Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-One
“Jake!” Kate screamed, because it seemed the thing to say when one was about to get shredded like a smoked pork butt at a family barbeque.
“Kate!” someone yelled back, and for a moment she thought she might have imagined it. But then Jake was there, crashing through the trees, shouting at the cougar and holding up a canister that released a pepper-scented mist. The cougar let loose a roar so close to Kate that its hot breath blasted in her face. It twisted away from them, landing in the underbrush and curling around with its paws swiping at its face.
“Kate, come on!” Jake yelled as he grabbed her and dragged her in the same direction where Marla had disappeared.
“You came for me!” Kate called out like an idiot, as the cat roared again with a grating howl that sounded straight out of a movie soundtrack.
“Of course I came for you,” Jake said, looking at her like she was crazy. “Spencer told me you went after Marla into a cougar’s hunting territory. Why wouldn’t I come for you?”
“I just thought…” Kate’s throat was thick, possibly with emotion, possibly an aftereffect of whatever Jake had sprayed at the cougar. Her eyes prickled and teared, her skin tingling with an odd sensation. “What was that?”
“Bear spray,” Jake said. “Next time you go into the wilderness after a murderer, at least change your shoes, would you?”
“I’m not planning on making this a next-time type of thing,” Kate said, blinking back tears. “Jake, I’m so sorry. I was an idiot. A jerk. Whatever other insults you want to call me. I was scared that you would leave again, and I would be left behind.”
Here it was, her chance to be brave. She took a deep breath, ready to spill all her various feelings, when Jake nearly tripped over Marla, whose boot had gotten so firmly wedged under an uprooted tree root that she couldn’t pull it loose. The cougar roared behind them.
“It’s coming after us!” Kate said, her heartrate spiking. “Marla, leave the boot!”
“I’m trying!” Marla squealed, jerking at the laces that knotted the boot. “It’s too wet, I can’t get the laces undone!”
Jake reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small knife, slicing through the laces in one quick jerk. If they hadn’t been on the precipice of disaster, it would have been the hottest thing Kate had ever seen. Even on the precipice of disaster, Kate allowed herself to admire the way the muscles in his shoulders tightened as he hauled Marla up, her foot coming loose with a wet, sucking sound. The delay was just enough that the cougar had caught up with them.
“Oh god,” Marla moaned, clinging to Jake, trying to claw her way around him to put him between her and the cougar. “What a miserable end to a fucking miserable week.”
“Does feel like poetic justice for Rebecca and Fluffy, though,” Kate said.
“Cover your ears,” Jake muttered to Kate.
“What?” she asked, looking at him wildly. The cougar lowered itself into a leaping position, and her heart threatened to do the cat’s work for him and explode out of her chest.
“Just do it!” Jake said, raising his arm with something clutched in his hand. He pressed his other hand to his ear, and Kate just had time to press both hands to her ears before he pushed the button of an air horn. It blasted through the trees, startling a flight of birds overhead, and sending the cougar howling in the opposite direction.
Marla, who’d had no such warning, fell to the ground clutching the sides of her head with a scream. “What the fuck was that? My ears!”
“Serves you right,” Jake muttered, dragging her up.
They broke the tree line a few minutes later, booking it across the open lawn toward the Manor where the remaining wedding guests had gathered beneath the overhang. Money changed hands among the guests as they approached, and Richie scowled at them.
“You couldn’t have gotten one good swipe to the face, huh?” he said, reluctantly handing over a one-hundred-dollar bill to Spencer’s brother.
“You were taking bets?” Jake said.
“Not on you, Kangaroo Jake,” said Richie. “On the Evanescence stan over here. I thought for sure Fluffy would get her.”
“What?” Marla shouted, shaking her head. “I can’t hear a fucking thing. This asshole blasted that air horn like two inches from my ear. I think he blew out my eardrum.”
Jake shrugged, handing Marla over to some of the wedding guests to detain her until they could contact the authorities on the mainland. “There wasn’t time to warn her.”
“And what about you?” Juliette asked, looking at Kate.
Kate smiled ruefully. “Apparently there was enough time to warn me.”
Juliette cracked a wicked smile. “She got what she deserved, after all. Though I agree with Richie, one swipe to the face would have been pretty satisfying.”
The guests retreated into the safety and warmth of the house, but as Jake made to follow them Kate tugged on his sleeve, drawing him off to one side where a small courtyard had been overrun by vines.
“You know there’s a recently pissed-off cougar still roaming the island, right?” Jake said.
