Tempted by Love: Jack Jock Steele (The Steeles at Silver Island Book 1)

by Melissa Foster

  “We’ll talk later,” he said, hoping he might get a real smile, but her lips pursed, and she returned her attention to the computer.

  He left the office and headed back to his cottage feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. He took a shower, cursing himself for fucking up their night, and then he paced the hardwood floor, wishing he were still pounding the hell out of something or someone. The trouble was, the only person he wanted to beat the shit out of was himself.

  He snagged his car keys and headed out. Maybe a drive would clear his mind.

  Jock had never been good at doing anything aimlessly, which was part of the reason he was furious at the situation he’d put Daphne in. When he’d worked for Harvey, he’d been a doer, a fixer, the man who got shit done for the theater and for his friend. Why was it easier to fix a business and help an old man than to turn those skills inward and fix his fucking self?

  Twenty minutes later, he found himself turning down the wooded road that led to what had been his home for a decade. As the stately mansion came into focus, a sense of comfort washed over him, and on its heels came a wave of sadness. He pulled down the empty driveway, glad Tegan was out, and parked in front of the house. Years of memories slammed into him as he stepped out of the vehicle and made his way across the lawn toward the gardens.

  He walked past the stone amphitheater and the chairs set up for the production taking place later that afternoon, and memories of Harvey watching the shows as he listened to the children’s laughter and comments flooded his mind. Harvey would recall those moments for days. Near the end, Harvey had to watch from his bed inside the mansion, listening through the open windows. His wife, Adele, had loved children, and in their laughter, Harvey had imagined Adele laughing, too. Jock had done all he could to keep Harvey laughing. He walked past the white tent where Harvey had offered a buffet after each performance so the children could run around and play with the new friends they’d met at the show. He was glad that when Tegan had inherited the amphitheater, she’d continued the tradition, although she’d changed the name of the amphitheater from the Cape Children’s Amphitheater to the Harvey and Adele Fine Amphitheater, HAFA, both to honor her relatives and because she and Harper were offering adult productions in addition to the children’s shows.

  He entered the maze of gardens, which overflowed with colorful flowers and untamed greenery, and made his way to the biggest rosebush, where Harvey had spread Adele’s ashes and Jock and Tegan had later spread Harvey’s. Harvey had spent a lot of time visiting Adele in the gardens, telling her about the productions and his life. A few months ago, when Jock and Tegan were going through Harvey’s things, they’d found a wooden box of love letters that Harvey had written to Adele after she’d died and they’d buried it beside the rosebush and marked the location with several large stones.

  Jock stood beside those stones now with a sense of peace in his heart, knowing that Harvey and Adele were finally together again. He missed the hell out of the old man. So much, he could practically hear Harvey’s rickety voice now. What’s got you tied in knots, boy? Come on, spit it out.

  Jock sighed heavily, emotions thickening his throat. “Hey, old man. I miss you.”

  He imagined Harvey grumbling, Eh, I wasn’t so great. Go live your life.

  “I’m trying, you old bastard. For ten years you were my sounding board, my prank partner, my fucking therapist. I was as solid as they come when you were around. Now look at me. I’m talking to rocks. This was all part of your grand prank, wasn’t it? I bet when you first saw me in that hospital, you thought to yourself, I’m going to get this guy good.”

  He imagined Harvey laughing.

  “Yeah, you laugh, old man. You’re probably up there with Adele, shaking your head at all my screwups. I’ve got a lot of them, so you should be pretty entertained.” He paced by the rocks, his thoughts coming out as easily as if his buddy were still alive. “You once told me that the most important thing I can do for a woman is listen to the things she says and hear the things she doesn’t. You said to see the woman she wants me to see but know the woman she’s afraid to set free. Well, guess what, Harv? You were wrong. That advice got me into deep shit.”

