He was correct. The panic had happened minutes before he arrived. She’d stood in front of the full-size mirror on the back of the closet door in her room, looking at the person she’d become. She hadn’t liked the way her jeans fit—too snug. Or how her top fit—too booby—and it was like all the insecurities she’d ever felt came bubbling to the surface.
She—the one who’d gotten herself fired from TV for being too old and too big—was going out on a date with Jamison Hunter. Ridiculous. If Brad, who was just an average guy, hadn’t wanted her, what in the world made her think Jamison, a superstar, would.
Because he said he did.
That silent whisper had pushed her out of her room and into his truck. But seeing him leaning on the railing of the ferry as they sailed to the mainland with the wind in his face and his rugged good looks practically beaming as the sun set, he’d intimidated her all over again.
He was Jamison Hunter. He saved lives. He’d been to space.
She got fired. She got dumped.
Those two people didn’t seem to jive. He was staring at her now, waiting for the truth. She tried to think of a plausible lie she could tell him. It would have to be very convincing because he had a built-in lie detector when it came to her. But it also had to bring his pursuit of her to an end. She simply did not have it in her to believe Jamison Hunter would want Gabby Haines.
“Maybe I’m just not into you.”
Another deep laugh. Either she wasn’t convincing at all or he had a very healthy dose of arrogance.
“Some might say you’re full of yourself,” she mumbled.
“Not some. Most. You know when I had my first flight?”
Obviously she didn’t since personal facts about this man were very difficult to find. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to do the book in the first place. It would be the place where he told all his stories so people wouldn’t have to keep digging for his secrets.
“I was fourteen. My dad worked for the Maine Forest Service as an incident commander. During summers I was always at the command center. He taught me everything he knew about firefighting, figuring that one day I would grow up and follow in his footsteps. That was his plan, but I knew fairly early on I wanted something bigger.”
“Bigger like an astronaut.”
“No, not then. I didn’t know what bigger necessarily was back then. Anyway it was the middle of summer, hot as hell for Maine, and everyone was out of the center trying to deal with this nasty fire. It had splintered and was moving both east and north so it required two full teams to tackle it. One of my dad’s deputies, Big Joe, was left to run the command center and handle communications. We hear a mayday over one of the talkies. A chopper went down. Steve and Charlie were okay but trapped in the center of the fire with no way out. With the winds shifting and the fire moving so fast—”
“You relayed the message to your father and he went to go save them.”
Gabby waited for him to contradict her. She knew he would. He hadn’t started this story to tell her about a teenager who had done the right thing.
“You know I didn’t. Instead I convinced Big Joe we needed to act. There was an old tricked-out Huey chopper my dad had been teaching me to fly with. I was certain I could get it airborne and could get to Steve and Charlie faster than anyone already in the forest. I didn’t even need to land. Just get up and find them, lower a cable and let Big Joe haul them up. Once Steve was on board he could take over piloting.”
Gabby chuckled. “So you’re telling me you were born a hero.”
He ducked his head. “I’m telling you I know my abilities. I know when I’m capable of something. I also know when I’m being cocky rather than confident.”
“What were you that day?”
“Confident. Confident I was going to get Steve and Charlie. Confident I wasn’t going to put Big Joe at risk and confident my dad was going to kill me when he found out. All those things happened. Although the death prediction was replaced by a pretty rough belt lashing.”
“But you saved Steve and Charlie. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I could have killed us all. I knew I wasn’t going to. I tried to explain it to him. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t known I could do it. But he couldn’t hear me. Not that I blame him. That knowing has been a blessing and a curse my whole life.”
“Why a curse?”
She could see intensity glowing in his eyes even in the dark. “Because when you go through life knowing who you are and what you’re capable of, you think the world is at your disposal. That you’re a king who sits on top while others scramble to find their place. I know you wanted to go out on this date. I know you want me. And because I know it, and know you’re fighting me and what you feel… There is the curse.”
She wasn’t going to say anything. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right.
He leaned forward. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t want me to move closer. That you don’t want me to reach my hand around your neck and pull you into me so I can kiss you.”
Jamison Hunter wanted to kiss her.
She wanted to kiss Jamison Hunter.
And the problem was…?
“What if I’m not big enough for you?” It shouldn’t have been a question, she thought. It should have been a statement, because it was true. Gabriella Haines was not big enough for Jamison Hunter. Not even close.
He scooted along the bench seat until their thighs were touching. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her more tightly against him. Then he leaned back and looked out the windshield into the blackness. His relaxation made her relax by default. Not all of the tension dissipated—there was still plenty of the sexual kind—but the awkwardness from dinner was finally behind them. It felt as though they were starting again at a drive-in theater, watching a movie, and it was the moment when the screen went blank right before all the action began.
