But . . . I conceded his point.
We couldn’t seem to be around each other without kissing. Bringing him inside a dark, empty house in the middle of the night was something better left to my fantasies.
For now.
Oh really, inner voice? Now you’re impudent? Now?
He exhaled a short breath, it also sounded frustrated, but his tone was soft as he said, “Hey.”
I placed a tight smile on my face, it was the best I could manage. “Hey.”
Jackson seemed to be considering me, debating what to do next. He didn’t take too long. “Do you want to go for a drive?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Yes, I do. Let me grab a jacket.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.” He shifted his weight to his back foot and hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets.
I wanted to take a picture of him like this, all handsome reluctance and sexy self-control. This man, he just did something to me. I couldn’t explain it.
But maybe if we took this drive and spent some time together talking—just talking—I’d start to figure it out.
Chapter 15
*Raquel*
“I don’t want to be known as a sex symbol. There’s a great stigma that goes with that tag. I want to be a Sam Elliott.”
Sam Elliott
I rushed into the house, snatching up my lightweight jacket from a chair where I’d left it, took a moment to turn on the alarm, and left. As promised, he’d waited right where I’d left him. We didn’t touch as we walked to his truck. He opened the passenger door for me and helped bring all of my maxi dress into the cab before shutting me in.
An intense sense of déjà vu settled over me as I watched him walk around the front. We’d been here before, kinda. Except this time the coat on my shoulders belonged to me and therefore didn’t smell like him.
Darn it. I should’ve left right away and then asked for his jacket once we were on the road.
Also, the last time I’d sat in this spot, waiting for him to take me on a drive, I’d been stunned by the fact that his people called a knit hat a toboggan.
Jackson soon settled in his seat and turned the engine, putting the truck in reverse. Then he paused, his attention focusing on something beyond the windshield. Frowning, he lifted a hand. I followed his line of sight and found Jethro on the porch, a shotgun in his hands. It was pointed at the ground, and his features were relaxed. Sienna’s husband lifted his chin, turned, and walked back in the house.
“Good to know he’s a light sleeper,” Jackson said, his voice tinted with wry amusement.
“Why is that good to know? So you know how much noise you can make when you sneak in my window later?” I asked, then pressed my lips together, hoping my voice had sounded curious instead of hopeful.
He turned to look out the back window of the cab as he backed up. “Well, obviously. But it’s also nice to know he’s looking out for you.”
I lifted the cuffs of my jacket to my mouth to hide my smile. “I’m sleeping in the back bedroom. The windows are quite large.”
“Are they?”
“Yes. Big enough even for someone as tall and broad as you.”
“You should probably measure them, just to make sure.”
“I don’t have a measuring tape.”
“Then I should probably come in and measure them with my measuring tape.”
“Yes. I would appreciate that. Then we’ll know for sure.”
“They always say, measure twice, cut once.”
“Who? Who are they?”
“Carpenters.”
This reminded me so much of the night we met, the back and forth, the flirting, the butterflies in my stomach, and how oddly easy it was to just be with him, to talk to him. “I knew it.”
“What? What did you know?”
“Two hardware stores. This town has a wood culture.”
“Yep. Biiiig wood culture.”
I giggled at our banter, sneaking a peek at him. “This is fun. You’re fun.”
“So are you,” he said in that easy way of his.
Feeling dreamy and loose, excited and nervous, just like I always did around Jackson, I crossed my legs and faced him. “Where are we going? Do you still have those keys? Shall we get ice cream?”
“I thought, hot chocolate.”
“That sounds nice. I haven’t had hot chocolate in forever.” I didn’t mean for the words to come out so melancholy, but they did.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you have it?”
“Don’t let anyone in Hollywood fool you with talk of eating bagels. No one eats what they want and stays camera-ready. The life of a lead actress—unless, of course, you are Sienna Diaz or a select few who can get away with it—is a broccoli and cauliflower filled landscape.”
This earned me a smile, but no comment.
I continued, speaking stream of consciousness, “But you know, I don’t mind. It’s part of the job. And eating that way does make me feel good. But sometimes . . .”
“What?”
“Sometimes I get this urge to sneak out, buy a chocolate cake from Fred Meyer—not a frilly chocolate ganache confection of locally sourced, organic, and GMO-free ingredients from a couture patisserie, but a legit, processed sugar and wheat and dairy and trans-fat-full pile of carbs with no redeeming nutritional value—and eat the whole thing.”
“Sneak out? Why would you have to sneak out?”
It was interesting to me that this was the part of my admission he took issue with. “Well, because my chef and nutritionist would be pissed. So would my trainer. And I tremble to think of the judgmental eyebrows Sasha would send my way.”
“Who is Sasha?”
“She’s my PA.”
“Personal assistant,” he filled in.
“Yes. She manages my calendar, appointments, correspondence.”
“Your fan mail and such?”
“No. That’s someone else. I have a social media account manager, and she has a team that works specifically on each platform.”
“How’d you mean?”
“Take Instagram, for instance. They have posts, but then they also have stories, and reels. We post on all three to maximize engagement. It’s important to keep the content fresh and interesting. So we have a strategy meeting every month to . . .” I frowned, inspecting his profile. “Is this boring?”
“No. Not at all.” He glanced over at me, and I saw he was telling the truth. He didn’t find this boring.
“Why isn’t this boring?”
“Because.”
I twisted in the bench seat to face him. This was the second time he’d responded to a question with “because.” The first time he’d done it was on Thursday afternoon, after we’d kissed, when I’d asked him why me leaving Green Valley was for the best.
“You know what I think?” I asked.
“Probably not.”
That made me smile. I placed my arm along the back of the bench seat and bent it at the elbow, resting a cheek on my hand. “I think when I ask a question, and you answer with the word because and nothing else, it means you don’t really want to answer.”