by KaLyn Cooper
Except in his case. History drew tourists to the Mayan Riviera by the thousands every day, nearly as many as those who came for warm sunshine and sandy beaches to escape the winter’s chills. Jimmy and Gramps had reveled in the past, and Jack, too, had been fascinated by the stories, especially those of stolen gold and treasures.
“If they are, it’s very distant.” His mother checked her watch and announced, “Levi, we need to prepare for our conference call. I’m headed to the library.” She rose. Levi stood without tearing his eyes from his smart phone.
“Jillian, I’d like to spend some time with you and Addison this afternoon. It’s important that she get to know her family.”
Jack didn’t miss the fact that his mother, by her choice of words, had left Jillian out of the family.
Jillian breezed over the snub and replied, “That would be nice. She needs to get to know you since you’re now her only grandparent.”
“Mom,” Lilly interjected, “we’ll be on the beach this afternoon. Why don’t you join us there?”
“Yes. I’ll see you there later.” His mother stared at the baby in Jack’s lap. “Make sure you put plenty of lotion on her. This sun will fry that tender skin of hers.”
She turned but stopped after a few steps. “Jillian, you did bring those old files, didn’t you? Professor Tzuc called about them yesterday.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jillian’s response was one of surrender.
“They’re in my car,” Jack interjected, feeling as if he needed to protect her. “I’ll get them in a little while.”
“Thank you, dear. I don’t want to put you out. Whenever you get to it.” His mother was doing it again, treating him with kid gloves. Ever since he’d left the Navy, she’d acted as if he was a ticking time bomb, tiptoeing around him. A far cry from her usual pushing everyone to their limits, then beyond, to get whatever she wanted. He liked being left alone. She gave him the Girard compound to use and all the space he wanted. His brother and sister were welcome to the matriarchal pressure.
“It’s no problem, Mother.” Jack looked at the small little girl, who could barely keep her eyes open. “She’s going down for the count.”
Jillian ate the last bit of food on her plate. “She still takes two naps a day, and it’s been a big morning for her. I’ll put her in the crib then help you with the boxes.”
Jack stood slowly so as not to startle Addi. When he transferred her into Jillian’s waiting arms, the back of his hand brushed her breast.
She gasped. Her gaze flew to him.
“Sorry.” He said the word, but deep down he wasn’t. He forced a contrite look on his face just in time.
She studied his features before she accepted his apology. “I’ll see you in a few minutes to help with the boxes.” As she walked back to her room, he was frozen in place.
That unintended brush of her breast had sent all the blood from his brain to his cock. But he had to stay away from her, no matter how much his body begged. He told himself he was only looking for a lost connection with Jimmy. When they released his ashes into the sea he’d loved so much, that would be the end of it.
“She’s not what I remembered.” His sister’s voice broke into his personal reprimand.
With his erection back under control, he turned toward Lilly. “What’s that?”
“At the funeral service, she looked like a…I hate to admit this, but I would have called her dumpy.”
“She’d just lost her husband for Christ’s sake, and she was five months pregnant.” Lilly’s head flew back, and her mouth opened slightly. Jack’s verbal jab had slapped his sister. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
She looked away at her boys, who were now digging water toys out of a box that had been near the pool since they were children.
“I deserved that,” Lilly admitted as she returned her gaze to Jack. “They’d gotten married so fast in Vegas, and we didn’t know her or anything about her. We had no idea Jimmy was even serious about anyone.”
“I knew.” Jack and Jimmy had talked often before he’d left for Afghanistan. “He’d chased her for nearly two years before she’d said yes.”
“You were always closer to Jimmy than I was.” Lilly sighed. “I used to envy the two of you, hanging out here every summer with Gramps, chasing ancient legends.”
“By that time you were slaying dragons for the corporation.” Jack was five years younger than his only sister, but they were decades apart in other ways. “Gramps was proud of you, you know. Because of you, Levi, Mother, and Dad, he was able to take those summers off and pursue his dreams.”
Lilly nodded. “I believe he worked just enough to finance this place and his silly expeditions. Daddy, on the other hand, loved the corporate game. And Mother thinks it’s her duty to grow it as huge as possible.” She shook her head but said nothing more.
“Jimmy was getting a masters in archeology.” Jack wanted to see her reaction so he watched her carefully.
Her mouth dropped open, only a little, before the attorney in her took over. She seemed to study his smiling face. “No kidding?”
“That’s what Jillian told me.”
“I’ll be damned.” Lilly smiled then. She stared in the direction of her boys as they filled the pool with water toys.
“I miss him.” She sniffed. “The service was small, mostly people from the university, a few of his friends. We didn’t know anyone…not even Jillian. It was like we’d gone to a stranger’s funeral. It was nowhere near the huge social event it had been for Daddy…or Gramps.” The two boys jumped into the pool with young voices ringing challenges. “She had him cremated, you know, so there was no graveside ceremony. It all felt…unfinished.”
Jack debated with himself if he should invite Lilly on the boat ride. She’d tried so hard to go with them. He wondered if he told her the real reason for going to Isla Mujeres if she’d be pissed or relieved. And if she’d insist upon going.
