Jack (The Family Simon Book 2) (15 page)

He took another look. Yep. Damn good.

Too damn good.

“And yes I made some French toast, but I burnt more than I was able to save and even then, well.” She threw up her hands. “I have no idea why it’s so darn hard to make food. God, my grams used to make the best biscuits ever and her pie crust? To die for. I have no idea why those particular talents weren’t passed along to me.”

Jack glanced at the pan. He needed grease and he needed it now.

“Have you eaten?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I was trying to get the stupid pan clean so that I could take another stab at it.”

“I’ll make us eggs.”

“But…I wanted to…I was going to try to…”

“Do we want to starve or eat?”

“Eat,” she grumbled.
“Make me a cup of coffee, and I’ll get some food into you.”

Jack got busy making a couple of omelets. He was the king of eggs and had always found cooking to be a stress reliever. Right now, he only wanted to think about food. He didn’t want to dwell on Brett and a future that was never gonna happen. Didn’t want to think about a guy who’d been robbed. He didn’t want to think about Sabrina and the kids alone.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to think about Donovan and their own unique situation. Fucking life. It was always throwing curveballs and not all of them were strikes.

Once he was done, he set a plate down in front of her while she pushed a mug of coffee his way. They ate in silence, and right now it was what he needed. Silence.

His eyes fell on Donovan.

He watched her pick the green peppers out of her omelet and push them to the corner of her plate. Hell, that was a memory he’d forgotten. Donnie didn’t like green. She hated peppers, broccoli, and peas.

An image of Donovan wearing nothing but one of his old Harvard T-shirts, leaning against the counter in his beach house as she picked all the greens off a piece of pizza floated in front of him.

“So your friends seem real nice.”

Image gone, he nodded but didn’t answer, hating the way he felt. Pissed off at the way the world looked today.

“And Brett. Have you known him for a long time? I don’t recall meeting him when we were…well, before.”

He nodded again.

“Is that a yes or a no?” she asked, but the softness had fled her voice.

He glanced up at her, voice gruff. “I’ve known Brett ever since I’ve been coming up here.”

She was picking at her eggs, moving the green peppers around. “But you didn’t know he was sick.”

That anger that had been curling in his gut for days exploded and he shoved his plate away. “No, Donnie. I had no idea the guy was as sick as he is. Can we talk about something else?”

Mouth pursed, she ate a bit of her omelet and was quiet for a few moments. But this was Donovan and the woman found it hard to stay quiet for longer than two minutes, something he’d conveniently forgot, it seemed. “So are we heading out in the boat?”

Eyes narrowed, he looked at her sharply. She was kidding right? “I’m taking the kids out on the tube.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“No,” he said abruptly, anger barely in check. He got to his feet. “You can come along for a boat ride, but you’re not gonna bump along the water riding an inner tube as if it was a goddamn horse. No way.”

Donovan got to her feet and pushed her near empty plate his way. “If I want to go tubing, I’ll darn well go tubing.”

“Not on my watch.” Was she crazy? The woman could be pregnant and she wanted to go tubing? Wasn’t that against some kind of pregnant woman rule?

Her eyes flashed and damn but that pain in his head wasn’t going away anytime soon.

“Did you not listen to anything I said last night?” she snapped.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He grabbed their plates and dumped them into the sink.

“What am I talking about?” Her voice rose as did the color in her cheeks. Breathing hard, she glared at him. “Can you please put a shirt on? You don’t need to walk around half naked all the time.” She tossed his T-shirt at him and he barely had time to catch it.

He was gonna blow. He could feel it coming. With his T-shirt in hand, he watched her, more angry than he could remember feeling in a long time. And that was saying something, considering the last few days hadn’t been exactly peaceful.

“You’re not tubing,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I am, Mr. Simon, and you better pay attention to my rules or I’m outta here. I wasn’t joking. In particular, rule number one.”

Okay. Jack had to take a moment because if he didn’t he was about to go ape shit. He felt like crap. He’d barely slept. And now Donovan wanted to argue with him about a tubing behind the boat?

