Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (21 page)

The wine was recognizable as the same label Jack kept around the house. Mrs. Loren sat chatting with her, and still felt self-conscious over her fangirl episode, Marissa tried to keep her eyes from straying to Matt Loren who sat to the other side of his wife.

“Mariss!” Jack hollered up from the beach. “Are you coming down?”

“Soon!” she promised and considered another glass of the wonderful wine.

“Soon-er…” Jack returned, and she heard the beseeching tone in his words even before he added, “Please?”

Halfway in her descent down the slope, Jack met her coming up the stairs, barely stopping for a kiss and explanation as he passed her. “Man about a horse!” He was out of sight before she dropped the last few steps and looked back, and she wondered how long he had been holding back the bathroom urge.

Children’s laughter blew in the steady ocean breeze, and her heart almost exploded with happiness to see Tristan having so much fun. Putting her foot on the skimboard, she held it for Tristan as Jack had done.

Meg struck up a conversation while peeling out of her wetsuit. The intro was always the same from anyone she talked to, and Jack’s sister was no exception. How did she like California? Where was she from? But, unlike anyone else she had shared this dialogue with, Meg’s questioning sometimes seemed barbed.

“Does this seem really fast to you?” Meg’s hair was beginning to dry in the wind and sun, and although it had been sleek and straight upon their introduction earlier, now it waved like her father’s hair, as well as Jack and Tristan’s hair.

“Fast?” Marissa only played dumb because she heard an undercurrent of hostility in Meg’s tone.

“You and Jack.” The impatient clarification was exactly in the manner of Tristan or Jack, and although annoyed herself, Marissa tried not to smile. “You have known each other, what, three weeks?”

Marissa kicked off her rhinestone blinged flip-flops then waded in enough to give Tristan his crutch and assist him out of the soggy part of the sand.

“Um, three weeks. Yep.” Curving a nonchalant smile, Marissa positioned the board again. “Unless you count five years ago.”

“Which was what? Three minutes?” Meg’s retort baited Marissa’s eyes to her face.

The beat of her heart sped up, pounding painfully against her chest, and she took in a deep calming breath. “More like three hours. But I thought you didn’t like deets.”

If the sharp turn the questioning had taken astonished her, Meg’s burst of laughter was even more unexpected. Getting her gurgles under control, Meg agreed, “You’re right. My brain just exploded...ugh...”

“Mom, can I take the big board?”

A boy, not much older than Tristan, stood at Meg’s side and Marissa was surprised to see him indicating the board Meg and Jack had used.

“Not right now. I can’t go out with you.”

As Meg handled the argument that resulted, Marissa looked up to the deck. Jack, with food in one hand and a beer in the other, laughed with his family. His hair was drying in dark wavy strands. Her gaze dropped to Tristan’s soaked head, which she knew would also wave once he was out of the water, in what seemed to be a Loren a trademark.

“I just want you to know, I love Jack,” Marissa confided when Meg’s son scampered off. She wanted to put the sibling concern to rest, but Meg’s response was just as biting as the rest had been.

“It’s easy to love Jack. What’s not to love about Jack Storm?”

Stung again by this queen bee of the Loren clan, Marissa shook it off and retorted, “See, that’s just it. I don’t always love Jack Storm. But with all my heart I love Jack Loren.”

“I guess that is what bothers me. That you had a fling with Jack Storm. And it bought you back stage passes to Jacks Loren.”

“Has anyone ever told you that sometimes it is rude to be so outspoken?” Through the haze of hurt and anger, Marissa offensively lashed out.

“All the time.” Meg laughed, but she did not apologize.

“What’s so funny girls?!” Jack shouted the inquiry while sprinting down the steps swinging a mini cooler. He was halfway through doling out drinks to the kids when he looked up, possibly feeling the tension that was as heavy as the tide rolling in.

Marissa avoided his dark, speculative gaze by hooking her foot into the rope of Tristan’s skimboard and dragging it from the surf. The small boy was thirstily glugging a power aid drink and plopped down in the sand with his cousins to build a moat.