“But that was over two years ago.” Lilly forced a smile. “He’s gone, and we’ve all had to move on. We’re just so thankful that Jillian and Addison were finally able to come down here to celebrate Christmas with us.”
The decision had been made for him. It was Jillian’s deal anyway. Hell, she didn’t really want him there, but he needed to go. Saying goodbye was important to him. He would make a clean break with Jimmy…and that would sever the need to be with Jillian.
The fact he’d be alone with her on his boat made the male part of his brain jump up and down. Jillian in a bikini…wet—no, no. No! She’s off limits.
“Jack.” Jillian’s soft feminine voice punched right through his newly constructed defenses.
He turned to face her. “Yes?” At that moment he’d give her anything she wanted.
The sound of rustling sheets, amplified exponentially, came through the baby monitor clipped to her belt. She froze and tilted her head. After a long minute, her gaze returned to him. “The boxes?”
“Uh, yeah.” Get your brain and body in motion. Car. He made his feet move toward the garage.
Chapter Seven
Jillian followed Jack and tried not to watch the way his tanned shoulders barely moved when he sauntered toward the garage. His back muscles tightened and released as he reached for the door knob and turned it. She’d never seen bare back muscles like his before, and they fascinated her. She wondered what they’d feel like under her palms as he slid in and out of her, suspending that magnificent body above hers as he arched and came.
Board shorts that rode temptingly low on narrow hips couldn’t disguise the tight flexing of butt cheeks with each step. Jack Girard couldn’t have been mistaken for a body-builder because those guys had overdeveloped and defined muscles everywhere. Their muscles had muscles. No, his were perfect with a definite distinction that separated them from the rest of his lean body, just enough so she got a glimpse into innate strength that could be called upon when needed.
She liked what she saw. Any woman would. She could appreciate
a great body. Like his. From afar. It had been a long time since a man had caught her attention and even longer since one had nudged her interest.
On one level, she was comfortable with Jack as Jimmy’s brother. She felt as though she knew him. Jimmy had often spoken of Jack, and no one could miss the love and affection, almost hero worship, Jimmy had for his next oldest brother.
On the other hand, Jillian was attracted to him as a man. He was all man. She was sure women flocked to him and he could have any woman he wanted with just a grin directed her way. She’d seen the way the women in the airport stared at him, practically drooling.
How ridiculous of that saleswoman to think she and Jack were together. A man like him never went for the academic type. Like her. It didn’t matter to her who he went for because she was not interested. She’d been lucky and found love once, although he’d been taken from her too soon. She had Addi, and together they’d make their way through this life. Her mantra ran through her mind as it always did when she got stressed about their future.
The trunk popped and startled Jillian from her thoughts.
Looking into the box-filled space, Jillian was hit with a wave of sadness. This part of Jimmy would be gone. Now. Delivered to his mother as requested—more like demanded.
Jillian remembered the first time he’d shown her the research papers his Gramps had written and the worn leather-bound book of translated stories. When he told her she could read them, she’d been so excited she had hugged him. It felt right, but a little awkward. She’d rarely touched a man. She’d never had a real boyfriend until Jimmy, just other book types that hung out together. There was power and protection in numbers, especially in high school. When Jimmy had wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to him, it’d felt like she belonged there.
“You okay?” Jack was right next to her, and concern was woven through his voice.
Thinking fast, she said, “I wish Jimmy had been able to finish his thesis.” She sighed. What she’d said was true. “He thought he’d found a new clue to the stolen idols.”
Jack picked up several boxes and headed to the house. “Yeah, so did Gramps.” He chuckled. “At least a dozen times every summer.”
She whipped her gaze to him as she grabbed a box. “No. Seriously. He thought he’d figured it out. It had something to do with the underwater Madonna. We were going to go diving and talk to a few professors when we came down for Christmas. That would have been two years ago.”
They’d both been so excited about that trip. Then he died six weeks before they were to leave. When Mother Girard had invited her to come down to Cancun that year, Jillian had used her pregnancy as an excuse to decline. She hadn’t been ready to face his family. The next year, when she and Addi had been invited again, her mother was in stage four cancer and sick from the treatments. She couldn’t leave.
Returning the boxes was the catalyst this year. Jillian sincerely wanted Addi to know her family. She knew all too well how precious life was and how easily those you love could be taken away. And how lonely life was without any family in the whole world.
She followed Jack to a storage room down the hall from her bedroom. There were already boxes stacked to the ceiling with a boat picture and BACats on a sticker on the front of each.
After setting down his boxes, he took the one she carried and placed it on top.
He paused, as if contemplating his next move, and then opened the top box. He rifled through the manuscripts of notes before he looked at her. “Your specialty is folk lore. Do you believe the story is real? That before the conquistadores could steal the three golden idols on Isla Mujeres that the priestesses hid them?”
“It was your grandfather’s research. And Jimmy thought—”
Jack cut in. “I was there, Jillian. Every summer while I was a teenager, we’d go treasure hunting for those damned things.” He shook his head. “Are you telling me that Jimmy found historical evidence that the stories might be true?”
