A Christmas Affair: A Seaside Cove Romance (Seaside Cove Romance Series Book 1) (2 page)

"I think he's coming," Molly said concentrating over the stranger's shoulder across the street. Light from the bar spilled on the freshly fallen snow, disappeared, then reappeared again. Molly saw Brian's distinct tall frame, and thought she saw another man walking behind him. She could not tell who followed Brian because suddenly the stranger pressed his body against the glass, and took up most of the window frame. She backed away from the door knowing a piece of glass would not keep them safe.

"Good evening sir," she heard Brian's voice muffled through the door, and Molly vowed to replace the too thin glass for a thicker piece as soon as possible. Molly reached under the counter for her winter jacket she stashed there this afternoon before the chill had completely set in.

"What are you doing Mols?" Rachel squeaked. "You aren't going out there are you?"

"Yes. Yes I am. What if I want to press charges?" Molly said digging around in the sea of scarves and hats for two that looked extra warm.

"You can't press charges on someone for smudging your window and looking creepy. You know Brian is just going to scare him off," but Rachel was wrapping herself up in her own scarf as she spoke. The two women approached the door, and after confirming the stranger was a few feet away with Brian, Molly threw the door open. The icy blast stung her still bare hands as she worked the red mittens on.

"Brian! Thank you for coming so fast and for bringing-" she looked at the other man and froze as she saw Jack standing on the sidewalk right outside of her business. Standing there like he belonged there, on her side of the street. His jeans were tighter than she remembered him wearing, years had filled the once small frame into a muscular one, and her eyes trailed across his profiled butt. He dressed like a townie fisherman in his brown beanie that his dark messy hair peeked out from the bottom edges. He was clean shaven, and she realized she missed the goatee he kept in high school. His white t-shirt has the words Jack's Bar across the front with a ship wheel underneath. It was the same design she had seen him wear every time she saw him since he bought the bar. He was pulling his long sleeved green flannel tight against his abs and chest as he buttoned it. An image flashed by Molly's mind of Jack on his pull up bar he hung above his apartment window, only shorts on. She only peeked a few times. A day.

As Molly inspected his body as slow as she thought she could get away with, she was not surprised to feel the stirring within her soul caused by being so close to him. The few times he had been this nearby in the past few years, the feeling had been the same. Angry he had never forgiven her for her mistake, no matter how much the evidence had been stacked. The anger never lasted too long. No, it was always pushed aside quickly for pure fantasy, and the desire to run to him and run her hands up his strong hard arms.

She felt something sharp in her side, and realized Rachel was nudging her. Molly saw her friend's pointed look towards Jack and Brian. The men's focus was on the stranger, and Rachel's glare told Molly she should be paying attention, too.

"Can we give you a ride somewhere sir?" Brian asked.

"No, I'm just going to that Inn down there." The man swayed and his left knee buckled. He began to topple over but Jack caught him before he hit the ground, and helped him stand back up. "Thank you. As I was saying- I was walking back to the hotel and I spotted this store, and thought what a nice place to grab the old ball and chain a gift before I leave town."

The man, now standing on his own two feet, pointed at his wedding ring. Molly relaxed, but only a little. Just because a man was married, did not make him honest. As the man stared her down, she felt a strong urge to hide behind Jack, no matter how much he hated her.

"Alright, well, we're going to take you for a ride to the hotel anyway. And
then
tomorrow, after you've sobered up you can come back and buy what you want to buy," Brian pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Rachel. "I'll get him in the back, you're driving."

"Um," Rachel looked around as though he were talking to someone else she could not see. "Are you sure?"

"I've had a couple beers, can't drive the cruiser." Brian put a hand on Rachel's back. Molly had a pull inside of her between annoyance for her friend that she could not have the entirety of the man she loved, and joy for her friend for a public gesture. "The hotel is just a couple blocks away, no one will see."

Rachel nodded, looked pleased with herself as if she had just won some small trophy. Brian placed his hand on the stranger's back to guide him towards the cruiser, and Rachel followed.

"I'm sorry Brian made you come out here," Molly said to Jack, but did not take her eyes off the stranger.

"Brian didn't make me do anything," Jack said sounding defensive. The silence that came next was as thick as the frigid air. Molly searched for something more to say, and as she glanced across the street she remembered the Christmas beer lights.

"Did you get my Dickens flier?" Jack turned around and looked into her eyes for the first time that night, and if she was honest with herself, probably for the first time in years. His penetrating glare rode deep into her eyes, and she had to force herself to not look away from the emerald green. She cursed herself as her knees went weak. "The flier about what we can and can't decorate the outside of our store fronts with?"

"Yeah," he answered. Despite the freezing temperature, her body melted at the sound of his voice. Deep and raspy, he still had some of the Georgia accent he moved to town with all those years ago.

"Well, the only reason I'm asking, is because I saw the beer lights and the sign in your window and I just wasn't sure if you read it..."

"Jesus Molly, are you serious? Right now you want to talk about the lights?" Jack stared at her, brows furrowed. Molly searched for something to say, but her thoughts were interrupted by the stranger.

Before the trio was off the sidewalk, the man turned around and winked to Molly. "You sure you don't want to come back with me now? Keep a man nice and warm on his vacation."

Molly felt of a pit of fire in her chest at the fear the man caused in her and stepped back. As much as she kept telling herself the man was drunk and harmless, his gaze frightened her. Before she could open her mouth to speak, Jack stepped between them. She watched his fists clench at both sides, always the defender. He was easily twice the man's size in broadness, and his presence made her calm immediately. "Come on now man, let's get you in the warm car."

She wanted to slip her hand into his and pull him back to protect her. Instead, she squeezed her hands together instead as if she was ringing out a cloth. "Thank you Brian and Rachel." Then after forcing the name to her lips, "Jack."

