Home Sweet Home (A Southern Comfort Novel) (9 page)

“I thought you were drowning.” He shrugged.

“I don’t suppose you missed that?” Her eyes flicked back to the rock.

“It’s kind of why I’m in the water with my shirt still on.”

“Well, it’s your fault. You distracted me.”

“Are you okay? Really? That looked like it hurt.”

She snorted. “I’m fine. I mean, my skin burns and I think I broke my ego, but I’ll live.”

Jake clucked in sympathy when he saw that the skin on her chest had turned a very patriotic shade of red. He ran his hand gently between the straps of her bathing suit, and she shivered and pressed in closer to him.

“You sure you’re okay?” Her mouth was a breath away from his, and he was so close he could see her cheeks flush and her eyes darken. She nodded and bit her lip and Jake urged her even closer.

“Just kiss her already!” Katie and Billie called from the shore, accompanied by a few catcalls from his friends.

Grace snapped her head to the shore and just like that, the moment was gone.

“Come on,” he said, gently swimming her toward the party. “Let’s get you to dry land.”

If Grace had known that all it would take to make friends in this town was to make a complete fool of herself, well, she wouldn’t have hidden all the ways she’d made a complete fool of herself already. Like wearing pajamas to the Fourth of July barbecue, for example. That, at least, had been a much less painful way to make a good impression.

Her body was fine. It wasn’t like she’d never belly-flopped before. Never quite so spectacularly, but physically she could handle it.

Her ego might never be the same.

It didn’t help that every time she looked at Kyle, he turned his hands sideways and clapped them together while making a
sploosh
sound with his big, dumb mouth. That made everyone laugh, which didn’t exactly make Grace feel good.

Well, Jake didn’t laugh. Apparently all she had to do to get him to be civil was appear to fall to her death.

But then Chase patted her on the back in sympathy and Katie reminded Kyle that if he had belly-flopped off The Rock, he would’ve packed up his high school boom box and gone home. So, really, they were all laughing
with
her. Well, they were laughing with her as soon as she started laughing. They weren’t making fun of her—they were teasing her. God, had she been away from normal people so long that she forgot the difference?

Jake was right. Most of the time she did associate with other professors. That had certainly been her life in California, especially after she’d started seeing Lou. She had always bonded easily with her classmates, then her fellow post-docs—well, the ones who weren’t insanely competitive alien people. And Lou seemed to only know other professors, so when they went out, it was always something academic.

And she didn’t mind. Sometimes she’d idly wonder what it was like to sell insurance or work at a bank or fix cars. Lou said it involved a lot of fast food and reality television. Which was interesting because she frequently saw McDonald’s wrappers tucked under the back seat of his car. And she would never tell him, but she liked having reality television on in the background while she graded papers. She could tune it out while she graded, then get distracted by it for a few minutes until she had to grade the next one.

Sometimes she wondered what Jane Austen would make of reality TV. She tried to imagine her as The Bachelorette, having to pick from a roomful of Darcys and Knightleys and Wentworths, maybe with a few Wickhams and Willoughbys thrown in. Surely, she would pick Darcy. If she didn’t pass out from all of her dreams coming true.

“What are you thinking about?” Jake nudged her shoulder and she hunkered down further into the blanket wrapped around her.

“Reality television.” The Jane Austen idea would never work. Time-space continuum aside, that would just reinforce the notion that her books were
just
love stories, that there was no art and genius involved.

“Ugh, you watch that crap?”

She laughed at the look of shock on his face.

“Don’t be a snob, Jake,” she chided, and held her hands up to the fire.

“Are you cold?” he asked, grabbing her hands and holding them between his. “Jesus, Grace, you’re freezing!” He pulled the blanket tighter around her until it was practically smothering her, then he pulled her closer to him so that she was practically sitting on his lap.

She looked across the fire at Mary Beth, who gave her a bemused smirk. Grace just shrugged.
Hey, he’s warm.

“So, Professor,” asked Billie, “if you had to go out with one Jane Austen hero, who would it be?”

Kyle snorted, and Missy shoved him playfully in the leg. “You’re just mad because I like Mr. Darcy better than I like you.”

“Yeah, but he’s not real, I am. Besides, would Mr. Darcy do this?”

The dance Kyle did for Missy was not exactly vulgar, but Grace wished she hadn’t seen it all the same.

