Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
JACKSON
By evening, the fire department had concluded that it was safe for people to return to the inn. Other than the damage to the storage room, there seemed to be no lasting impacts to the rest of the building, save for the smell of smoke that lingered in the air.
Meyer spent a great deal of time with Trystan, calling guests with reservations to keep them apprised of the situation and issuing cancellations where needed. I spent that time with Pippa, figuring out a solution to our new storage issue and deciding how best to replace our waterlogged inventory.
I also wasted a great many minutes on the phone with the insurance company. It was frustrating, but I wanted to save Meyer from having to do it. She was already stressed enough.
It’s moments like these where I know we work perfectly together. Whether she wants to admit it or not, Meyer cares. A lot. Her strength is people. Talking to them, bonding with them, making sure their needs are met. My strengths lie behind the scenes .
After walking a still-jittery Pippa to her car and ensuring she is okay to drive, I enter the inn through the main entrance. Meyer is slumped against the front desk. She tries to fight it, but her eyes are drifting closed.
Seeing the bandage wrapped around her palm has my fists clenching as my anger surges anew. I know it’s only a minor burn that will soon heal, but what if it wasn’t? What if she was the one trapped inside that room? I’m not sure what I would have done.
“Meyer,” I say gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “it’s time to go home.”
Her lashes flutter, and then she’s blinking up at me. Her gorgeous blue eyes are tinged in fear, but they relax as they settle on me.
She shakes her head. “I can’t leave.”
“The night clerk is here, right?” She nods. “Then there’s no need for you to be here, too.”
She swallows as she weighs something in her mind. “I’m scared that if I close my eyes, I’ll wake up and it will all be gone,” she finally admits. “I can’t lose this place, Jackson.”
I round the front desk. Grabbing Meyer’s hand, I tug her upright and into my chest. She stands frozen for a moment before her body sags against mine. She slides her arms around my middle. My touch settles on her back, one hand smoothing a circle against her t-shirt.
We’ve already had sex, arguably the most intimate you can get with a person, yet this feels more so somehow.
“You give good hugs, Mr. Vaughan,” Meyer croaks.
I tighten my hold. “You can have one whenever you want, baby. All you have to do is ask. ”
“I’m not your baby,” she protests.
I simply grin, my lips pressed to the crown of her head.
The walk to Meyer’s cottage is silent. All that can be heard is chirping crickets and the soft whispering of the breeze. I keep my hand anchored in hers. To make sure she stays upright, but also to feel her. To reassure myself that she’s okay.
I may have been the one trapped in that storage room, but all I seem to be able to focus on is Meyer and how easily that could’ve been her.
Once she has unlocked her front door and stepped inside, I take a step back, getting ready to leave. I wait until the door has closed before I start walking away.
But then I hear the creak of hinges, followed by?—
“Jackson?”
I pause. Turning on my heel, I try not to let my hopefulness show. “Yeah?”
“Will you stay?” she asks. Her voice is small. “I, um, don’t really want to be alone tonight.”
I shouldn’t feel victorious—not when Meyer is a shell of the woman that regularly enjoys busting my balls—but I do. Because for once, Meyer is admitting that she needs someone. That she needs me .
Maybe some would mistake this as weakness, but I know better. She has never been stronger than she is right now, asking for help.
“I don’t want to be alone either,” I confess. And I don’t. Not after the day we’ve had.
I walk back up the porch and step over the threshold, into the house. Meyer rises on the tips of her toes as she takes my face in her hands. I drop my forehead to hers, and then my lips follow suit, brushing against her soft pink ones.
If someone were to ask me what I was doing with her, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. All I know is being with Meyer—well, it feels right. More right than anything else I’ve ever experienced.
I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her that she would be the sweetest indulgence. Now that I’ve had a taste, I’m not sure I can let go. I don’t want to let go.
But it’s more than that, too. I care for her in a way that leaves me breathless sometimes. It snuck up on me, this feeling, but I want to lean into it.
“Lead the way,” I say when we pull apart.
I close and lock the front door behind us, and then Meyer retakes my hand and guides me down the short hallway to her bedroom. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would take stock of the pictures lining the walls. Maybe I would get to see another gem from Meyer’s childhood, like that photo hanging in Papa’s Pizza Emporium.
Meyer’s bedroom is just like her—a comforting kind of chaos. There’s a basket overflowing with folded laundry that crowds the doorway. Meyer has to nudge it aside before we enter. The walls are painted white, but they can hardly be seen for all the photos tacked up in some nonsensical pattern. Her sheets, soft lilac in colour, are rumpled, the bed unmade. Her dresser is littered in perfumes and hair accessories. A second and third laundry basket sit at the end of the bed.
When I look at her, her cheeks are tinged in that embarrassed blush I love so much. It doesn’t come out often, but fuck, it makes her look a million times more beautiful—a feat I hadn’t thought possible.
