Always On My Mind

by Jill Shalvis

  Which meant that for him, loving her was off the table.

  This left her hanging out here with these emotions all on her own. And it was time to face the facts. There were emotions, lots of them, because she’d gone and broken yet another promise to him. She wasn’t pretending.

  This was real, and she was hurt.

  Chapter 23

  After the arts and crafts fair, when everything had been broken down and hauled off, Jack ended up at the Love Shack with Ben.

  Ben ordered while Jack checked his email and then stared down in shock at the forwarded message from Ronald.

  DNA results had come in, adding a hard fact to the arson case. The DNA from the cigarette butts found near the convenience store and Town Hall fires matched. The same person had stood within watching distance of the fires and…watched? Unfortunately there was no known ID or record, which meant that their arsonist was either new…or smart enough to not have gotten caught.

  Yet.

  Ben came back to the table with a basket of chili fries and two beers, and Jack didn’t even look up. “Must be good porn,” Ben said.

  “It’s work. DNA came back on the cigarette butts found at two of the three questionable fires.”

  “And?”

  “Smoked by the same person.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “We’ll nail him.”

  “We?” Ben asked. “You on the arson team now?”

  Jack shrugged. “I’ve been working with Ronald. I like this end of things.” He paused. “A lot.”

  “You going to give up firefighting?” Ben asked. “The job you were pretty much born to do?”

  “Actually,” Jack said. “I think I was born to do this.”

  Ben looked at him for a long beat and nodded. “Then do it.”

  “You’re relieved,” Jack said, surprised.

  “Fuck, yeah. Don’t get me wrong, taking over as deputy fire chief and fire marshal is going to be hell on wheels, and in some ways much harder than the firefighting, but…”

  “But what?” Then he read Ben’s expression and leaned back, shaking his head. “Jesus, not you too. I’m not going to die on the job. Tens of thousands of firefighters are on the job at any given moment and most of them manage to stay very alive.”

  “Your dad didn’t.”

  “I’m not my dad.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Ben asked. “’Cause the apple’s practically still on the tree, man.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Jack said. “Your job takes you to third-world hellholes for months at a time. When you’re gone, the rest of us can only hold our breath until we see or hear from you again.”

  Ben lifted a shoulder. “Guess you’re not the only one influenced by your dad’s hero complex.”

  “Yeah.” Jack nodded. “But I’m making this choice to get off the front line based on my own needs for the future. It has nothing to do with my dad’s influence or memory.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. What does Leah think of your new job?”

  “Haven’t told her yet.”

  Ben stopped with his beer halfway to his mouth. “Why not?”

  When Jack didn’t answer, Ben swore and set down his beer. “Don’t ask me how you can be the smartest guy I know and the most stupid at the same time.”

  “You know we’re not a real thing.”

  Ben gave an impressive eye roll.

  “You thought it was stupid that we pretended,” Jack said.

  “No. I thought it was stupid that you didn’t just go for it.”

  Jack took a long pull of his beer. “You’re going to have to repeat that because I think you just suggested I should be with Leah for real. Leah.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that. Yeah, it’s Leah, who you’ve had a thing for since…well, ever.”

  Jack shook his head. “What is this? It’s not like you’re exactly a relationship king. You haven’t been in a relationship since Hannah died five years ago. You’re no better at getting yourself into this shit than I am.”

  Ben shrugged. “At least when it came my way, I went for it.”

  Jack stared at him and then laughed. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying if the right woman came your way, you’d take a shot at another relationship?”

  Ben’s attention drifted to the bar. Jack followed his cousin’s gaze to a beautiful blonde sitting there alone, nursing something clear out of a shot glass.

  Aubrey.

  “Well, there’s a bad idea,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “Tangling with her.”

  “Yeah?” Ben asked lazily. “Why’s that?”

  “She’s got claws.” Jack looked at him. “You know this. Remember how she was in school?”

  “I also remember how we were.”

  “We were wild, not mean.”

  Ben didn’t look concerned as he rose, dropped cash on the table, and headed out into the night.

  “Gee,” Jack said, getting to his feet as well. “Guess we’re done here.”

  He left the bar too, but Ben was nowhere in sight. This wasn’t so unusual when it came to his cousin, but it was still irritating. Jack grabbed Kevin from where he’d been happily sleeping in the truck. Kevin’s favorite thing—after eating or taking a shit on the neighbor’s lawn—was going for a walk on the beach.

  After that, inexplicably, they ended up standing in front of the bakery. It was closed, of course. But Jack could see a light on in the back, and with a frown, he walked around to the alley. The back door was ajar, and he stepped close to hear a voice muttering softly.

  Leah.

  She had her back to him as she stood at the cooking island whipping something into a froth. “Okay, cookie dough,” she said, “listen up. Just because I’m giving you to Jack doesn’t mean I’m giving a piece of me to Jack.” She added something from a smaller bowl and went back to whipping. “Because I’m not. I might be a little broken, but no one’s getting any of my pieces. Not even if…” More from yet another bowl. “A piece of me—or two—really wants to be given.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to acknowledge the emotion that went through him at her words, uttered with good humor but also with a sort of grim truth. He’d known she cared about him deeply. Just as he’d known that she didn’t know how to deal with those feelings. He’d known all of it, and he’d even known why. He’d accepted it. Hell, he was responsible for the rules in the first place. But hearing her talk about her broken pieces killed him. “Leah.”

