Chapter 33
Jo
Ispent a not-small portion of the night reliving several points in my day, first in line being the most recent incidence of Adam trying to cause me to spontaneously combust.
The way he’d touched me and held my gaze in the mirror, and then after I’d agreed… I died.
Fine. I didn’t die, but I felt a little like I did, because the man could be rather unexpected. I had never imagined he’d say those things, his hands on me in a deliciously possessive way despite effectively rejecting me, and then he’d kissed right behind my ear before nipping at my earlobe.
Not a huge thing. A small, insignificant act.
Except for the reality that the heat coming from his body and touch and eyes spoke of so much hunger for me, his little bite had signaled a break in his self-control.
Afterward, he’d stepped away, focusing on the bed. When I’d emerged from the bathroom, it’d been made with fresh sheets and a soft gray comforter with a pile of pillows and a note. Whatever you need, I’m here.
So it was the ear thing and the words and the admission of how much he wanted me and the moment earlier with the whole “I like everything about you” and his secret kitchen skills and his medical smarts and his general hotness because, though I wasn’t a particularly superficial person, the man was gorgeous and I wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t absolutely do it for me in the looks department.
He was right that sleeping together wasn’t a good call, especially in the context of knowing he felt strongly that his first marriage had been rushed and that had been part of the failure. But also because having a stalker wasn’t romantic. Being with Adam was, and having him so focused on keeping me safe was apparently my kind of catnip, but when I wasn’t just dreaming of being wrapped up in him, I could admit that part of me loved the idea of the distraction and not the escalation between us.
Well, maybe. I wanted more between us for sure, but I could feel him holding himself back. I’d known it from the beginning—though he’d agreed to date me, he wasn’t saying he wanted forever. It was probably premature for me to want this, and yet I couldn’t deny how every minute I spent with him moved me closer to envisioning it between us.
Even his refusal to share a bed—whether it meant sleep, or more—felt like the right choice and endeared me to him more. It felt like he was prioritizing something real between us, not just the satisfaction of desire, and this was one more way he was caring for me and our relationship.
Pump the brakes, woman! You’re halfway down the aisle and he hasn’t even agreed to be your boyfriend! One date does not a boyfriend make.
Ah, reality. There ye be.
But he doesn’t want to date anyone else, and neither do you, and…
A knock on the door jolted me from my unhinged musings, and I swung it open to find a gorgeous bed-heady Adam. His slow smile did unnamable things to my insides, and then he reached up and gripped the doorframe on his side of it. His T-shirt sleeves hugged his biceps and slipped up with the movement, as did the torso of the material, so the taut skin at his waist and the cuts near his hips disappeared into his low-slung gray sweatpants.
Of course they do. Of course he is.
“G-good morning.” Yes, I stuttered. How could I not when my tongue had tied itself in a knot right along with the majority of my vocabulary?
He grinned. “Hi. You get any sleep?”
“Not much.”
Maybe I should’ve been worrying about the stalker, but instead, I was mostly worrying about how much I liked Adam and how close these feelings felt to some much larger L word I had no business feeling.
His brows dipped and he crossed the threshold into my room, sliding his hands around my back and tucking me into the place where I fit so perfectly, it made me ache.
“I’m sorry, honey. I hate that this is keeping you up, but hopefully, we’ll make some progress today.” He pulled back. “You hungry?”
Twenty minutes later, Adam served me scrambled eggs and toast with coffee at his now sunny table, and I wasn’t sure my heart could take much more of this. Seeing him barefoot in his kitchen cooking for me… it did nothing to quell the future-gazing setting my brain had switched to in the last twenty-four hours.
After we ate, we parted to get changed, and a bit later, he was opening my car door and making sure I’d packed a snack.
That’s right. He didn’t want my blood sugar dipping while I was under so much stress. He’d sliced me apples and put them in a little baggy with a string cheese, and it threatened to turn me into a puddle of mush. Note to self—have future book hero pack heroine a snack.
Adam was a caretaker and I’d known this, but he’d hammered it home these last few days.
When he pulled up to Saint Security, I gave him a look.
“On the off chance anyone’s watching the store, I thought we’d park here and I can walk you in. Beast’s already set up, and when you’re ready, text Jess and I’m sure she’ll come right away.”
We walked hand in hand from his work to All Booked Up, and every step we took, my pulse inched higher. By the time we turned onto Silver Street, I was shaking and clutching his fingers with a death grip. He slung an arm around me and pressed his lips to my head.
“You’re okay, Jo. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
He kissed my head again, and Beast nodded at us as we approached the door, then opened it for us.
“Your dad’s going to be here again today. Said he had some inventory work to do.”
I exhaled, relieved to know I wouldn’t be alone in the store all day and desperately checking the windows and back rooms from paranoia. But as time ticked on, I fell into the usual pattern I so often did at the shop.
My dad checked in, Adam texted every few hours, and though I didn’t get a response from her via text, Jess e-mailed my Josie Wade account a little before Adam came for lunch. She’d responded to the last e-mail I’d sent in, which had accepted the invitation to the book release party.
Her words were cheery and she used more exclamations than I ever would’ve imagined for a woman so steady and often serious, but it made me even more excited to tell her the truth.
