18. Aurora
18
AURORA
THE BAGEL THIEF
J ack was in a mood. He had been ever since he pulled into his driveway when he got off duty this morning. I had hidden in the widow’s watch, peering over his property as he slammed the door to his truck and stomped inside.
So . . . there would be no morning check-in. That was fine. It’s not like I needed one.
I sat cross-legged on the widow’s watch and stared out at the ocean. The raging current from yesterday had eased into a moody churning that looked the way my stomach felt.
I could still smell his sheets. The crisp, clean fragrance of his laundry mixed with manly soap, cologne, and deodorant was potent and intoxicating. The bed felt like a cloud compared to the air mattress I had been sleeping on.
Waking up in Jack’s house felt like coming out of a coma. I was still me, but I wasn’t entirely sure how I had ended up there. My phone had been plugged into the charger, but had I done that or had Jack ? Did I sleepwalk and crawl into bed with him? I didn’t think I was a sleepwalker . . .
Or had he . . .
No. I didn’t let myself linger on the notion that maybe Jack had carried me to bed. That was absurd.
Then again, he had left a bagel and fruit out on the kitchen table with a note telling me to help myself to the coffee and the kitchen.
I took the bagel and ran back to my place like a thief.
That was weird. When had I started thinking about Aunt Juniper’s house as mine?
I dismissed the thought with a shake of my head and turned back to the plotting notebook on my lap.
I had driven down the coast for a hardware store run. I needed more sandpaper and primer for the kitchen cabinets beneath the countertop. In a stroke of good luck, I found ornate drawer pulls for the cabinets at an antique shop and snagged them for the kitchen.
I put in a few hours of back-breaking work by sanding the countertop cabinets before tackling the ugliest wallpaper known to man in one of the last remaining upstairs bedrooms.
The house was coming along. I was constantly sore. My muscles ached every single day. But being able to end the day by sitting on the beach with my toes in the water was the best kind of therapy.
There was something about the monotony of renovations that cleared my mind. I liked the mundane, repetitive tasks of sanding, painting, cleaning, and clearing. It allowed my imagination to wander. Daydreaming had always been my favorite part of being an author. I could go to any world I wanted in the blink of an eye.
The drive to the hardware store had given me plenty of time to muse on the writing I had done at Jack’s house. Words had flowed from my fingers faster than they ever had before. Even when I was writing my last series, drafting had never come that easily to me.
I was convinced it was a fluke, but the ideas kept coming. Since the weather was calming down after Mother Nature’s mood swing, the widow’s watch called to me.
And maybe I was hiding from Jack .
It was around the time he usually woke up from sleeping off his shift and came over to see what I had done to the house over the twenty-four hours he had been at work.
Maybe he’d think I wasn’t home, and then we wouldn’t have to talk about the elephant in the room.
It was me. I was the elephant, and the room was his bed.
Maybe we could avoid this forever. I’d finish the house, sell it, pack up, and we’d never see each other again. Easy peasy.
Except . . . I did want to see him. As focused as I was on scribbling down ideas for the two characters that I had flirted with while I wrote at his house, I kept peering between the balcony railings every few minutes to see if he was outside.
“Lost in thought?”
I screamed at the deep timbre rumbling behind me. Jack chuckled as he filled the doorway, peering down at me.
I clasped my hand to my chest. “ What the hell is wrong with you? And how did you sneak out of your house without me knowing?”
“Aww—you were waiting for me? I’m touched,” he joked.
I swatted at his leg.
Jack knelt beside me, putting us on the same level. “ How’s it coming?” he asked, tapping the scorched edge of my notebook.
“It’s . . . something,” I hedged.
“Did you get the sneeze out?”
I bit back a laugh. “ Sorry . I guess I was a little manic when I showed up at your door.”
But his eyes were kind. “ That’s all right.”
Silence hung between us. I was waiting for Jack to bring it up, but he was waiting on me.
“Um, thanks for letting me crash. I think.” I winced. “ Honestly , I don’t remember how I got in your bed or if you were in it when I did. So I’m sorry for any unintentional shenanigans.”
Jack lifted an amused eyebrow. “ Shenanigans ?”
“You know what I mean,” I said with a huff.
“Don’t worry, Roar . There were no shenanigans.” His eyes flicked to my lips. “ But I do accept gratitude the way you thanked me in my kitchen.”
I swear to Jane Austen , I wanted to climb that man like a tree.
But instead of taking him up on the offer, I decided to be an idiot.
“I should apologize for that too.” I glanced out at the crashing waves. “ I shouldn’t have given you mixed signals like that . . .”
“Hey—” Jack cupped my chin and gently turned me to face him. “ They’re not mixed signals. It’s just you being a person and figuring out what you want.” He cracked a smile. “ I’m a big boy. I can handle nuance.”
I laughed as I leaned into his touch. “ Thank you.”
“But, Roar . . .” He tilted my chin and fixed my gaze on him. “ Just so we’re clear, my signals haven’t changed. And for your peace of mind, you fell asleep on your laptop, so I carried you to bed when I got up for work.”
I chewed on my lip. “ Your bed is really comfortable.”
He grinned. “ I can think of a few more ways we could try it out. See how comfortable it really is. I have no problem with shenanigans.”
I pushed his chest playfully. “ How was work?”
Jack immediately averted his eyes. There were days he’d update me on the bullshit they got called to—people doing stupid things or complex scenes they had to navigate. There were days he would unload the stress and exhaustion he was under. Then , there were days he didn’t talk about it at all.
