All I Want Is You (20 page)

Jack sat down on the foot of her bed and met her pretty gaze. He peered into her eyes and wondered if there was anything he could do to make her believe in him again. “What if I opened up, too?” he asked her. “What if I told you everything I should have already told you? I'm not good at being open like you are. But . . . what if I try?”

He couldn't read her eyes, even as he looked deeply into them. Yet it was only then that he realized the skin around them was red and a little puffy, and that she'd been crying.

“I'm so sorry I hurt you, Christy,” he told her, feeling like the biggest clod alive. He shook his head. “I swear I never meant to. And maybe I've been selfish here, but I never meant to do that, either. Maybe I don't know . . . where the line is between selfishness and self-­preservation.”

“It's a thin one,” she admitted, sounding about as spent as he felt. And finally she added, “I appreciate what you're trying to do here, Jack. I know you're sorry and trying to make up for it. And you can tell me about the things you held back from me if you want to. But . . . I honestly don't know if it'll make a difference.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

And then he began to tell her. Everything.

Because it was his only shot, all he had to offer her at this point. And as hard as it would be to talk about some of this stuff, it would be worth it. Even if it didn't work. Because he had to try.

First he told her about his business. How he'd started it. The reasons why. How it let him do what he was good at without compromising who he was.

Which led to talking about his family, and how glad he was that he could help his parents out financially when they needed it. “I was thinking about my dad,” he told her, “when I was fishing with Charlie, Duke, and John at the pier—­thinking how much he'd have enjoyed it and that I wished he were there with us. I really need to make a point of doing things like that with him more often.”

“That's nice,” she said softly—­and he could feel that they weren't just words, that she really got what fishing with his dad meant to him. Even though he hadn't said all that much about it. “I like hearing about your parents, Jack. I wish you'd told me more about them before now.”

He nodded. She was right. It wouldn't have been so hard to share a little of his life with her, just things like that. “Me, too,” he confessed.

“And . . . the rest?” she prodded timidly.

“Yeah, the rest,” he said. And . . . hell, all those emotions from when he'd found out about Candy's affair came rushing back over him. But if he could tell anybody about that, if he could trust anyone with his feelings, it was Christy.

And so he told her. How he'd met Candy when she had a flat tire in the rain and he'd stopped to help her. And how it had seemed like a fairy tale romance . . . until suddenly it hadn't. “There was no warning,” he said. “It came out of nowhere. One day I was happy and thought I had a clear view of my life and my future—­and the next it was all blown to bits.”

He was glad the room was dim and shadowy. Because he didn't often let himself go to the places he was going right now. It was one thing to know it happened, but another to relive the memories and feel the pain all over again. And it was hard as hell to admit to himself or anyone else exactly what he'd felt in those days, and maybe for quite a while after.

“Candy was . . .” Hell, how could he explain it? “I thought we'd have kids together, and grandkids, that we'd grow old together. I trusted her completely. I loved her with my whole heart. And . . .” Maybe he should just shut up now, not tell her the rest, the parts that had wounded him the deepest.

But no—­no, he
had
to tell her. And maybe . . . maybe somehow it would even be good to get it off his chest. Because he'd never told
anyone
about this.

“After I found out, she said . . .” He stopped, swallowed past the hurt. “She said she'd never really known what love was until she hooked up with Scott, our neighbor. She told me she'd thought she loved me, but that she never really had—­that she'd just been blinded by the money, by the fact that I seemed like a good catch.” He caught his breath, remembering that moment. No, more than remembering—­living it all over again. His chest tightened.

But he went on, tried to do what he'd promised—­open himself up to her. “It ripped my guts out,” he told her. “It made me feel like . . . like I wasn't worth loving.” Aw hell. Had he really just said that? His throat threatened to close up at the confession.

And Christy said softly, “Oh Jack.”

And he knew he could shut up now—­he'd bared enough of his soul. But for some reason, he kept going. Maybe he wanted to purge it from himself now, every bit of it. “To top it off, after that I overheard her on the phone with a friend, saying she hoped she'd get a good settlement, because she was going to miss my money a lot more than she'd miss
me
.”

And—­shit—­now he was reliving
that
moment, too, the harsh reality and humiliation that everything he'd loved about their life together had truly been one-­sided. Maybe not always. Maybe not in the beginning. But to learn that his wife had honestly lost all affection for him and just considered him a bank account had decimated whatever had remained of his soul.

At some point, he'd dropped his gaze to the bedcovers, but then, without planning it, he lifted his glance to Christy's—­some uncontrollable urge to see her face, her reaction, if any—­and their gazes held. And her eyes looked glassy, wet. And he realized she was crying a little. For him.

“Come here,” she whispered.

And he murmured, “Huh?”—­but then she was reaching out, tugging him toward her, and he crawled up beside her in the bed, and her arms closed around him in a gesture not of passion, but simply of comfort.

