The Last Second Chance: A Small Town Love Story (Blue Moon Book 3) (23 page)

Joey stared at her plate and felt guilty. Things weren’t as settled as she hoped they were.

“So you guys are dating, huh?” Evan said, reaching for another helping.

“You got all that from gardening?” Joey asked.

“Girls make everything so much more difficult than they need to be,” Evan sighed.

“Amen to that brother,” Jax mumbled.

“It sounds like you have experience in matters of the heart,” Franklin prompted his grandson.

Evan shrugged. “Girls are okay. But some of them just drive you nuts. Take Oceana for example.”

Joey smirked into her water glass. Oceana was in Evan’s grade at school. The girl had an IQ bigger than most forty-year-olds and the face of a future heartbreaker. She lived on a sheep farm on the other side of town and her hobbies included meditation and the manufacturing of soy candles.

“What about Oceana?” Jax, the proud uncle, was all ears.

“Well, we’re kind of seeing each other and I noticed she’d moved some things into my locker, which was fine with me. But when I said that she could move all her stuff into my locker she got all weird and moved all her stuff out.”

“Maybe she needed space and she wants you to leave her alone,” Joey suggested a little more defensively than she meant to.

“Maybe she just thinks she needs space and what she really needs is a good push in the right direction,” Jax suggested stubbornly.

“Maybe Evan has a better solution,” Phoebe suggested.

Evan shrugged. “I did what any normal human being would do. I laid out all the benefits to sharing a locker like we would be able to see each other more between classes and I explained to her that that’s the direction I’d like to see us move in and if she’s not ready for such a commitment I’d understand and we could still be friends. She’s not the only Oceana in the sea and if we weren’t meant to be, we weren’t meant to be.”

“So what did she do?” Jax asked with rapt attention.

Evan grinned and twirled spaghetti noodles on his fork. “Let’s just say it’s a lot harder to find my math book now.”

“
R
elax
, Jojo,” Jax said, covering her hand on the seat’s armrest with his own.

The plane leveled off its ascent as they headed west. Away from the farm and the horses. Away from her house and her dog.

L.A. was not her idea of a vacation—sign her up for a booze fest on a tropical beach—but she had to admit, she was curious about seeing the lure of the place Jax had called home for so many years.

“Are you sure Carter can handle everything?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

“What if Waffles misses me and won’t eat?”

“Then you can video chat with him and make him eat.”

Joey knew she was being ridiculous, but couldn’t seem to help it. It had been a long time since she’d been so far away from the stables and the farm. And the last time, a family beach vacation with her parents and sister, she hadn’t been in charge of a dog, thirty horses, and a calendar full of lessons.

She stretched her long legs forward, appreciating the legroom that first class provided and wondered what that extra twelve inches cost. When she’d asked, Jax told her not to worry about it. The studio paid for travel to premieres, which was good news for her that she didn’t have to dip into her nest egg and scrunch herself into coach between Jax and some guy who smelled like an ashtray and snored.

She smiled to herself. “It’s like we’re finally taking that trip we talked about that night in the car,” she told him.

Jax flinched and rubbed her hand silently.

“What’s wrong? Are you nervous about flying?” Joey asked.

Jax shook his head. “I just don’t like thinking about that night.”

“I don’t remember much about the…after,” she confessed. “What do you remember?”

What happened to make him leave the hospital, pack a bag, and leave her? What happened in those hours that changed the course of both their lives?

“Jojo, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

She bit her tongue and let it drop. Maybe not knowing was better somehow?
Probably not.

Jax sighed heavily next to her. “After the crash it was so quiet. It smelled like engine coolant, you know that maple syrup smell? I couldn’t see much. I’d hit my head on the steering wheel and there was blood in my eyes.” His voice tightened at the memories.

Joey squeezed his hand.

“I looked over at you, touched you. There was so much blood and you weren’t moving. You were slumped forward over the seatbelt. I thought you were gone,” he whispered the words.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened next. I think there was a car behind us that saw the whole thing. The guy pulled me out of the car, but we couldn’t get your door open. You still weren’t moving.” He shook his head.

“I got back in the car with you. There were lights, sirens coming, and then I could see where the blood was coming from.” He took her right hand, rolled her arm over and traced the thin scar that zigged and zagged its way from wrist to elbow.”