  With a shriek she whirled around, her whisk held out in front of her like a weapon. “Jack!” she gasped. “You scared me.”

  “Stay,” he said to Kevin, and to make sure he did, Jack tied the leash to the back porch railing before entering the kitchen. “What are you doing here this late?”

  “Making black-and-white cookies.” She paused and then shrugged. “For your mom’s nurses.”

  Again emotion swelled, and he stepped into her, taking the bowl from her hands and setting it aside. “Why?”

  Leah met his gaze. Her heart was still pounding, but not from fright. “That’s what people who care about each other do,” she finally said. “They help each other out.”

  “People?”

  She drew a deep breath and let it out. She wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong between them, but she knew it was her fault. “Friends,” she said.

  Jack expressed polite, doubtful surprise with one quirk of his dark brow.

  “We are friends,” she said, then hesitated. “Aren’t we?”

  “Naked friends.”

  “We’re more than naked friends,” she said and then bit her lip, because why had she said that? Why had she gone there?

  Jack studied her for a long moment, and she knew he could see her nerves. “Talk to me, Leah.”

  “I’m a bit of a mess. No surprise there though, right?” She turned from him, and wiping her hands on her apron, walked to her purse hanging on a hook by the door. From it, she pulled out the stack of cards she’d sent hi
m throughout the years, the ones she’d found in the nightstand by his bed.

  He looked down at them for a beat. “What are you doing with those?”

  “The question is, what are you doing with them?”

  “You sent them to me,” he said simply.

  And to him, it was that simple.

  In fact, the only person who’d ever complicated this, the most important relationship in her life, was herself. She ran her fingers over the envelopes postmarked from all the places she’d been. She could still remember where she’d bought him each and every card, how she’d felt when she’d signed it and sent it off.

  Homesick.

  For him.

  In the past she’d always shrugged that part off because she’d left Lucky Harbor. She’d been the one to go. So how could she get homesick for a place, a man, she’d willingly walked away from? “You missed me,” she said.

  He shrugged, and her gaze flew to his, catching the light of teasing in his. “Maybe a little,” he said.

  “I missed you,” she admitted. “More than I wanted to.”

  He gave a slow head shake. “Leah, you don’t have to do this.”

  “I don’t want it to be pretend,” she whispered in a rush, the words tumbling out of her. “I know I said I did, that I promised that it was just that, but I lied. When I’m here in Lucky Harbor, it all feels right. I love it here. In this place, in this bakery. I love it here with you.”

  He closed his eyes. “Leah—”

  “I was just a stupid teenager, Jack. Too immature to know what I was running away from.”

  He let out a long, slow breath. “You weren’t the only one.”

  “What did you run from?”

  “What I want. I always have.” He paused. “Ronald’s retiring.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Yeah, and he’s recommending me as his replacement. I have a formal interview for the job next week.”

  She stared at him and felt a slow smile curve her mouth. “Oh, Jack,” she breathed. “It’s perfect for you. Just what you’ve always wanted.”

  He stared down at her for a long beat, saying nothing, then he laughed real low and quiet. “Hell if you don’t drive me absolutely crazy, even as you get me like no one else.”

  She still held the whisk. Her other arm wound around his neck. “I drive you crazy? In a good way, right?”

  “No,” he said, but he smiled a little, hooked an arm around her waist, and pulled her in.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  “Hi.” Lifting her up, he set her on the counter. Holding her there, he reached out and dipped a finger into the bowl of batter at her hip.

  “You want some chocolate?” she whispered.

  “Yes.” He sucked it into his mouth and then took the whisk from her hand, setting it aside. And then he grasped the hem of her sweater and lifted it up over her head.

  “What are you doing?”

  Instead of answering, he dipped his finger back into the chocolate. Just as she might have said something about him double-dipping, he painted a streak of chocolate across her collarbone.

  “Uh—” she started, but then he flicked open her bra and finger-painted her already hardened nipples.

  And then he licked every inch of the chocolate off her, by which time she was attempting to tug off his clothes.

  “Not here,” he said, holding her off.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You and your not here.” But he was right; they were in the bakery kitchen, for God’s sake. Panting, she looked around. “The office.”

  Lifting her up, he walked with her wrapped around him to the office. He set her down on the desk, right on top of the stack of bills she had to pay. “Lift up,” he said, and tugged down her leggings, taking everything off, including her boots and panties.

  “Jack—”

  He cupped her face and tipped it to his for a hot kiss as he nudged her legs open. Then he dropped to his knees and slid his palms up her inner thighs.

  She could feel his breath against her and she slid her fingers into his hair, unable to look away as he put his mouth on her. When he did something cleverly diabolical with his tongue, her breath hitched and her head fell back.

  Jack never failed to take her right out of herself, out of everything she knew, detonating the careful distance she liked to put between herself and what she was experiencing.