“You’re big enough, Gabby. In fact I don’t think you know how truly big you are. I think a few things in life might have kicked your confidence a little. But I bet if you go back in time, before the moment when it all started to turn on you, I bet you were a knower, too.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and thought about when she was six years old and told her mother while they were watching the TODAY Show how she was going to be the co-host someday.
“You weren’t supposed to be this person. You weren’t supposed to be a good man,” she muttered, burrowing a little deeper into him so she could smell his soap. Something piney and manly.
“Sorry. I know you came looking for an asshole. If it makes you feel any better, there are a lot of days when I can oblige you.”
She lifted her head. “I came looking for a legend. I didn’t think you would really end up being one.”
“No legend. Just a man who knows himself. The good, the bad and the ugly.”
The ugly. It was always there, Gabby thought. In the corner of her mind. The ever present reminder of his sins against women. The danger of allowing herself to get too close. It was there even now as she considered the shape of his lips. This close to him, she could see where he missed the smallest spot on his neck while shaving and she wanted to kiss that spot. She wanted to press her lips to his neck and then maybe bite him just hard enough to leave a mark. A mark on the man, not the legend.
She took a deep breath, maybe the deepest of her life. “You were right. I do want you. Take me to your place.”
She could feel his body tighten next to hers, feel the muscles harden and shift like an animal preparing to pounce.
“Nah. Not tonight.”
“But you said—”
“And I meant it. I want you. A lot. But you don’t trust me yet.”
She was never going to trust him. She knew it, but she didn’t want to tell him.
“Besides, this is our first date. I don’t want you to think I’m easy. And I’m sure you don’t want me to think that about you.”
Gabby shrug
ged. Easy was not a label she had to worry about.
He lifted her chin and made her look at him. He was smiling as though he’d won a small victory, but the muscle in his cheek was twitching as though he was holding himself back.
“Can I kiss you?”
She nodded, oddly pleased he asked her first.
She felt his lips and thought how nice it was to be kissing someone. She’d almost forgotten it all. The rush of heat through her body, the pulse of her heart as it kicked in to a different speed.
He pressed harder and she sighed, liking the way he encouraged her to open her mouth and offer him welcome inside. Slowly, softly until she thought she might scream he teased her with this lips and tongue until finally she felt him penetrate her mouth. Her stomach tightened and she could feel herself go wet. She thought sex.
Heat and gooeyness. Tension and pressure. Urgency. It all felt so raw and at the same time it was like meeting up with a friend who she hadn’t seen in years. The patterns and rhythms came back and she was once more in tune with her body and, most of all, in tune with him.
She pushed her tongue into his mouth and heard him catch his breath. She felt the tension of his body where it touched hers. His kiss was sweet and seductive but most of all it was sincere.
The sincerity disturbed her and pulled her out of the moment. A man who cheated couldn’t be sincere. It had to be part of the act, part of the seduction he’d promised. As if he could sense her pulling away, he stopped the kiss, running his thumb along her wet swollen bottom lip as if to make sure it was good and covered with his taste.
“Goodnight, Gabby. Sleep well.”
She puffed out a breath and reined her body under her control. This had not been a good idea. This thing between them was going to a place she was fairly certain was out of her control.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen,” she admitted.
“Then think of me. And do sinful things to your body you think I might like to do.”
She turned to him surprised to hear such naughty language from a man who had kissed her the way she’d always imagined Lancelot might kiss Guinevere. Then he wiggled his eyebrows like the dirty man he apparently was and made her smile.
“Jamison Hunter, you are a pervert.”
“Gabby Haines, all I can tell you is I’m going to have some pretty rocking dreams tonight.”
She got out of his truck shaking her head, but she was also smiling. She climbed the stairs up to her room and when she closed the door behind her, the goofy grin was still in place.
“Damn,” she whispered to a dark empty room. “I’m in serious trouble.”
CHAPTER TEN
WHY THE HELL hadn’t he taken her up on her offer?
Jamie sat in his kitchen the following morning brooding. As he sipped his coffee and considered his foul mood, he thought of a hundred other endings that could have happened last night instead of the one that did.
Hell, she’d offered!
Take me to your place.
He could have brought her here. They could have messed up the sheets three, maybe four, times over and then he would have gotten whatever it was about her out of his system.
But no! He wanted something as ridiculous as her trust, which, in the cold light of day, he was fairly certain he would never have. Not entirely because of what he’d done in his past, but because of how she’d been treated by the men in her life. He was the last person she could ever consider giving her heart to and so here he sat trying to convince himself he didn’t want it.
Just her body.
The facts didn’t really bear out that assertion. He’d treated her as someone who was important to him. Not a one-night or two-night stand. Not an easy screw he would forget about in a few days’ time after she left the island.
He’d been horny and irritated with himself all night. Instead of riding her hard until dawn, he’d gone for a late-night run on the beach and when he got back to the house he was still as tense as hell.
