Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Roxanne
I had a hard time not waiting up for my brother when he went out on the town sometimes.
I didn’t know why. After all, he was three years older than I was, and in theory he could take care of himself -- though in practice, sometimes I wondered.
Maybe it was because he was all I had left of my family since Dad was gone now.
At any rate, I had just closed the book I was reading in the living room and decided to stop waiting and head off to bed, when the rumble of an unfamiliar car engine pulling up caused me to look out the window.
I didn’t recognize the car by sight, either.
It definitely didn’t belong to one of our neighbors.
But even so, it slowed and stopped with purpose at the curb in front of our house.
Frowning, I went to the door and peered out into the night.
I couldn’t imagine who would be coming to see us at this hour.
As I watched, the driver killed the headlights and opened his door.
The interior light came on to reveal what I thought was Les’s form in the passenger seat.
The shadow of the driver walked around to the other side of the car, opened the door, and helped Les climb out.
My brother stumbled momentarily, and the other man grabbed hold of him and steadied him until he was able to stand upright more or less unaided.
Les waved him off and started weaving up our front walk, clearly drunk.
Shaking my head, I sighed with a mixture of exasperation and resignation.
This was just what I needed: to play nursemaid to my drunken brother and worry that he’d be so hungover tomorrow that he’d decide to skip going in to work.
Impatiently, I flung open the door and waited as the two figures ambled up the walk.
Les was talking, saying something I couldn’t quite catch to the other man.
“... worry about it, buddy. Sure is good to see you, though. You gonna be in town for a while?” Les broke off what he was saying when he saw me standing in the doorway. “Sis! You still up?” He grinned at me drunkenly. “You should be in bed. You gotta work tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not the only one,” I said drily. Pulling my gaze from my brother, I looked at the other man, who was now illuminated by the light of the porch. I opened my mouth to thank whoever it was for bringing Les home, but then closed it again with a startled snap.
Standing in front of me, familiar as a heartache, was Jackson Stone.
Jackson. My biggest crush from high school.
My brother’s best friend. The boy who consistently made me weak in the knees just to look at him.
The boy who first made my skin flush and tingle with sensations my adolescent self had never felt before.
Whose lazy grin and deep brown eyes caused a nervous fluttering in the pit of my stomach, and a heat to pool between my legs that scared me a little with the intensity of it.
Jackson was the first boy I ever wanted.
Wanted, with a desperate longing that felt almost impossible to conceal, from him or anyone else.
Whenever he was at our house, or whenever I happened to pass him in the halls of Lupine High, I pretended not to care one whit about him.
I pretended not to be glancing at him out of the corner of my eye whenever he wasn’t looking.
Pretended not to thrill with excitement whenever he said even the slightest word to me.
But late at night, alone in my bed, I couldn’t stop my brain from weaving elaborate fantasies about him.
In them, he would stop me in the halls of our school one day, and tell me with his deep, sensual voice that he had always been in love with me, that he couldn’t stop thinking about me.
Or he’d grab me by the wrist at a football game, pull me into the shadows of the parking lot, and kiss me, his lips hot and insistent on mine.
I would shiver with longing as I pictured it all, my body itching with a need that I clumsily tried to satisfy, my inexperienced fingers sliding tremblingly over my heated skin as I imagined what his touch would feel like.
Now, standing in front of me after more years than my frazzled brain could count, here he was again.
Jackson Stone, in the flesh. I remembered dimly that he’d been in the war, and that Les had lost touch with him when he hadn’t come home to Lupine after it was over.
I stared at him, taking him in like I was dying of thirst and he was a cold glass of water.
The years had changed Jackson, for sure.
His dark hair was longer now than it had been in high school, and the slightly unkempt curls made me want to run my fingers slowly through them.
His eyes had lost a bit of their easy, lazy confidence, and instead had grown more piercing, more intense.
His facial features had hardened and gotten more rugged with the years.
His body was more lean now, too, but also more muscular.
His shoulders were broader, his waist more trim and cut.
The faded T-shirt he was wearing stretched tight across his chest, falling loose lower down as his waist tapered.
The shirt was untucked, and my fingers twitched with the desire to reach underneath -- to slide my hand up and feel the taut, muscular skin of his abdomen and chest…
With a start, I realized I had been standing in the doorway all this time, staring at him and basically blocking the two of them from entering.
Embarrassed, I tried mask the flush of my desire with a frown and said casually, “Jackson Stone. Now, this is a surprise. You come back into town just to get my brother drunk off his ass?”
“Hello, Rox,” Jackson murmured, in that voice whose every nuance I remembered so well.
Even now, I suppressed a shiver just to hear him say my name.
“Sorry, Les was already doing a pretty good job of tying one on before I ran into him.” His lips twitched just a hint.
