Jane Austen Girl (18 page)

“Grier. We both know this isn’t a good idea.” His voice was rough at the edges, as if it wasn’t easy to say what he’d just said.

“Would you do it anyway?”

He hesitated for a second during which she thought he would simply say no. But then he made a low sound of defeat and sank his mouth onto hers.

The kiss was unlike any she had ever known. Grier thought maybe this was what the princess in all those fairy tales felt like when the prince finally kissed her and brought her back to life.

Because that’s what Bobby Jack’s kiss did for her. Filled her with helium-like happiness so that she turned into him and looped her arms around the back of his neck, seeking any way at all to get closer to him.

He made another sound of defeat and slipped his hands under her arms, lifting her quickly, deliberately, onto his lap. They kissed like that for minutes on end. Two people who hadn’t realized their thirst for one another until now. There simply wasn’t enough for either’s quenching.

He rolled her then onto her back, flat onto the grass, following her, his body heavy and pleasantly hard, one leg in between hers. He slipped a hand under her thin T-shirt, anchoring his palm to her waist.

The kissing went on until Grier felt all but drugged by it, her response to him one over which she had no desire to control.

“Grier,” he said, “one of us has to stop this.”

She wanted to ask him why, but at the same time, knew she could recite at least a dozen immediate reasons for the fact that he was right.

He rolled off her, lay flat on his back looking up at the sky, dragging in deep, leveling breaths, and then clamoring to his feet as if someone had just taken a bullwhip to his back.

He walked straight to the truck where he opened the door and braced himself against the frame with two hands. Grier waited for her breathing to even, stood, picked up her sandals, and walked back to the truck, getting in on the passenger side and putting herself as close to the door as she could.

After a couple of minutes, Bobby Jack got inside, leaned both elbows on the steering wheel, still not letting himself look at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t need to be sorry. I asked you to kiss me.”

“I wanted to kiss you.”

“Are you apologizing for giving in or for wanting to?”

“Both.”

“It’s okay, Bobby Jack.”

They sat quiet for a stretch of minutes, during which reason got a foothold.

“Tell me about you,” he said, his voice low and interested.

“What do you want to know?”

“Right now, everything.”

A spark of surprise fluttered through her. “I doubt you’d really want to know everything.”

“You’d be wrong.”

“Ask me a question.”

“Favorite way to spend a Saturday morning?”

“Getting in a long run. Yours?”

“A hike with Flo up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.” He hesitated and then, “Best book you’ve ever read?”

“
Pride and Prejudice
. Yours?”

“
Swiss Family Robinson
. Taught me how to be enterprising.”

Grier smiled and nodded.

“I read your blog,” Bobby Jack said, turning his head to look at her.

Surprised, she said, “Oh?”

“Good stuff.”

“Thanks.”

“Why ‘Jane Austen Girl’?”

She considered the question for a moment and then, “I think she tried to be truthful about life as she saw it. I guess as a reminder to myself to do the same.”

“Even when the view’s less than perfect?”

“Even when.”

Outside the truck, cricket frogs chirped in unison. The sound reminded Grier of summer nights as a child when she’d slept with her window open. And she felt something for this place where she had grown up, something deep and connected. The feeling surprised her, in light of everything that had happened that afternoon and her mixed emotions about her mother.

“I like you, Grier.”

“I like you, too, Bobby Jack.”

“But this probably isn’t going to work, is it?”

“Probably not,” she said, honesty forcing itself out.

“We’d be crazy to act on lust alone, right?”

“Right.”

He reached across and twined his fingers with hers, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Wanna be stupid?”

“I really do,” she said, tracing his palm with one finger.

He leaned over and kissed her, hard and deep. Her response felt like she’d been ignited from inside. She kissed him back, just as hard and just as deep.

When they were both breathing as if they couldn’t get in enough air, he ran both his hands through her hair and stared down into her face. “I’m taking you back. And tomorrow, I know I’m going to kick myself.”

