Jackson took a step toward her, so close that there were barely inches between them, and she inhaled fresh soap and morning sun, intoxicating on his skin.
“I want to show you something on board the boat. After you see it, if you don’t want to go, we can fish off the pier.”
“But we can’t catch anything off the pier. You said—”
He leaned in and kissed her, firmly but without force, and she was so shocked that all she could do was kiss him back. He lingered on her bottom lip for just a second before dropping his chin and lifting her sunglasses.
“I know what I said. Now shut up and come look at this so you can decide what you want to do, okay?”
All Carly could think in the instant that followed Jackson’s words was that she really wanted him to keep kissing her. “O-okay.”
With her brain too wrapped up in lust-tinged shock to cry out to her legs in protest, she followed Jackson to the edge of the dock. He boarded the boat with ease before turning to grasp both of her shaking hands, and she placed her feet in his footsteps as she slowly boarded the boat. They were mere feet from the dock where she’d stood without fear just a minute ago, the same clusters of lakeside reeds waving lazily from their anchors in the murky bottom. She could do this.
Probably.
“Great. Why don’t you have a seat for a second? I have to start the engine for what I want to show you, but I promise we won’t leave the dock.”
She nodded her agreement, and Jackson guided her to the bolted down passenger seat before sitting behind the wheel, pulling a key with a funny-looking foam keychain on it out of his pocket. He slid it into the boat’s ignition, starting the boat with a low growl.
“This is a fish finder.” He gestured to a square screen that looked startlingly like the GPS in Carly’s Honda. She narrowed her eyes at it, confused.
“Okay.” She drew the word out like a question, and Jackson pointed to the corner of the screen, continuing in that completely laid-back way that made the knots of tension in Carly’s shoulders moderate in spite of her unease.
“It uses sonar to show an image of what’s under the boat. It’s not an exact picture, like a photograph, but it gives you a really good idea of what’s down there based on the shape and density of things.” He pressed a couple of buttons, adjusting the screen to show her a series of colorful blobs.
“Those are fish?” she asked, incredulous. There were a jillion waves and colors on the screen! This lake was loaded with fish, right here at the dock. They had to be able to catch something from dry land . . . or at least dry dock boards.
Jackson chuckled, and it rippled through her without permission. “No.”
Carly pursed her mouth into a tight line. “Then why would you show it to me?”
“Because that’s the lake bottom. See? You can see the layers of what’s beneath the boat, all the way to the ground. It even measures how deep it is, right down to a tenth of a foot.”
He pointed to the numbers in the corner of the screen, and the grainy picture popped into relief in Carly’s mind. It really was the bottom of the lake, with a different color representing the varying thickness of what lay beneath them on the lake bed, and a dark, floating space for the water in between.
“So, I can look at this and see the bottom at any given time?” Her innate fear of being out in open water screeched at her that it didn’t matter, they could still sink like a stone, but her curiosity let the question out of her mouth anyway. Jackson wouldn’t drag her off in a boat that wasn’t structurally sound; plus, the lake wasn’t that big. They’d still be able to see land, even if they went pretty far out.
Jackson grinned, an unnervingly lopsided, endearing smile that lit up her belly with warmth. “Yup. And bass don’t like deep water, anyway. They stick pretty close to the shore, in the grass where it’s nice and cool. We’ll probably do most of our fishing in about ten feet of water.”
“Really?” Okay, ten feet wasn’t so bad. And she liked that close to the shore part. “If they like it so close to the shore, how come they don’t hang out here by the dock?” The stubborn part of her really wanted to get back on those boards so her feet could celebrate the solidity of dry land. But her curiosity kept her tethered to the middle of the boat.
“I told you, too loud. We have to go out around the far edge of the lake, into the eddies a bit to find quieter ground. Unless you want to stay here.” He shrugged, a gentle lift of his shoulders that told her he really would stay if she wanted to.
