Chapter 5 #2
He grinned at her, ridiculously pleased to hear her voice in his head. He didn’t want to hope for too much, but he couldn’t help it. He had missed her too.
“See you downstairs,” he said lightly, turning away from her door.
Ten minutes later, she joined him, dressed in the soft, broken-in jeans from yesterday, a scoop neck black T-shirt that, thank God, didn’t make her breasts flow over the top like the pink shirt yesterday that had tortured him, and muddy hiking boots.
Her hair was pulled up in a bun, and her eyes seemed marginally brighter, if still guarded.
“You brought your boots,” he observed, tearing his eyes away from her face to look at the caked, well-worn boots.
She took a deep breath, and he looked up to find her considering him. What was she looking for?
“Always.”
“So what have you been up to?” he asked politely, anxious to keep their rapport friendly. He gestured toward the front hall, and she started toward it.
“Research mostly.”
“Getting a lot done?”
“Some.”
He could sense she was still upset, and he hated it. He hated how they’d left things yesterday. He hated that he’d barely seen her since.
“Darcy,” he said softly, his hand on the front door where he’d made love to her for the final time last Sunday morning.
She looked up at him, and he could see the worry in her eyes.
“I never answered your question yesterday. You asked if I wished I’d been bound to someone else.”
Her face flushed red, and she swallowed, looking down as if she knew the answer would break her heart.
“No, baby,” he said gently. “The answer’s no. I don’t want anyone else. There’s never been anyone for me but you.”
She raised her face to him, and he saw the surprise in her eyes first, quickly followed by relief, chased by tenderness, which settled there.
Relief and tenderness. And then Jack knew.
That’s what she’d been searching for. Reassurance.
It made his heart catch that he’d made her wait for it, but he couldn’t help hoping that her uncertainty had solidified her feelings for him.
“I’m sorry that kissing you destroyed your life. But I’m not sorry I kissed you. I’m not sorry I’m bound to you. I’ll never be sorry. No matter what.”
She held his eyes, taking a deep, shaking breath, and he opened his arms to her.
Without even a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into him, and he pulled her against his chest, his eyes closing slowly as he rested his cheek against her head, inhaling her scent, grateful to be allowed to touch her again.
“It hurt me when you said that,” she mumbled close to his neck.
“I could feel it. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Jack,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I said such awful things to you. I’m sorry I didn’t turn the boat around. I was just so confused, and I just—”
“You don’t have to explain,” he murmured, pressing his lips against her hair.
She leaned back, and he moved his thumb to her face to swipe away the tears.
“You didn’t destroy my life,” she said softly, placing her palm on his cheek. “I’m so sorry I said that.”
He wanted to kiss her, but stopped himself. He finally felt as though they were making headway and didn’t want to risk it by making a move on her. But if he didn’t release her soon, he wasn’t going to have a choice in the matter.
“Want to see the garden?”
She nodded and smiled, and he released her reluctantly, taking her hand instead and opening the door.
“It’s behind the house. Follow me.”
For the year his mother had lived here, she had spent a good deal of her time clearing the land behind the lodge and creating a pretty sizable vegetable and flower garden.
Tallis had believed strongly that vegetables and flowers were bound to each other, the flowers attracting the bees that pollinated the crops.
Jack had hired a local gardener to clean up the badly neglected garden last fall, and he was hopeful that after the last frost in May, he’d see some vegetation.
He had cleared an additional area to add an herb garden, sure that Darcy and Willow would take a personal interest in it.
He was pleased to see that his instinct had been correct.
“Jack!” Darcy exclaimed, dropping his hand as she preceded him through the white picket fence into the well-manicured space. “How did I not know this was here?”
“The living room’s at the front of the house. My bedroom too. And yours. And it was so rainy last weekend, I guess we missed it.”
Just saying the words made him think of the things they didn’t miss, staying inside his house, dry from the rain, wet from the raw passion she drew from him. A shiver went down his spine, and he squeezed his eyes shut, grappling for control, only opening his eyes when he heard her gasp.
“It’s a wonderful garden!”
He watched her pick her way through the flagstone paths, squatting down here and there to look at the neat rows in the middle that would bring forth vegetables, and the mulched borders that would spring forth with shrubbery and flowers in a few weeks’ time.
