Chapter 15
Nice way to make a scene, Jenna thought in a mixture of fury, despair, and pure panic as she practically sprinted down the street, slipping on some ice and nearly doing a face plant, which would have really rounded out the evening nicely.
Why had she had to flounce out of the diner like a teenager throwing a hissy fit?
Why did she have to be so stupidly emotional ?
Everyone in Starr’s Fall was going to think she was losing her mind.
More to the point, Jack was. Why on earth had she acted so over-the-top and basically unhinged about something she couldn’t even articulate?
And yet she knew she couldn’t go back into the diner.
The whole thing had just been way, way too embarrassing.
And it brought back way, way too many memories.
“ Jenna! ”
Jack’s rumbling baritone carried all the way down the street. As tempted as Jenna was to keep running, she knew that was a bad idea. She’d embarrassed herself enough for one night surely, and yet there was almost certainly more to come.
Slowly she turned around to face Jack, who had stopped about ten feet away and was gazing at her in confusion. “Jenna, what’s going on?” he asked.
She gestured to the diner behind them. “Sorry about that?—”
“Seriously,” he cut her off, sounding impatient now. “What’s going on? We’re both adults, and I thought we were friends. Why can’t you tell me why you’ve been acting so touchy?”
Because I’m hurt that you don’t like me the way I like you . No way was she saying those words. No way was she humiliating herself more than she already had.
“It’s just been… kind of a day,” she half-mumbled.
Jack shook his head, looking even more exasperated. “ Kind of a day? ”
Okay, she really did need to act like a grownup. But not here in the street, with who knew who looking on, making all sorts of assumptions. Or in the diner, where people would practically be handing out the popcorn.
“Can we go somewhere more private?” she asked. “So we can talk sensibly?”
Jack made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Be my guest.”
And so they ended up walking, mostly in silence, back to Jenna’s house.
Jack had never been in her house before, although he’d been in her store plenty of times.
She felt self-conscious and slightly embarrassed by how shabby and small it was, compared to his behemoth of a lakeside palace.
As he stepped inside, she had to sweep a pile of papers off the table and push a basket of unfolded laundry into the mudroom. At least the clothes were clean.
“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company,” she muttered. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She set about making coffee while Jack stood in the middle of the room, rocking back on his heels and seeming to take up all the air.
She snuck a glance at him and saw how assessing he looked, his gaze moving slowly around the small room with its ancient cabinets, the weathered kitchen table, the piles of papers, the calendar tacked to the wall that was from last year.
How on earth was she supposed to explain herself, Jenna wondered in both panic and misery. Anything honest would be humiliating as well as make her sound seriously desperate. And yet she already suspected Jack would know if she was lying before she even began.
What to do? What did one do, when honesty was definitely not the best policy, at least not for her mental wellbeing or maybe just her pride?
“So,” Jack said, when the coffee had started brewing, the heady aroma of it filling the air.
“So.” Jenna let out a shaky laugh as she focused on getting out coffee cups. “I fully accept that I have acted kind of crazy tonight and seemed like I’m annoyed or even angry with you, when I’m absolutely not.” Well, not really . Not in a way she could easily explain, at any rate.
“Okay…” Jack cocked his head, clearly waiting for more.
“I guess… I’m just a little sensitive,” Jenna began shakily. She couldn’t make herself look at him. “To, um, feeling… ignored.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and her toes curled up inside her hiking boots because why was he not speaking?
“Are you saying I’ve been ignoring you?” he asked eventually, sounding incredulous.
“Well… kind of? In a way?” She snuck a glance at him; he looked completely bemused. “I mean, I know you’ve been helpful with the store, very helpful, but… that’s the store .”
He shook his head slowly. “And yet you said you and the store were pretty much the same thing.”
“In my head ,” Jenna burst out in a well-duh tone. “Not in yours. And not in real life.”