“Meagan...” Jack growled, and Marissa wondered if he had already had an earful of his sister’s doubts.

“What?” Meg thrust a defensive chin out.

To Marissa, Jack held up a bottle of water and a bagged margarita, and when she gratefully accepted the water, he dropped the bag back into the cooler.

“Mariss and I were just discussing your shows.” An innocent smile curved Meg’s lips, and she gestured to the cooler now at his feet. “Is one of those for me?”

“Help yourself Mags.” Although he relaxed his tone, he hadn’t relaxed his guard enough to politely offer his sister a drink and rudely kicked the cooler her way.

Unperturbed, Meg bent for the margarita then smoothly got her revenge. “If you are going to be down here with the kids? I’m going up for a bit?”

“Fine. We’ll be here.” Jack returned, and as his sister collected her things, he slipped an arm around Marissa’s waist. “Long enough to christen Mariss with the waters of the Pacific anyway...”

Relenting to his tug, she found herself knee-deep in the surf, but when he continued to pull, she dug in, curling her toes into the sand and shale beneath the water. Refusing to take that silent no for an answer, Jack swung her up and into the next rolling wave, never letting go of her hips as he followed her headlong dunk.

“You are hereby baptized with the Pacific coast Mariss my gulf coast girl!”

“You Jack-Ass!” She sputtered pushing the wet hair from her salt burned eyes as wave after wave crashed her body to his chest. “Dammit!” The water was extremely cooler than she expected. With a shiver, she rubbed at her eyes and mourned the loss of her fresh water bottle.

Shoving, she managed to unbalance him with the aid of a wave, but he reflexively grabbed at her taking her with him again. The startled look on his face had her laughing as they came up, even though she had been dunked again.

The kids on the beach, as well as adults on the deck, were also hysterically amused. Jack’s look was no longer startled; it was heating up. Following his gaze down, she saw that her dripping clothing was not a big problem when compared to the white shirt, which was now transparent. In the sun, her thin, white bra was barely a layer. Reflexively, she pulled the wet fabric away from her body and stepped closer to Jack’s body to shield herself.

“Damn Mariss,” Because he was so close, the curse physically hit her face as well as vibrated her eardrums. “I’m sorry. That was unexpected.”

A quick plan hatched between them. She turned to the horizon and he fetched from the beach bag Tristan’s shirt and a towel. He stood as a wall between her and the others while she removed the wet shirt and stretched the snug, dry one over her anatomy. Jack wiped her face with the towel then looped it around her neck so that the ends fell over the strain of the shirt across her chest.

The kids were beginning to hit the water again, and mutually, she and Jack halted their wade to the beach, watching as Tristan pushed himself up with his crutch, grabbed his board, then threw down the crutch. Although a little ungainly still, his crutchless sprint had him gliding into the waves with the board in the same manner as his cousins.

“Yay T.J.!” His new cousins clapped and cheered.

Seeing his parents watching, Tristan shined a smile and tripped his way back to the beach using his board for support.

“See that?” Jack was as giddy as she was. “So Dope!” Quietly, he tossed out the word as a tease, and she laughed. Because it was. So dope. The sky was bluer, the sun brighter as they watched Tristan go for his next ride.

After spectating a few more minutes, she rotated an arm, stretching in the tight shirt, and turned to glance at the steps leading up to the house.

“This shirt is going to split off me.”

“I like it.” Jack shamelessly eyed the barely confined curves, but sweetly offered, “You want me to go up and find another for you while you stay here with the kids? Or are you okay to go up? Mom will give you a different shirt.”

Thankfully–as the last thing she wanted to do was ask Meg!

Around dusk, plates of food were heaped again. The adults sat in chairs grouped together on the deck and kept a watchful eye on the children who ate seated around a table just on the other side of a large glass window. It was magical to be privy to their happy faces as they talked among themselves, but not to have to hear the hyperactive child chatter at the end of this busy day.

