Jasmine had declined those offers as well.
Her tray of ice cream was empty, and she turned to have the teens working at the ice cream stations refill it, but she was lost in thought. She bumped into someone, nearly upsetting their full tray.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, snapping out of it.
“No worries, there are so many of us here working, we were bound to bump into each other eventually. Not that I’m complaining.” The handsome young man looked at her appreciatively.
He was waaaaay too young for Jasmine, but she offered him a smile and a murmured thanks as she stepped aside.
Retrieving another tray reloaded with full dishes, she nearly dropped it again as she found herself face-to-face with Leo, who stood just inside the door.
“Hey.” It was all she could think of to say. Why did she feel so guilty?
“Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw the sign for free ice cream. How about you?”
“Um, I’m helping Manny out. He had to get this served or it would go to waste. Others are helping out with cleaning up, that kind of thing, so I thought I would pitch in, you know…” Her voice trailed off as she stood there dumbly.
“That’s nice of you. Offering to help a friend.” He took a dish from her tray. He didn’t say anything else, but turned and walked away, toward his car.
“Can you take this? Thanks,” Jasmine said to the young man who had been flirting with her. She didn’t wait for his answer, shoving the tray into his hands and taking off out the door after Leo.
“Leo, wait.” She hurried across the street and caught him as he got to his car.
Then, for a moment, it was his car that caught her attention.
“What’s all that?” she asked, noticing his back seat was stuffed with objects, legs of chairs and something metal poking out the back window.
“I needed to get out this morning, to do something, so I went to the flea markets.”
He didn’t offer more explanation than that, but ate his ice cream and waited for her to say something.
“Listen, Leo, I’m sorry. I did intend to do what I said, to try to work out something with contractors today, but then I got involved with this… But it was spontaneous. I didn’t plan on it.”
Kind of like I didn’t plan on you, she thought.
“That’s fine, Jasmine. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
Strangely, she wanted to and touched his arm as he turned to get back into his car. Now he was the one putting some distance between them, and she found she didn’t like it much.
“Would you like to come join in? It’s kind of fun, and you would get more ice cream,” she offered with a teasing smile, hoping he took this as her apology for the cold shoulder she’d given him that morning. He’d said helping out, fixing things, made him feel useful. How could she have missed that?
He shook his head, and her hopes dipped a little.
“Thanks, but I have to get this stuff back to the house.”
“Please, Leo?” She didn’t back away, but stepped closer. “I know I’ve been…offish. I’m not used to letting people in. I’m used to making my own way, trusting myself, and doing things myself. It’s a hard thing to change. But I’ve been here all day, watching everyone working together, and I thought… Well, maybe you could look at that plumbing for me, later, if you want. And the girls drew such a nice mural on the boards, I might use them to cover the graffiti on the brick once the new windows come in. You were right. I could use a little help, and maybe I could open back up sooner than I thought,” she said, all in a rush.
He looked at the pavement, and then at the stuff bulging out of the back of his car. She worried that he might still walk away. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he smiled a little, leaned forward to kiss her lightly—right there in the street.
“Show the way. I’d be happy to help.” His eyes warmed in a way that made her bubbly inside as his fingers curled around hers. Maybe Amanda was right. Maybe there were exceptions to the rule. Maybe it was worth the risk.
Chapter Ten
Leo smiled into the sun and watched as the ocean breeze went wild in Jasmine’s hair, whipping it around her face under the broad-brimmed hat she wore. Leaning over the rail of the ferry that took them to Martha’s Vineyard, he watched tiny, opalescent jellies bobbing in the water—a bloom, someone else had pointed out. They looked like little gelatinous jewels in the water.
“I can’t believe I’ve lived here almost ten years, and I never did this before,” she said as they stood quietly, watching the rough water of the big boat’s wake, and the view.
Two days before, his afternoon helping at Manny’s had turned into dinner with the group, and then going back to his place for the night. They’d enjoyed many hours in his bed, her bed, and wherever else they could get their hands on each other. Leo was pretty sure he couldn’t get his hands on her enough. Just thinking about being with her made him rock hard.
True to her word, Jasmine had let him take a look at the plumbing in the store, which was a wreck. The assholes who had ripped the place apart had done a good job. No one had been arrested yet. It was a random act not likely to be repeated, but Leo was glad that Jasmine was letting him work there with her and spending the night with him. He hated the idea of any kind of harm coming to her.
However, all work at this point was suspended since they needed parts and supplies, which were on order. There was nothing to do at the moment but wait. Jasmine was very bad at waiting, he was discovering. The thought made him smile.
Her friend Amanda had taken the opportunity to pressure her into taking a few days off. Jasmine seemed to listen to Amanda. He could tell it had been stressful for her to walk away from it all, even for a day or two, but now she seemed carefree, relaxed. It made her even more lovely, he thought. Even softer.
“So you’ve never been to the Vineyard?” he asked, breaking the silence.
