Waiting for You(2)

The answer was no. Seeing him, being in the same room with him, affected her just as much as it always had—even though she knew they weren’t the same people anymore.

She could see that Jake had changed. He had the same blue eyes and firm jaw, the same tall, broad-shouldered physique. But there was a new reserve in the way he carried himself, and a new hardness in his expression.

At nineteen, Jake had been dashing and optimistic, with a kind of clear-eyed confidence about the future. He’d been up for any challenge, ready to face any danger.

Now he looked like a man who’d met those challenges and faced those dangers, but not without loss. He looked like a man who could make tough decisions in no-win situations. A man who’d exchanged optimism for realism.

He was also the man you’d turn to in an emergency. The one you’d trust with your life, because he’d put himself in harm’s way to protect others.

Which was exactly what he’d been doing for the last ten years.

Rick came up behind Allison and put his hands on her shoulders. “Good evening, Mrs. Hunter.”

Allison’s face glowed as she turned to face her new husband. “Good evening, Mr. Hunter.”

He bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “I came to find a dance partner. Would one of you lovely ladies do me the honor?”

“Erin will,” Allison said immediately.

Erin raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were looking for a man who might someday worship the ground I walk on. Isn’t your new husband off-limits?”

“Yes, but he does this thing where he makes his partner look like the best dancer in the room. And that will lead to other men asking you to dance.”

“I see.”

Rick grinned at her as he held out his hand. “I can’t promise a line of suitors as a result of dancing with me, but they’re playing Cole Porter and that always leads to good things.”

Erin let him help her up and lead her towards the parquet floor. “You know I can’t do all that ballroom stuff, right?”

“We’ll keep it simple,” he assured her.

Her efforts to not step on Rick as they danced and chatted should have taken all of her attention, but she still had some left over to glance at Jake now and then.

He was renting a place in Willow Springs, but Erin hadn’t run into him yet. She’d thought she might see him at his parents’ farm on one of her visits—she’d stayed close with Allison’s mother over the years, and dropped in for coffee once or twice a month. But Jake was never there when she stopped by.

Of course she could have gotten his number and given him a call. But whenever she thought about doing that, she’d flash back to the last time they’d seen each other. They’d shared an unexpected kiss the night of her sixteenth birthday, and the memory of that encounter was enough to melt her courage like butter in the sun.

So she decided to wait until the wedding, where she’d be sure to see him. She could blend into the background with the other guests and say a casual hello at the reception.

It was a perfectly good plan, and if she had any guts at all she would have carried it out by now. Jake had spent the last ten years on the front lines of two wars. The least she could do was pull herself together and welcome him home.

She glanced over at the head table again. Almost everyone had gotten up to dance, and Jake was sitting alone for the moment.

It would have been the perfect opportunity to talk to him. But catching sight of those piercing blue eyes, her stomach muscles tightened and her heart went staccato.

She didn’t feel like the calm, cool, and collected woman she hoped to be when she met Jake Landry again. She wanted him to see that she’d changed, too. That she wasn’t an awkward teenager anymore.

And until she felt that confidence flowing through her, she had no intention of going near him.


If this had been any other wedding, Jake would have blown it off without a second thought.

But it was Allison’s and Jenna’s. Love had turned his practical sisters into starry-eyed romantics, and they’d decided to enter the bonds of matrimony in a double ceremony. And in spite of the fact that both of them had been driving him crazy for the last few months, he wouldn’t have missed this day for anything.

Still, he wasn’t sorry the end was in sight. He’d sat through dinner and all the toasts and the wedding cake thing, and the band had been in full swing for at least an hour. His sisters and his parents were on the dance floor, along with most of the other people at the table, which meant he was sitting alone for the first time tonight.

He drank his scotch and watched the dancers without really seeing them. A few more songs went by before Allison left the dance floor and came to sit beside him.