Chapter 19 Jack
NINETEEN
JACK
I start breakfast before my early morning thoughts can get any momentum. For me, movement keeps things orderly in a way stillness never does. If one part of me is busy, the rest of me is less likely to wander off and find trouble.
It’s a trick I learned the hard way.
I heat the pan, adding a little butter until it sizzles.
I’ve been trying to be good this week. I don’t deserve a gold star or anything, but I have been making a real effort. I live here now, yes. That doesn’t mean Isla stopped needing space that belongs to her.
I’m trying to respect that without turning it into some weird performance of self-control, even though part of me still wants to fix everything with a screwdriver and a bad idea.
I put things back where I found them. I wipe the counters. I have not, despite the urge, fixed the back door yet. At this point, I’m pretty sure that if I touch anything structural, Isla will have a full-body stress response and ban me from the cottage entirely.
We are still, decidedly, not touching.
No touching means I do a lot of things with my hands clasped behind my back like I’m a Victorian orphan in a museum. I keep stepping into moments where I’d like to put a hand at her lower back or brush hair off her shoulder, and I stop myself so fast it makes my muscles jump.
It’s ridiculous. It’s also her rule, and I said okay, and the part of me that’s trying to be a man who commits has to keep saying okay, even when it annoys me.
The eggs hit the pan with a soft hiss. I stir them while glancing down the hall.
Isla’s door is still shut.
I can picture her in there. Hair everywhere, tank top twisted, one leg kicked free of the comforter while she argues with the prospect of being awake. She probably has papers spread all around her, too, some running list of everything that needs to happen before noon.
I set bread in the toaster and start the coffee. These are small, domestic things. The kind of things that used to feel like somebody else’s life and now keep catching me off guard by feeling like mine.
Her phone rings, but she doesn’t answer. It stops, then starts again.
My first thought is that something’s wrong. My second is don’t go in there, Rhodes. My third is less noble and more honest, which is that lately I haven’t been especially good at leaving things alone.
The phone keeps ringing.
I take a breath and set the spatula down. “Isla?” I call. “Your phone!”
There’s a muffled thump, like she’s shifted in bed. The ringing keeps going, and then I hear a sound I recognize on a cellular level. Something between a groan and a curse. The Isla special, if there ever was one.
“Jesus,” she mutters from down the hall. “I’m up.”
The ringing stops. I turn back to the stove and stir the eggs.
I’m a normal guy doing normal guy things. I do not need to burst in there and check on her in case she’s somehow managed to fall out of bed and start a crisis before breakfast.
A minute passes. Maybe two. I’m plating the food when her door finally opens.
She appears in the kitchen doorway, phone in hand, wearing an oversized tank and shorts. Her dark hair is piled on top of her head in a mess that makes my brain briefly forget its job. Goddamn, my wife is pretty.
“Yes,” she says into the phone, clipped. “This is Isla Winslow.”
She walks farther into the kitchen, bare legs and sleepy eyes and all the quiet intimacy of a life we have no business looking so natural in.
“Yes, I’m listening,” she says. “Okay.”
She stops by the table and grips the back of a chair with one hand. Her knuckles go a little white. Her eyes fix on nothing, aimed somewhere past the sink.
I keep moving because if I stop, I’m going to stare at her.
“Thank you for letting me know,” she says.
I slide two plates onto the table and reach for the plum jam.
“Right,” Isla says. “Mirabelle.”
My hands still, but only for a second. I force them back into motion, pick up the coffeepot, and pour with absurd concentration because my brain has started buzzing.
“Yes, of course,” Isla says. “Pending verification and final documentation. I understand.”
Her gaze cuts to me again, quick and sharp. There’s something in it that tells me this is big, and she’s fighting herself not to believe in it too soon.
“Today? Okay.”
She lets out a breath. “Thank you. Truly.” Then, “You too.”
She sets her phone face down on the table.
I wait. I don’t touch her. I don’t do anything foolish, like pull her into my chest and tell her it’s okay, because I don’t know that it is, and she would hate that anyway. But damn, I’d sure like to.
“Who was that?”