“Over there is an herb garden,” he said, gesturing to the smaller, fenced garden-within-a-garden.
Darcy smiled at him, then made her way over, opening the little white picket fence and stepping gingerly over the brick walkways that separated five neat rows. She squatted down and chuckled with delight as she realized that carved bricks labeled the rows.
“Oregano, sage, thyme, parsley. You’ve got all the ones I would have suggested. Most kitchen herbs can’t hang on in this climate. Willow’s tried everything, but she has to bring most inside by Halloween. Long winter. Short growing season. These’ll do well.”
“My mom planted these twenty years ago,” he said softly.
“Did she? Your mother’s a gardener?” She looked up at him.
“She is,” he answered. “She has a nice garden at her place.”
He stopped, smiling at her gently, gesturing to the fifth row. “That one’s empty. I don’t know what she had there. I thought you might…”
His voice trailed off as he realized what he was about to say. He thought she might like to have her own space to cultivate one day, and he’d left it empty for her.
“Recommend something?”
Close enough. He nodded. “Any ideas?”
“It’s an unusual suggestion, and you’d need to line the bed with plastic so it doesn’t run riot, but horseradish would be a nice addition. It thrives in this climate, and it’s practically pest-resistant.”
“Horseradish.”
“Hot,” she said, grinning up at him, eyebrows slightly raised.
He licked his lips, then looked away from her, clearing his throat. Don’t kiss her. Not yet.
“I’ll look into it.”
It was feeling more and more impossible not to reach for her, so he turned away, opening the gate and leaving her in the herb garden.
He made his way across the vegetable rows, finally sitting down on a small stone bench under a crab apple tree.
It was just starting to show real signs of life.
In another week or so, it would explode with white flowers.
What would his life look like in a week or two?
Lela would surely be handled by then, but would he be with Darcy or apart from her?
And in less than eight weeks, he was supposed to attend the re-binding.
His re-binding. He’d barely had a moment to consider how to handle that.
He needed to iron out the situation with Lela first. Then he could turn his mind to it.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Darcy sat down beside him, her body pressed lightly against his on the snug garden bench.
He shrugged, blisteringly aware of her body so close to his. “They’re not worth a penny.”
“I’m the one buying, and I say they are,” she said, turning her face to his. She caught his eyes, and he looked away.
“Jack, please don’t push me away anymore.”
Her voice was a whisper, so soft and low he could have almost mistaken it for a breath if he hadn’t been listening carefully. He heard the pain in it too, the confusion and regret.
“I’m not pushing you away. I thought it’s what you wanted—”
“I can’t bear it,” she said softly, her voice quavering on the cusp of a sob.
“I thought you needed some space to think,” he answered simply, looking straight ahead at the garden, feeling her eyes on his face. “I went about it all wrong…how I told you about us. I frightened you.”
It surprised him when she leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’s a lot to try to understand, Jack.”
He swallowed, nodding. He couldn’t tell for sure where she was going. He hoped like crazy that she’d been able to make room for him in her life.
They sat in silence for several tense minutes until she continued. “Here’s what I kept going back to. Why would you save me from Phillip one day just to hurt me another? All you’ve ever done is try to protect me. You said it was your sacred vow, and I believe you. I’m not frightened anymore.”
He clenched his jaw, feeling overwhelmed by her words, a rush of hope stinging his eyes.
The light weight of her head on his shoulder felt perfect, felt like home, and suddenly, wildly, he wanted countless years sitting with her like this—exactly like this—in their garden, until they were old and gray and their children’s children frolicked among the neat rows of flowers and herbs.
What she said next surprised him.
“Your father cheated on your mother.”
“He did,” Jack confirmed, omitting the news that his mother had cheated on his father too.
“So the binding isn’t…foolproof.”
“Maybe they were fools,” Jack said softly. Which he suspected they were for not working harder at their bond.
“I didn’t think—I mean, I thought once you were bound to someone you couldn’t…”
“You can still sleep with someone else,” he clarified. “You just won’t achieve, um, the same satisfaction, the same completeness.”
“So a man could still father children outside of his binding.”
“Yes, it happens,” confirmed Jack, thinking briefly of Lela and Julien.