I Found You (7 page)

She looked completely calm, happy even, I’d never have guessed the state I’d found her in two nights before, if I didn’t know it had happened. It had happened though. She couldn’t be as confident and happy on the inside as she appeared on the outside tonight.

She brought my burger over.

“It looks good, thanks.”

“I hope you enjoy it.”

She disappeared again, while I ate, but popped back after a little while, to ask if it was okay––in that trying-to-please waitress way.

It was good though, really succulent and filling, and with my adrenaline still in hyper-drive from my run, I felt my body absorbing and burning off the calories in a gluttonous rush.

Once I’d eaten I called her over to order another beer. She came across with a big grin on her face. She looked like she was really enjoying herself.

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah, it was great. Can I have another beer?”

“Sure I’ll get you one.”

It was with me in a moment, and she hovered for a little bit as no one else was waiting.

“It’s a good place isn’t it,” she commented.

“Yeah.”

“Have you eaten here before?”

“No, I don’t normally go out in the evening, other than to run.”

“Oh, do you know what you are, Jason Macinlay?”

“No.”

“Old before your time …  You need to get some excitement in your life and have a little fun. You know far too much about caring for people, and nothing about enjoying life.”

She was probably right. I smiled.

“I’m going to change that,” she said to me with a sharp nod, like she vowed it to herself, as well as me. Then she whispered, “I’d better get back to work.”

I drank my beer watching her again, wondering what sort of life she’d led before the bridge, and wondering again what had sent her there.

Would she ever trust me enough to tell me? Probably not.

It didn’t really matter though, as long as she could pick up her life again. As soon as she did, she’d move on, and leave me behind. I didn’t have the same fears Lindy and Mom did. I knew Rachel Shears wasn’t fleecing me.

I had to stop thinking like I knew her though. I didn’t know her.

~

Jason was watching me. I liked him watching. It felt comforting having him around, like a security blanket.

The restaurant owner, Joe, had already asked me if that was my boyfriend within five minutes of Jason arriving. I’d said no he was just a friend, but more than half of me wished he was my boyfriend.

Funny really, because I wasn’t even sure I should call him a friend, we weren’t even that, not really. I was merely his damsel in distress and he was my knight in shining armor. He’d saved me from the monsters in my head two nights ago. I smiled as I caught him watching me across the room, and he smiled back lifting his beer to his mouth again, blushing a little.

He did look good. He was the best looking guy I’d seen all day, in fact probably all year, and he was so not my usual type––dark, brooding, malicious and older. I chose men who had an ulterior motive and would treat me like crap, because I had this fucking self-destruct button I couldn’t switch off.

What would it be like to go with a nice, good-looking guy like him. A
young
good-looking guy.

God, I really did think we could have fun together. I could make him laugh and smile more often, and forget work, and Lindy, and… Lindy. Of course she was the sticking point. He wasn’t available.

Life was crap. Sometimes it held everything against you.

Why couldn’t I have been rescued by a kind, good-looking,
single
guy? My palms tingled and sensation stirred low in my belly. I wanted sex. Good hard, all-out, sweaty, marathon sex. I shoved the urge aside. Sex always got me into trouble.

As I carried on serving, feeling his eyes on my back, and my ass, I wondered what he’d said to Lindy tonight, and what she’d said to him. He would have rung. He’d probably called her on the way over here. He wasn’t the sort of guy to let a girl down––too bad.

I imagined Lindy was one of those girls who’d say,
I trust you, it’s her I don’t trust
. My mind ran ahead then, with all sorts of cutting phrases she might have said about me.

She didn’t know me, how could she judge me?
By the fact Jason had found me half naked, about to jump off a bridge.

Of course, he’d had to tell her that.

Yet I doubted he’d mentioned that he’d treated my hand while I sat naked in his bath. I doubted he’d told her we were sharing a bed either. But I wasn’t giving up sharing his bed. I liked being in it, lying warm near him and listening to his breathing and smelling his smell.

