“As in Saint Jude.” I hooked my thumb into my chain and lifted my Saint Jude medal from where I always kept it hidden under my shirt.
“Ah, yes.” She bobbed her head in a slow nod. “The patron saint of the impossible.”
My brows popped up. “I’m impressed that you know that.”
She held my gaze, her grin still wide. “I went to Catholic school in Brooklyn.” Her dark eyes turned a light chocolate under the sun. It was easy to get lost in them, and in her, and the realization had me taking a half step back on instinct.
A shiver ran through me even under the heat of the sun, and it was past time to go.
“Nice to see you again, Claudia.” I shot her a grin despite myself.
A blush stained her cheeks as she gave me that smile, the one that sucked the air from my lungs when she wasn’t even directing it at me.
“Nice to finally meet you, Jude.”
4
CLAUDIA
“I’mglad you’re taking a break, but when do you think you’ll be home?” my mother asked me as I lounged on a chair in Peyton’s backyard.
“We aren’t rushing you,” my father added before I could respond. “We understand that you need some time, but you’ve been there for a while now, and we don’t want you to fall into a rut.”
I nodded even though they couldn’t see me through the phone. I’d been staying—or hiding out—at Peyton’s for a couple of weeks, and I didn’t have the slightest interest in going home. Usually when I’d come to visit, I was ready to head back to work in a couple of days after I’d had my fill of country goodness. But now that there was no work waiting for me, it seemed as ifnothingwas waiting for me.
The realization hit me hard, and it sucked.
Nothing was waiting for me except my parents, whom I called every other day without fail to repeat the same conversation.
“I’m not. I just need to clear my head before I figure out what I want to do.”
“Well…” My father’s soft chuckle filled my ear, and I both cringed and smiled at what I knew he was about to say. “You know we always need a good numbers person. And who would be better than you?”
My father owned a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn. My cousin Eric had worked alongside him since he’d graduated college with a business degree and was set to take it over when my father was ready to retire, which we all knew wouldn’t be until he took his last breath. He never pressured me, but he would hint at times at how great it would be if I worked with him.
The restaurant was our family’s main source of income and held a lot of great memories for me, but it wasn’t something I wanted to make my livelihood. He understood, and I couldn’t blame him for trying sometimes.
“I appreciate that, Dad. I have enough severance to hold me over for a little bit, plus the savings you made me keep up with since I was a teenager gives me a decent cushion for a while. I won’t take too long, but for right now, I think I’m still too angry over what happened to think clearly.”
“Of course you are,” my mother said. I could picture her nostrils flaring. I looked more like my mother than my father, other than her not quite five feet of height. Still, she, not my father, had been the parent to fear if I ever got in trouble and the one you didn’t want to cross under any circumstances.
She’d worked as a nurse in the same nursing home for almost my entire life until the arthritis in her fingers had forced her to retire. She helped at the restaurant now, seating the customers and handing out menus. My parents still liked each other enough not to mind being together most of the time.
I knew if I ever took my father up on being his “numbers person,” they’d be overjoyed to have me with them every day.
Every. Single. Day.
I adored them both, but even in all the uncertainty swirling around in my brain, that was the one thing I was a thousand percent sure that I didn’t want to do next.
“I know you like going up to the country.” Dad chuckled. “We support you taking a break and whatever you decide to do next.”
“It is nice and relaxing here. I’ll bring you up with me to visit next time if you ever take a day off. It’s just like those Hallmark movies Mom loves.”
Aside from the hot-as-fuck cop I couldn’t stop thinking about. After barely getting a hello, I hadn’t expected to be his stand-in girlfriend at the park. Even though our mild PDA had been fake, I savored the hell out of the memory. He was an almost-welcome distraction when he’d pop into my brain those few minutes every hour when I wasn’t lamenting over being a nomad with no job.
The tight T-shirt stretching across his chest, clinging to his broad frame every time he moved, the tease of chest hair when he showed me the chain around his neck, and how he made even khaki shorts seem sexy had all lived rent-free in my head since I’d left the park with Peyton. But what got to me the most was the adorable way he told me his name. It felt like a reward, just like the smile I’d finally gotten him to crack right before I walked away.
It had been a minute since I’d dated anyone or at least had sex, and whenever I thought of Sergeant Jude Davis, I wanted to do very un-Hallmark-like things to him if I ever had the chance—like dipping my tongue into that sinful mouth if his lips ever touched mine and all sorts of delicious ways to turn that perpetual frown upside down.
