“What?” he asked.
“That was a dick move,” Tione replied.
Jack shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Brooke. She clearly wanted to talk to you.”
Did she? He hadn’t been sure, and part of him had believed he was reading too much into her presence because of the inconvenient pull of magnetism he felt toward her.
“Huh. Couldn’t tell.”
To his surprise, Tione’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. You could have made a polite excuse instead of ignoring her. That was rude.”
Jack’s arms crossed defensively. “I didn’t realize she wanted to talk,” he reiterated, guilt prickling his skin because the statement wasn’t entirely true.
“Seriously?” Tione demanded. “Do you have a problem with her or something?”
Uh-oh. Jack got the feeling he was treading on thin ice here.
“No,” he said, looking out over the garden so he didn’t have to make eye contact with the tattooed tank of a man who seemed to have taken exception to him. “I barely know her. I know her type though—bubbly and well-meaning, but high maintenance. She belongs at a fancy brunch or in a high-end club, not in the bush.”
“Brooke?” Tione asked. “In a nightclub?” His lips twitched, then he scrubbed a hand over his bearded cheek.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just wondering when you got so bad at reading people.”
Around about the time he’d hooked up with Claudia, Jack would guess. “What do you even know about her?”
Tione wasn’t a ladies’ man. His stocky build, beard and glower tended to frighten women away. And if that didn’t do it, his hundred-pound bull mastiff, Trevor, did. Right now, he was frowning like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
“Brooke lives here, asshole. Has done for two years. So it happens that I know her quite well.”
“Oh.” Jack had known she lived in the area. He wasn’t a total idiot, but he’d never made the connection that she actually resided at Sanctuary, with Kat and Tione.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’” Tione was on a roll now. “She’s a great girl. Kind, funny, and really damn smart.” Coming from him, that meant something. Not that you’d know it to look at him, but Tione was a certified genius. The kind who could join Mensa if he wanted. “You’d be lucky if she wanted anything to do with a grisly old bastard like you. But for the record, you’ve got her all wrong.”
Jack fell back a step, startled by his friend’s vehemence. He studied Tione’s expression—which to be fair, wasn’t much different from usual. A dark scowl, lowered brows. He’d squared his shoulders, like he was considering flattening Jack with a solid punch if he said anything else less than complimentary about Brooke.
Jack laughed to mask his stab of discomfort when he reached the only logical conclusion. “You have a thing for her.”
If possible, Tione stiffened further. “Do not.”
“Come on, you’re ready to lay into me.”
“Because she’s my friend. You ever heard of that? Being friends with a woman?”
“I have female friends.”
One of Tione’s bushy black eyebrows went up.
“I do,” Jack insisted. “Kat, for instance.” He wracked his brain for more examples, but other than women friends he’d fallen out of touch with, and Erica, who was forced to spend time with him, he couldn’t think of any. Perhaps Bex, his personal trainer, but they never got together outside the gym. “Okay, so you don’t have a crush on Brooke. But her being a great girl doesn’t mean she’s right for me, or that I’m right for her.”
“Fair call. You’re probably not up to her standards.”
He flinched. Well, if that didn’t just hit the nail on the head. Time to change the subject. “Have you heard from Sterling today? Is he still staying with Logan?”
“Yes, but he’s found himself a place.” Tione eyed him suspiciously. “I think he and Kat will get back together any time. It’s obvious she misses him.”
“Good for them.” There had been a time when Jack had considered dating Kat himself, because she was exactly the sort of person he could trust, but she’d found love elsewhere and he’d discovered he didn’t mind. They were great friends, and crossing that line would have been a mistake.
Tione chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. If Jack had been less well-built, he’d have gone flying from the force of it. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you another woman who likes climbing mountains and has no standards.”
“Whatever you say, Tee.” He glanced at his chunky waterproof watch. “I’d better head back and prepare for the group I’ve got first thing tomorrow. Catch you later.”
“See you.”
Jack nodded farewell, gathered the discarded helmets in a box, strolled across the garden, and paced through the foyer of Sanctuary and out the other side to the parking lot, where his four-wheel drive was parked. He packed the box into the back and drove to his storefront in the town square, located beside the medical center and across the road from the glass and pottery studio. Once he’d unloaded the helmets, he checked that the headlights still worked and that nothing had been broken, then assembled everything he’d need for the next day. Preparation complete, he debriefed Erica and headed home.
The house was silent when he let himself in, everything exactly where he’d left it, and the place smelled of dirty laundry. Ignoring the state of the living room, which he hadn’t tidied in weeks, he microwaved a bowl of leftover chicken and vegetables, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and took his dinner out to the deck, where he could bask in the dying sunlight without facing the mess and emptiness of his living quarters. It was supposed to be home, but most nights, it felt more like a place to crash than anything else.
By the time Brooke had showered and changed into her pajamas, which read “Geek is the new sexy,” her natural buzz had worn off and she was exhausted. The only energy she held onto was the rage that seemed to grow exponentially the longer she allowed it to fester. How dare that heinous man kiss her until she couldn’t even remember who Rosa Bonheur was, or why she’d been so important to future generations of female artists, and then forget all about it? How dare he make her feel beautiful and desirable and then squash that feeling with cold, hard reality?
As she wondered how many other women had suffered the same indignation, her pulse picked up, drumming in her throat like the marching anthem for the sisterhood of women Jack Farrelly had forgotten. She had no reason to believe there had been any others, but she preferred to think he was an asshole than admit she just hadn’t made that much of an impression. Grinding her teeth together, she made those theoretical and possibly imaginary women a promise. He wouldn’t treat any others like they were disposable and get away unscathed. Not on her watch.
Grabbing her laptop, she shimmied into bed beneath the covers, switched it on and loaded up her blog, the one she’d chronicled her journey on since her second heart surgery at fifteen, when she’d decided she needed to take ownership of her health issues and stop living in denial. Her parents may have wanted to hide her from the world forever, but she’d long since known she’d only be happy if she wrestled everything from life that she could. Opening a new post, she vented her fury to the web, not filtering the words as they spilled from her brain to her fingertips and appeared on the screen.