Chapter Eleven
Jackson sat in his motel room, staring at the ugly walls. Will would hate it here. He appreciated beautiful things, wood-paneled walls, wood floors, a touch of nature everywhere they stayed. He was all about color and design and art.
Jackson knew that every shitty motel room they stayed in was a personal affront to Will’s sensibilities. And yet, Will had continued to make that sacrifice every now and then when they all needed space from each other, or to get out of the travel trailer for a while.
Will had taken good care of them, protected them when Jackson couldn’t. And he’d suffered for it, with his leg giving him trouble since.
And what had Jackson done? Behaved like a complete dick, yelled at Will, and abandoned him and Hayley so he could chase down this silly dream.
He wasn’t the man for Summer. He wanted her, but sometimes it was more important to love from afar, to keep someone safe. And she could—he gasped at the pain cutting through his heart—she could find someone else and be happy and safe.
He sent Will a text.
Jackson: Hey. I’m sorry.
Will: You ready to meet up with us? We stopped in northern Washington, hoping you’d change your idiotic ways.
Jackson shook his head. Just like Will to only rub it in a tiny little bit. Just enough to sting.
Jackson: Just so you know, the Clausens are gone.
Will: Okay.
Jackson: I was right that it was safe to come back.
Will: And?
Jackson paused. There was so much he could add to that. He could say, and I’ve found the love of my life, or and maybe we should rebuild our house, or and I don’t know what to do. But instead he wrote one line.
Jackson: And there’s nothing for us here.
Just then, a notification from SocialBook popped up on his screen. New message. He flipped away the text app and switched over to SocialBook. It was a note from Summer.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Now she wanted to be in touch? After running from him (metaphorically) for over two months, she was now wanting him to write back to her. She wanted to get together.
Shit.
He’d just resolved to put her from his mind, because he was no protector. He wasn’t forever material for any woman; he was just some dumb shifter who couldn’t manage to keep anyone safe.
But this was Summer.
Another message came in. This time, with her phone number.
Her phone number, coming from a woman who hadn’t wanted to show him a picture of herself or tell him her full name. Now she was trusting him with her number. Wow.
Jackson touched the screen of his phone, just to feel closer to her, but it accidentally brought up the calling app. With Summer’s phone number right there, and the prompting questions, Call? Send text message?
Well, fuck if he knew. He wanted to talk to her, sure, but…did he deserve to?
Probably not.
Could he actually manage to ignore her?
Definitely not.
Will texted him again. Hey, so are you coming, or what?
Jackson closed the box asking him to call or message Summer and wrote back to Will, I can’t.
Will didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. Jackson could practically hear him saying, “Dammit, Jackson,” even across all this distance.
He found Summer’s number in SocialBook again and touched it, pulling up the options of calling or texting. He needed to hear her voice, so he selected call and waited while her phone rang.
“Hello?” Her voice was quiet.
“Hey, it’s Jackson. Are you whispering?”
She gave a little laugh. “Um, maybe.”
He whispered, “Why?”
“Um, weird story. I’m hiding in my closet right now.”
He shot to his feet, grabbed his keys, and headed for the motel door. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, just some weird noises. I’m fine, really, just freaked out.”
“Can I come over?”
She didn’t answer right away, and he listened to her breathing. “Yeah. That would be nice, actually.”
She gave him her address. He was familiar with the street, Huntwood being so small, and didn’t even need to put the address in his GPS.
“I’m going to put you on speaker while I drive, okay?” he asked.
“I’m really fine,” she said. “Just freaked out. I haven’t even heard the noises in a while.”
He climbed into the tiny rental car, folding up his legs and cursing the rental agency for not giving him the Ford Escape. “I’m on my way,” he said, starting the car. “It doesn’t matter if there’s any noise or not—if you’re freaked out, you deserve to have someone there with you.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice still quiet. “It’s nice to know you’re on the line.”
“Good.” He did California stops at all the stop signs and tried not to growl at the couple of stop lights that had the audacity to turn red before he reached them. He couldn’t handle feeling this worried about her. Hearing her voice would help alleviate his panic. “So, what was the noise?”