A cold shower, a hand job, then a glass of Scotch had finally put him down for the count where he’d done nothing but dream about her.
Freaking dreaming about her. When he could have had her.
He was an idiot.
The doorbell rang and startled him. He really missed Shep’s advance warning. He heard the door open and knew only one person wouldn’t bother to wait for him to answer the door.
“Jamie.”
“I’m in the kitchen,” he called out.
Zhanna walked in and surveyed the room. She spotted the still half filled carafe of coffee and went to the cabinet where the cups were kept. At one point he’d offered to let her move in with him, but she had declined. In some ways he was glad, since he didn’t know how he would adjust to living with a woman again after so long. In other ways he thought how nice it was to have someone else in the world know where you kept your coffee cups.
With Zhanna he supposed he got the best of both worlds.
“I’m having hard day,” she announced as she sat across from him and dumped teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar into her coffee until it was more hot sweet water than coffee.
“Join the club.”
“I need to ask you something and I need you to be honest.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think it is a good idea to have sex with Tom?”
Jamie groaned a little. “Zee, I do not want to talk about guys with you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s weird. Do you want me to talk about why I didn’t have sex with Gabby last night?”
Zhanna winced and Jamie knew she understood.
“We’re two grown adults and we are friends,” Zhanna said, pointing out the obvious. “We should be able to talk about our problems without it being weird.”
Jamie snorted. “That’s nice in fantasy grown-up land. In real grown-up land things are weird and awkward all the time.”
“But I don’t know what to do. He gave me kitten. He has nice smile. I think— I think I like him.”
Jamie couldn’t comment on Tom’s smile, but he knew him to be an okay guy both professionally and socially. And he’d been honest about Shep when he started to see his condition deteriorating. He didn’t try to push Jamie into any decisions, instead let him make the call. He figured Zhanna could date guys way worse than Tom.
“So what’s the problem. Why not go out with him?”
She gave him a shuddered look and he was reminded that, while they’d grown close in the time they had known each other, there were still parts of their lives they kept separate. Like the bulk of her past.
“You asked my advice,” Jamie reminded her. “Here it is. Tom’s a good guy. You’re a great person. You should go out if he asks or, if you’re so inclined, ask him out yourself. Go have a nice time. Because you never know where things could lead.”
“That’s awful advice.”
“Only because you were hoping I would say something else. You want me to play bad cop and tell you to stay away from him?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not giving you an easy out. Besides, if I told you not to date him, you would probably only want to date him more.”
She made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a groan that Jamie didn’t know if it was a particular Russian sound or uniquely Zhanna.
“Okay, this was a big waste of time. We might as well talk about you. Why did you not have sex with Gabby last night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You brought it up.”
“Only to creep you out.”
“Yes and that worked very well. But you sit there with your coffee and your brooding eyes and I know you are not happy. I thought you wanted a simple fling. You said two weeks and she’s gone.”
A simple fling? That’s what he told himself he wanted. He was attracted to her, he knew she was attracted to him. They each had their issues and none of it was going to change. Most importantly she wasn’t going to be
here much longer. The two weeks were now down to one. Her boss would eventually pull the plug, especially once she realized there would be no biography. And Gabby would head to New York.
Then why hadn’t he done exactly what he planned to do and taken advantage of the situation?
It was the answer, one he was totally unwilling to share, that had him making broody eyes out the window.
“I like her,” Zhanna said as she sipped her sweet coffee.
That was interesting. He didn’t imagine Zhanna ever liking another woman he chose to be with. Her behavior to date sort of proved that. “Really? I have to say it doesn’t show.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to. But I think we are alike. And I like me.”
“Yes, you do.” He smiled. “So a kitten, huh? Are you going to keep it?”
“I did not want to, but it needs me desperately. I named her Mary and she sleeps on my feet and makes soft kitten noises.”
“Soft kitten noises are hard to resist.”
Only Zhanna looked angry about it. “I don’t like it when things get close to my heart. I get scared and I hate being scared more than I hate being sad.”
“You let me get close,” he reminded her.
“You, I had no choice. The kitten…no choice. Tom…a choice.”
“Don’t choose fear. Don’t let it win. You do, and you’ll regret so much.”
“You who are fearless then, you regret nothing?”
No, he didn’t regret nothing. But he promised himself he wouldn’t let those regrets rule his life. Thinking over the past few years, though, by committing himself to this solitary life, isn’t that what he’d done?
Damn Gabby. For making him want something more from her than a damn fling. For making him think about stuff he didn’t want to think about. And mostly for letting him know he wasn’t quite as fine with his life as he thought he was.
The answer was simple. He needed to find her now and take her up on her offer. He needed to have sex with her quickly, then let her go. Hell, he’d drive her onto the ferry and off the island himself.
The Way Back Page 12