And he thought how amazing she was—­that even now, when she was angry with him, hurt by him, that she would comfort him. Turned out she was even more selfless than he'd ever given her credit for.

He hugged her back, smelled the scent of the salty sea breeze from earlier lingering in her hair, on her skin. And it hit him that when he'd found out about Candy, there hadn't been anyone to provide that kind of support, to simply hug him. His parents had been on a trip out west at the time. And he had guy friends, but they didn't do that.

He whispered in her ear, “I wish I'd been there to hug you when your mom and dad died.”

And she embraced him a little harder in response, and he tightened his hold on her, too.

“I'm sorry I ever thought you were anything but perfect, honey,” he murmured near her ear. “Because you are. Absolutely perfect.”

And when he heard her sniffle, he knew she was crying a little more, and he wanted to take her tears away, kiss them away. It wasn't so much a decision as an impulse that led his mouth to her cheek. And even as he kissed her, his heart broke a little more—­over Christy's loss, and over what
he'd
lost by not being honest with her.

He delivered another inelegant kiss high on her sun-­pinkened cheek, then leaned his forehead against her temple. He could feel her breathing—­and began to hear it, as well, gentle yet a little ragged. Everything inside him hurt for her, and for him, too—­and he just ached to get back to normal.

And he was trying not to kiss her, but then his mouth found its way to her cheek once more. And then to her mouth.

Christy knew she couldn't kiss him back. She couldn't. Because it would be madness.

And yet her body and soul yearned for him. And despite what all the logic and reason inside her was saying, she couldn't resist returning his hot, tender kiss.

It was agonizing and sweet at the same time. Pleasure and pain. Because she kept trying to stop and simply couldn't. They were slow, deep kisses that came from her soul and threatened to swallow her.

She suffered a familiar fire between her thighs, in her breasts—­and the kisses went from being desperate to wild and hedonistic. Complete surrender. Because it felt so good.
He
felt so good. And letting herself go with him had become all too easy.
Dangerously
easy, it turned out.

Yet when Jack's hand rose to her breast and the thick pleasure shot through her and a hot moan rose from her throat—­she realized she truly couldn't. No matter what her body craved. No matter what her heart wanted.

It was possibly the hardest thing she'd ever done to press her palms to his chest and push him away. “No, Jack—­no. We can't,” she said raggedly.

“Why not?” he asked, breath labored, his grip tightening on her, tempting her. “I love you, Christy. And I'm sorry.”

Her heart contracted at the words. And also at the truth they didn't change. “Because . . . even if we love each other, it doesn't make me suddenly able to trust you again. It's . . . it's kind of like breaking a plate,” she said, trying to explain.

He looked understandably confused. “Huh?”

“If you drop a plate,” she explained sadly, “it shatters into bits. And no matter how sorry you are . . . it's still broken.”

 

. . . she made up her mind to go on:

“for I certainly won't go back,”

she thought to herself.

Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass

Chapter 19

S
LEEPING IN
separate beds that were side by side was awkward. Waking up the next morning was even more so. And Christy felt bad when she saw the sorrow and uncertainty in Jack's eyes, but now
she
was the one who had to worry about self-­preservation.

She couldn't help thinking that breaking trust with someone was just one big self-­perpetuating cycle. You trust, you get hurt, then you try to protect yourself by closing yourself up—­and someone else ends up getting hurt because of
that
.

But she couldn't lament all that right now. There was too much else to think about. That's how Christy handled loss—­by dealing with the practical ends of life. When her parents had died, she'd focused on just those very things. There'd been funerals to plan. And then there'd been moving, and leaving school, and finding a job—­a thousand ways to keep busy.

Now, with Jack, she had to do the same thing. And she couldn't control the choices he'd made, but she would concentrate on the parts of her life she
could
control. Just since getting to Coral Cove, she'd shown herself that she was capable of much more than she'd ever realized, and now she wanted to keep right on proving that.

“Still going to the beach today?” Jack asked cautiously, hopefully, from the other bed.

“No,” she said softly. Then pushed back the covers and got up, committed to getting a start on her day and ending this particularly awkward part of it. She began tidying the bedcovers slightly, just for some semblance of order. “I'm thinking we should leave early tomorrow and drive straight through. That way we'll get home late tomorrow night and I'll have Sunday to unpack, do some laundry, and get caught up on things before work on Monday.”

As she kept talking, she walked to the drawers beneath the TV and selected a pair of shorts and a top to wear. “So today I want to do some more practical things—­I'm going to stop by the shops where my jewelry is consigned and make plans for sending them more. And I'm going to talk to the administrative ­people at Sunnymeade about Grandpa Charlie's situation—­just to see what options there might be that I don't know about, if any.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said—­even if his voice came out a little wooden. And she was glad he didn't argue with her about driving straight through. It meant one less night in a motel room with him, which seemed wise.