“It was weird, it was this growling sound, but it came from different windows.”
“That is weird,” he said. “Some kind of animal, walking around your house? But why?”
“I don’t know, I’m not baking anything, and it’s not like I have an animal here that would attract it or anger it. It’d be something else entirely if, I don’t know, I had several cats or little dogs or something that might attract a predator.”
“Right.” He turned down her street. The houses were spaced out, maybe a quarter mile between them. Nice and quiet, lots of privacy. “I’m nearly there, okay?”
“Okay.”
His heart was in his throat, preventing him from breathing easily. He just needed to see her safe. How had he gotten so wrapped up in her, so early? He’d barely spent more than two hours with her.
He saw her house number at the front of a little house, maybe a one-bedroom. Cute little flower pots in the front, an overgrown garden at the side. He smiled, remembering one of her texts about trying out gardening before deciding it really wasn’t for her.
After pulling to a stop, he grabbed his phone and jumped out of the little car. “I’m here,” he said, putting the phone to his ear. “I’m going to walk around the house really fast and make sure there’s nobody around.”
Someone growling—what kind of dick did that? It could be a shifter, purposefully trying to scare her. He shook that idea off. There was no scent of shifter, just a lingering scent of cologne in the air. He sniffed once, memorized the sharp sandalwood base in it, and then focused on visible signs of someone messing with her house.
The screens and windows were intact, and the latch on the back door was fine, too. “Everything looks good,” he said, before making his way around to the side of the house. “No sign of anyone.”
He couldn’t tell her that he’d smelled that someone had been here, because no human nose would’ve been able to detect it.
If she was his mate—and he was pretty damn sure that she was—he’d need to tell her that he was a shifter. But first he needed to know that she wanted him around even as a human.
“Thanks for looking around,” she said.
“Okay, I’m coming to the front door,” he said. “But you don’t have to let me in if you don’t want to.”
She laughed. “Of course I’ll let you in. I’ll be right there.”
The call abruptly ended and he looked down at his phone screen, smiling. Despite her fear, and despite the scents around her house, he was really happy to get to see her again.
She opened the front door and then pushed open the screen. “Come on in.”
He bounded inside, not needing to be asked again. Still, with whatever weirdness was going on, it might be safer for her to be out of the house. “What do you say to going on a picnic?” he asked.
Her face brightened. “I’d love that. I have all the fixings for sandwiches. I’m not much of a cook—I hate it, so I never bothered to learn how to make anything.”
“Me, neither,” he said.
She laughed. “Then we’re doomed before we start. If we got together, we’d starve to death.”
“Nah,” he said. “I’d love to learn how to cook. I’ve just never been in one place long enough to try.”
He followed her into the kitchen, where they put together a couple of sandwiches and packed some containers of fruit and veggies. He looked in her fridge. “Should we pack a couple of beers, or no?”
She glanced over at him. “After last night, I’m not interested in drinking anything that isn’t water.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. Do you have water bottles?”
She pointed to a cupboard, so he found a couple of bottles and filled them up at the sink.
Suddenly, she was pressed against his back, her tanned arms wrapping around his middle as she hugged him from behind. “Thanks for doing this,” she murmured into his shoulder. “I was freaking out big time. I must have imagined everything, but it was just so real.”
“I don’t think you imagined it,” he said. “Could have been some weirdo trying to scare you. Do you have any ex-boyfriends who would want to do that? Or someone you met at work who might hold a grudge for some reason?”
“I can’t think of anyone. Really, it was either some weird animal, or I was hearing things.” She let go of him, and he turned around to face her.
“Let’s not dismiss it outright,” he said. “If there’s really something to this, we don’t want to find out the hard way.”
Her eyes widened. “Now you’re scaring me, Jackson.”
“Not trying to scare you. I just don’t want to dismiss possible danger.”
“Better safe than sorry, huh? I guess you’re right.” She pulled a small ice chest out of a cupboard and tucked in their food and water. “Well, I think we’re all packed up—let’s go.”
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and grabbed the ice chest, her steps jaunty. She was capable, beautiful, and funny.
Jackson followed her out of the cottage, marveling at how lucky he was to have found this woman.