Another Monday and another craptastic day in the books. Ana sighed as she slid into the booth across from Jackson Harper. She desperately needed to unwind after today, hence her calling Jackson and asking if he wanted to get together. No matter that she had several hours of work to do when she got home; she needed this.
Jackson gave her a tight smile, his cheeks staying flat as his mouth pulled at the edges. His features echoed his sister Jasmine’s: deep bronze skin, a mouth continually quirked up in half a smile, set off by a somewhat pointed chin. But while Jasmine’s eyes were light brown, Jackson’s eyes were the most extraordinary shade of golden-green. If Ana hadn’t been friends with him since forever, the sight of those eyes would make her gasp each and every time.
“What’s with you?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He rolled his beer from one hand to the other. “You look tired.”
She shrugged and took a sip of her soda. “I’m not any more tired than usual. I just… I needed to get away from work for a bit.”
“I know the feeling. Why didn’t you want to meet at Gerry’s?”
“A long story.” She didn’t want to talk about how Luke had ruined that place for her, without even actually being in there with her at any point.
“How’s your training going?”
“Fine.” She’d told Jackson right after she’d agreed to train with Luke. Jackson was touchy around the subject of the Merrills, and she wanted any nasty surprises to come from her. Other than making several pointed comments about her change of heart, he’d left the issue alone.
“We’ve only met the once so far,” she said. And I gave him a black eye. But she hadn’t breathed that to anyone. Not that it would be a secret if they saw Luke’s face.
She’d been waiting all week for Luke to call her so that they could go for a run. She’d even postponed her own run for a few days in case he contacted her. But he never had.
Maybe after she’d smashed his eye socket in, he was over this whole training-together thing.
“Huh.” Jackson drained the last of his beer and raised a hand to get the waitress’s attention.
“Are you and Luke still friends?”
The hand he’d raised fell. “What?”
“You heard me.” She and Jackson had been friends almost as long as he and Luke had been friends. She and Jackson had been in the same first grade class—she’d accidentally bloodied his nose with a basketball at recess one day. When, much to her panic, he’d burst into tears, she’d announced, “You can’t cry at me. We’re friends.” And they had been ever since.
But when Jackson had introduced her to his friend Luke, she hadn’t been impressed. And they’d managed to keep the circles of their friendship from intersecting.
His jaw worked as he stared at the table. “We’re not… not friends.” He pulled at the corner of the bottle label. “We talk. It’s just not like before.” He caught the waitress’s eye and pointed to his empty bottle. “What’s it to you? You hate him.”
He never once met her eyes.
She shrugged. “We’re doing this race together.” Which wasn’t exactly a denial, but high school was ages ago.
“For work.” He nodded his thanks to the waitress as she set his beer before him. “Aren’t you worried about how this looks, you and Luke hanging out together? What did your mom say?”
“To be careful around him.”
“Good advice.”
Ana gritted her teeth. Luke had once been good enough to be best friends with Jackson, but now he had to warn her about him?
It was ridiculous to think Luke might seduce trade secrets out of her. He wasn’t attracted to her, and she wasn’t attracted to him. Never had been.
Except when you were getting all hot and bothered in his home gym there.
She shook her head. Everyone’s paranoia was infecting her. This was only about the charity run. Doing this with him wouldn’t hurt her standing or her family’s in the community. And she had nothing to fear from Luke.
Jackson aimed the neck of his bottle at her. “My turn now. You might not hate Luke, but you sure don’t like him. Why is that? At least I have an excuse.”
She didn’t want to think about why she disliked him. He’s spoiled, too charming, everything comes so damn easy for him. She sounded like the one with the problem when she put it like that.
“I thought you said you were still kind of friends,” she pointed out, hoping to sidetrack him. “But now you don’t like him?”
