All she knew was that he’d just kissed her, really kissed her. And it’d been so amazing that she’d lost herself in him, in a big way. He’d taken her in his strong, warm arms, and in that moment nothing else had existed. Not her fears, her screwups, her uncertainty, nothing.
How did he do that? Take her so far out of herself?
Even more shocking was watching him take care of his mom, Kevin, everyone around him, including her. The thought temporarily had all her bones melting and her good parts waking up and doing a boogie dance of happiness because she’d actually—gasp—felt something.
But Jack didn’t want to feel anything for her. He didn’t even want to pretend.
Her gut clenched because this was her fault. She’d wanted things to be different this time. The people here in Lucky Harbor, unlike her stupid school and show, mattered. Her grandma mattered. Her friends mattered. Jack mattered.
Picturing failing any of them, her chest tightened into a ball of anxiety and blocked her air passage.
“Leah.” Still holding on to her, Jack pulled the hood of the sweatshirt up over her wet hair, then dipped down to look into her eyes. “It’s not a rejection.”
She braced herself to hold his gaze, but her throat was tight because it sure as hell felt like one. Which was only fitting, since she’d done the same to him. It’d been a long time, but sometimes it felt like yesterday.
It’d been her high school graduation, and there’d been alcohol involved. The party had turned a little crazy, and she’d gotten herself in over her head.
Jack had been her white knight, taking her home, sneaking her into bed before her dad could catch sight of her.
Leah had jokingly pulled Jack down over the top of her and said he should give her what she’d been looking for. He’d looked into her eyes, and with all his nineteen-year-old cockiness, told her if she’d been sober he’d be happy to show her exactly what she’d been looking for, and that he would ruin her for all other men while he was at it.
In the way of stupidly intoxicated seventeen-year-old girls, she’d brazenly told him that she’d be sober tomorrow, and she expected him to make good on that promise.
The next night had come, but she’d been too afraid to go through with it because what if she blew it? What if she didn’t have enough experience to interest him? What if she didn’t turn him on?
But most important, he’d dumped every girl he’d ever been with. Did she want to be that girl, the one who lost him over one night?
So she’d choked. Panicked.
Run.
He’d never given her any indication of minding either way, so she’d figured no harm, no foul. She’d done the right thing because their friendship had been the most valuable thing in her life.
And she hadn’t been willing to risk it.
Even as young and foolish as she’d been, she’d known that much. She’d much rather be in his life as his friend than in his past as an ex.
Now she’d risked all that with her lie to Dee.
“It’s not a rejection,” he repeated. “It’s a time-out. We’re just going to our own corners to think.” He paused. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. I understand I’m such a bad idea that you need to think.”
“No. We’re a bad idea.”
In her mind there was no difference, and she tried to slip into her car, but again he held on, pressing her into the door, cupping her face, and tilting it to his. At his touch, her body softened. Ached. She had to close her eyes against the unexpected onslaught of emotions.
“Leah. Look at me. Please.”
It was the “please” that did it, softly but authoritatively uttered. Incapable of not responding, she did as he asked and met his gaze.
He ran a hand over his face and rolled his shoulders in an apparent attempt to assuage his weariness. It was such an unconsciously sexy move that it was hard to concentrate on the matter at hand. Which was that she was mad. And maybe hurt.
“You’re one of the most important people in my life,” he said. “I can’t pretend things with you. I tried that already.”
And she’d hurt him. She honestly hadn’t realized that she even could, and she still wasn’t quite sure that she believed it now. Jack Harper wasn’t one to pine over anyone. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said with real regret. “So sorry. But I think now we should try to see it through.” She couldn’t have said why she needed to so badly. “For your mom, Jack.”
He was looking at her, into her, but she was good at building walls of self-preservation. Good at not letting people in. In the old days, she’d never been able to pull that off with him, had never wanted to, but in the years since, she’d learned new skills.
“We need rules for this,” he said.
It took a moment for the words to sink in, and then the relief made her weak. “So we’re going to do it?”
“With rules.”
This didn’t surprise her. The big, built alpha loved his control, and he loved rules. Hell, his entire world was run by rules. Not for him, of course, but for everyone else. “Let me guess,” she said with a hint of amusement. “You don’t want me to wear green toenail polish?”
He shuddered. “Hell no. But we have things to work out, Leah.”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that this isn’t real.”
She absorbed the unexpected pang of the words. “Of course not.”
“So no hurt feelings.”
“No hurt feelings,” she said softly. “How do you want to do this in public?”
“There’s only public,” he said. “Otherwise we’re just…us.”
“Okay,” she managed, wondering why she was feeling raked over the coals. “So…in public. PDA. Are we going to agree on a level? Minimal? Moderate?”
He scowled. “PDA?”
“Public display of affection.”
“I know what it is. I just don’t know why we have to figure that out right now.”
“Moderate,” she decided. “Maybe hold hands, greet each other with a kiss, that sort of thing?”
He let out a barely there sigh, like this was paining him, and she started to get a little insulted. “How about the Fireman’s Picnic?” she asked. “Do I get to be your date for that or do you already have a blond bimbo planned?”
“The picnic’s not for another month,” he said with the horror of men everywhere when faced with a decision more than five minutes out. “Just how long do you plan to play at this?”
“It’s for your mom,” she reminded him.
“How long, Leah?”
She stared up into his dark-caramel eyes. “I don’t know.”
He held her against her car, making her lose her train of thought. “You really think we can pull this off?”