He nailed her with a look that would make most men cringe. Except she didn’t cringe. In fact, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shiny and she looked like she was damn well enjoying herself.

“Fuck your rules,” he said, voice loud and angry. “If you think I’m going to let you bump around on a tube behind a boat you’re crazy.”

“Uncle Jack that’s a really bad word!”

They both turned to see Harry, Morgan, and Sabrina watching them from just inside the back door. Harry was grinning as if he’d just witnessed something incredibly entertaining. Morgan wasn’t exactly sure if she should giggle or be serious and Sabrina…well, Sabrina was looking at the two of them with new eyes.

“That’s a whole lot more than a fiver,” Harry continued, eyes full of glee as he poked his sister and whispered loud enough for the adults to hear. “Like two fivers at least.”

Jack’s temper was barely under control. “Sorry guys,” he managed to say, slipping his T-shirt over his head.

The kids were already in their swimsuits with their lifejackets in place. The smell of coconut filled his nostrils, and he noted that their skin was slick with sunscreen.

“We should have knocked,” Sabrina said, eyes curious as they moved to Donovan and then back to him. “I tried to keep them away, but they’ve been full of beans since they woke up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. “Who wants to head out on the boat?”

Harry and Morgan jumped up and down, their little faces alive with excitement. “Me! Me! Me!” They both shouted.

“Are you coming?” Morgan asked, her big eyes on Donovan.

Donovan shook her head and though Jack knew she was still pissed, she gave the girl a smile that would make anyone feel special.

“No darlin’. I’ll join y’all later. I’ve got some stuff to get done first before I can head down to the beach.” She emphasized
stuff
and gave Jack a
fuck you
look. He knew this wasn’t over and that he was just buying some time, but for the moment he was fine with that.

“Let’s go then,” Harry shouted, tugging on his mother’s arm and trying to push her toward the door.

“Are you sure?” Sabrina asked, her eyes on Donovan once more.

“We’re sure,” Jack replied, moving past Donovan and scooping his aviators from the kitchen counter. He slipped them over his eyes and pushed open the door. “You guys coming?”

It wasn’t a question he had to ask again. The kids ran out the door yelling all the way down to the dock, and Sabrina followed him out.

“How’s Brett this morning?” he asked, eyes on the kids as they galloped across the dock and disappeared into the boathouse.

“Tired,” Sabrina replied. “But good. He’ll be up for a fire tonight, but right now he’s resting. Nine is a late night for him, so last night was tough. He’s so glad you guys are here though. He’s been so closed off from anyone knowing how bad it is. It’s like if no one really knows, then it’s not real. You guys give him something positive to focus on, and right now anything positive is great. ”

Jack had gotten the entire story from his friend the night before. He knew that Brett’s cancer had spread to his pancreas, lungs and liver. His diagnosis was terminal. He’d opted out of further treatment so that he could spend what time he had left with Sabrina and the kids, without suffering the side effects of chemo or radiation.

Everything about the situation was all wrong, but life wasn’t always about being right. He thought of his brother, Tucker, and what he’d endured. Life wasn’t fair and it sure as hell had no rhyme or reason.

Harry and Morgan ran up and down the beach like a couple of crazies, while he and Sabrina worked to get the boat set up for tubing. He’d just filled the tank with gas when Sabrina sat on the edge and lifted an eyebrow.

“So, you wanna tell me what’s really going on with you and Donovan?”

“Nope.” He wasn’t in the mood to get into it with anyone.

“She pregnant?”

He glanced up sharply, setting the empty gas can down on the dock. For several moments, he held Sabrina’s gaze as the water gently lapped against the boat and then shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

Sabrina’s eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean that she might be.”

“You guys have heard of pregnancy tests right?”

At a loss for a few seconds, he didn’t answer right away because Jesus fuck, he’d not thought of that. “I…it just happened.”

Okay. Could he not feel any more like a goddamn freshman?

“Have you not heard of a pregnancy test? You can find out before you’ve even missed a period.”