Jackson sighed. “All right, radical honesty time: I fucking hate Josh. If he showed up here, I’d be hard-pressed not to beat the shit out of him.” He rolled his knuckle slowly, almost lovingly, along the tabletop. Ana shivered. “And Luke… Luke was like my brother, man.” His voice caught on that and then hardened again. “But after what Josh did to my sister, my hate for his brother crowded out my friendship with Luke.” He shrugged, the motion jagged. “I’m not happy about it, any of it, but it is what it is.”
For all that his words were calibrated to be final, his tone was anything but.
“What really happened?” she asked.
He slid her a look. “You know the story.”
“I read the papers, but I never heard the story from someone connected with Josh or Leonora.” Here in Cabrillo, there was always more than one way to tell a story. The newspaper would tell the bare facts—or depending on who was writing the story, add their own interpretation—and then there were the nuances, the details, the layers that came from everyone else’s perspective.
She wanted Jackson’s specific perspective on this one. She’d never asked him before, out of solidarity, but the accident had happened five years ago. Asking now wasn’t so unreasonable.
“You are connected with Leonora,” he said.
Cute evasion, but it wasn’t going to work. “Us sharing a great-great-grandmother wasn’t quite enough of a connection.”
Jackson grinned. “That mean I can’t call you coz?”
“You’re stalling.” She leaned back and crossed her arms, putting on her “talk or else” expression.
His gaze cut away to his beer, his thumb rubbing the label into fragments. “It’s damn painful, that’s why. Josh and Leonora were out drinking, at one of Cody Stark’s parties.” He took a rough breath. “Luke and I were there too.”
“Jesus. I never knew that.” That definitely had not been in the papers. But why would it be? Cody threw big parties—half the people their age in Cabrillo would have been there.
But not Ana. Drunk people made her nervous. Alcohol was a fool’s game. It made you stupid, and Ana hated feeling stupid. She’d never touched the stuff, which hadn’t made her too popular in college.
Luke had been popular in college.
She set her jaw and refocused on Jackson.
“Anyway, we both saw how drunk Josh was,” he was saying. “We agreed we’d get his keys, keep the two of them from leaving. And then we got distracted. The two of them slipped out.” The label on his bottle was obliterated now. “And Josh wrecked the car.”
Which meant that both he and Luke felt responsible. Although Luke never talked about his brother, at least not to her, so she might never be able to verify that last. But she could guess.
Jackson tapped the bottle meditatively against the bar. “Leonora was in the ICU for a week and then the hospital for a month.”
Ana did know that. They’d brought food for Mrs. Harper during that time. The whole family had been so terribly shaken. Ana felt sick just remembering. She swallowed that down. “But she’s better now,” she offered. “She got that job at the library.”
“Yeah, she can work—at least at certain jobs, but she can’t drive, thanks to her spells. Her short-term memory is spotty and she… The brain injury changed her. She’s not the Leonora I grew up with. I love her, and she’s still the most awesome person I know… just a different kind of awesome.”
She understood why he wanted to hurt Josh. If anything like that happened to Sara or Lori—God, she couldn’t even finish that thought—she’d feel exactly like Jackson did.
And Luke shared some of the bitter guilt that was souring Jackson’s expression.
“Have you talked about this with Luke—the sense of guilt you both share?” Weirdly enough, Luke was the only person in a position to really understand what Jackson had gone through.
“What the fuck?” He shoved the bottle away. “I’m not guilty. It’s all Josh’s fault.”
She sighed. She should have known Jackson would shut down when she tried that—he wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy. “I’m only suggesting that you and Luke might want to sit down and talk about what happened. Not to be friends again but to clear the air.”
“Maybe. What do you care? You’ve never brought it up before now.”
“Like I said, I’m doing this race with him. And I was curious about your history.”
“Well, now you know.” Clearly, the matter was closed. “How’s work?”
“Okay. They brought in this outside consultant to see if there’s any room for improvements in the resort. She thinks all this community stuff I do is worthless.” Ana put community stuff in air quotes, rolling her eyes as she did. She could let all her annoyance unfurl here, in front of Jackson. There was no need to be politic with him.
“She said that?”
Ana pondered that. “No, she didn’t say it outright. More a feeling I got. Anyway, I want to use this charity race to prove that it does have its place. That stuff matters.”
