5. Jack
5
JACK
A LONG WAY FROM HOME
“W harton. Get your ass out of here,” Craig , one of the old-timers at the station, snapped as the shift change wrapped up.
“Yes, sir,” I clipped as I finished the changeover and headed to my locker.
“Dude, why are you being so dodgy?” Drew asked as he sidled up to me. “ I’ve been here for an hour and you won’t look me in the eye.”
“Just getting shit ready for your twenty-four on,” I said lightly as I reached into my locker to grab my duffel. “ You’re welcome.”
“Bro—” Drew clapped his hand on my shoulder and yanked hard enough to spin me around. His eyes went wide, and I could see him fighting back a laugh. “ I thought y’all didn’t get toned out last night?”
“We didn’t,” I said as I packed my shit.
“Then—uh—did you get in a fight with a trailer hitch that had those big balls hanging from it?”
I looked him dead in the eye so he could get a good look at the bruise that was a dark purple today. Ironically , it matched the color of the sex toy Aurora had hit me with.
“You should’ve just told me,” Drew said as he held his hands up in defense. “ I didn’t know you played for both teams. But good for you, bro. I can totally be your wingman the next time we go out. Twice as many options for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “ I tried to be neighborly yesterday. Went next door to the old Whitlock place and got hit in the face with the ball-end of a sex toy.” I pressed my hand to my cheek and winced at the bite of pain. It hurt like a bitch.
“Ahhh,” he said in understanding. “ You had to get a good look at the woman who almost burned your house down. Hot , right? I told you.”
Drew wasn’t wrong. Aurora was fine as hell. Fuck -me legs, a tight ass, and a gorgeous face with Bambi eyes I wanted to see beneath me as I? —
“I’ll take that look as a yes,” Drew said, snapping me out of the daydream. “ Which still doesn’t explain why she smacked you upside the head with a dick.”
“I told you. She was unpacking a box and got startled.”
“You gonna tap that?”
“No,” I said as I shouldered my bag. “ She’s my neighbor. I was just introducing myself.”
“You gonna go back over there?”
“Yeah. I told her I’d fix the stairs that go up to the front door on the second story. I don’t want her to snap a femur falling through them on her way up and down.”
Drew lifted an eyebrow. “ You’re going to do manual labor, but you’re not going to make a move?” His surprise morphed into a grin. “ Or you’re doing manual labor so you can get her in bed and do a different kind of manual labor.”
Drew was a good guy at heart, but he had a tendency to present as a douchebag. Being the “love ‘em and leave ‘em” type worked for him, which meant he assumed it worked for everyone else too. Drew loved the waves of tourists that came and went each season; the temporary nature of it all. Hell , I used to love it too. But we were getting too old for that shit.
Maybe getting hit in the face by a dildo would knock some sense into him . . .
“Or,” Drew said. “ Are you just poking around while she’s there to see if she’s the same kind of batshit crazy her great-aunt was? Crazy can be fun. Maybe it runs in the family. My granddad’s got all kinds of stories about Lady Whitlock .”
“Fuck off,” I said with a half-cocked smile. I punched him in the shoulder. “ I’ll catch you later. Stay safe.”
The summer sun was blazing hot when I stepped out into the parking lot. I tossed my bag into the bed of the truck and peeled out of the station parking lot.
Ernie’s Fish ‘n Fuel was packed when I pulled into the gravel lot. The double-wide trailer that served as Cedar Island’s one-stop coffee shop, diner, deli, and seafood market was teeming with locals and summertimers alike.
The bells hanging from the door jingled as I yanked it open and stepped inside. I was greeted by the smell of fryer grease and Ernie bellowing, “ Wharton !”
I lifted two fingers and tipped my chin as I slid onto one of the cracked vinyl stools that were pushed up to the bar. “ Morning .”
“You getting off or going in?” Ernie hollered as he adjusted his John Deere hat and pulled a batch of fried oysters out of the deep fryer.
“Gettin’ off,” I said as I stole one of the order-taking pens and started scribbling my to-do list on a napkin.
