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They’d sought their own legal advice—no offense to Johnny—and had been told everything Johnny had already told them. But perhaps with a bit more doubt with regard to Tabitha. The Harrises had been kind in the delivery of their message—that they’d do what they could but were not, in any way, on Tabitha’s side in this matter. They weren’t taking sides at all. And they wouldn’t be passing along any information that could be considered confidential or of a personal nature.
Once she got through the gist of it and had had a moment to think, Tabitha was okay with it. They weren’t backing out of their agreement of the week before; they were just proceeding with caution; which Johnny had advised they do to begin with.
And it wasn’t as if she’d ever asked to even see Jackson. Or would ask to see him until they’d gone through the proper channels. She’d lost him once due to what felt like foolishness on her part. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
But now that the Harrises had their own attorney, they didn’t need Johnny to protect them.
And while she cried inside at the thought of losing his friendship, she would survive and get Jackson back without him. Starting that night, if he was done with the quest of honoring his wife’s dream. Maybe she was making more of the day before than she should, but as a woman who’d always stood on her own two feet, she figured she’d been given a heads up. She had to be able to go it alone. No one could fault Johnny for finishing his sabbatical early, if that was really what was going on. The dollar amount he’d chosen to arbitrarily determine success could be fluid. With the lineups they’d had aga
in that day, he couldn’t possibly see the venture as anything but a success.
They’d known all along that there was no guarantee she’d find Jackson during the year he was helping her. Jackson back in her arms wasn’t part of their agreement.
He opened a bottle of wine without asking her if she wanted any. She didn’t recognize the label and wondered if it was stuff he was used to drinking at home. Higher-end than the locally made bottles they’d purchased together the week before. Higher-end than anything she’d probably ever tasted.
She thought of the number of times she’d suggested fast food to him during their travels, or an inexpensive diner, and he’d been a good sport and agreed. She’d wanted to ask if those had been the first times he’d ever had the stuff. In her mind, people with corporate jets didn’t settle for cheap fare when it came to their stomachs, either.
Standing there, uncomfortable, sad and yet determined, too, Tabitha looked at the door of her room. Wishing this was just another trip on the road with Johnny. Hoping things would go back to what they’d been.
He reached for a glass, his shoulders looking strong as they stretched the purple shirt. He was a single man with an entire life she knew nothing about. How could she possibly have begun to think he was hers?
And that she was his?
They’d been on loan to each other.
She’d always known that.
A second glass appeared beside the first one, still empty, on the bar. He was intending to pour one for her, too. She suppressed a sense of giddiness.
When had Johnny ever poured for himself and not for her? He was a gentleman. Polite. Didn’t mean that they were a pair. That they were together.
That they’d developed something between them on a more elemental level than a temporary partnership.
She’d been planning to stand while they talked, to accept whatever he had to tell her and then excuse herself to go to bed. It was late. They had to be awake early in the morning if they were going to be prepped, parked and ready for the lunch crowd down by the beach. But as he poured that wine her knees started to feel weak again.
She sank down on one end of the couch, sitting forward, still ready to take off to her room as soon as their business was completed.
“I bought this yesterday,” Johnny said, bringing both glasses and the bottle over on a tray that he set down on the cherrywood coffee table in front of the couch. She’d mentally assigned him the seat on the other end. He took the middle. “Based on what we bought last week, I thought we’d both like it.”
It was white. Not too sweet. And the smoothest wine she’d ever tasted. “It’s good.” She couldn’t help wondering how much he’d paid for it, suspecting it was more than her grocery bill for the week and feeling guilty even as she enjoyed her second sip.
After a day in the food truck, she needed a shower. Felt far too ordinary in jeans, her food truck shirt and tennis shoes to be drinking fine wine in a plush hotel suite.
Johnny was in jeans, too. With the same kind of shirt. And hadn’t showered, either. She liked him that way. And feared losing him—just as she knew she had to encourage him to go.
“You said you’d explain...about yesterday.” She took another sip, holding her glass on her thigh when she was through.
He leaned forward, his glass between his hands, head lowered. But he glanced at her. Her insides jolted—with gratitude for being lucky enough to have spent the past nine months with him. To have had him as a partner in what would surely be the most important quest of her life.
She loved him.
The thought was there. Just calmly fact. She loved Johnny.
Her Johnny. Not the man who flew jets and hobnobbed with the rich and famous.
Seemed like kind of a no-brainer, really. Who wouldn’t love him?
And, like any friend, she had to be strong enough to let him go. Maybe if she kept telling herself that, kept repeating the admonition over and over, she’d be able to do it.
