I remembered back to the week after Devon showed up on my birthday telling me about Jack, intimating he thought Jack was coming and then the pity on everyone’s faces as the days went by and there was still no sign of him. Not that I’d said anything to anyone, but they assumed. As did I, like the stupid, naïve girl I kept proving to be. I assumed he would at least come back and apologize for the way he left. I shuddered at the memory of that time. I needed to face him and get closure as soon as possible, not sit around with his presence like a ticking-time bomb.
“Right?” Jazz asked.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “Right. So call me back when you wake up, I want to know how it’s going with ‘choco-eyes.’ You’re good right?”
“Yes, Miss Butler, I’m fine. And we’ll be back in time for your art opening at the hotel. Or sooner. Have you found a dress yet?”
“Ugh. No.” I grimaced. I decided to slide the sash window up and let the night air flow in through the screen. It slid up with a screech. “I’m supposed to go have lunch with Colt tomorrow, guess I’ll deal with finding a cocktail dress tomorrow, too.”
Just then another movement caught my eye. There was definitely someone standing under … my stomach dropped, right as my heart lurched up into my mouth. Jack stepped out into the moonlight.
“Uh, Jazz. I gotta go, talk to you tomorrow.” I let my hand with the phone slip away from my ear, hopefully hitting “end” with my thumb, and stared out the window down to the lone figure. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, his face tilted up at me.
I sat uncertainly for a few minutes, my pulse skittering, and tried to get a handle on this new development. The soft night breeze wafted in over my bare arms, bringing with it the scent of newly-flowered jasmine.
He wasn’t wearing his ball cap, and the breeze ruffled his darker, longer hair.
It seemed laughable now, that I would have waited until tomorrow morning. I cocked my head. “You realize this qualifies as seriously creepy.”
I thought I saw his mouth lift slightly on one side.
“I couldn’t sleep and thought walking would help. And well, I ended up here.” Jack shrugged, his hands still wedged in his jeans. His soft, deep voice that I knew so well, that the world knew so well, was a smooth melody over the jagged rasping of the cicadas. “I didn’t know you’d be awake.”
You just showed back up in my life, how could I be sleeping? I bit down, holding my teeth together to keep from inviting him in. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” I asked eventually.
“Why couldn’t you?” he returned.
My skin got warm. “I was sleeping.” Barely. I imagined I saw his eyes narrow. “But Jazz texted and woke me,” I added. Not technically a lie.
Jack nodded, pursing his lips and rocked back on his heels. I could see more details now that my eyes were accustomed to the night and the clouds continued clearing the sky. He was wearing dark jeans and a snug dark t-shirt. His eyes hadn’t left me. I reached up and smoothed my hair, tucking an errant strand back in the direction of my messy braid, wondering what on earth I looked like after tossing and turning for the last few hours.
“Stop.”
I paused.
“You’re beautiful.”
Wasn’t that just great? My blood pressure rose. I clamped my jaw tight again. My upbringing dictated I thank him, but a wave of anger, no … make that pure and utter pissed-off-ness, almost choked me. “You can’t even see me,” I snorted. “Nice try. What do you want anyway?”
“I don’t need to see you to know you’re beautiful.”
Well, didn’t that knock an oyster out of its shell? What was he playing at? “Seriously, what do you want, Jack? You need someone to buy your groceries or something?” My acidic tone left no doubt about how I felt.
His shoulders moved almost imperceptibly, and I had the thought he’d either let out a long sigh or he was at a loss as to what to say, and was about to give up and turn around. “Can I come in?” he asked so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him. “I’d like to talk to you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to get lost. But these days I didn’t run from uncomfortable situations quite so much. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be sleeping anymore tonight, thinking about the coming conversation I needed to have with him. We may as well get it over with. I shrugged, as nonchalantly as possible, and sighed. “Sure.” I stood and slid the window shut, hoping he couldn’t see the tremor in my hands from where he was.
I pulled on a lightweight cardigan, and swapped my sleep shorts for some khaki cargo ones that were draped over the chair in my room. I pit-stopped in the bathroom and pulled my hair out of its braid, letting it drape over one shoulder. Then I glared at myself with disgust and hastily scraped it back into an ugly, messy bun. What was wrong with me? I stomped downstairs and went to the entry hall. Taking a deep calming breath and flicking the hall light on, I opened the front door.
Jack was leaning against a pillar at the top of the porch stairs watching me. His arms were folded across his chest, one booted denim-clad ankle crossed over the other, and he made no move to come in. Light spilled out from behind me, casting a warm glow. Dammit, why did he have to be so attractive? I caught his green eyes for a second, which felt like about all I could stand, and then I stepped back to the side looking anywhere but back at him. I waved my arm in a single sweeping gesture into the house and tried to sound bored. “Come on then.”
Jack pushed off the pillar and started toward me. My pulse increased in tempo with every step he took, and I swallowed hard over my nerves. I could do this. I really could. I just had to hang on to my anger. It was suddenly very clear how damn weak I was. I grit my teeth.
He paused as he got to the closest possible space in front of me. I made the mistake of glancing at him before resolutely looking at the wall across from me. He was breathtaking. Consequently, I didn’t. Breathe. His hair really was darker and longer and curled around his ear. He seemed much less the boyish but intense Jack I knew from before. Now he seemed simply … intense.
A few elongated and excruciating seconds ticked by, and then he stepped past me and into the house.
Jack Eversea was in my house again. He paused in the hallway and did a slow three sixty turn, his eyes taking everything in and ending on the K A Butler original light fixture above him. His face broke into a small grin, and he nodded as I closed the front door.
By his reaction, I expected him to say something, but he continued appraising the freshly painted walls in pale grey, white moldings, and slip covered furniture I’d sewn from canvas drop cloths. Coupled with the antique pieces that belonged to Nana, it looked amazing, and I’d worked hard to get it there. His eyes dropped to the beautiful warm dark wooden floor beneath our feet. The floor he had tried to pay for me to have refinished. That I still owed him for. Irritation surged through me.
I figured it was safe to look at him since he was staring at the floor. It didn’t help. Jack Eversea still flipped my insides over and made me feel like a star struck fan who desperately wanted to know him, but couldn’t. In fact, it seemed he was more of a stranger to me right at that moment, than he’d been before I’d actually met him.