“Good aim.” The voice was so familiar I didn’t need a light to identify who stood in my room. But I still switched the bedside lamp on.
“Jesse!” I managed to shriek quietly since three sleeping girls were close by. “What the hell?”
“Quick question,” he said, lifting his finger while he rubbed the spot where I’d clocked him with his other hand.
“What?” I said, wondering what in the world Jesse Walker was doing in my room after midnight.
“Are you planning on throwing anything else at me?”
“Not as long as you don’t scare the living shit out of me again,” I said, finally calm enough to give him more than a quick look.
My eyes almost popped out of my head.
He was in his pajamas, too: a pair of navy blue sweats cut off at the knees, along with . . . absolutely nothing else. No shirt, no shoes, no hat. It was the least cowboy-fied I’d ever seen Jesse, and even though he was sexy six ways to Sunday in his cowboy gear, this look was hard to beat.
Probably had something to do with all of the tanned, muscled flesh on display.
“Rowen? Is something wrong?” He sounded like he was about to start snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Because your eyes are doing something kind of crazy right now.”
That’s because you’re practically naked and were descended from gods.
I almost had to slap my face to clear my dazed expression. “Other than you leaping into my room in the middle of the night? No, nothing’s wrong.” I had to look away or I was sure my eyes would go crossed. My eyes landed on the window. “And how in the hell did you get in here?” I rushed to the window. Yep, just how I’d remembered its location before Superman soared in: two stories up, straight up. No roofline, trellis, or ladder to climb. Nothing other than siding. So if he didn’t have Superman DNA, it was Spiderman DNA.
Jesse appeared beside me and stuck his head out the window with me. His shoulder rubbed against mine. The innocent graze practically undid me. “You’re looking in the wrong direction,” he said, tilting his head up. I did the same.
All I saw was the outline of the roof and another window set right below where the roofline came together. I’d never noticed it before. It was a bit smaller than my window, but a light shone from it, too. Jesse Walker had been sleeping ten feet above me the whole time.
“Holy shit.”
“You guessed how I did it yet?” he asked eagerly. Thankfully, he’d guessed my shock had to do with how he’d gotten from point A to point my B.edroom. I suppose I was still in some shock about that whole feat, but most of it was focused on the fact he’d been right above my sleeping head the whole time.
“I’m guessing it had something to do with lunacy,” I replied. I really had no logical explanation for how he’d scaled down almost ten feet without the aid of a rope or a ladder or pixie dust.
Jesse nudged me with that arm I was ever so aware of running down the length of mine. “Maybe a little bit of lunacy, but a whole lot of skill, too. But, come on. Aren’t you at least going to make a guess as to how I did it?”
I opened my mouth.
“Something not having to do with lunacy, maybe?” he interjected.
Okay, I could do this. Pushing all lunacy, superhero DNA, and miracles aside, I tried to put it together. Jesse’s window to my window. Nothing but a whole lot of white cedar siding and one cobblestone chimney a couple feet to the side . . .
“Oh, dear God.” I felt my stomach drop as I scanned the chimney. It ran from the ground up past the rooftop. Right by my window, right by Jesse’s. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Climb down the side of the chimney?” He studied the chimney with me and grinned. “Yeah. I did.”
If he lost a foot or hand hold, he would have fallen a good twenty feet. There weren’t any sharp projectiles or concrete landings below, but still. Best case scenario was some broken bones and internal bleeding. Worst case was a one way ticket to the hereafter.
“And the bull riders are supposed to have some kind of death wish?”
Jesse chuckled. “I’ve done it dozens of times, and the nice thing about the chimney is that it’s predictable. You don’t have to wonder which way it’s going to spin, or how high it’s going to buck.”
“Ha. Ha,” I said humorlessly. I saw very little humor in the situation. Sure, Jesse was standing beside me, talking to me, rubbing his fine, next-to-naked body against mine, but if he needed to see me so badly, why didn’t he just come through my door?
“Why in the world did you do that?” I couldn’t stare out the window any longer. In fact, I’d never stare out of it the same way again.
“Because I needed to talk to you, and I didn’t get to finish what I needed to say tonight,” he said, ducking back into the room. “I’ve been trying to talk to you all darn week, but you’ve been dodging me like a calf on branding day.”
I pursed my lips to keep from laughing. He was being serious, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but really? Like a calf on branding day? I’d most certainly never heard that before and doubted I ever would again outside of Willow Springs.
“This whole week, your window’s been closed, so when I heard it finally open, I decided to make my move. Because, Rowen, I need to talk to you whether you want to talk back or not. I need to explain a couple of things. I might have gone about this the wrong way by bursting through your window at night, but you didn’t really leave me another choice.”
I kept pursing my lips together. Jesse all flustered and rambling was adorable and appealing on so many levels, but he’d misunderstood my question.
“Not Why? as in why did you need to see me so badly, but Why? as in why didn’t you just knock on my door?” I plopped down on the edge of my bed and tried really hard to keep my eyes on his. When his hands moved to his hips, that feat became next to impossible.
