The Heart (32 page)

“Northern lights,” I pushed out as tears I could never hold fell down my cheeks. “They’re beautiful.”

I kept my head up, as did he, to appreciate them a little longer while he grabbed my hand and resumed our dancing. Once satisfied, my father turned his attention back to me and noticed my freshly wet cheeks. His head reared back in surprise and question.

“I’m in love with Jack, Daddy.”

My father’s eyes bulged slightly, and I quickly started damage control. “Please don’t be mad at him. He treated me so well. He was nothing but honest, loving, and respectful.”

“Was?” my father said as he put our dance on pause and took a step back to look at me.

“I screwed up, and I wasn’t honest with him about Grant.”

“How long have you two been sneaking around?”

“Pretty much since he showed up at the center.” My dad continued to dance with me as we shared a short silence before I begged him to end it. “Daddy, please say something.”

“Jack,” he said, looking down at me with a grin. “You love Jack.”

“I do, Daddy. I do, more than anything. Lightning struck again,” I croaked as I looked at him with a smile through tears. My father stilled as he studied me and unshed tears of his own surfaced.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” I said as I cried in his embrace. “I look at you and Mom and Dallas and Dean and think there isn’t anyone else for you, could never be, and I thought the same for me. I was terrified to find out, but I got struck twice, Daddy. And I’m going to try to talk him into loving me back tonight if he bothers to show up. I just need to know you’ll be okay with it.”

My father smiled down at me with both shock and admiration. “I will say this again, like I’ve said it a million times before, the only thing I care about is your happiness. And if Jack is the one who makes you happy, in my opinion, that’s even better.”

“He just didn’t want to disappoint you,” I said as our dance came to an end.

“Jack’s good people, Rose. I have nothing but love for him.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said, giving him a hard hug before whispering in his ear. “You’re my hero.”

“And you are mine,” he whispered back. After a few more minutes in my father’s arms, he gave me a knowing and hopeful smile. “I think I may have seen him walk through the doors a few minutes ago,” he whispered to me in encouragement.

I nodded as he hugged me tightly to him and then reluctantly let me go.

I wondered through the bottom floor, noting all of the subtle changes in the last month, and I knew they had something to do with Jack, though he was nowhere to be found. He’d added so much charm to the lobby and adjacent rooms that there was no mistaking he was responsible. I walked into my office and stood at my desk as months full of memories with him clouded me. With a sigh, I traced the wood with my fingertips, my lips trembling, when I saw it. I picked up the book and felt my heart shatter as I flipped through the worn pages and whispered his name.

Some men do insane things for love.

Some never acknowledge it and deny themselves a life full of God’s best gift in lieu of a career or a selfish bigger picture. They run from the notion of completion without a second thought to what they may miss.

Some men embrace love to the point of no return, let it fill their lives, their only motive, their reason for being.

Others, fueled by love’s strength, pick up their sword to fight selflessly and without pride lay it down for the ones they can’t live without.

Some write songs or paint pictures to better express their appreciation or loss of life’s most powerful drug. They hide away in a world of their own creation with a muse of love’s past as their inspiration, never believing anything better than the world they’ve created could exist outside of it.

And some men can’t handle the lethal dose of intensity that comes with loving another. These men are the most tragic, disillusioned, and helpless while staring it in the face.

I know these men, because without intention, somehow, at one point, I’d become all of them.

It took me years of soul searching, traveling the world, and collecting experiences to know I could outlast being all of them. I could, in fact, push away my selfish ambition, fight, lose, and escape the cloud of my past love. I was fighting, and I was fighting hard because she was worth it. She was both my fuel and downfall, a double-edged sword that helped to decide which of these men I would become next.

Because, let’s face it, when you gave your heart away, you give the person you love the power to destroy you at will. Who you are at that moment defines who you will become next.

Those men capable of love, and even the most confident, can crumble to its cruel fate.

But I’d trusted her, and that was the reason I was destroyed at that moment. I couldn’t take a step in either direction. I was paralyzed with my need for her. I didn’t want to be anything else than the man I was when I was with her. No matter how much strength I found, she weakened me in a way only she could validate. I belonged to her.

And her heart belonged to another.

I closed my eyes and took a deep, painful breath.

Beneath the pain, the waiting anger brewed as I studied her beautiful frame. Was I disillusioned? Or did I fight? Or had she asked me to put my sword down? Frustration rolled off me in waves as I tried to calm myself.

I hadn’t been honest with her about my past, either. But I’d made peace with my past long before I met her.

Or maybe that was a lie I’d told myself and it made me just as guilty.

My life had shifted just as drastically as hers. Was this the reason we crashed together in heat only to be frozen by our fears?

With Rose, my curiously had turned into a dire need for her, her smile, her company, her body. Had we crashed together or had I forced my way in?

There was no way I could escape her words, her truth. Even with what she didn’t say when she’d confessed all, I knew I was defeated and had told her as much.

I had to remind myself again as my veins began to lace with anger that I’d asked to be cut. I’d asked for it. Now I had no idea how to stop the bleeding.

