Will
Chapter four
Jewel’s pale blue eyes sparkle like her name implies, still awash with unshed tears that she’s determined to smile through. She jumps off her stool, picks up our empty plates, and moves to the sink to rinse them.
“Can I help with cleaning up?” I ask. She brushes me off, saying she’ll do it later.
I watch her move around the kitchen with restless energy.
Probably trying to hide her emotions from me again.
She shouldn’t bother because I catch every one of them as they flicker across her beautiful face.
Sorrow. Concentration. Love. Amusement. A kaleidoscope of emotions I’ve witnessed in one morning alone.
She bends to reach into the cupboard under the sink, and I turn away to look out the window, trying not to notice how perfectly her black yoga pants stretch over her peachy ass.
I’d love to curl my hands around those curvy hips, dig my fingers into her soft flesh, and dive deeply into her sweetness.
Lost in my fantasies, I don’t notice Jewel standing in front of me until she drops a roll of large plastic bags on the counter with a thud. “Here are some bags to pack them into.”
What? Ah, that’s right, the clothes. Yes, that’s what I’m meant to be doing, helping her, not thinking about all the ways I’d like to fuck her.
I stand and pick up the roll; then, turning toward her father’s room, I tell her I’ll see her when I’m finished.
About an hour later, I’ve cleared the closet and drawers of all personal items, filling two bags with clothes, and I’m standing in the doorway of her tiny bedroom.
Jewel is sitting on the floor with her back to me, her head bent, looking at something in her hand.
I can just imagine her as a little girl sitting there in a sea of pink, playing happily.
I imagine that’s where she learned to be so self-contained and independent, playing contentedly by herself.
I know she doesn’t like to ask for help, but there’s something about her that tugs at a deep-seated desire in me to be the person she wants to lean on.
After clearing my throat first, I announce, “I’m done.”
She twists to look up at me, blinking. “What?” She was a million miles away, and I just dragged her back to now. “Oh, that was quick.”
Intrigued to know what she was so wrapped up in, I ask, “What have you got there?”
She lifts the pink sparkly box that was sitting in her lap, hidden from my view. “This. My box of medals and ribbons that I won as a child.”
“Can I see?”
She nods, and I shift farther into the room, taking a seat on the end of the single bed. She remains on the floor, moving around until her back rests against the bed frame beside my legs. She holds up a small trophy to me.
“I won this in my first competitive gymnastics tournament when I was eight. I started when I was six and competed up until I was fifteen. I got too big.” She smirks at me.
I laugh, taking it from her hand for a closer look.
“I get it, you don’t like being called tiny.
” She smiles at me, her glossy brown hair falling around her shoulders.
She’s so close that if I moved my knee a couple of inches to the side, it would tumble over me too.
Instead, I focus my attention on the wording on the tarnished bronze plaque attached to the trophy in my hand.
“What was your favorite discipline in gymnastics?”
“Ooh, listen to you, using all the correct terminology.”
A laugh bursts from me. “My sister did it for a few years. Not me, I was too big too. And I have zero flexibility.” I hand the trophy back to her, and she carefully places it back in the box on what looks like a bed of blue ribbons.
I stand, reaching my hand down to help her up. Her small, delicate one is swallowed up in mine, and though I don’t say it this time, I think it. She’s tiny but perfect in every way that calls to all my protective, alpha-male instincts.
When she’s standing beside me, she stretches her arms high above her head before rolling her shoulders. “Are you feeling a bit sore? I know you’re the expert, but I can give a good massage when needed.”
Ducking her head, she tries to hide one of her cute blushes. “I’m good for now.” For someone who’s a straight talker with no artifices, the frequent blushes that pinken her cheeks are always surprising and damn cute.
She turns, still smiling, and I follow her along the hallway to the door of her father’s room. At the threshold, she stumbles to a stop. All the joy from moments ago disappears from her face, as if someone just extinguished the light within her.
Two large bags sit near the doorway, filled with neatly folded clothes, but that’s not where her gaze lands.
It’s on the bed. Her arms wrap tightly around her stomach like she might fall apart if she doesn’t hang on.
I’d stripped the bedding and placed it folded at the end of the bare mattress. Maybe I should have asked her first.
“Jewel?”
