Once and Again (16 page)

“Here,” he said, handing her a partially filled trash bag. “If you hold it open, I’ll shove the leaves in.”

“All right,” she said, gripping the edges.

He grabbed a big pile of leaves and stuffed them in the bag.

Jake cleared his throat. “Maybe next weekend, I can fix that mailbox of yours. I noticed the other night that it’s tilting to the left.”

“That would be great,” Carolyn said, trying not to stare at the muscles of his forearms shifting above his work gloves. When he moved, so did his tattoos, creating a rippling effect that breathed life into the images, making them dance across his skin.

He stuffed some more leaves in the bag. They were almost done now. “You know,” Jake said, “you looked pretty adorable back there.”

She wasn’t prepared for this—for hints of the old Jake to resurface. This old, sweet, kind Jake was as foreign as the new, hard, tough Jake. It was safest to counter with humor. “Well, ‘what the cat dragged in’ isn’t one of my better looks, but thanks. Oh, wait, sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“You said before I wasn’t allowed to thank you.”

“Forget I said that,” Jake said, stuffing one last handful of leaves into the bag and pulling off his work gloves. “I was just being an asshole.”

Carolyn loosened her grip and the bag sagged in her hands. Jake glanced up. She wasn’t certain what she saw in his eyes, but it was a far cry from loathing. “Well then, thank you,” she said carefully. “What you’ve done for me has been more than generous.” She hoped he understood that she was talking not just about today, but everything he’d done since his return.

“You’re welcome.” Then he stood abruptly and turned to face the water, where two sailboats raced across the Sound. “You hungry?”

The Sherwood Diner in Westport, Connecticut, looked exactly the same as it did the last time Jake was here a decade ago. The old brick-and-wood building had aged well. They’d given the window frames a fresh coat of paint, but that was it. Inside, the restaurant was classic New England diner, with its wood-backed chairs, four-tops, and booths tucked along the sides of the rooms. The old paneling on the ceilings hadn’t been replaced, but it just added to the charm. Even the paper placemats with their illustrated depiction of the diner’s façade hadn’t changed. It was like stepping back in time.

The place was crowded—it was eleven on a Saturday, after all—but they only had to wait a few minutes and got a coveted booth near the back. The waitress dropped the menus on the table and left.

Jake knew what he wanted—same thing he always got when he was at the Sherwood. But Carolyn studied the large menu for a long time, right up until the waitress returned.

“You ready to order?” she asked.

He glanced at Carolyn.

“You go first,” she said.

“I’ll have two double-egg breakfast sandwiches with cheese,” he told the waitress.

Carolyn closed her menu. “And I’ll have the Western omelet, please.”

The waitress nodded, then went away again.

“You’ve never had a Western omelet before, have you?”

“It looked interesting,” she said with a shrug. Then she glanced around. “I like this place.”

Jake leaned back in the booth, stretching his legs out underneath the table, being careful not to hit Carolyn. “I spent way too many late nights here with my brother and our friends.”

“Oh? You used to come here as a kid?”

“When I could afford it. Joe would pay most of the time. He usually had more money than I did—at least until I started working at Briarwood when I was sixteen.”

“Tell me what else you did.”

“Stupid shit, really. If you hadn’t guessed, there’s not much to do around here if you’re in high school. I studied all week, but on the weekends after work, I’d pick up Joe from the shop where he worked with our dad. Then we’d go cruise around for a while, maybe hang out on the beach if it was warm enough, or by the tracks near the bridge.”

“The tracks?”

“Where all the bad boys hung out.”

“Oh? That sounds kind of naughty.”

“Most of the time it wasn’t. But sometimes it was.” He gave her a wicked grin, loving the way her cheeks turned a little pink. “Then sometime between midnight and one we’d end up here. It was open twenty-four hours a day, even back then. We’d laugh and talk and joke and stay out as long as we possibly could. Dad didn’t care what we did, anyway.”

“That is the exact opposite of my high school experience.”

“What did you do at your fancy private school? I’m dying to know.”

