27. Natalie
TWENTY-SEVEN
natalie
“I don’t understand how you could be sitting here so calmly,” Zoe said, sliding me an Iron City Mango beer. After Sicily, I’d planned to dry out for a bit. But that would have to wait.
“What else am I supposed to do?”
I sat on a barstool at KC’s Taphouse waiting for Charlee, who was coming after work. Zoe was behind the bar with Nate, and for my part, I was just trying to keep it together for the night.
“I don’t know. Go down to the office. See if he’s there?”
After going round and round yesterday morning, I finally left Jax’s before lunch, peeling myself away from his place like a gambler might walk away from a casino. Not easily. Looking back with longing. Thinking of a hundred and one reasons to go back but holding on to that one shred of sanity that keeps you going forward, away from temptation.
He’d begged me to stay. But there was nothing more to discuss. And a few more minutes might have seen me launching myself into his arms, tossing all my convictions to the wind for a little D.
Actually, a big D. And honestly, more than that. But the thought of Jax inside me really was a driving force. It was all I could think about on that porch, and so finally, I hightailed it out of there.
Had he texted me throughout the day and night?
Yes.
Did I ignore said texts?
Also yes.
It was honestly the hardest thing I’d ever done, but if he so much as sent one suggestive message, I’d very likely have jumped back into my car and his arms.
“I can’t,” I admitted.
This morning, nothing. I assumed he’d gotten sick of my non-responses and headed to his meeting with Dave.
“Technically, you could. But I guess he’d probably be gone by now anyway?”
His meeting was at one thirty. It was already four o’clock, and when Zoe texted to say she’d come down to the bar to help out Nate after an early day, I literally shut my laptop, stopped pretending to work, and rushed down here.
“Probably. If he went through with the sale, it would take a few hours.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“Honestly,” I said. “I have no idea. But I can’t imagine he didn’t.”
“Listen.” Nate came up from behind Zoe. “I know it’s none of my business, but Zoe told me what’s going on.”
“It’s not a big secret,” I said, relieving him of any guilt of knowing my situation.
“But for what it’s worth, I like the guy. You don’t become a Ranger without having a healthy dose of grit and discipline. And from what Gian tells me, Jax is one of the good ones. Plus, I saw you two at the wedding.”
“What’s your point?” Zoe asked, cutting to the chase.
“The point is, I think you should work it out. Life’s too short for bullshit.”
“Nat’s love of the environment isn’t bullshit,” Zoe defended me. “It’s something she believes strongly in and is willing to give up her own personal happiness for. You know something about that, do you not?”
Nate moved closer to Zoe. “I do,” he said, putting his hand in the back pocket of her jeans as a show of support even though they were at odds at the moment. “And I’d never call your career bullshit,” he said to me. “But there has to be a way to work it out. Both get what you want. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I said. “But if he buys the land, I just don’t see how it’ll work out.”
“The bet?” Zoe asked.
“I don’t give a shit about the bet,” I said. “But that he’d buy it knowing how important it is for me that it doesn’t get developed...”
“No Ranger would ever,” Nate said, taking his hand from Zoe, “ever go back on his word. Not happening.”
“Looks like we’ll find out sooner rather than later,” Zoe said.
Both Nate and I followed her gaze toward the door. Sure enough, the man of the hour was just walking in with a guy I’d never seen before. He was the spitting image of a cross between Ian Someholder and Henry Cavill. The kind of chiseled good looks with an incredible jawline that reminded me of one of Gian’s brothers. Or a Greek god.
Not that I’d ever met a Greek god.
“Dear lord in heaven,” Zoe muttered, earning her a smack on the ass from Nate.
That about summed it up.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“I honestly have no...wait a minute. A friend of his was coming in from the city. But I thought that was later this week. So I’m not sure?”
And what was he doing here? Had Jax kept the meeting with Dave? So many questions.
“Hey, Jax,” Zoe said from behind the bar as they reached us. For my part, I could only stare. Wondering. Waiting.
“Hey, Zoe.” He looked at me. “Natalie.”
“Hi, Jax.”
“This is a buddy of mine from Manhattan. Mason, this is Natalie, Zoe, and Nate,” he said as Nate reached across the bar to shake his hand. “You were in the 75th,” Nate said.
“How’d you guess?”
“I’m not that good. Jax mentioned you were coming to town. Just got back myself from a year-long deployment in Africa.”
And just like that, Jax’s friend and Nate were talking all things Army and military as he pushed a beer across the bar to Jax without missing a beat. Mason took a seat as Jax left his drink next to his friend and sidled up to me.
“I thought he was coming Thursday?” I asked.