“The grant committee,” she says. “Mirabelle meets all the preliminary requirements.” She swallows. “It’s not final,” she adds immediately. “So, don’t get too excited.”
Something bright kicks in my chest, excitement edged with something stranger, quieter. Relief, maybe. Or the beginning of hope, which feels close enough to dangerous that I have to keep a hand on it.
I nod. “Right. Not completely final. But.”
She presses her lips together. I can see her wanting to cut it back down into manageable pieces, something list shaped and survivable.
“Yeah,” she says at last. “But.”
I don’t smile. I want to. I want to grin like a clown and say told you so because she called it hell, and I called it perfect, and apparently, I was right, which is a very satisfying thing to be.
But she’s standing there like she’s holding herself rigid against hope, and something in me settles. I pull out the chair across from her and sit. Not too close. I put my hands flat on the table.
I’m proving I can follow her rules.
“This is huge, isn’t it? Why won’t you allow yourself to be excited?”
Her eyes drop to the plates. Eggs. Toast. Jam. Coffee.
“You cooked breakfast for us,” she says carefully, deflecting.
“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t act like I can’t scramble eggs.”
She sits. “I’m just surprised. I don’t think anyone’s ever cooked anything in my kitchen besides me and my parents. And Winnie, if you count reheating leftovers as cooking.”
“Should I stop cooking eggs, then?” I ask, teasing. “Is that a boundary?”
Her left eye twitches. If it weren’t for the no-touching rule, I think she might smack me in the head.
“You know, this all seems well and good,” she says, ignoring me completely, “but they still have to do the site review. They still have to approve the matching-funds structure. They still have to sign off on the updated estimates.”
“Those things will get done.”
She looks up, and I can see the stress already trying to climb back into place.
“I have to email them today,” she says. “And call the contractor. And get the letter for the match. And we have to pull the most recent invoices because I don’t trust the ones I scanned last week. Also, I think maybe we should keep applying to other grants in case this collapses.”
She’s building a wall out of tasks so she doesn’t have to feel anything. I want her to take a moment to savor it, even if it does fall through in the end. Some things are worth celebrating.
“I’m going to suggest something,” I tell her. “And you’re going to hate it.”
Her brows lift. “That’s most things you suggest.”
“I think we should celebrate for a singular night.”
“No,” she says instantly.
“It wouldn’t be a party. It would just be the two of us hanging out after town hall. Somewhere not here. Away from Blue Willow.”
“I’m working tonight.”
“What if I meet you after your shift?”
She studies me like she’s deciding whether I’m a liability or a pressure valve.
“Maybe,” she says finally. “After.”
Hell yeah. I’ll take maybe.
I nod once, like this is a perfectly ordinary answer and not something I’m immediately tempted to build the rest of my evening around.
Town hall is packed tonight.
Folding chairs are crammed into uneven rows, close enough that everyone has to sidestep knees and bags to get through. The coffee urn by the door is already half-drained, and there’s a basket of store-bought cookies on the side table. I take two.
Elsie didn’t bake them, so at least there’s that.
Bobby stands at the front with a clipboard and pen, his baseball cap twisted sideways.
Isla walks in beside me, wearing a dark jacket, her hair pulled back, her mouth set in a hard line. She’s heading straight to her shift after this, and the thought does something deeply unhelpful to my brain.
I catch myself wondering what she might be wearing under the jeans and sweater.
My imagination, being a menace, supplies lace and thin straps. I shove the image away so hard I nearly choke on my own spit. We are in public. She is not my real wife. And apparently, I’m an even bigger horndog than previously documented.
We find seats near the middle and sit shoulder to shoulder.
People turn and smile at us, congratulations moving through the room in soft little waves.
It’s the first town meeting we’ve attended since the wedding. A community milestone, according to the Motts, the Caldwells, and even Mrs. Pierce from the feed store.
They’re all looking at us—at Isla, really—like she’s been neatly taken care of.
There’s less worry in their eyes now. More expectation.
They’re lighter with her, like the ring already fixed the structural integrity of the orchard and, therefore, her entire life. They think she’s safe now. They think this is handled. They look at her like she’s going to be fine, and they look at me like I’m the reason.
