Windswept Way (Hope Harbor #9)(46)
Author: Irene Hannon

The creaking ceased, indicating she’d stopped rocking. “I’m not certain I do. Not to the same degree you do. Jason and I weren’t engaged.”

 

“You expected to be.”

 

“Yes, but I’m beginning to realize I mistook infatuation for love. Jason was handsome and wealthy and polished, and I was flattered someone like him even noticed me, let alone asked me out. I guess the stars in my eyes blinded me to his real character. Or more accurately, lack of character. The breakup would have been much worse if my infatuation had been real love and we’d been engaged, like you were.” She started rocking again. “Laura said your fiancée was a model.”

 

“Yeah.” He continued to focus on his linked fingers. “Did she tell you how we met?”

 

“No.”

 

“Did she tell you I used to model too?”

 

“Not directly. I think she assumed I knew.”

 

He loosened his interlocked fingers, flexed them to restore circulation, and leaned back against the column again. “It was a fluke, how it came about. An advertising executive in our town saw me in a high school play when I was sixteen. She approached me afterward and asked me to have my parents contact her if I was interested in a modeling gig for a print ad campaign she was putting together for a new beverage product. She said I had the look she was after.”

 

“That must have been flattering.”

 

“Probably not as much to a guy as it would have been to a girl. And I wasn’t interested. I stuck her card in my pocket and forgot about it. My mom found it while she was doing the laundry later that week.”

 

“She encouraged you to follow through?”

 

“Yes. She knew I was getting ready to apply for a summer job and thought this was worth investigating. As usual, she was right. The pay was excellent compared to what my buddies were earning at fast-food joints or doing yard work or selling popcorn at the movie theater. The first job led to another, which led to an agent, which led to more gigs that helped put me through college.”

 

“Sounds glamorous.”

 

“The glamour aspect is highly overrated.”

 

“Did you enjoy it?”

 

He shrugged. “It was just a job to me. An easy one. And the money was good. But it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, even before the accident. I already had the State Department in my sights.”

 

“So how did you end up in the army?”

 

He lifted his head, following the flight of a pelican as it sailed across the moon through the sinuous whorls of fog. “I figured military service would be a helpful credential for government work, and at the risk of sounding hokey, after enjoying the liberty so many people in the world don’t have, I wanted to do my part to help promote and preserve freedom in places where it was threatened.”

 

“That doesn’t sound hokey to me.” Her response was serious and earnest. “It sounds generous and brave and admirable.”

 

Heat suffused his cheeks. “Don’t give me too much credit. If I’d known how it was going to end, I wouldn’t have enlisted or re-upped.”

 

“I stand by my comment. You knew the risks when you did both.”

 

“In principle. But I was one of those guys who was convinced he was invincible. Melinda worried about the danger more than I did.”

 

“How did you two connect, anyway?” Ashley began rocking again.

 

“On leave. I was back in the States, stationed at Fort Benning between deployments, and I came home to Atlanta for Christmas. My old agent was having a holiday party and invited me. Melinda was there, and we clicked. Since Fort Benning was only about a hundred miles away, we made that drive often.”

 

“I imagine she was beautiful.”

 

At Ashley’s wistful tone, Jon shifted toward her. Surely she wasn’t insecure about her own appearance, not with those killer eyes and generous lips and glorious hair that glinted with auburn highlights?

 

But a breakup could do serious damage to an ego, as he well knew. And if hers needed bolstering, he could oblige without stretching the truth a fraction of an inch.

 

“In a theatrical sense. She was into clothes and makeup and glitz. But with the perspective I’ve gained over the past five years, I’ve come to recognize and prefer substance over fluff. Vision and enthusiasm and daring and initiative and a host of other qualities in addition to physical beauty create a much more appealing package.”

 

Other than the background piano music, silence descended.

 

Crud.

 

He’d said too much. Boosting her ego was fine. Implying he had romantic inclinations by repeating his earlier description of her wasn’t.

 

How was he supposed to dig himself out of this hole?

 

Thankfully, Ashley came to his rescue. Rather than comment on his faux pas, she asked another question about Melinda—though there was an undertone to it, and a breathiness, that was hard to decipher.

 

“So you two fell in love through a semi-long-distance relationship.”

 

“Yes. Eight months after we met, and six weeks before I was redeployed to the Middle East, we got engaged. We were supposed to be married a month after I got back. Instead, just days away from discharge, I ran into the IED. That was the end of a lot of things. Including my relationship with Melinda.”

 

“She broke the engagement just because you were injured?” Shock vibrated in the air between them.

 

“If you’d seen me in those early days, you’d understand.”

 

“No. I don’t think I would. You don’t desert someone you love.” Her declaration was laced with passion and indignation. “It’s all about for better or worse, right?”

 

“We hadn’t taken that vow yet.”

 

“Do you think she’d have stuck with you if you had?”

 

Jon squinted at the moon, barely visible now beyond the mist.

 

That wasn’t a question he’d ever pondered.

 

But in light of Melinda’s reaction the day she’d seen his injuries, and the speed with which she’d fled, maybe not.

 

Was it possible the appeal of a handsome soldier, and the allure of exotic travel to distant locations as a diplomatic spouse, had been higher in her priorities than love? After all, her career as a model had plateaued. None of the high-profile runway gigs she’d coveted had materialized. Print ads and a few commercials paid the bills, but it wasn’t the lifestyle she’d once confided she aspired to.