Always on My Mind (13 page)

“Ask Jack,” Elsie said slyly. “I’m sure he’d take you wherever you wanted to go.”

He’d taken her to heaven just that morning, not that she’d tell him so. His ego didn’t need the boost.

“So what did you do today?” Elsie asked. “It’s rare for you to take a day off. You left early and were gone until past noon.”

Jack. She’d done Jack.

With effort, Leah pushed the tactile memory of his big, warm, strong body wrapped around hers out of her head. “Nothing much.”

“Really? You didn’t see anyone exciting?”

“In Lucky Harbor?” She forced a laugh. “Who would that be?”

“Jack.”

Leah’s pulse skipped a beat. “Why would you think that I was with Jack?”

“Other than the two of you are dating?” Elsie asked, sounding amused. “Because someone saw you with him.”

Leah dropped her fork and rice splattered everywhere as her heart kicked into gear. “Saw us? Where?”

“On Highway 219, on his bike.”

“Oh.” Feeling foolish, she relaxed. On the highway. On his bike. Good. That was really good. No one had caught them, exhibition-style, at the caves.

“That Jack,” Elsie said. “He sure grew up nice, didn’t he?”

Leah flashed to how he’d felt moving over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun, his voice a whisper against her ear, the fierce look in his eyes as he slowly, purposely took control and drove her right out of her ever-loving mind… “Yes,” she said a little weakly. “He grew up real nice.”

“And he’s so responsible. He runs that entire station, and he uses his position to give back to the community. Last month, he came over and taught all us seniors how to do CPR. Of course that was right after Edward had his heart scare, which turned out to be a bad case of gas. But Jack made sure each and every one of us could revive someone if need be. So sweet.”

“Sweet,” Leah agreed. He did have his moments…

“And the town sure is talking about you two. Everyone’s all aflutter that yet another of our eligible bachelors has been taken off the market.”

Leah swallowed wrong and choked.

Elsie brought her a glass of water and smiled. “And you’ve made Dee so happy.”

Leah caught her breath and sobered as guilt stabbed through her. “Yes.”

Elsie’s eyes were knowing as she squeezed Leah’s hands. “You’re sweet too,” she said quietly.

Leah opened her mouth and then shut it again, not sure what to say. That she’d lied about being in a relationship with Jack? Or that she wasn’t all that sorry to be pretending…?

Neither was something she wanted to discuss.

Elsie poured them each a second glass of wine, then lifted her glass to Leah. “To whatever Jack did to distract you so.”

“Grandma.”

“What? I’m old, not dead. And I haven’t seen you look so dreamy-eyed since…well, ever.”

“I’m not…dreamy-eyed.”

Though she’d gone to the store for condoms…

“Honey,” Elsie said slowly. “About the bakery.”

“What about it?”

“I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep it going after you leave.”

Leah set down her fork so she didn’t drop it again. The bakery had been her grandma’s first love for…well, for as long as she could remember. It wasn’t just a shop, it was her grandma’s identity. Warm apple pies and fresh sourdough bread and chocolate chip cookies. Hopes and dreams. Comfort. Leah couldn’t even remember a time when Elsie hadn’t smelled like vanilla or cinnamon. Oh God, she thought, her gut tight. Maybe her grandma was sick? “What do you mean? Are you okay?”

Elsie smiled. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. I’m more than fine. I’m actually…enjoying the time off. I’m old, honey.”

“No—”

“I am. And I’m tired. And watching how hard you’re working to keep my business going is making me more tired. You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “Maybe I could stay and help—”

“No. No way.” Her grandma adamantly shook her head. “You’re destined for bigger things, Leah. Way bigger things.
Sweet Wars
will be over soon enough.”

Leah couldn’t stop thinking about that as she helped her grandma to bed. How had the season of
Sweet Wars
gone so fast? She’d planned to be gone before the finals aired, and yet she was still here. More unsettling, how could she go? And when she did, what would it be like to come back to Lucky Harbor the next time and have there be no Grandma Elsie’s bakery?

She couldn’t imagine.

She watched some old movies on the couch. She must have drifted off because a sound startled her awake.

Elsie stood by the front door in bright-white tennis shoes, her favorite dress, and her purse clutched to her chest. “Oh,” she said in surprise when Leah sat up. “Oh, honey. You startled me.”

“Grandma? What are you doing?”

Elsie smiled. “Well, I thought I’d just go get us a paper.”