“I agree.”
“Thank you, but I need to get her to agree. Which is why I want to win this race.” Now it was her turn to play with her drink as she thought through some difficult stuff. “Do you think I take on too much?”
Jackson had no investment in any of it—her work at the resort, her work for the tribe, her helping her sister—so he’d be the best neutral viewpoint on the issue. Which she desperately needed.
“Do you feel like you take on too much?”
“Before Linda or this consultant said anything, I would have said no. But now… Well, I’m noticing things. Like I’m missing out on stuff I really want to do because I’ve already scheduled an event. I have to keep telling Sara no on babysitting. And sometimes I look at my planner and I can’t breathe.” It was more than sometimes lately—it was nearly every day. And along with the not breathing, she wanted to cry. “I’m wondering if it’s really an issue, or if now that they’ve put it in my mind, I’m making it an issue.”
“Honestly…” He searched for the words. “I was pretty surprised when you called and wanted to meet up. You haven’t done that in a long time.”
“Really?” She went over the past few months, trying to find a meeting with Jackson there. “We met up… Oh God, you’re right. It’s been at least six months. I’m sorry; I’ve been a bad friend.”
Jackson flashed her a smile. “Yeah, I’ve been crying into my pillow thinking you hated me. Look, I know you’ve been busy. I completely understand. But I’m glad we were able to get together.”
She flashed her own smile. “Me too.” Maybe she should cut back some, if only to have time to catch up like this. She was almost rejuvenated enough to tackle the work still waiting for her at home.
Jackson glanced at the door and then did a double take, going rigid.
“What is it?” She twisted in the booth to see for herself.
Luke was walking into the bar.
When he saw her, his expression bloomed into a smile, his big hand coming up to wave at her. She found herself smiling back, her own hand mirroring his. She’d given him one hell of a black eye—it gleamed a deep purple even under the soft lights of the bar—and still he’d lit up when he’d realized she was there.
But he must have seen Jackson then, because his expression went stiff and his wave ended up being halfhearted.
“Hey,” he called across the room.
“Hey yourself,” she said.
He turned, ready to disappear into the crowd.
“Why don’t you sit with us?”
Jackson made a strangled noise behind her. She ignored it. He’d said they weren’t not friends. So they could all share a drink as something other than friends. And maybe Luke and Jackson would take those first steps toward speaking with each other again.
Besides, the sight of Luke’s shiner was making her feel guilty all over again.
Luke walked over slowly, coming to stand at the edge of their table. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re not.”
Jackson kept quiet.
Luke looked from her to Jackson, then back again. “If you’re sure.”
Ana gave Jackson a pointed look. If he didn’t want Luke to sit with them, he’d say so. He wasn’t afraid to call bullshit when he smelled it. Were they not not friends or what?
And why do you care?
Because I care about Jackson. This is hurting him.
Jackson cleared his throat. “Yeah. We’re sure.”
A beat of silence, and then Luke was sliding in next to her. Which of course he would—he wasn’t going to sit next to Jackson—but she was still caught off guard.
He must have recently showered since the smell of soap and shampoo clung to him. He eased his hat off, setting it on the table between them, and his dark hair was slick and damp.
She scooted over to make room, tossing a strand of her own hair over her shoulder as she did.
A beat passed between them all. Luke was big and close, seeming to take up too much space. She stared at the scarred tabletop, trying not to regret her crazy impulse, while Jackson stared at his own beer.
“Sooo, how was everyone’s day?” she chirped just a bit too brightly.
The tension cracked but didn’t disappear entirely. Luke might have been laughing silently next to her, judging by how his shoulders shook, and Jackson had a half smile aimed at the bottle in his hand.
“Fine,” Jackson said, shooting her a look from beneath his brows.
“Good. Good to hear.” She kept up the fake cheer, hoping to keep hammering at the awkwardness.
“Mine was awful,” Luke drawled, “but thanks for asking.”