“I'd be happy to go with you on your errands today,” he offered kindly. “If you want some company.”

Oh God, Jack, stop being so sweet and nice and tempting.
It threatened to rip her heart out. But she calmly kept her eyes on her current task—­checking her cell phone for overnight messages and finding none. “Thank you,” she said, “but this is stuff I'd rather do myself.”
Because I'm a self-­sufficient chick. And I need to get better at that, once and for all. I need to face it boldly and bravely and with more optimistic expectations.
When she'd approached selling her jewelry that way, after all, it had paid off. No more feeling sorry for herself. And no more wishing for a rich man to rescue her. Because if one thing had become startlingly clear to her last night, it was the fact that it would take more than a rich man to make everything right in her world. She had one sitting right here in front of her, after all, wanting desperately to be in her life, and she understood now that life and love were far more complex than that. Money didn't solve everything.

“Okay,” he said. “But if you change your mind, or need me for anything, I'm just a text or a call away.”

Funny—­Jack had never offered that kind of support before. And she knew he was just being nice, trying to make her feel less alone in the world—­but right now maybe she
needed
to feel alone. Because life was no longer about wishing for someone to bail her out. It was about making her own way. She had to quit wishing for miracles or waiting for someone to depend upon.

“Thanks,” she said anyway, and just left it at that.

“Don't suppose you'd be up for our usual breakfast?” he ventured, still in bed.

And a lump rose to her throat. It had become an everyday thing she loved—­donuts on the dock behind the Happy Crab. The fresh morning ocean air, the sights of tall masts and crisp white sails in the bay, fresh donuts and juice . . . and Jack. “Thank you,” she said again, “but I'll just grab something on the way. Mind if I take the car?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I'll just hang at the beach.” He sounded disappointed but acceptant about breakfast.

When she came out of the shower a little while later, the room was quiet, Jack gone. But she found a white bakery bag containing two of her favorite donuts sitting on the room's small table, a little bottle of orange juice next to it, and her heart constricted. He'd understood that she just hadn't wanted to eat with
him
.
Oh God, why does this have to be so hard?

But she had to be tough, stay strong. Because of the whole broken plate thing. Once it was broken it was just . . . broken.

Upon leaving, she was all business—­and she planned to stay that way.
No more silly emotions for
this
girl.
Those things only created trouble, and weakness. And she'd be far better off without them. Even if Sinead O'Connor singing the old but still wrenching “Nothing Compares 2 U” on the car radio threatened to make her cry. She reached down and changed the station.

Her first stop was Beachtique, where she found her pieces still selling well, and Lydia was eager for more. A stop at the Sand Dollar Beach Resort netted the same results—­a request for more jewelry. And as she got back in the car, new thoughts formed in her head. Mission 1: When she got home, she needed to devote some serious time to scouring thrift stores and estate sales to stock up on supplies again, and then she needed to dedicate more time to her craft since her work was selling faster than she could make it. Mission 2: If she found she could keep up with demand, maybe she could find additional places for consignment deals. And recommitting herself to her craft was going to be a great way to get over Jack.

Of course, there would be the issue that he lived across the street—­but he'd flip the house soon enough, right?

And then . . . a really big idea hit her. With her jewelry selling in the local shops . . . could she possibly move here? It would be a complicated undertaking, of course, but . . . well, she'd just tuck that thought away in the back of her mind for now. And maybe she'd pull it back out sometime down the road.

And so what if the idea of Jack
really
leaving her life made her feel like something was clawing at the inside of her stomach, trying to get out? That would get better over time.
For now, just keep pushing forward.

She picked up the chicken salad sandwich Grandpa Charlie liked on her way to the rest home, but before going to his room, she stopped at the front desk and asked to speak to someone in billing. After sitting with a nice woman named Adrianne for half an hour, she'd learned that there were payment options available, but the payments were hefty—­more than Christy could afford, even with the influx of jewelry money—­and that there probably wasn't much she could do at this point to help her grandfather out financially. Still, she took the paperwork and numbers Adrianne gave her and figured she'd study it further when she got home.

And as she walked down the corridor that led to Grandpa Charlie's room, she thought it rather ironic to know that Jack would probably be happy to pay for her grandpa to stay here—­if only they'd had a normal relationship that had developed the normal way. If only she hadn't wanted to be rescued. If only he hadn't been dishonest. But as much as she wished she could fix her grandfather's living situation, she couldn't use Jack to do it.

Her grandpa's face lit up when she walked in the room—­and she smiled back, trying to hide the sadness of knowing she wouldn't be seeing him like this anymore.

“Brought your favorite sandwich,” she said brightly, holding up the bag. Maybe she could hit up Ron the Nurse to occasionally stop for the sandwich now that she and Jack no longer could.