  His hands fisted by his sides as he wore a path in the dirt. “Yeah, I know. I got myself into deep shit. I’m not blaming you. I should have kept my distance, but that’s like asking me not to breathe. Every time I think of Daphne, I get happy, and I want…I don’t know what. I want to be around her. And yeah, she gets me hot, which is fucking fantastic. How long has it been since I felt that?” He scoffed. “Remember how often you’d try to kick my ass out of the house to get some action?” He huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know what to do, Harv. Her little girl looks at me like I’ve hung the moon, and you and I both know that isn’t right. I couldn’t save my boy, and when Hadley cries, I hear him. I see his little face…”

  Tears burned his eyes. “How can I get past that?” He dropped to his knees by the rocks with a crushing feeling in his chest. “I’ve spent a year trying to figure my shit out, and I ended up right back here where I started. But I want what Daphne makes me feel, and I want to give that back to her and her daughter ten times over. I wish you’d met her. She is as strong as the sea, as light as the air, and as joyful as the laugher you craved. When I look at her, so open and hopeful, I want to tell her everything. But mine is such an ugly story, and she’s got a beautiful life and an adorable little girl. I should leave, right? Take my baggage as far away as I can get?” He stared down at the rocks, gritting his teeth, and said, “Give me a sign, Harv. Give me a fucking clue, because I don’t want to leave. I want to conquer the darkness inside me and climb out of it forever. I want to show Daphne she’s worth so much more than what her asshole ex gave her, but when her daughter cries…I can’t even stick around long enough to try. What the fuck is that? That’s not the guy I used to be. That’s not the man I want to be.”

  He pushed to his feet, pacing again, his heart slamming against his ribs. “I need to get this elephant off my chest so I can breathe again. I don’t want to be the guy Daphne’s afraid to have around her daughter. Hadley’s goddamn father turned his back on her. What kind of man am I if I can’t be better than that? I want a life, Harv. And maybe that life can’t be with Daphne. Maybe I’m too messed up to be the man she needs. But how can I know unless I face my shit head-on and try?” He glared at the rocks and said, “You shouldn’t have left me a typewriter. You should have left me a how-to-get-over-my-shit manual.”

  Harvey’s face appeared in his mind, mapped with wrinkles, serious gray eyes boring into him, as he said, I did.

  A shiver ran through Jock.

  “Jock?” Tegan’s voice was laden with concern.

  He spun around, meeting Jett’s and Tegan’s worried eyes, but his mind was still on Harvey. His voice had sounded real. Was he losing his mind?

  “Holy shit, man. Are you okay?” Jett asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He tried to process Jett’s question, but he was too busy mentally traipsing through the things Harvey had given him over the years, the stories he’d told, scrambling to make sense of what he’d just experienced. But Harvey had given him so much. How could he ever figure this out? The storage unit.

  Tegan touched his arm. “Do you want to come inside for a minute? Are you feeling okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, striding past them. “But I’m about to find out.”

  TWO HOURS LATER Jock stood in the middle of the storage unit scratching his jaw, surrounded by shelves and open boxes filled with books, heirlooms, costumes they’d dressed up in for Halloween, trinkets, and a host of other things. But among those good memories he found nothing that resembled a manual. Damn it, old man. Even from the grave you’re pranking me. You got me good, didn’t you?

  He began sealing and restacking boxes and noticed an unopened crate in the corner beneath an old suitcase. He cleared a path, moved the suitcase, and worked the crate open. He was struck n
umb at the sight of the rosewood and leather trunk Harvey had given him the first Christmas after he’d moved into the mansion. His pain had been so raw back then, he hadn’t wanted to celebrate. He’d wanted to climb into a hole and disappear. But Harvey had insisted, and for Harvey, Jock had played along. To an outsider, that night would have looked like a postcard-perfect celebration. Christmas lights had shimmered on a tree by the window, and a roaring fire crackled in the fireplace. Jock had given Harvey a watch because the old man had constantly asked him what time it was. Harvey had never once worn the damn thing, insisting the band irritated his skin. Jock hadn’t learned the truth about why he hadn’t worn the watch until years later, when Harvey had told him that he’d needed to hang on to every connection he could to pull Jock out of his own head and the dark place where he’d retreated after the accident.

