The Way Back (11 page)

She wasn’t going to say anything. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right.

He leaned forward. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t want me to move closer. That you don’t want me to reach my hand around your neck and pull you into me so I can kiss you.”

Jamison Hunter wanted to kiss her.

She wanted to kiss Jamison Hunter.

And the problem was…?

“What if I’m not big enough for you?” It shouldn’t have been a question, she thought. It should have been a statement, because it was true. Gabriella Haines was not
big
enough for Jamison Hunter. Not even close.

He scooted along the bench seat until their thighs were touching. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her more tightly against him. Then he leaned back and looked out the windshield into the blackness. His relaxation made her relax by default. Not all of the tension dissipated—there was still plenty of the sexual kind—but the awkwardness from dinner was finally behind them. It felt as though they were starting again at a drive-in theater, watching a movie, and it was the moment when the screen went blank right before all the action began.

“You’re big enough, Gabby. In fact I don’t think you
know
how truly big you are. I think a few things in life might have kicked your confidence a little. But I bet if you go back in time, before the moment when it all started to turn on you, I bet you were a knower, too.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and thought about when she was six years old and told her mother while they were watching the
TODAY Show
how she was going to be the co-host someday.

“You weren’t supposed to be this person. You weren’t supposed to be a good man,” she muttered, burrowing a little deeper into him so she could smell his soap. Something piney and manly.

“Sorry. I know you came looking for an asshole. If it makes you feel any better, there are a lot of days when I can oblige you.”

She lifted her head. “I came looking for a legend. I didn’t think you would really end up being one.”

“No legend. Just a man who knows himself. The good, the bad and the ugly.”

The ugly. It was always there, Gabby thought. In the corner of her mind. The ever present reminder of his sins against women. The danger of allowing herself to get too close. It was there even now as she considered the shape of his lips. This close to him, she could see where he missed the smallest spot on his neck while shaving and she wanted to kiss that spot. She wanted to press her lips to his neck and then maybe bite him just hard enough to leave a mark. A mark on the
man,
not the legend.

She took a deep breath, maybe the deepest of her life. “You were right. I do want you. Take me to your place.”

She could feel his body tighten next to hers, feel the muscles harden and shift like an animal preparing to pounce.

“Nah. Not tonight.”

“But you said—”

“And I meant it. I want you. A lot. But you don’t trust me yet.”

She was never going to trust him. She knew it, but she didn’t want to tell him.

“Besides, this is our first date. I don’t want you to think I’m easy. And I’m sure you don’t want me to think that about you.”

Gabby shrugged. Easy was not a label she had to worry about.

He lifted her chin and made her look at him. He was smiling as though he’d won a small victory, but the muscle in his cheek was twitching as though he was holding himself back.

“Can I kiss you?”

She nodded, oddly pleased he asked her first.

She felt his lips and thought how nice it was to be kissing someone. She’d almost forgotten it all. The rush of heat through her body, the pulse of her heart as it kicked in to a different speed.

He pressed harder and she sighed, liking the way he encouraged her to open her mouth and offer him welcome inside. Slowly, softly until she thought she might scream he teased her with this lips and tongue until finally she felt him penetrate her mouth. Her stomach tightened and she could feel herself go wet. She thought
sex.

Heat and gooeyness. Tension and pressure. Urgency. It all felt so raw and at the same time it was like meeting up with a friend who she hadn’t seen in years. The patterns and rhythms came back and she was once more in tune with her body and, most of all, in tune with him.

She pushed her tongue into his mouth and heard him catch his breath. She felt the tension of his body where it touched hers. His kiss was sweet and seductive but most of all it was sincere.

The sincerity disturbed her and pulled her out of the moment. A man who cheated couldn’t be sincere. It had to be part of the act, part of the seduction he’d promised. As if he could sense her pulling away, he stopped the kiss, running his thumb along her wet swollen bottom lip as if to make sure it was good and covered with his taste.

“Goodnight, Gabby. Sleep well.”

She puffed out a breath and reined her body under her control. This had not been a good idea. This thing between them was going to a place she was fairly certain was out of her control.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen,” she admitted.