The waitress came over then. “Hey, darling,” she said to Luke. Clearly they knew each other. Were fond of each other.
“Sweetheart, I am so glad to see you,” Luke said. “My favorite person here.”
If Ana had had a fork at that moment, she would have driven it right into his thigh. Deep into those thick, hard muscles girding it. He just had to flirt with everyone, didn’t he? God forbid he drop the charm act ever.
“I was so glad to see you walk in.” The waitress gave him a smile that had happiness, invitation, and memories with it. It was the most speaking smile Ana had ever seen.
And Luke probably heard every word.
Ana forced her jaw to relax. It wasn’t any of her business. She had enough monkeys and circuses on her hands without getting worked up over Luke.
The waitress then looked between the three of them, her happy expression fading.
Suddenly Ana remembered who the waitress was. Betsy or Birdie or something old-fashioned like that—she was maybe a year or two younger than Sara.
Right now she looked as though she smelled something bad.
“Can I get a root beer?” Luke asked.
Betsy pulled a forced smile. “You know, we’ve got space at the bar.”
Luke blinked at her, but Ana instantly knew what she meant by that: Luke didn’t have to sit with her and Jackson. And honestly, why would he want to? It was well known she and Jackson didn’t like him.
“Uh, that’s okay,” Luke said. “I’m fine here. With a root beer.”
Betsy’s eyes narrowed as if she sensed some gossip here. Ana could just imagine what stories might make the rounds tomorrow.
“Your usual then?” Betsy asked.
He nodded. “Thank you, darling.”
His usual was root beer? That was so unexpected, Ana didn’t even bother to close her mouth, although she had to look ridiculous.
She was so used to being the only person not drinking it was a head trip to have company. The dynamic between the three of them shifted, her and Luke not drinking on one side, with Jackson and his beer on the other. Silly that alcohol had so much power, but it did.
Luke shifted the angle of his shoulders, changing the space between him and Ana. “How was your day?”
She smiled at his “Fifties TV dad comes home” tone. “It’s not over yet.”
Jackson cleared his throat. “Ana here is worried about burning out.”
Her cheeks heated. “Aren’t we here to talk about fun stuff?”
Jackson gave her another look from beneath his brows. He knew this wasn’t a chance meeting between three old friends like she was pretending.
Luke shifted, his leg brushing hers. She didn’t flinch, but her insides went sideways for a moment.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s talk about something fun.”
Another beat passed. Ana could see why they’d never all hung out together in high school. That and the fact that she’d hated Luke.
The waitress came back then, setting a glass before Luke. She set a hand to her hip, cocking it. “Is your eye okay?”
Heat and pressure built in Ana’s eardrums, and she ducked toward her own drink, hiding her face. This was going to be bad.
“It’s fine,” Luke said stiffly.
Her skin prickled with guilt. It must still hurt. The bruise looked nasty. She could only imagine how it felt. Her fingers went to her own eye, tracing the ridge of her brow. If she touched Luke’s eye like that, he’d probably howl like Seth when he was stuck in the house.
“How did it happen?” the waitress asked.
Ana gripped the edge of the table, bracing herself for the story. God, she was either going to look like a klutz or a horrible bitch. Before Luke had given her that smile when he’d come in, she would have preferred looking like a bitch. But a klutz didn’t look any more appealing.
“I can’t talk about it.”
Her head snapped up. Luke hadn’t been spreading the story all over town? She could hardly believe it.
Betsy was taken aback. “Wow.” She put a hand to her throat. “God, I hope it wasn’t anything too terrible.”
Just a kettlebell wielded by a total idiot.
“It wasn’t,” Luke said, his voice deeper than usual. “Thank you for this.”
The waitress recognized that as a dismissal and left.
Now Ana had to think of an organic way to bring up the fact that Luke hadn’t said anything to anyone and ask him very casually why he’d done such a thing. But before she could—
“How did you get that shiner?” Jackson asked. He tipped the neck of his beer toward it, as if Luke didn’t know exactly where it was.