Huh. How the hell had he missed that one? How the hell had Donovan not thrown that in his face?

“Maybe you’re not ready to know yet,” Sabrina said, getting up from her perch on the edge of the boat.

“It’s complicated,” he said slowly. Complicated was one hell of an understatement.

“I’m sure it is,” she replied. “Love is always complicated.”

“I don’t love her, and she sure as hell doesn’t love me,” he replied darkly. Love? That four letter word didn’t exist for them. Not anymore.

“Then why is she here?” Sabrina asked lightly.

Jack scowled and climbed into the boat. Sabrina had always had a way of seeing things, of picking apart a situation and getting it right. He couldn’t lie to her and dammit he needed to unload on someone.

“Grace set us up.”

“Grace?”

“Yes, she arranged it so that we were both in Belize last week, and things got out of hand. Wasn’t what either one of us wanted, but it happened. That I can deal with. But she’s hiding something from me and, call me crazy, but I want to know what the hell it is. I pretty much forced her to come here, which now that I think about it, might not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Sabrina climbed in and yelled to the kids to swim out to the tube. She sat beside Jack and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“Thing is, Jack,” Sabrina whispered as she kissed his cheek and smiled. “Donovan James doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman to just follow orders. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want to be. Trust me on that one.”

Jack glanced up at the house and slowly edged the boat out onto open water.

On one hand, Sabrina was right but on the other, she didn’t know the whole story. She didn’t know that Donovan was desperate to keep her little vacation with Jack a secret. It made no sense really. In a world where celebrity ruled, if the press found out that Donovan and Jack had hooked up, it would only enhance her profile that much more. What celebrity didn’t want that kind of exposure?

He sighed and watched the kids climb onto the tube, pushing the throttle forward slightly in order to get some tension on the rope. But his mind wasn’t on the boat or tubing. Why was he forcing the issue with Donovan? Why didn’t he just let the chips fall where they may and deal with the fallout when he knew the status of her pregnancy?

Why the hell did he care that she was hiding something from him? Caring indicated that his feelings weren’t ambivalent, and that didn’t bode well.

He thought of Brett and his gut tightened. Jack was out here on the water with Brett’s wife and children and damn, but that was wrong. Brett should be out here. He should be living his life. Growing old with the woman who loved him and watching his kids achieve all that they could achieve.

Life was too short. As clichéd as it sounded, those four words were bang on. Maybe it was time for Jack to move the hell on. Maybe it was time for him to cut Donovan loose.

Donovan spent most of the day on the front porch of the Simon home with her notebook, a bottle of water, and her guitar.

She’d like to say that it was because she was dedicated to her work—that the melodies in her head needed lyrics to go with them—but if she was being honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she was avoiding Jack. At first it was because she was still angry with him, but when her initial anger wore off, she was left feeling more confused than ever. Add a dose of fear and it had Donovan retreating, which was something she wasn’t used to.

She’d watched him take the kids out on the boat with Sabrina. Watched him bring them back in a few hours later.

She pretended to be hard at work when he was on the beach helping Morgan with her sandcastle. And when he played a game of toss football with Harry, she pulled her Gucci’s over her eyes so that she could watch them properly.

The kids loved him. That much was clear, and it was a bittersweet sort of feeling that settled inside her as she watched him serve them hotdogs for lunch and then take them back out on the water.

He had a way with kids. There was no denying that.

He deserved to have a family of his own.

And while she was being honest with herself, she may as well just face the fact that the thought of Jack and a whole pack of kids—their kids—made her crazy with want.

Jesus. She needed some sort of intervention. Since when did she fantasize about Jack and forever? He barely liked her and after the stunt she’d just pulled again, she didn’t blame him. Just because the sex was still good meant nothing. They would always have that. There was no rhyme or reason, it’s just the way it was. Their bodies fit well together.

There wasn’t anything wrong about having sex without love. Men did it all the time. Hell, women did too. She’d done it in the past when that particular itch needed scratching.