Chapter 10 #2
“He’s a man you can be proud of, and I care for him a great deal.
But I don’t think I can spend the rest of my life with him, wondering, hoping that his feelings for me are real.
My marriage taught me that trust was something to give sparingly, and that giving your whole heart to one person just means it hurts worse when they crush it.
There’s not much left of my heart, Ruth. ”
“Sounds like your ex-husband was a horse’s behind.”
“He was, but he’s not my ex-husband. I’m a widow.”
The breath Ruth drew in had Faith swimming in that direction, afraid that she was having a heart attack and about to drown. “You didn’t kill him did you?”
Faith stopped swimming and stared at Ruth in shock before she started laughing. “No, I didn’t kill him. I was married to Steve Slater. He was very popular on the racing circuit.”
“I watch the horse races. I have a right fine hand at the windows if I do say so myself. I don’t recall hearing about a Steve Slater though.”
“He was a race car driver. He wrapped his car around a tree in Monte Carlo one night. The roads were slick and he’d had too much to drink.
There weren’t very many pieces of him or his mistress left when the car was found.
I hadn’t seen him in over a month. He was almost a stranger to me, and I feel guilty because all I felt was relief when he died. ”
“Ahh… Guilt is a powerful weapon even when wielded from the grave. Mistakes are meant to be learned from. One thing I’ve learned in my ninety years is that you can’t judge a person by someone else’s mistakes. It doesn’t seem very fair to Jake that you’d try.”
“No, but other than the fact that Jake loves all women too much to abuse them, there seem to be too many similarities for me to be fair at this point.”
“It sounds like you’re determined to grow old alone and miserable.
I’ve found that’s something that most people have to work pretty hard at, especially when the love is there.
Maybe you deserve a good kick in the pants instead if you can’t see the difference.
I thought you showed promise, girl, but I’m not so sure now. ”
Faith wasn’t sure what to say. She was embarrassed about bringing up her past and ashamed at the same time with the set down Ruth had just given her. She was about to apologize when she saw the headlights that stopped on the side of the road.
“Ruth, someone’s here. What do we do?”
“Oh, drat. I hope it’s not the police. Jake got quite upset the last time he had to bail me out of jail. He got that little line on his forehead like he does when he’s angry, and he didn’t talk to me for a whole day.”
Faith thought Jake probably had a lot of patience if Ruth pulled stunts like this all the time and he still let her stay at his house. She was lucky he didn’t put her in a loony bin.
“What in the world are y’all doing down there?”
Faith sighed at the familiarity of the voice. They weren’t going to jail after all.
“Don’t talk to us in that tone of voice, young man. I can switch your bottom just as easily now as I did when you were eight years old.”
“Someone needs to switch yours,” he said in response. “You could catch your death in that cold water. Didn’t you learn anything when you were in that hospital a few years ago? Look at Faith’s lips. They’re blue.”
Faith reached up and touched her numb lips, aware of the fact that Jake’s eyes had never left hers. She wanted nothing more than to get out of the freezing water, but reality intruded. She was naked.
“It’s not nice of you to remind me about that little incident. If that sled hadn’t had a warped set of runners, I would have sped right down those stairs instead of flipping over.”
“You don’t really want to go back there, do you, Gran?”
Jake looked like he was ready to explode, and Ruth was right, he did get a little line on his forehead when he was angry. It was everything Faith could do not to ask what happened, but she didn’t want to direct any attention to herself.
“No, I suppose not. Well, I guess we’re all done here. I just wanted to get Faith out of the house. You can’t let her get too settled in her ways or she gets a little stuffy. Someone’s got to teach the girl how to have a little fun before she ends up like a dried-up old prune.”
Ruth stepped out of the lake, naked as a jaybird, and went for her clothes.
“Good grief, Gran, you could have waited until I turned my back.”
“Oh, pish-posh, Jake. Don’t be such a prude. I know my body looks like a science experiment or one of those cadavers they cut on in medical school.”
“Why me?” Jake said under his breath.
“I heard that,” Ruth said, getting into his truck. “Make sure you take care of that girl.”
“I plan to,” he said, bringing Faith’s clothes down to her.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to give me the same treatment,” he asked, his smile rakish and disarming.
“I don’t think so. I still have a ways to go before I’m as brave as your grandmother.”
“Thank God for small favors. I’ll have to ask about your sanity with my back turned. How could you let my grandmother talk you into something like this? You seem like a sensible woman. I was hoping you’d be a good influence on her.”
Faith started to laugh so hard at that statement she could barely get out of the water. “Jake, your grandmother is old enough to make her own decisions. She doesn’t need a keeper. And I certainly am not going to get in her way when she gets it into her mind to do something.”
The sound of her clothes sliding over wet skin was driving him insane. He couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying when she was naked so close behind him, so he just gave her a noncommittal hmm and turned around once she’d given him the all-clear.
“I’ve missed you,” he said simply, his eyes conveying what words couldn’t. He kept a respectful distance, though everything in him wanted to close the gap between them.
The cold that had seeped into her bones began to recede under the warmth of his gaze.
In all her running, all her careful avoidance, she hadn’t allowed herself to admit how much she’d missed him too—his steady presence, his quiet strength, the way he looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world.
“I’ve missed you too,” she admitted, surprised by her own honesty. “The calls to the show…they weren’t enough.”
A smile—genuine and without his usual careful restraint—transformed his face. “No, they weren’t. Though I did enjoy getting to know bits and pieces of you each night. Roman Holiday , huh?”
