Forever Jack Read online

  Colt wasn’t where I left him, so I headed to the walkway deck then looked over the pool area and followed it toward the restaurant. I found him leaning on his elbows overlooking the beach and the ocean beyond.

  “Hey,” I said coming up beside him and resting my arms next to his.

  “Hey you,” he returned softly, bumping my shoulder.

  We both fell silent watching the shadowed pool area as the sun lowered somewhere behind us. White ribbons flapped haphazardly in the sea air, the remnants of a wedding celebration tied to some wooden chairs near the beach.

  I had yet to attend a wedding in my adult life, although I remembered going to one when I was nine with my parents in West Virginia. My mom’s high school best friend was getting married. My parents fought for the entire car trip there about something my young mind didn’t think to retain. They were stone cold silent for the entire ride home. I was looking forward to seeing some of my friends tie the knot in the years to come, happier occasions they’d be, I was sure.

  Colt breathed in a loaded breath, bringing me back to the present. “This is a huge deal, Keri Ann. I don’t want to sound patronizing, but I’m so proud of you and what you’ve accomplished.” He angled his head to me.

  I smiled self-consciously. “Thank you. It’s pretty cool, huh? I can’t quite get over it, really. I mean, I know this is just a hotel and not a New York Gallery, but this island gets over two million visitors a year, and I think they are promoting the heck out of this exhibition all summer long.” I shrugged my shoulders and felt the beat of heat in my cheeks.

  Colt grinned. “Come on, let’s go get you fed.”

  I watched him turn away to walk toward the restaurant entrance. “Colt?”

  He turned back, eyebrows raised above bright blue eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.” I clasped my fingers together nervously and looked away as I spoke. “It was good to have a friend here. You here,” I quickly amended and glanced at him. “Helping. Today was kind of a big day for me.”

  Colt took an almost step toward me, then halted, like he’d purposely stopped himself. He shook his head and blew out a breath. “You’re welcome.”

  The heavens opened again as soon as we were on the way home, this time with huge gusts of wind. I slowed the truck as the visibility went from bad to worse and checked the rearview mirror.

  Colt’s dark BMW followed, as well as a smattering of other cars. It seemed he’d decided to follow me. I really appreciated that, but wondered whether I’d have to invite him in, or if he was just seeing me home. Ugh. This whole special friends thing was driving me nuts. I didn’t know what was expected of me, or scratch that … what he expected of me. Was I supposed to kiss him and let him think this was something more out of some warped sense of duty? I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t. But spending time with Colt had given me a whole new understanding of the general dating scene. It was an ocean of unspoken expectation and misunderstanding. And pressure. Some real and some imagined. There was also undoubtedly a lot of frog kissing on the way to the prince. Not that Colt was a frog …

  No, this was Colton Graves, my brother’s best friend and friend of mine. And I had definitely made myself clear, both by explicitly stating I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, and with my endless comments about friendship. Then again, I had agreed to go out with him. Several times.

  I glanced nervously in the rearview mirror again just in time to see the blue tarp I’d strapped down to cover all my pieces earlier rip clear off one side and flap wildly over the edge of the truck bed.

  Damn!

  I slowed and put the blinker on to pull over. I hated to stop on the side of a highway, but I risked a certain accident if the tarp got caught in the wheels. Just as I rolled to a stop, I thought I felt it do just that. A ripping sound emanated from behind me and the truck shuddered.

  Wrenching open the door, I climbed out into the warm and driving rain that had me soaked within nanoseconds. I bent to inspect the wheel then heard Colton’s door slam and looked up as he approached, holding a dark windbreaker over his head that he extended over me, too.

  “It’s jammed. Dammit,” I yelled over the gusts of wind and passing cars, kicking the tire with my wet sneaker.

  “We’ll probably have to take the wheel off like we’re changing a flat.”

  I nodded at his yelled words, just what I was thinking. “I have a jack in the truck bed.”