“Okay.” Jack was now looking befuddled as well as bemused, and Jenna could hardly blame him. She barely made sense to herself, never mind another, far more reasonable person. “Can I ask… without inciting your ire… how I ignored you?”
Inwardly Jenna cringed. Jack’s level tone, his genuine confusion and curiosity, well…
it made her feel ridiculous and childish, along with petty.
Not a good combination. Not a good feeling.
And did she really want to explain how she’d felt ignored?
If you don’t see it then I can’t explain it to you. No, she couldn’t go there.
The coffee had finished brewing, and so she took a moment to pour them both mugs, conscious of Jack’s stare burning into her back as he waited for her to make sense of something she really wasn’t sure she could make sense of. Not, at least, without admitting some pretty humiliating truths.
And then, suddenly, like a lightning bolt to her heart, jolting her awake, Jenna suddenly thought why not ?
Why not lay it all out there, admit how she’d been feeling—a little bit ignored, yes, but also kind of hopeful that maybe something could happen between them one day?
Bruised by past experiences, very much so, but also wanting to be different.
To choose to live differently. Could she say all that to Jack?
Okay, yes, the risk of embarrassment was high, but there were worse things than embarrassment. There was heartbreak. There was the soul-deep disappointment of missing out because you weren’t brave enough to try. There was living alone for the rest of your life because you were a coward.
“I suppose…” she began slowly as she handed a mug to Jack, “I just thought… that things would feel…” Goodness, but this was hard.
Her throat was dry, and her heart was starting to hammer.
Memories of brokenly telling Ryan how much she loved him were rushing through her in a towering wave of remembered humiliation and hurt.
And Jack was gazing at her with narrowed eyes and pursed lips; he looked a lot like he had the first time she’d met him, and suddenly she couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t lay herself out there, not again, not when the memory of telling Ryan in a trembling voice how much she loved him while he stared at her with the very same expression that was on Jack’s face right now…
no ! She was not a masochist. She was not doing this.
Not again. Whoever had said it was better to have loved and lost than never loved at all had not known what they were talking about. At all.
“It’s just the last week or so, you’ve been kind of MIA,” she said finally as she buried her nose in her coffee mug, unable to meet his gaze.
“And I wondered if you were getting a little tired of the store or of—of me.” That was as far as she was willing to go with her confession.
“And if you are,” she continued, trying now to sound briskly practical, “please just say so. We don’t have to organize the Winter Wonderland Weekend together.
I don’t want you to be working with me on—on sufferance or something.
And you’ve been so helpful already, I want you to know I really appreciate it.
” The last was said in a rush, in case he thought she was ungrateful.
“I’m not tired of you,” Jack said after a moment.
She couldn’t tell anything from his tone.
“Or the store. I’ve really enjoyed working on it, to be honest. But…
the last week was kind of busy with—various things.
” He paused before continuing, “Maybe I should have told you what was going on, but my mom had a fall at her nursing home, and I had to take her to the doctor, as well as have a meeting with the care staff to discuss next steps in managing her decline. It was pretty intense, all things considered. And then I had a couple of doctor’s appointments of my own, in the city, to assess my recovery.
And you know how I don’t like talking about my health stuff.
” He smiled crookedly, which just about melted her heart.
“Oh.” Now she felt like a complete heel, complaining about him not showing up when he’d obviously had so much else to deal with.
Why hadn’t she considered that? She’d been too wrapped up in her own pity party even to think about it.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, heartfelt. “I should have thought about what you might be going through.” She gave a grimacing sort of smile. “How is your mom?”
“Well.” He glanced away, his jaw bunched, and she had the sorrowful sense that talking about personal stuff was difficult for him, which was probably why he hadn’t told her what was going on.
He had emotional baggage too; hers had made her jump to conclusions while his had caused him to retreat.
“There’s only one way this is going,” he said at last. “When you have Alzheimer’s.
So any decline is not unexpected, but… it can be challenging. ”
“I’m sorry,” Jenna said again, more softly.