Leah looked at the clock. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Coffee. We need coffee for the morning.”

Leah blinked the last of the sleep from her eyes and stood up. “I’ll get it.”

“Oh no, I can do it. I don’t want you to have to get dressed, or—”

“Or know that you were sneaking out?” Leah asked.

Elsie grimaced. “What clued you in?”

“Well, you’re about as clandestine as a bull in a china shop.”

There’d been a few crazy teenage years when Leah had done her fair share of sneaking out. Her dad had always kept an extremely tight leash on her, so tight that she’d lived in perpetual danger of strangulation. It’d been painful. Beyond painful. She’d had to do all her homework immediately after school, then show it to him. And if she’d gotten anything wrong, he’d rip it up and she’d have to start over. “You can’t get anything right,” he’d snap. “Do it again. Do it perfect or don’t bother at all.” After homework, she had to put in three hours minimum at his dental office, helping with the filing and housekeeping, or whatever was needed.

That had been the worst part.

Spending time with him. She’d never been able to do anything right, and her self-esteem had suffered. This had all been made worse by the fact that she’d not really fit in at school either. She’d never been the girlie-girl, or the athlete, or particularly social, and then there’d been her ruthless 9:00 p.m. curfew, no exceptions.

So she’d sneaked out.

A lot.

She’d sneak out to walk the beach alone. Or go to Jack’s. But if the water was rough and Jack was out somewhere with Ben raising trouble, she’d gone to her grandma’s.

Elsie had always seemed to expect her. She’d greet Leah with a warm hug and then they’d go into the kitchen and bake something. Elsie always let Leah take the lead there, allowing her come up with whatever concoction she wanted, no matter how crazy it sounded.

It’d soothed Leah’s aching heart and fueled her creative soul. There’d been no recriminations, no judging, and blessedly, no yelling. Elsie had never questioned her need to run away, had never so much as hinted at the worry she surely must have felt knowing that Leah had walked two miles in the dark to get to her.

And now it was Leah’s turn to swallow
her
urge to ask the questions, to express the worry, and there was a lot of both. What the hell was her grandma planning to do out there in the middle of the night? “What if your knee gives out?” Leah asked her. “What if you get tired?”

“Well goodness, honey, I’m not that old.”

“Of course not,” Leah said. “But it’s not safe.”

“I’ve got my smartphone and a backup battery, along with my tablet and a can of hairspray. If anyone comes at me, all I have to do is swing my purse at them and I’ll knock the perp right on his ass.” She demonstrated by giving her purse a broad swing and knocked the lamp off the foyer table. “See?” she asked.

Leah picked up the lamp and righted it. Elsie was the most calm, rational, logical person in her life. In fact, Leah had counted on that calm, rational logic more times than she could count.

But this didn’t seem calm or rational. Could it be the start of dementia? Alzheimer’s? Is that why Elsie had mentioned giving up the bakery? Leah’s heart clutched at the thought of losing the most important person in the world to her. “Where do you really need to go? I’ll take you.”

Elsie sighed. “I really thought you’d be sleeping.”

This was not an answer and didn’t assuage Leah’s worry in the slightest. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but I…have a date.”

Leah just stared at her. Years ago, her grandma had been married for only a short time before her husband had died of lung cancer, leaving Elsie pregnant and alone. She’d never remarried. Nor, as far as Leah knew—and despite Elsie’s claims to having had a “wild streak”—had she appeared to ever date. “A date,” she repeated.

Elsie smiled. “I know. Hard to believe, right?”

“No,” Leah said, shaking her head. “You’re fun, and sweet, and smart. And pretty.”

Elsie laughed now, the sound light and musical. She was pleased. “Oh, aren’t you the one. And the same goes. Leah…” Her smile was warm. Caring. And utterly without judgment. “I’m fine. My life is exactly what I want it to be. Can you believe that?”

“Well…sure.”

“Can you say the same about
your
life?”

Leah opened her mouth and then closed it.

Elsie gently patted Leah’s cheeks. “Don’t
ever
wait around for your life. Go get what you want. Because believe me, no one’s going to give it to you. You should know that by now.” She moved to the door. “Don’t wait up, honey.”

And then she was gone.

Leah watched out the front window as Elsie got into her car and drove off.

“What the hell just happened?” she asked the quiet living room. But she already knew. Her grandma had proven that she had better social life than Leah did.

I
t’s your day off,” Ronald said the next day when Jack walked into his office. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You get anything back from forensics on the convenience store or auto shop fires?”