“I should feel lucky, right?”

“And I should feel respectful, right?”

She smiled and dropped her head back. “That’s us. Lucky and respectful.”

“Dang, woman, you’re not making this easy,” he said, a half-laugh accompanying the words. He cranked the truck, swung it around in the grass field, and headed down the narrow gravel road.

Grier lowered her window and stuck her head out in the night air, letting the wind cement her resolve.

By the time they arrived back at the Beer Boot, she was as sober as she had ever been in her life.

Bobby Jack pulled in next to her BMW. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Perfect,” Grier said.

“Grier—”

 “Don’t,” she said, raising a hand. “I know exactly how much I’m going to regret all this in the morning.”

“I’ll follow you back to the Inn,” he said.

“No, really, I’m good.” She got out of the truck, found her keys and got in the car, all without looking at him again.

She pulled out of the lot and headed back toward town. It didn’t surprise her in the least that Bobby Jack’s headlights stayed in her rear view mirror until she made the turn into the Inn’s parking lot.

“I think inconsistency is the main weapon women use to keep us guessing. The only thing I don’t guess about anymore is that whatever assumption I make where a woman is concerned will end up being wrong. That’s consistent.”

Darryl Lee to Bobby Jack two beers short of a six-pack after a college girlfriend broke his heart

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The downstairs lights were all on when Bobby Jack let himself in the front door to the house.

“Andy?” he called out, walking through the foyer to the kitchen. His daughter sat on a bar stool, her gaze on a book, a glass of milk in her right hand. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, without looking up. “Where’ve you been?”

Bobby Jack blinked at the sharpness of the question. “Out,” he said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a half-gallon jug of orange juice.

“Who with?”

Uncomfortable with the answer, he started to say no one, but he never lied to Andy. He wasn’t going to start now. “Grier.”

Andy looked up then, surprise widening her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I never said I didn’t like her.”

“Didn’t want anything to do with her then.”

“She was out at the Beer Boot. She went to see her mom this afternoon at the retirement home. She’d had a little too much to drink.”

“Oh,” Andy said. “So you took her home?”

“We drove around for a bit, and I followed her back to the Inn.” He left out the part about Darryl Lee acting like an ass, figuring they didn’t need to go there tonight.

“So you do like her?”

Bobby Jack took a long swig of his orange juice and avoided answering. “I just helped her out, Andy.”

“Then why’s your hair all messed up? And is that lipstick at the corner of your mouth?”

He ran one hand across the top of his head and scrubbed the other across his lips. “Long day,” he said.

“Does that explain the hair or the lipstick?”

“Okay, smarty pants. Time for bed.”

Andy got down from the bar stool and closed her book. “You like her.”

Bobby Jack didn’t think she sounded too happy about the conclusion. “You better head up to bed,” he said. “What are you still doing up, anyway?”

“Waiting on you,” she said and brushed past him, leaving the kitchen without saying goodnight.

Bobby Jack stood still, listening to her footsteps on the stairs. What the heck? Would the day ever come when he could even begin to understand women?

He started to go to her room and ask for an explanation, but it was late, and he wasn’t sure he had the energy.

Instead, he went outside and sat on the patio, stretching his legs in front of him and staring up at the star-speckled sky.

Grier’s face came taunting, and with it instant memory of what it felt like to kiss her beautiful mouth. Sweet, soft, insistent.

Bobby Jack was no stranger to kissing. He’d dated his share of girls before Priscilla. And Priscilla herself had taught him a thing or two.

But he didn’t remember it once ever feeling the way it felt tonight with Grier. Like the lock had never really fully clicked into place until he kissed her. Felt her melt into him. Wrap her arms around him as if she never wanted him to let her go.

And Heaven help him. He hadn’t wanted to.

Sitting here with nothing but darkness and common sense surrounding him, he knew what a mistake it would have been to let that happen.