“One of those days, huh?”
Jack gave me a sad smile. “ Kicked off yesterday with a tricky one. Drew got in a tight spot and I overreacted and bit his head off.”
“Because you were worried about him?”
“Something like that.”
I had an inkling that Jack erred on the side of "overprotective" with everyone he cared about.
It was ironic. He refused to let himself love, fall, and feel the exhilarating rush of lust, comfort, and partnership because he was scared of losing someone.
But he was just as scared of losing his friend. His family. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Jack had relationships. They just weren’t romantic.
“Is Drew okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. He —uh—he’s fine.”
“Are you okay?”
Jack scrubbed a hand down the back of his neck. “ I really wish you were still doing the sledgehammer shit right about now.”
I laughed. “ Sorry . I’m back to sanding cabinets and ripping down wallpaper.”
Jack grimaced. “ Look , I know she was your aunt and all, but who puts wallpaper in a beach house?”
I shrugged. “ She was eccentric. That’s for sure.”
Jack sat down on the minuscule balcony. There wasn’t room for both of us, so he pulled me onto his lap. “ Found anything else?”
“Yeah, actually.” I pulled the pen from the pocket on the inside of my notebook. “ This was on one of the drawer tracks under the countertop.”
He studied the engraving. “ Any idea what it means?”
I shook my head. “ In the autobiography, she talks about how everyone comes to the beach and dreams of a treasure hunt, so she started leaving clues.”
“Huh.” He rotated the pen between his fingers to get a better look. “ Do you think there’s actually something at the end of all these clues?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Jack reclined against the wall, bringing me with him. I had to admit, this was . . . this was nice.
“Seems like a lot of work for it not to lead anywhere,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my waist. “ How many more do you think there are?”
“I don’t know. But at this point, I think I’m seeing cursive A ’s in my sleep.”
“You mean, like that one?” Jack said as he pointed at the railing of the widow’s watch.
Sure enough, one of the rungs of the railing sported the same type of burned brand as the floorboard.
I craned forward and smoothed my fingers over the marking. “ How could something be in it, though? Wouldn’t being outside degrade whatever was hidden?”
“We’ll never know unless we try,” Jack said as he leaned us both forward and reached for the rung.
“Hold on!” I shouted. “ The widow’s watch is fine. I’m not redoing it. What’s that saying? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?”
His mouth grazed my ear. “ Treasure , Roar . Don’t you want to live a little?”
Shivers danced down my spine. Something about my aunt’s shenanigans had triggered a curiosity in me that I thought I had lost. I had an inkling that the treasure hunt—bogus as it may be—had sparked my imagination again.
I had always been driven by the “what ifs.”
What if the clues meant something?
What if there was treasure hidden under the house?
What if the hidden manuscript pages were actually a cipher?
What if a girl traveled across the country after breaking a cipher, only to run into rogue treasure hunters in a race to the gold?
What if she had to team up with the sexy treasure hunter because an organized crime family was after them, thinking that the treasure hunters were going to find their literal skeletons?
What if she fell in love with her treasure-hunting enemy-slash-partner?
What if they had to hide in a train’s luggage compartment, while the bad guys searched each car, hunting them down?
What if . . .
What if . . .
What if . . .
I grabbed a blue pen and scribbled down a few plot ideas on the backside of a sheet of notebook paper while Jack fiddled with the railing. Treasure hunting, but make it dark and sexy.
Life was full of “what ifs.” They were either two of the most damning words known to man—full of regrets and missed chances—or a liberating expanse of unfettered hope.
When had I stopped looking at “what ifs” as possibilities? When had I boarded up my heart and locked the part of my mind that ached with wanderlust and craved the excitement of the unknown?
“Roar—” Jack’s gravelly voice startled me.
I blinked and watched as he gently turned the balcony rung like a screwdriver. Carefully , Jack eased it out from the railing. “ Well . Would you look at that . . .”
“It’s hollow,” I said in disbelief as Jack handed it to me. I gave it a gentle shake, and something rattled around inside. Slowly , I tipped it upside down and cupped my hand over the opening. “ Just as long as it’s not snakes.”
Jack chuckled.
A glass vial that looked like an airplane bottle of liquor slid into my hand. The Aurora Archer A had been stamped into a wax seal on top.
“What are the chances this is poison?” I asked.
Jack sat in thought for a moment. “ I’d say fifty-fifty. Bottom’s up, Juliet . Let’s play Russian roulette."
We broke into peals of laughter, and Jack’s chest shook against my back. It was easy to be around him. Comfortable .
“Am I crazy if I open it and smell it? I mean, it might just be water.”
Jack grimaced. “ I don’t know if that’s a good idea . . .”
“It was my aunt. Not a serial killer,” I said.
“I’m not entirely sure there’s a big difference in the sanity department.”
I laughed and shook my head as I tried to open the wax seal.
Jack sighed, reached into his shorts, and pulled out a pocket knife. “ Let me see it.”
He flicked the blade open and cut a ring around the drips of dried wax, just enough to be able to open it without messing up the seal. It was a clue, after all.
Jack closed the knife and pocketed it, then sucked in a deep breath. “ If we both die up here after sniffing this poison, it was nice knowing you.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was giddy with anticipation.
To my surprise, the lid was a twist-top. It opened with a crack. Maybe it actually was a liquor bottle.
Jack went first, swirling it in front of his nose like he was at a wine tasting. “ Smells like alcohol.”
I took a sniff as a slow smile formed. “ It smells like moonshine. ”