“Then think of me. And do sinful things to your body you think I might like to do.”

She turned to him surprised to hear such naughty language from a man who had kissed her the way she’d always imagined Lancelot might kiss Guinevere. Then he wiggled his eyebrows like the dirty man he apparently was and made her smile.

“Jamison Hunter, you are a pervert.”

“Gabby Haines, all I can tell you is I’m going to have some pretty rocking dreams tonight.”

She got out of his truck shaking her head, but she was also smiling. She climbed the stairs up to her room and when she closed the door behind her, the goofy grin was still in place.

“Damn,” she whispered to a dark empty room. “I’m in serious trouble.”

CHAPTER TEN

W
HY
THE
HELL
hadn’t he taken her up on her offer?

Jamie sat in his kitchen the following morning brooding. As he sipped his coffee and considered his foul mood, he thought of a hundred other endings that could have happened last night instead of the one that did.

Hell, she’d offered!

Take me to your place.

He could have brought her here. They could have messed up the sheets three, maybe four, times over and then he would have gotten whatever it was about her out of his system.

But
no!
He wanted something as ridiculous as her trust, which, in the cold light of day, he was fairly certain he would never have. Not entirely because of what he’d done in his past, but because of how she’d been treated by the men in her life. He was the last person she could ever consider giving her heart to and so here he sat trying to convince himself he didn’t want it.

Just her body.

The facts didn’t really bear out that assertion. He’d treated her as someone who was important to him. Not a one-night or two-night stand. Not an easy screw he would forget about in a few days’ time after she left the island.

He’d been horny and irritated with himself all night. Instead of riding her hard until dawn, he’d gone for a late-night run on the beach and when he got back to the house he was still as tense as hell.

A cold shower, a hand job, then a glass of Scotch had finally put him down for the count where he’d done nothing but dream about her.

Freaking dreaming about her. When he could have had her.

He was an idiot.

The doorbell rang and startled him. He really missed Shep’s advance warning. He heard the door open and knew only one person wouldn’t bother to wait for him to answer the door.

“Jamie.”

“I’m in the kitchen,” he called out.

Zhanna walked in and surveyed the room. She spotted the still half filled carafe of coffee and went to the cabinet where the cups were kept. At one point he’d offered to let her move in with him, but she had declined. In some ways he was glad, since he didn’t know how he would adjust to living with a woman again after so long. In other ways he thought how nice it was to have someone else in the world know where you kept your coffee cups.

With Zhanna he supposed he got the best of both worlds.

“I’m having hard day,” she announced as she sat across from him and dumped teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar into her coffee until it was more hot sweet water than coffee.

“Join the club.”

“I need to ask you something and I need you to be honest.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think it is a good idea to have sex with Tom?”

Jamie groaned a little. “Zee, I do not want to talk about guys with you.”

“Why not?”

“It’s weird. Do you want me to talk about why I didn’t have sex with Gabby last night?”

Zhanna winced and Jamie knew she understood.

“We’re two grown adults and we are friends,” Zhanna said, pointing out the obvious. “We should be able to talk about our problems without it being weird.”

Jamie snorted. “That’s nice in fantasy grown-up land. In real grown-up land things are weird and awkward all the time.”

“But I don’t know what to do. He gave me kitten. He has nice smile. I think— I think I like him.”

Jamie couldn’t comment on Tom’s smile, but he knew him to be an okay guy both professionally and socially. And he’d been honest about Shep when he started to see his condition deteriorating. He didn’t try to push Jamie into any decisions, instead let him make the call. He figured Zhanna could date guys way worse than Tom.

“So what’s the problem. Why not go out with him?”

She gave him a shuddered look and he was reminded that, while they’d grown close in the time they had known each other, there were still parts of their lives they kept separate. Like the bulk of her past.

“You asked my advice,” Jamie reminded her. “Here it is. Tom’s a good guy. You’re a great person. You should go out if he asks or, if you’re so inclined, ask him out yourself. Go have a nice time. Because you never know where things could lead.”

“That’s awful advice.”

