Chapter 7
Seven
Jack ran on the beach where the sun was rising on another hot summer day and returned home to shower before anyone else was up.
He checked Frannie’s room and found her bed empty.
While he was delighted for her and Jamie, the idea of them as a couple still surprised him, even though it probably shouldn’t.
They’d shared a special friendship since she first came to visit them in California, and he’d always wondered if she felt more for Jamie than she let on. Even Clare had had her suspicions.
Well, I guess now we know. Jack wished he could talk to Clare about it.
After leaving Jill and Kate a note asking them to keep an eye on Maggie until Frannie got home, he headed out to his car.
He drove along the beach and stopped at the florist to pick up a dozen yellow roses before continuing down the block to a row of oceanfront condos.
Using his key, he let himself in and walked into the kitchen, where Clare’s head nurse, Sally, was having a cup of coffee.
She was a stout grandmother with gray hair and warm blue eyes.
Jack had liked her the instant he met her, and she’d been a godsend to him since the accident.
She greeted him with a smile. “Morning.”
“Hi, there. How are things?”
“Pretty good. You?”
“I’ve been keeping busy since I went back to work.”
She took the roses from him and reached into a cabinet for a vase. “It’s good for you to be working.”
He shrugged. “Life goes on, right?”
“It sure does,” Sally said as she trimmed the roses. “Go on in and say hello. I’ll get these gorgeous flowers ready for Clare.”
“Thanks.” Jack took a moment to prepare himself and walked into Clare’s bedroom, which was still dark even as sunlight beamed faintly through the closed blinds.
He ran his hand over her blonde hair and down her soft cheek.
The other physical signs of the accident were long gone, and she looked just as she had on all the mornings over nearly two decades when he’d awakened to her next to him.
Flipping a lock of her hair around his finger, he leaned in to kiss her forehead. The unfamiliar scent of her hair saddened him. He needed to stop by the salon she’d frequented to buy some of the shampoo she liked.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he said with a last look at her in the narrow hospital bed. For better or worse, she was still his wife. What am I doing even thinking about another woman? A fresh wave of guilt struck him as he stepped out of the room.
“I’m leaving, Sally.”
She emerged from the kitchen. “Okay, I’ll be starting her therapy soon. Don’t worry about anything here.”
“Thanks.”
Frannie eased herself from under Jamie’s arm and watched him sleep, still amazed by what’d happened the night before. She stretched, exhausted from making love with him all night long, pulled on the discarded T-shirt that bore his scent, and went in search of coffee.
Rummaging around his kitchen, she found coffee and filters and started the coffeemaker. She ran her hands through unruly curls and stretched again as a big yawn rippled through her.
Jamie’s condo occupied the top floor of a building that housed shops and restaurants in the heart of downtown Newport.
The small balcony off his living room faced the busy harbor.
She leaned with her coffee over the railing as a small truck pulled up below with lobsters for one of the restaurants.
Farther down the street, she was mesmerized by a trash truck lifting a Dumpster to empty it.
Everything seems magical this morning, even a garbage truck, she thought with a snicker.
Jamie crept up behind her and nuzzled her neck. “Mmm. There you are. I was worried when I woke up and you were gone.”
When she turned to face him, he captured her mouth in a long, searing kiss that made her want him all over again.
“Good morning.” He walked her backward into the condo, took her coffee cup, put it down, and led her back to bed.
“Don’t you have to work? It’s Monday.”
He tugged her down on top of him and held her tight against him with one arm as he reached for the bedside phone with the other. His eyes never left hers as he dialed the phone and kissed her again while he waited for someone to answer.
“Hey, it’s Jamie. I won’t be in today.”
Frannie gasped.
“Ask Jack to reschedule it for me.”
She hid her face at the mention of her brother’s name.
Jamie poked her ribs. “Tell him I’ll call him later. Okay, thanks.” He clicked the off button, tossed the phone aside, and rolled them over in one smooth move. “Now, you were saying?”
She had forgotten what she was going to say.
Jack was greeted by a melee of voices when he walked into the office. Andi and her team had commandeered the conference room, and they all seemed to be talking at once.
Quinn handed him his messages. “Quite a ruckus, huh?”
“I guess all that energy bodes well for the hotel.” As he read through his messages, one caught his attention. “What’d Jamie say when he called?”
“He asked if you could reschedule his conference call with Tokyo because he has something to take care of today.”
Yeah, my sister, Jack thought on the way into his office.
Not that Jamie hadn’t earned a day off after running the business on his own for more than a year.
It was how he was spending the day that put Jack on edge.
Maybe he should’ve taken Frannie’s concerns more seriously last night.
She was right—it would be awful for everyone if things didn’t work out between her and Jamie.
Andi knocked a few minutes later while Jack was on the phone rescheduling Jamie’s meeting. He waved her in and signaled for her to close the door.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked after he finished the call.