“If the person involved wants to say something, they can. But I won’t incriminate them. It was an accident.”
He was trying to protect her, which was nice, but Jackson was going to guess right away. Luke wasn’t too good at concealment, and she’d been squirming the entire time.
“It was me,” she blurted out. “I did it.” She jutted her chin at Jackson, daring him to make a joke.
He didn’t, but the twinkle in his eyes said he was holding back a laugh. “Can I ask how it happened? Or is that top secret?”
She and Luke looked at each other. Did he want to describe what had happened? Did he expect her to?
He raised his brows, lobbing the question to her.
“It was a kettlebell. I was swinging it, he startled me, and it hit him in the eye.” She made a dismissive motion with her hand as if this were all something that totally happened in the normal course of some kettlebell swinging.
“I was knocked on my ass too. Got a big ole bruise there,” Luke drawled, a wink in his voice.
“Man, I knew she disliked you,” Jackson said, “but not this much. I guess I didn’t have to warn her about you.”
A bubble of protest rose in Ana’s chest, but she held it back. The two men were speaking to each other. Almost joking with each other. She didn’t want to sever the thin thread spinning between them.
“You could have warned me,” Luke said.
“I thought you were smart enough to recognize the look on her face whenever you came near. It’s called disgust. But maybe you don’t see that often from the ladies.”
“Can’t say I do. I’ll have to rely on an expert like yourself to identify it in the wild.”
“Asshole. You know I see that face even less than you do.”
They shared a look filled with an easy amusement. Ana had no doubt they’d used that same look many, many times before with each other. She hadn’t expected them to simply bust out their complicated feelings about what had happened with Josh and Leonora, then hug it out, but this was a better start than she’d hoped for.
She slouched in her seat, trying for inconspicuousness so that they’d keep on. She didn’t even mind that they were both kind of laughing at her.
There was one last beat of that feeling between them, familiar, happy, content, and then they both looked away and the atmosphere dissolved once more into awkwardness.
“I’ve gotta go,” Jackson said, pushing away his half-finished beer. “Got a long day tomorrow. See you.”
He slid out of the booth without even a wave and disappeared before Ana could ask him to call her later.
She sighed and twirled her straw through the ice floating in her soda. And suddenly remembered that Luke was still there, boxing her into this corner of the booth, his big body not exactly looming but definitely a tangible presence. Anyone coming up on them might think they were having a super sappy date.
Now she really had to get away from him before Betsy—or anyone else—caught them like this.
“Um—” she started right as he said, “Want to get out of here?”
She blinked up at him. “Not together.”
He closed his eyes for half a moment, chagrin twisting his expression. “Sorry, I meant do you want to head home? I’ll walk you to your car. I know you don’t want to hang out with me and you’ve still got work to finish tonight.”
This was the point where politeness insisted that she say, No! Of course I want to hang out with you. But she was tired and uncomfortable being alone with him. Only this time it wasn’t solely because she disliked him. The irritation she usually felt with him was muted, replaced by something with a much deeper note.
“Yeah, I’d better head out.” She rummaged through her purse, using it to avoid seeing his reaction to that.
“I’ve got it,” he said as the dry, papery sound of money hitting the table reached her ears.
“Thanks,” she mumbled into her purse.
Carefully keeping her gaze away from his, she made for the exit.
The night was cool, the sky studded with hundreds of stars. Luke took a moment to appreciate it as he crossed the parking lot, Ana a few paces in front of him. Her hair swung with her strides, the yellow-orange of the parking lot lights catching on it and sliding crazily across the strands.
She was still in her work clothes, the pencil skirt hugging her hips, her blouse tastefully pronouncing her a young professional, and her heels causing her calves to tighten into sharp relief. But even with her getup, her stride was rangy, as if she were eating up the miles on the trail.
The several lengths she put between them didn’t bother him—he knew she was feeling a little mixed up about whacking him in the face, then seeing him here—and then inviting him to sit with them.
He was feeling mixed up himself. She’d given him a black eye and yet he still wondered what it might be like to kiss her. To run his fingers through the heavy black silk of her hair as he tasted her.