“Only because you were hoping I would say something else. You want me to play bad cop and tell you to stay away from him?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not giving you an easy out. Besides, if I told you not to date him, you would probably only want to date him more.”

She made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a groan that Jamie didn’t know if it was a particular Russian sound or uniquely Zhanna.

“Okay, this was a big waste of time. We might as well talk about you. Why did you not have sex with Gabby last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up.”

“Only to creep you out.”

“Yes and that worked very well. But you sit there with your coffee and your brooding eyes and I know you are not happy. I thought you wanted a simple fling. You said two weeks and she’s gone.”

A simple fling? That’s what he told himself he wanted. He was attracted to her, he knew she was attracted to him. They each had their issues and none of it was going to change. Most importantly she wasn’t going to be here much longer. The two weeks were now down to one. Her boss would eventually pull the plug, especially once she realized there would be no biography. And Gabby would head to New York.

Then why hadn’t he done exactly what he planned to do and taken advantage of the situation?

It was the answer, one he was totally unwilling to share, that had him making broody eyes out the window.

“I like her,” Zhanna said as she sipped her sweet coffee.

That was interesting. He didn’t imagine Zhanna ever liking another woman he chose to be with. Her behavior to date sort of proved that. “Really? I have to say it doesn’t show.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t want to. But I think we are alike. And I like me.”

“Yes, you do.” He smiled. “So a kitten, huh? Are you going to keep it?”

“I did not want to, but it needs me desperately. I named her Mary and she sleeps on my feet and makes soft kitten noises.”

“Soft kitten noises are hard to resist.”

Only Zhanna looked angry about it. “I don’t like it when things get close to my heart. I get scared and I hate being scared more than I hate being sad.”

“You let me get close,” he reminded her.

“You, I had no choice. The kitten…no choice. Tom…a choice.”

“Don’t choose fear. Don’t let it win. You do, and you’ll regret so much.”

“You who are fearless then, you regret nothing?”

No, he didn’t regret
nothing.
But he promised himself he wouldn’t let those regrets rule his life. Thinking over the past few years, though, by committing himself to this solitary life, isn’t that what he’d done?

Damn Gabby. For making him want something more from her than a damn fling. For making him think about stuff he didn’t want to think about. And mostly for letting him know he wasn’t quite as fine with his life as he thought he was.

The answer was simple. He needed to find her now and take her up on her offer. He needed to have sex with her quickly, then let her go. Hell, he’d drive her onto the ferry and off the island himself.

He needed to get rid of her before he did something utterly stupid.

Like fall for her.

* * *

“L
ATE
NIGHT
?”

Gabby looked up as Susan entered the dining room to refill her morning coffee. They were the most civil words Susan had spoken to her since she’d been forced to take her back. And she was giving her seconds on coffee. Bonus.

Maybe Gabby was finally winning the woman over with her charm…and the fact that she didn’t require fresh towels every single day. She was perfectly fine with letting them dry and reusing them, which both helped the environment and spared the woman from daily laundry.

“Yes,” Gabby answered tentatively. She wasn’t sure how the protective mother bear would take to knowing she’d gone out to dinner with Jamie. No doubt Susan would think Gabby was trying to use her seductive wiles to get his story out of him.

Fat chance that would work given that she had offered herself up on a silver platter only to find out he wasn’t dying of hunger. Although his kiss had suggested hunger. It teased at hunger…until he pulled away. Or she pulled away. She wasn’t really sure who ended it first.

Just one of many things that kept her awake the whole night.

“You were out with Jamie. I know. So does the whole town if it matters to you.”

Swell.

“Not that you would have been able to keep a secret. Doug, the ferry boat captain, gave you away. Or maybe it was his first mate, Eli. Regardless, everyone knew you two were headed to the mainland on a date. And if that didn’t do the trick sitting in Jamie’s truck outside the B and B didn’t exactly scream discretion.”

“It was just one date.”

Susan sat across from Gabby and Gabby braced herself for what the woman was going to say. Rather than wait, she decided to head her off at the pass.