The sun shone down over the opaque water, thick green like sea glass, sending little sparkles of gold over the low waves. Carly felt a sudden reckless desire to stay on the boat, to look her fear in the face and tell it, “not today.” She slid a glance at Jackson, filling her lungs with air so fresh she could taste it on her tongue.
“Okay, Gilligan. But keep the Fish-o-Vision where I can see it. And make it quick, would you? Before I change my mind.”
Jackson maneuvered the Bayliner through one of the quieter eddies on the lake, happy to find it unoccupied by other fishermen, or anyone else for that matter. They had a good couple of hours before the tourists would come through and booger things up with pontoon boats and jet skis, making it all but impossible to catch anything. He killed the motor and reached down for his tackle box, propping it on the seat behind him.
“So does this thing have an anchor, or what?” Carly asked, still a little pale from the ride across the lake. All in all, for someone who was afraid of being on a boat but too stubborn to say so, she’d been a trooper, especially when he’d hit open water and had to crank up the speed to get them across the lake.
“Of course it has an anchor. But we’re not going to use it. Not until I’m sure this is where we want to stay, anyhow.” He pulled a lure out of the box, the metal hook on the end glinting in the morning sun, and reached low for one of the fishing poles he’d stowed in the storage compartment by his feet.
“We’re just going to float?” Carly sounded less than thrilled at the idea. Man, she didn’t like to give up control for anything, did she? He grinned and shook his head, threading the lure onto the monofilament and drawing it tight.
“Yup. We’ll be fine. Trust me.”
Carly paused, still sitting firmly in the very center of her seat. The water sloshed in quiet rhythm around the sides of the boat, a slight breeze keeping the temperature cool but pleasant. After a minute, when they hadn’t capsized or run aground or been swallowed alive by the Loch Ness Monster, she shrugged out of her hoodie and slid a few inches closer to the side of the vessel, peering over the edge.
“It is pretty nice out here.” She turned her face up to the sun, the cotton of her snug white T-shirt emphasizing her luscious curves in the bright light, and Jackson barely missed running his finger through with the barb at the end of the lure. Christ, Carly even made sitting still look hot. He needed to distract himself, otherwise he wasn’t going to escape with all ten digits intact.
“So, fishing,” he said, clearing his throat. “There’s not a whole lot to the actual process. Casting’s the hardest part, and I can do that for you.” Her lips curved down in an I-don’t-think-so frown, and Jackson recanted. “Or I can teach you how to do it.” He handed over the fishing pole he’d just baited.
“So how come you’re not using real worms?” She peered at the plastic lure on the end of the line.
“Don’t sound so disappointed. Different fish bite on different things. We’re going to try our luck with these first. If all else fails, there’s live bait in the cooler.”
Carly nodded. “Okay.”
Jackson’s libido gave him a healthy nudge and two thumbs up. Carly was definitely the only girl he’d ever met who hadn’t made a face at the mention of worms. Man, her boldness was sexy.
Her casting skills, however, were pretty abysmal.
“Well, you’ve, um, kind of got the right idea,” Jackson said the third time through. In truth, they were lucky no one had lost an eye or taken a
header into the lake, but he didn’t want to discourage her efforts. “You sure you don’t want me to start the first one out for you?”
Carly chewed her bottom lip, which sent his pulse into an absolute frenzy of oh-yeah. “Well, maybe just to start out,” she agreed, passing him her fishing pole.
He cast the line just short of a bank of reeds before returning it to her waiting hands. “Now just turn the reel slowly, like this.” Jackson reached around her petite frame with ease, covering her hands with his own and rolling the handle of the reel in a slow draw. “And if anything pulls back, holler.”
“I can do that.” Carly glanced up at him over her shoulder, her ear brushing against his chest as she turned her head. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” Reluctantly, he stepped back to bait his own line, standing next to her as he cast. The morning was nothing short of stunning, and after a while, Carly got the hang of casting well enough to manage with only a little help. They fished in comfortable quiet, lulled by the gentle sloshing of the water against the boat, and Carly’s face relaxed into a serene smile. Surely, there weren’t many things in life better than this.
