If she weren’t working forty hours a week, would she still feel that knot of dread every time she faced the drive to James Robert? What if her classes were closer to work and home? The quality of her education was top-notch. And the homework only seemed worse because she was rusty at studying. Plus, she was already tired from work by the time?—
“Son of a biscuit!” Jackson yelped.
Anna shot out of her seat behind Radish and darted to the laundry room. “Jackson? Everything okay?”
He eyed a spot on the floor. His chest was heaving in that coming-down-from-a-fright kind of way. He held out a hand. “Hold on there.”
Radish growled low in her throat. She pointed at the intruder on the baseboard.
“Dal-gurn thing jumped out of the washer,” Jackson said.
Anna clamped a hand over her mouth, but the snicker had to go somewhere. It came out in an unladylike snort.
His lips twitched too. “Get it, girl,” he said to Radish.
The dog sniffed the little green lizard. It wove drunkenly toward the garage door. Radish growled again. The lizard opened its jaws as if it could take on something a lot bigger than an old spaniel.
Radish whimpered and cowered down on the tile floor.
Anna clapped her other hand over her mouth too, and she snorted again.
“You women,” Jackson said. “Always afraid of a little lizard.”
The lizard misstepped and tumbled off the wall. Radish inched closer to it. The poor thing darted for the safety of a clothes basket, and Radish skittered back.
Jackson choked on a laugh.
Anna whimpered from holding it in, but soon they were both laughing so hard Anna had to lean against the wall while Jackson clutched his stomach. The lizard stumbled about like somebody had spiked its dinner, and it snapped at Radish, who alternated between cowering and growling until the little green guy disappeared beneath the washing machine.
Jackson wiped his eyes. He blew out a contented laugh and grabbed Anna by the waist. “I love you.”
“I lo—” Anna caught the word before it made it over her vocal chords. Her heart drummed on her rib cage, her lungs seemed to fill with thick, wet clay, but it didn’t change the truth.
She did. She loved him.
She would’ve driven all the way out to his house to spendfive minutes with him on a work night, simply to give him a hug and a kiss and listen to himAnna Graceher.
She would’ve baked him a hundred pies every time he threw a redneck golf game for her.
She would’ve given up her job and school and independence for him.
All she wanted was to know he’d love her forever.
But he wouldn’t. They worked because they didn’t want forever. They worked because they didn’t need forever. They worked because they didn’t believe in forever.
Except she did.
She needed the promise of forever along with the promise he’d let her be her own independent woman, but his cheeks and lips were taking on the green hue of a confirmed bachelor being shackled with the ol’ ball and chain.
Her perfect, neat, scheduled and labeled world ripped to pieces like a calendar in a shredder. The laughter caught in her throat came out as a hysterical sob. “I have to go.”
“Anna.”
He gripped her tighter, but she pushed back until he let go.
“Anna, wait.”
“No. No.” She snatched her bag out of his bedroom. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”
