Jack and Ginger (Sacred Heart Coven Book 3) (16 page)

"You might want to crack one of those beers," Ginger said just as he was closing the door. "You can also help yourself to one of the pumpkin beers if you want."

"Oh really, ok. Do you want me to get you one?" he asked and then tilted his head, "Are you ok?"
 

"I guess so, why, because of the call from my ex earlier? I'm trying not to think about that. I put an email out to my attorney when I got home so that is that." Ginger watched as this gorgeous man, who was but a mystery the day before, reached into her refrigerator to serve her a beverage. "And yes, please I will take whatever you are having."

Ginger did not have an eat-in kitchen and the small dining area off the kitchen just had a desk with her dad's computer on it. That was the next space that she was going to make her own. She looked around and figured that she would ask him to sit on the couch.
 

The silence was almost thick enough to cut with a knife. The crisp sound of Redford opening the beer bottles was loud enough to shatter the space between them.

"If you need a glass they are in the cabinet next to the microwave." Ginger felt like she was bossing him around, when she should be offering her guest a drink not the other way around.
 

Without thinking, she went to reach around him to open the cabinet. He was spinning back to do the same. She felt the bulge of his bicep as it slid against the smooth, barely there fabric that covered her bare breasts. She felt the already stimulated tips harden to his actual touch and not the fantasy of it.
 

He spilled a little bit of the beer on the floor from the impact of bumping into her. He looked down at the spill, but not before she noticed his eyes take a pause at her round breasts.

She looked down at herself and realized that the silky fabric contoured her every curve, exposing her sudden arousal. Maybe he thought she was just cold.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"No, it's my fault, I'm sorry. Did it get on you? "She grabbed a paper towel and bent down to wipe up the spill. She noticed that his feet were as perfectly groomed as his hands and she was impressed. She couldn't help but wonder if he kept the rest of his body so well kept.

"It's been a long day," she said as she stood up. "Are you hungry? Do you want me to heat up that pizza? I know you didn't eat much."

"I'm ok right now thank you. You said you wanted to tell me something?" he asked as he handed her a bottle of beer. "Maybe we skip the glasses, one less thing that needs cleaning."

"I will drink to that." Ginger took the bottle and gently tapped the neck against his bottle before taking a small sip. "Sorry I don't have a table here, we can sit on the couch."

"Ok, but are you sure you're ok? You look like you have been crying," he said following her the few short steps to the living room. When he got to the living room and looked at the two couches and back at Ginger to see where she wanted him to sit.
 

"Me, no I wasn't crying." She waved to the couches that were angled so that they both faced the coffee table in the center of the room. "Sit, anywhere."

"Oh thanks." He put his beer down on one of the many cardboard coasters stacked in haphazard piles on the coffee table.
 
"It's just that you have a little-" He raised his hand in the direction of her face. The pad of his thumb grazed over Ginger's high cheekbone.

It was like his eyes were invisibly stitched to hers. The transparent threads keeping her eyes looking up into his. In the brief moment that passed along with his thumb across her face, she felt an indescribable sensation transpire between them. She almost felt like she just woke up from a spell to see something that had always been there.

Ginger lifted her hand to the spot on her face just below her eyes where he had just touched her. She wiped in an outer sweeping motion and looked down at her finger, her eye makeup.

She was more concerned with covering her nearly naked body that it never occurred to her that she had been not only a sweaty mess, be it a clean sweaty mess, she had been crying, harder than she wanted to admit. She hadn't had a chance to wash her face or finish her bath.

"Oh my goodness, my makeup. I guess I should go wipe my face." Ginger was about to turn on her heel when Redford grabbed her hand and tenderly coaxed her back from her departure.

"Don't. You are fine. You look just as beautiful as you did the first time I laid eyes on you. You just look sad." Ginger looked down at her hand cradled in his. He released his hold on her. "It's really not that bad."

He sat at the far end of the sofa. That left the love seat or enough room to share the sofa without making things too close for comfort. She could also, of course, have chosen to sit alone on the love seat.

"Well," she sat down next to him, "truth be told I was crying. And no, not about earlier. I know you are somehow friends with my dad."
 

He shook his head. "Your dad told you about me?"

"No, not so much. This isn't easy for me. The last few times that you actually messaged him this past week, that was me on the other end." He looked at her over the body of his beer bottle. "I'm sorry, you messaged my dad and I was sitting there eating and accidentally dropped food on the keyboard and well, one thing led to another."

"So you really actually spilled food on the keyboard. And it was you I was trading preseason stats with?" He leaned in letting his arm rest on his knee. "On one hand that is really cool, on the other hand, really weird. Why would you pretend to be your father?"

"Because he isn't here anymore." She started to feel the lump in her throat returning. She tried to force it down with a sip of beer, but the carbonation only made it worse.

"Where is he?"

She looked up at him. He was suddenly blurry. Looking at him through pools of tears she was trying not to shed, she wished she could find better words to explain to him.
 

"He passed Redford, Jack." She started to laugh, not because anything was actually funny, it was just her body looking for an outlet for her emotions. "I don't even know what to call you now."

He scooted over on the couch closer to her until his leg touched hers. "You can call me whatever you want; Jack, Red, Redford, Jackson... They all work for me."
 

"Jack," it seemed more personal to call him Jack and that was how her father knew him so it made sense for her to address him that way, "he passed on almost three months ago. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just didn't want to have to get into it, especially with someone that I didn't know. It wasn't my intention to lie, it just happened."
 

She couldn't fight it off any longer she felt the hot beads rolling down her now cool skin. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers together at the bridge of her nose. She tried to use her middle finger and her thumb to wipe away both the tears and her runny mascara.

He rested his hand on her back. It was the only invitation that she needed. Other than Jasinda hugging her a few days earlier, she had been longing for someone to hold her.
 

