Chapter 29 Jack
JACK
Mom
You should come to dinner sometime next week. Bring Janie and Maya, too. Won’t that be fun?
Jack
I don’t know, Mom. It might be just me. Janie might be tired after a long day at the bar.
Mom
Then she’ll be thrilled not to have to cook. How about Thursday?
“Are we lost?” Janie put her hands on her hips as she came to a halt at what appeared to be a dead end on the trail.
“We’re not lost,” I assured her. “I know these mountains like the back of my hand. Essie, Brax, and I used to come up this way all the time.”
I snagged a fistful of her shirt just under her chest and pulled her in close, because to my way of thinking, if we weren’t walking, we might as well be kissing.
She didn’t look convinced. “This trail wasn’t on any of the maps.”
“That’s because elk don’t tend to draw maps. No opposable thumbs.” At the nervous look on her face, I chuckled and brushed another kiss against her mouth. “Trust me?”
She tilted her chin to consider me, beautiful brown eyes searching mine. Whatever she found there cleared away the worry. “I trust you, Jack.”
Damn, that felt good. It was something I valued in myself, the ability to come through no matter what, and it mattered to me that people I cared about saw me that way, too.
No one had warned me that the pieces of myself I valued most would be almost worthless in the low-stakes civilian life.
But somehow it didn’t feel like low stakes when Janie was the one I needed to come through for.
It felt like the most important thing in the world.
“Good.” I dropped a kiss on her damp forehead. It was hot out here in the midday summer sun, even with the thick-leafed aspens giving us shade. “We’re almost there. Listen.”
I cocked my head and we let the silence stretch around us until it wasn’t silent anymore. The birds called to each other, the wind rustled through the leaves. And there, underneath it all, was the low thunder of tumbling water. “Hear that? It’s the falls.”
When Janie had suggested going for a hike, I’d known exactly where I wanted to take her.
An easy two-mile hike led to a secluded waterfall and swimming hole.
It wasn’t the biggest waterfall around here and there were plenty of others that were easier to get to, which meant almost no one came here. We’d have it all to ourselves.
“This way.” I took a hard right, ducking under the gnarled bough of a fir tree and lifting it so it wouldn’t smack Janie in the face. Janie followed me through and then I took the lead again.
Another quarter mile in, the trees yielded to the river. It babbled over rocks before plunging straight down in a ten-foot waterfall.
“Oh, we’re at the top of the falls!” Janie exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprised delight. She peered over the edge, holding onto a rock for balance. “Is there a way down to the pool?”
I nodded. “Follow me.”
It was a sketchy scramble over wet boulders to reach the bottom.
I kept Janie behind me so that if she slipped, my body would break her fall.
Be careful was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit the words back.
Janie wasn’t dumb and she had hiked enough to know that the spray from the falls made the rocks slick.
She would be careful without me reminding her like she was a kid.
This was why fraternizing was frowned upon in the military. Watching someone you loved put themselves in harm’s way was fucking terrifying. Even when it was just a hike.
Love.
The word snagged my brain and my toe snagged a rock. I would have taken the rest of the way down on my ass if Janie hadn’t grabbed my pack to keep me on my feet. I immediately braced against a boulder so we wouldn’t take each other down.
“What did I tell you?” I sent her an impish grin over my shoulder. “Girl Scouts. Always good in the clutch.”
She jerked in surprise. “You remember that?”
“When it comes to you, Janie, I remember everything.”
Her gaze shifted sideways, mouth quirking, like she was remembering something herself. “Not everything,” she murmured.
Now I was curious. “Oh, yeah? What do you think I’m forgetting?”
“We’re not having that conversation here.
” She flicked my shoulder. “Eyes forward, soldier, and maybe you’ll make it to the bottom in one piece.
Can you imagine the obituary if you fell here?
Former Navy SEAL who survived gunshot wounds and underwater espionage dies on three-mile hike because he wasn’t paying attention. ”
I faced forward again, laughing. “No chance. You’d have to make up a story about me saving you from a grizzly bear or something. Can’t have Maya defending my honor on the playground.”
“There are no grizzlies in Colorado.”