The ferry was full, but a lot of people opted to sit inside, protected from the wind by the glass enclosures. Jasmine wanted to stand out at the rail, and Leo wasn’t surprised. Underneath all of her organization and control, she was a wild spirit.
“No, you?”
He nodded. “Once we flew in, from New York, for a meeting with a guy whose accounts Neal wanted to acquire. We came in at night in bad weather, a lot like they said it was when John Jr.’s plane went down five years earlier.” He shook his head. “It was the first time I’d ever been in a plane that small. I have to admit, I wouldn’t repeat the experience.”
“I moved here about that same time, five years after the crash. People still talk about it. For natives, the Kennedys are like family. It was so sad.”
“It was. Funny to think we may have crossed paths, not knowing each other, and now here we are.” He slung his arm around her and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “And it’s nice that you’ve never been there. We can explore it together. Something new that’s just ours.”
“Yeah, that is nice.” She turned her face to his for a kiss that heated up rather quickly.
“Too bad there’s no privacy anywhere on this boat,” he muttered against her lips, making her laugh.
He loved making Jasmine laugh.
As the ferry pulled up to the dock, they waited, content to let the crowd filter out, taking their time.
“So what now?” Jasmine looked around the busy marina as people scattered to their various destinations. A gas station, gift shops and various businesses and historic homes and inns with weather-beaten shingles and hand-painted signs crowded the streets of Oak Bluffs. It was like a postcard of New England coastal charm. “Want to rent some bikes?”
“I have a better idea.” Leo took her hand and headed off across the road.
They walked into a small garage that was also a car-rental service, and a few seconds later, Leo rejoined her, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s our lucky day.” His grin only grew wider as a y
oung man drove a cherry-red Mustang convertible out from the garage and parked it in front of them.
“Better than biking, wouldn’t you say?”
“Much.” Jasmine climbed into the passenger’s seat with a smile. “I hope you’ll let me drive it too.”
He could hear the admiration and eagerness in her voice as she ran her hand over the leather seat.
“Of course. You like cars?”
She shrugged. “I know what I like. My father had a classic version of this—the 1964 and a half—funny name. He loved that car, but we never got to ride in it. He kept it polished in a special space down in the garage.”
“What happened to it?”
He was curious to hear more. Jasmine said next to nothing about her family, and he could tell by the look on her face as he asked the question that she didn’t like her slip. Within seconds, the mask was back in place.
Whatever was in her past, it wasn’t anything she wanted to share. “He sold it, I guess,” she said, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
Bad blood there, Leo thought, and he wasn’t about to push. Not on this beautiful day.
“Well, we have this one right now, and I say we run the gas tank dry before we deliver it back at the end of the day. They gave me these maps and the brochures—I’ll drive, you pick out where we’re going and navigate? You can drive back later.”
“Sounds good.” She smiled again as they pulled out of the driveway, and headed away from town and off to explore the island.
“It’s more rural that I would have imagined, and bigger,” Leo commented as they drove down a single-lane country road, passing small, quaint houses and farms along the way. Out here, there wasn’t as much traffic and no crowds.
Eventually, they pulled up in a small lot at the edge of some sandy cliffs. Getting out of the car, they saw signs pointing to paths that led down the slopes to a wild beach. Another sign said they were at Gay Head Light, the lighthouse poised up on the bluff.
It was Native American land, belonging to the Wampanoag Tribe, Jasmine read aloud from one of the brochures.
“Wow.” Leo was stunned with the view as they stood at the edge of the cliffs and looked down at the stretch of beach below. “This is incredible. Do you want to walk down and explore or visit the lighthouse first?”
“Let’s walk down.” Jasmine cast her vote, and Leo was happy to comply.
They made their way gingerly along the roughly hewn paths to the flat shoreline where the tide was coming in. Huge waves crashed upon the sand. Hand in hand, they started walking, admiring the colorful striations of the cliffs as well as the natural beauty of the beach itself.
“Oh, look at that. Beach art.” Jasmine pointed to a huge sand castle that the tide had mostly demolished, and in the center, someone had built a tall totem of flattened rocks that were stacked from the largest on the bottom to the smallest on the top.
“Beach art, huh?”
“Sand castles, sculptures, structures… Sometimes I watch people spend all day working on one, only to have the tide wash it away. That’s the point, of course. It makes you pay attention and enjoy it while it’s there.”
“Want to make some?” he asked, inspired.
“Yes. I’d like that.”
For the next hour or so, they played on the sand, chatting with other people who walked by, some stopping to watch or join in for a few minutes. Eventually, they stood back, admiring their efforts.
They worked independently, side by side, following their own visions. Jasmine copied the rock totems, since she liked them, then used a stick to draw mazes and complicated sand-garden drawings around them.
“They look like those funky crop circles,” Leo commented as she worked on hers.
“It’s a meditation on the moment. Tibetan monks create intricate mandalas from sand, real works of art, and then they hold special ceremonies to destroy them. It’s a symbol of the impermanence of everything. Nothing lasts forever.”
Leo wasn’t sure if he liked that. “But the sand does last. It might change form but it doesn’t go away. Things change eventually, but they can last for a very long time.”