My first instinct was to flee, to let the pain run its course and move on. I’d done it before. But my heart had other plans. It was rooted to her. Subtly and without me being truly aware, it had planted itself here next to her. But I was unwanted, a weed growing wild in someone else’s future.

And she wasn’t alone.

Even as I watched her, knowing her thoughts were of me, I couldn’t trust it. And I had a damn good reason not to.

I could turn and walk away. She would never know, and we would both heal with enough time.

And still, everything inside me wanted to hand her the rest of me so she could cut me deeper, even if it meant there would be nothing left.

She traced her fingers on her desk in thought, and I saw her posture stiffen and then slump as she saw the book. Picking it up, she studied it, and I knew I could no longer walk away the second she whispered my name.

“I wanted to congratulate you today, but you were busy.”

Cajun

I took in a sharp breath to keep from bursting into tears.

I turned around, drank in Jack’s tuxedo-clad body and neatly combed hair as my nerve endings fired up in appreciation. My aching heart pounded in my chest.

“The lights,” I said softly. “They’re beautiful, thank you.”

“I really wanted you to see them,” he said as he kept his eyes low.

“I called you,” I offered and then realized it was shit. I should have left a message begging him to call me back. I should have tried much harder, but my pride got in the way. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“I’ve been out of town working,” he offered as an excuse, his hands in his pockets. I became jealous of those pockets, wanting to feel nothing more than his soothing touch. It was all I could do to keep from tearing into him. He looked better than any man in a tux had the right to. “Lubbock cell service is always horrible.”

“You’re lying.”

He raised his brows but said nothing in his defense. Hands still in his pockets, I resisted the urge to go to him. Something about his demeanor screamed anger and I wasn’t sure I’d be received well.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“You did that the last time I was here,” he said absently, taking in my dress. I’d let the two Js doll me up in hopes Jack would find me irresistible, which seemed a moot point at that moment.

I was in a long black dress with a silk corset and a healthy slit down the front. It was ‘elegant with just the right amount of sexy’ Jamie had declared, forcing me into heels. Jules had pinned half of my hair on top of my head and left the rest trailing down the v-shaped back. I’d felt confident and sexy when I left my house. That confidence was draining by the second as Jack stood in my office, openly glaring at me.

“Why are you so angry?”

“I don’t know,” he said, taking a step forward.

“Jack, give me a chance to—” He brushed past me, and I blew out a frustrated breath, ready to do whatever I had to make him a captive audience. Regardless of how angry he was, I had to tell him how I felt. I misjudged his move to leave when I turned to stop him and saw him lock the door. In a flash, he was in front of me, his hands pushed through my hair, his mouth slamming down onto mine. I gave in instantly, opening wide and taking his punishing tongue. He lifted me off the floor and carried me to my desk as he sat me on the edge while his tongue coaxed mine.

Wet and eager, I reached for him and was forced on my back as he hovered above me.

“I missed you so much,” I panted as he reached beneath my dress with caressing hands and shredded my panties. Without a word, he pinned me with one hand as he pulled out his hard length with the other and stroked himself as I writhed beneath him. His fingers found purchase in my ready sex, and seconds later, I was filled with him as he slammed into me. I gasped in surprise at his rough handling, and my back arched off the desk with each angry thrust.

Desperate for our connection, I looked up at him in a plea. “Jack, please.”

“Please what, Rose? What do you want?” he pushed out with frustration.

“Just you,” I promised as he stroked me harder and picked up his pace. “Please.”

“Please,” he said with menace. “Please what? Make you come? We both know I can do that.”

“No,” I said as my voice shook with hurt.

“No? You didn’t have a problem with it while I was fucking your brains out the last three months.”

“Please don’t,” I said, taking his punishing licks. Minutes later and dripping with sweat, he scooped me off the desk and took me with him to the chair. Still connected, I moaned on impact. He sat back, unmoving and expectant as I straddled him, his length buried deep inside of me.

“Jack,” I prayed to him breathlessly. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep knocking the wind out of me,” he groaned, covered in hurt. “I can’t even defend myself because anything I say right now will be cruel.”

Unable to handle our connection, I began to move on top of him and cradled his head, staring into his eyes. “Say it anyway.”

He wrapped his arms around me and began to move with me, the friction delicious and our rhythm slow. He looked on at me, lost and full of love.

“I wanted you to be mine even when you told me you couldn’t be. I’ve never wanted anything so much.” He kissed my neck and chest as I rode him slowly, memorizing him as a sinking feeling spread.

“I am yours.”

“How can I believe that?” Jack murmured before he took my lips in a kiss and circled his hips. I detonated in his lap as he took my quick breaths and orgasm into his mouth. Seconds later, he came, filling me full with his hot release as he clutched me like he’d never let go, but he did. I knew he was leaving again.

“Don’t,” I begged him for the second time. “Don’t go. Stay and I’ll prove it to you.”

“I have to,” he said, moving me from his lap to stand before him. I pulled down my skirt and leaned down to confront him as he tucked his shirt back into his pants. “I took a job,” he said, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m going to give the traveling thing a rest for a while.”