“How you liked your coffee? Why wouldn’t I?”
“The last time we had coffee together . . .”
“Was the morning after your New Year’s party. I remember.” He walked to the fireplace, used the old poker to jab at the burning logs. The collar of his blue dress shirt was dark from melted ice. He’d rolled up the sleeves, and she could see the scar on his forearm. The one he’d gotten the day Adam had saved his life.
She knew the story just like she knew Jack, and for a moment it was as if nothing had changed between them. It was as if they’d been a couple for all the years they’d been apart. As if this moment, in this room with the snow blowing against the windows and the two of them standing close enough to touch, was just like any other moment of any other day.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t.
They’d been out of each other’s lives for six years.
She needed to remember that.
She sipped the coffee, trying really hard not to notice the way Jack’s shirt clung to his broad chest and his muscular shoulders, the way his smile made her pulse jump.
Just how good it felt to have him there.
Okay.
Enough was enough.
She’d spent ten minutes with the man, and she was already thinking things she shouldn’t. Time to send him on his way.
“It’s really starting to snow out there,” she commented, walking to the window and trying to look casual and unconcerned. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to kick him out. Even though she was.
“It is. We could have a few inches by morning.”
“That will make travel diff icult. If you’ve got a flight to catch—”
“I don’t.” He cut her off.
“You don’t?”
“No.” He looked up from the fire, the golden glow of the flames splashing across his face. He wasn’t the kind of guy she’d ever thought she’d go for. She’d been hell-bent on finding a quiet, unassuming young man who would be as different from her father as the night was from the day. She hadn’t wanted muscles. She hadn’t wanted tough, rough, gruff. She hadn’t wanted any of the things she’d found in Jack, but she’d wanted Jack.
Because of all those things?
On him, they’d added up to kindness, patience, compassion. The rough, gruff edges hid a heart of gold. She’d known it the minute she’d met him, and in all the years since, he’d never proven her wrong.
They might not have stayed together, but Jack had been as good a friend to Adam as anyone ever could be. She loved that about him.
Loved?
A strong word, and she’d better be very careful about applying it to her feelings for Jack!
“You do have plans to return to New Hampshire. Right?” she asked.
“Eventually.” He replaced the poker, and turned so that they were face-to-face.
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“It means, your brother asked me to help you settle your father’s estate. I’ll be here until that’s done.”
“No. You won’t. I’ve got things under control here, and I don’t need any help.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said calmly.
“The only opinion that matters is mine.”
He smiled. Just . . . smiled, and she could feel the steam pouring from her head, all thoughts of love and friendship and what a good guy he was flying away.
“Are you hearing me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Okay.”
“You can go home.”
“No. I can’t.”
“My brother—”
“Has your best interest at heart. He’s worried. He doesn’t want you to have to deal with this on your own. If he were here, he’d be helping you.”
“He’s not here.”
“Exactly. Instead, he’s in enemy territory. If he finds out you’re on your own, working through all this yourself, he’ll be distracted. That could get him killed.”
“He’s not going to find out.”
“Want to bet?”
“You wouldn’t dare tell him. You love him too much.”
“I wouldn’t lie to him, either. If he asked me flat-out, I’d have to tell him the truth. Would you want to risk the consequences of that?” He was dead serious. She could see it in his eyes.
“Do you always have to win, Jack?” she muttered.
“Only when I’m protecting people I care about.”
People he cared about.
Not a person.
She noticed.
She didn’t point it out, though.
Jack had figured Emma would put up more of an argument, but she seemed done. She’d turned away, was looking out the window, sipping the sugary coffee he’d made for her.
She’d been right about the snow.
It was coming down hard.
If he’d planned to leave, he’d have been on the road by now, but he’d purchased a one-way ticket. He’d buy the return ticket once he figured out how long he was going to stay. Based on what he’d seen in the house—several weeks. Maybe longer. It just depended on what Emma wanted to do with the house and its contents.
“You hungry?” he asked, because she still looked skinny, her colorful leggings hugging slim thighs and calves, her oversized sweater sliding off a shoulder that seemed more bone than muscle.
“Did you cook?” she responded, turning to meet his eyes.
She was stunning in the firelight, her hair burnished gold, her skin glowing.
“I made chicken noodle soup.”
“From scratch?” She raised one perfectly shaped brow.
“Will I win extra points if I did?”
“No.” She laughed. “But, I might eat more of it.”
“I’m sorry to say that I just opened a can and poured it into a pot. I did doctor it up a little.”
“With what?”
“Minced onions. Diced carrots. A little thyme. Extra noodles.”
“Extra noodles! I’m in!” She hooked her arm through his, nearly dragging him into the kitchen.
He’d left the soup on the burner, and she reached into a cupboard to grab bowls, her sweater sliding a little farther down her shoulder. If he’d wanted to, he could have leaned down and pressed a kiss to silky skin, let his lips linger there.