  Jock lifted the trunk out of the crate and set it on another box. He didn’t remember it being that heavy, though he’d never even unlocked it. He’d put it in the back of his closet and hadn’t given it another thought until he’d moved his things into storage. Even then, it had only been a passing thought while coordinating his move.

  He ran his fingers over the leather and brass corners and the gold plaque on the top inscribed with JOCK and beneath that, MAN OF STEELE. Jock had told Harvey that he felt more like kryptonite than Superman and that he’d spelled steel wrong. Harvey had waved his hand dismissively and told him he was more deserving of the title than some guy in a jumpsuit who could be taken down by a mineral.

  Jock shifted the trunk so he could see the back of it and found the key still taped there. He unlocked it and shoved the key in his pocket as he lifted the top. His gaze moved over a stack of books, the top one being his own, It Lies.

  “Are you shitting me?” He’d actually thought there might be something helpful in there. He took out the book and opened the front cover. Inside was a handwritten note from Harvey.

  A great man wrote this book. Never forget what you’re capable of. Yours truly, Harvey “the Great” Fine

  Jock’s chest constricted as another memory rolled in, this one from the night he’d met Harvey. He’d been standing in front of the nursery in the hospital after the accident when a private nurse had pushed Harvey’s wheelchair up to the observation window. He’d had oxygen tubes in his nose and IVs snaking from his arms. Harvey hadn’t said anything for a few minutes. Then he’d motioned for the nurse to come closer, and he’d whispered something to her. The nurse had looked at Jock and said, I’d like to introduce you to Harvey “the Great” Fine, man of laughter, lover of Adele Fine…and one hell of a pain in the ass. Based on Harvey’s grumbles, she’d ad-libbed that last part.

  Struggling against the emotions swamping him, Jock set the book down and peered at a stack of cheap spiral notebooks in the trunk, each labeled STUFF. Harvey had despised the word stuff. He’d found it boring and meaningless and had called it a lazy word. Jock opened one notebook and found every page filled with Harvey’s writing. The script was dark and angry. He flipped through a few of the other notebooks, each filled from the very first line to the last. In the top right corner of each notebook was a number, labeling them one through eight.

  Jock began reading notebook number one.

  I have so much hate inside me, I feel like my father. I refuse to become that monster. I have been battling grief like a winter storm, battening down my hatches, hoping to survive it. But it seeps through without warning, drenching me to the bone, drowning me in my self-imposed dungeon.

  He leaned back against the wall, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He could have written those words himself. He hated imagining Harvey going through that pain. They’d met decades after Harvey had lost Adele, after he’d healed and found a way to move on. When Harvey spoke of her, the pain Jock had just read hadn’t been nearly as raw.

  He flipped through the pages, catching underlined passages like I’m constantly fighting the urge to fall into the darkness, to let go in hopes of finding you on the other side. I must remember to treasure the beauty of what we had, to hold on to your spirit and the time we were gifted.

  Jock sank down to the floor in disbelief and continued reading what he now understood to be Harvey’s how-to-get-over-his-shit manual.

  Chapter Eight

  JOCK STARTLED AT the vibration of his phone. He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision and his head. He’d been so entrenched in Harvey’s journey out of grief that he’d forgotten he was sitting in the storage unit. The four notebooks he’d read lay on the concrete floor beside him. He pulled out his phone, shocked to see it was after seven, and read Tegan’s message.

  Are you okay? Where are you?

  That was a loaded question. Reading about Harvey’s devastation, the ways in which he’d grappled with many of the same feelings Jock had been struggling with, made him feel a lot of things, none of which were okay. But learning about the steps he’d taken—a litany of trial and error—to escape the prison of grief gave him hope. Every step forward Harvey had taken had given him a glimpse of what could be, and his backsliding had shown Jock what not to do. Harvey’s messages came through loud and clear. Jock needed to purge the ugliness before it consumed so much of the good in him he might never get it back. He had to accept his past and his losses for what they were, not allow them to appear like a smokescreen between him and his present, sucking him in at will. He needed to dig deep and find the beauty of the memories, regardless of how brief they were, and treasure them as gifts instead of seeing them only as what had been stolen away from him.