She wouldn’t have to pull off anything, not that she’d admit that. “Hey, I once took method acting for an entire semester. Piece of cake. And it’s not like you’re hard on the eyes. Dating the hottest firefighter isn’t going to be a hardship.”
He stared at her for a long beat, giving very little away. “You think I’m hot.”
“You have a mirror, right?” She paused, giving him a chance to say that maybe she wasn’t hard on the eyes either, but he didn’t, and she decided to get out while she was ahead. Squeezing from between him and her car, she slid behind the wheel. She had to give him a little push to shut the door so she could drive off. Glancing back in her rearview mirror, she found him watching her go, a pensive expression on his face. He was confused.
She touched her still-swollen lips and thought, join my club.
She was two blocks away when her cell phone rang.
Jack.
“Hello?” she answered, breathless.
“I think you’re hot too,” he said. “Actually, you’re a knockout, Leah.”
She had to pull over and draw in some air. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Can you repeat that?”
“You’re a f**king knockout.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, but he’d already disconnected.
Jack pocketed his phone and looked at Kevin. “So a show of paws. Am I the biggest idiot on the planet, or the smartest?”
Kevin yawned.
“Yeah, you’re right. Idiot.” His only excuse was that she’d made him dizzy as hell, kicking him a little off balance and a lot off his toes.
He loaded Kevin into the truck and slid behind the wheel. Kevin climbed into the back, but halfway home he claimed the front passenger seat again, leaning in to lick Jack’s jaw.
“Why do you smell like beef jerky?” Jack craned his neck and looked in the back. Yep, Kevin had gotten into and eaten his way through the emergency kit.
Again.
But at least Jack wasn’t thinking about kissing Leah. Much.
He pulled into the duplex that he and Ben had bought together five years ago now. It was a two-story Victorian and freshly painted thanks to Ben’s recent handiwork.
Ben’s side of the house was dark, so Jack let himself and Kevin inside, not bothering with any lights since his immediate plan involved some serious shut-eye. He went for just that, but instead he ended up with hot, restless, erotic dreams involving Leah, both in and out of her black bikini.
Leah let herself into her grandma’s dark house and ran right into a soft body.
“Oh,” Elsie said, startled. “You’re still up?”
Leah turned on the light. “Are you okay? Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Oh, you know.” Elsie let out a little laugh. “My old bones creak and wake me up.” But Elsie didn’t look old. She looked…guilty. “Okay, so I was out. I…had a meeting.”
“At midnight?”
“Is it that late?” Elsie asked. “Huh.”
“Who did you meet?”
“Max Fitzgerald.”
Elsie was on the Historical Society board with Max. She’d complained about him for years and years, calling him a liver-spotted, tight-lipped, tighter-assed renovation nazi.
The name fit. “Why did you have such a late meeting? You forget to pay your dues or something?”
Elsie grimaced and pulled her coat tighter around herself, but it didn’t miss Leah’s attention that Elsie was wearing her good “going out” shoes. Leah, once the master sneaker, felt her eyes narrow. “Grandma, what’s going on?”
“Okay, but just remember, this all started out with me trying to surprise you,” Elsie said.
“Me?”
“Yes. You’ve been working so hard and without a single word of complaint.”
“Grandma,” Leah said, both touched and irritated, “I love being here with you. I have nothing to complain about.”
“But you’ve taken over so beautifully, and the place is such a mess. I know it is, Leah; don’t even try to deny it. I just wanted to see what kind of renovations we could make. Cheaply, of course. Something to help you.”
“I’m good with how things are,” Leah said. “Other than wanting new ovens.” She meant this, one hundred percent. In fact, the truth was that she actually loved the bakery’s slightly antiquated setup. It made her work hard, made her think, made her concentrate. She liked having little brain power left over for anything else.
Like what the hell she was going to do in two weeks when the Sweet Wars finals aired and the gig was up? Or why she was happier here, back in the place that had once upon a time been the bane of her existence, than she’d been anywhere else.
Although she suspected this was because of a certain big, bad, gorgeous firefighter who, thanks to her own doing, was now her pretend boyfriend.
And a hell of a kisser.
“Well, you’re a doll for putting up with everything,” Elsie said. “Anyway, I wanted to see what I could do and ran the thought by Max first.”
“Oh, Grandma,” Leah said softly. “You give him way too much power.”
“And he said I was absolutely welcome to make any renovations.”
“Yes, because you have every right to,” Leah pointed out. “Grandma—”
“And so I was just having a drink to thank him, and he…invited me to the firefighter’s ball next month,” she ended in a rush.
Leah opened her mouth again, but Elsie cut in before she could speak. “No. Don’t say whatever it is that you’re going to say. I was wrong about him. Okay, yes, he can be a fuddy-duddy, but he’s also very conscientious about our town’s history and takes his job seriously. And actually, he’s a very nice man. I’m sorry if I let you think otherwise, especially because I know you don’t think all that highly of the male race in general. And maybe that’s my fault too, for not correcting your notion that they’re all temperamental horse’s patoots. That was just your daddy, honey.”
“Well, I know that.”
Elsie smiled a little sadly. “Do you? Because you’re quick to judge a man, and even quicker to cut one out of your life.”
This threw Leah off her game a little. “Of course I know it,” she said. “I like men, Grandma.” She’d been on her own a long time. Twelve years, actually, since the day she’d driven out of town at age eighteen and not looked back. She’d had relationships. Granted, nothing that had lasted, but as she’d told Dee, it only took one…
But did she really believe that? “I’ve had boyfriends.”