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At himself, mostly, but...
He touched her arm. She gave a start but kept walking. They were almost at the door. Mallory and Braden could be inside already, waiting for them. “Tabitha.”
“Yeah?”
With a hand at her lower spine, he guided her off the entry sidewalk. “We’re in this together.” He wasn’t sure what else to say to get them on track.
“I know.”
Her response just intensified his frustration. “Well, here’s something maybe you don’t know,” he blurted, having visions of Mallory noticing them out there and either wondering if they were having an argument or coming to the door to invite them in.
The Harrises could also walk up at any second if Johnny and Tabitha were the first to arrive...
“I care.” He finished his statement more slowly. There. It was out. Not a partnership conversation at all. But out there anyway.
She was looking at him, so that, at least, was a good thing. Still not talking, though.
“Please don’t shut me out.”
The resolute expression that crossed her beautiful face was a surprise. For someone who read body language, who read people, fairly easily, he pretty much sucked where she was concerned. “On one condition,” she told him, and he felt a flicker of relief. He’d been preparing to hear her deny shutting him out. Preparing to have her pretend that things were fine between them.
“What’s that?” Conditions he could handle. Every day. He’d make a list of them if she’d like. And stick to them.
Had she noticed his growing attraction to her? Even as the thought hit him, he dismissed it. Her current mood was because of the text message. The fact that he’d left without a clear plan to return, that he’d actually considered not joining her in San Diego for the week.
“Please be honest with me,” she said.
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Not in words, no, but you need to communicate with me. Tell me what’s going on with you, too,” she clarified. “If you want out, you tell me—to my face, not in a text message, and before it’s reached the point that you have to hop on a plane and fly away.”
He’d never had his face slapped, but he figured he now knew what it felt like.
“That’s what you think yesterday was about?” he asked. “I wasn’t wanting out,” he told her, trying to sound his professional best while feeling like some wet-behind-the-ears college kid.
Her expression told him she was on the verge of withdrawing from the conversation.
“Listen,” he said, feeling an imminent loss closing in on him. One he had to avoid at all costs. “We can talk about my...lapse...yesterday when we’re done here tonight. I’ll explain, okay? For now, just lean on me, if and when you need to. Let’s get through this meeting and trust that we’ll work the rest of it out.”
Her look was long, searching. He had no idea what she hoped to find in his face, but he tried his damnedest to make certain it was there.
“I think I deserve a second chance,” he said next, feeling a return of the confidence that had been a quiet companion all his life. “I think I’ve earned it.” He pushed a little harder.
He knew the second she capitulated. He felt it in that whoosh of released tension, the same one he’d felt while sitting beside her the night they’d first met the Harrises. Then he saw it in her smile.
And, finally, he melted with it as she put her arm through his and they walked into the pub, almost as if they were a couple.
In reality, he knew, she was just leaning on him, as he’d instructed. But for a moment, he let himself forget.
* * *
Tabitha was keyed up as she followed Johnny into their suite shortly before eleven Monday night. They’d checked in late that morning—a suite identical to the one they’d had the week before, but on a higher floor—and her things were already in her room. He’d said they were going to talk.
She planned to hold him to it.
There was no way she was going to hold him back if he was ready to resume his life. Clearly, he was an important man, a powerful man. He was wasting his time here with her.
Mallory and Braden Harris were willing to keep their eyes open for any sign that Jason could be Jackson. They’d accepted the list with promises to give it their utmost attention, but neither of them read through the pages-long collection of details while they were together. Braden did offer that he would try to find out more about their friend Matt—to rule him out, he’d said. Other than that, they couldn’t do anything without the risk of endangering a child in Mallory’s care by exposing him to someone who could be a crazy woman or, in any case, perceived as a crazy woman who thought she was his mother. They’d suggested Tabitha stay away from The Bouncing Ball daycare altogether.
