THERE WAS A larger housekeeping element to this job than Savannah had expected, but she didn’t mind it, either. In fact, over the next couple of days she found a strange kind of bliss in it. Jackson was gone most of the time, and she usually woke up to coffee he had made and some leftover bacon, which she helped herself to, and then set about to preparing Lily’s first bottle, and getting set up to change diapers.
She read to her. Made sure she had the recommended amount of tummy time, and sang to her off-key. But at Lily’s age, the bulk of what she did was sleep and wiggle. And that gave Savannah a decent amount of free time. So she cleaned the tiny cabin, she made herself lunch, and then she prepared a dinner for both herself and Jackson.
Jackson had come in late the last couple of nights, and they didn’t take dinner together, but Savannah didn’t mind eating by herself.
It was a revelation, to be in a new setting like this. She had lived on her own for the last eight months, and had been distant from her husband before that, but still, she could feel his specter looming over her the entire time. Actually living in this new place, with this fresh start, was awfully blissful. Tonight she was making pot roast, which was even more blissful. She had never made it before. She hadn’t done a lot of cooking even when she’d been married, not because she couldn’t, but because she’d worked full-time and had usually been too exhausted at the end of the day to put together anything more spectacular than a pot of spaghetti.
She and Darren had often eaten out, or gone to his parents’ house for dinner. He didn’t really enjoy her cooking. That was the biggest part of it. And so they had settled into a routine where they had what he liked to eat, when he wanted to eat it. And often, his mother facilitated that. Darren had certainly been the one in charge in their house, but if there had been anyone pulling rank above him it’d been his mother.
She frowned. It had all been so slow and insidious, and she hadn’t realized that nothing in her life was hers until the end, when Darren finally pulled the plug on that marriage by announcing he had found someone else.
That was the worst part.
She’d been unhappy for a long time, but she had been primly pressing on because there was nothing else to do. Because she’d made vows and she would honor those. And that someday, maybe they would find the kind of happiness they’d had when they were dating.
It wasn’t until they’d divorce that she realized she’d walk herself right into the same marriage her parents had had.
She hadn’t given it the necessary amount of thought until it was too late, but somewhere, deep down, she’d believed her parents had always been unhappy. That they’d never been giddy about each other, that they’d never felt reckless and young. And so, when she’d met Darren and fallen in love for the first time, experienced attraction and infatuation for the first time, she’d imagine she’d gone and sidestepped her great fear.
But then it had just been...bad. Such a quiet bad that it had seeped into every pore, every crack in her life before she’d fully realized. Like the slow settling of a fog over the tops of the mountains, creeping over the peaks and rolling down until she had forgotten how high they were supposed to be. Until she had forgotten what it was like to look out on a clear day.
It was clear now. In this little cabin, with Lily. Right now, it was clear enough.
Obviously, Jackson wouldn’t need her forever, but it was a great place to land for now. If only she could get her reaction to him under control.
He came in to check on Lily at varying points during the day, and Savannah wasn’t prepared to deal with his random appearances. He was always somehow taller and broader than she remembered, his jaw more square, his face more arrestingly handsome.
It was a problem.
But most especially with the memory of her marriage so bright and clear, she shouldn’t allow those feelings to mean a thing. Feelings like this were a lie. She knew it. What was real was this cabin. This beautiful part of the world. And the beautiful baby she got to take care of.
She’d always loved children. She’d gotten into child development because she wanted to do what she could to bring happiness to children who might not have the best home lives. Or to be extra support for those who did.
Her own home life hadn’t been so great. Void of affection and any meaningful attention, it was her teachers, her coaches and her Girl Scout leaders who had provided the support she needed in her life.
It had inspired her to want to do the same. Lily needed her. Jackson didn’t, and her hormones needed to get a grip.
That was the one drawback to living with Jackson, really. She didn’t know what to do with what he made her feel. It was a restless edginess that she would put down as attraction if she didn’t know that she just...wasn’t all that sexual. She tried to put that thought out of her mind and busied herself until the smell of dinner was beginning to kill her. When she couldn’t wait any longer, she opened up the cupboard and took down a bowl, ready to serve herself some food. Right then, the front door opened, and in came Jackson, wearing a cowboy hat, heavy boots and a flannel shirt.
She didn’t know why that was particularly sexy to her. She’d never been into that kind of thing. Darren had been polished. A small-town businessman, nothing like the kind of men strolling around Fifth Avenue, but his neat style had appealed to her at the time.
Jackson was rugged and a little bit dangerous and there was no earthly reason she should find that interesting. But she did.
She looked over the counter, and their eyes collided. She felt it hit her square in the stomach. It was...attraction. On a level she had never experienced before, something she would have thought was completely impossible for her to experience until this moment.
She’d been married for nearly five years. Had shared a bed with a man for most of that time, and for some time before. She thought she had known all about sex, and what her limitations were in that arena. But Jackson made her feel more with one look than Darren had made her feel with dinner, foreplay and the main event.