The guy who stopped was a nurse and as soon as he said “artery” my heart stopped. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around your arm, put pressure on it and the next thing I know is the EMTs are there, saying they got you. But I couldn’t let go.”

Joey turned her arm over, pulled his hand into her lap. She felt guilty that her need to know hurt him by remembering. She wished she could take the memories from him. Wished that she could change the events of the past for them both. But that wasn’t possible and the only way out of those memories was through them.

She didn’t want him to hurt anymore so she changed the subject.

“So what kind of a dress am I going to have to wear tomorrow?”

E
verything about L.A. was excessive
. From the glossy black Uber with tinted windows that picked them up at the airport to the hotel suite that was bigger than the first floor of her house. “This shower could hold twelve people,” Joey’s voice echoed off the bathroom walls and fixtures that gleamed gold in the late afternoon sun. “Even the walls are marble.”

Jax leaned against the doorframe and watched her lean in to examine the goose-necked tub faucet. “This is insane. Do you know how many horses I could buy with what it cost to outfit this bathroom?”

She pushed past him and walked into the suite’s bedroom. “This can’t be a king-size. This is like NBA-player size,” she said, flopping down on the cloud-like mattress. “I can roll one, two, three, four, five, six times before I get to the other edge,” she demonstrated. Jax let her flop over on her back in the center of the bed before launching himself at her.

“Do all screenwriters get digs like this?” Joey asked as Jax settled himself between her legs, resting his weight on his hands.

“Ones who win side bets with a producer do. Do you want to have dinner here or go out?”

“Do we have to wear clothes if we have dinner here?” Joey asked dipping her fingers into the scooped neckline of her shirt.

“Mmm,” Jax nuzzled into her neck. “Clothing is entirely optional. I’ll call room service.”

They dined in their suite, enjoying wine, white sea bass, and a steak so tender Joey barely needed to chew it. The sun set low over the hill casting a rosy glow through the wall of glass. Slow rock from the state-of-the-art stereo played softly in the background.

Joey could still see the shadows of memories in those gray eyes. She’d put them there with her questions on the plane. She reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Jax.”

He lifted his gaze from the wine glass he’d been staring into pensively.

“I’m going to whip out my Blue Moon hippie logic here. Did you ever think that maybe the accident was supposed to happen?” Joey asked.

“Like destiny?”

She nodded. “And destiny isn’t a mistake.”

“So, I was meant to leave?”

“Jax, we’re going to the premiere of a movie you wrote. One of the movies you wrote. Don’t think for a second that would have happened without the accident. Sure, maybe we would have gone on our road trip, but we would have come back. I would have made you come back. I had our future already mapped out and L.A. and movies and orgy showers were not part of the plan.”

“I could have said no.”

Joey grinned. “Please. Eighteen-year-old Jax couldn’t say no to me. He was too hampered by respect and wanting desperately to make sure I got everything I wanted.”

“Sounds like twenty-seven-year-old Jax, too,” he smiled wryly.

“Maybe it does.”

“But you need to consider something else with that Blue Moon hippie logic. If I was meant to leave, then I was also meant to come back.”

It was Joey’s turn to study her wine. “Maybe you were.”

“And if I was meant to come back, then maybe we’re meant to be.”

She took a long swallow of wine and stared hard at the last sliver of sun as it disappeared behind the far off hill. “Maybe we are.”

She said it softly, but the way his gaze sharpened, the way his muscles tightened under her hand, she knew he heard her. Knew he heard the significance.

“You’re different now,” she said quietly. “But so am I. We’re both stronger, sharper. We challenge the hell out of each other, but you get me. You honestly get me. And I keep waiting and watching, looking for that sign of ‘he’s going to bolt again’ or ‘he’s going to break my heart again.’ And damnit, Jax, I’m so tired of waiting and watching.”

The intensity of his gaze burned through her. She was under a spotlight and he was the one watching and waiting now.

“What exactly are you saying, Joey?”

She could feel the tension coursing through him like a current. He wanted the words and for the first time, she wanted to say them.

“I’m saying that…” God, she just couldn’t get them out. Eight years of walls and hurt. She took a slow deep breath. “I’m saying…I have to go to the bathroom.”

