“Kids? I thought maybe it was a man who loved a woman very much.” And since when had he become so sentimental?
“Then it’s a wonder he didn’t come back and scratch it out.” She glanced up at Jake, and laughed. “You don’t really believe it was forevermore, do you?”
Funny, but Jake felt like the concept of “forevermore” was a notion that lurked on the edge of his consciousness, forbidden to enter. He shrugged self-consciously. “Don’t you believe in it?”
“No.” She laughed as if that were preposterous. “I don’t know anyone who has made it—do you?”
Good point. But he wanted to know someone who’d made it. He wanted to make it.
Robin leaned forward to look at the inscription. “I don’t really think in terms of forever. I don’t think of anything other than where I am going next. Lately I’ve begun to think that I haven’t been doing anything except running around in big circles. Maybe that’s my forevermore—caught on one big loop going nowhere and I can’t get off.” She laughed again and moved away from the window.
Jake wondered what had happened in her life that would cause such a beautiful woman to have no more hope for love than Robin did.
“Have you eaten?” she suddenly asked him. “I was sort of craving Thai food—I’d love to take you along. You know, payback for watching Wheel of Fortune with Grandpa.”
Say no, he told himself. He needed to study, needed desperately to study before he fell further behind. Not to mention his vow to himself to never repeat what had happened Sunday. It was a bad idea, very bad, given their yo-yo dance. “I’ve really got—”
“It’s still pretty early—we can swing by your house,” she interjected. “Zaney said it was in the Heights, right?”
Jake did a frantic search of his brain to remember if he’d left anything objectionable lying around his house. God, he wasn’t actually considering— “Yeah . . . sure,” he said out loud, feeling like a monumental fool the instant the words slipped off his tongue.
Twenty minutes later, as Jake made his way through the streets of Houston to the Heights (Robin following in her Mercedes), he said aloud, “You are a goddam idiot. You are going to get all wrapped up in this and then what? Wait for her to tell you she doesn’t want you around? Because she will, you stupid asshole.”
His brain was obviously clueless, his groin was clearly running the show, and that annoyed Jake to no end. The more he knew Robin, the less he wanted that to be a reason to be with her—he did not want to lust after her, but she was so gorgeous that a man could hardly keep from it. It was all too complicated for his peabrain to understand, and, he thought as he pulled up to his house, slammed the truck into park, and got out, he wasn’t going to try and understand it. Not right this moment, anyway. He had the more immediate problem of making sure there wasn’t any dirty underwear in plain sight.
Parking behind him, Robin stepped out of her car and looked up in awe at the old Victorian house. “Ooh, this is beautiful!” she said, coming around the front of her car.
“I’m doing some work, so it doesn’t look too great inside,” he warned her as they ascended the old steps onto the wraparound porch. He was painfully aware that his house, while charming, did not even come close to comparing with hers. His was a house that was attainable—hers was a house straight out of a Hollywood movie. He fumbled with the lock, opened the door and stood aside, letting Robin precede him. She walked in slowly, admiring the ten-foot ceilings, the elaborate crown molding, and the old floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace.
“This is wonderful,” she said, walking deeper into the room. “Cozy, cheerful . . . much more warm and inviting than mine. Mine could double as a museum, don’t you think? Mind if I look around?”
“Help yourself. I’m gonna grab a shower. There’s some beer in the fridge if you’d like one.” As he disappeared into his room to shower and change, he watched her wander into the dining room, glance at his homework strewn across the table, then on, to the kitchen.
Jake reappeared twenty minutes later, showered, shaved, wearing khakis and a crisp white shirt that, thankfully, he’d found hanging in his closet.
Robin was sitting in his one chair—a recliner—flipping through the pages of Architectural Digest. She glanced up as he walked in the room, flashed an instantaneous smile that made him warm all over. “Well, well, Mr. Manning,” she said, coming to her feet.
“Okay, I’ll admit it. I have more than jeans and T-shirts.”
“Yeah,” she said, walking closer. “You’re really cute.”