For the Longest Time (11 page)

“I'm so sorry, Sam. You don't have to believe that, but I wish you would, because I mean it.”

She tried one of the fries, unable to keep her eyes locked with his. He looked so miserable. Enough that she wanted to believe he was sincere. And maybe he was. They were both adults now. But this place had left scars, and though not all of them had been caused by him, she'd associated him with hurt for so long that she wasn't sure trusting him would be possible. She kept her expression neutral, trying to move calmly and deliberately as she picked at the food.

“I can accept the apology,” she said. “I can even appreciate it. But that doesn't mean I'm all that sure about what you'd do if your friends—and I'm willing to bet most of them are still here—got on your case for dating me.” Sam couldn't help a small smirk. “With the exception of Ryan, that is. He seems to have developed some taste.”

“I don't care what they think,” Jake said, frowning. “Give me some credit, Sam. I'm not eighteen anymore.”

“I know that,” she said, sensing, as she had during the brief month of flirtatious semi-friendship they'd had all those years ago, the gulf between their experiences. “I also know how this place works. I'm a Henry, remember? We don't deserve to be on the Crescent. My dad should have married up instead of that hippie who is now mooching off the family legacy. When Dad died, a bunch of the kids said it was because he was cursed. Not that we'd ever heard of a Henry curse, but hey, one of the original settlers of the town, accused of being a witch, was a Henry, right? So, cursed, obviously.”

Jake watched her closely, his attention completely focused on her. He looked sympathetic. She just wasn't sure she wanted his sympathy. Hell, she didn't know
what
she wanted. She waved her hand and shook her head, as though she could simply banish all of this baggage she'd been lugging around with her.

“I don't know, Jake. I know we're not kids anymore. But I don't know who you are. I barely knew who you were back then. You're right. I do keep expecting you to be a jerk. That's probably not fair, but not much is.”

She scooped up a bunch of fries and shoved them in her mouth, hoping that would prevent her from saying anything more. Jake wasn't going to want to hear about all of this. Her problems were her own.

“I didn't know that,” he finally said. “About your dad.”

She shrugged. “Kids are mean. I think we've already established that.”

“They are,” he said. “But I was never a target, so my knowing it is a little different from my having lived it. I had the opposite problem, actually. I was supposed to be perfect.”

Sam snorted. “You
were
perfect. That doesn't sound like a problem to me.”

Jake looked away, shifted in his chair, and sighed before returning his gaze to her. “Just because it's something different from what you dealt with doesn't mean it was awesome, you know.”

It wasn't a hard jab, but it hit its mark. “Okay,” she said. “So . . . you didn't like being a popular jock?”

That earned her a small, self-deprecating smile. “No. I liked it fine. I just wasn't big on being pushed to stay in that box.
My
father did a lot of living vicariously through me. He coached all my teams right up until high school. Don't you remember? Maybe you wouldn't.”

Sam shook her head. “I remember you had issues with him. You mentioned it enough times that I knew he pushed you too hard. Sports weren't ever my thing, though.”

“Yeah, well, they were his. I loved to play, but there was always pressure. I had to be good enough to keep people from complaining that I was only getting the play time for being the coach's kid, and I had to deal with the fact that I never got to leave any game on the field. It all came home. I was supposed to be the best. According to my father, I was also supposed to go to a Division I school on a full scholarship and continue to be the best.”

“Did you play?” she asked, curious. “You'd said you
weren't going to.” It was something he'd told no one else, and it had surprised her at the time. It had made her hope he would break out, too, like she planned to. That maybe they'd leave this place in the dust, find each other somewhere else . . .

God, she'd been young.

Jake ate another hush puppy. “Nope,” he said. “I wasn't good enough. Good, sure, but good enough for that, no. I knew it. He didn't. It caused some friction for a while. I wasn't trying hard enough, he said. The pre-vet stuff was beyond uninteresting to him.” He considered for a moment while he chewed. “Actually, my job is still pretty uninteresting to him. He's keeping busy, though. I grew up, so he decided that
he's
a teenager now. Dyed his hair, bought a sports car, got a girlfriend younger than me and moved to Boston.”

