Her cheeks flushed, heat creeping up her neck as she stared at the ground, suddenly too embarrassed to meet his eyes. “Yeah, pretty pathetic, huh? I’ve spent my life trying to predict everything, and I didn’t see that one coming at all.”
Jack’s hand moved from her shirt to her chin, lifting her face until their eyes met. His gaze darkened with something intense, something she couldn’t place.
“He must have been a complete moron,” he muttered, his voice rough.
For a moment, they stood there, his fingers warm against her skin, his words hanging between them. Her pulse quickened, each heartbeat louder in her ears. Then, as if realizing what he was doing, Jack dropped his hand and stepped back, shaking his head.
“Please tell me you at least keyed his car or something.”
Cora tilted her head, a slow smiletugging her lips. “No, but I did sign him up for the American Cheese of the Month Club.”
Jack blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Yeah. Individually wrapped slices of generic orange cheese, delivered every Wednesday afternoon.” She crossed her arms, enjoying the memory. “He used to complain about how it wasn’t real food. I figured he wasn’t a real man, so it seemed like a good fit.”
Jack let out a bark of laughter.
“Revenge isn’t usually my style,” she said with a shrug, “but he was such a food snob, I made an exception.”
“Remind me to stay on your good side.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “Or at least let me help the next time you need to take somebody down. I know a guy with flexible morals and a set of tools he probably shouldn’t have.”
Cora laughed, the sound catching her off guard. She was beginning to think Jack Harlow might not be the bad boy everyone made him out to be.
Then his tone shifted, the playfulness giving way to something quieter.
“For what it’s worth,” Jack added, his voice softening, “I think you’re doing pretty great. Not many people could handle what you’ve been through and still be standing. Let alone dragging poor, unsuspecting men on crack-of-dawn adventures where they might get murdered.”
He winked and stepped around her, wading through the knee-high grass, the dew still clinging to their boots. As they pushed through brambles and sidestepped mud pits that looked more solid than they were, Cora found herself opening up more than she’d expected. She told Jack about her time in New York, about the dreams she’d chased and the reality that didn’t quite live up to them. How she’d once wanted to run a marathon, learn to speak Italian, write a cookbook, and somehow be one of those people who can eat cupcakes without ever gaining weight.
Jack shared stories from his childhood in Sunrise, which looked a whole lot different than hers. While Cora had spent her summers selling lemonade on The Spoon’s lawn and riding her bike to the library, Jack had been sneaking into the community pool after dark and learning how to hotwire lawnmowers for fun.
She listened with growing fascination as he painted a picture of the Sunrise she’d never really known. The parts of town she’d driven past, but never visited, where front porches sagged, air conditioners rattled in every window, and neighbors kept an eye on you, not to help, but to make sure you didn’t cause trouble.
He grinned as he told her about the small-town antics he and his friends used to get into, his voice tinged with nostalgia and a little disbelief that they’d made it out in one piece.
“Wait,” she said, swatting a mosquito off her ankle. “You and your brother actually stole a rooster from your neighbor?”
Jack grinned, looking both sheepish and proud. “In our defense, we were going to return him. We just thought he needed a makeover first.”
She doubled over laughing. “A makeover? What did you do to him?”
“Did you know neon hair dye works on feathers? And glitter will stick to them?”
The mental image of a multicolored sparkly rooster was too much. “I did not. What did your grandfather say when he found out?”
Jack chuckled. “Gramps laughed so hard I thought he’d keel over. Then he made us return the rooster, apologize, and muck out Mr. Johnson’s chicken coop for a month. He said if we wanted to play with birds, we might as well get the full experience.”
Jack’s laughter lingered in the air, the easy rhythm of itmaking the woods feel lighter. She shook her head, still smiling at the thought of a bedazzled rooster strutting through a chicken coop. But as the sound faded, the quiet of the woods wrapped around them again, softer now, more reflective.
The silence between them felt comfortable, broken only by the crunch of leaves underfoot and the occasional call of a bird in the distance. The air smelled clean, rich with pine and damp earth. She let it fill her lungs, the familiar perfume of the marsh settling in her chest. It was peaceful here, the kind of quiet that made the rest of the world seem far away.
“I haven’t been here in years,” she said, ducking under a low-hanging branch. “But this was one of Lolly’s favorite spots. She used to bring me here every summer.”
Jack nodded, his gaze sweeping the trees and the wild undergrowth. “I can see why. It feels...untouched. Like a place where the rest of the world can’t reach you.”
She smiled, the memory of those summer days warming something deep inside her. “Yeah, it was kind of our escape. Lolly would bring me out here, and we’d just walk, not really talking much. She never needed to say a lot for me to feel better. Sometimes we’d sit for hours, listening to the trees.”
Jack stayed quiet, letting her words hang in the air.
