Two Harts – Missing Parts
Chapter 11
Jonathan waited patiently in the living room. Max had given him a rundown of the main things he had purchased and he gave his boss an envelope that held receipts, in case something didn't fit. Then the butler had changed his shirt and left the suite to take in an afternoon of poker with some of the hotel staff.
After a half hour Jennifer emerged from the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her hair but wearing a lovely pair of slacks and a matching sweater. Jonathan smiled.
"Everything seem to fit alright?" he wondered as she came to the couch, leaned down and immediately gave him a loving kiss.
"Mm-hmm," she answered as she looked around, in search of something.
"What's missing?" Jonathan asked.
"I hope I have a brush in my purse," Jennifer commented. She pushed a bit of the towel farther away from her eyebrows and then spotted her clutch on a table.
"Do we need to do some more shopping?" he watched as she grabbed the leather bag and opened it to look through.
She tilted her head and smiled at him. "I will need to, yes. But I at least have a brush and some makeup and hairspray to get me out the door."
Jennifer pulled out the brush, a small bottle of spray and her compact. She headed back toward the bedroom but stopped when Jonathan held his hand out over the back of the couch. She placed a hand in his and looked down at his face.
"You don't need any makeup. Let me run my fingers through your hair and it'll be perfect. And as for you going out shopping alone?" He shook his head, raised his eyebrows and spoke to her with his eyes. "You're not going anywhere without me."
She gave him a grateful smile, leaned down and placed another kiss on his lips as she put a hand on his cheek. "Darling," she spoke softly as though someone else was listening, "there are some things a woman needs to get for herself."
Jonathan shook his head. "Are you trying to spare me some embarrassment, or yourself?"
Jennifer rocked her head back and forth in thought. "A little of both, I suppose."
Jonathan reached up with his hand and ran his thumb across her cheekbone. "Let's be embarrassed together," he smiled. "I won't mind a few moments of blushing if you don't. Besides, I'll eventually need to know what you buy anyway, won't I?"
Jennifer creased her eyebrows. "Not always!" she joked. "I have to keep a few surprises up my sleeve. We've only known each other a week as it is."
Jonathan nodded, not content that she didn't agree with his thoughts.
"You're just afraid that I'll escape to the airport and catch the next flight home," she attempted to put a humorous thought in his mind.
"Would you?" Jonathan asked.
Jennifer saw what she thought was a hint of fear in his eyes. The blue turned slightly gray and she noticed just a little tension in his temples.
So she placed her hand on his cheek again, bent down and instigated a kiss that she hoped would calm his anxiety. She held his lips against hers, slid her tongue across the crease of his mouth and found happiness when he allowed her to break through, the tips of their taste buds meeting in a simple display of love.
Jonathan kept his eyes closed for a moment when she pulled away.
"Let me finished getting dressed. Would you mind just grabbing dinner here in the hotel and then running to the corner shop with me to get what I need?"
He smiled sweetly at her but didn't say a word. In return she took his hand in hers and placed a kiss on his palm. She rubbed the tingling area with her thumb before placing his hand back on the couch and walking away.
Jonathan rubbed the same spot with his own thumb, and then touched his lips where she had kissed him. He didn't know what the world might have in store for him and Mrs. H. in the future, but for the next few days he would be content just being together.
A dish clanging in the kitchen woke Jennifer from her sleep.
She and Jonathan had enjoyed a relaxed evening out. A casual dinner, a little shopping for necessities and then a walk around the area near The Ritz had been wonderful. She knew both of them had worn smiles on their faces the entire time. That was their best option for telling the world to leave them alone because they only had eyes for each other.
When they had returned to the empty hotel suite Jonathan turned on music and they danced for an hour, almost silently, sharing soft kisses and just being in each others' arms. That was followed by what each considered a nearly normal night time ritual… face washing, teeth brushing and then the addition of making love into the late hours.
She noted the time, 7:00AM, and had to blink to make sure she was seeing it correctly. Jennifer attempted to sit up but then realized Jonathan hadn't made the noise outside the room because he was still sound asleep with his arm draped protectively over her chest.
She smiled, a happy woman with the man she loved.