Sam's eyes widened. “I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

She barely noticed when her burger was placed in front of her, despite the fact that it smelled heavenly. Somehow, she'd convinced herself that she was the only one here who'd had real problems. It was more of a shock than it should have been to discover that Jake's life wasn't cardboard-cutout perfect, either. Jake looked uncomfortable, his cheeks flushing faintly.

“Well, thanks, but I'm not telling you that to make you feel bad. I mean, it's not ideal to have your father be kind of a dick, but it was a few years ago and Mom is with a great guy now. She's happier. I'm used to the way things are. And it sure as hell doesn't excuse me for what I did to you. I'm just . . .” He tapped his fingers on the table, looking down at them and frowning. “You're right. We don't really know each other. I'd like to change that. Without all the teenage bullshit this time.”

Sam looked at him, turning over what he'd said. She didn't remember Jake's father very well, but he sounded like a complete creep. That couldn't have been fun. She'd never considered what might have been going on behind the scenes back then. He'd told her things, things that in retrospect were indicators of bigger problems. But to her, even his issues had seemed like the sorts of things that only the perfect, lucky people dealt with. That was part of the age, she guessed—everything revolved around you, and everyone else must be exactly as they seemed. Heroes or villains in black and white, never any shades of gray.

But she was older now. And she ought to know better. That realization, more than anything, enabled her to finally relax her death grip on the grudge she carried and let just a little of it go. At least where Jake was concerned.

Sam nodded. “Okay,” she said.

Jake stared at her while she picked up her burger and sank her teeth in. It was, as promised, fantastic. She felt lighter, somehow. Though the food was probably going to take care of that before long.

“Can you elaborate?” he asked. “I'm a doctor, not a mind reader.”

Her lips curved up as she finished chewing. “You forgot the ‘damn it, Jim' before that last part.”

He laughed, and she knew it was going to be okay. For now, at least.

“If you're into Bones impressions, I can try to work them in more often. Seriously, though. What are you thinking? I meant it when I told you that you were always kind of a mystery to me, Sam. I never realized how much of the talking back then was from me. You're not an easy read.”

“I'm thinking this burger is amazing,” she replied, amused when he heaved an exasperated sigh. “And I think you're right. We should give getting to know one another a chance. You're obviously a little different now. And so am I. So . . . why not?”

Common sense immediately came up with dozens of reasons why not, but the delight on Jake's face knocked the wind out of her. He was still, hands down, the most beautiful man she'd ever laid eyes on. And for some crazy reason, he was interested in her. Despite all the warning bells going off in the back of her mind, she knew she'd never forgive herself if she didn't at least take a few baby steps in this direction to see what he was all about. Still, she needed to remember the mistake she'd made before, caring far too much far too soon. That couldn't happen again.

“So if I ask you out again, you're not going to pour my beer over my head and storm out?”

“No,” she replied. “Probably not.”

“Probably not?”

“I have to maintain my air of mystery,” Sam said. “Mystery with a hint of danger. Will I accept, or will I hurl the ketchup at you and make a scene? You'll have to ask to find out.”

His hazel eyes were warm as he laughed softly and shook his head. “You're still different from everybody else, Sam. I like it.”

She took another bite, feeling her cheeks flushing. She hated that blush reflex. How Jake continued to think she was a puzzle when she had the tendency to turn volcanic red around him was a mystery all in itself, but she certainly wasn't going to argue with him about it. Once she was finished chewing, she said, “Just remember you said
that the next time I decide to wear my leather pants out in town.”

He paused with a French fry halfway to his mouth. “You . . . have leather pants?”

“Yes. We wear such things in that magical far-off land called the City. Especially when dealing with hipper-than-thou clientele.”

“If you're trying to run me off, you should know this is having the opposite effect.”

Sam nodded. “You're a leather-loving perv. Noted.”

Rather than acting embarrassed, Jake simply grinned. “Guilty.”

