“You tell her whenever you want. I’m just pointing out that part of why you’re unsettled is because of the guilt. You’re not the kind of person who usually does something that generates guilt, so it’s extra hard to deal with.”
She sighed. “I feel like maybe you know me too well.”
“Only in a good way. Just like you know me.”
She did know him and liked him and trusted him. She enjoyed his company and being around him and Noah. But sometimes lately, when she looked at him, she felt... something. It was nameless and just out of reach but there, in a lurking kind of way.
“So about tonight,” he began. “You’re coming over for dinner.”
“That’s the rumor, yes.”
“Want to make it a sleepover?”
Her body immediately started cheering at the promise of a little one-on-one naked time with Alex.
She pretended to consider the question. “Lucy has been asking about that, so if it’s what she wants, then I guess I have to say yes.”
“You’re feeling pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “I am.”
“I like it.”
“I thought we could go get lunch,” Marcus said, leaning against the front counter of the bookstore.
Jax smiled at him. “I’d like that. When?”
“Now. I have a picnic basket in my truck. I thought we could head to the beach.”
She glanced outside. The day was sunny and warm. Given all she’d been dealing with for the past week or so, she felt as if she’d barely left the store at all. Yes there was work she had to do, but it could wait.
“It’s not every day a handsome man asks me to go on a picnic,” she told him. “Let me get my bag and tell someone I’ll be gone.”
“I’ll be here.”
A few minutes later, they were in his truck making the short drive to the beach. As it was a weekday, they didn’t have too much trouble finding parking. Marcus carried the large basket to the shaded picnic tables. They chose one and sat down.
While he put out sandwiches, salads, a thermos and plastic glasses, she looked around. The ocean was that perfect shadeof blue and stretched out to the horizon. The sound of the surf mingled with the happy shrieks of three kids and their parents playing a little farther down the beach. The air was warm and salty, the sand a little shimmery.
“This is nice,” she murmured, turning her attention back to him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. With the whole Ramon problem, we haven’t seen much of each other. I’ve missed you.”
His words made her smile. “I’ve missed you, too,” she admitted. “Which is strange because we’ve seen each other every day, but I know what you mean.”
She thought about everything they’d been through. “I can’t thank you enough,” she added. “You helped with so much. Your computer client, the vet. Everything. You were a rock.” She wasn’t sure she would have gotten through the horror without him. “I’m not used to having someone to depend on.”
“Or trust,” he added.
“Yeah, that, too.” She reached her hands across the table. He took them in hers.
“I don’t know when it started,” she said. “My need to be in control. Maybe when we moved here and I knew I had to look out for Ryleigh. Maybe before. I’ve always been the older sister. It’s kind of who I am.”
“It doesn’t always have to be you, Jax,” he told her. “There are people in your world more than willing to take responsibility.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me.”