“Then I get two treats at the same time,” he said, “it and you.” After which he looked around. “Where's Jack?”

And Christy sighed. She didn't want to talk about this, but she knew she had to. She'd just keep it as brief as possible. “I asked him not to come with me. He and I are over, Grandpa.”

Her grandfather's eyes went wide. “Good Lord, girl—­why? What happened that I missed?”

Keep it simple.
“He was dishonest with me about some stuff. Big stuff.”

“Hmm,” Grandpa Charlie said, taking that in. He looked introspective. “And that can't be forgiven? Because he's crazy about you. I'm old but my eyesight's still good, and you'd have to be blind not to see that.”

“I can forgive,” she said. “But that doesn't mean I could ever trust him again. Counting on ­people too much just seems . . .”

“What?”

“Like a way to be let down,” she said. “Or maybe . . . abandoned is closer to how I feel.”

“Like when your folks died,” he said matter-­of-­factly, surprising her.

And she stiffened at the very suggestion. “No, not like that at all. That wasn't their fault.”

“Still, you thought they'd always be there, and then they suddenly weren't. And even though I know you forgive them, too, they did leave ya without any money. I'd say it's hard not to feel abandoned after that, even if you don't blame 'em for it.”

She knew there was some truth in what he was saying—­she'd acknowledged as much to Jack, after all. But she still wasn't completely comfortable accepting that, so she just said, “Regardless, maybe it was just too big a letdown too close on the heels of losing them.” She stood up a bit straighter, ready to be strong and secure. “The upshot is that I've realized I just have to be tougher now, less softhearted. I have to really grow up and let go of being emotional.”

“Emotions have nothin' to do with age, my grandgirl. And if you ask me, ­people in touch with their emotions are the mature ones. As for givin' 'em up, I'd be careful with that.”

She looked at him guardedly. “Why?”

“They might not be as easy to outrun as ya think.”

Then she narrowed her gaze on him. “Are you speaking from experience?”

Grandpa Charlie tilted his head. “I'm just sayin' there might be a time for toughness and strength, but runnin' away from what you feel will most likely lead you down a path to nowhere. And you deserve to be someplace far better than nowhere, darlin'. So do what you need to do to be in charge of your life, but also remember that bein' happy has to factor into that. Just promise me you'll think about it, okay?”

“I will.” And she meant it. Then she admitted, “I'm going to miss this.”

“This what?”

“Your grandfatherly wisdom.”

He leaned his head back for a laugh. “Wisdom might be a generous term.”

But she shook her head. “No, you
are
wise and I like getting your insight on things. I'm really sorry I have to leave. For both our sakes.”

He gave her a warm smile that she tried to embed into her heart so she could remember it. “Well, you know how much I'll miss seein' ya every day, my grandgirl, but don't you worry about me. I'll just get back to spendin' more time on my mystery novels, and my crosswords, and visitin' with Mrs. Waters down the hall.”

Christy squinted. “Who
is
Mrs. Waters?” He'd mentioned the woman the other day, but never before, and now she was curious.

In response, his smile lightened into something that struck her as . . . almost youthful, but she couldn't say why. “Oh, she's just a sweet lady in a coma. Doesn't have any family, so I like to sit with her, just in case she needs the company.”

Hearing that this was all her grandpa had to do when she wasn't here almost made Christy sad—­but then she remembered that lighthearted smile of his. And she hoped Mrs. Waters somehow knew he was there with her and what a special man she had sitting by her side. “That's sweet of you, Grandpa.”

He shrugged, let out a chuckle. “Probably does me as much good as her—­or more.”

I
T
had been thundering for a week that August in Destiny. Thundering but never a drop of rain would fall. Clearly it wanted to, but the skies just kept teasing them with that promising rumble.

And so by the middle of the month the sound of thunder no longer excited anyone, least of all Charlie, who was beginning to think this godforsaken summer would never end. His father was still laid up, leaving a man's job on a boy's shoulders. And Susan had become like a ghost, a shadow he would catch a glimpse of leaving the barn after placing a covered plate atop a work bench or ducking into the house in the distance if he looked in her direction when she was out tending the ailing little vegetable garden she'd picked the wrong year to try to grow.

Of course, not seeing her was just as torturous as when he'd seen her every day but not been able to have her. Worse in a way. Like thunder, perhaps the tease of something you want, the possibility, was better than having it taken away entirely.

In the late afternoon of another hot scorching day, Charlie nailed a crossboard onto a wide barn door laid across two sawhorses. He barely noticed the sound of thunder in the distance or the fat billowing clouds overhead, other than the fact that they brought with them a little blessed shade. But he did notice Susan—­her blouse a small dot of white in the garden. He tried not to look—­after all, he could see very little—­but he kept glancing in that direction anyway. If he had to guess, he thought she was kneeling in the cucumber patch, likely seeking any big or ripe enough to pick.