Chapter 8 Jack
JACK
Mr. Owen Hitchins
Strawberry Rhubarb
Was it my imagination, or were those teeny tiny hearts over the i’s?
I narrowed my eyes at Mom’s neat, precise handwriting on the label, then shifted to compare it to the pie label next to it.
No hearts. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed, but Mr. Owen Hitchins had taken Mom out two weeks ago and she hadn’t come home until ten o’clock. On a fucking weekday.
I knew Owen. He was about ten years older than me, which made him five or six years younger than Mom.
A widower with a couple kids. Fuck that.
She’d already raised kids. Now it was her time to have some fun.
Without Owen, preferably. Hell, she was enlightened, wasn’t she?
She didn’t need a man to have fun. Maybe she could take up embroidery with Essie and her friends.
“Jack!” Mom’s exasperated voice cut through my thoughts. “If you do something to his pie, I will turn you over my knee. You’re not too big or too old. Now, get Anna McIntire’s pie like I told you. She’s always in a hurry and I don’t want to keep her waiting when she gets here.”
It didn’t surprise me that she could read my mind. Mom always knew when I was up to something. With one last glare at Owen’s strawberry rhubarb, I slid Anna’s turkey pot pie from the shelf above and shut the refrigerator glass door with my foot.
“You’re not going to spank me,” I said, delivering the pie to her waiting hands. “You didn’t even spank us when we were kids and deserved it. You’re definitely not going to start now.”
“Kids never deserve it,” Mom snapped back. “They’re still learning how to be decent human beings, and the one lesson they absolutely don’t need is that might makes right. Adults don’t have that excuse, and that makes them fair game for walloping.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
The bell over the shop door jangled and Anna, looking harried as was to be expected, given that she had three kids at home and a belly round with another on the way, rushed in. She halted abruptly when she saw me and ran a hand over her hair like she was trying to remember if she had brushed it.
She hadn’t.
“Jack! Hi!” she greeted me.
“Hi, Anna.”
I couldn’t stop staring at her belly. We’d gone to school together—she had been two years behind me—friendly, but never all that close.
It shouldn’t hit me like this, seeing her pregnant.
But, shit. She was on her fourth. Most everyone I had grown up with in this town had all settled down and popped out at least one kid.
Except me.
I didn’t even want four kids, but I still felt left behind. Like I was all alone at an empty train station, waiting for the last train home. Disconcerting for a man who lived by the motto that if you weren’t five minutes early, you were already late.
“Don’t worry, I’m not due for another three weeks,” Anna said as Mom rang her up, because it was becoming clear to everyone that her stomach was making me nervous. “My water isn’t going to break all over your clean floor.”
I laughed. “If I don’t see you again for a while, congratulations. Your baby is beautiful.”
I hated standing around, so I grabbed a towel to wipe down the tables.
I knew it drove Mom batty that I was here at all, but the way I saw it, she could use the free labor at Sweetie Pies, and I needed something to keep myself occupied when I wasn’t at Lodestar Ranch.
Sleep only came easy when I had worn my body down to complete and utter exhaustion.
The door jangled again, followed by the tap of high heels on the wood floor and the soft scuff of sneakers. Nothing Mom couldn’t handle on her own. I focused on the table, rubbing hard at a sticky spot.
I felt eyes on me and glanced up to find Janie’s daughter considering me from the other side of the table, head tilted and eyes shrewd like I was a specimen under a microscope.
“Maya.” I scanned the room but only saw the back of a woman in a calf-length black pencil skirt, her ruddy brown hair tucked in a French twist. Definitely not Janie. “Where’s your mom?”
“At work.” Her eyes focused on my shoulder. “That’s my grandmother over there with Miss Cat. She picks me up from school when Mom is working.”
“I see.” I swallowed my disappointment. “Are you here for pie?”
“Yes, but not for today. Miss Cat is catering our party next weekend.”
I wondered what the party was for, but before I could ask, Maya asked, “What’s your favorite dinosaur?”
“Bold of you to assume I have one,” I said. At her crestfallen expression, I hastily said, “T-rex.” It was the only dinosaur I could think of. Admittedly, my knowledge didn’t run deep.
It was the wrong answer. Judging from her expression, the T-rex was worse than not having a favorite dinosaur at all.
“Oh,” she sighed. “Boys always say that.”
Clearly I had been found lacking. I suppressed a grin. “You don’t like the T-rex?”
“I like all dinosaurs, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
“But the T-rex is very basic.”
Well, shit. That might have actually hurt my feelings.
“What’s your favorite dinosaur?” I asked.
She straightened. “Triceratops.”
“I know that one. The one with the shield and horns, right?”
“Right. It’s for protection. They were vegetarians, but I bet they had a temper. Animals with horns tend to be ornery, I think. Like a rhinoceros.” Her serious eyes, one hazel and one blue, darted to mine and then away again. “Don’t ever fuck with a rhino.”
A bark of laughter burst out of me, at this very serious child saying fuck like an adult while imparting wisdom I’d be unlikely to ever need. “I’ll try to remember that.”
She nodded crisply. “You should.”
My gaze shot to the clock on the wall as something occurred to me. “What time does your mom get off work, Maya?”
“Five-thirty.”
It was three-thirty now. That meant Janie would be at the Painted Cat for another two hours. I doubted she had many customers right now. Maybe she’d like some company.
Suddenly I was in the mood for a drink.
When I sauntered into the Painted Cat, Janie was bent over the bar as she doodled something in a sketchbook, her heart-shaped ass reflected in the vintage mirror. She glanced up as I claimed the stool in front of her.
“Jack.” She straightened. Her gaze shifted to the clock near the door. “Long day?”