  With Jack, there was no distance. He didn’t allow it. He had her right where he wanted her, legs splayed by his broad shoulders, hands gripping her possessively, his tongue making her writhe. She couldn’t be more vulnerable to him, and in that moment, on the very edge of a steep, slippery precipice, she couldn’t care.

  “You taste better than the chocolate,” he murmured against her and gently sucked in exactly the right spot at exactly the right rhythm, essentially flinging her off a cliff. As her release washed over her, she felt him press a kiss to her inner thigh before rising to his feet. Towering over her, he scooted her back a little and crawled up her body, making her moan as her achingly sensitive nipples grazed his chest. She clutched him to her and kissed him. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his clothes and put on a condom. Taking over the kiss, he slid inside her. “Leah.”

  She opened her eyes and looked into his, feeling his heart pounding in tune with hers. She knew there wasn’t much that could make Jack’s heart race and felt a rush of feminine power.

  And then, as he began to move, his hips pushing against hers, she felt the rush of another power entirely as the earth moved.

  A few beats later, the earth moved for him too.

  They lay there on the hard desk in the small, hot room, breathing hard, working at getting their pulse back from near stroke levels, when her phone rang startlingly loud in the quiet night.

  It’d fallen out of her pocket and was on the floor.

  “Late for a phone call,” Jack said, and they both peered over the desk and looked at the screen.

  The ID said: Dickhead.

  Jack raised one dark brow.

  “Rafe,” she said.

  He stood up and offered her a hand to do the same. “You should answer it.”

  “Oh, I don’t—”

  Jack crouched low and hit SPEAKER, and Leah grimaced, reaching for her discarded clothes. “Rafe,” she said, self-consciously, scrambling into her leggings and top sans underwear. Ridiculous, since he couldn’t see her.

  Clearly feeling no such self-consciousness, Jack still stood there butt-ass naked.

  “Way to call me back, babe,” Rafe said.

  “I’ve been…” She met Jack’s gaze. Why wasn’t he putting on his clothes? “Busy.”

  “Doing what? Making donut holes because no one in Podunk knows the difference between pasticiotti and tarte au citron? Whatever, babe. Lucky for you, the network still wants you back. We’ve agreed to your terms. You said you wanted out of there before the finals, and your wish is our command. I’ve emailed your flight confirmation.”

  She’d closed her eyes halfway through this, and when she opened them, Jack had pulled on his jeans and shrugged into his shirt. “Rafe—”

  “Oh no,” he said. “Hell no, babe. You’re not backing out. You set these plans in motion. You’re playing it cool, but I know you’re desperate. My favorite state. The tickets, Leah. Use them.” And then he disconnected.

  Without a word, Jack headed to the door. Leah caught his arm. “Jack, wait.”

  He paused. He hadn’t buttoned his shirt. His hair was tousled from her fingers. He looked big, bad, and ticked off. “Why?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Really? Because I’m experiencing a painful déjà vu here, Leah. A minute ago you were telling me Lucky Harbor feels right. I think you were also telling me that I felt right.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was.”

  He shook his head. “And yet you were planning to go. You wanted out before the next show aired.”

  “I made that call to him weeks ag
o, Jack.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said. “When?”

  She couldn’t tear her eyes off his. They were filled with things, things she’d dreamed of seeing from him, but she was blowing it faster than she could gulp in air.

  Nothing new there.

  “Before or after you told my mom we were together?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “After.”

  “Are you kidding me? The whole façade was your idea!”

  “I know.” She paused again. “It’s not you, Jack. It’s me.”

  He laughed harshly. “Oh, Christ. Really? You’re going to use the breakup line, Leah? The one I taught you? What’s next? You have to ‘work on yourself’?”

  Her throat burned with shame and misery because it was true, it was happening, her biggest fear—screwing this up with him—was coming true right before her eyes. And the worst part? She’d done it all herself. “This time it’s actually true. I’m not good at this stuff. You know that.”

  She could see that he wasn’t buying this. “You don’t have to be good at it, Leah. Jesus. Do you think I care what words you use to show me how you feel? I don’t need words. I have the actions. You watch out for me. You watch out for my mom. And my oversized, drool-manufacturing dog. You care so much about everyone else and their life, but when it comes to yours, you give up. I know your dad made you feel that you were never good enough, but he was a dick, Leah. And he’s gone, so why do you still let him do this to you, let his memory keep you from finishing…everything?”

  “That’s not what I do.”

  He ticked items off on his fingers. “Our relationship the first time, college—all four times—culinary school—”

  “Okay,” she said tightly. “I get it. So I have a little follow-through problem.”

  “Little?” He spun her around to face the steel refrigerator, where their reflections stared back at her. Her own face, pale, pinched with strain. And Jack’s, his expression serious, so deadly serious.

  “Your parents didn’t deserve you,” he said, “but at some point you have to grow up and realize you’re not a product of your environment. You are who you want to be. You’re you, Leah. You’re a daughter. A friend. A lover. A sweet, warm, smart, beautiful, talented, successful pastry chef. You’re anything you want to be. Figure it out and then own it.”