There was another lull in customers. I was only fifteen minutes off the end of my first shift. I got him another beer and took it over.

“I thought you might like another.”

“Thanks, I’m just sat here quietly getting tipsy.”

“On three beers? You seriously do need to get a life.”

He laughed.

His brown eyes looked up at my eyes, and there was a real depth and warmth in them. I don’t remember ever seeing that in any other man’s eyes. There was a slight complimentary smile on his lips, too.

I couldn’t stop myself, I just wanted to know. I leaned forward and rested my hands on the table, so he’d have a view down my blouse, where my breasts would now be hanging into the lace and satin bra I’d waved at him last night.

“So what do you say to a long walk home, and taking a detour round Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the way back?”

His eyes held mine for a moment then glanced down, only for an instant, but even so, when his gaze returned to mine, it was more heated, and his lips had tightened as the muscle in his jaw clenched. It seemed my interest was definitely returned. No matter, there was the small town opinionated Lindy in his life.

“I’ll say I’m up for that, seeing as you just accused me of being boring.”

I laughed. “Sorry, a night-time walk round the park ain’t gonna break that boundary. You need to do something more exciting and reckless than that to start living on the wild side, Jason Macinlay.”

He stuck his tongue out at me, which only gave me an urge to play tonsil hockey with him, but instead I returned to the bar and asked the manager if he wanted me to start cleaning up.

When the other customers left, Jason went outside too. I told him where the backdoor was, and to wait for me there.

He was standing there when I came out, and he smiled at me, a broad happy-to-see-you smile. The chef came out after me, looked at Jason and then winked at me. I screwed my face up at him.

Jason’s hands were firmly in the pockets of his leather jacket and he wore the woolen hat that he’d loaned me last night. His breath came out into the dark night air as steam. It was way below freezing again. Certainly a bit chilly to be walking in a park, but I just fancied doing something with him. I’d enjoyed last night.

I slotted my arm through his and hugged in tight to him, pretending it was for warmth; it wasn’t.

We began walking, and to make conversation I started asking questions, what food do you like? What movies? What TV shows? It kept the conversation light and released some of the tension in my head, I needed to be talking and it meant I didn’t have to give him any details of my life, but I could get to know him better.

We laughed, argued and debated, and in the park we walked down to the river, as I’d done earlier, but this time instead of looking at the water I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up against the night sky.

“One of the things I miss most about home, is that you can easily drive out of town and into the dark, and when you’re in the dark, you can see millions of stars piercing the sky like pinpricks of light, it’s awesome. You can’t really see the stars here. All the city lights screen them out.”

I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I’d always lived in cities. “I’ve never seen that. I suppose you and Lindy used to drive out of town and make out beneath the stars?”

His hands were gripping the rail. He looked at me but didn’t turn. “Yeah.”

“Romantic,” I said dryly looking away from him and down at the dark shifting water.

“Yeah, our first time was out there.”

My eyes shot back up to him. It was an honest thing for a man to say, and without any prompting. Where the hell had it come from?

His eyes said he was remembering it. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the river to Manhattan and the city, lost in time and lost in thought.

I could tell from his expression his first time had been planned, and looked forward to, a momentous occasion designed to be fixed in his memory and cherished forever.

Fuck, he really was small town. My first time had been quick and disappointing, a drunken fumble on a park bench. I’d only met the guy that night. I hadn’t thought myself in love. I’d just wanted to do what everyone else claimed they’d done. Afterwards I’d discovered most people had been lying and they hadn’t done it at all.

I started laughing, which was definitely the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.

He let go of the rail and turned, looking at me, his eyebrows lifting.

I tried to stop laughing, but didn’t succeed. The back of my hand lifted to my mouth to hide my mirth. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe you’ve only ever slept with one woman … ” He hadn’t said it, but I just knew it was true.

“I can’t see why that’s funny.”

“It’s just… Well, it’s just… You amaze me… You’re so good-looking. The other night, when I met you, I assumed you’d left dozens of hearts broken in Oregon.”

