by Cara Colter
This was what life would be if Jessica was in it: everything would become special, every moment lit from within. That was what she had done with that bookstore. She had infused it with her spirit and her sparkle and people were drawn to that.
As he was.
He had to get out of this place, and he had to get away from her. From the very beginning she had been an enchantress, waving a wand, and not changing the world, but changing the way he looked at it.
Back at the bookstore, she tried to use her phone to unlock the door, but it didn’t work. She used her key and they went in.
Moments later, a woman arrived in a flurry of breathlessness.
“You must be our guest!” one of them—she reminded him, unfortunately, of Debbie of Gidgets Widgets fame.
“Your guest?” he asked.
“I’m Bailey Turnbull, president of the Smitten Word. We’re a group of women who meet to discuss our favorite topic—romance!”
His mouth fell open. He shot Jessica a look, only to see she was smiling gleefully.
“That’s a topic about which I know nothing,” he said firmly.
“Nonsense. Have a seat here at the head of the table. The rest of the girls will be here shortly.”
There wasn’t a girl among them, naturally.
“This is Jamie Gilbert-Cooper,” Bailey introduced him. “He’s here from New York City and he’s going to speak to us tonight on the topic of romance in the city.”
He shot Jessica another look. She was busy setting up a table by the counter with stacks of the current Harlequin bestsellers, but her shoulders were shaking with mirth.
He’d like to show her a thing or two about romance.
“I haven’t really prepared anything,” he said, hoping for a short meeting.
“Oh, well just tell us what you would do if you were wooing a girl,” Bailey encouraged him.
He narrowed his eyes at Jessica. “I’d eat pizza on a deck overlooking Central Park with her,” he said slowly. “I’d take her shopping. We’d watch the kids float boats in the Conservatory Water in Central Park. I’d take her out for a nice dinner, at a restaurant in the Theater District called Le Bernardin. Then I’d take her to see Phantom of the Opera after. It has some scary surprises in it that practically guarantee a woman will be clutching your hand. We’d see some sights in New York, but there would definitely be a horse-drawn carriage ride.”
“Oh,” the women seemed to sigh in unison.
But Jessica had gone very still.
Possibly he and Jessica were both asking themselves the same question. It was supposed to have been a job interview.
But when he looked back over their time together, he didn’t remember much about the business parts of it. Only the wonder of being with her. Was that wooing, then?
And why was he really here?
It occurred to him: I can’t stand the thought of a life without her in it.
The ladies had lots of questions about New York City, his marital status, what he did for fun, what his ideal woman looked like—wasn’t that her standing over there—and he did his best to be funny and engaging without revealing one personal thing about himself.
Thankfully, after the heat of the day, a terrible thunderstorm was brewing, and it knocked out the power. They were quite willing to wait and see if the power came back on, but Jessica insisted they go before the rain started.
* * *
Jessica had to usher the reluctant ladies out the door into the pitch-blackness of a town that did not have a single light burning in it except for the headlamps on cars.
When she closed the door, it made a loud clicking sound, and they both looked at it to see the dead bolt turning on its own.
“Good grief,” she said, trying the handle, “I think we’re locked in.” She tried to open the dead bolt. It was stuck fast. Then she pulled out her phone and opened an app. She pushed something. Nothing happened. She handed him the phone. He pushed something. Nothing happened. She turned on the flashlight feature and they both looked at the door. There was no place to insert a key from the inside.
Now they were alone, locked in the bookstore. He could think of worse things.
“Good one,” he said softly. “Me the guest speaker at a romance group.”
“I just knew they would find you exotic and intriguing and delightful.”
“You could have warned me.”
“I could have,” she agreed with an impish grin.
Lightning lit up the sky, and her face. Despite the grin, he could see something beneath it.
The hunger.
“Do you?” he asked her softly. “Find me exotic and intriguing and delightful?”
The world went dark again, but her voice came through the darkness.
“Yes,” she said, hoarsely, “yes, I do.”
And then he could not stop himself anymore. He reached through the pitch-blackness and his hand found the softness of her cheek. He heard her soft intake of breath, and he moved in closer to her.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and her face, illuminated by the odd flash of lightning, was possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“That look you’re giving me,” he said gruffly, “it seems distinctly come-hither.”
“Oh, it is,” she assured him.
He could not resist her anymore. Not if he used all his logic. Not if he used all his strength. With the thunder rolling as the perfect background music to what was happening to his heart, he dropped his head over hers.
Tenderly, he took her lips. Outside the rain began to fall with drumming intensity.
It might have started as conquest, but it quickly became something on the opposite end of the spectrum. He felt the surrender in himself. He felt the surrender in her. He knew what was going to happen next.
