“Are you?” There was some sort of tension in his body. She could feel it radiating off him, toward her.
It was all she could do not to cup his face and lean down into a kiss.
She wanted to so badly. Right now, at this moment, he felt like the Jacob she’d known and loved before, despite the hardness of his body and the scars on his skin.
But he wasn’t that Jacob. Eight years had passed.
And she wasn’t a silly girl anymore. She wouldn’t let herself be dragged into more pain from nothing more than a man’s body and a certain softness of a pair of hazel eyes.
With a quick intake of breath, she dropped her hand. “Thanks. For bandaging me up, I mean.”
He obviously understood the shift in her tone. He stood up and backed off. “Of course. You need an ice pack?”
“No. I’m fine.” She stood up, smoothing down her skirt and suddenly wishing she had more clothes on. She needed some more layers of protection here.
“Why are you even here?” Jacob asked. “Did you need something?”
“Oh. No. Your grandfather called me over to talk about flowers at his funeral.”
Jacob clearly had no idea about this plan. His face was utterly shocked. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I have no idea why, but that’s what he wanted. Didn’t want anything too pretty or over-the-top.”
“Sounds like him.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t want to stop by and not say... say hi.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she could hardly tell him that his grandfather wanted her to find out if he was happy or not. “So that’s why I went down to the basement. Sorry it ended up such a mess.”
“Not your fault.” He searched her face for a moment before dropping his eyes. “Did you want... I mean, you could... stay for dinner if you wanted.”
Her heart jumped dramatically. She had to breathe a few times before she found the strength to reply, “I better not. I’ve got stuff to do this evening.”
“Okay.”
She risked a glance at him. Couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or not.
As a boy, he’d been easy to read. She’d always been able to tell what he was thinking. And the adoration in his eyes had been obvious to her, even before they’d started dating.
But she couldn’t read him anymore. He’d closed himself down. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t her business anymore.
He wasn’t the boy she used to know, and she needed to keep reminding herself of that fact.
“I’ll see you later,” she said at last.
“Yeah. See you.”
She got out of there before she did something stupid.
Five
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Jacob’s grandfather took a turn for the worse.
Despite the decline of his body, his mind had remained sharp. Alert. But on Saturday morning, he seemed really out of it, and he got worse as the day went on.
Jacob was worried enough that he didn’t leave the house all day. He worked some more in the basement, but he and Martha checked on the old man regularly. It wasn’t until four thirty in the afternoon that his grandfather woke up enough to have a real conversation.
When Jacob looked in and saw he was awake, he got him the fresh glass of water he requested and then sat down to keep him company for a while.
His grandfather asked about Martha. Asked about the progress on the basement. Asked about the weather. Then he fell into silence for a while.
Jacob felt a weird twisting of dread in his stomach. Like his grandfather might fade away at any moment and never come back.
“You see your girl yesterday?” he asked out the blue.
Jacob was so startled by the abrupt question that he jerked in his chair. “What?”
“Your girl? You see her yesterday?”
“Ria, you mean?” Of course that was who the old man meant. Jacob had never had another girl. Not in any way that mattered. “Yeah, she stopped by the basement to say hi yesterday after she talked to you.”
“Still a spark there?”
Jacob sat for a minute to think about that question. Yes, there was still a spark between him and Ria. More like a damned bonfire. Yesterday it had taken all the control he had not to drag her down onto the floor and screw her senseless. He’d wanted to so much he’d been shaking with it, but the lust had been compounded by so many other emotions. Ones that were much more complex. Bittersweet. Dangerous.
He finally said, “That was over a long time ago.”
“Didn’t have to end things with her, you know.”
Jacob stiffened. “Are you serious? You kicked me out because I was too soft, and I know perfectly well that the softness you had the most problem with were my feelings for Ria. And now you’re acting like you didn’t get exactly what you wanted?”
“Nothing wrong with having a girl. Just wanted you to toughen up some.”
“Well, I did.”
“I know that. But you don’t look happy.”
There was a long silence before Jacob finally said softly, “I’m not.”
“That’s not what I wanted.” His grandfather was winded, like it took effort to take every breath. “Just wanted you to stand on your own two feet. My dad did the same to me.”
“And did that make you happy?”
His grandfather met his gaze. The look was poignant, aching. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
When his grandfather started to wheeze, Jacob stood up in alarm, wanting to do something to help but having no idea what to do. Instead, he had to wait it out.
Recovering, his grandfather gasped, “If you want her back, just go get her. She’s not taken yet.”
“It’s too late. She’s not going to forgive me for leaving her the way I did. I get that you feel bad about what happened, but it’s too late to change things. What happened with her isn’t all your fault anyway. I made my own decisions. I didn’t have to leave her, and I did.” It took effort to say that since Jacob still felt the pressure of bitterness in his chest when he remembered how he’d been treated.
But he’d never lied to himself in this.
He’d been hurt. Very badly. But that didn’t mean he had a right to turn around and hurt Ria in the same way.
And that was exactly what he’d done. Everything had hurt too much, so he’d run from it—hoped that distance would make it hurt less. It had been a boy’s move. A coward’s move. Pain wasn’t something you could run away from.
But he’d tried. He’d left Ria behind with everything else, and he could never take it back.
“I’m sorry, son,” his grandfather rasped.
Jacob turned his head away with a little jerk. “I know you are.”
“I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I tried my best. I messed up, but I tried.”
Emotion was rising inside him so intensely and so suddenly that Jacob had to clench his hands to keep them from shaking. “I know you did.”
“Get her back.” The feeble voice was fading now. The hazel eyes were closing. “If you still want her, get her back. Do better than I did.”
Trembling helplessly, Jacob jumped to his feet and reached out to check his grandfather’s pulse. Faint, but still there.