Ronald studied Jack for a long beat. “Not yet. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-huh. With head number two, I hear. You’ve caught yourself a girl.”

Jack didn’t bother to sigh. “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s greatly exaggerated.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame,” Ronald said. “I was hoping it was true.” He paused. “Your daddy wouldn’t have wanted you to be the job, Jack. And you are. You’re working full-time firefighting and taking up the slack for me.”

“About the forensics—”

“Saw your baseball game, you know.” Ronald leaned back, hands behind his head, sighing with pleasure as he put his feet up. “You sucked ass.”

“I had an off week. Listen, about the—”

“You couldn’t hit worth shit. And you lost that fly ball. I’ve never seen you choke like that before.”

Jack leaned forward and thunked his head on Ronald’s desk.

Ronald laughed. “Son, go home. Go take that girl of yours out. Have some fun.”

Fun. If fun was having Leah beneath him, panting out his name in that breathy way she had of making him feel superhuman, then yeah. He could use some more fun. He lifted his head. “In the report for the convenience store, we recorded that footprint in the mud along the west wall. Men’s size thirteen. Sneaker.”

“Yes. The one the vagrant claimed was his.”

Jack opened his mouth, but Ronald cut in. “I know, he was barefoot when we found him, but he admitted that he’d been wearing sneakers earlier, remember? He’d gotten hot and kicked them off.”

“We never located the shoes,” Jack said, knowing if they matched that print to the actual footwear the vagrant had been wearing, he was as good as sunk in court. But it wasn’t the right direction. Jack could feel it. “You were working on the tread to name the brand. Did you get that?”

Ronald frowned. “Not yet. I had it sent out. That could take a few weeks. We don’t have it on urgent, since we’re not sure we have arson here.”

“A size thirteen isn’t a standard size,” Jack mused.

“No.”

“And the vagrant’s foot is size ten.”

Ronald was already shaking his head. “You know as well as I do that he doesn’t have his own shoes. He wears whatever he took out of someone’s trash or what someone gave him. He claimed to not remember where he’d left the shoes.”

“Did you ask him if they were too big for him?”

Annoyance crossed Ronald’s face. “Before or after he said he saw Santa on the roof smoking crack, Jack? We both know those shoes weren’t his. The question is, was there an arsonist and was the print his?”

“The print showed heavy tread loss,” Jack said. “Especially on the outside of the shoe.”

“Yeah? So our guy is a runner. So what?”

“So that’s also an unusual wear. It’s a guy who doesn’t roll his ankles inward enough, tending to stride on the ground with the outside edge of his feet. Walking or running on the outside of the foot like that puts a lot of pressure on the legs. Possibly causing shin splints or stress fractures.”

“So we’re looking for a big-footed runner with a shin splint or stress fracture. Perfect. That narrows it down.”

“It’s a start.” Jack moved to the door, then looked back. “We didn’t find any prints at the auto shop fire.”

“Not size thirteen, no. And nothing to lead to a perp. Just the bucket of rags.”

Jack stood up. “I’m going back to the convenience store site. Check the grounds with a fine-toothed comb.”

“You’re off duty.”

“I have the time.”

Ronald took off his glasses and swiped at them with the hem of his shirt. “How’s your mom?”

“Better. A lot better,” Jack said.

“I asked her out. She tell you that?”

Jack sat back down. “No.”

“She said she wasn’t ready,” Ronald said.

“It’s been twenty years.”

“Maybe you could put in a good word for me,” Ronald said. “Tell her I have a lot more time these days because there’s some big, fancy hotshot on my heels, trying to take over my job.”

Jack rolled his eyes and strode out the door.

A few nights later, Jack watched the next episode of
Sweet Wars
. The challenge was to create a tart. Jack found himself soaking up the sight of Leah working on a rum sponge tart, once again working calmly and efficiently while everyone else was running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

“How’s she doing?” Ben asked, letting himself in and plopping onto the couch next to Kevin, who immediately crawled into his lap.

“You’re looking right at her,” Jack said.

“I mean here. In Lucky Harbor.” Ben had brought another bag of popcorn and smelled like a movie theater. “With her boyfriend.”

“You know it’s not real. And if you plan to feed that shit to Kevin, you walk him. The last time you gave him popcorn, it required three doggie bags.”

Ben tossed Kevin a kernel just to be an asshole. “Not real, huh? I guess that’s why you bought condoms.”

