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Despite my insistence that I was doing better—I hadn’t had any symptoms for nearly a full forty-eight hours—he claimed that he was concerned something could still be lingering and that I’d get others sick.
Did that mean that he stayed home with me?
Nope.
Tom didn’t hesitate to get himself all dressed up to go have a good time without me.
And I was left spending the night alone, wondering if everything I thought we’d talked about before we got married was ever true.
Because with each day that passed, I was seeing less and less of the man he’d shown me while we were dating, and more and more of a man I didn’t recognize.
Jack
Present Day
It was time.
I wasn’t going to rush anything, but I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to get the ball rolling. This was, of course, because it had been not even a full two days since I’d played in the snow with Dakota. I hadn’t had that much fun in years, and I hated that I hadn’t seen her since.
The conversation I’d had with my brothers the day before that, when they had been at my place, urging me to pursue Dakota, was still lingering in my head, too.
Since I still hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind, and I hadn’t seen her again, I needed to make my move.
Besides, being the kind of guy I was, I couldn’t sit around waiting for her to make an approach. She’d been the one to come to me with the cookies, and I’d taken advantage of being outside when she returned from the grocery store, but I figured it was going to be on me to go to her if I wanted a chance at this. And considering where I thought she might have been in her life right now, it was all the more reason for me to be the one to take the lead.
I just hoped that I managed to do whatever was necessary to not scare her off. I really wanted to give this a fair shot, and if I pushed for too much too soon, I knew she’d slam the door in my face.
I would have done the same thing to anyone else three years ago.
Now that I was here feeling the way that I did, I was prepared to make every effort for this to be successful.
My plan was to walk up to her front door and invite her to dinner at my place. I wanted uninterrupted time with her that lasted for more than five minutes and that gave us a chance to have an actual conversation. It was the only way to get to know her better.
Playing in the snow had been fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed that time with her. It was nice to see her with her walls down for a bit, but no matter how great it had all been, I couldn’t ignore how things changed right at the end. Just when I thought everything was heading in the right direction, when I’d tackled her to the snow and pinned her body beneath mine, Dakota put the brakes on.
Her walls were back up. No matter how much I wanted to push, I decided against it.
For that reason, I had my concerns about her accepting my invitation, so I came up with a bit of a scheme. I didn’t want to play games, but I felt it was necessary to try to find a way in. If I could convince her to agree to dinner, my hope was that I’d never have to do anything like this again.
I intended to tell her that I’d invited my parents over for dinner, but at the last minute they had to cancel, which meant that I had entirely too much food leftover. I thought maybe if she believed she’d be helping me out, she might be more willing to join me.
I only hoped it would work.
I made it to the front door of her cabin and knocked. As I waited, I recognized the nerves I felt.
It had been a long time since I’d done this. It had been a long time since I’d been interested in doing this. Fear of rejection became a very real thing in that moment.
The longer I stood there, though, my nerves about this started to wane and something else replaced them.
Concern.
Dakota’s cabin wasn’t that big. She should have answered the door by now. Unless, of course, she was in the shower.
Suddenly, thoughts of her being naked in the shower assaulted my mind, and I really knew I was in trouble.
It was in the middle of those unsavory thoughts that I finally heard the lock on her door. But when she opened it and I saw her standing in the doorway, I got more than I bargained for.
Dakota hadn’t been in the shower while I stood out on the porch, waiting.
