Chapter 9
Adam
Jo answered her door wearing hiking boots, shorts, a lightweight zip-up jacket, and her hair in two long braids snaking over her shoulders. Her expression was serious, but I couldn’t read anything particular there, maybe because my head was filled with relief at being near her again.
In fact, just the sight of her had some wayward antsy piece of my mind settling.
I swallowed hard.
I hadn’t seen her in so long. I’d specifically stayed away from her, the bookstore, and Craic on Friday, just to remind myself what this was—friendship. That gut-deep longing to see her after I’d left Stone last Saturday, the utter need I’d felt to seek comfort in her… that’d required burying.
But not in a hole so deep I couldn’t see her today, obviously. I didn’t want to be a jerk and break the plans we’d already made.
“Hello, Josie.”
Her mouth dropped open, then shut, and her eyes widened and skated around, likely taking in the absolutely empty sidewalk. No one was up this early on a Sunday here, but I’d planned it this way so we’d get ahead of the forecasted heat.
“Hello, Adam.”
Despite myself, I stepped a few inches closer. “Should I not call you that?”
Her lashes fluttered and she pressed her lips together before saying, “I guess you can. But only when it’s just us.”
Oh. Bad.
Bad news.
Some visceral part of me reached out and grabbed onto the idea. When it’s just us.
Like a ravenous little beast, the feeling gripped me—I wanted more time with just us. I wanted all the time with just us. At the bar, on the street, at home. Especially at home, and not just a bedroom… though I wouldn’t mind some time with just us locked away there, too.
I wanted an us with Jo in a way I’d never wanted anything.
Yeah, and that’s exactly why you’ve stayed away.
With a prayer she hadn’t seen all of this idiocy written on my face—because I absolutely was not the man for her—I forced a casual smile and stepped back. “Fair enough. You ready?”
She smiled, too, but it slipped for a second and she glanced around behind me. Was she nervous to be out so early with me? Something tapped at my protective side and I took in the street quickly, confirming there were no visible threats. It was likely too much and my gut was reading everything wrong, but better safe.
Before I could give voice to the thought, she stepped out and shut the building’s door behind her. “Absolutely.”
We loaded into my car, where I’d parked it right in front of the bookstore, then drove in fairly companionable silence to the trailhead.
Fairlybecause something was bothering her, but she seemed to be fighting it. When I parked a few minutes later, I turned to her before she got out.
“Hold up a sec.”
She startled from where she fiddled with her backpack.
“If you don’t want to do this, for whatever reason, you don’t have to.”
Her lips parted and her mouth moved, struggling to find the right word before she could actually speak.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I don’t want to be here. I do.” She fiddled with one of her long braids. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Our gazes held, her beautiful dark eyes pained and so earnest, it killed me.
“Alright. Let’s get out there, then.”
We made our way to the trailhead, and I forged on, forcing myself to give her space to work through whatever was going on in that beautiful head of hers. But half an hour in, when she hadn’t spoken a word, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Let’s stop up here for some water.” I pulled off into a little wooded alcove with two giant stones perfect for sitting down.
She shucked her pack and let it drop, then sat and fiddled with her water bottle, still unusually quiet.
“Here,” I said, handing over a small thermos and a pastry bag.
“What’s this?”
Finally, her eyes met mine and confirmed what I’d suspected—something was up. This wasn’t the Jo I’d come to know. I might not have had any right to know what was going on, but I’d never been good about seeing someone in pain and walking away.
Need to patch up whatever wound had opened, to calm a racing heart or soothe an ache, yawned wide and unavoidable in me. How could I fix this—whatever this was?
“It’s some coffee and a croissant from Rise and Shine. Thought you might like a little something, and Joe doesn’t open quite as early.”
A tiny laugh escaped her. “You don’t have to justify going to Rise and Shine. It’s amazing.”