Flour-spattered overalls came into view as Ernie shuffled over and dropped a mug of coffee in front of me. “ Long night?”
“Not bad,” I said as I started on my hardware store list. “ Got a little sleep just after midnight.”
“You want your usual?”
I nodded. “ Yes , sir.”
“Whatcha got there?” he asked, pointing a gnarled finger at my napkin list before turning to get started on my chicken biscuit.
“Gotta drive down to Beaufort and hit up the hardware store.”
“You working on your place?”
“Nah. I’m helping out a neighbor.”
Ernie let out a pack-a-day laugh. “ You don’t have neighbors.” It only took a few seconds for it to dawn on him. “ You mean the old Whitlock place?”
I nodded. “ Juniper Whitlock’s great-niece is here to fix it up and sell it.”
A slow, curving smile worked up the side of his weathered face. “ You don’t say. Juniper Whitlock . . .” He drew out the name like a question and a statement all in one. “ I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
I ripped into a packet of sugar and tapped it into my coffee. “ Did you know her? Back in the day, I mean.”
Ernie chuckled as he turned back to the flat top grill and fryers. “ I did. There’s only a few of us old-timers left who were around back then.”
“Did she come in here often?”
Ernie wiped his hands on his overalls. “ Well , back then I wasn’t runnin’ this place. I was still workin’ the fishin’ trawlers. When I retired and started this joint, she’d come in from time to time. Juniper was ill off and on in the years before she passed, and didn’t leave the house much. No one saw her. Being a shut-in made the tall tales get even taller.”
A dingy but clean beige ceramic plate appeared in front of me, piled high with a chicken biscuit and two eggs over easy. Ernie reached beneath the counter and dropped a bear of honey in front of me.
“‘Preciate it,” I said as I scribbled down a few more things to get, then uncapped my chicken biscuit and squeezed the honey on the fried filet.
“So, tell me about June’s niece.”
There was something about the way he said ‘ June ’ that pricked at my curiosity, but the urge to say something about it was overpowered by the biscuit.
“Drove all the way from Colorado to spend the summer working on the house,” I said around the first bite.
“Long way from home,” he mused as servers and fishmongers whirled around him to keep up with the morning rush. “ Looks like you two hit it off.” He chuckled. “ Or something.”
I cocked my head as I downed the biscuit.
Ernie tapped his cheek and it dawned on me that Drew and the station crew weren’t the only people privy to the bruise on my face.
“We may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” I said.
Ernie snickered. “ A woman that can hold her own is a treasure. Don’t let that one slip away. You sweet on her?”
I laughed as I pawed around for the coffee. “ I just met her.”
Ernie shrugged as he turned and left me to my breakfast. “ When you know, you know.”
He left me to stew on the cryptic comment while I fueled up for the day. I took my coffee to-go and promised to bring the mug back.
The trip to Beaufort wasn’t bad. Forty -five minutes there and back, with a half-hour tacked on in the middle to load up my truck with supplies, and I was back before lunch.
Aurora’s car was still parked beneath the deck. It had a slight dent in the roof from where she had been using it as a stepstool.
Hopefully, I could get the staircase revamped today. The haul of lumber I’d loaded into the bed of the truck took a nice chunk out of my bank account, but I was doing a public service. What goes around comes around.
Or at least that’s what I told myself.
Instead of risking the stairs, I pulled my truck up beside her car, opened the door, stepped on the driver’s seat, and grabbed the edge of the deck. I muscled myself up and squeezed through a break in the railing rungs.
The front door was unlocked, so I let myself in and looked around. The house was already a far cry from what it had been twenty-four hours ago. The windows were sparkling as daylight flooded in from all directions. The furniture had been uncovered and arranged. The floors had been swept and cleaned as much as possible without industrial equipment, and the countertops were neat and tidy.
Brooms, mops, buckets and rags had been rinsed out and were drying on the ocean-front deck, just off the kitchen. Giant black trash bags were stuffed full and tied off, ready to be removed.
Once I got the stairs up to a decent safety standard, I’d take the garbage out for her.
