“No, I didn’t,” he insists.
“You told me the woman in the picture used to be your wife, and she wasn’t anymore.”
“Well, in the practical sense, she’s not.”
“Legally, she is! I can’t believe you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.” He stops the truck in the driveway, and I scurry out as fast as I can. Tears are about to betray me, and I want to get away from Jake before the waterworks start.
I take Hank’s car seat out of the back of the truck and run into the house. Dad and Adam both look at me funny.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asks.
“He’s married,” I say quietly, so that my kids won’t hear. They’re watching a movie in the other room.
“Katie, would you listen to me?” Jake says from behind me. But I walk out onto the porch, lift Hank from his carrier, because by now he’s putting up one hell of a fuss, and sit down to nurse him.
“Well, you fucked that up,” I hear Mr. Jacobson say.
“Oh, be quiet,” Jake grouses.
Jake doesn’t come out to talk to me, and I’m glad of it, because I have no idea how I should be feeling right now. My head is warring with my heart. I want the big prize. I want the happy family and the man who loves me. But Jake still belongs to someone else.
38
Jake
The first time I ever danced with Katie Higgins, we were swaying together by a roaring campfire. Both her parents were there, and my dad was playing his guitar. The fire was so tall that I could barely see over it, and it was so hot it made my shins itch. Most of us sat in lawn chairs, but some people were on overturned buckets and a fallen log that had been dragged over near the flames.
Pop didn’t play often, but when he did, people came from all over the complex to hear him. That night, he’d invited a friend of his from town to come and play as well, and where his voice was so deep it resonated within your soul, hers was as light as air, and she filled in all the cracks he left behind.
Katie jerked her stick back from the fire when her marshmallow went up in flames. She blew frantically to put it out.
“Pass it here, Katie girl,” Pop said. “The burnt ones are my favorite.”
Katie smiled and extended the stick toward him. Instead of peeling the marshmallow off the stick, he grabbed the stick in the middle and bit the whole thing off, sliding it from the stick with his teeth. He hummed and blew out his breath, trying to cool it. “Perfect,” he said, after he swallowed. He wiggled his fingers at her. “Didn’t want to get my fingers sticky. Burn me another one, will you?”
I rolled my eyes and passed Katie another marshmallow. She stabbed it with the stick and leaned toward the fire.
“Like this,” I said, and I caught her wrist, showing her how to lift the marshmallow just a little higher, letting it toast at the top of the flames.
Katie leaned into me, and the soft, sweet scent of her filled my nose. And all the rest of me.
“You smell good,” I murmured near her ear.
She laughed. “I smell like wood smoke and bug spray.”
“You smell like you,” I whispered.
Katie’s dad cleared his throat loudly. “You need some help finding your own stick, Jake?” he asked.
I backed away from Katie. Her dad had a way of making me feel like such a child. “No, sir,” I mumbled.
Katie’s dad was cooking a dough doggie at the edge of the fire. Pop kept special sticks just for the dough doggies. They were wide and blunt at the tip. You had to wrap a canned biscuit around the stick, and then cook it over the fire until it was toasted through. When it was done, you could slide it off the stick and fill it full of jelly or cream or just about anything sweet.
Katie passed Pop a newly burned marshmallow and he ate it off the stick, and then she gave her stick to someone else. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She shivered a little.
“Are you cold?” I asked.
Our chairs were so close together that if I pressed my leg an inch to the left, my naked skin would touch hers. Katie turned her head and looked into my eyes as she inched her leg closer to mine. It was subtle and slow, and the look in her eyes was so damn hot that I didn’t even need the campfire to stay warm. “No, I’m fine,” she said quietly.
Well, I was fine until right that second. But suddenly, Katie was my whole world. “I think I love you,” I said quietly to her.
She grinned. “Good.”
She didn’t return the sentiment. But I didn’t need for her to.
Pop started to play a slow song, and his friend began to sing. A few couples got up to dance, and I saw Fred hold his hand out to a girl on the other side of the fire.
“Want to dance with me?” I asked Katie.
She nodded and put her hand in mine, and we got up and danced under the moonlight by the warmth of the flames. But I didn’t need the fire. I had Katie.
I had her until the end of summer, at least.
39
Jake