He looked anxiously at her, and Jamie felt tears well up. She shook her head rapidly. “No, no, you weren’t wrong. Thank you.”
Suddenly terrified, she glanced at the elevators. “Should I go upstairs or is he coming down?”
“He’s waiting upstairs.”
When Jack took her hand and squeezed, leading her toward the elevator, Jamie didn’t shake him off. And when he said, “I know about the whole prison sentence,” Jamie found that she was grateful for the compassion in Jack’s voice. Glad that her father had felt comfortable enough to confide in Jack.
Stepping into Jack’s apartment, bracing herself to come face-to-face with her father for the first time in twenty-some years, Jamie found herself leaning closer to Jack. It wasn’t such a bad feeling to have a man like Jack at her back.
Especially when she saw Austin and an older man, not her father.
“Austin? What in the world are you doing here?”
“I live here,” he called from the sofa, looking mighty comfortable with his feet on Jack’s coffee table.
She swiveled to level a gaze at Jack, waiting for some kind of explanation for why a teen criminal was channel surfing on his plasma TV.
He shrugged, looking sheepish. “He’s such a bright kid and he’s living on the streets, Jamie. This is temporary, until I find the right boarding school for him.”
“Boarding school? Who on earth is going to pay for that?” That was sure in the heck not in Beechwood’s budget. Private school tuition was probably more than Jamie’s entire annual salary.
Jack didn’t answer, but Austin did, flipping his hair out of his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder. “Dude’s crazy, Jamie. He’s going to shell out money for me to go to some fancy-ass school. You should stick around, he’ll probably throw some cash your way, too.”
Her mouth stopped working. Shock made her lips numb. It took several seconds for her to regain control enough to form words. “Do you want to go to boarding school, Austin?” she asked, amazed. It was a little hard to visualize him in a blazer, or with his pants actually around his waist instead of his knees.
“Hell, yeah. It was either that or prison. And I’m kind of looking forward to showing up those preppy pimps.” He cracked his knuckles. “I can get straight A’s with my fucking eyes closed.”
“Well, everyone does have their own unique talents,” she said carefully, feeling floored. Flummoxed. Freaked out. All kinds of f words.
The older gentleman in the wheelchair spun himself around. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Jack-o?”
“Of course, Pops. Jamie, this is my grandfather, Will Hathaway. Pops, this is Jamie Peters.”
She managed a smile at Jack’s grandfather, remembering all the wonderful things Jack had said about him. “It’s so nice to meet you. Jack’s told me how much he admires you and all your accomplishments.”
His grandfather cracked a laugh. “I can only imagine. It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, young lady. Jack’s been gushing like a faucet about how beautiful you are, and for once I have to agree with him.”
Jack made a coughing sound, and Jamie felt a blush rising over her neck and cheeks.
“So, where’s Jim?” Jack asked.
Jim. Her father. Jamie stiffened, heart thumping painfully.
Austin’s eyes darted back to the TV, but Jack’s grandfather set his mouth in a tight line and shook his head.
The silence drew out for a long, awful moment.
“He stepped out for a minute,” Pops said.
Jamie felt her throat close off.
“Is he coming back?” Jack asked, loud and demanding.
“He just bugged out,” Austin said. “He didn’t say shit to us.”
The room blurred as tears came swiftly, cementing her mortification. It was just disappointment, really, but still she was ashamed of the emotion.
“Hey, uh, Austin, why don’t you and Pops run across the street and get some dinner?” Jack pulled out his wallet and handed Austin forty bucks.
That was all the incentive Austin needed to leap off the couch and grab hold of Pops’s wheelchair. “Come on, old man.”
Pops swiped the money out of Austin’s hand. “Got to be quicker than that, punk.”
They paused right beside her. “Sorry,” Austin said, solemn and uncomfortable.
Pops reached out and patted her hand with his strong, wrinkled one. “He’ll come around.”
She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak, their compassion nearly shattering her. When they were gone, she shook her head, pulled her hand out of Jack’s. “Please don’t say anything. Thank you for trying, but please don’t say anything.”
If he tried to apologize, she was going to cry. Jamie took a deep breath and called on all her strength. This was not a big deal. Nothing was different about today than yesterday. She was a strong, independent woman who could wrestle a pig to the ground and fend off barbs from ex-cons with equal success.
Her father’s rejection was nothing new, and she wasn’t going to let it crumple her. The only thing that had been known to bring her to her knees thus far was ice cream, and aside from a slight heaviness in the thighs—some of it genetic anyway—that wasn’t a crisis.
“Jamie…”
“I’m fine, Jack.” Or she would be once she got out of his expensive apartment and went home to collapse on her purple bedspread. Took a breather and meditated to regain her equilibrium.
“No, you’re not.” He tried to reach for her, tried to pull her into his arms.
Those arms looked all too appealing. Knowing if she let him, she’d be helpless, defenseless against his kindness, she stepped back in a panic.
“Don’t.”
She expected him to protest.
What she didn’t expect was him to drop his hands, stare her straight in the eye and say, “I love you.”
Where the heck was Beckwith’s helpful second sight right now? She could have used a little warning on that one.
Chapter 14
Why the hell he had chosen that particular moment to confess his feelings, Jack couldn’t possibly fathom. As he stood there waiting for Jamie to stop gaping at him and actually say something, he remembered a Maxim article he had read out of desperation in LaGuardia when his flight had been delayed and he’d been dying of boredom.
It was the ten most humiliating responses a woman can give when you tell her you love her for the first time.