  Turning to go get it as Colt did what he could to pull the tarp away from the wheel, I saw a silver Jeep Wrangler slowing down and pulling onto the hard shoulder ahead of us. Then it reversed closer. I was glad I wasn’t out here alone. No one got out right away. I caught Colt’s eye and we both shrugged.

  I was soaked and getting more chilled from the wind by the second. Grabbing the iron and the jack, I went back around the truck in time to see the door on the Jeep open. A long denim-clad leg ending in black biker boots, the kind that were etched in my memory, like forever, swung out the door of the Jeep and hit the pavement at about the same time my stomach did. And perhaps given the loud clang, the tire iron, too.

  This was not happening.

  My eyes traveled upwards over an olive green button-down shirt that was not only rapidly turning dark khaki in the rain but was also plastering to the body beneath. Then I looked up over a familiar roughly stubbled jaw to the shadow of a ball cap, where eyes I couldn’t see, but could certainly feel, should be.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I heard Colt say harshly next to me.

  My eyes tracked back down to the boots, and I watched as they headed toward us. I willed my mind to work. Hadn’t I thought of this scenario a thousand times? Ok, maybe not on the side of a highway, but hadn’t I rehearsed what I would say, over and over, and pathetically, over again?

  But, nothing.

  Nothing came to mind as the boots approached. The boots I remembered sitting by my fireplace after a rainstorm like this one. And as the water poured, streaming rivulets over me, I couldn’t look up. I just stood there.

  Part of me wanted to look up and feast my eyes on the face I thought I would never see again in the real world. Of course, the other part of me kept saying, don’t do it. So I just stood there, in the rain, on the side of the road.

  I’d seen him in the last five months, of course, online and on the front of tabloids here and there. And yes, in a fit of self-destructive misery I had given in to the urge to read every damn thing about him, thinking if I knew all his sordid details, it would help me get over what he did, or help me understand. It didn’t.

  I absorbed story upon story and pictures of him gallivanting around the world, actually London mostly, always with some trashy blonde. I mean, seriously? He was into blondes? Who knew? Certainly not me, nor Audrey, apparently, the woman who was important enough to leave me for, who he was now no longer even seeing. Talk about a splinter under the fingernail of my self-esteem.

  Five months ago Audrey and Jack had had some public break up which I’d heard about from his friend Devon, the actor-producer friend who was supposedly “up” with all things Jack. Devon told me the news with the thought that I actually meant something to Jack, and that he was coming back. To me. Only to have him … never … show … up.

  I shuddered at the embarrassing memory and turned away from the person in front of me to face my truck. I needed a moment. Shit, I needed a lifetime of moments. But no, here I was, a drowned-rat version of the small-town girl he’d messed around with. I tilted my face to the rain. The silence was getting awkward.

  “Colton.”

  Aaargh. His voice. Deep, familiar, and resonating, singing over my chilled skin.

  “Jack.” Colton’s voice had an odd inflection.

  “I thought I recognized the truck. Is everything ok?”

  “You should have kept on driving,” said Colt.

  There was silence. I refused to tilt my face away from the pouring rain and look at him. Either of them. I could literally feel the weig
ht of Jack’s eyes on me. The wind breaker came around my shoulders, courtesy of Colt. Whether it was a gesture of protection or the fact I was wearing a white t-shirt in a rainstorm, I didn’t know. My fingers accepted it gratefully.

  The rain eased up.

  “Maybe,” Jack responded.

  Suddenly there was the sound of a fast footfall, and I turned just in time to see Colt’s fist fly out and land squarely on Jack’s jaw. “You have some fucking nerve, jackass,” Colt shouted. A car horn honked loudly as it passed, spraying water over us.

  I gasped and instinctively leapt forward toward Jack, stopping myself just in time as he bent forward cradling his jaw, his face cinched up.

  “Shit!” He stamped his foot down hard, as he breathed out sharply. “Shit,” he yelled again, straightening up and taking a lunging step forward.