“Change of plans,” he said. “Mason has to be back by Friday morning, so he came up earlier.”
Still so many questions . . .
“Fancy meeting you here,” I said as a way to ask how he wound up in the same bar as me, especially when I didn’t typically frequent KC’s so early on a weeknight.
“Not really,” he said. “I was talking to Lucas earlier about Mace coming into town to scope it out. He might have mentioned seeing you come into the bar a little bit ago.”
Lucas’s tattoo shop was just down the street.
“I did see him on the way in,” I said.
“I know.”
So he was talking to Lucas about me. Interesting.
“So you came here?”
“I did.”
“To see me?”
“Figured since you weren’t texting me back...” He let that linger.
“I didn’t trust myself to respond,” I admitted, not asking the biggest question of all. We stared at each other. Surely, he knew what I really wanted to know.
“I canceled,” he said finally, my heart soaring at the words. “Actually, I should say, rescheduled.”
Soar. Crash. Burn.
“Until?”
“Dave couldn’t get me in until Friday. I figured we’d have a chance to talk again before that.”
“So you rescheduled?” That meant he still had hope for the sale.
“I did.”
“Which puts us right back to square one.”
“Nat—”
“Round of shots,” Nate called, not asking but lining the bar with shot glasses. Just what I needed. I generally did not do well with shots, but it seemed like there wasn’t much of a choice.
“Further, faster, harder. Cheers,” Nate said, mostly to Jax and Mason.
“Cheers,” the others said, everyone drinking, even Zoe. Although the guys had more of a clue, obviously. I looked at Nate.
“Part of the Ranger creed,” he said as Nate and Mason continued to talk, and Zoe served another customer. “I accept the fact that as a Ranger my country expects me to move further, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier.”
“How does Nate know the Ranger creed?”
“Good question. A better one,” he asked, still not sitting down but standing next to my bar stool, “is when we can talk again?”
“We’re talking now.”
“You know what I mean.”
Honestly, I didn’t want to talk to Jax. I wanted to go home with him. Have him inside me. I wanted to kiss him so fucking badly it was almost physically painful.
“Keep looking at me like that, and we’ll be doing a hell of a lot more than talking.”
I almost said . . . promise?
“I feel like I said everything there was to say yesterday.”
He looked at me for so long, I wondered if he was trying to memorize every feature. “Everything?”
“The important things.”
“We didn’t talk about us.”
“Because the land question is still up in the air.”
“In other words, if I buy it, there is no us?”
“You’d really go back on your word?” I asked, Nate’s assurance he wouldn’t still ringing in my ears.
“I haven’t given up trying to convince you,” he admitted.
“So this is simply a delay until I give in?”
“You see it as giving in, but even Dave agrees the inlet probably could have sold already. Did you talk to him about it?”
“Yes, I did,” I said, my tone clipped.
“And you’re still not convinced?”
“Jax, did you hear anything I said yesterday?”
He was starting to get annoyed, but honestly, I was too. “I heard you loud and clear, Nat. Did you hear me?”
“Of course I did.”
“Good.”
“Exactly.”
I wasn’t even sure what we were talking about anymore. Other than the fact that yesterday solved nothing, today would solve nothing, and tomorrow would probably be the same.
“So what, then? I cancel the meeting, abandon the bid, and leave town? Is that what you want?”
I gasped. Was he serious? “What makes you think I want you to leave town?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you refuse to discuss us.”
“Well it’s hard,” I said, “with the land thing looming over our heads. Don’t you think it’s all tied together?”
“What are you two lovebirds whispering about over there?” Nate asked from behind the bar. “I’m sure your friend Mason is getting bored with my war stories by now.”
The Greek god looked my way. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but no doubt Jax had brought him up to speed.
“I was just leaving,” I said.
“Nat, don’t.” And then more quietly, he added, “Don’t run away again.”
For some reason, his words only annoyed me more. “I’m not running away,” I whispered back. “Just giving you and your friend some space.”
Louder, to Nate, Mason, and Zoe, I said, “The jet lag is still killing me. I’m heading out. Will talk to you guys later. Nice to meet you,” I said, the Greek god responding that it was nice to meet me too.
His voice was smooth and sexy. Like, he could probably make a girl come over the phone sexy. But even so, my heart didn’t race at the thought of being in his arms, as gorgeous as he was. His companion, however? I was a heartbeat away from losing the bet and telling Jax to just hold me tight and never let go.
Before Zoe could stop me—she looked very much like she was going to try—I fled. Despite the fact that I told Jax I wasn’t running away, I basically did just that. And never looked back.