“Parties, clubs, that kind of stuff. I thought I was so worldly.” She gave a rueful laugh. “I didn’t even realize how sheltered I was until I met you.”

“You thought that hacking around Eastbridge was worldly?”

“Yes, in some strange way. It was real.
You
were real. My world, my
old
world, wasn’t. Everything and everyone I knew in Manhattan—including myself—was all glossy and perfect and wonderful and totally, utterly fake. And the really sad thing was, I couldn’t see that until it was gone. Anyway, I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that you had no artifice. You said what you meant, and you meant what you said.” She shook her head. “God, Jake, why didn’t we talk about this stuff fifteen years ago?”

“Because we were stupid kids and making out seemed more important?”

“I guess.” The corners of her lips turned down. “I just keep thinking about how naïve and selfish I was.”

He reached out his hand, and slowly, slowly, she slid her own across the table and took his. He wrapped his fingers around hers, which were warm and small. “Naïve, yes. But selfish?” Jake shook his head. “I can’t put that on you. You were still in high school. You had to do what you were told.”

“I just caved in to my parents’ demands—my dad’s demands, really. It’s my biggest regret.”

“We all cave to our parents, Caro. Me included.”

“Your dad?”

Jake nodded.

“Have you seen him since you’ve been back?” she asked.

“No.”

“You should,” Carolyn said. “Wounds have an awful way of festering when they’re left alone. You know that better than anyone.”

He was interrupted in responding by a giant plate of food sliding across the table.

“I have here the breakfast sandwiches,” the waitress said. “And the Western omelet.” That went down in front of Carolyn. “I’ll be back in a minute with your toast.”

Carolyn stared wide-eyed at her portion of eggs and home fries. “There’s toast coming, too? This is enormous. I can’t possibly eat it all.”

“I should’ve gotten an omelet. I always work up an appetite when I’m on-site.”

“Oh, so my house is a ‘site’ now?” she teased, lightening the mood.

“Was for me, this morning.”

“I should be honored—the well-known real estate developer Jake Gaffney helping out on-site, at my house, raking leaves and rebuilding my dock.”

“Hey, I’ve pounded my share of nails into two-by-fours in the fancy parts of town.” Every summer until he’d gotten work at Briarwood, he’d been forced to go on jobs with his dad. He’d mostly been bored out of his mind, but he’d learned a few things. Of course, Joe had learned more, but then again, he’d always had a different relationship with their dad than Jake had. Jake had liked the woodworking, but he’d liked the business side of things more—buying smart, managing supplies, coordinating the specialists so everyone lined up just right. “I’m just keeping my skills up. Besides, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”

“But you do mind splinters in your ass.”

It took awhile to register that she’d just gone there. And when he did, he laughed, long and loud. “Yeah,” he said, any lingering tension gone. “Now let’s eat.”

Jake fairly wolfed down his food, but he noticed Carolyn ate slowly, savoring each bite. She made it only halfway through her omelet, and barely touched her home fries and toast. Then she asked for a box to go. While they were waiting for the table to be cleared, Carolyn gave a nod at his plate.

“Are you going to eat your orange?”

He looked down at the little slice, still twisted in its peel. “Here,” he said, pushing his plate toward her.

“Thank you.” Delicately, she picked up the orange and ate it, tiny section by tiny section. Almost reluctantly it seemed, she finished the final section and put the curly peel down.

“I can get you another,” he said, amusement in his voice.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

When the to-go box, came she carefully packed up the rest of her food inside. Then she tried to swipe the check.

“No,” he said, waving her hand away. “I asked you.” Besides, he knew covering it would hit her a lot harder than it would him.

She got really quiet. “You don’t have to do this, Jake.”

“What? Buy you brunch?”

“Rescue me.”

He leaned back on the seat. “As far as I can tell, you’ve done a pretty good job rescuing yourself already.”

“I—” she started, then shut her mouth. “Thank you. Just—thank you.”

“Ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yes. I have an appointment at two I can’t miss.”

They pushed through the now considerable crowd waiting at the front door and walked out to the parking lot.

“Come on,” Jake said. “I’ll drive you home.”