I nodded, happy to hear her voice. Later, I’d spend some time examining why I’d gotten so wound up about her quiet and that little pinch in the center of her brows this morning. For now, though, I’d just try not to be an overstepping weirdo.
“To a morning spent in the wild with you,” I said, holding up my thermos.
Her teeth flashed with a quick smile. “Cheers.”
We sipped coffee and ate our croissants in more quiet, but it didn’t feel quite so desolate now. The birds chirping and the small stream trickling through the woods with runoff from the snow slipped into my consciousness while the earthy-sweet scent of wild sage and the still-cool air of the morning filled my senses. I used the calm to channel a version of myself who could help without being wild-eyed and needy to right her wrongs. I could simply… help.
“Ready?” I asked, sensing we’d rested long enough and hoping maybe once we started moving again, she’d talk to me.
“Sure.”
Still small. Shrunken, even.
I eyed her as subtly as I could while tucking our trash inside my pack and slipped the coffees in, too. Her lips were pressed together, and she looked so distracted, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d completely forgotten I was here. It wasn’t what I found so troublesome, though. It was that Jo wasn’t one to shrink from problems, and I didn’t think she usually kept things to herself.
Except her secret identity as an increasingly popular romance author…
Well, right. Except for that.
She took one more long slug from her water bottle before slipping it into the pocket, then hauled her pack over her shoulder and looked up at me, ready to go.
And… nope. I couldn’t take it. I literally could not take knowing something gnawed at her. I had to do something. Brush a hand down her arm, tuck the wild strand that had escaped her braid behind her ear, or just… hold her. Maybe I didn’t have the power to help by contact, but what were hands for if not to heal, to help… to hold? Even a friend.
So instead of turning and trudging on, and long before I could think better of it, I was asking, “Can we actually wait a sec?”
“Sure. What’s up?” She looked around like she might spot the issue on the dirt path.
I stepped into her space and set my hands gently on her shoulders, the drive to touch and soothe whatever I could compelling me. “Can I hug you?”
Startled, her head reared back just slightly, but her eyes lit in the same moment. “Of course.”
So I slipped my arms around her and pressed her close, hands on her backpack. She gripped the shirt at my sides, not quite touching me but close enough it sent my heart skittering. She exhaled audibly, and my insides wound tight. The edge of my jaw brushed against her ear, and I could instantly imagine this hug in another circumstance—without our backpacks and hats, without whatever was troubling her, without all my baggage piled up between us.
For now, I squeezed her, imbuing the moment with as much care and wishful healing as I could, then released, stepping back to find her eyes glassy. I couldn’t take it another second, this twisting in my chest as I witnessed her in pain, so the pushy nurse stepped in as I brushed a thumb over her cheek.
“Jo, honey, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.” My hands ached to haul her back to me, to keep her close and safe, even though I had no idea what was wrong.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep much last night and I’m kind of a baby when I’m tired.” She blinked the tears away, shaking her head.
Maybe it was that simple. I didn’t want to be a man who couldn’t take a woman at her word, but I had to ask. “Is that all?”
She nodded. “Yes.” Then she exhaled and stretched her neck side to side. “I promise I won’t be such a sad sack anymore.”
“You can be however you want to be. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” The urge to stroke her cheek was a patently unhelpful one in the moment, so instead, I tugged lightly on the end of one of her braids. “Let’s go.”
She chuckled. “Did you really just pull my pigtail?”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
She laughed in earnest now. “It might not sound like you, but it just was you.”
I glanced over my shoulder and winked at her before saying, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She snickered, and I allowed myself a laugh, too. I was being an idiot, but it’d worked—whether it’d been exhaustion or some thing troubling her, she was loosening up. And I’d make a fool of myself all day if it meant she could enjoy herself.
She was every good thing. She was a sunrise on a crisp summer morning. She was the rustle of the breeze at high noon, a reprieve from the desert heat. She was the sunset painting the sky with pinks and oranges, light refracting into air and somehow opening my soul to possibility.
So yes. I’d be an idiot for her.