“Because you wouldn’t have answered and because I didn’t want to worry about waking my sisters. And because I didn’t want to worry about answering their questions as to what I was doing knocking on your door at night. And because I could climb that chimney blindfolded. And because I was really hoping to impress you with my mad chimney climbing skills.” Jesse’s dimples emerged. My throat went dry. “So, are you impressed?”
Men and their need to impress. Looking from him to the window, back to him, I said, “Consider me sufficiently impressed.”
His dimples drilled a little deeper with his smile. “I’d say my work here is done, except it’s really only started.” The skin between his eyebrows came together as he studied my big nightshirt.
Two and two came together right as his face ironed out. “Nice shirt,” he said, looking a little smug.
“At least I’m wearing one,” I said, giving him the briefest once-over I could manage.
“I was out of fresh shirts,” he said, lifting his shoulders. “You’re lucky I wasn’t out of fresh shorts.”
Yeah, that burn in my throat? It was from the flames erupting in my stomach.
“No, you’re lucky,” I said. “I’ve heard cobblestone chaffing is really uncomfortable.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, followed by a chuckle. “But, really. Next time you want to borrow one of my shirts, all you have to do is ask me. You don’t have to steal it when I’m not looking.”
I could tell from his face he was teasing, but I wasn’t in a teasing mood. “I didn’t steal it. It was in one of the drawers in my dresser. The–”
“Bottom one,” Jesse finished my thought.
My suspicion that Jesse was clairvoyant seemed more and more likely. “How did you know that?”
“Because that’s where I kept them.” He shrugged and crossed his arms. I loved when he crossed his arms. I loved it even more when he was shirtless. “I must have left one behind.”
“Left one behind? Are you in the habit of leaving your things in random dresser drawers throughout the house?”
“Nope, but I try to make it a habit to leave
my things in my dresser drawers.”
“Your dresser drawer?” I repeated slowly, grabbing the comforter to cover my legs. The shirt had seemed large before, but having Jesse look at me that way made me feel all kinds of exposed.
“Well, yeah.” He spread his arms and did a spin. “This is my room.”
“Come again?” I knew I hadn’t heard him wrong, but I wished I had.
“This has been my room from day one. My dresser, my nightstand,”—his smile curved higher on one side as he examined the space around me—“my bed. And my blankets.” He took a few steps toward his bed and his blankets, and I felt like a thousand butterflies had been set loose in my stomach from the way he looked at me.
“Why did you move out?” I asked.
“Because you were coming,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I know from growing up with three sisters that a girl’s bedroom needs to be within arm’s reach of a bathroom, and this room stays a heck of a lot cooler than the attic in the summertime.”
I finally understood why I couldn’t escape Jesse’s scent or presence even when I was locked in my bedroom. I’d been sleeping on the same mattress he had. I’d been snuggled beneath the same old quilt he had. We’d shared a bed the whole time without even touching each other.
“You just picked up and moved into the attic because I was coming?” I said, sounding as dumbfounded as I felt.
He nodded.
“But you didn’t even know me.”
His forehead wrinkled, and he gave me a curious look. “I didn’t have to. You needed a room. I had one. And the attic was empty.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I said, shaking my head. I doubted I’d ever figure out the goodness that moved inside of Jesse Walker. It was the kind that didn’t quite make sense in our world.
“It is easy, Rowen,” he said. “Besides, look at how it all worked out. You’re sleeping on my bed, wearing my undershirt, and haven’t thrown me out the window for jumping inside of it unexpectedly in the middle of the night. I’m not exactly on the losing side of this arrangement.”
He was trying to make less of a big deal out of something that was a very big deal. If I had to move into the attic because some random stranger was coming for the summer, gracious was the last thing I would have been.
“Thank you,” I said, having nothing else to offer. “That was a pretty cool thing to do.”
He waved it off like it was nothing, and he approached the bed. “Please. When I get to move back in, I can sleep all warm and happy every night knowing you were in my bed for a whole summer.” Very slowly, he took a seat next to me on the edge of the mattress. He was so on the edge of the mattress, he could have fallen right off. And now, Jesse and I were sharing a bed in the literal sense.
If it was possible, my heartbeat sped up some more.
“That’s totally worth spending a summer in the attic,” he said, glancing between me and the mattress with a smile. His eyes locked on mine, and with him so close, I could make out every speck of gold in those blue eyes of his. “Whoa.” His head tilted to the side. “Your eyes are blue.”
My face lined with confusion until I remembered Jesse had never seen me without my contacts in. Since I only took them out at bedtime and promptly replaced them after waking up, no one else at Willow Springs had either.
“I wear contacts,” I said as he continued to examine my eyes with an intensity I felt was about to make me combust.
“Oh, are you near or farsighted?”
“Neither.”
“Then why do you wear contacts?”
“They’re color contacts,” I said, wondering why Jesse had to be so observant. Of course I would be attracted to the one guy in the world so observant he probably remembered the color of the shirt I wore yesterday.
“But your eyes were so dark before. I couldn’t tell if they were dark brown or black.”
My shoulders rolled forward. I’d never had to explain it before. The few people who knew the actual color of my eyes didn’t ask why I wore dark color contacts; it just sort of made sense with the rest of me. “I like dark,” I said, wrapping the comforter tighter around me.
