It took Jessica a few tries to find the hem of the t-shirt and hold it out far enough that she could read it upside down.
All men are created equal…then the very best become chefs.
Greg’s.
She pulled out the collar and peeked down her front. No bra, though she hadn’t been wearing one with the dress either, so she couldn’t really blame that on him. Her panties were still in place. Jessica looked back up at Greg’s smiling face.
“Cad!” She put some heat behind it as a tease, but he took it seriously—a flash of pain that slid across his features then vanished. She didn’t know quite how to take it back.
“Proud to be,” his cheery response showed just how decent he was as he dug deep to offset Jessica-the-shrew.
Her alter ego mixed with her headache in a very not-cheery way.
Natalya looked down at her own rumpled blouse and skirt, “Not enough of a cad.” She looked at Jessica, “Stingy of you not to share, Cousin.”
Then a funny look crossed Greg’s face and a blush. Jessica had never met a man who blushed so easily.
“I think, Cousin,” Jessica called over to Natalya but didn’t look away from Greg’s dark eyes. “I think I have found the male who kissed you.”
“Wha—” Natalya hesitated. “Hmm,” a thoughtful sound. “Maybe.”
“Actually she kissed me,” Greg mumbled then smiled at Natalya. “Quite thoroughly.”
Jessica winked at her cousin, “Told you he was a good kisser.”
“Hmmm,” this time there was more the sound of pleasure than thoughtfulness in Natalya’s tone.
“Though,” Jessica stirred up the best glare she could and aimed it at him, “I seem to recall you kissing Becky too. But not me.”
“You’re the one who broke up with me.”
And in that instant, even the marginal joy of teasing Natalya went out of the conversation.
She could see Greg’s hurt at her reaction, but she couldn’t hide it. Even in full journalist mode, Jessica could no longer hide what she was thinking from Greg—a skill that had served her well with previous lovers.
“Can we talk about this later?” She plucked at the t-shirt which suddenly felt so tight and constricting that it threatened to choke her. She couldn’t seem to get any air.
He froze for a long moment, then spun to his feet and was almost out the door before she could think to call after him.
“Greg!”
“What?” It was more a snarl of pain than a question.
“I wasn’t saying that to avoid talking about it. Just give me long enough to shower and change.”
He didn’t turn and his shoulders didn’t relax as he remained braced in the doorway. “You aren’t denying it either,” his voice was rough.
She wasn’t. “Please?”
And after another long moment, he growled, “I’ll be on the beach.” Then he was gone.
Natalya looked at her.
“No. I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jessica admitted. “I wouldn’t mind some brilliant advice.”
Natalya just shook her head. “Sorry, Cousin. I’ve got nothing this morning. You’d be better off asking one of them,” she waved at the science fiction heroines who populated the room.
She looked at the triptych of framed posters hanging along the far wall: Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games and Neytiri in her Avatar blue separated by Natalie Portman as Isabel in Your Highness. All were pictured with bow and arrow fully drawn, their eyes clearly focused on the target. They were all such strong, fierce women. She was just a lonely struggling journalist. Not a lot of help there.
She hurried into the shower not sure how long Greg’s patience would last. Jessica left the hot chocolate cooling on her nightstand, its marshmallows now melted into a congealed mess that was slowly sinking into the muddy liquid. No treasure there today.
Greg had somehow convinced himself last night that Jessica hadn’t really meant it, which only proved what an idiot he was. When he’d put his t-shirt on her last night, it hadn’t been some attempt to mark his territory, conscious or otherwise.
And then he’d seen her final expression change. Jessica’s face was such a subtle one. Like a great actress, there was no single identifiable change, yet her face had completely shifted without moving at all. It had happened while she was tugging at his t-shirt as if she was going to rip off the vile thing whether or not it would leave her naked.
What it all translated to was that she’d meant every word on the phone last night, drunk or not.
How had she greeted him with such seeming pleasure on his entrance this morning and then so cruelly dashed his hopes? He dropped onto the sand, scowled at some tourist’s dog that came trotting over for a sniff, and barely resisted yelling at its owner for not keeping it to heel. The beach was dog heaven and they should run free here. There were waves to dive in, endless seagulls to chase but never catch, and high-lobbed tennis balls flicked from their owner’s launchers to arc down the beach or out into the waves. But why should a dog be having such a good time when he was—
“Hi.” Jessica came up beside him.
How deep was the black hole that he’d been moping in that she’d had time to clean up and come find him? A pretty deep one.
She shifted from bare foot to bare foot, but showed no signs of settling.
With a sigh he patted the sand beside him, “Sit down. I won’t bite.” Maybe if he’d been friendly with the dog, it might have bit her for him.
Jessica hesitated several very long moments before sitting. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat with a blue strip of gauze tied about the crown; it fluttered in the soft breeze as if it was trying to reach out to him—the only part of her that was. She stared straight out to sea with her legs pulled up tight against her chest. She looked pale, even by her fair-skinned standards.
Much to his surprise, she was still wearing the oversized chef’s shirt.