“Jules,” Candace put aside her hamburger long enough to speak. “I cannot get over how much Tristan looks like Jack at that age.”

“That was my first thoughts on seeing him,” Jules returned, and her husband agreed.

All eyes swung to Jack who jokingly admitted, “Yeah there was no denying that one. No paternity test needed.”

Laughter rumbled all around, and when it died down, Meg, who Marissa realized had not joined in the hilarity, asked, “But you had one, right?”

Six or seven silent seconds ticked by in which the retreating tide was the only sound waves. Everyone seemed appalled that Meg broached the question but equally curious of the answer.

Jack’s chair was balanced on two legs as he leaned back on the rail, and he let it drop to all fours with a thump. “Now that’s none of your business is it Meagan?”

Never had Marissa heard him use that tone. It was cold, hollow, and scornful.

“Well yeah,” His persistent sister shot back, and her look dared him to defy her next words. “I think true paternity is all of our business.”

The words cut Marissa for many reasons, but the main one was just inside that window, happily smiling as he ate and talked with his new cousins.

“Excuse me.” Amidst the chastisements to Meg by family, and Jack’s deadly glare executing his sister, Marissa quietly weaved around chairs toward the house door.

“I’m just saying. Anyone can get a hold of baby pic’s of me or Jack off the internet!”

“And what Meg?! Build a kid?” Marissa had learned their voices enough to know it was Marc Jr. who spoke.

“Yes!” Meg again. “How am I the only one who sees this?! If I screwed Mike Mullholland and it so happened my boyfriend looks enough like Mike Muholland that my kid resembles Mike Muholl–”

“If someone doesn’t shut her up I will–and it won’t be nicely!”

Jack’s steely threat was the last thing Marissa heard as she swung the door closed. Tears burned at her eyes, worse than the salt water earlier, as she bent down whispering to her animated son that it was time to go.

The smile on his face disappeared and the light in his eyes dulled. The little boy’s recent violable moods surfaced yet again, and he loudly protested their departure.

Picking his crutch up, she firmly insisted and rolled the rest of his hotdog and chips into a napkin. When Tristan began to cry, she wanted to herself, but anger took root, burning her dry-eyed as she held out his crutch.

“Come on honey. You can see your cousins again soon.”

“Nooo. Momma, why? We aren’t even finished eating!”

“Mariss,” Jack appeared, and she spun away thinking he would try to talk her out of a departure. “Mariss, let me take him to the car and I will come back for our stuff.”

“Daddy, I don’t want to go!”

Jack knelt talking to him quietly, and seconds later gave him a piggyback ride to the car parked on the street. With a smile at the confused kids, she voiced the hollow promise that Tristan would see them again soon. Carrying his crutch and plate, she trailed Jack without looking back.

Once they settled in, she numbly held the food in her lap that a sniffling tot refused to eat.

Jumping at the tap on the glass, she made out Jack’s mother and Aunt Candace in the streetlights. The entire group of kids gathered behind them.

Marissa popped open the door and as Jules Loren apologized for her daughter, a couple of the children crawled behind her seat to get to Tristan.

When she darted a glance at the backseat, Meg’s daughter was hugging Tristan’s neck. “Bye T.J. You are our favorite new cousin.”

Tristan was smiling again and finishing his meal by the time Jack swerved the car from the curb into the street. Marissa felt somewhat better to know that the entire family had not taken up pitchforks and torches. Although, the more she thought about it, as sweet as Jules Loren’s apology had been, the woman had not said a thing indicating that her own thoughts did not match Meg’s.

JACK REMAINED SILENT
with his eyes focused solely on his driving. As they merged on to the Ventura Freeway, his hand crossed the console between their seats to rest warmly on her leg.

In getting from the car to the house, not much was said other than what needed to be. Dax did not seem to be around. Tristan went directly to bed, and she stepped into the shower of the adjoining bathroom.