But that wasn’t ever happening.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“It’s a lifted black F-150.”
He looked around the lot. “Yeah, that doesn’t really clarify anything.”
She hit the fob on her keychain, and a truck two rows down chirped back at her.
“That solves it,” he said.
They trudged toward the truck in silence, the only sound the whistling whoosh of cars barreling down the 398, racing through Cabrillo toward Pine Ridge. As they neared the truck, he cut around her and opened the door.
She studied him for a moment, her eyes like chips of obsidian under the parking lot lights. “You’re quite the gentleman, aren’t you?” Clearly she thought that a sin on his part.
“My mama always taught me to be polite.” But that wasn’t all of it—he’d had a suspicion opening the door for her would set her off, so he’d done it. He had to admit, her sniping at him was comfortingly familiar.
Her fingers wrapped around the door handle, and she set her foot on the running board but didn’t climb into the cab. “You haven’t told anyone what I did to you.”
Her gaze landed on his bruised eye, and it pulsed at the phantom touch.
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
“It wasn’t a kiss.”
“Darlin’, you bruised me coming and going with that swing.” He hadn’t been joking about the bruise on his ass. “What was that about back there in the bar?”
She hadn’t called him over for the pleasure of his company for all that she’d smiled when she’d seen him. If she’d been on her own, Luke would have found himself drinking alone. But Jackson’s presence had changed her reaction somehow.
She met his gaze openly, almost boldly. “Jackson told me what happened the night of Josh’s crash. That you two were there.”
He took in a shaky breath. That wasn’t something he and Jackson ever talked about, not to each other or anyone else. He leaned over her, searching her face for her verdict on what had happened. Because he damn sure felt guilty about it. “And?”
“You used to be friends.”
She’d heard the story from Jackson and she still asked that? “What’s that to you? It’s for me and Jackson to work out.”
“Which neither of you were doing.”
“Maybe not working it out was our solution.” Friendships died all the time. And even if his and Jackson’s could have survived through the past five years with Josh being in jail, it certainly wouldn’t have survived Josh coming back. Luke suspected a lot of his current friendships weren’t going to survive that.
Little Miss I’m Stealing Your Baker herself had been the catalyst for that particular realization.
“That’s not a solution, it’s avoidance.” She hauled herself into the driver’s seat, her shoulders tight and her mouth flat. “Whatever. I did what I could. The rest is up to you two. Speaking of avoidance, are we going to run this week?”
Luke blinked at the change in subject. He still didn’t quite understand why she cared enough to intervene, but it looked like he wasn’t going to find out.
“Yeah, we should.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry I didn’t call, but this week…” There weren’t words to encompass the shit storm of that week. Which was why he’d wandered into the bar all on his own, intending to nurse nothing stronger than a soda. He just couldn’t handle walking into the house and dealing with everything all over again.
“Hang on.” She pulled out her phone and called something up on it. “I need to check my calendar.”
“What was Jackson saying about your being burned out?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, her hair swinging across her neck. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to give one hundred percent to this race.”
That wasn’t what he’d been worried about, but he let it go. “How about a run together Monday, lifting Tuesday and Thursday, and another run Friday and Sunday?”
“Uh…” She frowned at the phone. “I…”
“If it won’t work, we can do something else.”
“No,” she said sharply. “I’ll make it work.” She tapped decisively on the phone. “There. You’re in there.”
“Okay.” He pondered telling her she could cancel if she needed, but decided not to. “Drive safe.”
“You too.”
He shut the door and watched as she pulled onto the highway, her taillights washing his world in red.
He put a hand to his brow and rubbed without thinking, then winced when pain stitched through his eye socket.
Ana had marked him but good.
Despite her confession to Jackson tonight, Luke still wasn’t going to tell anyone who asked that she was behind his black eye. Like he’d said: he didn’t kiss and tell.
Especially if he had the hope—the thinnest sliver of one, but still a hope—of someday kissing the lady in question.