It was all so wrong. She was not that kind of girl. A bookstore was not the ideal place to make love for the first time.
And yet, as he scooped her up in his arms, and took her back to that cushion-filled nook, nothing had ever felt so right.
Ever.
Not in his entire life. He laid her down in the pillows, and the lightning flashed as she held open her arms to him. He fell into them.
It felt as if every moment since he had met her had been leading to this one: finally, finally, he had her in his field of lavender, her sweet curves crushed beneath him, her scent enveloping them both, her lips tender and welcoming under his.
If he had expected reticence he had been wrong.
She was a woman who knew what she wanted. And she wanted him. A side of her he had not expected came forward: bold, adventurous, willing to explore.
And her lips explored him. They explored his face and his earlobes, her teeth nipping lightly. They explored his lips and then moved on again, down his shirt, her fingers finding his buttons and undoing them. Her hands closed around the sides of his ribs, and her lips moved down the column of his throat to his chest, grazing over one nipple and then the other.
A groan of the pure pain of wanting her escaped him. She stopped kissing him. Her eyes dark on his face, she reached up and opened the top button of her blouse.
“Jessica,” he said hoarsely. “Are you—”
She nodded. “Sure. I’m sure.”
And then he took her fingers away, and tenderly he undid the rest of the buttons. He flicked her blouse open and gazed at the wonder of her. Then he lowered his head and began the same exploration she had done on him: lips, ears, column of her throat, anointing her with the fiery brand of his kisses.
Something banged. He lifted his head. She drew his attention back to her. “The storm,” she whispered.
But it was not the storm.
The bookstore door banged open with force, all the sounds of the storm—thunder and pounding rain—coming in with it.
/> Jamie pulled away from Jessica, blocking her body with his own. A flashlight beam caught him in the eye.
“Who the hell are you?” a man’s voice asked.
“I think the question is who the hell are you?” he shot back, shoving himself up.
Behind him, he sensed Jessica frantically doing up buttons, doing something to the mess of her hair.
“Dad,” she said, “this is Jamie Gilbert-Cooper.”
Her dad, understandably, looked less than impressed.
Jamie did not know he was capable of the feeling that overcame him. Guilt. A terrible sense of remorse.
What did he think he was doing? Well, no that wasn’t the question. He knew exactly what he was doing.
What he had forgotten was who he was doing it with.
A young woman from a small town. Beloved to all. Adored by her family. Protected by her father.
Jamie had known all along that she was wholesome and traditional.
How could he have done what he just did?
She wasn’t the kind of girl you had a tryst with. She wasn’t the kind of girl a man had an entertaining dalliance with.
“Are you from New York?” her father asked, as Jamie quickly did up the buttons on his shirt.
“Yes.”
“And are you the reason she’s been so unhappy since she got back?”
Startled, Jamie looked at Jessica.
He could tell he was the reason.
Why had he come here? Why had he chased her down? It wasn’t at all as he had said. Yes, Vivian Ascot had read the riot act to his boss, and yes, he had been sent to get Jessica’s model for her bookstore.
But really? Anyone could have come.
But he’d insisted, like a man who had sipped an elixir that he couldn’t get out of his head. That he couldn’t get enough of.
She made him powerless.
But that was only an excuse—and a pathetic one at that—for not controlling himself. Her father had arrived in the nick of time. Before Jamie had managed to fuel this thing between them until it burned them both down.
Not daring to look back at her—afraid he would be haunted forever by what he saw in her eyes—Jamie brushed by her father and went out into the rage of the storm.
He felt empty and bereft.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT TOOK EVERYTHING Jessica had not to chase after Jamie. She turned to her father and he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Dad! Really?”
He had a mulish look on his face. “I wanted to know if he’s the one who hurt you.”
“No one hurt me.”
“When you came back from New York—”
“That’s none of your business! And you shouldn’t have come barging in here!”
“I came to check on you. I might have accidentally set the lock on the store. When you didn’t come home I was afraid I locked you in.”
“I would have called you if I needed you.”
“It’s bad out there tonight,” her father said stubbornly.
“For Pete’s sake, he wasn’t my date for high school prom! I don’t have a curfew! I’m an adult. You know what the problem is with Timber Falls? I can’t grow up here. I can’t grow at all!”
The words had come out in a rush of feeling. She saw she had hurt her father, and she was instantly sorry, even if it was so true that a complete stranger that she had met only for a few moments had seen it. Vivian Ascot had seen it before she had seen it herself. Jessica was trapped in a cozy, lovely life. If she wanted to be alive—fully and completely alive—she had to outgrow everything she had ever known.
She had to face her fear.
She left her father and went to find Jamie. She wanted to finish what they had started. Somehow it felt as if her life depended on it.