He smiled at her, a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless, and her heart broke. With that smile he turned around and helped Brian escort the man to the back of the cruiser. As soon as his attention was diverted, she turned around and ran inside of her shop securely shutting the door and checking the lock three times. 

Molly leaned her head back against the door's glass and surveyed her winter wonderland. The joy she felt decorating created had been washed away with Molly's confused feelings. Bing Crosby crooned through the shop's speakers, and when the song was over she finally turned and looked outside. Brian's car was gone and so was Jack.

"Jack," she whispered, liking the way his name sounded on her lips. How had things gone so wrong?

She jumped as her phone began to vibrate and looked at the screen. "Jeremy, how are you babe?"

As her boyfriend began to speak, she forced herself to tune into the current conversation.
Stop thinking about Jack!
The guilt washed over her about the thoughts that had been running through her head about her ex-boyfriend.

"Molly! Are you even listening to me?" Jeremy demanded.

"I'm sorry, something just happened and it kind of spooked me-" Molly was interrupted.

"Okay, that's great babe. Look, I know I said I was taking some time off in December-"

"You aren't coming home anymore?" she asked, Jack suddenly far from her mind as she felt the desperation to see her boyfriend who she had not seen in two months.

"Shit, will you let me finish? Damn, always running your mouth, it's a wonder I can tell you anything," Jeremy started barking into the phone, and Molly felt herself shrink. Jeremy's promotion left him stressed and angry so often anymore. It was only for a little while, he promised. They were going to hire another person to split the workload, and then things would be back to normal. "
As I was saying
, I am still coming home, I just have to bring work with me. I'm going to be staying at my parents because there is no room at the crap, sorry,
craft
store for my setup. I'll have an office there."

"Okay, I understand," Molly said backing away from the window and taking her eyes off Jack's front door at last. Molly felt her voice crack as she walked upstairs talking to Jeremy. She tried to tell him about what had just happened with the man in her window.

"Babe, just put a curtain up." Jeremy laughed. "Look, I gotta go, they're waiting on me for this meeting."

He hung up right as Molly looked at her clock. A meeting at ten o'clock at night?

Jack tossed his flannel jacket on top of a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of his bedroom. The bar had closed almost an hour ago, and it was almost three in the morning. Luckily, it was a quiet night after the minor excitement. It was the first night of snow, and most men had been at home fixing things up for winter. Finding the snow chains, digging out the shovels, and checking engine fluid levels. It was exactly the kind of quiet Jack needed to process his feelings after talking to Molly that night.

Jack opened his bedroom curtains. They were thick and quilted. Designed to keep the cool inside in the summer and the freeze outside in the winter. His grandmother had made them for him when he was a little boy, and though the red fire engines had begun to fade from years of sunlight and washing, they still did the job.

He looked across Main Street to Molly's bedroom window. The curtains were closed, just as they had been every time he had walked the perimeter of her shop this evening. Every time he took out the trash, and he took it out more often than he needed to that evening, he looked outside for the drunk stranger. Something about the man bothered Jack, and while he was sure Molly would not accept his assistance, he wanted to check that things were okay with his own eyes. He hoped she was sleeping, and not lying in bed scared.

When the drunk man looked at Molly that way and made a step toward her, it was all Jack could do to not throw the man to the ground. No woman and should be spoken to like that, and Jack knew that better than anyone.

Jack thought about seeing Molly tonight, it was better than those glances from across the street. He pictured the way the moonlight streaked through her auburn hair, making it look as though it was made from the stars themselves. He felt a stirring in his pants as he thought of how she had forgotten to zip up her jacket. He could see all the curves of her body, the curves he had only seen from a distance for the past few years. His mind traveled all the way from her breasts that rounded out her t-shirt just right, all the way down to the way her jeans hugged her hips. She was curved in the way a woman should be- not like all those damn stick figures running around these days.

He wanted to grab her right then and there right before the stranger took a step toward her. Obsessing about those damn lights. She was the reason he had bought them, just to be on her mind a little. Years had changed a man, and he wanted a chance to show her that. But spending time with her? He did not know how to do that. Jack wanted Molly to come to him. He shook his head. What was he thinking? She was the reason he was getting into the brewery with a couple of old friends from his uncle's fishing boat. Well, one of the reasons. To get away from her. Buying some beer lights might get her frustrated and talking to him, but it was not going to make her fall in love with him again. That time had passed.

She had a boyfriend too, that dick Jeremy Hudson. She was not into the kind of man Jack was, he knew that. He was too old fashioned, too boring, and he had fucked up too bad at prom. Instead she wanted someone like Jeremy.

The asshole had been in Jack's bar a few times with some of his buddies and each time there was another problem. They were a smug bunch of rich guys, living off mommy and daddy's money most often. Or in the boyfriend's case, had been handed a position in some other town because of who his parents were.

Jack was still leaning against his window looking towards her apartment window when suddenly her curtains flew open. Jack hit the floor.
What are you doing man? Hiding like a teenage girl?

He sat up and leaned against his bed, feeling the old spring mattress dig into his back. Molly stood in her window in a red nightgown that was form fitting and ended just below her panty line. Illuminated by the light behind her, she cupped her face to look out the window and seemed to search the street below her. She looked over to his window, and his heart quickened, even though he knew she could not see him. He fought the urge to walk to the window and wave to her. No, in all honesty, he fought the urge to cross the street and take her to bed with him this instant.

Then, as fast as she had yanked the curtains open, she pulled them shut and was gone. He wanted to be in the same room with her. He wanted to caress her through the thin material of her nightgown. He wanted to feel her body tense as he kissed every square inch of her until she cried out his name. He closed his eyes and envisioned pulling her nightgown over her head and taking her to new heights. Jack had good dreams that night.