I didn’t anticipate a call from Elizabeth, and I briefly considered not answering, but she’d see that as a signal of something amiss more than me being a little cagey on the phone. Granted, she had a knack for ferreting out when things were off with me, so I was probably doomed to an inquisition either way. Best bet was to keep it as short and sweet as possible.
Since my dad was happily chatting with Dr. Corrigan, and Jamie Morris and his wife and two of their kids were milling in the children’s section and always took their time, I slipped into the reading room and answered.
“Hey, Lizzy. How are you?”
“I talked to Dad last night and he sounded weird. What’s going on?”
Ah.So that was why I was hearing from her again so soon. We’d talked last week, and usually, we didn’t speak quite so often.
But also… “How was he weird? What did he say?”
“He didn’t want to talk about you.”
I blinked at the empty fireplace, bereft of its usual wood during the summer, waiting for more.
“He normally can’t stop talking about everything with you, and all I could get out of him is that you’re seeing a guy and you really like him.”
She sounded so deeply annoyed by this, I had to laugh.
“And you assume that means something’s wrong?”
Normal people gave cues in a conversation—a huff of breath against the speaker or restless tapping in the background or something to indicate the person’s mindset. Not so with Elizabeth Malcom.
“We both know something’s going on, so why don’t you just tell me?”
My heart shot out of the starting gates, galloping so hard, I sank into a chair to keep from getting dizzy. “It’s nothing.”
If I told her about the stalker, I’d have to tell her about Josie Wade. I could do that. I could. It would be okay, and even if she thought it was silly or frivolous or not living up to my potential, it was my life, wasn’t it?
“Jojo, tell me.”
Oof.For the jugular with that one, but it did the job. It reminded me of how she’d cheered me on, urged me to find something I loved and that made the world a better place—something that mattered. Would writing satisfy that charge in her mind?
And was it foolish for me to still be so worried about this?
But mentioning things being dangerous here wasn’t the right choice anyway. She had an important job and needed her full focus there. I didn’t know where there was exactly, but I knew she shouldn’t be wandering around worried about me. She hadn’t admitted anything was wrong, but this frequency of calling lately, and how she’d not only avoided talking about work but about anything in her life lately, clinched it for me.
So instead of anything emergent, I admitted something else. “It’s Adam. I—I’m falling for him.”
She hummed. “Well, is he a good man?”
I huffed a small laugh because of course she wouldn’t be startled by my statement. “He’s the best.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
This would be a better conversation for a time when I didn’t have a potential audience for it, but after sneaking over to peer out into the main store, everyone was still happily browsing or checking out with Dad. He was occupied, so no chance of his overhearing either.
I paced around the small, cozy room. If I wasn’t going to tell her the truth about the stalker, I could at least be honest about this—fully honest. And maybe for the first time, truthful with myself about why I’d started to feel both elated and scared in the quiet moments between me and Adam.
“Two things. First, when we met last summer, he stated very clearly that he had no plans to marry again. He’s divorced and it was messy, he blames himself, and… well, I think that may be changing, but I know how stupid it is to believe he’d change for me.”
A silent beat, then, “And second?”
I slumped onto the couch. “I’m scared. I mean, let’s assume he miraculously does want a future with me. How do I know…” My throat locked up.
“How do you know it won’t turn out like Mom and Dad?” she supplied.
“Right,” I said, only a whisper. As if one of the roots of my romance writing hadn’t been in righting the wrong I’d witnessed between them—writing stories that led to happily ever afters together and not apart. Granted, they’d both found new HEAs, and I truly delighted in that for them, but it ached thinking about the desolation of losing Adam in such a way.
She sighed then, long and loud into the receiver. “I know it’ll shock you to learn this, but I’m not an expert when it comes to love.”
This response made me smile. “No? I’m shocked.”
“But Jojo, I think you are. You’re naturally so loving, I think you’ve got a great shot at it. And I think…” She sighed again—what is happening here? “I think Mom and Dad broke up for a lot of reasons, but what I used to think would make it avoidable… I don’t know.”
This lack of certainty in her voice was the final knock against my thick skull to alert me. “Hey. You seem… something. Are you okay?”
Quiet on her side again, then, “I’m just tired. I’ll be okay.”
“Maybe you should come visit. See Silverton for yourself.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I perked up at this idea. We had a lot of differences between us, but part of the reason I felt so far from her was because I was. We hadn’t lived near each other in sixteen years. She’d visited me a lot more often when she’d first gotten started, even though I knew it had stressed her out to do so. Nowadays, I was lucky if I saw her once a year, and it’d been longer than that for both me and Dad. She’d never seen the shop or what our lives were like here.
“It’d be amazing to have you here. And you could meet Adam.” The thought sent a thrill through me.
“Maybe I will.” A sound in the background broke through, and she did the thing that always made me cringe. “I’ll let you go. Hang in there.”
“You, too, Lizzy. Love you.”
“Yep. You, too.” And she was gone.
She wasn’t okay. Elizabeth wasn’t the kind of person to say she was tired unless something was really wrong. This had justified part of my reasoning for not telling her about Josie Wade, and I felt that even more.
And her response about Adam… she hadn’t given me empty reassurances that I’d never face the end of a marriage like our parents had. I appreciated this about her—she wasn’t going to give me platitudes, that was for sure.
When all this stalker nonsense was over, I’d be brave with Adam. I’d ask him straight on if he thought we had a future together, and we’d go from there.