“Why don’t you take that stupid thing off?”
“I was going to. I did to shower. But I…” she inspected him closely from behind her dark shades, then shrugged when he gave no sign. “But I didn’t want to.”
“Whereas taking me off and casting me aside, that was as easy as a phone call.” The depth of his anger surprised him. Last night he’d been planning Monica and Ralph Baxter’s wedding, but without any realization on his part, he’d also been planning his and Jessica’s at some unknown future date. He didn’t notice that until it was taken away.
He was such an idiot!
He’d thought Vincent was the goofball, Dawn the smart one, and him somewhere safely toward the Dawn end of the spectrum. Turned out he was the doofus of the gang. Perfect!
“No,” Jessica’s soft voice barely intruded on his thoughts. “It wasn’t easy. And the way I did it wasn’t kind, but I still think it was kindness.”
“You’re going to have to explain that, Baxter. Use simple words. I’m just a dumb chef, not some brilliant, straight-A school valedictorian.”
She dug her fingers into the sand and let it trickle back through her fine fingers and dribble over her bare feet.
Fingers that could make him feel so—Shut up, Slater!
“Your infatuation with me—”
“I’m done with that, Jessica. I get it but I’m done with it! Now, I’m—” he bit down on his tongue to stop himself. He wasn’t going to spread the carcass of his sad past out on the sand for the gulls to pick over.
“I was going to say that your infatuation with me ended up starting something wonderful.”
So, shutting up had been a good choice. Would have been nice if he’d done it sooner, but it was too late to help that.
“This isn’t about you. It’s about me.”
“That’s a pretty pat answer. We are—were in a relationship. As in two people, not just you. How is it not about me?” His voice kept rising and he couldn’t stop it. He also still couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.
”
In his peripheral vision he could see her hand reaching out, but then she pulled it back.
“My life is in freefall. It’s already more than I can deal with. You’re wonderful, Greg. Really. I barely know you, but I strongly suspect that you may be the best man I’ve ever been with.”
He liked the way “best” sounded. He badly wanted to be Jessica Baxter’s “best.” Greg dug up a fistful of sand himself, but when he started dribbling it out it immediately began filling his sneakers. Dusting off his hands only spilled sand into this pant cuffs. If that was “best,” maybe she should keep looking.
“You’re handsome, smart, and funny. You cook like a genius and in bed you’re more fun than a girl could ask for. More than I ever thought to ask for.” She said the last line more to herself than to him, but he couldn’t leave it alone.
He reached out and took one of her hands. He wondered if Natalya had alerted her mother and they were both atop the cliff looking down at them through binoculars. A glance down the beach revealed his father on one of his post-cooking constitutionals, but he was too far down the beach to matter. Tourists who hadn’t brought picnics had headed into town for lunch, so this end of the beach was relatively quiet.
She was rubbing her thumb back and forth across the back of his knuckles, looking down at their joined hands so that her hat hid her face. He’d rather keep his mouth shut, which had been working well so far, but he had the feeling that if he didn’t say something, Jessica might never speak again. He remembered what Becky had said last night, or rather this morning: Don’t let her slip away. She’s going to try very, very hard. Don’t let her, Greg.
“Okay.” If he didn’t speak, he was afraid that neither of them would. “I’m going to steal a question from a very smart person.”
He didn’t continue until she looked up at him. He reached out and slipped off her sunglasses so that he could see her shaded eyes—those brilliant blue eyes that missed nothing, yet he had so enjoyed making sightless with passion.
“So, if this really isn’t about me, then my question is this. What the heck, Baxter?”
Jessica wanted to hide. She wanted her sunglasses back to hide her bloodshot eyes from the glaring sand. The typical bank of dense summer fog was lurking a few miles offshore, obscuring the horizon but leaving the beach bright and clear, so no help there either. She wanted to look away from the beautiful man whose brown eyes somehow saw past her defenses, yet didn’t turn away from the mess that poured out of her. And most of all she didn’t want him to stop holding her hand because it felt like the only thing that was keeping her from shattering into a thousand pieces.
“This is Monday, Greg. My parents’ fourth wedding is on Saturday,” as if there could be a more meaningless act. But, if it made them happy, more power to them. “On Sunday morning Natalya drops me at the Portland airport and I’ll be in Chicago that night.”
“Uh-huh.”
She could use something more useful than a male grunt as a guidepost, but she guessed it was all the help she deserved at the moment.
“We had a couple of great days.” A couple of utterly amazing days and a night in between them that she wouldn’t forget for a long time.
The small guest house on the Judge’s property where Greg lived was her idea of perfection. It was a grand Victorian shrunk to the perfect scale for a small family who thought that being in each other’s way was a good thing. It was too easy to imagine such things when she was there. It was one of the reasons she’d scared up Natalya and gone to Becky’s. Part of the reason had been to get the old gang back together, but part of it was so that she didn’t crawl into that house with Greg Slater as if she’d never leave—when she knew full well that she would have to.
