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SIXTEEN
Dakota
I thought I was going to have more time before things took a turn.
I’d gotten three and a half wonderful weeks with Jack, and it was better than I could have ever dreamed it would be.
The minute I decided to stop holding on to the hurt I’d endured and given Jack and me a fair shot at something real, there was no turning back. I opened up to him, and he did the same with me. We shared the painful parts of our pasts, and it allowed us to move forward together in a much healthier way. I think it helped both of us to know what the other person had been through. I knew that was the case for me, because understanding what Jack had gone through, I had a much deeper appreciation for everything he did with and for me.
Jack was a provider, and I didn’t mean that in the financial sense.
He gave so much of himself to me in the way he looked after me, both physically and emotionally. He offered me reassurances when I needed them, and I found I didn’t worry nearly as much as I used to. It was crazy to me that he’d managed to do that, because I hadn’t even realized that what he gave was something that I’d desperately needed.
For the last three and a half weeks, Jack and I had done nearly everything together. We ate almost every meal with one another. We laughed a lot. I’d had more sex in the last two weeks—with a condom—than I’d had in the last year I was with Tom.
All of the moments we spent together left me feeling wonderful, and I hadn’t wanted for anything. It seemed strange, because I’d had my doubts when I’d initially moved to Cottonwood.
Waverly had encouraged me, mostly because she knew I needed to get away to heal from all that had happened with Tom, and while she encouraged me to come here to find a man who’d have my back, I don’t think even she expected I’d find Jack.
He was simply perfect, and he gave meeverythingI had been missing in my life before I moved here.
That was precisely the reason I didn’t want this to end.
Jack and I still had so much to learn about one another, and I wasn’t sure if I’d learned enough to know that we’d be able to survive what was in front of us. But there was one thing in all the learning that I’d done for the last few weeks that had become painfully obvious.
There wasn’t a thing I didn’t like about Jack.
I liked how he lived his life, and I especially enjoyed how he seemed to fit me into that life effortlessly.
We laughed. We played in the snow. We cuddled up to watch movies. And we ate a lot. There wasn’t one thing in particular that I could pinpoint as the thing I enjoyed doing the most with him, because there wasn’t anything that wasn’t wonderful.
Jack seemed to be just as caught up in all of it as I was.
In fact, I think he’d felt a bit nervous about the possibility of all that we were experiencing together coming to an abrupt end. It became apparent that it was on his mind when he’d brought up a specific conversation with me just a few days after we’d officially gotten together.
“So, when does everything go back to normal for you?”
“What?” I asked, as I looked up from my bowl of white chicken chili I’d made for us for dinner.
“Life,” he clarified. “When does it go back to normal?”
My hand, holding the spoon, had stopped about midway to my mouth at his question, and my eyes darted back and forth. I had no idea what he was getting at.
That was mostly because my life was what it was now. I had no intention of going back to the normal that existed prior to moving here to Cottonwood.
“I’m not sure I understand the question,” I informed him. “What do you mean?”
There was a momentary pause before he said, “Well, I guess what I’m asking you is about work. Was this trip to Cottonwood something that you worked out with your job? You haven’t really spoken about it, so I don’t know what you do for a living, but can you do your work from here?”
Something in the words he said made me believe that this wasn’t just a simple conversation about employment for him, and I thought it was best to address that before anything else. “Jack, this isn’t a trip for me,” I declared. “I moved here. This is where my life is now.”
He offered me a nod of understanding. “Okay. That’s really good to know. What about work, though? I mean, I haven’t been able to watch you nearly as much as you’ve watched me since you moved in, and that’s mostly because I’ve rarely seen you outside. Do you work from home?”
I shook my head.
“So, you’re on a sabbatical?”
“No.”