I grinned. She was rolling her eyes behind my back. I could hear it in her voice.
We were at the bottom now, safe and sound. I took her hand to help her down the last drop, and she allowed it even though we both knew it was unnecessary. I just liked touching her, and from the way her fingertips trailed my palm before letting go, it was safe to say she liked touching me, too.
Keeping our hands off each other when Maya came home tomorrow was going to be fucking torture.
Janie dropped her pack and yanked her shirt off over her head.
“You going in?” I asked. A stupid question when she was standing there in her sports bra and underwear.
My mouth went dry. Her pale, creamy skin was as blindingly bright as fresh fallen snow reflecting a winter sun. Good fucking god, it almost burned to look at her but I didn’t care. Scalded retinas were a small price to pay for all that beauty.
She flashed me a cheeky grin. “Of course I’m going in. Isn’t that why you brought me here?” She dipped a toe in the water and immediately pulled it out again with a little yelp. “Christ, that’s cold!”
“Yeah, have fun, Ace. I’m staying here where it’s warm and dry.” But I peeled my shirt off, because I had the feeling she wasn’t going to allow that.
Sure enough, she gave a tinkly little laugh. “You’re getting in, soldier. I need your body warmth.”
I had stripped down to my boxers by the time she wrapped her arms around my waist. I protested, laughing, as she walked to the edge, taking me with her. Our bodies pressed together, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, chest to chest.
“Don’t do it,” I warned, as though I couldn’t stop her right this second if I wanted to. The truth was, I’d follow her anywhere. Even if it meant freezing my balls off. “There will be payback.”
A mischievous smile flashed across her face. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
She didn’t pull me in. She didn’t have to.
We jumped in together.
“Your lips are blue.” Janie pushed the words through chattering teeth.
I rubbed the towel I’d stowed in my backpack over her goose-bumped arms. “So are yours.” I pressed my numb lips to her numb lips in a clumsy kiss. She giggled.
“Careful,” she said against my mouth. “I can’t feel my lips. I might accidentally bite you.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t like that?” I said back.
The only answer I got was the sharp nip of her teeth. And fuck yeah, I liked it.
We toweled off. Muttering to herself about skin cancer and sunscreen, Janie pulled on her clothes. I was still damp so I draped myself over a rock like a lizard and let the sun do its thing. My eyes drifted closed. I heard Janie unzip her pack—probably looking for a snack.
“Can I draw you?”
I cracked open an eyelid and found Janie with her sketchpad balanced on her knees, tapping a charcoal pencil against the paper.
“You want to draw me? Now?” I was still fully naked, scars and all.
She nodded slowly as her gaze swept over me. There was nothing sexual in the way she assessed me. She scrutinized every inch of me, fingers twitching like she was already imagining how she’d direct the pencil.
“I want to draw you just like this. It’s perfect. The contrast of it all. Hard rock, soft skin, hard muscles, soft sunlight. Plus you have the body of a Greek god. It would be criminal not to draw you. Straight to jail.”
“Shit, I’m blushing.” I really was, a little bit. I chuckled. “All right, Ace. Draw me like one of your amphibians.”
“Clasp your hands behind your head. One knee up. Perfect. Keep your eyes closed, like you’re napping.”
I followed her instructions, but of course I peeked a little. I couldn’t resist. “Is it okay if I talk?”
“Sure. You can even move a little if you need to, but try not to change your position too much.”
“Okay.” I squinted at her. “I saw that sketch you did of Maya on the swing. It was incredible. It wasn’t just that it was realistic. It was like you captured her soul.”
“That’s exactly what I love about drawing people.
It’s a challenge getting their…I don’t know, their essence or soul or whatever magic it is that makes a person who they are.
It’s not the same with frogs and salamanders, you know.
In the first place, I’m usually drawing them from a photograph someone else took. They don’t really have a personality.”
“Your frogs and salamanders are amazing, Janie.”
“They’re for Maya. I love making this book with her.
I mean, how many seven-year-olds do you know who take something this seriously?
But sometimes I want to draw something that’s just for me.
Sometimes I want to take myself seriously, too.
” Her self-deprecating laugh made my chest hurt.
