CHAPTERNINE
Who’s that?” Mark asked.
Jessica grabbed a ham and cheese slider and glanced over her shoulder at him. He was staring at the woman who’d brought the food. “She’s from the deli. I think her name is Sharlene.”
Jessica’s head was starting to pound, and she hoped food would help. She wanted to find a quiet corner to share with Mark and try to feel him out for where this thing between them was headed. She loaded up a plate and turned around, but Mark was gone, vanished somewhere into the crowd. A particularly vicious pain shot through her temples. He’d done it again. Kissed her and then shut down and bolted.
Goddammit.
“Your makeup looks funny.” Nicole stood in front of her, frowning. “You’ve got all this extra white paint on your left cheek.”
Jessica was glad for the heavy coat of makeup that hid the blush she felt creeping over her skin. “I, um, tried to touch it up.”
“Why? What happened to it?” Nicole narrowed her eyes. “Were you off kissing Mark again?”
“Why would you think that?” Exasperation laced her tone because how did her sister already know what she’d been up to with Mark?
“Because I saw him follow you into the woods, and you were gone alongtime, and now your makeup is all messed up.” Nicole was grinning now.
“He was helping me fix a lightbulb.” Jessica sighed. “And yes, then we kissed, which was so stupid because now he’s run off again. Seriously, why am I such an idiot where he’s concerned?”
Nicole’s grin faded. “What do you mean, he’s run off? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He was just here, and then he was gone. This happened the last time we kissed too, but apparently, I’m a slow learner.” Jessica took a big bite of her slider and tried to remember when she could take another pill for her head.
“Well, if I happen to bump into him, we’re going to have words,” Nicole said, heading off into the crowd.
But Jessica doubted her sister would find him because her suspicion was that he’d left the party altogether.Coward.How could such a good guy be so bad at relationships? And why did he have to be the one guy she had such crazy-hot chemistry with? The one guy who could tie her heart up in knots with a single touch?
Over the next few hours, she proved her theory correct because Mark never resurfaced. Not until she was cleaning up sometime after midnight did she find his mask, still hanging in the tree where he’d left it so many hours earlier, like Cinderella’s slipper left behind at the ball.
***
Sharlene.
With that one word, Mark’s whole world had shattered. It was true then. For whatever reason, his mother was here in Haven. Had she come looking for him, after all this time? Or had she forgotten him so completely that her appearance in town was totally unrelated to him?
His first instinct had been to bolt. He’d actually had the duffel bag on his bed and halfway packed before he realized how ludicrous that was. He was one-third owner of Off-the-Grid Adventures. He couldn’t just skip town. As solitary as his life still was, there were people in it now. People who depended on him and who he depended on too.
No, it was Sharlene who needed to leave. She might have given birth to him, but she was not his mother. Not anymore.
He slept like shit that night, haunted by dreams he couldn’t remember by the time he’d woken up the next morning, but they left him feeling restless. Off.
He couldn’t share this town with her. That’s all there was to it. With that decided, he drove out to the deli an hour before it opened and sat there, waiting. About thirty minutes later, he got lucky. A gray Honda Accord pulled into the lot, and Sharlene got out. She had on khaki pants and a navy jacket, her blond hair in a messy ponytail.
Mark stepped out of his SUV and intercepted her about halfway across the parking lot, blocking her path. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Sharlene.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. Her brown eyes widened. “Mark?”
“So you do remember.”
She swallowed hard. “I do. Of course I do. That’s why I’m here.” Her voice was low, scratchy, like a smoker’s. It stirred nothing inside him. A stranger’s voice.
And suddenly, he had no idea what to say. All the air had been sucked out of his lungs. His hands clenched inside the pockets of his jeans. She seemed to have been struck just as silent. She stared at him for several long seconds while a strange feeling of detachment descended over him.
Strangers. That’s all they were now.
“I had hoped…I’ve been trying to find the right time…” She raised her arms as if to give him a hug.