Jennifer realized that she hadn't put on the nightgown again after their lovemaking. Instead, as she awoke, it was Jonathan's pajama top that felt so soft against her skin. He had delicately peeled the nightgown off her shoulders and down her body as part of their foreplay. She guessed she may need to check the foot of the bed, between the sheets, to retrieve the garment.
Another rattle in the other part of the makeshift apartment made her move a little more strongly. She didn't want to wake Jonathan so she cautiously pushed his arm down toward her thighs until she could move herself off the bed.
"Not without me," he mumbled as his arm drifted to the mattress.
She slid a bathrobe over her arms and made sure it was secured with the belt, then she walked to the other side of the bed, leaned over him and placed a kiss on his temple.
"I'm not going anywhere without you," she whispered.
"Mine," he responded, reminding her of how he had referred to her body before they were completely entangled the previous night.
"Yours," she answered definitively, to which he took in a deep breath and seemed to relax completely.
Jennifer stood over him for another moment, making sure he wasn't waking. She knew she was staring at him but didn't care in the least. She, too, breathed in deeply. Then she turned and headed out of the bedroom and down the hall.
She felt only slightly nervous but a little excited. With Jonathan asleep, this was her first opportunity for a little alone time with Max.
Jennifer stood at the door for a moment watching the older gentleman with a frumpy robe wrapped around his body, a pair of pajamas and house slippers. Max's hair was a mess which made her smile. He was humming as he pulled a skillet out of a drawer and set it on the stove.
As he turned toward the refrigerator he noticed the other figure standing there.
"Good Morning," Jennifer smiled at him and leaned against the door frame.
"Oh, hey, you startled me, Mrs. H. What are you doin' up at this hour?" Max asked.
He went back to his task of grabbing eggs, cheese and some vegetables out of the fridge to make an omelet. Before she could answer his first question he asked another.
"Are you hungry? I can make you some eggs or an omelet or something if you are."
Jennifer took that as enough of an invitation to actually enter the kitchen. She leaned against a counter, hoping she was out of his way.
"Actually, I am hungry. Jonathan and I had a kind of early dinner last night. That was the last thing I had to eat, down in the hotel restaurant," she explained.
"What's your pleasure?" Max held up the container of eggs.
"Scrambled, please?" Jennifer requested. "You don't have to cook for me, you know. I can –"
Max interrupted her with a grin. "Mrs. H…. Miss Edwards… Jennifer… I won't cook for you because I have to. I'll cook for you because it's what I do. This is the kind of thing that makes me happy."
She smiled back at him. "Do you cook for Mr. H. every day?"
Max nodded as he turned on the fire under the skillet. "Pretty much. He's a busy man, got a lot on his plate. A man's gotta eat some breakfast before he gets going in the day. He can cook for himself, I know, but it's just a way that I can help him out."
"What else do you do for him, Max?" Jennifer took a chance, opening a cabinet and finding plates. She took out two of them and sat them near the stove. Then she began looking through drawers until she found eating utensils.
"Meh," Max started with a shrug of his shoulders before grabbing a spatula to flip the eggs. "I drive him around, I clean the house, I help keep track of his schedule. He has a lot of meetings but he does a lot of work from home. He don't like spending a lot of time in that fancy office of his. Says he'd rather be home playing gin with me than sitting in his big cushy chair."
Jennifer listened intently.
"Cheese? Peppers?" Max looked toward her and pointed the spatula at the other available ingredients.
Already the breakfast was smelling wonderful so Jennifer didn't hesitate to indulge. She was anxious to get a home cooked meal and this one just might give her a little insight to future conversations.
She nodded for both and then offered to make a pot of coffee.
Max shrugged and allowed her to start working on the morning get-me-up.
"Max?" She continued talking to him as she put a filter into the coffee pot and then began scooping some of the dark roasted grounds. "Was Jonathan still at the orphanage when you met him?"
The older man's heart warmed as he realized she was working to get to know him – and wanting to know more about Jonathan, through him.
"Yeah," his gruff voice answered. "He was a little trouble maker, but he had this kinda Tom Sawyer way about him. You know, he could get the other boys to do stuff for him. He would pay 'em off with little toys, or candy that he used to swipe from the store down the street."
Jennifer grinned widely. "So he's always been a charmer?"
