Chapter Twenty-Two
J ocelyn emerged from the bathroom, using a towel to squeeze the water from her hair. She looked between her day’s outfit draped over the back of a chair and then at Birch, who was still out cold on the bed.
Their twenty-four hours were down to fourteen.
Decision made, she tossed her damp towel aside and crawled under the blankets with him, snuggling in close to stay warm and smiling when a tattooed arm wrapped around her and pulled her flush to him.
She hadn’t been blindsided by his words last night, but the sting of them still hit hard. As the picture of what he was facing became clearer, a part of her had known he would eventually pull back those pieces of himself he was slowly baring to her. For a man with his past now facing a precarious future, he couldn’t afford to let down his guard. He needed to do what he had done throughout his life: focus on his survival with laser precision.
This, she understood.
What she struggled to accept was the knowledge the fragments of himself he showed her were simultaneously the reasons she fell hard for him and the reasons she would lose him. His unwavering loyalty to his family, his self-deprecating humility, his morals—even his debatable ethics—drew her to him with a passion she had never experienced before, a passion she was only now allowing herself to accept and hold.
But she had no doubt he would walk away from her tonight.
And she had to let him, because it was what made him the man she trusted.
Raising up onto one arm, she grazed her thumb along his brow. “Hey,” she whispered, smiling when his nose wrinkled and he frowned. “Time to get up. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
*
Birch shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans to keep his flexing fingers from giving away how nervous he was as he looked over his booth. “Why did I think this was a good idea?”
With her Serpent’s Tongue Ink shirt knotted at her hip and her lean runner’s legs on display in her denim cutoffs, Jocelyn’s outfit alone should have been distraction enough from his spiking anxiousness. Instead, it was her steady voice and confident words keeping him from jumping in his truck and driving as far from the fairgrounds as he could.
“Because it is,” she stated, her hands on her hips as she studied the placement of his business cards on the display table. “Your closest competition is the mortgage insurer handing out stale lollipops up there on the right.”
“How do you know they’re stale?”
“I had one while you were setting up the chairs and hanging the posters.” She turned and walked over to him, running her hands along the logo emblazoned across his chest. “You’ll do amazing because you are amazing.”
Exhaling, he gave her a tight smile. “Better than stale suckers at least.”
“You’re ten times as good and nearly as sexy.” She rose up and kissed him. “Now go stand under the banner so I can get a picture before you’re too busy and famous to pose for me.”
Scoffing, he obeyed without argument.
Neither of them was acknowledging the ticking clock hanging over their heads. The tightening in his chest every time he thought about it was too much to deal with while the stress of the day sat on his shoulders. As long as Jocelyn was keeping everything together, he could too.
Even if all he wanted to do was pick her up and drive as far away from Epson as they could.
“Smile pretty,” she commanded, stepping up against him and angling her phone to capture a picture of the two of them. “Actually no. Keep the dangerous, brooding thing going. It’s hot.” She snapped a series of photos and lowered her phone, deleting six before he could get a good look at them. “Okay. I’m sending you the three I look best in.”
Tugging his own phone out of his back pocket, he scanned them over, zeroing in on the second one.
I need to print this one out, he thought, pinning the idea onto his mental to-do list and refusing to acknowledge the rest of the thought whispering in his mind.
So I can have it with me in the cell.
Jocelyn had a radiant smile on her face, her steel eyes holding the sexy-as-sin glint of desire he craved every time he exited the elevator and saw her standing in her doorway. Her blond hair caught the morning sun, giving her an angelic aura beside his darker skin and unshaven jaw. The picture perfectly captured her light.
And his irresistible draw to it.
She’d managed to catch the moment he’d glanced down at her, the hardness he knew his hazel eyes always held gone. While he kept his standard sullen expression for the other pictures, in this one he was smirking at her, his own face almost unrecognizable from the one he saw in the mirror every morning.
He was happy.
And for the next fourteen hours, he was going to hold on to it.
He looked over at her as she got comfortable in one of the chairs that he’d hauled over from the shop’s waiting area, her arm on the small folding table she’d borrowed from her parents.
“Come on, stud,” she sang, wiggling her fingers. “Turn me into a walking advertisement.”
*
Jocelyn sauntered over to Birch’s booth with another collection of Epson’s finest festival foods, keeping out of his line of sight while he finished up matching rose tattoos for two giddy grandmothers. She bit the inside of her cheek as the women compared the artwork adorning their shoulders, praising the handsome, young artiste and slipping him five dollars each despite his protests.
Cutting in front of the dozen others waiting their turn to sit in Birch’s chair, she handed him a burger. “Eat, my handsome, young artiste.”
He glanced at his phone. “Grey should be here in five minutes. I’ll do one more then I promise I’ll take a quick break.”
“Good. Because my parents are over at the horse corral and they want us to stop by.”
He visibly paled before he nodded and motioned for the next person in line to sit down, listening while the guy explained the skull and roses combo he wanted.
Leaving Birch to his new fans, she stocked the dwindling business card pile and wandered over to the ice cream booth across the way to scope out the options for later.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Carter.”
Turning, she gave Bill Fogerty a tight smile, unable to forget the voice she’d heard on the cassette tape Birch stored in the rafters of his garage. “Sheriff Fogerty. It’s a pleasure as always.”
He accepted his banana split from the woman working the stand, glancing over at the banner fluttering across the front of Birch’s tent. “How is work going on the Serpent’s Tongue account?”
“Slow and steady.”
Nodding, he stood awkwardly beside her for a moment, his ice cream already melting in the heat. “Well, I should finish this up. I’m on duty in an hour. Enjoy the festival.”
Catching sight of Grey in the crowds, she waved at him. “You too, Bill.”
Grey grinned at her, walking her way until his brother hollered out to him. With an apologetic shrug, he changed his trajectory and joined Birch. She turned back to the ice cream menu, her heart almost jumping out of her chest when Ryder Drayson stepped in front of her, blocking her view. Taking a deep breath to steady the spike in her pulse, she smiled up at him. “Hey Ryder. It’s nice to see you again. Are you here to help out with the booth?”
He glanced over her shoulder. “Just stopping by to see how it’s going. Jocelyn, right? Birch’s girlfriend?” Before she could reply, he leaned in a little closer. “You’re an accountant.”
Backing up a fraction, she nodded. “That I am.”
“Maybe once you finish up on your current project we can get together and talk shop,” he conversed, undeterred by her attempt to put some distance between them. “Preferably before you bring any more intel to Sheriff Fogerty, that is.”
Hands in his pockets, he strode off in the opposite direction, leaving her staring absently at the ice cream board and knowing nothing good would come from telling a tense, overprotective Birch that his business partner was on to her.