Morgan swallowed.
“I’ll bet she looked beautiful. She always did.” Deke stopped in front of Jack,
lingering on the sidewalk in the noontime sun. “Yeah, and she looked pissed.”
“I expected that. I made a really stupid fucking choice when I didn’t come clean with
her. I had opportunities and I…” He shook his head, a gesture rife with regret. “I didn’t
take them.” “Yeah, that makes you a stupid putz, but that isn’t the main thing she’s
pissed about.”
“It’s not?” He looked totally confused.
Jack didn’t get it? How could he not get it? How could he totally not understand?
Amazing.
Pushed by hope and confusion and her temper, she opened the Hummer door and
leaped down. “No, you dumb ass, that’s not what I’m pissed about.”
“See, I told you I brought you something.” Deke flashed Jack a smile. “Or someone.”
“Morgan,” Jack whispered, taking a step toward her, hands outstretched.
“Nice of you to remember me.”
The barb in her voice stopped him cold. He dropped his hands. “You’re here to chew
my ass out. I deserve it. I swear, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t think we’d really
become so emotionally involved. But the minute I laid eyes on you—” “Oh, stop with the
romantic drivel. So I was a good lay, nice and submissive and—”
“Kids, why don’t we take this inside so the nice strangers around the motel can’t hear
about your sex lives?” Deke shepherded them into Jack’s room.
Morgan darted inside, past Jack, shocked that she’d been so stirred up that shouting
in a parking lot about their intimate details seemed reasonable. God, that man got under
her skin and fried her brain.
Inside, the white walls and nondescript pressed wood furniture shouted “typical.”
The striped beige and ivory comforter lay strewn with the stiff white sheets across the
bed. Brown indoor/outdoor carpet completed the utilitarian look. Thoroughly ugly. So
how the hell had she wound up having one of the most emotional discussions of her life
here?
She turned to find Deke shutting the door before he leaned against it. Jack hovered
close to her, so close she could smell the mystery of his scent blending with the whiskey
he’d been guzzling.
But he made no move to touch her.
“You were more than a good lay, Morgan. Way more, and I knew I should come clean.
A dozen times I told myself I should but…” Remorse bled into his gaze, tightened his
mouth. “I love you, and I knew once I told you the whole story that I’d lose you.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it and make you hate me. It was going to come soon
enough.”
Morgan steeled her heart against the admission. But she wasn’t quick enough. His
words were like a surprise attack, and hope, pain, and yearning all joined the shock to
wear her resistance down.
Tears stung her eyes. “You love me so much that when I was shot, you visited the
hospital, had a nice cozy chat with Brandon about your ex-wife, then left him to deliver
your apologies to me. And you never came back.”
Jack sucked in a sharp breath. “You…”
“Overheard every word at the hospital? Yes. But what I never heard was that, if you
supposedly loved me, when you were coming back. It seemed awfully easy for you to
write me off.” He finally breached the distance between them and gripped her uninjured
shoulder. His touch slid over her like an electric shock, a jolt of heat, of desire. But more, even. This came with a blast of yearning that exploded from her heart, so strong it
nearly brought her to her knees.
But Jack held her up. “Cher, I fucked up. I didn’t have any right to try to win you
back. Would you have believed a word I said? No,” he answered for her. “And why
should you take me back? I don’t deserve it. I know that.”
Was it really just as Deke said, that Jack felt too guilty to pursue his feelings for her?
Was that the only thing that stopped him?
Maybe the more fundamental question was, did she want him back? Did she want
Jack and all he could give her in her life each and every day.
Even his fingers around her shoulders made her feel more alive than she had in the
last week. A wish burst inside her, straining against common sense. They were from
different places, led different lives… Pointless rumination. If they were to become
a couple, they could compromise, mesh lives, live part-time in Louisiana and part-time in
Los Angeles. Something. The more important fact was that inside, they
shared something special, connected physically and emotionally.