It’s so fucking unfair.
Bobby, wearing a polo with a stain on the collar, taps the microphone and clears his throat. The room quiets in slow, reluctant waves.
“All right,” he says easily. “Evening, everybody. Thank you for coming out to our monthly town hall. I know it’s a busy time, and I know folks have got fields and families and fences that don’t fix themselves.”
A few people laugh.
“I’m gonna start with something good,” he says. “Mirabelle Orchard has been selected for a sizeable grant that’ll help keep it running, pending final documentation and site review.”
Bobby already knows about the grant without us having to inform him. That’s the way things work in Blue Willow, I guess. Information moves here the way weather does: quick, inevitable, and always with somebody insisting they felt it coming in their knees.
Applause breaks out.
Isla’s shoulders rise, then settle again. Her face stays composed, but I catch it anyway. The tight pull in her throat. The way her gaze drops to her hands, like she’s checking they’re still steady. Someone behind her leans forward and squeezes her shoulder.
My hands stay folded in my lap.
It makes my skin itch. It makes my body feel wrong. Every instinct I have says touch her, anchor her, let her feel that she’s not holding this alone. Instead, I sit there like a loser who was just caught picking his nose in class.
Bobby raises a hand, the applause fading.
“Now,” he says, “there are a few more matters we’ve got to get through, and I promise I won’t keep you here all night unless you give me reason.
” His eyes sweep the room, amused. “We need volunteers for a new summer market logistics committee, plus a safety walk for the green and Main. Town’s growing, which means problems are multiplying like rabbits. ”
For reasons I’ll unpack later, my hand shoots up. I think I might have some sort of usefulness kink.
Bobby’s brows lift. “Well, look at that,” he says. “Jack Rhodes, volunteering twice in a year.”
“I’ve already been on the subcommittee for the inn,” I say. “I’m an expert at all that nonsense by now.”
Beside me, Isla turns her head to stare.
I don’t look back right away because I know myself. I know that if I meet her eyes too directly, I’ll reach for her hand and bring it to my lips. The whole room will see it, and she’ll go rigid, and it’ll blow up our spot.
Bobby scribbles something on his clipboard. “Appreciate it, Jack. We’ll put you down.”
He tears a scrap of paper off the edge of the agenda, crumples it one-handed, and lobs it toward the back of the room. It hits Wells squarely in the shoulder.
He’s seated two rows back beside Elsie, who immediately clamps a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter.
Bobby grins. “Rourke. Any chance you’d join the market committee, too, or should I keep dreaming?”
Wells lets out a long-suffering breath. “Yeah, fine. I’ll do it.”
Elsie makes a delighted sound, which she then tries to cover with a cough.
The meeting drags on after that. Roads, budgets, summer events, somebody complaining about potholes. When Bobby finally wraps things up, people start standing, chairs scraping back while conversations break off into clumps.
Unfortunately, that’s when Beau Langford makes his way over.
The sight of him irritates me on principle, but the timing really seals it. Isla told me he tried to buy the orchard out from under her, and I know he was sniffing around the inn a few months ago, too. The greedy motherfucker.
“Congratulations are in order,” he says.
“Thanks,” I reply flatly.
Beau’s gaze flicks to Bobby’s clipboard, then back to Isla. “Grant processes can get messy,” he says, mild as ever. “A lot of fine print. A lot of hands in the pot. I’ll be interested to see how this one shakes out.”
Isla rests a hand over her heart. “So glad to hear you’re interested.”
I snort. “Yeah, Langford. Means a lot.”
“I’m only curious because I sit on a few committees myself. If you run into roadblocks, I may know which doors are worth knocking on.”
I cross my arms. “That’s nice.”
Isla edges closer to the door, already turning herself toward escape. Hartford is calling, and the clock is not on our side. I’m trying to stay focused on the fact that she agreed to let me meet her afterward for a drink.
She heads for the exit with a small nod in my direction and a smile pulled too tight. I let her go because that’s what she needs. That’s what she insists on, anyway.
Public commitment is easy. Private restraint is the hard part.