Jade's Spirit (Blue Collar Boyfriends Book 2) (14 page)

Another rap of knuckles on glass. “Jade? Why are you sleeping in your car?” His voice was muffled but audible.

There was no graceful way out of this one. She clambered out of the car wrapped in the afghan. “Spider?”

“That must be some spider.” He was dressed in work boots, jeans, and another one of his long-sleeved, pec-hugging Henleys. The sleeves were pushed up over his forearms. He looked as scrumptious as when she’d first met him and it didn’t improve her mood one bit.

“What are you doing here at—” She pulled her phone out of her sweatshirt pocket and checked the time. “Eight fifteen in the morning? Come to think of it, what are you doing here at all? What part of ‘fuck you’ didn’t you understand?” It was hard to look tough wrapped in purple and orange yarn, but she thrust out her chin and arched one eyebrow in her best Beantown bitch pose.

With an infuriating twinkle in his eyes, he cleared his throat and nodded down the sidewalk.

Her annoyed, sleep-fogged brain registered the enormous street sweeper looming behind her Jetta. Oh, duh. It was Tuesday, his day to sweep Little Turnpike.

And like a complete loser, she’d left her car on the curb again. Embarrassment heated her cheeks. She avoided his eyes, but with him standing so close, her only other options were to look at his tan, muscular neck or over his shoulder at the house. She chose the house, but the sight of the darkened window of her turret bedroom made her shiver.

Emmett closed the distance between them and cupped his hand around her shoulder. “You okay?”

It was tempting to be comforted by his touch, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he meant it romantically. He didn’t like her in
that
way. He wanted to be “friends.”

The pain of his rejection stung afresh. She shrugged his hand off and stepped out of reach. “’Course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

His hand fell to his side. “Um, you were sleeping in your car. What’s going on?”

What could she say?
There’s a ghost-shadow guy in the house, and I had a scary dream that might have been real, so now I’m too chickenshit to sleep in my own room
? No way was she going to tell him that. Besides, she didn’t owe him an explanation. Emmett Herald was nothing to her. He was worse than nothing. He was—dammit, why did he have to smell so good?

She huffed and strode to the sun porch, tossing her keys over her shoulder. “Move the car yourself. I need coffee.” She had to get away from him quick, before the concern on his face made her forgot how pissed she still was.

She heard him snag the keys out of the air. Then his boot steps pounded up the walk behind her.

“Hey.” He snagged the afghan as she pushed her front door open.

She glared at his hand until he let go, then strode inside.

He followed without an invitation.

So much for the perfect gentleman act. She wheeled around to tell him to get lost, but the look on his face stopped her.

There were faint lines at the corners of his eyes. His lips were pressed in a hard line. He looked like he’d been beating himself up about something since, oh, say, Sunday. There was also a worried tilt to his dark blond eyebrows. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said.

“Who says anything’s wrong? Can’t a girl catch a little catnap in her back seat?”

“I want to hear about that, too, but I’m also talking about this.” He motioned between them. “What is this? Why are you so mad at me? Is this about me not taking you to church?”

If they were going to have this talk, she so needed coffee. She draped the afghan over the banister and headed to the kitchen, resenting the thrill she got from the padding sounds of Emmett following her.

He leaned in the kitchen doorway as she filled the coffee maker with water and fished a filter out of the cabinet. As soon as the coffee was going, she plopped into a chair at the table, strategically choosing the one farthest away from Emmett and his pine-and-leather scented aftershave.

He stood with his eyebrows raised expectantly and his mouth curved into a patient smile, inviting her deepest secrets. He was wasting his talents running a lawn care business. With that expression, he should have been a priest.

But honest confession wasn’t her style.

She was a runner. Run from trouble. Run from pain. Run.

On the other hand, running was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. She’d run from Brad and ended up with her heart squished under Emmett’s boot heel. She’d run from Boston and ended up in a freaking haunted house.

Facing things head-on had worked the other night when she’d told Brad off. And it had kind of worked with Mr. Shadow. She hadn’t seen him since he’d disappeared into her basement, except for that mirror incident. But he hadn’t been scary then. He’d startled her, for sure, but in hindsight, he’d seemed so…nonthreatening. If she could just figure out how to face her unwanted dreams head on, she would be golden.

Remembering how her will had been smothered in her dream made her shiver. She wished she had Grandma Nina’s afghan around her shoulders again.

“Jeez, you look pale,” Emmett said as he pulled out the chair beside hers and sat down. He leaned forward with his brows drawn together. “Seriously, what’s going on?” He put his hand on her knee under the table.

She shoved it off. “You don’t have to act all concerned for me. We’re just friends, remember.”

His eyes flashed with affront. Then anger. “My friends are hurting, I’m there for them. Let me be there for you. Whatever’s got you wigged, let me help.”

She snorted. “I’m sure Chelsea, Mara, and Erin positively jump at the chance to let you shove your nose into their business, but I’m not one of your Christian gal pals. I can take care of myself.”

“What’s your problem with those girls? They’re good people.”

“And I’m not. I get it. No need to rub it in.” She pushed away from the table and stomped to the coffee pot to pour a cup. She took a scalding sip to calm her temper. It didn’t work. Plus, she hated the taste of black coffee. Damn it. Emmett made her lose her cool in a big way. She yanked open the fridge to fish out her flavored creamer. She knew from the scrape of chair legs on linoleum he’d stood up, but she refused to look at him.

“I didn’t say that. For crying out loud, Jade—”

“No. You don’t get to talk yet. I’m not done.” She dumped creamer in her coffee and took a big swallow. That was better. Coffee helped her think. The caffeine and sugar rush bolstered her courage. She was ready to face the pain he’d made her feel. She would do it for herself. She would do it for womankind. No more running.

