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No, she couldn’t.
Because she’d missed him that much. Because each year it got harder to keep from searching him out, from forcing him to acknowledge her presence.
Shaking her head at the thought, she moved to the coffeepot and popped a pod into the device. Placing her cup beneath it, she waited for the liquid caffeine to begin filling the ceramic mug. The two-times-the-caffeine brand of coffee would hopefully fire her brain cells with a hint of logic and give her the boost she needed to get to the next cup before she was forced to shower and get dressed.
Sunday afternoons were dinner at home, and unlike most weekends, she knew exactly what to expect today. The topic of conversation would no doubt be Jack Bridger: why he was home, how long he was staying, why he hadn’t sold the house, why he had even bothered coming back.
She knew, because it happened at least once a year.
The first four years she was in college in Louisville and came home only on weekends. He’d arrive weekdays, always in the winter when the roads were predicted to be hazardous due to the weather. He’d stay a week or two, then leave.
The past four years, after she’d graduated, she’d glimpse him, but other than a few times she hadn’t been close enough to speak. And each time she drove by his house it had been empty. But this time he hadn’t just ridden in on the motorcycle or driven a truck. He’d brought both.
Did he intend to stay for a while this time? Maybe return home?
Armed with her coffee, she slipped to the window again and opened the slat just barely enough to peek through the side.
The back of his truck was loaded with stuff. A recliner, a new, still-in-the-box television. He had a huge duffel bag, and he was pulling a still boxed microwave from the backseat.
She should at least wave to him maybe. He kept glancing over at the house. Her mother used to say she hadn’t raised dummies. And evidently neither had Jack’s mother. Somehow, Jack knew who was in the house, and he obviously expected something from her.
An acknowledgment perhaps?
Just a smile and a wave.
A woman simply didn’t ignore a man who had been willing to take the blame for a death she’d caused. No matter how deserving that death.
Biting her lip, cup of coffee in hand, she unlocked the door, opened it, and then pushed open the storm door and leaned against the frame as she stared across the alley.
And she couldn’t help but smile. Because Jack Bridger never smiled, and since she was a girl she’d tried to make him smile every time she saw him. Just a little bit.
He sat the box on the ground and straightened, staring back at her with that damned somber, God-only-knew-what-he-was-thinking expression as his gaze went over her slowly.
She was dressed decently, even with pajamas on, but still, she was bra-less, panty-less. Unprotected. Not that the thought worried her, as it would have at any other time. She could be naked and be safe with Jack.
At least, years ago she could have been.
As she stared at him, she saw the difference in his face, in his expression. Nine years had matured him in definitive ways. His face was harder, not cruel-looking, but merciless perhaps, where it hadn’t been before.
He was broader, stronger, and God knew he’d been strong before, even as a teenager. And his stare reminded her that he knew her. In ways no one else did, he knew things about her that no one else, she hoped, would ever know.
Tilting her lips again in goodbye, she stepped back and closed the doors on the chilly mountain morning, and the man. The sun wasn’t even fully up—she should still be asleep, she thought; maybe this was all a dream.
If she didn’t look out the window again, she could pretend it was exactly that. A dream. She wasn’t up at the butt crack of dawn, and Jack Bridger wasn’t really back.
And she really didn’t care either way.
Maybe her mother was right—unlike her siblings, she did like lying to herself.
Holy Mother of God.
Jack breathed out hard, blinked, then stooped, picked up the new microwave, and carried it into the house and to the kitchen. Where he grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped the cap, and tilted the bottle to his lips. He didn’t stop until it was empty. Then went for a second.
Poppy had grown up for real.
The vibrancy and sheer charisma that woman possessed, even at eighteen, had been off the charts. She was the only person in existence who made him want to smile, made him want to be better than what he’d been born into.
And he admitted—always privately, and only in moments of weakness—that he judged everything he did by whether or not he believed Poppy would understand. For all her sweet temper and easy smiles, she could be a bloodthirsty little thing when it came to the idea of justice.
