missing if you embarked on something with me. I want you to, so that if you do choose me, there will never be any doubts about what might have been with him. But I don't think you will choose me, Lisbon. You shouldn't be made to choose between this job you love and having a relationship with me. You deserve to be with a man you can be openly affectionate with. Seeing him kiss you here, in the middle of CBI Headquarters, just drove home how ill advised it would be for us. We were fools to think that it was even possible."
"But—"
"No buts, Teresa. Have fun on your date. I have some serious couch thinking to do."
"But you gave me…tea. That was supposed to mean something." She smiled softly at him, hoping to get him to pull out of this funk Mashburn's appearance had caused.
He smiled back, sadly. "Seems Walter Mashburn has enjoyed tea with you already. I'm not sure I'm into tea…parties. Gather ye teabags while ye may, Lisbon, etcetera, etcetera…"
He opened the door and this time, she let him leave. Lisbon suppressed the urge to cry, sitting back down and cursing how she could experience a personal drought for years, then feel like drowning when it was suddenly raining men. Well, two men, anyway. Two great men. Walter…rich, charming, but not exactly husband material, given how many wives he'd been through. But she sensed that he was different with her. They related on a deeper level, and she felt genuine caring from him. He was exasperating and spoiled and loved the spotlight, and hated following rules. Sort of like…Jane.
Why hadn't she seen it before? Walter was just like Jane in so many ways. He was Jane without all the emotional baggage, unless you count all the messy divorces. She smiled. He was Jane with cash. But they were certainly their own men too, each with their own styles and ways of looking at the world. Jane, having gone through immense tragedy, now appreciated the simpler things. The taste of an orange. The smell of the sea. A cup of tea. A good nap. He wore expensive suits, but they always seemed rumpled, slept in (because they often were). His hair was the same way. She'd bet he spent a week's salary to get his hair cut, although he tended to go a long time between trims, and his face was more likely than not to be unshaven. He was the best, most intuitive judge of character she had ever known. He was not formally educated, yet he was more intelligent than any professor or erudite lawyer, that unconventional brain of his storing vast amounts of knowledge, both important and trivial.
Walter, on the other hand, was always meticulously coifed and pressed. He appreciated the finer things, whether it was his car, his house, or his boat. He'd gone to prep school, then Harvard, racking up the best education money can buy. He was carefree, but a genius in business. A modern day tycoon. He was just as intuitive as Jane in many ways, yet his intuition hadn't kept him from marrying the wrong women, again and again. He made her laugh, infuriated her, and kept her guessing constantly about his motives. Again, just like Jane. It wouldn't take much for her to fall in love with either of these men, for she was already halfway there with both of them.
Her recent time spent alone with Jane had blotted Walter from her mind completely, but the moment he'd stepped into her office that morning, she could only focus on Walter and how much his charismatic presence overwhelmed her. And when both men were in the same room together, having had intimate moments with each of them, good God, she felt like she'd been pole axed! She didn't know whose face to latch onto, whose voice to focus on, whose magnetism attracted her more. It was almost too much for a mortal woman to endure. If Jane hadn't pissed her off so much, she might just as likely have gone out with him tonight. What did this say about her character?
Lisbon reached into her drawer for some aspirin, downed them with her cold coffee, made a face and put her head in her hands. She prayed for a case—any case—to get her mind off her dilemma. She suddenly recognized the humor in the situation. Given the attraction each man posed, most women would love to have her problems. Maybe she'd been looking at this in the wrong way. Two wonderful men were courting her, and she decided that she would let them. She just had to let Jane know he was still in the game.
May the best man win, Lisbon thought, her headache beginning to fade just a little. She reached for her discarded pen, tapping it on her desk in thought. Now, how to get Jane off his couch, both literally and figuratively?
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Jane lay on his back on his couch in the bullpen, looking up at Elvis with a small grin of satisfaction. He couldn't believe Lisbon had fallen for the oldest trick in the book: reverse psychology. Sure, he'd been taken off guard by the reappearance of Walter Mashburn, but as Jane saw just how torn Lisbon was, he knew there was still hope that she would pick him over the millionaire. She'd been suppressing her feelings toward Jane, he knew, so Mashburn could be just the catalyst to push her into Jane's arms forever. She'd just have to see what she was missing when she was with Mashburn, and she'd come crawling back to Jane, begging him to love her. At least, that was the theory.