But when she got there, he had already left the B and B.
“I told him it wasn’t a good night to go,” Ethel Clariman said, worried, “but it seemed as if he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. He left something for you, though.”
Ethel went back into the office and came out with a large garment bag.
Jessica took it and got out of there as quickly as she could, hoping she had not looked as shaken as she felt that he was gone.
The hard truth was that he regretted what had happened between them as intensely as she embraced it.
He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.
She went home, opened the garment bag and slowly put on the blue dress. She twirled a few times in front of the mirror. This was the woman she could be. This was the woman she wanted to be. How much courage would it take to get there?
She went to bed in the dress. She let the tears come.
And the fear came out of the misty corners of her mind and showed itself to her.
She recognized the core belief that had ruled her entire adult life, had shaped every single decision, that had made her choose safety and security over boldness and full engagement.
In her mind, love equaled loss.
In her mind, the avoidance of pain had become paramount.
In her mind, love equaled the potential for the destruction of the entire world as she knew it.
It occurred to her it was not Jamie she had not trusted. It was herself. If the loss of Devon had crippled her for so long, what could the love of Jamie, so much hotter, so much brighter, do to her?
Leave her in ashes, obviously.
She had not trusted herself to be strong enough, and resilient enough to cope with what life and love gave her. To cope, to become more courageous, and more confident in her ability to survive.
So, each time life had given her a gift, she had turned away from it.
No thanks, that might hurt me.
Jamie had been a gift.
It was time to find what was at her core. It was time to rise to the challenges of life instead of shrinking away from them.
It was time to embrace love in all its capriciousness. In all its uncertainty.
* * *
In the morning, she picked up her phone and, with no hesitation whatsoever, she dialed his number.
It went straight to voice mail, which, given the complexity of the journey to Timber Falls, was not unexpected.
She listened to his voice. She listened to the beep. Jessica took a deep breath.
“I am not afraid to love you,” she said, and then ended the call.
She slipped the phone into her pocket. She didn’t feel as if she was waiting for a response. She felt as if she had set herself free.
For the first time in so, so long, she was not afraid.
Because she knew she was strong enough to handle whatever life gave her next. Three days passed, and she heard nothing. Still, her belief in what she had discovered did not flag. There was an ultimate gift in loving someone and in being open to love: it didn’t rip you down, it didn’t destroy you.
It made you better than you had ever dreamed you could be.
And then, after a week had gone by there was a tap on her cottage door.
She opened it and was stunned to find Jamie standing there. It wasn’t until that moment when it started beating again that Jessica realized her heart had stopped when she had left him that message. Her heart had been waiting, even as she went on.
Jamie looked beyond haggard. He looked haunted. And uncharacteristically disheveled, his shirt wrinkled, his hair a mess that made her want to fix it with her fingers.
She was in her pajamas, she remembered suddenly, the ones with ducks on them. They did not make the statement about the new bolder, braver her that she wanted to make! She wanted to just close the door in his face, at least until she went and changed, but there was something there that was so tortured about him, that she could not.
Love told her this was not about her.
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br /> “Jamie?”
He looked as if he was going to reach out and touch her cheek, but then rethought it, and put his hand in his pocket. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Like a business proposition?” she said, and could not help but feel disappointment. It was just more of the same. Except it wasn’t. Jamie would not be looking like he was looking for it to be just more of the same.
She thought of those lions at the library. One urged her to patience.
“Kind of like that.”
“You should have emailed, then. It’s a long trip.” One that required fortitude.
“Can I come in?”
But she moved back from the door and he moved into her little space. It was so different from what he lived in, she wondered if he would laugh.
But he didn’t. He looked around, and then back at her. He took in the pajamas and smiled. Even though his smile was tired, it lit the room and her heart. “It suits you.”
She hoped he didn’t mean the damned ducks on the pajamas.
“Not as much as it once did,” she told him.
She gestured to a chair. It seemed too small for him. She took the couch facing him. Whatever his proposition was, she was saying no. Unless it was an indecent one, and then she would consider it.
“JHA wants you.”
As she had suspected. Was he going to ignore the message she had left him?
“Vivian Ascot wants you.”
Getting worse and worse.
“What about you?” she said, amazed at her own boldness.
“Well, therein lies the problem. I want you, too. Only I don’t want you in the way they want you.”
Her mouth went dry. “W-what?”
“I want you in a way that is completely inappropriate for a boss to want an employee. So we can’t offer you a job, Jessica.”
She realized she didn’t care about the job.
“And of course I can’t have you in the way I want you, either.”
“Why not?” she stammered shamelessly.
“Ah, Jessica, we both know you aren’t that kind of woman.”
“I could be,” she said.