He made her feel more like a woman than anyone or anything else had before. More aware of her body, of what it meant to be feminine to his masculine.
It was a problem. A serious problem. They were sharing this tiny house, and she was taking care of his daughter. They needed boundaries.
So many boundaries.
For a moment, she thought she saw the heat that burned her stomach reflected in his gaze. But then he looked away, took his hat off, and hung it up on the peg by the door. “What’s for dinner?”
“Pot roast.”
She suddenly wished she hadn’t cooked something so domestic. It added a strange layer to the whole interaction. Or maybe that was just her. Her and her completely inappropriate thoughts about her boss. Her boss that she lived with.
“I’m starving,” he said. “How’s Lily?”
“Getting in one more nap before she eats again. Before she sleeps for a while longer.”
“Did you stay home today?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I took her outside for a little while. She seemed to enjoy the leaves crunching under my feet while I walked.”
“You know,” he said, walking into the kitchen, his presence so intense, so imposing that she had to take a step back, “it’s Friday night, and normally I would be heading down to the Golden Valley saloon to have a drink. Or three. Pick up a woman.” His lips quirked up into a half smile. “Instead I’m eating pot roast.”
Her chest was tight, and she could barely breathe. “You’re welcome to go out if you want.”
“Looking to get rid of me?”
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
She was frozen in the back of the kitchen, holding on to her bowl, waiting for him to finish dishing his own food. She didn’t want to walk past him. She felt like if she got that close, she might spontaneously combust.
She needed to get a grip. This was ridiculous. Profoundly ridiculous.
She took a fortifying breath and walked past him toward the little table set against the wall in the open living area. When she walked past him, she could feel him. His energy. His heat. He looked...so hard. Like he had been carved directly out of rock.
She had never touched a man like that. She had never particularly wanted to before. But...but her hands itched when she looked at him, and her body ached.
She blinked and sat down quickly, pulling her bowl of food close, and turning her focus resolutely onto it. For his part, Jackson stayed in the kitchen, standing against the counter, the bowl placed in front of him.
“Have you gotten a chance to explore the town much?”
He was being polite, which was very nice of him, and she supposed a lot less self-conscious than sitting there in silence, like she was. “A little bit,” she responded. “When Lily and I went grocery shopping yesterday I made a few stops. It’s cute. It reminds me a little bit of Colville.”
“That’s where you’re from?”
“Yeah. Well. I mean, that’s where I’ve lived since college. Since... Since I got married.”
“You mentioned something about that. The divorce, I mean.”
“It was...messy.”
“What happened?”
“That’s kind of personal,” she said, looking back down at her pot roast.
“You’re living in my house taking care of my kid. You might work for me, but it’s a pretty personal situation.”
The way he was looking at her made her want to tell him. She hadn’t told anyone. In the end, she hadn’t had anyone to tell. Darren had made her feel so stupid she hadn’t wanted to tell anyway. But suddenly here...with him, in another town, another state, in his house in the woods...she wanted to tell someone.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “He cheated on me. And then he ended the marriage. So...it doesn’t even really matter that he cheated. I didn’t even get the chance to get righteously angry and say I’d never take him back. He didn’t want to be with me. He said we were unhappy. And that I wasn’t...” She wasn’t going to finish that sentence. She wasn’t going to tell Jackson that Darren had told her she was disappointing in bed. And that he never should’ve married a virgin just because he felt guilty for being her first.
All of that was way, way too personal. And it might be fine for him to get the bare minimum details, but that was too deep.
“He sounds like a prince.”
“Unfortunately, he was. The Prince of Colville. His uncle is the mayor. His family has been there for generations. His dad owns the hardware store, and his mother owns the flower shop.”
“Did that relate to you losing your position at the daycare?”
She sighed. “Yes. The woman he ended up with was a single mom at the place I used to work. She convinced all of her friends to withdraw the kids, because of course she couldn’t be around me.”
“And the place had to close?”
“The owner was close to retirement anyway. Otherwise, she just would’ve fired me.” She thought of Eliza Elton, who of all people had been kind to her when everything had fallen apart. “Well, maybe she wouldn’t have fired me. She was about the only person who took my side. Or, if anyone else did, they certainly didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t get that. How did this guy cheat on you and end up with people on his side?”
“People love to blame the woman,” she said dryly. Again, that was far too close to the personal for her to want to get into it. “The woman he... His new fiancée... She’s very popular. She’s lived there most of her life. She’s a widow, and her husband was much beloved in the community. And Darren was helping her out, which was why me feeling weird about him going over and hanging up curtains for her at ten at night was immature. It’s an example of what a good guy he is, don’t you know. And I was only ever an outsider. One of Colville’s own needed Darren and he was there.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “How could he resist when all he had at home was a frigid wife?”
She’d said it. Frigid. She hated that word. She hated it. And Jackson didn’t need to know that about her, but...she was just angry. And she hadn’t told anyone all the ugly things he’d said to her. Who would she tell, when they were all whispering similarly ugly things behind their hands?