“I don’t really think of them like that,” said Grace.

“Because they’re fictional?” Todd asked from next to Mary Beth.

“No. I mean, yes, of course. I would never romantically identify with a fictional character.”

Missy snorted. Grace smiled.

“I just mean that when you reduce Jane Austen’s book to the love story, you diminish the value of her work,” she said.

“Like a well-told love story isn’t worth it?” asked Billie.

“No, of course it is. It’s just . . . that tends to call into question her relevance. It invites dismissal.”

“From other snobs,” Missy said, her eyebrow firmly raised. “Male snobs.”

Grace smiled. “Mostly.”

“Listen,” said Missy, pulling Kyle down to sit with her. He immediately wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t have to justify your life’s work to us. But if you think those love stories aren’t important, you’ve been doing it wrong.”

Grace laughed. “Fine, I surrender.”

“Hey, how come you’re allowed to say that stuff to her and I’m not?” Kyle asked Missy petulantly.

“Because you’re an idiot,” Missy said, and pulled his chin down for a kiss.

Soon they were making out full-throttle. Grace glanced at Jake, who was studiously watching the fire. Then Kyle abruptly stood, Missy still wrapped around him, and they stalked off into the woods.

“You want to get out of here?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” said Grace, because she was cold, and people were making out, and because she wanted to get out of there with Jake.

J
ake didn’t say much on the way home, and Grace was too tired to prod him into conversation. It felt nice, somehow, riding with the windows down, quiet radio noise in the background. She occasionally snuck a glance over at Jake, who kept his eyes studiously on the road. She braved a longer look, admired his strong jaw and the way the ridge in his nose stood out more in profile.

“What?”

She jumped in her seat, startled and embarrassed to have been caught ogling.

“Nothing!” she insisted.

“Why do you keep looking at me?” Even with his head still facing forward, she could see that crooked smile stretch across his mouth.

She shrugged. “What happened to your nose?”

He ran a finger gingerly along the ridge and said, “Broke it.”

“What’s the story?”

He just shook his head.

“Come on, there’s always a good story behind a broken nose. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“You broke your nose?” He turned his head to face her, squinted in the faint light.

“I fell off a horse. Jane was one of those horse-crazy kids, so my parents took us for riding lessons. And I fell off.”

“Geez. You really should keep your feet on the ground, you know that?”

“It actually wasn’t that bad a fall, but I got tangled in the stirrup and I hit my face against the horse’s neck.”

“So you broke your nose
on
a horse.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Your nose looks fine. I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s been broken.”

“Well, it healed. And . . . you know, plastic surgery.”

“So you’ve had a nose job?”

“Yes, it’s true,” she admitted. “I’ve had some work done. Your turn. How’d you break yours?”

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not as whimsical as your story.”

“I don’t care, I want to hear it.”

“I got into a fight in jail.”

Grace sputtered out a laugh. That was not at all what she was expecting.

But Jake didn’t laugh.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was a kid. When I was a senior in high school, I got busted for underage drinking. Todd was just a cop then, but he was dating my sister. He saw what a pain I was to her, so he persuaded her to let him teach me a lesson, let me wait it out in jail overnight.”

“Oh, my God. What did your mom say?” Grace really couldn’t imagine Marilyn leaving her son in jail, even overnight.

“Mary Beth didn’t tell her. Made up a story about me staying over at Kyle’s or something.”

“Did it scare you straight?”

Jake snorted. “Not hardly. I was a punk. I thought I was tougher than all those guys in there. I was younger, and I was faster. But faster only gets you so far when a guy outweighs you by about a hundred pounds and you’re in a cage together.”

“Jake,” Grace said again, “you could have been killed.”

“Nah, he just got in one good punch, and then some other guys pulled him off. Todd paid my bail and took me to the hospital. I think it hurt him more than it hurt me.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’ve never seen Todd scared before, or since. I think he thought Mary Beth would never speak to him again.”

“He almost got you killed.”

“Yeah, well. He’s always been good to MB, and I was acting like a punk.”

Grace just stared at that crooked profile. She wasn’t sure she would be so forgiving.

Of course, she was confident she wouldn’t last even the idea of a night in jail.

“Anyway,” Jake said, “that’s how I broke my nose.”

“And now you’re cursed to carry the scar of your misspent youth, huh?”

“Yup. No plastic surgery for me.”