“I grew up with parents who were in love, but can barely tolerate living in the same house. Mom has this whole separate residence through that breezeway. When Dad started building it, it was supposed to be an office for her business on one side and a workshop for Dad on the other. His workshop became a bedroom, den, and kitchen as well—then Mom doesn’t understand why his projects end up being done all over the house. And Dad built it for her as if it was okay that his wife didn’t live with him part of the time. Or lived with him, but—” she didn’t know what.
She struggled to her feet, couldn’t tolerate sitting still any longer. Greg didn’t let go of her hand and their connection pulled him to his feet as well. They began walking down the beach, like lovers holding hands, not like two people trying to resolve a fight before one of them left to never come back…and after the way this week was going, she was never coming back to Eagle Cove.
They walked down to the sand hard-packed by the retreating tide. It was the main thoroughfare up and down the beach. Sitting in the deep sand higher on the beach, they’d been left to themselves. Here they were having to constantly shift their path to avoid clumps of kelp, gaggles of children, and couples who actually might be lovers walking along together. The locals had all hit the beach hours ago, jogging or walking the sand while the tourists were still abed. Now it was midday and she didn’t recognize anyone—not a soul to distract her from the hard task of explaining herself to Greg.
“I don’t want that. I don’t want marriage. I’m open to living with a guy, the right guy.” She saw Greg’s questioning glance. “My roommate is single and straight. She has a cat. I’ve never had a male roommate.”
“I’ve had female roommates,” a fact that Jessica wished he’d kept to himself. “But that’s all they were. We were broke sous chefs trying to make ends meet while we served our time as kitchen slaves.”
“But when does it end? The kitchen slave part of it.” She’d served her time. And her career was more down the hole than it had been five years earlier.
“You always keep learning.”
She got that.
“But your industry is getting kicked out from under you,” Greg added before she could say something nasty.
“I seem to have noticed that. No suggestions for the sad journalist with a blistering hangover who just kicked a handsome good guy out of her bed?”
He gave her the laugh she’d been looking for and she felt better. “Not a thing.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“But I’ll give it some thought.”
Jessica stopped and squinted at Greg. He actually would give it thought. “I was right. You are a good man, Greg Slater.”
“Shh!” he glanced up and down the beach quickly. “It’s my first time and now you’re going to jinx me.”
She couldn’t help herself, she kissed him.
It was supposed to be a friendly peck of thanks, but somehow she melted back against him. Wrapped her arms around him hard and held on as if she were clinging for dear life.
When at some point—maybe after the tide had turned or the world had spun on its axis a few times or something—she was no longer kissing him but instead lay against him with her head upon his shoulder, she knew she wasn’t going to stay away from him while she remained in Eagle Cove.
“If this is how you do it,” Greg nuzzled her ear as he spoke, “let me just say that you’re really lousy at this whole breaking up thing. I’m liking your way of making it up though.”
“You’re a guy. You just want make-up sex.”
“I am a guy, so of course I do. Doesn’t mean I’m crass enough to ask for it though. Especially not with the shape you’re in.”
“What’s wrong with my shape?”
And he groaned at the trap he’d just sprung but just held her tighter. Jessica lay against Greg’s chest for another timeless amount of time. It was a place she didn’t have to think, could just be. People wandered by. Some laughing, some chatting. A pair of surfers went by in dripping wetsuits from tackling the short, hard surf just out from the long facade of The Sleepy Owl Hotel. One of them said, “Get a room, you two,” as he walked by.
Jessica could think of many things she should do. Go spend some time with Mom or Dad. Catch up wi
th friends she hadn’t seen in years and might never again. Get online and see if there were any developing long-lead stories that she could do research on and maybe track down a few inside contacts before she got back. But they would all require that she let go of Greg and she didn’t like the idea of that. Not at all.
Get a room had stuck in her head.
They hadn’t walked all that far past Greg’s house.
“I could maybe be talked into a little make-up sex.”
“You’re joking,” Greg made it a statement.
But… “Actually, I wasn’t.”
“But that means…what?” Greg didn’t pull her away from his chest to look at her, but instead just kept holding her as if this was the normal state of being for them.
Jessica gave it some thought and finally had to admit, “I don’t know. I’m lost here. I broke up with you and I wish I hadn’t, but I don’t know what that means either. However, having make-up sex sounds better than not having it and it’s all I have to go on.”
“That almost made sense,” Greg teased her a little before his tone went more serious. “You scared me, Jessica.”
She nodded against his shoulder, “I know. I’m sorry. Scared myself too.” Scared at just how deep her attachment to Greg had become and how quickly.
“So, no-commitment make-up sex?”
Against she nodded, hoping it was the right choice. “You’ll have to be gentle though, I feel as if bits and pieces of me are constantly on the verge of passing out again.”
“I’ll be very gentle.”
And he was. He was very gentle…and very thorough. And for one of the first times in her life, Jessica did nothing but lie on his bed and let the sun shining in over the ocean wash across her as a man made her feel utterly amazing.
Chapter 8
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