Jackson arched a brow. “That was his story, was it?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes meeting his in defiance of her embarrassment. Her cheeks were hot, and she was sure they were lit up bright pink.
“Well, he sounds like a Grade A dick.”
In spite of herself, she laughed. “You’re not wrong. And a mama’s boy. I wouldn’t be surprised if his mom threw him right in Elizabeth’s path. She would have suited my former mother-in-law much better. More involved in the community and all of that.” She cleared her throat. “Not just a daycare worker.”
“Sounds like you were in a hell of a situation,” he said.
“Yeah, it could have been better.”
“Doesn’t exactly make me sorry that I haven’t given the institution of marriage a try. Or commitment of any kind.”
“I should have known better,” she said. “My parents were unhappy. I thought that I could do better. I thought that by watching them I could figure out exactly what not to do. More fool me.”
“Are your parents divorced?”
“No,” she said. “They still live in their venom-filled suburban nightmare, trading barbs back and forth over the dinner table I imagine.”
“My father was married four times,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yep. He was not a good husband. A pretty nice guy, all around, but shitty at commitment. He was more married to this land than he ever could have been to a woman.”
“Chloe’s mother?”
“She was the one that stuck. And I could never figure out if that was just the two of them being ready to settle for whatever they got or if they actually changed for each other.”
“You couldn’t...tell?”
He shrugged. “Ella is a great woman. She moved away after my dad died, wanted to be somewhere a little less rural. I don’t blame her. But we still see her. She was the only one that had a kid of her own, and sometimes I wonder if dad was more attached to being Chloe’s father than he was to being Ella’s husband. Though, like I said... I don’t really know.”
“How old was Chloe when they got married?”
“Ten or so. Them getting a divorce certainly would have been the toughest for us. Because of her.”
“Is that why you don’t do commitment? Your dad?”
“I’m a little bit too much like him, is the thing. I like women, but I love the ranch. I love freedom. I don’t want to be accountable to anyone.”
It was a good answer, and it seemed direct enough, but something in the way he spoke the words made Savannah doubt the authenticity of them. There was something else. He told that story in such a detached way, it made her wonder what more there was. But he was her boss and it wasn’t her business.
She shouldn’t want to know him. Shouldn’t want to get closer to him. Shouldn’t want to press her thumb between his eyebrows and smooth the crease that was there.
She shouldn’t want to touch him at all.
This should be polite dinner conversation only. Nothing more.
“How long has it been since your divorce was final?”
“Eight months,” she said.
“What have you done in those eight months?”
“I moved here.”
“Before that.”
“Came to terms with the fact that I was going to be alone.”
“Why do you think you’re going to be alone?”
“I don’t know. Probably for similar reasons to yours.”
“I’ve never spent eight months alone.”
“I assume you mean that as a euphemism,” she said, picking up her bowl, which was now empty, and heading back toward the kitchen to put it in the sink.
“Yeah.”
She cleared her throat, her face feeling hot. “That is... That is definitely not your concern.”
“Maybe not. But...” In spite of her best efforts, that long pause he took made her turn her focus to him. “He’s not right.”
“About what?”
She regretted asking the moment the words left her mouth. When Jackson’s eyes connected with hers, she felt like all the air had been sucked out of her body. She wasn’t imagining the heat there. She wasn’t.
“You know perfectly well what.”
She regretted that she’d chosen this moment to spill her guts. “That’s not... That’s not for you to comment on. And anyway, you don’t know. Maybe he is right.”
“That you’re frigid?”
Heat prickled her scalp. “Like I said. You don’t know me.”
“If that’s the way he feels, if that’s how things were in your marriage, I’d put the blame squarely on him.”
“This really isn’t something we should be talking about.”
“I’m not an expert on much, Savannah, but women’s pleasure happens to be one thing I am. I don’t know a damn thing about babies, and here I am, thrown into the deep end on that, and you’re helping me out. So, give me a minute to talk about what I know. If things weren’t working out for you, that’s his fault.”
“Maybe it isn’t,” she said.
“No. I’m sure it was.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and meaningful. And she could feel herself being drawn to him. Like a band had been wrapped around the two of them and was slowly contracting, bringing them together. And she couldn’t fight it. She took a step toward him, then another.
He lifted his hand, and stretched it out, like he was going to touch her face. His fingertips on her bare skin... She knew that she would go up in flames.
Unless she froze his fingertips.
That’s what they were talking about. About the fact that she wasn’t able to...
She took a step back. “I’m going to go to my room. I have some email and things to catch up on.”
He jolted, his hand dropping back down to his side. “Good idea.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow around lunchtime, I’m sure.”
He took a deep breath, his broad chest expanding. “I’m sure.”
And then she ran, like she was running from the devil himself. And for all she knew, she might have been. Because she had never known temptation like she’d experienced just now.
But it wasn’t the temptation, or the fact she might give in to it that scared her. It was the idea that it would be another disappointment. Another opportunity for her to fail with a man.
More than anything else, she didn’t think she could face that.