Ever since the split between Priscilla and him, Bobby Jack had focused his whole life on raising Andy. There had been a few casual relationships along the way, but nothing that had ever threatened to redefine his life. They’d been women he had no intention of marrying, and for the most part, they had known as much.

But Grier was different. Grier was a life-changer. The kind of woman who made a man toss out every resolution he’d ever made about staying single and keeping life simple.

Nothing about Grier would be simple. As if her history with Darryl Lee weren’t enough, she lived in New York City, another planet as far as he was concerned. Their lifestyles couldn’t be any more different had they designed them to be polar opposites.

And wasn’t that what they were when it came right down to it?

He had a teenage daughter who clearly needed his focus. And Grier had a career that she put everything into.

By his own admission, taking things any further would have been a gigantic mistake. Some things were right. And some weren’t.

Why, then, didn’t he feel grateful for the save?

I believe it was Cicero who said we should

not consider every mistake a foolish one.

I’m not so sure he was right about that.

Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Grier woke the next morning to the kind of headache that felt as if every ounce of moisture had been sucked from her body, leaving her brain to thump out its pitiful plea for water in regreter’s Morse code.

The alarm beside the bed began its squawk of warning that she was about to miss the start of the day. She slapped the top of the clock with an open palm until she hit the right button, and the squawking ceased. She sat up on the edge of the bed, heard Sebbie thump his tail against the pillow behind her, and managed, “Good morning.”

He thumped harder, and she felt a sympathetic lick at her elbow.

“I know, I know, I deserve it.” She walked to the bathroom, downed a couple glasses of water, all the while refusing to look at herself in the mirror. She got in the shower and stood under the spray, letting the water slide across her face.

Would there really be anything so wrong with packing up the car and heading back? It had been a horrible, horrible, horrible idea to come here in the first place. What would happen if she simply tore up the contract and drove back to the city? The answers were obvious. She’d be facing enough lawsuits to choke the last few breaths of air from her business, for one. And her personal banking account couldn’t afford those kinds of legal fees, either.

She got dressed, grabbed Sebbie’s leash, and took him outside to go potty. She then took the sidewalk to the bakery just down the street, hoping they’d be open with some hot, fresh coffee.

They were open, but Priscilla Randall’s banana-yellow Corvette sat parked out front. If the pull of caffeine hadn’t been so strong, Grier would have turned around and left right then. Her pounding head prodded her on, and she scooped up Sebbie and went inside.

Priscilla turned at the sound of the door’s tingling bell, her eyes going wide at the sight of Grier.

“Good morning,” Grier said.

“Well, good morning to you,” Priscilla replied with sauce in her voice.

Grier walked to the counter, determined to order her coffee and leave. But she could tell by the other woman’s stance that it probably wasn’t going to be that easy. “You don’t waste any time, do you, honey?” Priscilla said.

Grier tried not to roll her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, news around town is you got both the Randall boys wrapped around your pinkie finger. And my daughter, too.”

“Whatever you’re hearing,” Grier said wearily, “isn’t true.”

“Well, there’s always a speck of truth to every rumor. The question is, how big is the speck?”

The young boy working the cash register asked for Grier’s order, and she requested a large black coffee. “Be right back,” he said.

“No bagel?” Priscilla prompted. “Oh, but I guess carbs probably aren’t part of the Jane Austen Girl plan, huh?”

By now Grier had had enough. She tucked Sebbie tighter under her right arm, angled her body at Priscilla, and said, “You have no idea exactly how much I want to leave this place right now and never look back. Whatever it is you think I’m here to get, you’re wrong if it includes anything other than finishing up this show and going back where I belong.”

“Well, that’s just fine, as long as you don’t plan on taking any of us with you. Or what belongs to any of us.”

Grier told herself to bite her tongue, but the words were out before she could stop them. “I was under the impression that you and Bobby Jack are divorced.”

“That may be, but you know there are still times when I lie awake at night, and think about the way he used to make love to me. Like one long passionate adventure. That I’d like to have back again.”