Then they laughed together, and the tension between them vanished like so much smoke. Left behind was an entirely different feeling, one Sam remembered from the day Jake had first approached her, sketching beneath the Witch Tree. At the time, she'd hardly understood it. Now, she knew it was the low and pleasant thrum of desire, though far more intense than it had been. Maybe because now she was well aware of what the end result would be . . . if she chose to let things go that far.

That was still a big “if” as far as she was concerned. She'd never been good at detaching her body from her heart. But a few dates, indulging her curiosity . . . that she could do. That couldn't hurt.

This time, she wouldn't let it.

I
f there was a non-creepy way to invite a woman back to your house on the first date, he didn't know of it. Still, he felt like he should make the offer, if only because of the small furry creatures currently making a mess out of his spare bedroom.

Not that the prospect of being completely alone with Sam wasn't enticing. But he could tell she'd stretched her limits where he was concerned about as far as they were going to go tonight, and pushing further wasn't going to get him much but a door shut in his face. And maybe, if Shane hadn't been completely full of shit, a punch in the eye.

God, he wanted to hear that story.

“So, do you want to visit your cat for a few, or should I just take you home?” he asked as they walked out of Beltane Blues. They'd stuck around to listen to the band for a little while, but conversation had quickly devolved into yelling into each other's ears. Being close enough to Sam to smell her neck was the only plus, but he couldn't just linger there and breathe.

She turned her head to look at him curiously. A chill breeze ruffled her hair, and she pushed it out of her face. Jake flexed his fingers. It was all he could do not to brush
her hair back for her. With someone else, he might have just gone for it. Most of the women he dated would have found it sweet, or sexy. The normal rules didn't seem to apply here, though. It was part of what intrigued him about her.

She might have agreed to give him a chance, but he was under no illusions about her trusting him. Tonight he'd seen just how much ground he had to make up with her. And telling her how long she'd haunted him wouldn't make a bit of difference.

She wouldn't believe him. And since he didn't even know what it meant, if anything, he'd just keep that to himself.

“Loki's still at your place?”

“Him and his siblings, yeah. That's what happens. You take them home once, and suddenly they're yours.” He shrugged. “They're not the first creatures to mess up that bedroom. Won't be the last, either.”

She smirked. “Sucker.”

“I'm not the one keeping one of them, am I?”

She rolled her eyes, shifted her weight from foot to foot, and seemed genuinely torn about whether to let the date go any longer. The gravel crunched beneath her feet. Finally, she blew out a breath, and the night was cold enough that he could see the steam when it hit the air.

“Yeah, let's go. If you have a pit in your basement, though, I don't want to see it.”

“It puts the lotion on its skin,” he told her, earning him a swift punch in the arm. “Ow,” he said, laughing as he rubbed it. She was stronger than she looked. “Did you really . . .” He stopped himself before he could finish the question, but she seemed to know what he was talking
about. He wished he hadn't brought it up, because her expression went from open to forbidding in less than a second.

“How about this?” she asked. “If we're really starting from the beginning here, then all of that? Including the thing you're trying not to ask me about? That's off limits for now.”

He walked with her to the truck, opening the door for her before she could get it herself. She gave him a look, but he silently patted himself on the back. If he couldn't pay for her dinner, he could at least open the door for her. No matter how little she wanted to be charmed.

He lingered while she buckled her seat belt. “Well, wait. . . . So which things are off-limits? We can't have rules if I don't know about them.”

“Okay. I don't have a bunch of funny, nostalgic stories about high school. What happened with Thea isn't something I really want to talk about. It isn't going to go anywhere good, and it doesn't matter anyway.” She paused, eyes searching his face. “Just out of curiosity, who told you about that?”

“Shane Sullivan. But I didn't get details, just the gist. There was a black eye. Beyond that, I'm in the dark.”

He wished he'd never brought it up. She chewed her lip briefly, looked away, then said quietly, “So . . . Shane is still around.”

“Yes.”

“And Thea is still around, I guess.”

“Yes.”

“Has your social circle changed at
all
in the last ten years?”

The flat way she asked it made it clear that she already knew the answer. “Well . . . not really.”

Sam nodded, speaking softly to herself. “Not really. Okay. That's . . . good to know.”