Who was he kidding?
He wanted to.
He didn’t because Emma had had a rough day. A rough week. A rough few years. He didn’t want to add to her stress, and he was pretty certain she’d be stressed if he tried to pick up where they’d left off six years ago.
She filled two bowls with soup, set both on the table and gestured for him to sit.
“Eat,” she said, and then blushed. “Geeze! Sorry. I’m talking to you like you’re my dad.”
“You barked orders at him?”
“Unfortunately, it was the only kind of communication he responded to.” She frowned, dropping into a chair and spooning up some soup. She didn’t eat it. Just let it drop back into the bowl.
“Eat,” he said in the same exact tone she’d used, and she smiled.
“Thanks, Jack.”
“For the soup? You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“For trying to make me smile.”
“I didn’t try. I succeeded,” he replied, knowing she’d smile again.
“Always the winner.”
“Not always.” He sat across from her, eyeing the bowl of canned garbage. He’d done the best he could with what he’d had. Her cupboards had been nearly bare, the refrigerator almost empty. No leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. No milk. No eggs. Just enough creamer to make her coffee, a lone carrot stick, an onion, and a tired stick of butter.
“You’ve never lost when you were around me.”
“I lost you. That’s a big one.” He tasted the soup. Tin can with just a hint of thyme.
“You didn’t lose me. We agreed to part ways.” She scooped up soup and at
e. Probably to avoid continuing the conversation.
That was fine.
He had other things he wanted to talk about. “What are your plans, Em? Now that your dad is gone?”
“Get this place ready to sell. He left it to me. Adam probably mentioned that in his e-mail.”
“He did.”
“I want to have it on the market before Christmas,” she said. “So, I’ll be really busy with that for the next few weeks.”
“What about everything inside of the house?”
“Also mine. Also being sold.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, because the place was filled with treasures and family heirlooms. If it had been his, he’d have kept it.
“Of course.”
“Then, I’ll have an appraiser fly out. I’m pretty good at pricing certain things, but furniture, paintings, that kind of stuff? It’s not my area of expertise. We can run the estate sale a week before you put the house on the market. That will get it cleaned out a little. Give potential buyers a better view of the bones of the house.”
“Estate sale?”
“Isn’t that what you planned?”
“I hadn’t really planned anything.” She carried her soup bowl to the sink.
“Then, it’s good that I’m here. I can help you organize things.”
“I should probably talk to my siblings first.”
“Are they beneficiaries of the estate?”
“No, but they should be.”
“Why?” He moved in next to her, setting his bowl in the sink and squirting dish soap into the water she was running.
“Because that’s fair.”
“From what Adam said, your father was never fair.”
“True.”
“But, he was just as abusive to you as he was to your siblings.”
“Also true.”
“So, why were you here while they were off living their lives?”
She’d been washing a bowl, and she stopped, water sloshing over her wrists as she met his eyes.
“The truth?”
“I always prefer that to a lie.”
“I made a promise to my mother before she died. I told her that I’d make sure that he didn’t die alone.”
“She made you promise to stay with him?” He was shocked, and he was pissed. No way could Emma’s mother not have known what she was asking her daughter to put up with.
“She didn’t make me. She told me that she was worried about him. It was right after her diagnosis, and she knew she was going to die. One day we were talking, and she told me that if something happened to her, we’d all be fine. We were strong, but Daniel was weak, and she couldn’t bear to think of him dying alone. She was sobbing, and I felt terrible—”
“So you told her that you’d make sure he didn’t?”
“I didn’t just tell her. I promised. If she’d have let me, I would have sworn a blood oath. Anything to keep her from crying.”
“You were a kid, Em.”
“It didn’t matter then. It didn’t matter when my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It didn’t matter during the four years I took care of him. I promised my mother, and I kept the promise, because I couldn’t do anything else. She loved all of us. She held this family together. She deserved that.” She washed the bowl quickly, set it in the drainer. “I’m tired. I’m going up to bed. My room’s at the end of the upstairs hall. You can use any of the other ones.”
That was it.
She was done, and she was gone, hurrying out of the kitchen, silent in her socked feet.
He wanted to go after her, but he’d lost that right years ago.
Maybe it was time to try and earn it back.
Chapter Four
She didn’t sleep.
She couldn’t.
Instead, she paced the room that she’d grown up in, the one where she’d hidden from all the chaos that her father caused. She’d been back for four years, and she hadn’t changed any of it. Not the prissy pink comforter that her mother had bought when she was seven. Not the hanging basket of stuffed animals that swayed listlessly every time she opened the door. Not the white eyelet curtains, the dusty shades.