She turns to look up at me, and a single tear slips over her high cheekbone to run freely down to her chin. It punches me in the gut, nearly bringing me to my knees. I reach out to her and, with the back of my finger, wipe away the wet track left behind.
When her body remains frozen before me, my hand drops back to my side. “Talk to me, sweetheart,” I plead, wishing there was some way I could take away her sadness, even though I know that’s not possible. No one can do that.
She blinks several times before murmuring, “Sorry … it’s just a shock seeing all traces of my father gone.”
A few more tears escape down her cheeks, and instead of brushing them away this time, I pull her into my chest, holding the back of her head when she buries her face in my T-shirt.
Her fingers grasp and twist at the sides of the fabric as she tries to gather up her usually strong defensive walls once again.
She stays like that only for a couple of minutes, certainly no longer, before she lifts her head and murmurs another apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her, and my fingers thread into her hair.
She doesn’t look up, her eyes remaining fixed on my chest instead. “I made your T-shirt wet,” she says, and her hand rubs across the damp patch like somehow that might make it disappear.
I bring my hand up to rest over hers, holding it against my chest. “It’s okay. I’m just glad I could be here for you.”
“Thank you,” she says in such a soft voice I barely catch the words. But then she loosens her grip on my T-shirt, and I drop my hold of her so she can step away. Already, I miss her warmth in my arms, her body tucked into me like it belongs there.
“Do you want me to go now?” I ask, and she nods.
“Okay, but promise me you’ll be at the beach tomorrow morning?” I don’t want her to run away from me. Not when today felt like she was beginning to smile again.
“I promise. And, Will? I don’t want you to feel like I’m kicking you out. I appreciate everything you did for me today.” Her smile returns, even if it’s a weaker version.
“Hey, it’s okay. I get it, you just need to be alone for a bit.
” I’m torn. I don’t want to leave. Not right now when her eyes are clouded with sorrow.
But I know I have to. “Hey, if you’re free tomorrow, I’d like you to spend the day with me at the Carlsons’ beach house.
” The invitation tumbles out in a rush. It’s hard to tell who’s more surprised, Jewel or me.
The idea came out of nowhere, but now that I’ve voiced it, I’m desperately searching her face, looking for her agreement.
She nods, and a smile pulls at the corners of my mouth. “Good, now you can walk me out.” She pulls the door shut on her father’s room, then leads me back along the hallway.
At the front door, I bend to press my lips to her forehead, a light, barely there kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say before turning and walking back down the cracked concrete path to my black hybrid SUV.
Dawn light turns the wet sand into a shimmery path, and my pace quickens.
The burn in my chest intensifies, but the pain from the punishing ten miles I’ve just run is soon forgotten when I see Jewel sitting on the beach waiting for me.
Her tiny figure huddled against the cold lifts my spirits like nothing else has in recent months.
Spending time with her yesterday shone a light into the darkest recesses of my mind.
The memories from years of living in war-torn countries fading and lifting the invisible weight that’s been resting on my shoulders like a three-fifty-pound barbell.
I’d never have considered that the simple task of sorting books could do that.
Jewel has helped me realize for the first time that it’s good to be home.
I crave normalcy after the life I’ve led in the military. It’s been so long since I saw normal, I didn’t think I’d even recognize it; then Jewel looked up at me, surrounded by a sea of books, and in that single moment, she became my perfect version of normal.
I’ve made some nice plans for her today. Plans I hope will bring more smiles to her face and mine too. For the first time in what must be years, I woke up looking forward to the day ahead. My usual routine of reading, exercising, eating, and sleeping on repeat is about to get a serious shake-up.
I stop running just short of where Jewel is huddled in the folds of her coat, exactly as I’ve found her every other day, with her knees pulled up high to her chest. Then I briefly close my eyes and draw in a lungful of chilly, cleansing air.
Turning, I walk up the dry sand toward the tiny figure. Her wide blue-gray eyes track my progress across the sand, and a soft smile lifts the corners of her pretty lips. With no sign of the usual artifices of makeup, her cheeks and lips are pink-tinged by the cold wind blowing in off the ocean.
When I’m nearly beside her, my voice slices through the early-morning quiet. “Hey … I’m glad you came.”
She cranes her neck to look me in the eye, and her smile widens. “I promised I would.”