He was quite sure she thought it was anything but. “Sam, it's—”

“Different now. I know what you're going to say. Great. Well, then, this should be interesting, anyway.”

He wanted to contradict her, but Jake realized that he wasn't entirely sure he ought to. Shane's laughter was still too fresh in his mind. He couldn't imagine it would be that big a deal when word got around, though he was a little less certain of that than he had been. Regardless, it rankled that she thought so little of his life. Of the things he'd chosen, the people he'd kept. He kept things simple; he kept things familiar and comfortable. And he was happy, damn it. Or content. Mostly.

“The Cove is more than you remember, Sam,” he said. “Just try to keep an open mind about it, okay? I'm going to make you see the good things about this place. Show you a few new ones, too. You'll be glad you came back.”

He shut the door and headed around to the driver's side. Sam was waiting, her mouth twisted with skepticism. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, you get points for tonight, but if you think you're going to make me fall in love with Harvest Cove, you're going to end up disappointed. Tolerance is about all I can muster.”

“A challenge, huh? I accept.” He started the truck and headed out of the lot, turning onto the street. The sky above had gone to inky blackness dotted with stars, cold and clear. When he glanced at Sam, she was looking up at it from her window, eyes raised. For just an instant, she seemed very young and impossibly innocent. The year between them in school had prevented him from
knowing her when she had been. Maybe things would have been different.

But probably not. He hadn't been a hero.

“Do you think you'll stay?” he asked, pushing the uncomfortable truth from his mind. Sam shrugged.

“I hope not. But right now it's not like I have so many options. On the upside, my job is awesome.”

“Seemed like it last night. I hadn't met Zoe before. She seems nice.”

“She's great,” Sam replied. “So focused, really savvy about the business, and very supportive of the artists she shows. Plus she's just fun. Zoe takes everything seriously but herself. I love working with her.”

The change in her when she talked about Zoe was profound. She went from wistful to enthusiastic in the blink of an eye.

“Sounds like you found
one
thing you like in the Cove, then.”

Sam shot him a look. “Three. Zoe, Two Roads, and the food tonight. Oh, and my cat. So that's four.”

“I'm not on the list yet?”

“You're still in consideration,” she said. “If you make it on the list you'll be notified by mail within six to eight weeks.”

“You're tough,” he told her, turning onto his street. “So are you going to be showing your work at the gallery? I'd love to see it.” Actually, he
had
seen it, but she didn't need to know that. Curiosity had driven him to her Web site more than once, and while her talent hadn't surprised him, her vision had. Sam's paintings were devoid of people but full of color, whimsical and sometimes foreboding, but always beautiful. Often she focused on something solitary, like a tree, and turned it
into a glorious representative of whatever otherworld she pulled her inspiration from. He'd spent more time than he would ever admit looking at her work, fascinated by the way they beckoned to even a non–art lover like him. It had been a while since he'd checked on her site, mainly because he'd actually been tempted to buy one of her paintings and wasn't sure how weird that would be.

Still, he was impressed by her depictions of what he thought of as beautiful escapes, the kind that even a guy like him would want to dive into. And now that she was here, he hoped to see more of her work in person. Even if he still wasn't sure how weird it would be for him to buy one. He'd never set foot in Zoe's place before last night, and up until a week ago, he hadn't had any interest in doing so. Art was a foreign country to him. Kind of like Sam.

It took him a few beats of complete silence to realize that Sam had stiffened up again. He bit back a frustrated comment. Was this on the list of things they couldn't talk about, too? He wanted to know about her life, not interfere with it. Or maybe she thought he was too boring and small town to understand the artistic process.

The hurt and anger that accompanied that thought startled Jake enough to allow him to lock them down before they came out of his mouth. They were just starting to feel each other out. He had to give this time, or there was going to be a hell of a lot of walking off in a huff.

Sam finally rolled her shoulders and said, “I'm taking a break from painting right now. Until things settle down.” His initial reaction evaporated in the face of curiosity. Whatever her stiffness was about, it wasn't him.
Her answer felt rehearsed, with a nugget of information and a lot of nothing otherwise. All he knew for sure was that right now, Sam was only selling art, not making it. And that seemed like a damn shame.

