by Sey, Susan
“Of course she does.”
Peter sent a questioning glance her way and Addy shrugged. “It’s not exactly what Peter offered you, Georgie,” she pointed out gently.
“What difference does that make?” Georgie asked. She was perilously close to pouting. Jax found himself smothering a grin in his collar. “Either he signs one of his properties over to me or he signs a check for me to buy into Davis Place.” She turned her face up to his. “It’s all the same in the end, right?”
“Of course it is,” he assured her. “But honey—” He gentled his voice, as if speaking privately when really the entire family was listening shamelessly. “What if Addy doesn’t want a partner? What if she’d rather work alone? Don’t you think this is something the two of you ought to discuss another time? In private?”
Georgie waved this away. “This is a whole family project. We’re all in. Mom will be teaching the classes, Jax is helping with the contractors, Matty will be general grunt-and-carry, but so far there’s been nothing for me. Not until you. Not until now. Right, Addy?”
Addy gave Peter an apologetic smile. “I am in the market for an investor. I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but if this is really something you’re interested in, I could show you the paperwork.”
Georgie turned big, pleading eyes back to Peter. “Please?” she said. “Please? I really want this, Peter. I can make you so proud of me.”
Peter smiled but it looked a little forced to Jax. “I already am proud of you, sweet pea. You can have whatever you like.”
She searched his eyes. “It’s not too much?” she asked hesitantly, as if it had just occurred to her that she was asking for something very different from what he’d offered. “Oh my God, it is,” she cried, tears spilling into her huge eyes. “It’s too much. I’m sorry, I didn’t think.” Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Peter, I’m so stupid. I ruined everything.”
“Hey,” he said, wrapping his hands around her wrists and pulling them away from her face. “What are you talking about?” He dipped his head until he caught her eyes and held them. “Georgie, come on. Who do you think you’re talking to, huh? It’s six of one, half dozen of another to me. And even if it weren’t, nothing’s too good for my girl. You want a falling apart house on the hill? It’s yours.”
A tentative smile curved her trembling mouth. “You mean it?”
“You bet. It’s no herd of cattle but if it’s what you want, it’s what you’ll have.”
“It’s what I want.”
“Then that’s all I need to hear. If anything, I’m worried it’s not enough. You want something else, too? Hey, how about that old amusement park out on Route Sixteen? It’s got a ferris wheel.”
She toyed with his collar. “What do I need with an amusement park? You’re all the excitement I’ll ever need.”
“Same goes.” He lifted his voice to Addy though he kept his eyes on Georgie’s. “Bring the paperwork by my office tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll make this thing official. Hey, if I like what I see, maybe I’ll buy myself in, too. You are really looking for investors?”
“I really am,” Addy said and Georgie flung her arms around his neck to kiss him with serious enthusiasm. “Thank you, Peter.” She pulled back to rest her forehead against his. “This means everything to me.”
“You mean everything to me,” he said.
Jax hoped to hell he meant that.
Chapter 23
GEORGIE MET ADDY’S eyes across the table and gave her a smug look that said you’re welcome. Addy sighed. Oh, Georgie. Addy knew she was trying to help but putting Peter on the spot like that, and in front of the entire family? She suppressed a twinge of nostalgia for the days when Georgie had been too lazy to help out.
From the foot of the table, Jax leaned over to pour her some more champagne. “Ease up,” he murmured. “You look like you’re chewing tacks.”
“What?”
He handed her the glass. “To Georgie’s ambition,” he said, raising his own glass and lifting his voice. “And Peter’s generosity. A match made in heaven.”
Addy drank and Jax’s hand found her thigh under the table. Heat bloomed under his hand and Addy swallowed carefully.
“Better,” he said softly. “You were grinding your teeth into dust. It can’t be good for your jaw.”
“My jaw is fine,” she muttered.
“Of course it is.” His fingers dipped into the hollow of her inner thigh to toy with the seam of her trousers. Her stomach muscles clenched and a completely inappropriate desire curled through her bloodstream like smoke. “Georgie step on your lines?”
