Divine (31 page)

“
What color were
they?” I already knew that the answer was green, but I just
wanted to hear him tell me.

“
Don't worry
about it.”

“
Is that your
sentence of the night?” I teased.

“
Don't worry
about it.” He let out a warm laugh and leaned forward, peering
into my eyes with the naturalness of his crystal blue orbs that he
didn't have to worry about hiding from his mother.

I leaned in closer over
the table until I could feel the hardness of its edge pressing into
my stomach. “Tell me what color they were and I'll tell you a
secret.”

“
You don't have
any secrets from me,” he said gruffly, melting me with a sexy
smile.

“
Well, don't you
want to find out if I do?”

“
Hmm,” he
breathed out, bringing his hand under his chin and rubbing his fine
stubble. “Okay, I can't resist. My eyes were green; but you
knew that already.”

“
I had a hunch,”
I grinned.

“
Now what's the
big secret you have?”

I glanced down at the
table with a smile, feeling the redness of embarrassment move across
my face.

“
Any time now,”
his deep voice hurried me.

I looked back up and
met his intense waiting stare. “I know what green means.”

His smiling lips pursed
around while his eyes searched my face. “Oh, you think so,
huh?” he said cockily as he leaned back and brought his arms up
behind his head, resting against the back of his chair. “Well,
what do you think green means?”

“
Jonah,” I
whispered a laugh, my shyness overtaking me.

“
What? You said
you know what it means when my eyes turn green. Tell me what it means
. . .”

I leaned back into my
chair with an embarrassed smile. Man, he was
so
hard to
resist, sitting across from me with his arms behind his head, showing
off his massive muscles. And he always gave me that playful cocky
smile, which was a huge turn on. I never liked cocky guys, and Jonah
wasn't at all, but I always loved it when a guy would flirt with a
little cockiness every once in awhile. And Jonah was
so
good
at it.

The sound of Susan's
footsteps dragging over the carpet toward the kitchen saved me from
having to admit the fullness of my secret. “I found it,”
she called out as she reached the table and placed the large red
photo album in front of me. “Here are some of our most
cherished family photos.”

“
Oh Mom,”
Jonah moaned in protest, “you didn't have to bring the whole
book out here. Now Ash is going to find something in there to make
fun of me about, just watch.”

“
But you were so
cute!” she squealed as she pulled a chair closer to me and sat
down, opening the book to its first page.

I looked up from the
pictures and smiled at his embarrassment. “Awe Jonah look, you
were
so cute!”

He shook his head and
chuckled under his breath as he stood up from the table. “You
leave me out of this. I'm gonna clean everything up.”

I went back to scanning
over the pictures with his mom. There were so many wonderful moments
captured as a family; a lot of pictures with Jonah and his dad. Even
his Uncle Lou was plastered all over the pages.

“
Here's one of my
favorites,” Susan said while softly pointing to a picture of
Jonah and his dad. “This was right before Dan died, he had
taken Jonah fishing.”

I looked down at the
picture of the two of them dressed in baggy jeans and heavy
sweatshirts to keep them warm from the drizzly weather that hung over
them in the photo. They each had a large fish and were holding them
up with their bare hands toward the camera.

“
Jonah really
looks like him,” I pointed out. It was true; he was a splitting
image of his dad, with the same color hair and bright blue eyes that
crinkled from their happy smiles. The only difference was the way
they were built; Dan looked manly enough, but there was something
different in the way that Jonah was made, he had an obvious strength
to him.

Jonah came behind me
and looked over my shoulder at the picture. “Ah, yeah, I
remember that. That was a really good day.” He picked up the
rest of the dishes from the table and took them back to the sink,
staying quiet while his mom and I chatted over the memories.

Susan flipped through
some more of the pages until she landed on the picture of the cliff.
“Here it is,” she clucked, slapping her hand down on the
photo. “And wouldn't you know it, it was on the very last
page.”

“
Wonderful,”
Jonah uttered with sarcasm.

I turned the book
toward me to get a better look at the giant rock that I had tried to
imagine. “Wow, it's beautiful,” I said, noting that it
wasn't exactly what I had pictured. “And the palm tree is just
as you described it, Jonah.”

He came behind me and
bent down by my ear, his cologne filling my senses and sparking my
interest. “Now, you get a good look at that picture,” he
said quietly.

I nodded my head and
took another long look at it before shutting the album closed.
“Thank you for showing me your family,” I told Susan.

She looked fondly at me
with misty eyes. “You're welcome; it was nice to look at those
pictures of Dan again.”

I smiled and stayed
quiet, unsure of what to say next.

Jonah stood behind his
mom and grabbed onto her shoulders, giving them a loving squeeze.
“Well Mom, I better be going; I have to get up early for work
tomorrow.”

“
Me too,” I
added. I got up from my chair and pushed it underneath the table.
“Thanks again for dinner.”

“
Oh, you're so
very welcome, Summer,” she said while pulling me in for a hug.
I squeezed her tightly and let go, letting Jonah hug her next.

“
I love you,
Mom,” he spat out through her overly-tight grip.