“I’ve noticed.” He hitched a leg up onto the bed and twisted to face me. Could someone, please, for the love of God, find the man a shirt? The whole encounter couldn’t be healthy for a girl’s heart. “It seems that preference for dark, or . . . black applies to your taste in guys, too.” Jesse tried to mask it, but the bitter note in his voice was obvious. “I’m hoping after tonight and what that guy did and said, you’ll change your mind.”
Just like that, I was reminded of a rather large something standing between Jesse and me. Someone who kept me from running my hands and lips all over him the way I wanted to.
“And I hope you’ll change your mind the next time you come talk all sweet and make flirty looks at me when your girlfriend’s a few rows behind us.” I’d never been very good at censoring myself, and that wasn’t the moment to change.
“Ah, perfect segue,” he said, looking . . . was that . . . relief?
“Perfect segue? Come again?”
“Josie isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Jesse?” I made a face. “I think you’re mistaking me for one of those girls cool with believing whatever you tell her.”
He smirked at me. “It’s the truth. Josie and I aren’t together.”
“Does she know that?” I asked. I knew what smitten looked like, and Josie had it just as bad, if not worse, as me.
“Yes.” He nodded so strongly his mess of hair fell over his forehead. “We broke up over six months ago.”
Wow. That was a serious case of WTF whiplash. “Wait.” I lifted my hands up. “You and Josie aren’t together anymore?”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”
I lifted an eyebrow and waited.
“No,” he said. “I am not with Josie. She is not with me. I’m not seeing anyone.”
How had I been so convinced otherwise then? Oh, yeah. “Then why did Garth . . ?”
“Because Garth likes to create controversy everywhere he goes,” Jesse said, his jaw tightening.
Create controversy everywhere he goes . . . yep, that pretty much hit the Garth nail on the head.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. And I tried. And I tried again. You wouldn’t let me.” He stared at me pointedly. “You remember any of that?”
I bit my lip and felt two inches tall. “Maybe a little bit.”
Jesse laughed and nudged my leg with his. His bare skin against my bare skin. I almost shuddered.
“How long were you two together?” I asked.
“Just over two years.”
“Why did you break up?” Even a possible reason was beyond me. The kind of girl Josie was matched the kind of guy Jesse was spot on.
Jesse stayed silent for a few seconds, playing with the corner of the quilt, then cleared his throat. “We just couldn’t be together anymore.”
How wonderfully detailed. “Anything else you want to add? Maybe the actual reason you couldn’t be together anymore?” I was prying, I knew that, but I didn’t back off. When it came to Jesse and Josie, I wanted that whole relationship tied up in a neat little bow.
“That’s not really my story to tell,” he said, shifting on the bed. “I promised Josie I’d never tell anybody, so the only way you’d be able to find out is from her.”
I recognized that flash of pain on his face. Betrayal.
“She broke your trust.” I felt a strange sense of protectiveness for Jesse. Josie had hurt him, betrayed him, and Jesse was the one person in the world I could say with absolute certainty didn’t deserve it.
“Well, yeah,” he said. Meeting my eyes seemed to be difficult for him suddenly. “But that wasn’t the main reason we broke up.” My nose wrinkled. That seemed like the “main” reason to end any relationship. Trust was a deal breaker. I should know. It had ruined every one of my relationships singlehandedly.
/> Jesse continued, “Everyone talks about how important trust is, and even though I agree, I’m not going to cut someone loose because they break my trust.” Just the fact he could say that meant people hadn’t broken his trust all that often. “We’re all going to break a person’s trust. That’s inevitable. As long as it doesn’t become a habit, I can forgive someone on a trust issue.” Jesse paused and looked as defeated as I imagined he could look. “I just couldn’t move past what happened. I knew I never would be able to, so it ended.”
I wanted to reach out and remove the pain I saw so clearly on his face, but I didn’t know how. So I scooted closer and hesitantly placed my hand over his. His skin was warm, and almost immediately, Jesse’s shoulders relaxed.
“Are you glad it ended?” I asked.
“I wasn’t. Not for a while. Josie and I’d been together for a long time. She knew things about me no one else knew, and I knew things about her no one knew, but now I’m better with it.”
“Why’s that?” My hand took on some of his heat. I felt it going deep and spreading up my arm.
“I took it one day at a time until I could move on,” Jesse replied, then he smiled down at the blankets. “And then I met this other girl.”
Knife through the heart. So that’s what it felt like.
“Another girl is always the cure for a guy to get over another girl,” I said, working to keep my voice level. “They say that after a break up, a woman mourns and a man moves on. Looks like they are right.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. Amusement? Irritation? “Josie and I broke up six months ago, and I haven’t been on a single date since. I wouldn’t consider that a rebound move-on.”
“So why haven’t you gone out with said ‘this other girl’? Because you and I both know based on your looks alone, you could land any girl you want.” I said, taking another good look at his “looks”. Almost painful so close up. “That’s not even taking your personality into account.” Because really, as good looking as Jesse was, his personality was just as attractive.
“Wait. Did you just say you think I’m hot? On the outside and the inside?” When he looked up at me, I could better make out that expression. Amusement.
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