He knew there was still the very real possibility that she would choose Mashburn, or even dump both of them for the first love of her life, her job. But then he saw Lisbon's reaction to Jane giving up; she was angry with him, saddened even. It hurt a little that she thought he would give up so easily. Didn't she remember how relentless he could be when he wanted something? But this was new territory for Lisbon—two guys vying for her favors. She must feel very flattered, though somewhat confused. So, to put his plan in motion, he got her to go out with Mashburn. He knew that because she was so pissed at Jane, she'd be thinking about Jane all through their date. The gourmet food would seem bland to her. The conversation would be stilted. She might even drink too much wine. She'd be imagining him, poor Jane, alone on his couch, contemplating God knows what.
His smile widened. Yeah, this could so work.
"What are you smiling about?" Grace Van Pelt asked from her nearby desk.
"Can't a man be happy?" Jane said, amused that she had been watching him.
"Sure, but when you are, there's always something up. Since you just came from Lisbon's office, I bet you are working on some diabolical scheme involving her. Am I right?"
He chuckled good-naturedly. "Now, Grace, there's no need to show off your new-found detective skills. I'm merely lying here, taking pleasure in the new day."
"Yeah," interjected Wayne Rigsby, always listening when Van Pelt had something to say. "Men don't always have ulterior motives. Let the man be happy. I'll bet he just got some good news."
Van Pelt snorted. "Oh, please. Just before Jane came out, you and Cho were taking bets on whether Lisbon was going out with Walter Mashburn. You have an ulterior motive just getting involved in my conversation with Jane. You're trying to fish for information."
Rigsby looked decidedly uncomfortable, while a ghost of a grin haunted Kimball Cho's lips for a moment, then was gone. His fingers continued their soft clicking on his computer keyboard.
"Okay, I admit it," Rigsby said at last. "So now I'll avoid politely probing and ask Jane outright: did Mashburn ask Lisbon out or not? And what did she say?"
Jane closed his eyes, still smiling, but settling more deeply into his couch. "You know I'm not one for office gossip. Ask her yourself."
"Come on, Jane," Rigsby pleaded. "we only want Lisbon to be happy. Mashburn is extremely cool. And he has great taste in cars. She'd be crazy to turn the guy down."
"It's none of our business," Van Pelt chided, sticking up for her fellow woman.
Jane opened one eye and contemplated the young agent. "Now who's being disingenuous, Grace? You want to know just as badly as these two gamblers, but you hide behind that facade of woman solidarity. We all know you'll just catch Lisbon in the break room and do some probing of your own. Woman solidarity. Bah." He closed his eye and went back to listening to the two agents bicker.
"Yeah," Rigsby agreed lamely.
Van Pelt flushed. "Okay, I admit it. I'm dying of curiosity. But at least I'm not debasing her by betting about her love life."
"We're not debasing her. We are only looking out for her, ready to be there if she's broken-hearted, ready to drink the high-dollar champagne should she marry the guy. Hey, you think he'd let me drive his new Ferrari?"
"You're a pig," said Van Pelt, turning back to her computer.
Jane suddenly sat up. "Okay, you two, enough. Can't a guy get any sleep around here? I'm going against all my moral standards by telling you this, but if it's the only thing that will shut you up—"
He grinned internally at how all eyes—even Cho's—were upon him. "Yes, Mashburn asked Lisbon out. And she said…" He dragged it out for the sake of showmanship. "Yes."
"Ha! Pay up, Cho!"
Cho shook his head sadly, then pulled out his wallet and slapped a ten into Rigsby's waiting hand. Cho had noted the change in the air between Jane and Lisbon a few days ago, and he was secretly happy they were finally waking up to what he'd figured out about them a long time ago. The Mashburn development was completely unexpected, but Cho had met both men, and knew Jane deserved happiness way more than the self-involved lothario, and that Lisbon certainly deserved better than a creep like that. They were two of Cho's favorite people in the world, and, being a romantic at heart, he wanted them to find a way to make things work.
Jane caught Cho's eye, assessing his feelings accurately with some surprise. He nodded slightly, and Cho nodded back, as if to say: I'm totally on your side, man. With that secret endorsement, Jane felt his earlier lightness returning, the excitement of a challenge just adding to it. He slapped his knees softly, then made his way to the break room for a nice cup of morning tea.
A/N: You like? Well please let me know! Be sure to log in before you review so I can respond to you directly. I can't wait to hear what you think.