I had to admit, Aurora had been busting her ass. The house still needed weeks worth of work, but it was easier to navigate and slightly less of a hazard.
Which left me to wonder, where was she? Her car was still here and there were no shops or restaurants within walking distance.
Maybe she had gone out to the beach.
I glanced at the double doors that led out to the ocean-front deck, but the latch was clearly locked. It wasn’t the type of door she could have locked behind her on the way out.
“Aurora?” I called out. “ You home?”
No answer.
I poked around, glancing in the adjacent rooms, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Aurora,” I said again as I yanked open the last bedroom door. My foot hit something as soon as I stepped inside.
A feminine scream scared the shit out of me.
I looked down and found Aurora wrapped up in a sleeping bag on the floor. Her eyes were wide and filled with terror as she let out an ear-piercing shriek.
“Shit—sorry?—”
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?!” she shouted as she tugged the sleeping bag up to her neck.
I glanced at my watch. “ It’s almost noon. Why are you sleeping?”
“I was up late, you breaking-and-entering-buffoon! Sleeping in is not a crime!”
She may have had a point . . .
“Stop breaking into my house!”
I took a wide step back. “ Point taken. I was making good on the promise to work on the steps.”
She sat up and ran a hand through her nest of bedhead. The sleeping bag pooled at her waist, giving me a peek at freckled shoulders daintily dotted with paper thin tank top straps. They held up the two most perfect breasts I’d ever seen. Her sleeve of tattoos was on full display, a badass blend of flowers and wildlife.
“I told you I don’t need your help,” she growled.
This stubborn little . . .
“So, tell me. How do you plan on fixing the stairs?”
Aurora scoffed. “ I’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said as I turned and headed for the deck.
“What are you doing?” Aurora shrieked as she bolted out of the room and came to a skidding halt in front of me.
“I’m going to fix the stairs so you don’t break your pretty neck doing a gymnastics vault off of the hood of your car to get up and down.”
She planted a splayed hand on my chest, stopping me in my tracks. “ Why ?”
“Because I’m your neighbor?”
Her eyes narrowed. “ That’s not a good enough reason.”
“What? You didn’t have neighborly kindness in Colorado ?”
“Ted Bundy was someone’s neighbor. Neighborliness doesn’t mean jack shit.”
She may have had the slightest of points, which led me to question why I was so hell-bent on helping her.
Sure, I was concerned for her physical well-being, but it didn’t stop there. I could admit that much.
Something about the way her mouth was constantly set in a frustrated line tugged at me. She always stared with an intensity that couldn’t be explained by anything other than that she was at war in her own mind.
I wanted to know what she was fighting.
“The place looks good,” I said as I looked around the joint kitchen and living room. “ You must’ve been cleaning the whole time I was on duty.”
Aurora lifted her hands in defense. “ I didn’t use the grill. There aren’t any potential fires for you to put out, so you can go.”
“Aurora—”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
She rolled her eyes and cocked her hip, making her sleep shorts ride up just enough that I could make out the curve of her ass.
Damn . . . That ass . . .
“I hate my name,” she clipped as she made a beeline for the ancient coffee maker that had been cleaned and shined to the best of her ability. “ It’s obnoxious sounding.”
“You introduced yourself as Aurora ,” I said, defending myself.
“In my defense, I thought you would have a normal reaction to being hit in the face with a dildo and leave me alone. I didn’t think we’d have to readdress it.” She cocked her head and assessed my cheek. “ Nice bruise.”
“Thanks. I got a lot of—uh—compliments from the guys at the station.”
Aurora snickered. “ I’m sorry it bruised.”
“But not sorry that you hit me?”
Her tone softened a touch. “ You were trespassing. You kind of deserved it.”
A piece of paper with empty boxes to check and a long list of repairs was sitting on the kitchen island. “ Is this your renovation list?” I asked as I picked it up and started perusing the tasks.
Aurora snatched it out of my hand. “ My renovation list. Not yours. Now take your overbearing hospitality and get out of my house. I haven’t had my coffee yet, and you’re giving me a headache.”