“I worked for a couple of hours and then slept like a dead woman. Must be the sea air.”
Jack smiled but didn’t tell her that he’d tossed and turned for most of the night, thinking about her and his conflicted feelings.
Quinn buzzed in on the intercom to let him know his coastal resources people had arrived for their meeting.
“I guess that’s my cue.” Andi got up to leave. “We’re off to the Redwood Library today.”
“That’ll be a blast.”
“All in the name of research.”
He wished they could spend another day together. “Don’t let me keep you. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks, I’ll see you later.” She left him with a dazzling smile on her way out.
After she’d gone, he sat down and released a long, tortured sigh.
He’d spent ten minutes with her, and she’d left him breathless with yearning.
He was getting in deep and felt as if he was outside himself watching someone else.
A minute or two later, he couldn’t have said how long, Quinn buzzed him again to remind him his guests were waiting.
Getting up, he ran a hand through his hair and gathered the drawings he needed for the meeting. When he opened the door, Quinn shot him an inquisitive look.
He walked by her without a word.
The day dragged as Jack and his staff went round and round with the coastal engineers who were looking to ensure the hotel’s drainage and septic systems had been designed to protect the fragile environment.
They worked through lunch and into the afternoon to address the engineers’ lengthy list of requests.
Jack made one design concession after another to clear this all-important hurdle in the permitting process.
But more than once, his mind wandered elsewhere.
When all the items on the list had been addressed, Jack stood to shake hands with the engineers.
“We should be ready to put the final proposal before the coastal council at its next meeting,” the lead engineer said.
“I’ll be there,” Jack assured them.
After he had seen them out, he went back to his office. “My God, I thought it would never end,” he groaned to Quinn. “It was like a day-long colonoscopy.”
She laughed. “Thanks for the visual, Jack. That part should be done after today, right?”
“We have to take it before the full council next month, but it looks good for approval.” He stretched out the stiffness of the all-day meeting.
She cocked that eyebrow of hers at him.
“What?”
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“All righty, if you say so.”
“I say so,” he retorted on his way into his office where a pile of messages awaited him. He flipped through them and put aside those that could wait until tomorrow. After he returned the calls that needed immediate attention, he gave his email the same quick glance.
Jack had just returned his attention to the hotel plans when Jamie walked in with a sheepish grin on his face.
He leaned against the closed door. “How much trouble am I in?”
Jack crooked his head to give Jamie the once over. His friend looked happy and dopey at the same time. “How much trouble should you be in?”
“Quite a lot, I suspect.”
Jack held up a hand. “Do not tell me.”
Jamie grinned and pushed off the door to flop in Jack’s chair. “I love her, Jack. I really do. I think I always have.”
“Seriously?”
“I swear to God.”
“Wow… After all the crap you’ve both been through with other people, especially her.”
“I hate to even think about all the time we’ve wasted, but the timing was never right. She was married and then everything with Clare…”
“Of course I have to give you the ‘if you hurt her, you’re dead’ speech.” Jack lightly punched Jamie’s shoulder on his way past him to close windows he had opened that morning.
“No, you don’t, because I’m going to marry her.”
Jack spun around to gape at him. “Did Jamie Booth just use the ‘m’ word? Get the hell out of here! Just like that?”
Jamie laughed. “It’s been ‘just like that’ for years. We’ve spent a lot of time together since she moved in with you, and I guess something I’ve always suspected was there just finally clicked into focus.”
“She said she’d never get married again after the last disaster,” Jack warned him.
“I’ll get her to change her mind.”
Jack grinned. “If anyone can do it, you can.”
“Before I ask her, though, I need to know… Is it okay with you?”
Jack considered making him suffer and then thought better of it. He had never seen such vulnerability on Jamie’s face, and he had certainly never heard him use the “m” word before. “You’re already my brother. Why not brother-in-law, too?” Jack offered his hand.
The relief showed on Jamie’s face as he shook Jack’s hand. “Thank you.”
“I just can’t believe this,” Jack said, amazed by the turn of events.
“It’s crazy, but it feels good.”
“I’m glad for you—both of you.”
“Best thing to ever happen to me, that’s for sure. What’s going on around here?”
“Nothing much. Just tweaking the hotel plans a bit.”
Jamie had headed for his office when another thought stopped him. “I forgot to ask if you got a chance to talk to Tokyo today?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “It’s all set. I convinced them your personal emergency was unavoidable.”
Jamie winked. “Thanks, I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t. Five years from now I’ll still be paying you back for all you did around here when I was gone.”
“No, you won’t.”
When he was alone, Jack picked up the business card Andi had given him and flipped it back and forth between his fingers, debating whether he should call her for dinner.
But then he thought of Clare and how she’d looked that morning in the hospital bed. Tossing the business card on his desk, he left the office and went home to have dinner with his daughters.