“What lines?” She shifted away from his touch and he shrugged, draping that casual arm across the corner of the table between them.
“I don’t know.” His big hand dangled inches from her arm and scrambled the air between them into an electric froth. Or something. She didn’t know what the heck it was doing over there, only that she could feel it. He was a good six inches from her and she could feel that hand as if he were running it up and down her arm. As if he were getting ready to follow it up with his tongue.
She squeezed her knees together, and fury ran together with the desire bubbling in her blood. He had no business toying with her like this. Not when he’d just made a date to break her stupid heart. “That makes two of us, then,” she snapped in an undertone. “Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He shrugged again, and that hand slid closer. Close enough now to brush her elbow. If she slouched.
She felt her spine melting, her usually crisp posture coming undone next to the impossibly radiant heat of his body. She scooted to the far side of her chair. Contemplated switching over to Matty’s empty chair on the pretext of joining the conversation that had moved to Bianca’s end of the table. She and Jax had become an island of two down here.
“I’m just saying, you look tense.” He reached up and danced his fingers across the curls at the nape of her neck. Her entire body erupted in chills and she shivered hard.
“Addy?” She looked up to find Bianca gazing at her with concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yes!” She gulped back a healthy swallow of champagne and moderated her tone. “Yes, of course. Why?”
“You shivered hard enough to rattle the silverware, dear.”
“Oh.” She surveyed the table. Georgie and Peter regarded her with mild interest, Jax with suppressed amusement. “Huh. No, just a chill, I guess.” She forced a chuckle. “Goose walked on my grave or something.”
“Or something,” Jax said, a dark laugh in his voice. “Let me have a look at you.”
“What? No!” Heat surged through her entire system, loosening her grip on sanity and pulling her toward him even as her brain hit the fire alarm “I’m fine, Jax.” She gave him a tight-lipped smile to prove it. “I just—”
He slipped one hand — oh mercy — into the hair behind her ear and reeled her in until her forehead was cradled against the wide palm of his other hand. The words dried up on her tongue. “You’re a little warm,” he announced.
“You think?” she hissed furiously.
“You are a little flushed, dear.” Bianca regarded her critically from the end of the table. “Do you think she’s feverish, Jax?”
“I’m fine,” Addy said. She threw Jax a killing look and he lifted his shoulders.
“You’re a little warm,” he said again.
“Why don’t you take her home, Jackson?” Bianca said.
“What? No!” Addy bolted upright in her chair and snatched up her champagne glass. She’d promised to hear whatever he was so determined to say, to face it like an adult but her courage failed her. “Jax is overreacting. I’m not sick—”
“Maybe not but you’ve been working sixteen hour days all week,” Jax said. “Even if you’re not sick, you’re exhausted. Now wish Georgie and Peter happy, and let me take you home.”
Addy opened her mouth to argue, then took in the blooming interest in Georgi
e’s face. The curiosity in Peter’s. The slowly lifting brows on Bianca’s. She set her glass down with precise fingers and rose. She deposited her napkin on her plate, walked around the table and kissed Georgie’s cheek. “Happy engagement,” she whispered, then laid her cheek next to Peter’s and gave him a little squeeze. “Welcome to the family.”
He covered her hand on his shoulder with one of his own and smiled warmly. “Thanks, Addy.”
Then she straightened, looked Jax dead in the eye and said, “I’m ready.”
Ten minutes later, she parked her Honda in Jax’s drive. She sat in the car, windows down, listening to her cooling engine tick a counterpoint to the distant water. Then Jax pulled his beloved mini-pumper into the drive behind her, blocking her escape. Oh, the jerk. At the very least, he could have parked that beast across the street at the station the way he usually did. Now he was going to dump her, then force her to wait to make her escape while he moved his stupid truck.
