“Walter!”
Jane heard a loud smack, which she assumed was the phone being set down.
After standing up from her desk, Jane paced her living room. Her grandpa had high blood pressure as well as respiratory issues. When he got upset, both would usually flare up. In moments like these, Jane questioned her decision to live across the country. Who knew how much longer she’d have with the two most important people in her life? And she was wasting precious time by living thousands of miles away from them.
There was a rustling sound before her nana’s voice came back over the line. “Bunny? Are you still there?”
“I’m here, Nana!” Jane shouted over the line so she could be heard. Heavily weighed down by guilt, she wiped at the tears in her eyes. “Is Papa okay?”
“Oh, yes. He’s fine. He shouldn’t get so worked up over things. He’s just worried about how you will ever meet a man now that you live in the woods.”
Her grandparents had always been so supportive of her decisions. The only thing they ever nagged her about was settling down. They wanted her to have the quintessential American dream. Husband, two point five kids, and a white picket fence. They had started bringing it up in her early twenties, but since she’d moved to “the woods” and her thirtieth birthday was around the corner, they’d really upped their campaign for Jane to meet a “nice boy.”
The heartbreaking thing was they weren’t meddling. She could hear the worry and genuine concern for her well-being in their voices. Sadly, her relationship track record was bad. Really bad. So bad, in fact, that she only referred to her exes as Disasters #1 – 5. Thankfully, her grandparents only knew about Disaster #2 and Disaster #4. If they’d found out about 1, 3, or 5, they both might have had heart attacks.
When her grandpa started coughing again, she blurted out, “Actually, I’m seeing someone.”
As socially awkward as Jane was, she was an even worse liar. So when she heard the words come out of her mouth, she was just as surprised as her grandparents at her announcement.
“You are?!” her nana squealed. “Did you hear that, Walter? Our Janie bunny is seeing someone.”
“Of course I heard it. I’m not the one who’s deaf,” her grandpa said gruffly, but his tone was lighter after her false declaration—a.k.a. big, fat lie.
“Well, who is it? Not Michael?” her grandma asked.
“No, Nana. I told you Mike got married to Nikki, remember?”
Her grandparents might have been getting up in age, but both had memories like steel traps. Nana knew that Mike was married. She’d just had it in her mind that Jane would end up with her employer. Which had never been on the table. Not that Mike wasn’t a great catch. He was. But there had never been that zip, zap, zing she’d always heard her nana describe when she talked about seeing her grandpa for the first time. Jane wanted the zip, zap, zing.
“So, who is this mystery man you’re seeing?” her grandma asked with excitement bubbling up in her voice.
Sweat broke out on the back of Jane’s neck and her palms. Her heart raced, her mouth went dry, and her head started spinning. This was why she never lied. Because she wasn’t just horrible at it—it made her physically ill. Stepping to the front window that was open, she hoped some fresh air would help her lie-induced symptoms.
“Adam?!” Jane exclaimed in surprise as Adam Dorsey pulled down the garage door of the cabin—the vacant cabin—across the road. From her large picture window, she could clearly see the side of his chiseled face, not to mention the lines of his biceps, which were stretched thin from his T-shirt.
Zip. Zap. Zing.
“Adam! That’s a great name. A biblical name!” her nana exclaimed. “Walter, his name is Adam. Jane’s boyfriend is Adam.”
“No… I’m not… I mean…” Jane was stumbling over her words when the source of her stumbles turned to face her. Gulping, she dropped to the ground.
Turning so that her back was leaning against the wall below the picture window, she caught her reflection in the stove. Her green, masked reflection.
Mortified. That’s what she was. Now, her heart was racing, her palms were sweaty, she was lightheaded, and her mouth was dry, but it had nothing to do with the lie she’d told. The lie she’d inadvertently given a name to.
“All right, bunny. Well, your papa needs his medicine, so I’ll let you go. But we are both so happy that you finally met someone. Adam sounds amazing. You tell him I said so. Love you, bunny. Talk soon!” Her nana’s voice was filled with joy and happiness.
With that, the phone disconnected.
What had she just done? She’d lied to her grandparents; that’s what she’d done. Her mind was spinning. Okay, yes, she’d told a big whopper of a lie, but what was the harm, really? Her grandparents were happy. So they thought she was seeing someone. Someone named Adam. Technically, at the time she’d made that confession, she had been seeing someone named Adam. Sure, it was pretty much stalker-status through a window, but that was who she’d been looking at.
Jane walked back to her desk to shut her computer down before heading to her bathroom to wash the over-dried mask off her face. She knew she was making excuses for her behavior. But, honestly, if it made her grandparents happy to think she had a boyfriend, then the fact that she was now going to Hell for the lie she’d told them would be worth it.
Right?
Chapter 2
‡
Another yawn claimed Adam. He shouldn’t have been surprised that he was exhausted. He’d spent the few hours he could’ve slept trying to figure out if his mind had played tricks on him or not.
Last night, when he’d finished assembling his weight bench and row machine, he’d closed the garage door, and when he’d turned around, he’d noticed a shadow in the small cottage on the hill across the way from him. The shadow had looked exactly like Jane, the woman who worked with Mike and Nikki. The woman he’d seen several times around town. The woman whose golden-flecked eyes made him forget that he’d sworn off the opposite sex.