“This place was good,” Carolyn said, following him to his truck. “Have you tried the other diner around here? The Athena, I think it’s called.”

Jake snorted. “That’s where the preps hang out. I mean, hung out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if they still do.”
Man,
one trip to Sherwood and it was like he was back in high school. “Old habits die hard, I guess. Like sometimes at Briarwood, I’ll be on the course talking to Link or Walt, and for a split second, I’ll zone out thinking I’m in caddy mode—what bag I have to pick up, or who my next client is. And two seconds later I’m back with it, but it’s a strange feeling. You get that?”

“Sometimes, yes. It happened to me the other day when I was walking Mimi Chaffee through an event she’s planning, and as we were talking, I realized she was standing in the exact same spot I stood a decade and a half ago. I even remembered what dress I was wearing. It was weird.” She paused. “I hope I’m not regressing.”

Jake unlocked the doors. “I definitely have a little since I got back.” He walked around and got in, and she did the same. “I’ve moved on. I know this. But someone will say something and I’ll be back to being a total jackass. The Board fight isn’t helping. Just brings out all the things I hated about Briarwood in the first place. I keep reminding myself that I bought the club not just for payback, but because that place made me who I am. I want to see it grow and thrive.”

“Honestly, I think Briarwood needed someone like you to come in and give it the kick it needed to get back on track. I’m not just saying that because I’m an employee. I’m saying it because I love Briarwood, too.” Carolyn looked out the window. “That summer I spent there with you was the best summer of my entire life, and if I had to do it all over again, I would. I don’t know how, but I would.”

“I would have, too. Fought harder, pushed harder. I don’t know. Something.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” she said, shaking her head. “Like you said, we were both kids.”

“We both need to get over it. Start again.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “You don’t even know me anymore.”

Jake shook his head. “Oh, I know you all right.”

“Hardly.”

That was a challenge if he ever heard one.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I know. You work all the time, partly because you have to and partly because you’re a perfectionist. I can’t get anyone at Briarwood to say a single negative thing about you. You’re strong and you’re proud. You don’t want charity. And you’re loyal. Anyone else would have skipped out on her family long ago, but you stayed. To a fault, in my opinion. You don’t complain about anything, not even having to work yourself to the bone or wearing your mom’s old clothes or selling your grandma’s pearls or those rolls you eat all the fucking time because you don’t have any other food. You just do it and keep your chin up. You drive a piece-of-shit car that needs a new muffler. You still do that thing where you bite your lip when I talk and you’re not sure exactly where I’m heading. You’re lonely.
God,
you’re lonely. And you’re still just as beautiful as you were at eighteen.” He stopped, wondering if he’d gone too far, and looked over at her.

She was staring at him from the passenger seat, frozen in place, violet eyes wide.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”

Her little tongue darted out to lick her lips, and when she spoke, her voice was throaty. “No. It’s okay. I—”

She was holding herself in check. He could tell by the way she was clenching her hands in tight little balls. He braced himself, waiting for her to bolt or scream or cry.

But she did something else entirely.

Before he realized what she intended, she took his head in her hands and kissed him, an open-mouthed kiss that blew him away with its realness. There was nothing tentative about it—she delved deep, her tongue sliding across his. She tasted like orange, and when she slid her hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer, and tugged on his lower lip with her teeth, he got hard, fast.

One of her hands slid down his torso, then came to rest on his thigh. He thought of taking her hand in his, placing it right where he wanted it most, but he held off. No way did he want to get arrested for public indecency in the parking lot of the Sherwood Diner. But she kept kissing him, driving him crazy with that mouth and those hands, one grasping his thigh hard, the other fisting his T-shirt like all hell would break loose if she let go.

Finally, just when he thought he was about to explode from wanting, she pulled back. Her cheeks were flushed, and a strand of hair was in her face. Gently, he pushed it behind her ear.

He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, now harder than ever.

“Caro—” he said. “What was that?”

She smiled and this time, it reached her eyes. “That was us, starting over.”

“Yeah,” he said, curling his fingers over her shoulder and drawing her closer for another kiss. She came willingly, leaning into him. “Just, yeah.”