“I’ll bet you don’t get this kind of quiet in New York.” He inhaled a deep breath of sunshine and mellow bliss. The handful of times he’d ventured into Philly, he’d made it all of six hours before the noise drove him bat-shit crazy. Carly’s languid expression disappeared, covered over by a stony façade, one that caught his full attention.
“No. You don’t.”
Jackson was silent for a minute that lapsed into several, casting and reeling in on a gradual draw before repeating the process once, then twice. “Still homesick,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but she answered him all the same.
“Yeah.” Carly stood, moving nothing but her gaze as she watched him cast, the monofilament whizzing in a tight, silence-slicing hiss over the boat. Her own line lay slack in the glassy lake, and after a minute, she slowly reeled it in.
A strange knot of tension squeezed Jackson’s ribcage like a legion of rubber bands, flexing around him and forcing him to ask the question rambling around in his mind. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what’s keeping you here? I mean, if you miss it that much, why don’t you go back?”
Carly’s laugh was a hard, humorless burst. “Go back to what? An ex who’ll stop at nothing to use me to further his career? Or maybe a rumor mill that sees me as second-rate in spite of all my hard work? And don’t even get me started about my mother.” She raised her chin in a defiant jerk. “Everybody keeps saying I should go back, but they don’t understand. I don’t have anything I can go back to.”
He swept a long glance over her, the tranquil beauty of their surroundings so at odds with the sadness on her face.
“You feel like airing it out?”
Ahhh, stupid question. Carly wasn’t one of those touchy-feely types. She was too tough for spilling her guts. He opened his mouth to tell her to forget it when he caught the strangest expression on her face.
“You know what? I think I do.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Let me make sure I’ve got this right. Your husband is emotionally blackmailing you to sign a contract for a TV show just so it will make him look good, and your mother wants you to reconcile with him to save your soul?” Jackson propped his sunglasses over the crown of his head to pin Carly with a shocked, sky-blue stare. It was the first thing he’d said in about twenty minutes, and she suddenly felt a lot lighter for having put the last seven months into words.
Even if those words had basically amounted to Jackson’s paraphrase.
“That about sums it up.” She moved her gaze back to the bottle-green water before sitting down in her seat and wrapping her arms around herself.
“So you see why I’m stuck? My mother has already called me four times, and that was just this week. We keep having the same conversation, over and over again,” Carly sighed. “I don’t blame her, necessarily. I think underneath it all, she only wants me to be happy. But Travis has her snowed just like he does everyone else. Despite any good intentions she might have, it’s impossible to get her to see my side of things.”
“That sounds familiar.” Jackson gave his reel a tight yank, and she wondered if maybe the line was tangled in the reeds.
“It does?”
He nodded. “My mother would be a lot happier if my life included some things that it doesn’t, too. I’m happy being who I am. But she doesn’t see my bigger picture the same way.”
“That’s a perfect way of putting it, actually,” Carly agreed. “Okay, yes, I’m a little homesick, but at least I have a job out here. I’m running my own kitchen, on my own terms. And the experience will make me that much better when I do go back to New York, so it’s worth it. I’ve just got to get through this crap with Travis first.”
A muscle ticked in Jackson’s jaw. “Yeah, he sounds like a real prize.”
“It sounds trite, but I was young and stupid. He charmed the hell out of me, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.” She paused, letting out a chagrined laugh as the unintentional pun registered.
“You get one bad fishing reference per day, so this time, I’ll let you slide,” Jackson drawled, resetting his lure with an easygoing smile. He turned to cast, the hypnotic whir of the fishing line sliding over the reel just as it had for the last half hour as she’d talked. It was oddly relaxing, and the just-right combination of sunshine and lakeside breeze on top of it seemed to reach down and pull the tension right from Carly’s shoulders. Which was nothing short of a miracle, considering the topic of conversation.