“A few days before he…died…Jimmy told me he’d found what he thought was a breakthrough.” She scanned the stacked boxes. “I think it’s in that one.” She pointed to the middle box in the stack.
Jack shrugged and moved the top box.
She picked at the tape, trying to loosen a corner. When Jack touched her shoulder, she flinched at the electricity that started at his point of contact and coursed through her veins to her heart, which beat so fast she gulped air to keep up.
Her gaze bounced to his. He had a knife in his hand, the blade open.
Had it been a shock or had he cut her? She glanced to her shoulder and was reassured not to see blood.
When she looked back at Jack, he wore a horrified expression. “I couldn’t hurt you. Never.” He reached out and a work-roughened hand tucked hair behind her ear as he followed the curve to her lobe then down her neck. She shuddered at the tender touch that tingled from her skin all the way to that special place between her legs. It awakened each and every nerve ending in her body. All her feminine instincts that had wallowed in sadness for two years stood up and reached out to be released from the darkness.
“I’m sorry I frightened you.” His comforting voice caressed her female need that begged for more attention.
“I…I just didn’t expect...” She regrouped quickly. She couldn’t let this man get to her—no matter how testosterone enriched, no matter how good it felt to be touched by him. “I think what we need is in this box. Please open it.” She nodded to the knife.
“Okay.” Jack slit the tape and opened the flaps then stepped back.
Jillian peered inside. She shuffled papers and notebooks. “I thought it was in here.” She took everything out and handed it to Jack without lifting her head from the box. She felt his presence in the confined space and was afraid he’d touch her again. If he did, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. Run like hell or grab him and smash her mouth on his.
Concentrating on her task, she explained, “He’d faxed some pages to Professor Tzuc down here. He thought your Gramps may have mistranslated the passage. It was some unusual form of Mayan mixed with Old Spanish.”
After she’d emptied the box, she finally looked at Jack. He had papers strewn on every flat surface in what might be piles, the logic known only to him. He was absorbed in reading the one in his hand that she recognized as both Jimmy’s notes and his grandfather’s.
Jillian watched Jack’s eyes shift side to side, his brow furrowed. His concentration was so deep she felt confident she could steal a good look at him and he’d never know. In the barely lit room, his eyes were more blue than green. He had straight blonde eyelashes that were nearly transparent. High cheekbones were accented at this angle by shadowed cheeks. His unshaven jaw glinted red, brown, and gold and emphasized its straight lines and right angles. Dark and formidable defined him.
Addi moved in her bed thirty feet away, the sound filling the storage room through the baby monitor.
Jack looked up. “Let’s get the rest of these from my car.” He set the stack in his hand down on the pile to his right. “I want to look through these before Mother gives them away.” He had a new intensity about him, one of contained excitement, yet his tone was defensive and almost angry.
“But—”
“I’ll handle Mother.” Jack gestured toward the door for her to precede him.
In silence, they made a few more trips from the car to the storage room. The ones she needed to complete her research were left outside the door to her room. Jillian held the last box in hand when Addi’s whimpering could be heard over the portable intercom.
“Thank you, Jack.” She stopped at her door.
“Since she’s getting up, I’ll move these inside.” He took the box from her hands and reached around to open her bedroom door.
She breathed in the scent of pool chlorine and man. He smelled so different from the men at the university. Many wore too much cheap cologne while others smelled like a lab or musty books. Jack had a uniquely outdoorsy scent
with a hint of spice. She was immediately drawn to it. Pheromones, she reasoned.
“You take care of Addi. I’ve got these.”
Jillian wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, least of all a man, but it seemed natural for her to do whatever Jack said. Of course she’d go take care of her baby. There wasn’t anyone else to do it. But he’d taken care of Addi just a few hours ago, as if it was his job as favorite uncle.
“How’s my little baby girl?” Jillian cooed as Addi stood up in the crib. “Ready to go to the beach with your Aunt Lilly and cousins Preston and Greyson?” Her daughter woke up happy from naps. She started to bounce in the crib. “Let’s get you changed and greased up.”
It had taken Jack only two trips to bring the boxes into Jillian’s room. “Finished.” He tickled Addi’s bare tummy while Jillian disposed of the dirty diaper. “She’s the cutest little thing.”
“I think so,” was all she could manage to say. It would take more time for her to get accustomed to seeing a man play with her daughter, but she was working on it. Addi had affection for her Uncle Jack.
“I have to go get the speed boat, check on my catamarans, and grab some dive gear. Have fun with Lilly and the boys. I’ll see you around four.”
“Thank you, for everything, Jack.” Without thinking about it, she laid her fingers on his forearm.
He stared at where her fingers touched him for a long second then up into her eyes. His gaze was all male and hungry. “Anytime, Jillian. Anytime.”
She quickly lifted her hand at the double entendre.
“Unka Dak.”
His smile turned sweet. “See you girls later.”
She couldn’t do anything except watch him walk away.
* * *
Addison’s frilly pink bathing suit with matching hat was simply adorable, Jillian decided as she walked at Addi’s pace to the private beach. She could hear the boys making truck noises with their mouths and a dance station rocked out the latest hits.