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She comes over and kisses me on both cheeks. She smiles politely at Jack, but then does a double-take when she sees how big he is.
“I’m here on vacation,” she shouts over the music. “With my fiancée.”
“I didn’t know you were getting married!”
“He just proposed yesterday!” she says, giddy with excitement as she shows me the ring. “He took me on this beautiful hike to a waterfall and then got down on one knee and asked. Can you believe it?! I’m getting married!”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, making a big fuss over the ring.
“That’s him. His name is Doug.” She points to a guy across the bar at a high table for two. The guy waves with an awkward smile on his face.
“That’s amazing!” I tell her. “Congratulations, I’m so happy for you!”
“You’re going to have to come to the wedding,” she says. “Let me get your number.”
I glance at Jack as she pulls out her phone. It’s nice to see an old friend, but I just wish she’d leave. I want to be alone with him again.
I give her my number and then she insists on taking a selfie together.
“No one is going to believe I ran into you in this tiny town,” she says as she holds up the phone and snaps a few pics.
I’m smiling, but my mind is on Jack. I want to be alone with him. Not just in this bar… I want it to be just us. With no one around to see what we do.
“I should get back to my fiancée,” she says with a giddy laugh. “I’ll be in touch, Ruby. We’ll grab some coffee or something.”
“Definitely!”
She quickly looks Jack over, smiling politely, and then leaves.
I take a breath of relief when she’s finally gone.
“Want to get out of here?” I ask Jack, leaning in nice and close.
He looks down at me with a look that gives me warm shivers.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Chapter Eight
Jack
I’m squeezing the steering wheel and trying to only focus on my breathing as I drive down Main Street. I’m keeping my eyes straight ahead and not on the sexy-as-hell, slightly tipsy girl in my passenger seat who’s staring at me with those glossy, aroused-filled eyes. Her hair has come down in a bit of a mess, but the tousled look is just turning me on even more.
And that mouth… those lips… fuck. They’re the color of cherries, but they look even sweeter.
You can’t, I remind myself. She’s off-limits.
“Imagine we were the same age,” she says in that sweet voice that makes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Do you think we’d, you know…”
I look at her and she smiles shyly.
“…be interested in each other?”
I swallow hard as I turn back to the road, not knowing what to say. I don’t care what age she is. Between eighteen and a hundred, I’d be interested in this goddess.
How could I not be? She’s perfect in every way.
This day has been the best one in memory. It’s the first day without a looming sense of doom hovering over my head. I was cloaked in darkness and she’s a new light shining in.
“But we’re not the same age,” I whisper. “I’m old enough to be your dad.”
“It’s called imagination, Jack,” she says with a playful grin. “Pick a number in the middle. Imagine we were both thirty-seven years old.”
I was in Afghanistan hunting down high-ranking members of the Taliban when I was thirty-seven. I push that away and picture myself with an older version of Ruby.
“Okay.”
“Now, imagine you’re hanging out in a coffee shop,” she says, painting the mental picture. “It’s raining and you have an hour to kill, probably reading the paper or an old paperback book. The little bell over the door rings and I walk in, shaking my umbrella. What would you think?”
“I’d think that you shouldn’t shake an umbrella inside because you’re going to make the floor dangerously slippery for the next person who walks in.”
She hits my arm playfully. “Come on, play along!” she says with a laugh. “What would you think about me?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
I take a deep breath as I turn onto a dark road with no cars around. “I’d think that you were the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen. I’d think that I was dreaming. That I had died without knowing it and woke up in heaven.”
“Would you be upset if I sat at your table and talked to you?”
“No. I’d be hoping you would.”
She smiles as she watches me. She’s turned in her seat now, her back against the door, those aroused-filled eyes locked on me. What the hell is she doing? Why is she making this so hard?
“What if we had a wonderful time?” she continues. “Would you ask for my number?”
“Every time with you would be wonderful.”
“But would you ask for my number?”