Jack slid him a look.

“Your receipt’s right here, man.” Ben nudged the piece of paper on the coffee table with his foot. “A twelve pack, which is either a really impressive one-night stand, or you’re thinking long term.” He cocked his head and squinted to read that far. “Yep, twelve extra-large condoms
For Her Pleasure
. Aw, that’s real considerate.”

Jack rolled his eyes and went back to the show.

“So which is it?” Ben asked.

“What?”

“An impressive one-night stand or long term?”

“Shut up.”

“Long term,” Ben decided. “Quite a commitment, a twelve pack…”

Jack snatched the popcorn and shoved some into his mouth, his gaze on Leah. Which did he want? Hell, all he knew for sure was that he craved her. She was easy on the eyes. And easy to hang out with. She was smart and funny and kind, and he never got tired of being with her.

This thought brought him up a little since it was entirely different from any thought he’d ever had about a woman. But it was true. When he wasn’t with Leah, he thought about being with her again. And when something cracked him up or made him think, or
anything
really, he wanted to tell her about it.

Like now. On screen, she was talking, smiling, and kicking ass. No one on the cast came even close to her easy talent. And he wanted to tell her so.

“See that?” Ben asked, pointing to the screen. “That host guy—the one who dated that hot chick from
Big Brother
last year—he’s into Leah big time. You notice?”

Jack watched as Rafe Vogel kept finding excuses to end up at Leah’s station, twice bumping up against her.

Leah didn’t seem to mind all that much, smiling up at him, laughing into the camera while everyone around her was sniping and yelling at each other as the clock counted down.

“You think Leah’s two-timing her fake boyfriend?” Ben asked casually.

Jack slid him a look. “Why are you here?”

Ben grinned and grabbed back the popcorn. “You have the bigger TV.”

The next morning, Jack got up at the crack of dawn and nudged Kevin. “Let’s go.”

Kevin did his imitation of a dead dog.

“We’re running to the station, dude. Gotta work off all the shit we ate last night.”

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and Jack shook his head. “If you stay here, I’m going to let the little girls next door dress you up like their pony again.”

Kevin opened a single eye and assessed Jack for his level of seriousness. With a loud sigh, he lumbered out the door with Jack.

Kevin wasn’t a great running partner. In fact, he was a downright horrible running partner, trotting along at best, stopping to smell every flower, rock, and imaginary foe between home and work. Halfway, he was nearly unmanned by a cat that popped out of the bushes and snarled at him. Kevin, always a lover, not a fighter, tried licking the cat’s face, which earned him a bitch-slap. Bewildered and hurt, he ducked behind Jack, where he stayed until they got to the station.

There, Jack grabbed the first hot shower of the day. The first guy to shower always made out because the building’s plumbing was cranky. If you didn’t get the first shower, you weren’t guaranteed hot water. They were a family at the station, and they did as family did—they bugged the shit out of each other. Normally, it was acceptable for the first one up to use as much of the hot water as possible, just because. But today Jack hurried, dressed, and then grabbed the keys to the supervisory unit, heading out the door only to bump into Tim, who’d clearly just come in from his own run. In shorts and a damp T-shirt, he reached for keys as well. “Hey,” he said with a nod to Jack. “Going for donuts.”

They typically took turns going to the bakery every morning, grabbing a box of whatever Leah had fresh, and bringing it back for the other guys. And it was definitely Tim’s turn.

But Jack didn’t want Tim to go to the bakery.
Jack
wanted to go to the bakery. He’d told Leah that nothing would change between them, but that’d been before they’d had the hottest sex of his life up on a mountaintop.

Now he wasn’t so sure that
everything
hadn’t changed. Because now he knew how she kissed, how she tasted…the sexy little sounds she made when she came. “I’m going to get the donuts,” he said.

“It’s my turn,” Tim said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, don’t you remember? Sam went last time and—”

“I got it,” Jack said.

Tim stared at him, then let out a slow smile. “Right. Because you and Leah are a thing. You see the show last night? Her and that Rafe guy? Some serious chemistry there.”

“The show was filmed six months ago.”

“So they’re not together?”

Jack headed to the door. “Let it go.”

“I don’t know, man. Maybe you’ve been dumped and you don’t even know it.”

“Tim?”

“Let me guess. The senior center?” But Tim was cracking his ass up as Jack slammed the door and stalked to the truck. An idiot. He was a fucking idiot.

And he didn’t mean Tim.