  He thumbed out a response to Tegan. I’m good. Getting some stuff from storage. He glanced at the notebooks, finally realizing why Harvey had labeled them with a word he despised. That word probably matched how he’d felt about the monster he’d left behind on every page.

  Jock pushed to his feet and put the notebooks in the trunk. He carried the trunk out of the storage unit, and as he set it down to lock the unit, his phone vibrated with another text from Tegan.

  Are you coming to the bonfire?

  He hadn’t planned on going, hoping to save Daphne from having to deal with his reaction to Hadley clinging to him and the tears that would likely follow. But now the path he needed to take was clear. If he had a chance in hell with Daphne, he had to share his past with her. The confession might bring him to his knees, but wasn’t that better than the shitstorm of tears he’d caused Hadley?

  IT WAS NEARLY eight by the time Jock stopped at the convenience store to buy sand toys for Hadley and got back to his cottage. He swapped his sneakers for flip-flops, threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed the netted bag full of sand toys, and headed out the back door. The toys were a purely selfish move. He was hoping to distract Hadley long enough for him to talk with Daphne.

  He kicked off his flip-flops at the top of the dunes and headed down the path, greeted by the sounds of the bay and the dune grasses swishing in the wind. Knowing that Harvey had successfully beaten his demons made Jock even more determined to conquer his own. But he wasn’t fooling himself into thinking Daphne would be forgiving. Especially after last night and her semi-icy reaction when he’d dropped off lunch today. He was as prepared as he could be for her to tell him to fuck off. But at least she’d do it knowing the truth about his past.

  The flames from the bonfire came into focus, and his friends’ voices carried in the air. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he strode down the beach, squinting into the darkness, searching for the tiny leg-hugging human who was sure to barrel into him. He was as nervous as a seal in a sea of sharks, unsure if he’d be able to manage spitting out the truth, much less deal with Hadley’s cries if the toys didn’t do the job. He recalled the words Harvey had written about his early days of talking about losing Adele, when he’d drawn upon his acting career and had seen himself playing a role, distancing himself just enough to ease into the person he’d eventually become. Jock wasn’t an actor, as he’d proven every time Hadley had clung to him. He was a write
r. Or at least he had been.

  As he neared the bonfire, an idea formed. He began narrating his story in his head, thinking in terms of how a character might handle the situation. That modicum of distance eased the tension in his chest just enough for him to breathe a little easier.

  “Jock!” Tegan ran down the beach toward him. Her blond hair lifted off her shoulders as she threw her arms around him. “I’m glad you made it. I was worried about you.”

  “Thanks, Teg. I’m okay.” He waved to the others, but Daphne and Hadley were nowhere in sight. “Where’s Daphne?”

  “She didn’t come.”

  Shit. He hoped he hadn’t made her too upset to join the others.

  Tegan glanced at the toys in his hand and said, “Toys?”

  “For Hadley.”

  “Emery was just telling me she thought there was something going on between you and Daphne.” She lowered her voice and said, “Has something changed with you and Hadley? Are things better?”

  “No, but I’m hoping they can get there. I’m going to head back up.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stick around for a little while?”

  “I’m sure. I’ve got to take care of something.”

  “Okay. Jett and I are around all weekend if you need an ear or want to hang out.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that. Sorry for running off earlier.” He gave her a hug and headed back the way he’d come.

  He tossed the toys on his patio and went directly to Daphne’s apartment, hoping to find her outside. His pulse kicked up as he walked around the office to the chairs where they’d been meeting, but she wasn’t there. He tucked away his disappointment and climbed the porch steps to the office, hoping the door was unlocked. He nearly did a fist pump when the door opened. He took the interior steps two at a time, his hopes rising as he reached the landing and knocked.

  Daphne answered the door, looking beautiful in a tank top and jeans, but her semi-smile matched her troubled eyes.