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This was news to Robin, and she instantly straightened her shoulders. Jack didn’t miss her surprised reaction—because honestly, did the man miss anything?
He pursed his lips. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. I know cops and firefighters are everyday heroes—since that’s what they call them when we learn about them in school—but superheroes are different. They have powers, so you know… they can’t die.”
“Right, yeah.” Jack cleared his throat, and this time, Robin noticed he looked out his windshield instead of over at her.
Which was good, because she had no idea what he would see on her face if he did.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go do my homework. Bye, Jack!”
Jack waved, and Robin watched her with a heavy heart as she skipped down the sidewalk toward their house.
“It’s crazy to hear her say something like that and then skip away like it’s no big deal,” she mused, not even sure if she was talking to him or to herself.
Jack rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It means you’re doing a good job, Robin.”
She frowned, stepping closer to the cruiser. “What do you mean?”
He shifted in his seat, adjusting the collar of his uniform. “I don’t know how to explain it. But let’s just say I’ve seen a lot of kids who’ve lost parents, and she’s handling it really well. Not to mention the fact that I was one of those kids.”
He looked down, and Robin grieved for the boy he was even as she was drawn to the man sitting before her. Uniform or no uniform, squad car or no squad car, Jack understood what she and her daughter had gone through and allowed her to see the man beneath the image he represented.
“Mom!” Abby called from the front porch a few houses down. “Hurry up! I wanna go inside, and the door’s locked!”
“I should go,” Robin said to Jack, regret filling her from her head to her heels. And those heels had been killing her on the walk home, but she’d forgotten all about the pain while standing there with Jack.
“See ya later, neighbor,” he replied, shooting her one final smile before pulling away from the curb.
* * *
“I still don’t getwhy you think he’s going to take this well,” Robin said to Holly, gazing around the Christmas tree lot with narrowed eyes.
“Because, Robin, sometimes my brother needs a little push.”
Robin didn’t know Jack as well as she knew Holly, but something told her that statement was based more on Holly’s perception of him and not on Jack as a person.
From what Robin could tell, Jack didn’t need pushes. He was very self-directed. And he knew his own mind. And he put up with Holly’s Christmas obsession and her calling him Jack Frost because he loved her and was glad Christmas made her happy even if it made him sad.
Buying him a Christmas tree in an effort to push him into liking Christmas wouldn’t work, just like him moving in next door wasn’t going to push her into dating him since he was a cop. Then again,the close proximity might be starting to get to her… like exposure therapy or something. And it scared the living heck out of her.
“You look weird.”
Robin jumped at Holly’s voice, returning to the present moment with a shake of her head. “Sorry. I was thinking.”
“About what?”
Robin looked around, spotted a bench off to the side of the trees, and pointed to it. “Wanna sit?”
Holly followed her to the bench and took a seat, checking her phone before dropping it into her bag. “Nick and Jack haven’t texted me, so maybe that means the girls aren’t getting too wild in the hall.”
Holly had told Nick the truth about their mission for the day, but she’d lied to her brother. The men were spending the day laboring over the setup for the Gingerbread Ball at Colonial Hall. Since Jack was now an official Snow Hill resident, he was expected to pitch in as Nick’s brother-in-law.
The men had Noelle and Abby with them because Holly said she and Robin were getting their nails done, but really, it was so the kids wouldn’t be underfoot while the ladies bought Jack a tree, let themselves into his house with Holly’s spare key, and decorated it before he got home.
Robin had complained about this scheme from the start, but Holly wouldn’t hear it. Before they made a purchase and really got to work, however, she needed to try one last time to get her friend to see reason.
“Do you know why Jack hates Christmas?” Robin asked.