If things had gotten bad enough for her to stop, then no wonder she'd come back. But he couldn't ask. She wouldn't tell him, not now. He would have to be patient . . . and that had never been a particular virtue of his.

“Oh,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Well, hopefully once you get settled in.”

“Mmm,” was the noncommittal sound from her side of the car.

They pulled into his driveway. He'd left some of the lights on for Tucker, and he could already hear the excited barking from inside the house. He looked quickly at Sam to try to gauge her reaction—did she even like dogs? That seemed kind of important. He was relieved to find that she looked interested.

“I guess you did mention you had a dog,” she said.

“Tucker,” Jake replied, turning off the engine. “Hopefully he'll keep all four paws on the floor, but he gets excited, so . . . I apologize in advance.”

Sam just laughed. “Trust me—I can take it. Dogs are way easier than people.”

They got out and headed onto the porch, where Jake fiddled with the key. The sensation he felt was so alien to him that it took him a minute to identify it. His stomach felt . . . odd. God, was he actually sweating? Silently, he berated himself for the sudden attack of nerves. He'd been fine before dinner.

But they hadn't been alone in his house at dinner. And at the restaurant there had been no possibility of
stumbling across his underwear on the floor. Or finding his dog chewing on his underwear in the middle of the floor.

Not dating much this past year had been good for his sanity, but it hadn't exactly made him a meticulous housekeeper.

Jake could hear Tucker's nails clicking on the floor as the dog did his Dance of Joy.

“You might want to hang back for a sec,” he said, then turned the knob. “Hey, b—
Oof!
”

Tucker hurled himself at his owner in a fit of ecstasy, barreling into Jake like a spring-loaded bag of bricks. Jake took a couple of quick steps back to brace himself, then set about trying to calm Tucker down as he said hello.

“Hey, boy! Who's a good boy? Who's my good boy?” He scrubbed his hands quickly over the dog's sides, grinning as Tucker wagged every bit of himself that he could, panting through his big doggy smile. He briefly forgot Sam was right behind him, his only excuse for letting his voice go several octaves higher while he greeted his buddy. Then her voice sounded right beside him.

“Oh, he's really cute!”

He watched Tucker's attention shift in a split second. Jake barely had time to get out a warning before the dog turned all his energy and affection on Sam. Time seemed to slow to a crawl in the instant he saw Sam's eyes widen and Tucker's expression turn to one that could only be described as “YAY!” The next thing he knew, Sam was sitting on the floor being lavished with sloppy kisses as she halfheartedly defended herself with her arms and giggled helplessly.

“Damn it, Tucker!” Jake grabbed him by the collar
and hauled him back far enough for Sam to right herself. Tucker, completely devoid of shame, had the audacity to give him a wounded look. How dare he deprive him of fun? “Sorry. Are you okay?”

She was adorably rumpled as she picked herself up, and the fact that she was smiling seemed to be a good sign.

“You're lucky I like dogs,” she informed Tucker. Then she looked at Jake, her cheeks flushed and her eyes seeming to glow, blue into green, in the light. “He's a hot mess, isn't he?”

“That's putting it mildly,” Jake replied. “He was one of a litter of puppies we had dumped on our doorstep a couple of years ago, back when I first started with Dr. Perry. I didn't plan to take one, but Tucker here attached himself to me. He saw the word “sucker” written on my forehead, I guess. I couldn't let him go. So here we are.”

“Was he always this . . . excited?” Sam asked, watching as Tucker tried to wriggle away from him.

“This is actually an improvement. You're looking at one of the only dogs to flunk out of Furry Friends Obedience School. Also, when he was about eight months old, he ate my couch. That's not an exaggeration.”

“I can believe it,” Sam laughed. She reached out to rub behind Tucker's ears. “So this is mellow.”

“No, he'll calm down in a few. Calm being relative. He does know some commands, depending on whether or not I have food in my hand. And he's a good running partner,” Jake said. At the sound of the F-word, Tucker went completely still, cocked his head, and looked up at him. “Crap.”