“Right, thank you for the rescue,” Kate said.
“Oh, I intend to be well rewarded for it, too,” Jake said. He cocked his head to the side. “So, what’s so important we’re risking the rise of Fluffy out here?”
It was a lot easier to be brave when she thought she was moments away from getting mauled by a big cat. That had felt like the proper time to blurt out feelings in the drama of the moment. Whatever she said now—whatever she admitted—couldn’t be blamed on alcohol, or life-threatening circumstances. But she owed Jake better than hiding behind excuses. She owed both of them a chance, regardless of the outcome.
“Jake, I… Well, I already said I was sorry, but I still am. For how I treated you, for not considering your feelings, for… for making you feel cheap. You’re not a one-night stand. You’re the furthest thing from it. You’re… Okay, here goes. I can do this. You’re the most important person to me. In the world. Except maybe my mom. And the Golden Palace delivery kid, Tan. But that’s negotiable, depending on your willingness to pick up lo mein. That was a joke, in case that’s not clear. It sounded funny in my head, but you’re not laughing, so maybe it wasn’t as funny as I—”
She might have gone on like that for several more excruciating minutes if Jake hadn’t gently and firmly taken her face in his hands and kissed her. And now she could tell he was smiling, his lips stretching against hers. He tasted so lovely, his tongue so warm and just the right amount of rough as it slid against hers, his chest so solid. She sighed, giving in to the sensation, her arms sliding around his neck of their own volition.
“I interrupted you,” Jake murmured against her lips. “Did you want to keep going?”
“Not even a little bit,” Kate said, kissing him again.
Jake pressed his forehead against hers. “Kate, I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier. I didn’t just come this weekend to talk to Simon about a new book deal. I came because I knew you’d be here.”
“You came back for me?” Kate said in surprise. “But on the way here, I thought—”
“I know what you thought, and I was too much of a coward to just come out and say it. You wanted a truce, so I pretended I did, too. But that’s not what I want at all, Katey cakes. After two years of slumming through jungles and huffing up mountains and sleeping in flea-infested hostels, all I wanted was to come home. But home wasn’t my apartment with Charlie, or my aunt’s house, or even the entire continent of Australia. It was a feeling, something I wanted to come back to at the end of every day. And you’re it for me, Kate. You are home. And I thought if I could just see you one more time, if I had another chance… I swore I wouldn’t let either of us fuck it up again.”
“Oh,” Kate said, her voice thick, her chest filled with too much emotion to contain. But she promised herself she would be brave. She would embrace the chaos. “Well, you can’t possibly leave the country now, not after that. Probably not ever, if I’m being honest. Unless you’re taking me with you.”
Jake lifted his head, his stormy ocean eyes fixing on hers. “Are you sure?”
Kate reached out, pulling him down for a kiss. And underneath everything—the easy smile, the tousled hair, the surfer-boy cool, Kate could taste the hesitancy. The insecurity. She’d never imagined Jake Hawkins worrying about a single thing, but now it was so obvious he was worried about her . About her feelings for him, her interest in him. It was so preposterous it made her laugh, and he pulled back with a frown.
“It’s never a good thing when a girl laughs while kissing you.”
“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at… I don’t know. The situation. Jake, I’ve been… well, obsessed feels like a creepy word, so not obsessed. But I’ve wanted you for as long as I’ve known you.”
“And now that you’ve had me?” Jake said, raising his brows.
Kate shook her head. “No, not like that. Well, I mean, not just that. That’s obviously… that part is, well… that part is working great . No, I mean you . Jake Hawkins, former pro surfer, globetrotting adventurer, secret cat lover. Absolute weirdo about Alfredo sauce.”
“Because it’s disgusting,” he reasoned.
“Because your taste buds are broken,” Kate said, smiling.
“And if I’m not that globetrotting adventurer anymore?” Jake asked.
“Good,” Kate said, smiling blissfully. “More time for me to make it my personal mission to make you enjoy Alfredo sauce. I will cook so much pasta, you’ll be forty pounds heavier and absolutely miserable.”
“You know, on second thought, the tech bros don’t sound so bad,” Jake said, stone-faced, and Kate laughed and punched him lightly in the ribs.
“I like you, Jake Hawkins,” she said. “I like you so, so much. A lot. All of the time.”
“I like you, too, Katey cakes,” Jake said, smiling. “So, so much. A lot. All of the time.”
And because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she kissed him again, until they both lost the power of speech for several more minutes. Or hours.