Chapter 16
Got me Pooled
JAMIE
Thank God for that jabbering kid.
While I’d wanted to chuck him out of Sarah’s parking lot by the collar when I’d first turned up this morning, I was now grateful as hell he’d come along for the ride.
His stories were surprisingly entertaining, and frankly I wasn’t sure how I would have survived without him acting as a focal point for the six-hour drive with Sarah.
Except for the moment when I’d nearly slid into that car. He could have said something after that instead of gawking at me after I stuck my hand out and practically manhandled Sarah in my need to keep her safe.
He could have said something earlier, too, when I’d mentioned those videos. Why the hell had I done that? What he would have said, I have no idea.
Because none of it was Sam’s fault. It was all mine.
I dropped Sarah off at the hotel to park the truck, relieved to have her gone, even if the cab still smelled of her soft floral shampoo. She’d started using it sometime last year, and it lingered in all the places she’d been. Not cloying. Fucking torturous.
I took Sam to the motel downtown that he’d booked from the road. Once he disappeared inside, I pulled out my phone and did the thing I hadn’t told them I could do. I emailed my committee head, seeing to it that Sam got a full pass to the conference—Saturday social and everything.
When I got back to the hotel, it was closing in on four.
And my thoughts, of course, immediately turned back to Sarah.
I gritted my teeth as I crossed the massive lobby, with its cream-colored marble floor, domed roof, and a fifteen-foot Christmas tree in the corner by the door.
My neck prickled knowing she was somewhere in the building, in a room with a bed.
That she would be sleeping in. Even with rooms on opposite sides of the hotel, there was no way I could forget she was here. Not after today.
When I finally got to my room, the sun had nestled low into the snowy pines out the window.
There was a pre-registration day dinner tonight for the speakers, but I was skipping it.
Since Sarah would be there, this was the only time I could safely move around the hotel without risking running into her.
I waited until just before the dinner had started to head down to the gym and spent the next half hour punishing myself with weights before showering and heading for the pool.
I was relieved to see the pool was deserted as I stepped out of the changing room and onto the deck.
I glanced at the time on the wall as I crossed over to the diving board.
Right about now, Sarah would be sipping the pre-dinner cocktails.
Maybe with the people not in my fan club—and there were a few here.
Good. Maybe she could tell them some of the awful stories about me from the past year.
Like the time a few weeks ago when I’d shared a job opening with her somewhere far from Quince Valley.
That had been the most harebrained thing I think I’d done through this whole awful year.
It had been a desperate moment. I wanted so badly to end this bullshit between us, and the only way I could see that happening was if she were far, far away.
But when I’d shown it to her and tears sprang to her eyes?
Fuck me, I’d nearly folded in half with regret.
Then she’d physically stumbled—likely losing her balance because of the off-side blow that move had been.
That turned into her falling, which had me grabbing onto her and accidentally ripping her shirt as I caught her like a fucking buffoon.
We’d been at the job site, and I’d had to lend her my button-down. It was a whole humiliating thing.
Even now I cringed at the memory, both of what happened and handing her that opening in the first place. It was the most selfish thing I’d ever done.
When I dove into the water, cold water sluicing over my body, I felt a whisper of hope that I’d get through this weekend in one piece.
By my twentieth lap, I finally felt tired enough that I thought I might be able to head back to my room, order a burger, and get to sleep in good time.
I wasn’t nervous about my keynote on Saturday—I’d been giving talks like these for decades.
But staying up all night agonizing over Sarah wasn’t my idea of a good time either.
I’d just pushed myself out of the pool and buried my face in my towel when I heard my name.
“Jamie.”
My stomach dropped at the sound of Sarah’s voice, which sounded as unpleasantly surprised as I was at my presence.
I lowered my towel slowly, dreading what I would see. Because this was the pool, of course. She wouldn’t be wearing that parka.
When I finally opened my eyes, I almost groaned, biting my cheek so hard I tasted blood as I trapped the sound.
I’d had impure thoughts about Sarah a thousand times over the years since our first meeting. But I’d mostly gotten control over them in the last year, due to avoiding looking at her, period. But here, with nothing but lycra and a few feet of air separating us?
My brain went fucking haywire.
Even keeping my eyes trained on her face, I felt the one piece swimsuit she was wearing searing itself into my brain in real-time.
It was black, with a deep V that dipped all the way down to her sternum.
The soft curves of her breasts plumped from the constraining elastic of the bathing suit’s top.
Lower down, her stomach curved softly, which I saw with the specific pain of remembering how my hand had been pressed against that softness only a few hours ago.
And the thick curve of flesh above her hipbones?
I wanted to sink my fucking teeth into it.
Back up back up back UP!
I tried so hard to slam a door down on my runaway thoughts, but I’d never seen so much of her. Ever.
“Cooper.” The word was a harsh bark. I grabbed the thick white cloth, rubbing it vigorously over my hair. “What are you doing down here?”
“I could ask you the same,” she said, just as stiffly. “Why aren’t you at the dinner?”
“Why aren’t you?”
Fuck, that was juvenile.
She folded her arms, but of course, this only pushed her tits up, and my eyes dropped helplessly down. A drop of water ran down the center of her chest, past the smattering of moles I remembered so clearly from that night so long ago in that crushed velvet dress.
The drop disappeared into the very point of the V. My asinine brain supplied me with the thought that this was right where I’d love to run my tongue.
Things were getting worse by the fucking minute.
“Why is it that you never answer my questions?” Sarah demanded.
This. This was the pushback she never used to give me. I liked it. I needed it. Especially right now.
“You could still make it,” I said.
“See? You did it again.”
I could practically see the steam coming from her as her irritation grew.
Good. Hate me. Put me in my place.
I turned, aiming for the changing room, but stopped abruptly. This time, it wasn’t because of Sarah.
Across from where I stood, there was a wall of glass between the pool and the gym.
A man moved on the elliptical machine. He had gray hair like mine, only his was cropped short.
He was sweating, his upper half as red as a tomato.
But it was his profile I was staring at, a terrible sense of dread running over me.
It couldn’t be.
Sarah was beside me now. She’d seen my face. “What is it?”
“It’s uh… I…”
I shut my mouth. I couldn’t form words when my brain was doing the same. My brain was saying Come on, fucker, turn around.
“Jamie, are you okay?” She couldn’t tell who I was looking at. Good. If he so much as looked her way, I’d—
I popped my jaw.
The guy who looked an awful lot like Gary wiped his face with a towel. Then he slipped through the door into the hallway.
Blood rushed through my throat at the memory of Cora, coming to me teary-eyed. At Joyce, when I called her at home. “We didn’t talk about that kind of thing then,” she said. “It’s not your fault, Jamie.”
But it was. I’d had a predator in my office and I hadn’t known it.
I wasn’t proud of it, but I’d threatened him after he was fired.
Told him what I’d do if I saw him in this industry again.
“You better either crawl into a hole or join a fucking monastery” had been my parting words on his doorstep.
He moved out of Quince Valley, without his long-suffering wife. I didn’t know where.
“Jamie.” Sarah was next to me, her voice laced with concern I didn’t deserve. She was the only thing that stopped me from running back there and flipping that guy around, seeing if it was really him. Possibly beating the shit out of him.
And then what?
I looked down. Sarah’s brows were angled in concern, her pretty eyes peering deep into mine. In the car, I could look ahead. But now, this close, with those freckles sprinkled across her nose like stars…
“Thought I saw someone I knew,” I said, my voice low.
And even though it pained me, I looped my towel over my neck and started walking. “Get to the dinner, Cooper.”
With strides too long for her to follow—not that she would—once again I walked away from Sarah Cooper.