“My kids to be happy.” She recited the words but her heart wasn’t in them. She may as well have announced she needed another tea bag.
He stood, stepped to the edge of the counter, and moved closer. “For you, April. What do you wantfor you?”
“I don’t know.” The flash of panic implied she actually did know but didn’t want to say. “What do you want, Jack?” she asked, totally deflecting his question.
Points to her for the maneuver, but he had her number. He also knew the answer to this question, because what he wanted was simple—more of what he already had. More of the success. More of what that meant for him—the bone-deep feeling of accomplishment. Picking the winner from a sea of options and elevating them to become a force, a force that was firmly on Team Jack.That’swhat he wanted. He didn’t say that, though. Because this was not about him.
“This is about you,” he said.
She toyed with the string on her tea bag, running it between her fingers. “Iwant to be happy.”
Not able to help it or keep his poker face engaged, he smiled.
There she was. Now they were getting somewhere. “What’s going to make you happy?”
“I want to matter.”
He leaned forward, into her space, because what he was about to say was important. “April.”
The column of her throat moved as she swallowed a thick gulp of nothing, but he had her attention.
“You matter,” he said, offering the words and hoping she would believe them.
She nodded, but the wet was back in her eyes.
First rule of working with Jack: don’t expect him to hug or hold your hand, because that’s just not the guy he was. Yet he found his hand settling over April’s. The warm tingling along his skin intensified with the touch. He ignored everything going on inside him—he’d deal with that later—and kept this about her. “Who do you want to matter to?”
Another flash of heat hit her eyes.
He’d just bet that April had a fire that would blaze when she got ticked. Something about that thought had him wishing he could see that blaze up close and personal. Not this minor flash, but the whole blaze of April.
She pulled her hand away and pushed it through the curls he’d never seen her wear before that day. Not on any of their video calls. She was about as low maintenance as a woman came. In the good way—the way that the beauty of her glowed clear through without effort. That was why she made the perfect influencer. Because she didn’t need the extra—the goop on her eyes and the new hairstyle.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t like this.”
“Tell me and we’ll drop it.”
“You’ll drop it now.” She stood up, ripped open the Ziploc bag, then dumped the frozen contents into the slow cooker and flicked the dial to low.
Her chest heaved as she rinsed the used plastic in the sink before crumpling it in a ball and tossing it into a trash under the sink.
He backed up and backed off. She wasn’t ready. But he’d be sure she would be. And soon.
For now, there came a time when a man recognized when pushing would allow him to win and when pushing would force him to lose. This was not a winning moment.
So he dropped it.
For now.
“What do you say we go sit on the porch and make anewplan for your day.”
Chapter Twelve
“Don’t pee on your breakfast!”
—April Davis
April