The anger that had been simmering in her veins for hours burst into a rolling boil and she shouldered open her car door. Slammed it shut with a violent slap that did absolutely nothing to cool her temper. She stalked to the mini-pumper and yanked open its door. Jax blinked at her in surprise and she said, “Out. Now.”
He gave her a wary look, but unfastened his seat belt and slid to the ground. He closed the truck door and leaned back against it, hands tucked into his pockets.
“How dare you?” she snapped. She wanted to slap him. Shake him. Do something, anything, to snap him out of this smug, serene calm. Because she couldn’t bear it that he was unmoved when she was half undone with pain. “How dare you?”
He let an infuriating beat pass. “How dare I what?”
She stepped forward, putting herself dangerously close to arm’s reach. “Why don’t we start with your ridiculous performance during dinner?”
He lifted a brow. “Performance?”
She folded her arms over her waist as the memory washed over her, half anger, half heat. “I don’t have a fever, Jackson.”
He grinned suddenly. “And yet you were definitely hot.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and her shame pulsed as hot as her desire. He took a step forward, and the heat of his body slid out to touch her. Suddenly she could feel her heartbeat in her wrists, in her ears. In other more interesting places. She thought about stepping back but found her shoes nailed to the asphalt.
“You haven’t talked to me — really talked to me — for a week,” he said softly. “Can you blame me for going above and beyond to get you alone?”
“Well you’ve got me alone now, you jerk.” The bitterness in her voice was thick and startling, and he reared back from it. Good for him. “You have my complete and undivided attention, so why don’t you start talking?”
He shook his head. “Not here.” He took her shoulders, pointed her toward the house and gave her a little nudge. “Inside.”
“For the love of—” She broke off and shoved both hands into her hair. “Why are you being so difficult about this?” He nudged her again and she stomped up his porch steps.
“I’m a difficult guy.” He dealt with the locks and held open the door for her. She blew out a breath and sailed into the foyer. Home, she thought involuntarily. Oh, crap.
“No kidding.” She stalked into the living room, stopped by the battered old steamer trunk and spun to face him, arms laced tightly over her middle. She braced for the punch. “Okay, I’m ready. Just say it.”
He opened his mouth, then stopped. Tipped his head. Studied her closely. “What exactly do you think I’m going to say?”
She stared at him while pain and disbelief blazed through her lungs like a prairie fire. “You’ve never been cruel, Jackson,” she said. “Don’t start now.”
“Seriously, Addy.” He eased closer to her, hands out like she was a flighty deer. He sank onto the steamer trunk in front of her and made a show of gripping his knees. See? No touching. “I don’t think we’re on the same page here. What do you think I’m trying to tell you?”
Silence spun out between them. Indecision, pain and fear chased themselves pell-mell through her heart, bashing and crashing and breaking. Then her shoulders slumped, the tension deflated and she shrugged. He wanted her to say it? Fine.
“I think you want to tell me it’s over. Whatever this thing is we’ve been doing? You’re done with it. With me.” She pushed the words through numb lips. “I think you want to tell me you’re bored.” She wrapped her arms tighter across her middle in case her guts wanted to fall out.
“You think I’m bored with you.” He stared at her. She looked away. She couldn’t stand it. “Bored with you?”
“What else am I supposed to think? I know what we need to talk means, Jax. I’m not stupid.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Hey.” Her eyes snapped back to his, anger a welcome flame inside her. “You want to walk away from this? Fine. But you don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
“And you’re okay with that?” He studied her.
“With your being a jerk? No. Quit it.”
“With my walking away from this. You’re fine with that, are you?”
She opened her mouth to lie then stopped. What was the use? “No. But it hardly matters. My feelings are my fault. They’re my responsibility and I’ll deal with them.”
“Your feelings?” His knuckles were white against his khakis. “For me?”
“No, for Matt Damon.” She glared at those knuckles. “Yes, for you.”
“Which are what precisely?”
The question was calm but something about his voice wasn’t. She looked up slowly, wariness a sudden clutch in her chest.