She stood up and ran full speed into the cavern of marble. Slamming the door, she pulled out her cellphone and started typing frantically.

S
ummer responded immediately
.

J
oey rolled
her eyes and then did as Summer told her. She swiped a finger under each eye, ran a brush through her hair, and checked her teeth for dinner.

G
ia chimed in a second later
.

J
oey chewed on her lip
.

A
series
of smiley face emojis exploded on her screen.

“
S
hit
,” Joey muttered. She tossed her phone and her unhelpful friends onto the bathroom counter and stormed through the door before she could lose her nerve…and before big mouths Beckett and Carter could get to Jax first.

“Put your phone down,” she said, when she spotted him by the window, phone in hand.

“Okaaaaay.” Jax put the phone down on the table like it was a gun and she was the cops.

Joey stopped inches in front of him.

“I’m saying let’s plant a damn garden.”

She was in his arms before the words were completely out. “This is all I’ve wanted for so long and all I can think is to ask if you’re sure. Are you sure, Jojo? Are you really sure?”

She wet her lips and nodded. “As sure as I can be.”

He brought his lips to hers, his fingers gently held her steady. It was a slow burn and Joey felt the locks inside that had been sealed so long ago start to give.

“I’m scared.” She hadn’t realized she’d said the words out loud until Jax pulled back a millimeter.

“I am, too,” he whispered over her mouth. “Terrified, actually.”

“But we’re still going to do this, right?”

“Jojo, all the best things are scary. And you’re the scariest.”

“That’s weirdly sweet,” she said, moving in to feel his heat against her. To get closer to him and make everything else disappear. Her fingers dug into his shirt, desperate to cling. “Did you know everything is always better when you’re touching me?”

He had no words, but the fire in his eyes told her he felt the same. His hands were moving down her arms, up her back, stroking her and keeping her close. A sensual prison that she had no desire to escape.

“Show me what it’s like, Jax.”

“What what’s like, Jojo?”

“Show me what it’s like to be loved.”

Emotion keen and bright lit his cool gray eyes. His hands gentled and returned to trace her jaw. “You’re the reason my heart beats,” he whispered the words against her lips, sweetly softly.

She shivered and Jax drew her closer. When his lips pressed hers, she felt a slow burn spread through her body like the glow of a sunrise. New beginnings all had a shine like this, bright and warm.

He sampled her slowly as if he had all the time in the world to explore her. Joey’s breath came in hitches. “I can’t breathe,” she whispered.

Jax released her mouth and brought his forehead to hers. His thumbs made lazy circles on the hollows of her cheeks. They swayed from side to side to the music they’d both forgotten.

“Better?” he asked, his voice a rasp.

She nodded.

He lowered to her again, gently tasting. He turned her slowly so her back was to the cool glass of the window. There, with the city behind her, he lifted the hem of her t-shirt and slid his hands under it. His palms skimmed up and her arms rose of their own accord. Free of her shirt, Joey brought her hands to Jax’s broad, shoulders as he sunk to his knees.

He rained kisses across her chest and down her belly and when his fingers dipped into the waistband of her jeans, her head fell back against the glass, hit with a thump. He worked her jeans down her legs, letting his fingertips skim the outside of her bare legs as the denim bunched at her ankles. He guided one foot at a time out of her jeans and threw them aside, before working his way back up.

His busy mouth spent a few extra seconds sampling the flesh around her simple black briefs before pressing against the exact spot that thrummed a hard beat.

Her words were gone, her voice missing. All she could do was sigh with pleasure as she felt his tongue brush flesh through cotton. Too soon, he rose higher, pausing again to nibble his way over the curves of both breasts, his tongue teasing the edge of the black lace that separated him from her.

When his hands skimmed around her back, Joey bit her lip. With a deft flick, he released her bra closure. “Slide the straps down your arms,” he ordered, and she complied without hesitation.

Her hands shook as she knocked the straps off both shoulders, let them fall to her elbows. When she dropped her hands the bra tumbled to the floor and his callused palms were there waiting to catch her breasts.

His thumbs brushed her nipples, once, twice, inciting. Another gasp tore from her lips. “Jax.” His name rose unbidden from a throat tight with emotion.