Grace stilled. Was he doing it again? Bringing up how different they were? She didn’t want this nice night to end on a sour note, so she told him the truth.

“I like it. It’s kind of... sexy.”

His crooked smile broke out again, and he kept his eyes on the road.

When they got to Grace’s house, she was almost sorry to say goodnight. Apparently so was Jake, because he got out of the truck with her. He walked around and opened the tailgate. She thought he might be getting his tool belt, but it was late and she didn’t want him to fix anything. She wanted them to be friends. She was just starting to say as much when he came around the truck to meet her at the front door.

“You don’t have to—” Then she saw a gigantic box of cat litter.

“Is that for me?” she asked.

“Will belongs to one of those warehouse club things. I got a deal.”

“Jake, that’s—”

“It’s no big deal, okay? I just thought, since you ride your bike everywhere, that it would be hard to carry.”

He was right. The smallest container of cat litter she could find had been fifteen pounds. She had to take her old lady wheeled cart into town to pick it up.

So, not only was she a single woman with a cat, she was seen around town wheeling a shopping cart full of cat litter.

And she lived in a house called the Spinster House.

At least Jake had saved her from any further cat litter humiliation. In time, she’d be able to function as a normal member of society. Tonight, she’d be satisfied with cat litter.

“Thank you,” she said, and impulsively stretched up to kiss him on the cheek.

“No big deal,” he mumbled, then reached around to open the door she’d unlocked.

She was momentarily distracted by his jeans. More specifically, the way his jeans stretched over his butt. Damn that perfect butt. And the way his triceps strained with the weight of the tub of cat litter. Good Lord, this man made cat litter look sexy.

“You coming in?” he asked with a smile.

She followed him in, leaned down to pet Mr. Bingley, then pointed Jake to the downstairs powder room, where the litter box was more or less hidden under the sink.

He came out, followed by the cat. “Thanks again,” she told him. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

He just shrugged and she shook her head. Sometimes Jake could be so thoughtful. It almost made her forget that he was such a pain.

Jake didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to stay—of course not, he didn’t like Grace. As he continually reminded himself. Because he kept forgetting.

He still didn’t like professors. They were smug and overbearing and looked down on people like Jake, people who didn’t think it was fun to always have your nose in a book. Not that Jake didn’t read. What was the point of having a library card if he didn’t use it? And aside from having a knack for fixing things, the main thing he and his dad had in common was a love of suspense and thrillers. If Jake had read Jack Reacher when he was a kid, he would have dropped everything and gotten on a bus to save the world.

But professors managed to take the fun out of reading. He remembered when Henry was new at Pembroke and Marilyn had him over for dinner. Will liked to show off his cooking, and Marilyn liked talking to new people, even if she had to drag her adult children into it. When she told Henry about Jake’s paperback reading habit, Henry feigned interest and started talking about the sociological implications of perpetuating a dangerous kind of masculinity, blah blah blah. Jake wanted to talk about the sociological implications of his fist in Henry’s face.

And now Henry was sniffing around Grace, and they would sit around and talk about sociological implications and high art and Jake was getting bored even imagining it.

No, he wasn’t getting bored. He was getting jealous. Grace wasn’t like the other professors he knew. She knew how to laugh at herself, and at him. She was smart, sure, but she was also actually interesting, and she could talk about other things besides literature. And he hated to admit it, but she had kind of a hot-for-teacher thing going on. Her clothes were cute and fun and totally appropriate, but no matter how many cat sweatshirts she wore, she would never erase the mental picture he had of her in that bathing suit.

Doesn’t matter, he told himself. Even if, by some miracle, she liked him despite his being a total jerk to her, it could never work. They had nothing in common, essentially. It wasn’t so much that he thought Grace was too good for him. Just that they were, well, different.

Man, he really needed to fix something right now.

Instead, he just had Grace in front of him, toying with the string on her hoodie. She looked toward the powder room and let out the most pathetic sigh he’d heard since Kyle found out Missy had to work late.

“What’s that forlorn sigh for?” he asked her.

“I’m not forlorn!” she protested. “I’m just . . . pensive.”

“About cat litter?”

“A little,” she said. “Not really specifically about cat litter, more about how excited I was that you brought me cat litter. And because I live in the Spinster House.”

“Grace, this isn’t the Spinster House.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’ve lived in this town my entire life. They publicize the heck out of any little bit of local news. If the Spinster House was suddenly not where it was supposed to be, we’d all know.”