“Addy?” His gaze was steady on hers, and he lifted a brow. “Your feelings for me?”
“You know, I think it might be better if I didn’t say.” She eased back a cautious step, concerned by the grim set of his mouth. “Easier to recover from, maybe.”
“Fuck recovery.” He rose slowly to his feet.
“Not your recovery.” She melted back another step, fighting the hot spurt of adrenaline that said run. “You’re a jerk. You’re on your own. I’m talking about my recovery.” He followed. She bumped into the wall beside the TV and he stepped up. Caged her between two strong arms. The move left a bare inch or two between them, an empty space that was suddenly as thick as the fog rolling in off the lake. “Don’t—” She broke off, swallowed. Closed her eyes. “Don’t be a jerk, Jackson.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Stop making me. A guy with any class would’ve parked at the station.”
“What? Why?”
“So I could just leave when you broke my stupid heart without having to wait for you to move your stupid truck.”
He froze. “I could break your heart?”
“Not quite.” She sucked in a breath, forced herself to meet his eyes dead on and give him what he was determined to have. “But it’s a very near thing. You could put a decent crack in it.” She knocked away one wrist and stepped out of the cage of his arms. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what I needed to say? Will you move your stupid truck now and let me leave?”
He closed his eyes, one hand on his heart as if pained.
“Oh for pete’s sake,” she snapped and turned her back to him. She couldn’t bear to watch the shock melt into pity. “Pull yourself together. It’s not permanent. I’m sure I’ll recover. You took me by surprise, that’s all. I’d never done the casual thing before. I didn’t understand the rules, but I get it now. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jax. You never promised me anything. You’re absolutely in the clear on this. Plus I’m fine. Ready to—”
She broke off. Her throat simply closed. She couldn’t make herself say what she was ready to do. Maybe because she wasn’t ready to do it, or maybe because she just didn’t know what on earth she was supposed to be ready to do. She rolled a shoulder to fill in the blank and finally risked a look at him.<
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“Jesus God,” he murmured, gazing at her in wonder. He came to her, caught her cold hand. He brought her palm to his chest and spread his own on top of it. “Christ on a cracker.”
“Prayer doesn’t actually help, Jackson.” She smiled bitterly. “Believe me, if it did—”
He curled a hand around her nape, drew her in and laid his lips against hers. Shock tried to rock her back but he threaded his fingers into her hair, tipped her head back and kissed her with a slow care that unstrung her knees.
“Addison. My God, Addison.” She felt him shape the words against her mouth, felt the aching tenderness in them. He turned, pressed her back to the wall, set his body against hers and leaned in. Put that gorgeous mouth right next to her ear. “I’m not bored with you. I’m in love with you. I always have been, I always will be, and if you’re anywhere remotely close to in love with me, I’ll let you recover from it over my dead body.”
She froze, stunned rigid, while joy licked to life under her skin. She wedged her fists between their bodies, pressed him back until she could look at his face. What she saw there had a whole choir of angels singing in her head but she pushed a knuckle into her forehead and tried to hear over them. “Say that again,” she whispered.
He glared at her. “No recovery.”
She fisted a hand in his shirt. “The other part.”
“I love you.”
“That’s the one.” She shook her spinning head. Narrowed her eyes to glare at him. “But you said we couldn’t do this anymore.”
“I meant the sneaking around. Not the being in love with you. Jesus.” He shook his head. “I could sooner stop breathing.”
“Don’t, then,” she heard herself say. “Don’t stop.”
He laughed. “Like I have a choice.”
And then he was kissing her. Kissing her like he was a thirsty field and she was the rain. Then it slipped effortlessly into something sweet and greedy, slow and seeking. Something that sang inside her like somebody had struck a tuning fork off her soul. The anger and pain of the last week — of the last lifetime — suddenly drained away and peace spilled cool and clear through her. She twisted her hands into the crisp cotton of his shirt, breathed him in and thought, home.