"Pssh," Max rolled his eyes and shook his head. "If you want to call it that. I was in the service, you know, and I was home on leave for a couple of weeks 'cause my baby brother got real sick and didn't make it. He was about Mr. H's age, I guess, like 9 or 10 years old.
After his wake, me and my sisters were walking down the street by the orphanage. They saw this kid out on the sidewalk playing marbles and scamming other kids. My sisters thought he was adorable but I saw him for what he was – a little thief!"
Jennifer started the coffee pot and then leaned against the counter again. "It was Jonathan?"
Max nodded. "I decided to go back by there the next day and he was doing the same kind of thing except they were playing cards. I called him over and asked him what his game was. He told me they were making 'investments' in his future company."
Jennifer shook her head. "Shrewd business senses already. I'm impressed!"
Max pressed his lips together telling her that he had not been impressed at that point.
"I told him if he would quit taking the other kids' money then *I* would invest in his future company. But he had to get on the straight and narrow and stay there without gettin' arrested."
Max turned back to the stove to finish making breakfast. Jennifer watched him scoop eggs onto each plate and followed his wordless orders when Max pointed toward the table. She sat down and gladly let him serve her the wonderfully smelling food.
Max also poured them both a cup of coffee and grabbed the cream and sugar dishes before taking a seat across from her.
"I guess he took your advice?" Jennifer wanted to know more.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Max took a bite or two and continued. "Whenever I got to come home for a weekend or holiday I would go check on him. And my sisters kept an eye on him too. He did pretty good. So when he was about 13 and wanted a job, a got him a sport coat so he could go to a interview to be a newspaper boy."
"So you took Jonathan under your wing. That was decades ago, now, Max. How did it become the two of you climbing the ladder together?" Jennifer could already feel the closeness of Max and Jonathan but it couldn't have all been from a sport coat and a job selling newspapers.
"Well, when he was in high school I was still in the service. I got in the line of fire, I guess you'd say, and I got shot up pretty bad."
Jennifer took a quick sip of her coffee – which, she noted, tasted awful – and then slowly put her cup back on the table. She looked into Max's face. "You were in the war?"
"Uh-huh," Max answered quietly. "After that I got sent home permanently. They fixed me up, real good, see. But there was no way I could go back. My sisters kept telling Jonathan how I was doing, but I was in a hospital on the other side of the country. So he couldn't come see me.
When I finally did get back to California he came to see me first thing. I'll never forget it. He came into my room…I was in a wheelchair…and he put his arms around me and told me not to worry about nothin' because he was gonna take care of me."
Jennifer looked down at her plate. The tears pooled in her eyes but she wasn't sure if she should reveal that to Max or not. She was obviously only hearing part of their story. But what she was hearing was a story of friendship and love that carried far beyond anything she could imagine…other than that of her own parents.
She felt two hands on her shoulders and knew what voice to expect next.
"Max took me in and taught me what family was about. When his sisters told me that he had been injured in the war I was scared that I would never see him again. I promised myself that if he came back to me, I'd never let him get hurt again. I prayed and prayed and prayed.
And God answered my prayers."
Jennifer sniffled, giving away her emotions that both Max and Jonathan could already see. Their history wasn't something that the two men discussed. But it was something Jennifer needed to know. And in that short span of time her love for both of them dug even deeper into her heart and soul.
Max reached across the table and put his rugged hand on top of Jennifer's she looked at him and tried to laugh through her tears. Max smiled at her easily. "You see what you're getting yourself into?"
She returned his smile.
"When this guy tells you he's gonna do something, just believe him. And he ain't gonna do it half way. He's all in, for life."
Jonathan massaged her shoulders as he listened to Max's words. Jennifer put her hands on top of his and looked up at him. "I'm all in, too," she held his gaze, speaking infinitely more with one look than her voice could say.
Max lifted his coffee cup and took a long drink of the dark liquid. He held it in his mouth for a moment and then swallowed with a bitter look on his face.
Neither Jennifer nor Jonathan noticed his expression as he sat the cup back on the table. But when he pushed it farther away Jennifer looked at his face.
"Max, is something wrong?" She asked, slightly worried.
"Oh, it's nothin' Mrs. H. Just…how's about you let me fix the coffee from here on out?"
Two Harts - Chapter 11 - Two Harts