Most people who frequented the Painted Cat before 5 p.m. were either perpetually drunk or having a rough day. The farmers and ranchers of Aspen Springs didn’t have time for a leisurely midday beer, especially not in the spring. “Nah. Thought I’d stop by and see my friend, that’s all.”
She glanced doubtfully at the four patrons, none of whom were sober. “Saul?”
“You, Janie.”
“Oh. Hello, friend.” She grinned and braced her arms on the bar. “What can I get you?”
“Whiskey. Neat. Mid-shelf is fine.” With two hours to kill and no intention of wasting my time with Janie drunk, I’d sip it slow. My gaze fell to her sketchbook. “Frogs?”
“It’s a Maya project.” She grabbed the Maker’s Mark and a glass. “She wants to write a kid’s encyclopedia. Amphibians A to Z. She’s writing it and I’m illustrating. We’re up to D now. That’s Darwin’s frog.” She jerked her chin toward the sketchbook as she poured. “I’m practicing.”
I studied it in the dim light. It was a simple pencil sketch, no color, but incredibly detailed and lifelike. “What’s with his throat? Is he eating flies?”
She laughed. “No. Those are his babies.” She tapped the drawing with the eraser end of her pencil.
“That’s the cool thing about Darwin’s frog.
The males carry their tadpoles in their vocal sacs.
Swallow them right in there, and then six weeks later, a bunch of baby frogs hop out of their mouths.
It’s a whole new angle on the spit or swallow question. ”
I nearly choked on my whiskey. “Janie.”
She blinked her big doe eyes back at me. “What? You know your mind would have gone there eventually. I just helped it along.”
It didn’t take much to get a man thinking about blow jobs, that was true. My gaze fell to her smirking mouth. Spit or swallow? She could do either and all I’d feel was grateful.
Janie pushed away from the bar and moved to the far end, where a grizzled farmer I didn’t recognize had finished his beer.
He watched her pour another pint from the tap, his leering gaze glued to her chest. I spun on my stool to fully face him and stared, hard, until he felt the weight of it and dragged his eyes from Janie’s tits.
And then I kept right on staring while he shifted nervously.
There were twenty-seven bones in the human hand, and I wanted him to know I was thinking about breaking every single one.
He hastily grabbed the glass Janie set down in front of him and buried his face in it, but I didn’t let up until she was back at her sketchbook.
“Stop it,” she hissed. “You’re scaring the customers.”
I glanced around. The energy had shifted.
The same four men who had been relaxed and loose on their stools were now stiff and fidgety.
Even old Saul looked like he was considering making it an early day.
I couldn’t say I cared. Some of the customers needed a little scaring to put them on their best behavior.
I turned back to Janie. “You work alone?”
“Only for the afternoon shifts. We’re not busy enough for Brax to pay two people. Someone else is usually here to close with me on Friday nights.”
“Usually.” My eyes narrowed as I remembered. She had been alone here the night of the snowstorm. “But not always.”
“Not always,” she conceded. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine because it’s not safe. What if something happens?”
She made a big, dramatic show of looking around the room and then back to me with raised eyebrows. “Like what? Some drunk guy tries to cop a feel but only manages to fall off his barstool?”
My brow furrowed. “Did that happen?”
She gave a little shrug. “Maybe.”
My blood pressure ratcheted up. “Janie—”
“Oops, that’s my phone.” She held up her finger to silence me as she pulled her phone from her back pocket. “Gotta take this.”
I glowered.
She flashed a teasing grin back at me as she cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hey, Essie. Your brother is being a menace at my place of work. Want to come get him?”
“Jack is there?” I heard Essie’s voice loud and clear through the phone.
“Sure is. It would be great if you could change that for me.” Janie twirled a lock of copper hair around her finger and twisted away from me, leaning her hip on the bar.
“Hang on,” Essie said, and then her voice was too muffled to hear.
I folded my arms across my chest, eyes narrowed, as Janie murmured, “Ohhh, really? Who?” She straightened and mouthed to me with exaggerated, silent words. Your mom has a date.
I lunged across the bar. “Essie!” I barked into the phone. “Do not let Mom give him free pie! Do you hear me? No free—”
Janie snatched the phone back. “I’ll handle him, don’t worry—” She smacked my hand as I reached for her phone again and pivoted out of reach. “Gotta go. Bye!”
I had my own phone out before Janie turned around again. It went straight to Mom’s voice mail. Frowning, I pushed to my feet.
“Sit your ass back down, Jack,” Janie ordered. “Let your mom have some fun.”
I made a face, but I sat. I didn’t want to leave her alone here with no one but Saul for protection, anyway. “I don’t like this guy. He’s too young for her, plus he’s a widower. He wants a maid, not a friend. Someone to help raise his two daughters. That, and free pie.”
Janie snickered. “Have you seen your mom, Jack? She’s hot. He’s not there for the free pie. It’s a different kind of pie he’s interested in.”
“Janie.” I took a deep swig of whiskey, hoping the burn would set fire to the image she had put in my mind, but no such luck. “What a terrible thing to say.”
Unrepentant, she smirked at me over her shoulder before squatting next to the cabinet behind the bar.
“I like it when you say my name like that. All disappointed daddy.” My dick twitched.
Her voice dropped a couple octaves as she growled, “Janie.” Then she giggled and slapped the deck of cards on the bar between us. “All right. What are we playing?”
“War,” I said. I needed something fast-paced to keep my hands occupied.
Because right now, the only thing I wanted was to have my hands full of her.
The trouble was, I already knew exactly how it would feel.
I didn’t have to wonder if her breasts would overflow my palms—I’d already tested it.
I didn’t have to imagine the noises she would make when I teased her—those little breathy moans were already ingrained in my brain.
We’re just getting to know each other, I’d told her.
But my hands already felt like they did.