She laughed, remembering their conversation about favorite movies. “I still can’t believe you got me to reveal that on national radio.”
“Come back to the house with me,” he said, his tone making it clear this wasn’t about anything more than company. “I have a surprise for you.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “Another one? I’m not sure I can handle any more of your surprises, Murphy.”
“Trust me,” he said with a smile. “You’ll like this one.”
“Jake…” she began, uncertainty creeping back in.
“No strings,” he promised, reading her hesitation. “I promise not to propose marriage, ask you to bear my children, or suggest we adopt a dog together.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “At least not tonight.”
Despite herself, Faith laughed. “Those are very specific promises.”
“I’m a specific kind of guy. So what do you say?”
Faith hugged her arms around herself, teeth chattering as the evening breeze cut through her wet clothes. Goose bumps covered her skin, and her hair hung in dripping tendrils around her face. She could barely feel her toes anymore.
“R-Ruth—” Faith glanced toward Edward’s sedan where his grandmother should have been waiting, but the car was already pulling away from the shoreline, Ruth’s delighted face visible through the rear window as she waved cheerfully.
“Did she just—” Faith’s words stuttered through her chattering teeth.
“Strand you here with me?” Jake finished, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over her trembling shoulders. “Looks that way. Gran’s subtlety knows no bounds.”
Faith watched the taillights disappear around the bend, clutching the warm jacket around her. “I c-can’t believe she just d-did that.”
“I can,” Jake said dryly, guiding her toward his truck with a hand on her back. “This is the woman who once sold my high school girlfriend a one-way ticket to Switzerland to ‘remove obstacles to my happiness.’”
Faith’s eyes widened despite her shivering. “You’re k-kidding.”
“I wish I were. The poor girl thought she’d won a contest she’d never entered.” He cranked the heat to full blast as soon as they were in the truck. “Let’s get you warmed up before hypothermia sets in. Unless you’d prefer to stay and become the first human popsicle in Texas?”
The drive back to her house was filled with swirling thoughts.
The old Faith—Dr. Faith Hartwell, relationship expert with walls higher than her Victorian’s spires—screamed caution.
But something had shifted during her time away, during those nightly calls where they’d shared pieces of themselves without the complication of physical presence.
Jake pulled into her driveway and killed the engine, the headlights illuminating the Victorian’s fresh sage-green exterior one last time before darkness fell.
“You’ve been quiet,” he observed, turning toward her.
“Just processing,” Faith admitted, still huddled in his jacket. “I still can’t believe Ruth abandoned me at the lake.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside before you develop pneumonia. I’ve worked too hard on this house to have you die before you can enjoy it.” He guided her up the newly rebuilt steps. “Wait until you see inside.”
Faith stepped through the front door and into what looked like a construction zone that had been hastily tidied.
Drop cloths covered scaffolding in the living room, and the distinctive smell of fresh drywall permeated the air.
Tools were stacked neatly against walls, and sawdust had been swept into tidy piles.
“Don’t mind the chaos,” Jake said, guiding her around a stack of lumber. “We’ve been focusing on the essentials.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he said with a grin, “you can finally ditch that trailer.”
He led her past the construction mess toward the back of the house, his hand at the small of her back. When they reached the kitchen doorway, he paused.
“Close your eyes.”
“Jake—”
“Humor me.”
Faith sighed but complied, feeling ridiculous standing there dripping and shivering with her eyes squeezed shut.
“Now open.”
The kitchen that had once been a decrepit disaster zone had been transformed into something out of an architectural magazine.
Gleaming marble countertops, custom cabinetry in the exact shade of sage she’d once described as “perfect but probably impossible to match,” and a massive center island topped with a butcher block that could have graced a professional chef’s kitchen.
“Holy—” Faith caught herself. “How did you do all this?”
“Money, stubbornness, and threats to various suppliers.” Jake leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Calacatta marble on a rush order?”
But Faith was already moving deeper into the kitchen, running her fingers over the farmhouse sink, examining the brass fixtures, opening and closing drawers with childlike wonder.
“The pot rack,” she murmured, looking up at the custom wrought-iron fixture suspended over the island. “It’s exactly like the one in my grandmother’s kitchen.”
“You mentioned it once. During one of our late-night calls.” He shrugged as if it were nothing, but the gleam in his eyes gave him away. This was a man who’d won, and he knew it.
It was then that Faith noticed the table in the breakfast nook, set for two with what appeared to be her grandmother’s china—pieces she’d stored in boxes for years, waiting for a proper home.
A bottle of wine breathed beside covered dishes that filled the kitchen with mouthwatering aromas.
Wildflowers spilled from a simple mason jar in the center.
“You unpacked my dishes?” she asked, stunned.
“Seemed a shame to leave them in boxes when you finally have a kitchen worthy of them.” Jake moved to pull out a chair. “Hungry?”
Faith’s stomach growled loudly in response, and they both laughed, breaking the tension.
“Starving,” she admitted. “But I’m soaking wet and freezing.”
“Ah.” His grin widened. “That brings me to surprise number two. Your master suite awaits.”
“You’re kidding.” The excitement in her eyes was worth the blisters and aching back all the trim work took.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said, gesturing toward the hallway. “You can goggle over the rest of it later. Warm shower, dry clothes, then dinner. I promise not to eat everything while you’re gone.”
Faith hesitated only a moment before heading toward the promise of warmth and dry clothes. At the doorway, she paused and looked back.
“How did you remember all these little details? Things I barely remember mentioning?”
Jake’s expression shifted, the cockiness giving way to something more genuine. “I told you. I listen when you talk, Faith. I always have.”