“I borrowed Greg Rollins’s car to bring him home so he wouldn’t be driving his Hog. ”
I was so unsettled I couldn’t decide how to act.
I wanted to thank him, but I always felt so vulnerable around Jackson.
Part of me felt the need to keep myself more guarded from him than that.
When I was younger, and knew he was coming over to the house, I would always steel myself for it.
I’d put on the figurative mask I always wore around him, so he wouldn’t know how crazy I was about him.
Now, with him appearing out of the blue like this, my defenses were down.
I didn’t trust myself to be nice. So, instead, I continued to hide behind the only defense I could muster up on short notice: sarcasm.
“Yeah, I’m sure you had nothing at all to do with him getting drunk,” I snorted, shaking my head. “You always were such an altar boy.”
Something flickered in his gaze, then, and instead of firing back at me, a slow-burning smirk lifted the corner of his mouth.
“You know me too well, Rox.” His eyes locked on mine for a long moment, then slid down my body slowly, seeming to drink me in.
“You’re looking good. The years have agreed with you. ”
I flushed, my skin burning with the heat of his gaze. My breathing grew shallow, my senses on edge, as if it were his fingers that were blazing a trail against my skin. Desperately, I tried to keep my defenses up. “Yeah,” I snorted again. “The years have been awesome to me.”
“Hey,” Les complained as he stood unsteadily next to Jackson on the front stoop. “You gonna let us in, or am I just gonna have to sleep out here in the damn bushes?”
Shit! With a start, I realized I was still standing in the doorway, blocking them from coming in.
“Sorry,” I muttered, stepping aside. Jackson let Les go through first, and I caught a strong whiff of whiskey mixed with beer as he did so.
Then he stepped through the doorway behind my brother, not waiting to be asked in.
Once inside, Les didn’t bother to say goodnight to either of us, but merely half-stumbled through the living room and down the hallway to his bedroom.
“Well, that’s your good deed for the day,” I said to Jackson, trying for the third time to keep my wall of sarcasm up. “Thanks but no thanks for getting him drunk in the first place.”
“Hey,” Jackson protested, holding up his hands. “Les is a big boy. He makes his own decisions. And I wasn’t kidding about him being half in the bag when I got there.”
As much as I wanted to blame Jackson, I had to admit he was probably telling the truth. I knew I was only trying to stay mad at him so I could try to be less attracted to him.
I sighed, letting my defenses fall just a little. “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the first time. Okay, sorry I snapped at you. Thanks, Jackson, for bringing him home.”
Something in his eyes softened a bit at my words. “Don’t mention it.” He cocked his head and looked at me, then. “How’ve you been, Rox?” he asked, in a tone that was suddenly low and intimate.
Every nerve ending in my skin seemed to come to attention. His voice was like a caress, and I fought to keep from closing my eyes at the sensation. Dammit, Roxy, focus! “I’m… I’ve been okay,” I said breathlessly. “I’m working at Hunt Pharmacy now, as a pharmacist’s assistant for Rodney Hunt.”
Somehow, it felt as though Jackson had moved closer to me, though I couldn’t remember him doing it. I could almost feel the heat of his skin, and I wanted even more to reach out and touch the taut muscles of his arms and chest. He nodded. “That’s good. Sounds like a good job.”
“It pays the bills,” I said, because no other words would come.
“It’s good to see you again, Rox,” he murmured, the low vibrations of his voice making me feel dizzy. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes,” I stammered. My brain was firing wildly, trying to put two words together as I tried to resist the fantasies that were crowding out all other thoughts.
I started to ask him what he was doing back in town, but then I realized what must have brought him back.
“I… I was sorry to hear about your dad, Jackson,” I said then.
“I used to talk to him when he’d come into the pharmacy for his meds. He was a good guy.”
If I’d wanted to choose a topic of conversation that would get him out of my house fastest, I couldn’t have found a better one. As the words left my mouth, Jackson’s eyes darkened, and a pall fell over his handsome features. “Thanks,” he said tonelessly.
I should have changed the subject right then, but for some reason I couldn’t keep from running my fool mouth. “You back here because of that?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Yeah,” he muttered. He took a step back, and the spell between us was broken. “Gonna work at the garage for a while, while I wrap up his business and sell the house.” His eyes flicked toward the door. “Well, I better be going. Tell Les I’ll see him around.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said miserably. I wanted to apologize for bringing up his dad, but I knew that would just make it worse. “Will do.”
Jackson gave me one last, long look before he turned to go. “‘Night, Roxy,” he drawled, something unreadable in his eyes. “Sleep well.”
I watched him as he pushed open the screen door and walked out into the night. “Not much chance of that now,” I whispered after him.