“Ignore the mess,” she says. “Turns out, having your place of work catch fire leaves little time for tidying your bedroom.” Then she shakes her head. “That’s a lie. It’s always like this.”
She tries to pull her hand out of mine, but I don’t let her. I tug her closer as I tilt her chin upwards. I want her eyes on me—always, but especially right now.
“Hey. A little disarray never hurt anyone.”
Her eyes narrow. “Says the man who rearranged my office because its former condition reportedly made his eye twitch.”
I can’t help the grin that stretches my lips. “What can I say? You’re a bad influence, Ellison.”
I bring the back of her hand to my lips and place a gentle kiss there. She softens.
“Can I have my hand back? I need to change.”
I reluctantly let her go. As I watch her bustle around her room, collecting pieces of clothing, I sit on the edge of her bed and begin to loosen the knot of my tie.
“I think I have some extra hangers,” Meyer says, gesturing toward a closet that is bursting at the seams, “if you need to hang your suit.”
I shed my jacket. I’m not even sure why I put it back on when the firefighter handed it to me. It still smells heavily of smoke.
“It’s fine. This suit will just be heading straight to the garbage.” Maybe it could be salvaged, I don’t know, but I don’t want any reminders of this day. “Doesn’t look like there’d be much room for it anyway. ”
Meyer rolls her eyes at my teasing. “Haha, Meyer has a lot of clothes ,” she says dryly. “I hate laundry, so the more clothes I have, the less often I have to put a load in.”
“That logic is inherently flawed,” I argue as I slip my arms out of my shirt. “More clothing leads to more laundry. Sure, you can get by longer, but then you have a mountain to contend with.”
Meyer places her hands on her hips. “Tell me you did not just use the words inherently flawed in reference to my laundry philosophy.”
I nod. “I believe I did.”
Meyer grabs a pillow from beside her on the bed and chucks it at me. I catch it easily.
She huffs. “Suddenly, I don’t need a bed buddy anymore.”
I grin wolfishly. “Is that what the kids call it these days?”
She rolls her eyes. Then she holds up the clothes in her hands. “I’ll be back.”
I arch a brow. “You do remember that I’ve already seen all of you, right?”
“And we already established that was a one-time thing. You don’t get a repeat performance just because we’re having a sleepover.”
She says it was a one-time thing, but the way she kissed me earlier begs to differ.
As if to prove my point, I stand from the bed and unzip my pants. Shucking them, I stand before Meyer wearing nothing but boxers. When I chance a look at her, her heated gaze has dropped to my crotch. In response to the attention, my cock twitches .
“You were saying?” I ask.
Her head snaps upwards. Then she turns on her heel and heads out into the hall, toward the bathroom.
With a grin, I make myself useful. I return the pillow that Meyer used as a weapon to its rightful place. Then I flip her bedside lamp on and shut the overhead light off, leaving the room bathed in a soft, warm glow.
When Meyer returns, she tosses an unopened toothbrush at me. Again, I catch it. In the bathroom, I make quick work of brushing my teeth. Before I leave, I drop the toothbrush into the holder on the counter. If I have any say in the matter, that toothbrush will be keeping Meyer’s company for the foreseeable future.
Meyer is already in bed when I return, so I slip under the covers beside her and make myself comfortable. She ever so slightly inches closer, and I take that as an invitation to pull her against me.
“Bed buddies can do this,” I say, slipping my hand under the hem of her shirt to rest on her bare back, “right?”
“I think so,” she replies. “And this?”
Beneath the covers, her legs tangle with mine. I nod. “Seems legit to me.”
We lie in silence for a few moments, letting our own thoughts consume us. If her brain is anything like mine, it’s still trying to wrap itself around the events of the day. I know I was there, but I’m partially convinced it was all a nightmare.
“Jackson,” Meyer says to the dark. The use of my first name, so rarely done by her, draws me out of my head. “Someone set the inn on fire.”
I rear back, taken by surprise. “What?”
I won’t lie and say that it hadn’t crossed my mind, but she sounds sure, like she knows . Like maybe Pippa wasn’t so far off base this morning when she said things seemed suspicious.
She sighs. “Rudy told me. I don’t think he was supposed to, but he mentioned that they suspect foul play. They found some kind of accelerant.”
Words die on my tongue. Accelerant . There’s nothing I can say to make this better. In response, I draw her body impossibly closer.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re not going to let this stop us, that’s for damn sure,” I declare. “Whoever did this, that’s what they want. We won’t give them the satisfaction.”
Slowly, Meyer nods, her hair tickling my arm as the strands move against it. “You’re right.”
“What’s the date?” I ask.
“Um, July tenth, I think. Why?”
“Just marking this momentous occasion for future historians to study. The day Meyer Ellison finally admitted that Jackson Vaughan is right .”
She begins to laugh. Her laugh—it’s real, genuine, and it sends a shot of pleasure through my body.
And I mark this day for an entirely different reason.