After taking a moment to calm down and find her inside voice, she said, “Look, I know you probably don’t have many exotic dancers here in Dover, so I don’t blame you for being freaked. But did you have to shut me out like
that
after you figured it out?” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “It shouldn’t matter, but it did. It hurt when you judged me. And then it’s like you were too embarrassed to bring me to church, like you didn’t want your friends to see you hanging with the new town slut. There, I said it. Now it’s out in the open. Now you can take your self-righteous attitude and get lost.” She buried her face in her mug while waving him off with her free hand.

He didn’t budge. He blinked. Then his face screwed up. “You’re an exotic dancer? As in a stripper?”

Oh, shit.
That wasn’t why he’d gone all distant Friday night?

If he had blown her off for some other reason before, she sure didn’t want to see the look on his face now that her big bad secret was out. Her body tensed to run, but there was nowhere to go. Emmett was blocking the door out of the kitchen. She could run out the sliding glass door to the back yard, but that would just be stupid. With no reasonable escape open to her, she simply turned her back on him.

His arms came around her from behind. He plucked the mug from her hands and set it on the counter. Then he rocked her gently, resting his chin on her shoulder. Emmett’s tenderness was like a defibrillator jolt to her emotional center. It reset everything, killed the anger, made her soft when she wanted to be hard.

Damn it. She was blinking like a broken turn signal, trying not to cry. By holding her, Emmett proved he wasn’t judging her. He was being a friend in the truest sense of the word.

She’d lied the other day on the phone. She didn’t have enough friends. She had more than enough room for one more.

Maybe she was out of her mind, but she turned in his embrace to thank him for being so nice and to accept his offer of friendship. But the words never made it out.

Emmett lowered his face to hers and kissed her.

His lips were warm and soft, gentle yet insistent, shockingly accepting.

This was how their date should have ended Friday night. Just like this.

But they were just friends now. So what was he doing? She tucked her chin and pushed on his chest. “You kiss all your friends like that?”

He anchored his hands on her hips and touched his forehead to hers. They’d danced closer than this on Friday night. It had felt right then. Now, it felt…confusing. And why did he have to smell so edible? His aftershave plus the scent of fresh coffee made her mouth water. She wanted to lick him. Nibble him. God. This guy was too hot just to be friends with. Could that kiss have meant he was taking back the offer of friendship and offering more instead?

His eyes were wary, but his lips—his amazing, delicious lips—were smiling crookedly. “I like you, Jade.”

“As a friend?”

“Hell, no.”

She should push him away for making her feel so confused, but his thumbs were doing this soothing massaging thing over her hipbones. She pushed with her words instead. “You have a funny way of showing a girl you like her. You kick all your dates out of the car and burn rubber the second their feet hit pavement?”

He sighed through his nose. He kept one hand on her hip and shoved the other through his hair. “Jade—” He inhaled. “Man, that coffee smells good. Why don’t we sit?”

He led her back to the table, set her coffee down in front of her, and plucked a mug from her cabinets. He moved around her kitchen like he felt completely at home. “I didn’t burn rubber,” he said as he poured his coffee. He took it black.

“Well, you sure didn’t walk me to the doorstep and give me a kiss either. Don’t try telling me you weren’t in a hurry to get rid of me.”

He pulled up the chair beside hers and drummed his fingers on his mug. He looked like he was trying not to squirm.

She really, really wanted to see him squirm. It was the least he could do after what he’d put her through. “If it wasn’t my dancing, then what’s the deal? Why did Mr. Hot-Dancer turn into an ice cube?”

He readjusted his position in the chair, and she nearly bounced with glee. She did it! She made him squirm! She could get used to being direct.

He gave her the half smile, the one with the lone dimple, the one that was sweet and sinful all at the same time. But this half smile came with a hint of embarrassed blush. “I can see how you thought I was backing off because of your dancing. But that wasn’t it. Well, not the way you’re thinking.” He sipped his coffee and she mirrored him. “I guess I kind of freaked because I liked dancing with you so much.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if you know I’m a virgin and dancing with you almost made me come in my Levi’s.”

She choked on her coffee. A full minute of unattractive coughing and several good thumps on her back by Emmett, and she finally said, “Get out! Like a real virgin? You’ve never had sex?”

She’d assumed he would be weird about sex, but not having it? That was even weirder than she’d thought.

He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”

Now she was squirming in her chair. She suddenly felt uncomfortable, like maybe he thought she wanted to debauch him or whatever virginal church boys feared.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed, “I don’t know what to say. Should I be offended? Should I be relieved? What do you want from me here?”

“I just want you to listen. I’ve been trying to figure things out the past few days, and I decided I like you. A lot. But I’m not sure we’d be very compatible in a relationship. I like hanging out with you, though. You’re easy to talk to and fun to be around.”

So after that kiss, he was going to try going back to “friends.” Anger made her face hot. The only thing keeping her from telling him to get out and never come back was curiosity about the whole virgin thing.

How could a guy look and act like Emmett and be a virgin? He wasn’t even that young. The faint lines around his eyes put him closer to thirty than twenty. This had to be some kind of record or miracle or something. She was witnessing a miracle. A gorgeous, confident, late-twenties virgin.

Emmett stood up to pace the kitchen. Running his hand through his hair, he said, “I came here this morning all set to tell you I want us to be friends, like really, not just saying it. I want to hang out with you, joke around with you, you know? Then I see you sleeping in your car and looking beautiful and skittish, and I can’t stop thinking how I just want to hold you and protect you from the spiders or the dark or whatever has you so afraid.”