Jamie stopped in front of them, biting her lip and tipping her ankles off her heels. “Hi there, Jack. How are you?”
And damned if she wasn’t a southerner on top of it all.
Her gaze shifted to him, and she smiled. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Hathaway.”
“Call me Will, please.”
“Alright, Will.” Jamie had stuck her hand out to shake, which pleased Will. She was talking to him as though he was an intelligent person, not the senile old coot everyone seemed to think he was lately. He was only seventy-seven, and that damn stroke had jerked with his body parts, not his brain.
Will shook, keeping her hand in his. “Jack and I were just discussing how beautiful you looked strolling down that aisle, Jamie.”
Her cheeks pinkened. “Oh,” she said, giving a little nervous laugh. “Thank you.”
“Beautiful is an understatement,” Jack said, in a husky tone that made Will suddenly feel as if he were caught in between a bulldog and a juicy steak bone.
Jamie’s gaze dropped to the floor, before she glanced back up. “Caroline would like us to be partners for the ceremony, Jack.”
“She always was my favorite sister.”
Will was impressed. That was a pretty smooth line. But it was time for him to exit before Jack embarrassed the hell out of the girl. She was shooting him helpless, awkward glances.
“I think I see the minister waving everyone up to the front,” Pops lied. “Run along you two, before Caroline flips her wig.” That one had a bit more of her mother in her than Will would have liked, but she was a good kid. Just a little uptight at times.
“Will you be at the dinner?”
“Of course.” He wasn’t leaving until Jack did. And thank God he wasn’t going back to that mausoleum. Rest home. Hah. It was so restful it had almost put him into a coma. It was like living with Dawn of the Dead zombies wearing bathrobes.
“I look forward to chatting with you, then.” Jamie gave him a bright smile and started up the aisle.
Jack swore under his breath. “I’m telling you, Pops, I just look at her and I feel like I’m being electrocuted. Fried from one end to the other. It’s insane.”
It was called lust, which very possibly could lead to love, if Will wasn’t mistaken. And he thought that just maybe, this girl was worthy of his grandson.
Will had been surprised that Jack had chosen to leave his career behind, but he had supported him. Only Jack still wasn’t happy, and if Jamie Peters could give him a reason to smile again, then Will would owe her a huge debt.
“Embrace the insanity, Jack-o. You just might enjoy going crazy for a while.”
Chapter 16
Jamie heard one out of every ten words the minister spoke.
“Commitment…relax…fun…left…”
Jack was standing next to her, thoroughly distracting her. He wasn’t doing anything exactly, just breathing. She could hear it. In, out, a little sigh emerging every now and then. Out of her peripheral vision she could see his fingers twitching on his pants leg.
Seeing him in that gray suit had nearly dropped her like a KO’d boxer. He was so darn hot, looking dark and dangerous, yet so vulnerable.
Plus she’d had Beckwith’s words ringing in her ears when she laid eyes on Jack, and it had taken all the courage she possessed to speak to him. But she figured better to get it over with than have it looming over her all night.
Having his grandfather there had been a useful diversion, but now it was just she and Jack, standing side by side in front of a minister. Okay, so there were twenty other people sitting in the room, and the entire wedding party standing right up front, but it didn’t seem to matter.
The only thing she was aware of was Jack.
He touched her elbow, and she nearly jumped out of her dress.
“You cold?” he murmured in her ear, his breath tickling her flesh. “You have goose bumps. Did you bring a sweater?”
“I should have,” she whispered back. “I’m always cold in air-conditioning.”
“I remember.” He gave her a smile that told her he was thinking of exactly how cold she had been naked on his couch before she’d thrown the blanket over her. Before he’d heated her with his own flesh, his tongue.
Jamie shifted. Those were not good thoughts to be having in a church.
And there was something about Jack tonight. He seemed…dangerous. Intense.
Polite and gracious, yes.
Thoughtful of his grandfather’s needs, Caroline’s needs, and her own, but somehow smoldering under the surface. She had a feeling she was seeing a different side to him, the one who went after a deal, the one who focused on success.
Tonight he was focusing on her, and it was disconcerting.
“Do you want my jacket?” he asked, rubbing the small of her back just ever so lightly.
To the casual observer, he was attentive to his wedding partner, but clearly out of duty only. Jamie knew better. Somehow, Jack was managing to look reserved, but he was not. Far from it.
He was boiling under that polite façade. He was touching her, in a casual way, but with eyes that said clearly he wasn’t.
That he remembered.
That he wanted her.
That there most certainly was something between them.
It was just a hand on her elbow here, fingers on the small of her back there. But those fingers shifted down as they waited for their turn to aisle march, lower than was appropriate for the recent acquaintances they were supposed to be. Not so low as to be crass, but low enough to claim possession.
Jack’s fingers said she was his, that he had touched her there without a dress between his skin and hers.
Jamie shifted a little, fully aware that Allison and the Irish cousin were standing right behind them. Not to mention Caro and her father just a few feet back.
Jamie glanced around the vestibule, searching for a safe conversational topic, and turned to include Allison and Finn, reaching for sexual safety in numbers. “The stained glass here is beautiful.” It was a stone Episcopal church with gothic arches and extensive windows.
Jack glanced down at her, an eyebrow arching.
Allison looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Very pretty, Jamie.”
The Irish cousin Caroline had complained so much about turned to study one of the windows. “Have you been to Ireland, Jamie?” he asked in his lilting brogue, which seemed a bit thicker now than it had when she’d been introduced to him earlier.
“No.”
“With your coloring”—he pointed to her head—“I thought you might be a fellow Gaelic.”