He opened his arms wide and let her into his embrace. He rubbed over the back of her head and whispered into her ear, "I am so sorry for you loss. He was a really great guy. I didn't know. If I had..." his voice trailed off.

Ginger sank into him. His strong body gave way, allowing her to find a spot that felt like it was made for her. The tighter he held her, the more she found herself melting into him.
 

Thoughts came to her mind, words, but no clear thoughts. Should she say something, should she stop holding on to him? If he was done hugging her wouldn't he let her go? Why wasn't he letting go?

He smelled like a fresh ocean wave. His cologne had a youthful sweetness to it, but a sexy finish that teased at the back of her nose making her take longer inhalations. How could she be both devastatingly sad and turned on by this man's very essence all at the same time.
 

Enjoying his intoxicating scent actually helped her to calm her breathing and her nerves. Now she was at a point of not knowing how to let go.
 

"I'm sorry," Ginger whispered into his now damp tee. "It's just that I haven't..."

"Shh, you don't have to..." His words brushed against her wild red hair. She must have been a sight for sore eyes. "Let it out if you need to. I'm not going anywhere and I understand how hard it is to lose someone that you are close to."

Ginger lifted her head to look up at him. He pushed the loose strands of hair from her face.
 

"I can stay as long as you need a friend or if you want to be alone I can go. I don't want to intrude."

"You don't have to go. It would actually be nice if you stayed. It will take my mind off of things." Ginger tucked her feet up under her. Her arms were still half tucked behind him and around his firm chest. "I can heat up some food for us. I think I might be getting my appetite back."

"How about you go wash your face with some cold water, it will make you feel better. I can heat the food up, if you don't mind me in your kitchen," Jack offered. He gave her a quick squeeze before releasing his grip on her. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I actually am." Ginger sat up and grabbed her bottle of beer and got up. "I'll be right back."

Chapter Sixteen
 

GINGER TOOK HER DRINK AND scurried back to the bathroom. When she got in there, she realized that all her candles were still burning and the bathtub was still full of water. She leaned over the tub and pulled the stopper.
 

She decided against looking at herself in the mirror. She left the lights off and splashed her face with some cold water and grabbed a make-up removal clothe from the package on the counter. She knew that it would take away any makeup that remained on her face. She wanted to put on fresh make up and fix her hair, but he had already seen her at her worst. It was what it was.

She took advantage of the glugging noise of the water draining from the tub to at least brush her hair and tie it back on top of her head. She reached in one of the vanity drawers and applied some Vaseline to her lips. It would at least give them a nice sheen without any color or scent.
 

Ginger finished up in the bathroom and was about to go into her room to put on a pair of jeans and a top when she suddenly smelled smoke. Her feet had just made enough of a rotation to head back down the hall to the kitchen when the smoke detector started to sound.
 

"Oh my God! What's happening?" she called as she started to run down the hall to the alarm and or kitchen; she was just running not looking.

Jack came around the corner so fast in the direction of the smoke alarm with a magazine in his hand that they ran right into each other.
 

Ginger heard him say
yeah
as she collided with his chest. He was running in at her, almost as fast as she was running to him doubling the force of impact.

She bounced off of him like a backward explosion. She expected to land flat backed on the floor staring up at the loud siren above her head. Somehow Jack managed to grab a hold of her arms and pulled her back into him. Her body thrust against his chest.
 

"Gotchya," he said with such victory in his voice as if he caught the winning pass at a football game. "Sorry about that, I may have started a small fire in your oven. I didn't realize there was a piece of paper separating the slices of pizza and it caught on fire."

"Oh, is it still on fire?" she asked, now frozen in his grip.

"No I took it out and turned off the oven. The smoke will clear up in a few minutes. It's not like me not to pay attention to little details like that," he said.
 

"Right..." Ginger said only half listening to what he was saying, his voice sounded so seductive it was no wonder she heard it at all. Somehow it was all she heard over the loud alarm.
 

Ginger and Jack looked up and then back down. Ginger realized, maybe at the very same moment that Jack realized that the only thing covering Ginger's feminine curves was the embrace he had her in.
 

Gingers pink gown must have opened upon impact. Her body suddenly became aware of the fact that her breasts were pressed against his still damp shirt. She looked down and saw the soft pink mounds of the tops of her breasts. She knew that he had nearly the same view.
 

Ginger felt that her efforts to put her hair back up with a clip, had proven to be fruitless. She could see the red wavy stands hanging down over the sides of her eyes. She could feel that part of her hair was still attached
 
to the clip, the tension tugged at her scalp.

"I'm sorry, I ..." he looked down again at his arms that held her close, "the alarm has me a bit frazzled."

"Almost as frazzled as I look?" Ginger asked softy. She felt like she had been put through the ringer and feared she looked even worse.

"Hardly, I like the way you look right now," Jack said. He lifted the one hand that had been holding Ginger's left arm and pushed a few of her escaped hairs aside. "You look like a wild flower. And you smell like one too.

"Some women need all that extra makeup and stuff, I could tell from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were naturally exquisite." He rubbed his lips together moistening them as he spoke. "There was something irresistible about you the moment I saw you stumble out of your car."
 

Ginger laughed at the idea of how silly she must have looked.

"You shouldn't laugh, I know you were having a battle with your hand purse, but you did it with such grace. There was something special, I didn't know you, but I wished that I had. I felt some kind of connection, but was too nervous to approach you."

"You think so?" she asked, but felt the connection more than she knew how to admit.

"It has to be more than a coincidence. Think about it, first we connected online not realizing, then at Dunkin' Donuts, then at Steve and Jasinda's establishment, and then tonight here. It feels like fate delivered me to your very doorstep."