  Both Colt and I reared back. As Jack glared at Colt, I saw his eyes for the first time—hard, angry, and breathtaking. Then he stopped, his expression easing slightly. “I guess you were due one of those,” Jack said, referring to the last time they had met. He had sucker punched Colt, sending him to the floor of the club in Savannah after he saw us kiss.

  After he’d left me for Audrey.

  “Get back in your car, asshole.”

  “Colt!” I said, before I could catch myself.

  Colt whipped his head toward me.

  So did Jack.

  Our eyes clashed together and I felt winded for a moment. His hair was longer, shaggier, coming out from his cap that he’d pulled low over his eyes, shadowing his chiseled face. He looked … older. And bleak. And just as devastating to my soul.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Colt’s voice exploded into the moment. I tore my eyes away from Jack’s to see Colt looking incredulous. “He uses you, fucks you, and leaves, and I can’t defend your honor? You won’t even defend your honor? What? You want to do that all over again?”

  I was silent and standing there soaking wet on the side of a South Carolina highway with a stalled truck and two men at odds. Over me. Words had yet to come to my aid. Finally, I snapped out of it. “Why don’t you both step aside. I need to fix this.”

  I grabbed the jack and the iron, slapping Colt’s hand away as he leant down to help.

  They both stood, and presumably watched, while I jacked my truck up, removed the lug nuts, pulled the wheel off, unwrapped the mangled tarp, and replaced everything. I bunched up the tarp and dumped it into the bed of the truck. Then I flung the jack and iron in on top and wiped the black grease down my jeans. Dang it, they were my nice jeans, too. The whole process took less than ten minutes.

  I didn’t even look at either of them as I marched around toward the driver’s side. Halfway there, I suddenly remembered the windbreaker Colt covered me with, so I stopped and yanked it off, revealing my wet and clinging white t-shirt. I tossed the jacket toward Colt, not even looking or caring where either of their eyes were focused. I could guess.

  Climbing in the pickup, I pulled my door closed and gunned the engine. Luckily, there was a break in traffic to make my exit more effective, and I took it, pulling out onto the highway with a screech of tires.

  My heart pounded.

  I risked one look in the mirror and saw Colton’s scowl and Jack standing with his legs akimbo, his arms folded, and a massive grin on his face. And whooped-de-do, there was a huge freaking rainbow in the sky taking up the width of the view, too. Ugh.

  “Jazz. It’s me. Again. Call me back dammit. This is truly an emergency.” I hit the “end” button and flung my cell on the bed behind me.

  Jazz was frolicking on the beach down in Florida with “Brandon of the chocolate brown eyes” whom she’d finally decided to go out with since Joey couldn’t get his head out of his ass. Now they were a lovey-dovey gooey mess of public affection, which they’d thankfully relocated for their spring break. I was happy for her, really. I just seriously needed her right now.

  My phone beeped and I lunged for it, my chest deflating when I saw it was Joey. “Hi.”

  “Great to speak to you, too. Colt just called and told me Mr. Jack Ass-ersea is back.”

  I bit out a humorless laugh as my chest seized and flopped back on my covers, my feet dangling off the bed. “I’m not sure if he’s ‘back.’ He just happens to be here in the Lowcountry. We were driving home from Hilton Head, he could have been heading to Savannah for all I know.” Wow, I sounded so calm. Of course I’d obsessed about this detail of why he was here and where he was headed incessantly for the last three hours. Ever since I’d left him and Colt standing on the side of the road. But I wouldn’t admit that to Joey.

  Where the heck was Jazz when I needed her? I took a breath and held it.

  “Well, he is. He told Colt he was back.” Joey let out a sigh. “Indefinitely.”

  My belly flipped over, and I brought my free hand up and covered my eyes. This was a nightmare. I thought I’d be over him. But if this and the way I had gone into total shock on the side of the road earlier was any indication, I was not over him. Not entirely. Damn it. Not at all. How was it possible to completely delude oneself for months?