All night, he’d tossed and turned, the image of the figure standing in the window burned into the backs of his eyelids. Every time he’d closed his eyes to get some rest, he’d seen her. No matter how many times he’d rubbed them or shook his head, hoping the picture would erase like an Etch A Sketch, he’d had no such luck.
This morning, as his feet pounded over the dirt trail, he was still having a difficult time clearing his mind. The silhouetted impression was seared into his consciousness. Normally, mind-clearing was exactly what his morning runs did for him. They silenced his brain, which was always active. Always assessing. Always analyzing.
Before Adam had joined the Army, he hadn’t been particularly physically active. But, in boot camp, he had learned that physical exertion was better than any therapy. For him, at least. When he was pushing himself to the limit, whether it was running or rowing or lifting weights, his mind went from a raging storm to a calm sea. It was the one thing that worked. When he was a teenager, he’d been placed into foster care and misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The medications he’d been given hadn’t done what the doctors had claimed they would. He hadn’t been more focused or able to sleep—if anything, his symptoms had worsened.
After he’d enlisted, he’d stopped taking the medication and found the bliss that was training. He knew that most people didn’t look at it that way. The majority of people hated to exercise. But, for Adam, it was the only time he truly felt at peace.
Until this morning. His chest was tight and his legs were on fire as he finished his fifth mile in under thirty minutes, but his mind was still going a hundred miles a minute. It wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t blank. All he was thinking about was whether or not Jane did, in fact, live across the street from him. He’d chosen this property because it was located on a dead-end road that boasted only two residences—the cabin he was renting and the cottage on the hill opposite it—so he figured he wouldn’t be bothered much out there.
His realtor, Lauren Harrison—
who wasn’t only a realtor but also a TV celebrity who hosted Home Sweet Vacation Homes with her fiancé, Ben—had only told him that the tenant who lived across the way was quiet. That was it. He hadn’t thought to ask for more information. But, after having seen the silhouette, which had disappeared in the blink of an eye, he was wishing he’d asked a few questions.
As his feet pounded faster and faster on the worn path, he inhaled deeply and pushed his body to the limit. His legs burned with exertion, and the cool, crisp mountain air stung as it filled his restricted lungs. He used every ounce of energy he had to concentrate on running. Just running. Putting one leg in front of the other with greater and greater speed, climbing the hill and attempting to clear his mind.
It didn’t work.
Rounding the corner of the trail, he headed back down towards his new home. It had just been a shadow; to the untrained eye, there had been no way to tell if the dark figure was the woman that, since the first time he’d laid eyes on her three weeks and four days ago, he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind.
Jane Marshall.
He’d been shooting pool with his cousin at the bar, and the second his eyes had locked with her honeyed pools, which were surrounded by a thick blanket of dark lashes, he hadn’t been able to see anything but her.
She was all that existed. Time stood still. The rest of the world disappeared.
When Levi snapped his fingers in front of Adam’s face, breaking him out of the spell he’d fallen under, he had no way of explaining the phenomenon that had just happened to him. But he knew one indisputable fact: he needed to stay away from the amber-eyed, raven-haired beauty. Far away.
And he had. For the entire month that he’d been in Hope Falls, Adam managed to keep their contact to a bare minimum.
He avoided her at Sue Ann’s Café, where she was picking up lunch and stumbled into him. He pretended to have to take a call after he’d steadied her, but not before his body had memorized the feel of her soft curves against him and the touch of her satin skin beneath his fingers.
He avoided her at the bar every time he saw her there. He noticed she never had more than one drink. And not only did she never finish her first drink, she never actually drank it. Each time she’d been there, she allowed her friends to order her a drink, but to say she nursed it was overstating reality. She’d take one, maybe two sips the entire night.
He was almost successful at avoiding her at Levi’s wedding. Actually, he’d done just fine steering clear of her at the nuptials themselves—it was at the reception that he’d slipped up. That misstep ended up turning into a job offer, one he feared might cause him to lose his sanity since accepting the contract to look into the bugs plaguing the tutoring app Mike and Nikki had developed meant he would be working, potentially closely, with none other than the woman who was plaguing his mind for the last month.
Steadying his breaths, he slowed his pace as he came to the end of the trail that led into the dead end road his rental sat on. Looking up, he squinted as the sun rose over the rugged terrain of the Sierra Nevadas. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he stared up at the cottage-style cabin across the street. His eyes scanned the exterior, looking for any clue that would help him solve the riddle of whether or not he’d had a Geto Boys moment and his mind was playing tricks on him.
As the dawning sun ushered the new day in, the unwavering certainty he’d felt last night was slipping away. Shaking his head, he let out an audible sigh as he realized he’d been obsessing over nothing.
What were the chances that the one woman he’d been trying to avoid was now not only his coworker, but his neighbor as well? Hope Falls might be a small town, but it wasn’t that small.