“
I love you too,
Son.”

We left her house and
got into the car, still completely stuffed from dinner.

“
Your mom is a
really good cook,” I said as I started the engine. “I
can't wait to be invited over again.”

“
I'm sure it will
happen soon. She really likes you.”

I backed the car out
and drove down the street, going as slowly as the speed limit would
let me as I took Jonah toward his house.

We stayed silent as I
glanced down and fidgeted with the stereo to find a good song.
“Where's it at?” I whispered to myself while perusing the
channels for my favorite dance station.

“
Number one,”
Jonah answered.

I looked over at him
through the darkness of the car. “Number one what?”

“
I programmed it
into the first channel setting for you.”

I clicked on the button
that glowed green with the number one on it, and it took me right to
my favorite music channel. “You really did everything for me,
didn't you?”

He grabbed my hand and
shot me a smile before looking back ahead at the road. “I told
you I would take care of you.”

My shyness overtook me
quickly as I glanced over at him in the darkness. I loved it when he
said things like that.

“
So,” he
blurted out with a cough, “back to the secret from earlier . .
.”

A loud laugh escaped
from my lips. “I already told you the secret; I know what green
means.”

“
Yeah but you
didn't tell me what it meant.”

“
That wasn't a
part of the secret,” I laughingly argued. “The secret was
that I figured it out.”

We pulled into his dark
driveway and I turned the car off, leaving us in a serene silence. I
took off my seat belt and turned toward him in my seat. “Thank
you, Jonah, for everything that you did today.”

“
You're welcome,”
he said as he took his belt off and turned in my direction. “You
deserve it.”

I looked down at his
hand in mine; it was so strong, so masculine. Yet, even with his
ability to do so much damage with his hands, they still emitted a
gentleness when he touched me.

“
What are you
thinking?” he asked me softly while watching my eyes pore over
his fingers.

I kept my head down and
brought my other hand over to stroke the top of his wrist and trace
along his prominent veins. “I'm thinking about your strength,
about how you could probably destroy someone with your hands.”

A light chuckle escaped
from his smiling mouth. “Why are you thinking about that?”

“
Because,”
I went on with admiration, “you're just so protective of me. I
feel really safe with you.”

“
You
are
safe with me.”

I looked up at him and
smiled warmly at his careful face, feeling absolutely protected in
his watchful stare.

“
But,” he
added, “I just don't want you to think I'm some possessive jerk
or something.”

“
Why would I
think that?”

He cocked his head back
and forth and looked into the darkness through the windshield in
front of us. “Because of Fox, and how I reacted.”

“
Jonah,” I
broke in, “I've known you for a long time now. I know that you
aren't a possessive jerk; you never act jealous of anyone else who
talks to me. Actually, you never even acted like that to Fox until he
touched me.”

“
Yeah, I just
don't think he has the best intentions when it comes to you. And I
know that he's dangerous; there's just something about him . . .”
He finished his sentence, letting the words trail off as his eyes
clouded with his thoughts.

“
Hey, let's
change the subject, okay? I don't want Fox to ruin this perfect day.”

He broke his far-off
look and gave me a gentle smile. “Okay. Well, what did you
think about the picture of the cliff?”

“
Well,” I
sighed in thought, “honestly I thought of something a little
different than it looked.”

“
Yeah, that makes
sense. I mean, I described something to you that would have created a
different image for every person who thought about it.”

“
Yeah, but what
if I would have actually teleported? It wouldn't have been to your
cliff.”

“
No, probably
not. But like I said, if you ever teleport and you end up alone for
some reason, just find the ocean and I'll come get you.”

I smiled over at him,
flattered by his protectiveness. “I know, I will always go to
the ocean for you to find me.”

He pulled my hand up
and kissed the top of it softly, sending a chill up my arm. “Well,
I better go. Will you text me to let me know that you got home safe?”

“
As soon as I
walk in the door.”

“
Okay,” he
said as he opened the door and dropped a foot to the ground outside.
“And one last thing, what did you say the green meant again?”

“
Get out of
here,” I teased as I squeezed his hand before pushing it
playfully away.

“
Well, I deserve
an honest answer.”

I crossed my arms and
shook my head with a frisky smile. “Well, how about we test my
theory first? You kiss me again like you did before I left and I'll
see if they turn green again. If they do, I'll tell you what I think
the green means.”

He hopped out of the
car and bent down to see me, holding onto the door and shooting me a
wide grin. “No deal.”

“
That's what I
thought,” I chuckled.

His grin lowered to a
happy smile. “Goodnight, Ash.”

“
Goodnight,
Strong Jonah.”

He shook his head in
protest and gently shut my door.

I watched him walk away
and then dropped my head with a thud against my steering wheel. “Come
on, birthday,” I pouted softly in the emptiness of my car.
“Just get here already.”

The next day at work
was awkward to say the least. Fox locked himself in his office the
whole morning and only came out once to use the restroom. He didn't
even try to talk to me about what had happened the day before. All I
knew was that by the time I arrived at Walley's the parking lot had
been swept free of the glass, leaving behind no trace of what Fox had
supposedly done.