“I took care of it,” Deacon repeated. “I put a hundred down. Is that enough?”
He’d done it out of instinct. Maybe she’d appreciate the gesture. Or maybe she’d use it as ammunition to claimhe was arrogant or trying to flaunt his money. He honestly had no clue.
“That’s… yeah, it’s more than enough, but you didn’t even—” She stopped, took a breath, and then continued with a calmer, less accusatory tone. “You didn’t even drink anything, or eat, or?—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “We were leaving the table, and I wanted to make sure Libby didn’t get screwed.”
“Libby?” Jenna raised an eyebrow, arms crossing with slow deliberation. “Do you know her?”
Whoa. Did he detect jealousy? Surely not.
“No, but she had on a name tag.”
She stared at him for a beat longer, as if trying to decide whether to believe him or not, then looked away. The wind picked up, carrying with it the bitter tang of pine needles and the faintest crawl of smoke from a fireplace somewhere nearby.
Deacon wasn’t sure why they were talking about Libby or the check, he honestly didn’t give a shit about any of that. “So that’s it? You honestly don’t want to talk about us? What happened?—”
“Nothing happened.” Her voice was blade-sharp, cutting through the air with surgical precision. She didn’t even blink.
“I didn’t think it was nothing. Itwasn’tnothing to me.”
She blinked up at him, and he saw a tiny bit of the mask she wore slip away. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant it wasn’t the real world. We both had extraordinary circumstances that day, and we were an escape for each other.Thisis the real world. This ismyreal world.”
Her eyes were pleading for him to understand, and he wanted to, but what he thought she was telling him was that he wouldn’t fit into her world. The problem with thattheory was he’d lived in that town for nearly six months, so hedidfit in her world.
She shivered and pulled her jacket closer together, and he immediately stepped out away from the door. He watched as she reached for the handle, and as her fingers wrapped around it, he asked.
“Did you think about me? Even once?”
She paused but didn’t look up at him. Jenna’s breathing went shallow. He could see the pulse point at her neck fluttering like a trapped moth. Still, she gave him nothing.
“I’ve thought about you,” he confessed. He wasn’t sure why. She could not be making it more clear she wanted nothing to do with him. If anything, she seemed to be embarrassed by what they’d done. That should be a red flag, but it wasn’t. Or if it was a red flag, then he was a bull in a ring running straight at it. “Every day. I’ve thought aboutyou. Every. Day,” he clarified, just in case she was confused about what the statement every day was referring to.
He heard her inhale a trembling breath, which made him hold his. Despite knowing it was physically impossible, he was sure his heart stopped beating and time stood still as he waited for what seemed like an eternity for her answer. But she never did. At least not verbally.
Without sparing him a glance or a word, she opened the door, climbed into her SUV, pulled out of the parking spot, and drove away.
As he watched her red taillights disappear into the cold, black, winter night, he tried to process what had just transpired. His dream woman was real. He hadn’t imagined her. For a year and a half he’d wanted to know her name, where she was, how she was, if she was okay.
Now he not only knew her name, he knew what town she lived in and where she worked. He knew she was… well, he wasn’t sure how she was, but he knew she wasn’t back with her ex, so that was good.
This morning when he was doing Tabby’s hair and she was grilling him about getting married, he’d been worried he was fundamentally broken. He was scared he’d never be able to fall in love or to find someone he’d want to marry. Now he knew the answers to all those questions, the second Niko introduced him to Jenna and he saw her blue eyes staring up at him again, all of those questions were answered in an instant.
There was just one problem, she wanted nothing to do with him. Now he just had to find out why. He couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know why.
14
Jenna’s handsworked almost automatically—scissors snipping, comb flipping—while her mind did an entirely different sort of work, one that involved navigating the social whitewater rapids of the small-town rumor mill. She’d barely been open an hour, and five clients had brought up the so-called “date” with Deacon St. Claire. By noon, it was all anyone in the salon was talking about, including the Kiki and all the stylists. Even Rue, the esthetician who had rented a room for the past eight months and who hadneverparticipated in any gossip once since she’d been there, had slipped her a voucher for free bikini wax. A. Bikini. Wax.
The exact same conversation had happened over a dozen times.
Random client: “How do you know Deacon St. Claire?”
Jenna: “I don’t. Niko asked him to be on our Trivia team.”
Random Client: “Oh, yeah, I think Niko is staying next door to him at the Airbnb.”
Or.