He gave me a broad smile, apparently not offended in the least. Then I realized what I’d done, I’d told him I thought him good-looking. Well, he was good-looking, he surely couldn’t be blind to it, yet I hadn’t noticed any vanity in him at all. God, he was turning into the most perfect guy.

I smiled too. “I respect you. I think it’s commendable.”

“But you’re still laughing inside.”

He was getting to know me. I smiled more.

“What about you, then? How many people have you been with?”

My smile fell.

The question was lightly put. He was teasing me back for teasing him. But I couldn’t answer, not with the truth. He’d be disgusted. His small town ideals would be rocked to their very foundations.

“You don’t want to know.” I killed the conversation flat and for a moment he was silent as he looked past me probably trying to guess if it was tens or hundreds.

His gaze returned to me. “So, have you always lived in New York?” The perfect guy that he was, he didn’t push, just changed the subject.

Surely I’d dreamed this guy up. He was too nice to be real. “No, I grew up in Philadelphia. I moved here when I was eighteen.”

It was the most personal thing I’d told him about my life, and I saw him recognize that as his gaze struck mine with a searching look.

He wanted to ask more questions, I could see that, but he didn’t. He turned back to face the water and gripped the rail again. “You and I, have lived very different lives, haven’t we, Rach…”

The fact that he shortened my name gripped in my chest, about my heart; it made me feel closer to him, like we really did know each other, like I’d known him for years.

“Yeah,” I said in a quiet voice, feeling suddenly solemn and low again, as I looked across at the heart of New York, too.

Declan would be over there somewhere. I doubted Jason Macinlay could even begin to imagine how I’d lived my life. Fast. Reckless.

“We should be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to get up for work in the morning.”

“Yeah, Mr. Boring, we have lived our lives
very
differently.” I laughed. He didn’t. He just glanced at me, and then gestured with his elbow for me to take his arm. It was the first time he’d offered it. I’d just taken it before. It was a sweet gesture.

My laughter turned to a smile, and he smiled back.

God, I liked him.

Chapter Four

I was half asleep but desperate for the toilet when I woke up.

Jason wasn’t in bed. He must have gone to work already.

My eyes half shut, I didn’t looked at the clock, merely rolling onto my side then got up, trying to cross my legs a little as I headed for the bathroom. I was seriously bursting, and with my mind focused on that, I didn’t hear the sound of the shower running, until I opened the door.

“Fuck, sorry, I need the toilet.”

God, he was gorgeous. When I’d opened the door, his hands had been on the wall either side of the shower and his head had been down as he let the water run over it and then down his body. It had been running down his back in a waterfall, and that back, and his butt… The air that had got trapped in my lungs left them.

The older guys I’d dated, or rather fucked, had been all swarthy with hard muscle. His skin was pale and it looked soft, and the muscular definition beneath it was sinewy and lean. I longed to touch… Nope, I didn’t just want to touch, I wanted to have him. His buttocks were so tight, I wanted to grip them with my fingers as we did it, and feel the strength of his thighs between my legs.

I was a messed up, bad girl––he was taken. And I was trouble.

His head had turned toward me, and I saw his brown eyes watching me. He’d seen me looking at his ass.

There were droplets of water caught on his dark eyelashes.

He really was beautiful, the most beautiful guy I’d ever known.

“Give me a second, I’ll be out…”

His words brought me back to reality, to the fact I was standing in his bathroom staring at him as he stood naked in the shower. “Sorry, I’ll wait outside.” I think I must have turned bright red as I exited, and then I remembered just how badly I needed to use the toilet, and leaned against the wall, crossed my legs and bit my lip. But the image of him was still in my head. I didn’t think it was ever going to leave.

I heard the shower turn off. A couple of moments later the door-handle shifted. I tried to straighten up without having an accident.

“Rach…” He had a towel wrapped round his lower half, secured low on his hips, so now I got a front view of the glorious chest I’d seen the definition of through his body-hugging top on the first night.