All I know is, she’s here, and I’m not as angry as I should be.
And while she’s lying here, as sweet as the day I met her, there’s one thing I can’t let go of.
She left me.
This woman left me when I needed her the most. That kind of pain doesn’t go away. And yet, if she hadn’t left—
“Zack?” she calls from her side of the bed.
I roll over, her back to my chest. “Yeah?” My head is propped in my hand as I look down at her.
Her hair, which is pulled back, exposes her ear, the one that’s causing so much pain.
She looks over at me, the faint light casting a haze across her face. When her eyes meet mine, they crinkle at the sides.
“You’re a good man. You didn’t have to do what you did for me tonight.”
“You already thanked me for taking care of you.”
She gives a crooked smile. “You asked me in.”
Her words have me confused.
Her voice is soft but serious. “A lesser man would never have invited me to do so. You could have just let me drive off, but you brought me in.”
She has no idea how hard it was for me to tell her to come in. She has no idea how scared I was that she’d say no.
She has no idea about so many things.
I’m so messed up, and it’s fucking late. And because I’m some sort of a personal masochist, I do the dumbest thing I could possibly do right now.
I hold her.
Sliding my left arm under her neck, I cradle her in my arm and pull her in with my other. Ten years of personal vendetta are sitting on the other side of the office door because as much as I hate her, there’s no doubt I once loved this woman.
“Good night, Jo,” I say, pulling her into me.
She doesn’t fight it. Her body goes lax and molds against mine. As she falls asleep, my mind races with what the hell is going to happen next.
6
Jolene
Ninety-six hours. I’m grounded from air travel until my next assignment in four days.
After I exit the door of the exam room, I’m surprised by the way Zack pops up from his seat, rubbing his hands in anticipation.
He must see the look of disdain on my face as he asks, “What happened? What’d he say?”
When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to feel his arm draped around my waist. His warm body was like a cocoon in the cold office. When he woke and slid out of bed to use the restroom, I shivered at the loss of him.
It’s so easy to become addicted to this man. I have to watch myself around him. Old habits are hard to break.
As I dressed to head out to my doctor’s appointment, he insisted he drive me in his truck. I accepted because … well, I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I liked the idea of having him by my side today.
I sigh, dropping my head back. “I’m fine, but I can’t fly for four days. Then, I have to slow down on my hours for a few weeks after that to make sure it heals properly.”
His hands slide into his front pockets as he takes in the information. “Where are you going to stay?”
I throw my arms up in wonder. “I can’t go home unless I hop on a bus, which would take forever to get all the way to New York. They set me up in a hotel, but I don’t want to be stuck at the airport hotel that’s in the middle of nowhere. I’ll call Monica.”
“Her son’s sick,” he reminds me.
I close my eyes in frustration. “That’s right. And as much as I love him, I don’t want to get the flu and be grounded for even longer. I need to get back in the air.”
He looks down at me, his deep blue eyes staring inquisitively at me. “Why are you in such a rush to get away?”
The way he’s asking the question with his mouth yet insinuating something with the face he’s giving me has me turning away, afraid he’ll read what my soul wants to tell him.
“It’s what I do.” I grab my suitcase and pull on the handle, gesturing toward the door. “I’ll see if I can find a better hotel room for a few days, closer to the—ouch!” I grab my ear as a sharp pain comes bolting down my neck.
Zack is quick to my side. “Is it bleeding again?”
Our eyes lock, and I see his have softened. His caress soothes my worry.
“I’m okay. The doc said it’d be a little sore. I guess I shouldn’t have moved my head so rapidly.”
His gaze roams over my face, back and forth, as if searching for something. He clenches his jaw. Not in frustration, more like he’s at odds with himself, weighing some sort of great dilemma.
“Well, I guess you’re stuck with me. I’m heading back to Dixon, so come on.” He grabs my bag from my hand and starts walking out the door, his footing slightly off, which I assume is from his injury.
He wants me to go to Dixon.
The place where we grew up.
With him.
Now?
He turns to see I’m standing right in the spot where he left me.
“You coming?” he asks with raised brows.
I stand up straight and place my hands on my hips. “I’m not going back to Dixon.”
He releases my bag and fully turns to me. “Why not?”
With a wave of my hand, I try to come up with a justifiable reason. I don’t necessarily have one, so I say, “Because there’s nothing there for me.”
His eyebrows furrow as he stares me down. “Have you not been home?”
I turn my head in the opposite direction, not wanting to answer. “It’s not my home anymore.”
“It’s where you were raised for the first eighteen years of your life.”
“It’s not who I am.”
“Fuck that,” he states with fierce emotion.
Now, he has my attention and the attention of a woman sitting in one of the chairs, waiting for her name to be called for an appointment.
“Excuse me?” I challenge him.
He raises a shoulder and tightens his arms across his chest, staring me down with his eyes and his words. “It’s where your parents were born. Where they chose to raise you. It’s where you fell off your bike at eight years old and got a scar on your knee. Where you won the Little Miss Dixon beauty pageant at nine and where you lost your virginity in the backseat of a pickup truck at sixteen.”
“Zack!” I admonish as the woman’s eyes widen.
He doesn’t seem to care. “What are you afraid of?”
My mouth is open, as I’m surprised by his accusation. I close it and then open with blinking eyes. “Nothing. I just have no desire to go there.”
His gaze is steady on me as a smirk builds on the right side of his mouth. “You’re chicken.”
Now, it’s my turn to cross my arms in defense. “Of what?”
“Stepping foot in that town and facing the people you ran away from.”
“That’s absurd.”
He moves forward, his arms barely touching mine as we have a standoff, our bodies closed off from one another yet telling each other more with that silent language than we ever could with our words.
“Come home with me,” he demands.
“Zack—”
“I dare you.” His smirk now reaches his eyes.