“Look, I know you don’t approve. You probably think I’m a slut in a chubby woman’s body bent on seducing him for my own nefarious purposes. But trust me, Jamie is a grown man and can take care of himself. I’m fairly certain he can withstand the charms of little ole me.”

He did withstand her charms. Then he kissed her and made it all better.

Blasted man.

Susan sighed. “You know, this time I don’t think I’m worried about him. I think I’m worried about you.”

There was an interesting statement. Gabby wondered if finally someone on this island was going to cop to the fact that Jamie wasn’t the greatest man on the planet.

He was flawed. Seriously flawed.

“Because he cheats on women?”

Susan nearly growled. “No. What happened between him and his wife is something you and I are never going to know about in full. But I can tell you this, whatever happened between them broke him in a fundamental way. The man who came to this island looking for sanctuary was devastated and more than a little emotionally closed off. After time he came to trust us. Mostly because we needed him so desperately, each in our own way, and because of his nature he was always there to help. But in all this time he’s never gone so far as to have a real relationship with someone. Yes, women have come and gone. Never for long, and never in a way that changes his habits or thoughts on the possibility of getting married again.”

“Not even Zhanna?”

“His relationship with Zhanna is different. If you see them together you’ll see they’re still guarded with one another. On his side and hers, too.”

Gabby shook her head not even knowing why she was asking questions. She wasn’t going to have a real relationship with Jamie. Any day now, her editor was going to call and ask for a status update and Gabby was going to have to come clean. There was no book. No story. No special connection with Jamie.

She was going to be fired. Again. And, unlike the last incident, this time she would deserve to be. She wasn’t doing her job and she didn’t have the publisher’s best interests in mind. Losing the job would mean she’d probably have to move in with her mother for a while so she could regroup and think of a new, new profession. A new, new life.

Really, the smartest thing to do right now would be to go upstairs, pack her stuff and head to Philadelphia before things got awkward or embarrassing. For her, for Jamie, for her boss.

Instead, Gabby continued to sip her coffee as she sorted what Susan was saying in a logical pattern. “You’re worried about me dating Jamie because you think he might hurt me because he’s never opened up to a woman since his divorce.”

“That’s about right.”

“What makes you think I would open up to him?”

Susan smiled in a way that reminded Gabby of her mother. An expression that said people her age knew more about everything in general.

“Honey, you are a walking heart, waiting for someone to love. Now, maybe you think you’re protecting it. But I think, deep down inside, you want to hand it over to someone. The right someone.”

“I am not,” Gabby snapped. “I am closed, guarded and overly self-protective. I don’t want to give my heart to anyone. I also don’t particularly want it stolen.” Which she was in danger of letting happen.

Susan shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think so. Maybe you’ve closeted yourself away from the world to protect yourself, but you don’t have the kind of walls I’ve seen in other people. There is nothing hard or brittle about you. You’ll fall in love with him. Don’t be too upset, dear, most of us already have. I just worry that he can give you what you need.”

The piercing fear that Gabby might have already started her descent into a pit of emotions over Jamie made her feel nauseous. “I’m not going to fall in love with Jamison Hunter.”

“Okay. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The woman picked up the carafe and turned to leave but Gabby had to ask one more question. “Susan, what did he do for you? You said you all needed him each in your own way. Why?”

Gabby could see the hesitation in the woman. Whatever it was she certainly didn’t want to talk about it and Gabby was about to let her off the hook, when she put the pot on the table and once again took the seat across from Gabby.

Slowly and deliberately, like a person getting ready to do an interview on camera who didn’t want to make any odd movements, Susan crossed her legs and linked her hands together. It all added to the solemnity of what she was about to say.

Gabby almost didn’t want to hear it. Except she was riveted to her chair. In an instinctive move she reached across the table and put her hand on top of the woman’s hands. Susan pulled one hand away, patted Gabby’s and smiled.

“See, no walls for you. You don’t keep people out. You let them in.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind telling it now. I told you the story of my ex-husband George. How he left me.”

Yes, Gabby remembered how easily the woman told the story, too. As though they were two casual friends who had decided to go their separate ways with no hard feelings. How stupid Gabby was to think that could have been even remotely true. Divorce always left scars.