Chapter 4
Adam
Due to a packed week of work for everyone, we wrapped up an all-staff meeting late in the day on the Friday after Tristan and Winnie’s wedding weekend.
Also five days after my small handful of hours spent at Jo’s. I wouldn’t overtly admit to myself I knew exactly how long I’d been there, because I left her little apartment feeling like something in me had shifted, and I’d checked my watch to make sure I hadn’t warped into another time zone or briefly lost consciousness on the stairs before exiting her building.
The time flew and I’d enjoyed every second of it. In truth, I’d been itching to leave because I felt so comfortable in her space with her calming décor and pleasing scents hanging around us—I’d recognized the need to escape.
To survive.
Because being near Jo like this was a bad idea. No need to explain it out because even completing the thought of why it was would be problematic.
I could simply acknowledge my friend Jo was a wonderful woman who deserved a better man than me. Someone like Ethan, which I’d been working on for months with little success.
Bruce’s meeting recap corralled my attention back to the now.
“We’ve got Jess back full-time next week,” he said, eyes slipping toward Beast’s hulking form leaning back in his chair. “Cookie’s here with us for another few weeks as well, right? And Hijack and Boots will remain out, as will the Washingtons.” He ticked down the list of other personnel we had abroad, then brought it to a close. “Anyone who wants to join us at Craic, please do. Anyone who has to run home and enjoy the good life, go ahead and do that, too, and we’ll see you Monday.”
The room burst to life, the ten of us seated around the large conference table gathering notebooks and other items, chatting about weekend plans.
I nodded at Bruce, feeling the burn of his words. The good life. He’d found it with Nikki, his fiancée, and we’d just watched Tristan marry the love of his life. The Washingtons had their own version, always off on an adventure being international badasses for the Saint family. And Eddie and Bri were downright ridiculous.
And of course, our patron Saint, Wilder. We’d joked about Saint Daddy more than once, but the man loved his family, and as someone who’d surrendered any plans for his own, watching him jabbed at me sometimes. Holding his baby or catching a moment between him and his wife, Sarah… it made some long-numbed place in my chest awaken.
It’d happened more and more, but at least there were a few of us still single and ready to… grab a beer on a Friday night.
And, to be fair, Bruce, Tristan, and occasionally even Wilder came out with us. It helped that Nikki and Winnie got together with their girls at the same place and time, but I’d take my friends however I could get them. I missed them, even though it made me a little pathetic to admit. I didn’t like the idea of being a man who begrudged his friends their happiness, so I fought against the missing. Mostly, I was thrilled they’d found what they wanted, elated they’d found women who loved them. They were excellent men, and I was grateful to Sarah, Nikki, and Winnie for making my friends so deeply happy.
“You checked on Stone lately?” Bruce asked, patting my back as he came alongside me in the hallway.
“I was going to take a jog and swing by tomorrow. I usually check in every week or so.”
Bruce nodded, his gaze revealing relief.
“He’s not giving me much.” He held up his phone, likely indicating Dorian “Stone” Forrester’s tendency toward terseness or lack of responses altogether when it came to calls and texts.
“I got him. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I slipped into my office after a farewell from Bruce—I’d see him in a few minutes—and set down the folder I’d tucked under my yellow legal pad. This meeting had been a bit less about planning and a bit more of a state of the union now that we’d made it through Tristan’s wedding and things were going to be ramping up over the summer and eventually launching into a busy fall.
That was why I hadn’t made my proposal. It just hadn’t fit in with the content. When Danny Morrison, chief of ski patrol at Silver Ridge Resort and my low-key hiking buddy, had suggested I lead a survival skills course, I’d loved the idea. It felt like the answer to a question I hadn’t verbalized. I’d been looking for how to develop my angle on life post-Army. Bruce had his leadership and the business itself, as did Wilder. Tristan had his self-defense classes. The other guys had their interests they’d folded into work or developed outside it, but I hadn’t hit mine, save hiking.
Survival classes would let me take my years of practical knowledge and pair it with helping people in my new community. It would let me take Doc to the mountains.
I’d never been a coward, but it felt like so much rode on whether everyone liked the idea. They would—it would bring in new clients and business but shouldn’t create wear and tear on the already very busy staff save me. Still, I had doubts. So not today—I didn’t want to force it. We’d meet again in two weeks, and I could do it then. If my idea got approved, I could get it rolling by mid-July, maybe, and still have quite a while before I’d have to put the program to bed for the winter.
And if they hate the idea, I’ll just bury my head in other work and not think about it.
“You coming, Doc?” Kenny asked, sidling his way into my office without so much as a knock.
“Yep. I’m just walking, though. No reason to battle the lots.” The main parking lots at the far end of Main Street and the one practically next door to our building would be full by now, plus we were only a few blocks from the bar.
“Same. Beast is waiting on us, too.” He flared his eyes. “He’s extra sweet, as you can imagine.”
I heaved a sigh as I cut off the light in my office. “Of course he is.”