To that, she grimaced, more in thought than displeasure, he thought.
Leo had built alongside of her, creating a huge lump of sand that he used a pocketknife and some sticks to carve out a semblance of a city skyline.
“Your home.” Her voice was quiet, and he was satisfied that she’d known what he created.
“My past.”
She squeezed his fingers and they didn’t say anything at all for a while.
“Hungry?”
Leo nodded. His stomach growled, but standing there looking at Jasmine, her hair in the wind, some sand on her cheek where she’d wiped her face with wet hands, his hunger for her was much more immediate, more powerful.
Before they made their way back up the path, Leo pulled her into a small, shady patch at the bottom of a cliff by some boulders, needing her next to him now. As close as they could get. Maybe it had been all the talk about impermanence, of things not lasting.
She came easily into his arms, hers around his neck, her hands at the back of his head as they kissed, desire swamping them both. His hands moved over her backside, along her slim waist, up to her breasts as he pressed his erection into her hip. She moaned in need, but broke the kiss.
“We can’t, not here.” He realized what she meant as they heard the peals of children’s laughter, a family climbing down the path close by.
“Let’s find somewhere. Fast.”
Need made his voice low, his desire fierce as he took her by the hand and they both made their way up the path more quickly than they had come down.
In the car, finally alone, Leo took her in his arms again, plundering her mouth with kisses. The urgency was hot inside of him as he tasted her, feeling like he had to pile as many moments up as he could to resist the tide washing them away.
As if feeling his desperation, Jasmine pulled back, studying his face, her hands framing his jaw.
“Hey, what is it? Are you okay?”
The soft concern in her eyes, mingled with the passion, seemed to calm whatever had surged up inside of him, making him wild for her. He took a deep breath, smiled and got hold of himself.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just crazy for you. Maybe we can explore some more and then find some food—at a place with a room for the night?”
Her smile was all the reassurance he needed.
Jasmine had been lifted out of herself and out of her life. Her normal routine was as shattered as the windows of her shop, but she couldn’t seem to mind. For the moment, she indulged in the fantasy, staring out over the salt marshes that created the view from the balcony outside the room they’d rented.
It was a weeknight, so they’d gotten lucky finding a vacancy. Leo had also insisted on paying for it—and it had cost a fortune, she presumed.
Still, it was lovely. They’d registered after lunch and had a perfect afternoon in bed after washing off the sand from the shore. Jasmine felt loose-limbed and relaxed like she hadn’t in a long time.
Tomorrow, it would be back to real life. Back to contractors, rebuilding her studio and dealing with the pressures of reality. But none of that seemed as dire as it had before. Fixing the place up with friends, feeling like a part of her community, and having this time with Leo had made her feel less alone than she ever had.
While she was here, Amanda was picking up the morning class and a few others. Jasmine had hated to leave her group, but Amanda needed the money now that some of her other sessions were canceled. Also, Jasmine felt confident that the students would be in good hands. So for now, she could enjoy this fantasy time with Leo.
The problem was that she liked it a little too much. She liked Leo too much. She didn’t want to lead him on, but she wasn’t sure how to handle what was happening between them.
“You could be in a painting, you’re so lovely.”
He joined her on the balcony, sliding his arms
around her waist as he kissed her neck. She felt the bare skin of his chest warm through the light fabric of the dress she’d hastily purchased so that she had something to wear for dinner.
Dinner didn’t seem to be on Leo’s mind, though, as his hands traveled up to her breasts, the touch making her gasp.
Crazy. No other man had ever had such an effect on her. With Leo, all he had to do was look at her the right way, it seemed, and she was ready. When he touched her, she was gone.
“You’re not dressed.” The way he was kissing the back of her neck made it hard to breathe right.
“Almost. I just have to grab my shirt,” he said against her skin. “Or we could stay here and order up.”
She liked that idea. Liked the idea of never leaving this room, staying here with him, wrapped in their sexy cocoon of bliss. But maybe that was the best reason to leave.
“You make a tempting proposal, but I’m starving,” she said lightly. “And I did buy this dress.”
“You’re right, of course. And we have the rest of the night.”
She nodded as she turned to face him, though the more she thought about it, spending the night had been a bad idea. It was what lovers did. People in relationships.
He looked appreciatively at her, his eyes approving as he slid the back of his fingers over the gauzy bodice.
“It looks gorgeous on you.”
He kissed her once more and then turned to retrieve his shirt from where he’d put it over the back of a chair earlier. As he turned his back, she wanted to touch him again, to bring him back, but the spell had been broken.
She’d broken it. On purpose, she reminded herself.
The room was large with quaint paned windows, a huge antique cast-iron bed, and blue and white decorative items. All of the décor followed an ocean theme. They hadn’t remade the bed, and the messy sheets and blankets were very inviting. So she looked away.
“What’s wrong, Jasmine?”
She tried to act surprised. “What?”
“I can see it in your face, the wheels turning. Something has you worried.”
Bending Over Backwards Page 9