Grace sighed. Again. “Well, even if it’s not
the
Spinster House, it’s certainly turning into a spinster house.”

“What is your deal with spinsters?”

“I don’t know! It started as a joke between me and Jane, and then the cat sweatshirts started, and it was funny for a while. It still is funny, with her. But now it feels like I’m fulfilling some sort of prophecy. Doomed to a life of spinsterhood. And the thing is, I don’t really mind. I feel like I should mind, but I don’t.”

“You don’t mind becoming a spinster?” Jake had a few spinster aunts, and he wanted to reassure Grace that she had a long way to go before she turned into Aunt May or Aunt Tess. She needed to wear her hair in a bun and work on growing a little hair on her upper lip. And she would have to get a roommate; spinsters always lived in pairs.

Then he remembered that Aunt May and Aunt Tess weren’t sisters, and that they only had one bedroom.

Not exactly where he wanted the conversation to go.

“I admire the sensible shoes of the spinster,” Grace said, as if she wasn’t privy to Jake’s internal monologue. Which was good. “And I like cats. And the being-single part, I like that. Oh, God, I am totally a spinster.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. He had never met a woman who was happy being single. Well, except for Aunt May and Aunt Tess, and he wasn’t getting that kind of vibe from Grace.

Not when she raised her eyes slowly. Not when they met his and he felt a jolt go through him.

Her eyes still on his, she just shrugged. Then she took a step forward.

He thought he should take a step forward too, but when he went to lift his foot, he realized he had already closed the distance between them.

“You like being single, huh?” He brushed an errant lock of hair out of her face.

“I like some parts about being single,” she admitted.

He was curious about that. Really, he was. She was smart and warm and funny. It seemed a shame that she didn’t want to share that with someone.

But he really didn’t want to get into a conversation about her relationship status right now. He just wanted to put his arms around her, and to see where that would lead.

So he did.

As soon as his hands skimmed her waist, hers came up around his neck and she pulled him in for a kiss. He’d kissed her once before, right over there on the living room floor. Why had he waited so long to kiss her again?

“I thought I had sworn off men,” she said, breathless, in between kisses. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“I changed your mind, huh?” He nudged his hips against her, just so she could feel how much he appreciated her decision to swear back on to men.

She looked up at him and smiled like a cat. Then she wiggled out of his arms and he was about to protest, to reach for her because surely she was not done with him yet, when she grabbed his hand and led him up the creaking stairs to her room.

The stairs creaked and her bed squeaked and Grace couldn’t hear any of it over the pounding beat of her heart. She wished she had picked up some of the clothes strewn about the room or maybe didn’t have quite so many books piled within easy reach of her bed because the nightstand was too full. But then Jake walked in behind her, the hall light giving him a halo he didn’t deserve, and he whipped his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

She gulped. Not because she was afraid, but because . . . gaaah. He was perfect. Sculpted, but not too beefy. He had a fair amount of hair on his chest, which she loved, and that “v” on hips that she loved even more. She didn’t think she had ever seen one of those in real life. He unbuttoned his jeans, but before he could get them over his hips, she hopped off the bed.

Jake let go of his pants and reached for Grace, just as she’d hoped he would. She stepped into him, but not so close that she couldn’t explore the contours of his chest, run her fingers through the rough hair there, then follow the trail lower.

“Why are you still wearing this?” he asked, tugging at the hem of her T-shirt. But she wasn’t done exploring him yet, so she ducked down out of his grasp and ran her tongue along that “v.” She was becoming obsessed. She wanted to make sure it was real.

Jake cursed, but it was the good kind of curse, the kind that said he was surprised but not displeased with the sudden turn of events. She ran her hands up his sides, then back down, taking his jeans with her. She took a moment to appreciate the tone of his legs on the way down, then again on the way up when she hooked her fingers in the waist of his boxers. She looked up to give him a teasing grin, but Jake was looking at the ceiling. His fists were clenched and his neck was straining and—was he praying?

Grace let loose that teasing grin anyway and pulled his boxers gently down to join his jeans at his ankles, and then there he was, big and thick and bobbing in front of her. She licked her lips and reached out to take hold of him . . .

But found herself suddenly picked up by the armpits and thrown onto the bed.

“Sorry,” Jake grunted at her. “I want this to be good for both of us.”