One mention of Jess Korbel starting back here, and inevitably, the storm clouds descended. She’d gone abroad nearly five months ago—she’d done her time away. I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t need another meeting reminding him to be civil and professional toward her, but maybe tonight I could slip it in.
Outside, we wandered the bustling streets of our small town together, me and Kenny side by side and Beast like an overgrown linebacker tailing us. June in Utah was nothing short of magnificent, and I couldn’t wait to spend some time on the trails tomorrow. Tonight, the evening was cooling off and the sun had started to slip down but hadn’t tucked under the horizon just yet.
But first, a drink or two with my friends and coworkers, and maybe a glimpse of other people, too.
No one specific, of course.
Just… people.
As the only Irish pub in town, Craic could get pretty busy on weekends, and evidence the summer season was picking up broadcasted in the buzz tonight. Locals and tourists were cramming around the bar already, and it was only six.
Bruce and Cookie set pitchers of beer in the center of the two high-top tables we kept reserved for our Saint team. It had started as an unspoken understanding, but once the tourist season began last winter, the bar’s owner, Kieran, made sure to denote these two tables were taken. It helped that he and Bruce were in book club together and that we always tipped generously.
“When are the lovebirds back from their honeymoon?” Kenny asked as he eyed Bruce and Cookie filling pint glasses from the pitcher.
“Late Sunday,” Beast said.
“Is Juniper having withdrawals yet?” I asked, genuinely curious how his week with Tristan’s beloved dog had gone.
Beast scowled.
Kenny snickered into his pint glass before asking, “She hasn’t ever been away from them this long, has she?”
Bruce and I shared a look as we waited for what would come. Beast was a man of few words to say the least, so he was not likely to detail the ins and outs of keeping Tristan’s dog for a week. That said, if there was one thing Beast melted for, it was Juniper Donnelly. Well, and his giant cat.
“No, she hasn’t,” he grunted out.
Kenny raised his glass. “Well, here’s to a great week, to our friend returning, to Beast’s excellent dog-sitting skills, and to his cat being willing to share him for a while.”
“Hear, hear,” Bruce said, raising his drink.
Cookie, Beast, and I followed suit.
“Well hello, gentlemen,” Nikki said, sliding an arm around Bruce and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
In seconds, he had her by the waist and captured her mouth in a quiet kiss, then released her.
“Come on, man, that’s not fair,” Kenny whined.
Cookie and I shared a smile, and Beast maintained his usual affect.
“Sorry,” Nikki said, her cheeks blazing.
“I mean, I can’t blame him, but it’s just mean,” Kenny said, still pouting.
“How was your day?” Bruce asked, his voice tender and his focus still fully enveloped in his fiancée.
I looked away, something pinching in my chest I didn’t like to think about. Movement caught my attention at the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Jo’s long ponytail flick behind her. She stood at the usual high top she and her friends occupied most Friday nights and laughed along with Catherine Hewitt and Dove Jensen at something Elise Cordero was cheerily gesticulating about.
Maybe it was the single beer on an empty stomach, or maybe it was the fact that this woman tied me in a knot, but I had to crush my hand into a fist to forget said knot existed and banish the bone-deep desire to bury my hands in her hair and guide her mouth to mine.
If she were mine, she would already be over here, wrapping her arms around me. Maybe she’d press her lips to my jaw and I’d tuck her as close as possible before taking my time doing the same to her, breathing in her fresh linen and flower scent. And I wouldn’t stop until I’d claimed a kiss, satisfied the need building in me every time I stood in the same vicinity. I’d?—
I caught the fantasy running away with itself.
Okay, yeah. Definitely the beer.
Should probably order some food because that’s not a thing. Not on the table. Not in the bar. Not in this small town. Not in this lifetime.
Jo was my friend and that was all I could or would ever give her. Add to that the age difference between us—somewhere north of ten years—and the fact that I had nothing to offer her even if I wanted to. I had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like, let alone a marriage. I couldn’t give her that, and she’d made it clear that’s what she wanted. She didn’t even know about my failed track record. Those threads braided into a knot I couldn’t untie with attraction and even good intentions, because at the heart of it, I’d shown I didn’t know how to love someone and prioritize them the way they needed. I wouldn’t ruin someone the way I had before.
So? I shouldn’t be thinking like this.
Jo needed someone like the heroes in her books—yes, I’d read the first two in the series she was working on now. She needed someone emotionally available and ready to shower her with love and affection and attention the way she required it. She needed someone like Ethan, who’d wanted to settle down and love a good woman since I could remember.
All this thinking about her as anything more than a friend had to be due to spending time with her recently and no other reason. I cared about her, wanted her safe, had a little insider knowledge no one else had. That certainly didn’t mean she was interested in me, and again, if she were, I couldn’t do anything about it. She wanted love, marriage, family.
I’d proven I wasn’t made for those things.
Like my mind had warned me—not in this lifetime.
Jo Malcom wasn’t for me.