Page 67 of Love’s Silver Bullet

He grunted, dislodging her hold with a lift of his arms. “Not if I stand in the way of your schooling. You know that. Finn wants you to go to college, and he doesn’t want anything to get in the way.”

She grated her lip in thought, well aware Jake was right. For some reason Uncle Finn was bound and determined she get a degree because heaven knows they’d butted heads over it more times than she could count. Some reason? She sighed. Blaze had told her long ago that Ma had made Uncle Finn swear on her Bible that he’d see to her children’s college educations, including the girls. She wrinkled her nose. Which was downright silly because everyone knows girls got married, for heaven’s sake, not go to college.

Except me, apparently.

Unleashing a forlorn sigh of surrender, Sheridan looked up. “What about after I graduate then, Jake? I’ll be twenty when I obtain my teaching degree, so you and I can just promise ourselves to each other till then.”

He gently buffed her arms with a patient smile. “Let’s just wait and see, Half Pint, okay? A lot can happen in two years.” He tweaked the pigtail she always wore to bed.

Her rib cage squeezed along with a crease in her brow. Stepping back from his hold, she barricaded her arms to her waist with the barest jut of her chin, determined to make Jake give her more than an empty “let’s wait and see.” And she had a sneaky suspicion as to just how. Thoughts of Clay emboldened her as she pursed her lips into battle mode. “I don’t want to ‘wait and see,’ Jake. I would like some assurance that you and I will marry someday—”

“Sher …”He was shaking his head before she could even finish her sentence.

“Because otherwise I’ll be more vulnerable,” she quickly explained, satisfied when a frown popped in his brow. Feigning nonchalance, Sheridan tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Aunt Libby says I’ll have to be on my guard because there are so many eligible men who seek female companionship.”

Catching the edge of her lip in her teeth, she peeked up beneath her lashes like Lolita had taught her, determined to use every ploy to get Jake to commit to at least something. “So, if I have a promise from you, no other man would stand a chance.”

She almost grinned when he shifted his stance, huffing out a loud blast of air as he slapped hands low on his hips. “All right, Sheridan, friends for now with the possibility of more after you graduate, all right?”

A smile squirmed on her lips as her chin nudged up a hair, thinking Jake Sullivan was such a mule. “Not a friendship with the ‘possibility’ of more, Jake Sullivan, because I can have that with any male I meet in New York.” She plopped her hands on her hips like him. “I want a close friendship where we correspond at least once a week and a definite promise of more, cross your heart and hope to die.”

He stared her down, the nervous tic in his cheek keeping time with the race of her pulse before he gusted out a noisy sigh. “All right, you win,” he said with a scowl, “cross my heart and hope to die.”

Her grin slid sideways. “No, Jacob Michael, ‘winning’ would be a ring on my finger, mister, but a close friendship with the promise of more will work for now.”

“But you have to swear you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone in the family, especially Finn, Libby, or Maggie, or to Sophia and Kathy Jean—ever. Because this is nobody’s business but ours, Sheridan, all right? And as far as any talkin’ you’ve done with Maggie or Libby in the past about your feelings for me? I want you to promise to put an end to it, telling them we are nothing more than friends, understood?” Spitting in his palm, he wiped it against his pants before extending his hand in the “spit swear” they’d made up when they were young. “Agreed?”

She eyed him with a tight purse of lips, gaze pensive as she considered his words, not thrilled about never being able to talk to Maggie and Libby about it anymore. But she might consider it if she could barter something as important in return. “All right. But I’ll only agree on one condition, Jake Sullivan.”

Arm still extended, he slacked a hip. “And that is?”

She spit in her palm and rubbed it against her robe before shaking his hand with a smirk, figuring if he could use spit to seal a deal, she sure in the blazes could too. She jagged a definitive brow. “We seal it with a kiss.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

A kiss? Ice water shot through Jake’s veins, right before it boiled into lava within two ragged beats of his pulse. He jerked back as if she scalded him with her words, battling a gulp as his gaze flicked to those lush lips and held.

Better than being scalded by a kiss.

“No way, Sheridan,” he said with a jut of his jaw, not about to go down that road again. “That’s an intimacy reserved for two people who are in love, not friends.”

She actually stomped a tiny slipper, the action barely producing any sound at all, but the intent of her hissed response was near deafening. “I am in love with you, you pig-headed mule, and I think you’re in love with me too, but you’re too dad-burned stubborn to show it.”

He blinked and took a step back, not used to such volatile words from his sweet, little Half-Pint.

She took a step forward, poking a tiny finger into his chest as she glared up, reminding him so much of that little six-year-old who used to bully her brothers in much the same way. Or tried. “And another thing,” she said with more pokes, “we are not just friends per our agreement. We are good friends with the promise of more, and I can’t think of anything more promising than a kiss, so those are my terms, take ’em or leave ’em.”

Giving him the benefit of an adorable scowl, she stepped back with a staunch cross of arms, looking so much like that little girl he used to tickle out of her tantrums, that he bit back a smile, tempted to do it all over again. But she was no longer that little girl, and the thought instantly sobered him. Because sure as the sparks in those remarkable blue eyes, that wasn’t the type of touching she was looking for anymore.

He distanced himself with another step back, opting to call her bluff. “I guess I leave ’em, then, Sher, because kisses are not what I want.”

He felt an immediate ache in his chest when tears welled in her eyes.

Shoulders square, she lashed her chin up in anger, totally at odds with the tremble of those sweet lips he so longed to still. “Well, that’s fine, then, Jake Sullivan,” she whispered, pain threading her tone as she swiped at the wetness coating her cheeks, “because I have a feeling there will be plenty of men who will. Goodbye, Jake.” Turning on her heel, she bolted for the door.

“Sheridan, wait!” But she didn’t, and with a hiss of a curse under his breath, he darted after her, swooping her up before she got too far out the door.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, battering his chest while she flailed and sobbed in his arms.