  Indefinitely. What did that mean? And more importantly, he was here, in Butler Cove, right now. I blew out that breath I’d taken upon Joey’s news before I passed out.

  “Keri Ann?”

  “Yep,” I croaked, trying and failing, for a jovial inflection.

  “You have a lot going on. You’ve accomplished so much. You start SCAD this fall. Please don’t let yourself get involved with him again. Please. For me.”

  “Sure thing, boss man Joey. I can promise you, I have no intention of doing that.”

  There was a long pause on the end of the line. “I guess that’s about as good as I could hope for.” He sighed. “Do you promise?”

  “Joey. I can solemnly swear I have no intention of getting involved with, or even having a conversation with him. Does that ease your mind?”

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Great,” Joey responded with a tone that said anything but. “I’ll be home in time for the event. Stay out of trouble until then?”

  “I’ll try. Love you, big brother.”

  “Love you too, kiddo.”

  I hung up and stared at my phone then glanced toward my window and the darkness beyond. Jack Eversea was out there. I assumed at Devon’s beach house. So … less than a mile away. I fought the urge to go and bang down his door and scream obscenities in his face.

  He was back.

  And he had to know he hurt me.

  Hurt? I snorted.

  I thought of that smile I’d seen in the rear-view mirror. What did that mean? He wouldn’t have been smiling like that maliciously, right? I mean who did that? He was either back to rub salt in my wound, or he was back thinking I’d be a convenient layover again. How nice he had a break in his filming schedule to come and wreak a little more havoc. I knew my strengths, and I’d have a better chance of coping if he was just here to be a prick than if he actually tried for a repeat performance of his last visit.

  I remembered telling him, back before we’d even kissed, that I was out of my depth, that I was not cut out for him. Not cut out for him to go back to his Hollywood life when he was done with me. I wished I fought harder and protected myself better. I couldn’t be sure why he was back, but if it was because of me, then I would fight harder. There was no way I would make the same mistake twice.

  And what became of Audrey and Jack, or the baby she’d claimed she was carrying? I was guessing that was a fabrication, since there was no news of a pregnancy. And I would know. To my shame I’d trawled the Internet one particularly frigid and rainy day in winter for seven hours straight, not pausing to even pee or eat. Jazz finally staged an intervention by ripping the cord to the wireless router out of the wall, and I kid you not, cutting the plug off the end.

  All I’d learned was that he was in England, filming some movie about a coal-miner turned artist, and
out with a different girl what seemed like every night. In true British paparazzi style, it was a lurid splash-fest of debauchery, with them lapping up his antics. It was so unlike the Jack I thought I knew. It was like he was deliberately having his picture taken with as many slutty looking girls as possible.

  In one picture he was in some bar or something, maybe a nightclub, and he had one girl in a short pink dress and platform stripper heels draped at his back, and a girl in front who was holding his head and sticking her tongue in his ear. And he was smiling—that devastating smile of his, dimples and all, right at the camera. He had to know people would see it. That I would probably see it.

  I’d stared at that picture for a good hour out of the seven, with a rock in my chest, and I couldn’t decide which was worse—wondering if he was doing it to hurt me on purpose, or if it never occurred to him it would hurt me to see him like that. By the time Jazz made her dramatic statement of disabling my Internet access, I was barely able to take much more torture anyway.

  Pulling myself back to the present, I brushed my teeth and changed into my sleep shorts and tank. I lay wide-awake watching the shadows of swaying branches on my ceiling and listening to the creaking of my two hundred year old house and praying for sleep.

  At some point I may have dozed off, but the chirp of my phone at three in the morning had me jerking upright and fully awake.

  When my phone beeped, I’d been in a semi-conscious state, so I was unsure if it was in my dream. But seriously, who could sleep at a time like this? Realizing it was real, I lunged for it in the dark, aiming for the glow of the incoming text.