Like all the other bedrooms in the house, hers had a fireplace that hadn’t been used in decades, the carved wood mantel painted white sometime in the middle of the last century, the paint so thick it nearly hid the details of the beautiful carved angels that decorated the mantel’s wood. The same carpenter who’d carved the banister, laid the floors, and put in the kitchen cabinets had carved angels into one mantel, flowers into another, dogs in a third. Every mantel was different. As a kid, she’d loved sneaking into her siblings’ rooms and studying the carvings.
That had been before, of course.
When her mother had still been alive, and they’d all still lived at home.
Years ago.
Decades.
A lifetime.
She pulled back the curtains and stared out into the snow. She needed to go to the grocery store in the morning, before things got too bad. She’d have to take her father’s SUV. He’d bought it on a whim a few years back and had kept the keys from her and anyone else who’d wanted to borrow it. She’d found them, of course, but she hadn’t wanted anything from her father. Not even a safer ride in the winter.
She let the curtains fall, wishing the flimsy fabric could block some of the cold air that seeped through cracks in the old windowpane. She’d been cold for months. Even in the summer, she’d felt chilled in the old house. If she’d had her way, they’d have put in new windows, added insulation into the attic, made the place a little more comfortable.
Too late now.
Outside the door, floorboards creaked, and she froze, terrified that Jack was wandering around outside the door, and that he’d knock if he thought she was awake. She didn’t want to deal with Jack. Not now. Eventually, of course, she’d have to send him on his way, but she hadn’t wanted to spend the night alone in the house that had never been empty. Not while she’d been in it.
Something thumped against the door, and every muscle in her body went tight. Another thump. Not a knock. Not a call to see if she was still awake. Just that soft little thump that could have been anything, but that she imagined was Jack trying to check on her but not wanting to wake her.
Thump.
“Fine. Okay,” she muttered. “What do you . . . ?” She flung open the door, looked out into the hall. Dark. Not a hint of light seeping out from beneath any of the closed doors.
Was Jack asleep?
Or had he gone downstairs?
That had to be it. Someone had been at her door, and the only other person in the house was Jack.
She stepped into the hall. It was colder there than in her room, the radiator heat doing little to warm the large area. The frigid wood floor only added to the chill. If she actually wanted to stay in the house instead of selling it—which she most definitely did not—she’d have paid to install heated floors. She’d seen them on one of the home improvement channels her father had liked to watch.
Not that he’d ever done any home improvement, but he’d hired people, and, thanks to DYI television, he’d been convinced that he knew more than anyone he was paying. He’d micromanaged every project he’d ever hired out. Until the last two years. Then, he hadn’t been able to do much of anything but complain and ask where Sandra was. If a stroke hadn’t taken him early, Daniel probably would have lived for years, slowly shrinking into the shell of what he’d always been.
She winced at the thought, moving through the hallway and listening for any sign that Jack was downstairs. She didn’t want him to be. Not much anyway. She could admit there was a part of her that would have preferred to spend the sleepless night talking to someone rather than pacing her room, silently reliving a million old memories.
Her foot hit something. A ball? A bell? Whatever it was, it rattled across the floor, hit the top of the stairs, and bounced all the way down, jingling loudly as it went.
Emma? She believed in reality.
“Everything okay out here?” A door behind her opened, and she turned as Jack stepped out of Adam’s old room.
“You’re not downstairs,” she responded, trying really hard not to notice that he didn’t have a shirt on. Just loose flannel pajama bottoms that sat right on his hip bones. Acres of smooth, tan skin and rippling muscle, that’s what she shouldn’t have been looking at, but she couldn’t quite help herself. She looked and looked some more.
“Not since midnight,” he responded, walking past her open bedroom door. “Did you hear something out here?”
“I thought I did. Maybe it was just the wind or the house settling or—”
He flicked on the hallway light, and her words fell away, because he looked even better with the warm yellow glow of the overhead light shining across his chest and abdomen.
“Or?” he prodded, taking a step closer.
He smelled like shampoo and soap and something dark and sensual and more appealing than a giant slice of chocolate cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.
She swallowed hard and turned away, focusing on the stairs and the thing that she had kicked. “There was something on the floor. It sounded like a bell. Did you drop something when you brought your bags up?”
“Do you really think I carry bells with me?” he asked, his fingers sliding across her shoulders and settling on her nape.
She would have answered, but her brain was frozen, stuck on one simple thought—his hand? It felt as good as his body looked.
“I kicked something,” she finally managed to say.
He smiled, and she knew that he knew exactly what she was feeling with his hand resting on her neck, and his nearly naked body just inches away.
“Where is it?” he murmured, leaning down so their heads were nearly touching. He was looking toward the stairs, but his hand was still right where he’d put it. Skin to skin, and there was a heck of a lot more skin less than an arm’s length away.
The Most Wonderful Time Page 28