Starting up the driveway, Adam couldn’t help but find the amount of time he’d wasted indulging his overactive imagination amusing. He was no psychologist, but his behavior did have him wondering if his refusal to deal with his ex had anything to do with his current state of mind. Like maybe his preoccupation with Jane was merely his subconscious attempting to distract himself from Alexis.
If that was the case, he might need to pick up the phone and get some closure. He still had a couple of hours before he was due at the office. He’d planned on using that time to unpack and give the kitchen some much needed TLC. He loved to cook, and that wouldn’t be happening in his kitchen’s current state. But now, he was thinking his time might be better served by doing some internal housecleaning rather than external.
He strode with determination and had almost reached his front door when he heard the sound of an automatic garage door opening. On instinct, he turned around. When he saw a white Prius backing down the driveway, he didn’t have to see the driver to know that his late-night vision hadn’t been his mind playing tricks on him at all. Nine out of ten people in Hope Falls drove trucks, SUVs, or Jeeps. There were some exceptions, of course.
But he only knew one person who drove a white Prius.
Jane Marshall.
The car’s back tires rolled onto the road and he got a glimpse of her shiny, dark hair and angelic profile. As if she sensed his eyes on her, Jane’s head lifted and her stare locked on his. He stood still, mesmerized by the sight of her. Even though they were looking at each other through the glass of the passenger side window, the moment somehow felt intimate.
His arm moved up of its own accord, and before he had the conscious thought to do so, he waved at her. Awkwardly. As soon as his brain caught up to what his body was doing, he lowered his hand. But not before he saw Jane’s light brown eyes widen as a blush crept up her angelic cheeks.
After a tiny wave of acknowledgement and a small grin, Jane faced forward and drove down the street. Adam watched as her car disappeared around the corner. Seeing that Jane was, indeed, his neighbor made him aware of several things at once.
First, his gut instinct had been proven right once again. Since things had gone sideways with Alexis, he’d been hesitant to trust himself.
Second, not only was he going to be working side by side with the only woman who had tempted him in years, he was going to be living side by side with her. Or was it face-to-face? He wasn’t sure.
Third, the thirty or so seconds their eyes had met had made his heart pound harder and faster than it had the entire time he’d been punishing his body with the vigorous six-mile run he’d just done.
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Chapter 3
‡
Everything’s fine. There’s no reason to panic, Jane assured herself as she tried to steady her shaking hands, which were gripping the steering wheel like her life depended on it.
During the time she’d spent as the right-hand man—or, in her case, woman—to a high-profile politician, Jane had learned a few tricks to deal with stressful, overwhelming circumstances. The first was to remain calm. Check—or semi check for effort, at least. The second was to rationally list the events or issues at hand. Sometimes, facing an issue head on made it a little less scary. It took some of its power away.
So, while turning onto Main Street, she began doing a mental run-through of her current predicament with as little drama as possible.
Okay, a very uncomfortable interaction had just occurred. Sure, Adam had seen her with no makeup on. Yes, he now knew that she lived across the street. True, she’d ogled him like a sailor stepping on dry land for the first time in months, smack-dab in the middle of a strip club. But it wasn’t like she meant to have an Adam sighting at five thirty in the morning, especially one in which he was wearing sweats and a damp T-shirt that clung to him like a second skin. A mouthwatering, chiseled skin.
Holy. Hotness. Batman!
Before this morning, Jane had given zero thought to Adam’s attire. She’d seen him in jeans and shirts that were either button-up or cotton. She’d seen him in a suit and tie at Levi and Shelby’s wedding. He was definitely one of those sexy guys who wore clothes well.
If someone would’ve asked her before this morning if Adam had a nice body,
she probably would’ve blushed and admitted that, yes, she thought he did. His frame appeared to be athletic. And the couple of times she’d been lucky enough to witness him shooting pool at JT’s Roadhouse in a short-sleeved shirt, she noted that he had quite the muscled biceps.
But seeing the sweat-drenched, light-grey, cotton material he was wearing this morning had given her an entirely different—and much more accurate—assessment of Adam’s form. His broad shoulders were capped with rounded muscles she’d only seen on athletes at the events she’d had to attend as part of her job. His wide chest looked like it had been carved from stone. And while those things were incredible, the real showstopper was located south of his pecs.
Umm…I mean…not that far south! she mentally stuttered.
Jane flushed with embarrassment at even the thought of his very southern region. She might not have had a point of reference, but somehow, she was sure that that was a showstopper as well. But she digressed. No, she was thinking of his abs. Even though they were covered with a grey shirt, it was easy to make out the lines of his six-pack. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if Adam had a twelve-pack.
How could one man be that sexy and that smart?
Jane’s mind was still spinning like a top on a marble counter when she pulled into her designated parking spot at work and heard her phone buzz a text message alert.
It was probably someone from the East Coast. Sometimes in business, people weren’t exactly sensitive to the three-hour time difference. Especially if they felt like something desperately needed her attention or response. “Emergencies” in politics—and, she was learning, in business in general—was a relative term open to interpretation.
When she saw who the sender was, her stomach tightened. She’d just had her weekly check-in with her grandparents a few hours ago. After she’d clicked on the message and read it, her heart dropped and she felt as deflated as a balloon that’d been pricked with a needle.
Secret Kiss Page 2