“I know that’s silly. It’s just a hobby. ”
I let my eyelid flutter open enough to watch the pencil flick over the paper in feather-light strokes. She was frowning, whether in concentration or at whatever bullshit she was telling herself, I wasn’t sure. “Why is that silly?”
“Because it is.” Her pencil moved faster.
“When you’re in your twenties, it’s okay to still be figuring it all out.
People expect that. But I’ve been a mom since I was twenty-two.
I’m thirty years old. The time for finding myself is over.
I should be focused on finding a real job, not silly side quests. ”
“You have a real job,” I pointed out.
She snorted. “Yeah, now I do. But until a week ago, I was a bartender at—no offense to Brax, honestly I love the Painted Cat—but it’s a dive bar in a one-stoplight town. That’s not a career. That’s a placeholder. It’s what you do until your real life starts.”
“If you wanted more than bartending, you should have told Brax. He would have made you manager in a heartbeat.”
“Maybe that’s why I didn’t ask.” The pencil stopped moving, and my heart damn near stopped, too.
“You don’t want to be manager?” I asked carefully.
“I don’t know,” she confessed softly. She sighed.
She picked up the pencil again. “I mean, it’s so good for me and Maya, right?
No more late nights, no more weekend shifts.
The money is better. But…” She chewed the inside of her cheek.
“It’s not a placeholder position. This is my real life now.
I’m a manager, and I’ll probably always be a manager.
This is it, for the rest of my life. I’m not complaining.
Brax is a great boss. I should be grateful. It’s what’s best for Maya.”
But it’s not what’s best for Janie.
She didn’t say that. She never would. Maya came first, always.
But we both knew it was true.
Janie shimmied her shoulders like she was brushing away the clouds. “I really do like it at the Painted Cat, you know. People tell me the craziest shit when they’re drunk. I love that. And my decisions are my own. No one is coercing me.”
Guilt felt like a lead brick on my chest. I didn’t coerce her into taking the management position. Brax hadn’t, either. But it still felt like I had done something…well, not wrong, exactly, but I was beginning to suspect she wouldn’t like it.
In fact, I suspected she would fucking hate it.
I needed to tell her the truth. And I would. But not today.
Because today had been perfect, and I wanted it to stay that way.
And also because I was a fucking coward.
We didn’t talk for a while after that. She focused all of her attention on my body and her sketchpad.
I could have watched her talented fingers fly across the paper for hours.
That adorable crease between her furrowed eyebrows as she concentrated.
Yeah, watching her get lost in something she loved, that she was so damn good at, that did it for me.
It should have been awkward, the way her eyes narrowed on my scar or my foot or my broken nose. But it wasn’t. I didn’t feel vulnerable, even though I was completely exposed. I felt seen.
This time when her eyes landed on mine, there was something different in her gaze. It wasn’t just an artist’s interest in a subject. Heat and…was Janie blushing, or was that the sun turning her cheeks pink?
“Tell me the truth, Ace. Are you sketching my dick right now?”
She burst out laughing. “How did you know?”
“My dick can sense these things. It likes the attention. See how it’s rising to the occasion?” I gestured toward my hardening cock.
Her lips quirked. “This isn’t supposed to be that kind of drawing.”
“The dick wants what the dick wants, honey. It’s hard to stay soft when you’re doing that.”
“When I’m focusing all my attention on your dick?” She snickered. “Men are such simple creatures.”
“That’s not it.” Or maybe it was a little, because of course I liked it when Janie was looking at my dick, but it was more than that.
“It’s how you look while you’re doing it.
So intense. Focused. If I had any artistic skill at all, I’d want to draw you like this.
Completely in your element. You’re beautiful, Janie. ”
Her flush deepened. “Oh, Jack,” she murmured. “I am going to suck your dick so hard when I’m done.”
Even with the promise of a blowjob, I didn’t want this moment to end.
Hell, I didn’t want any of this to end. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Janie and Maya in September.
How would that work? Fuck if I knew. With Maya in school, a full-time nanny wouldn’t be necessary.
I didn’t need the money, but I knew myself well enough to know I wouldn’t be happy sitting around all day, either.
I didn’t have a plan.
But for the first time, I was okay with that.