“So what now? I mean, your lawyer said you can still proceed with the divorce, right?” Jackson asked gently enough, but she still had to fight back a wince before answering.
“Yeah, that part’s pretty cut and dried. I filed on solid ground, and there are people who can corroborate Travis’s affair.” The word tasted bitter, like coffee that had been on the burner for way too long. “Sloane and I managed to knock about half the stuff off the list of things he wanted back. I’m convinced he already has some of the other stuff, but is claiming he doesn’t just to drag the whole thing out. At any rate, my lawyer filed the paperwork showing I complied in a timely manner, but there are no guarantees the judge will move to proceed. So for now, he’s getting what he wants.”
Frustration bubbled in Carly’s chest, pushing her thoughts right past her brain-to-mouth filter. “You know what sucks about it the most? I actually believed in marriage and happily ever after once. I thought Travis and I were going to take the culinary world by storm and live out our dreams, but instead I just got taken for a ride.”
“Better that you found out when you did, rather than further down the line,” Jackson said, but she shook her head in a tight swing.
“What would really be better is if I’d never believed in it in the first place.” Carly’s words echoed over the lake, sending a ripple of disquiet up her spine. God, she really was jaded. But if she’d never fallen for Travis’s empty promises she wouldn’t be in this mess.
Jackson reeled his fishing line all the way in, lifting it out of the water. Instead of recasting, he put the fishing pole down carefully and came to sit next to her on the bench seat across the back of the boat.
“Maybe. But you can’t change that now, so there’s really no point in worrying about it.”
Carly sighed, leaning against his sun-warmed frame slightly, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. The tough, land-on-your-feet part of her brain told her in no uncertain terms to end the embrace. If she wasn’t going to indulge in a pity party for herself, she sure as heck wasn’t going to let someone else throw one, either. But as she melted against Jackson’s body, absorbing the lull of the boat and the steady calm of his chest pressed to her side, she felt a smooth wave of comfort roll through her, filling up even the tiniest places.
And she didn’t want to let go.
“Easy for you to say,” Carly mumble
d into his T-shirt, nestling closer. “You’re not the one getting divorced from the world’s slickest egomaniac.”
Okay, she really needed to stop feeling so sorry for herself. She shifted, fully intending to let go and put her game face back on, but Jackson surprised her by holding her even closer. He leaned into the corner of the bench seat, pulling her back to his chest, and chuckled into her hair.
“Nope. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you out a little while you are.”
Carly’s insides tightened, flooding familiar heat down into the seam of her jeans. An image of Jackson, face passionate as he rolled his hips into hers, flooded through her mind.
“You are rather helpful,” she murmured, letting him brush his lips against hers in a slow stroke. Her body relaxed into the hard lines and angles of Jackson’s arms, and she went liquid as he kissed her thoroughly before pulling back to give her a sleepy, seductive smile.
“Just a little food for thought.”
In the end, although the idea of peeling every inch of clothing from Carly’s hot little body right there in broad daylight was enticing as hell, Jackson forced himself to pull away. As badly as he wanted her, getting caught in the altogether by some unsuspecting tourist family—or worse yet, the local Coast Guard—was just a bad plan. Plus, what she needed most was a shoulder to lean on. The rest of his anatomy would just have to wait. He commanded himself to overlook her slightly puffy lips, saying a silent prayer of thanks when she retwisted her sensually mussed hair into a tidy knot on top of her head.
“Hey, are you hungry? I brought lunch.” Carly brightened as she reached for the picnic basket he’d tucked away in the oversized storage console. His stomach burbled in interest, an audible rumble that made her laugh. Christ, he wanted to eat that sound instead of whatever she’d packed, just take it in and swallow it whole so he could have it inside of him.
Okay, right. He needed some sustenance, because clearly, he was losing his mind.
Gimme Some Sugar Page 19
