JAMIE AND JESSICA spent the next few days enjoying each other, the sun, and their friends. Jamie took his normal morning runs with Caden, Evan, and Kurt, if he was around. Yesterday Pete joined them while Jessica had breakfast with the girls. After worrying about just how much of their relationship Jessica had shared with them, Jamie finally got up the courage to ask her if she was sharing the intimate details of their lovemaking. Jessica had pinked up when she’d said, I didn’t, but not because I’m embarrassed about it. I didn’t tell them because I don’t want them thinking about you in that way. He’d loved the little possessive comment, especially since she didn’t act possessive in any other way. He’d never dated a woman who didn’t watch him when other women were near, but Jessica had a quiet confidence about her. It was like his straying never crossed her mind—which was a good thing, because he was as loyal as a junkyard dog, and he would never hurt her in any way.
Vera joined them for afternoon outings to the bay and visits to nearby towns, like Chatham and Brewster. Jessica and Vera got along well, and both were excited about Jessica’s joining the quartet tonight. Come evening, Jessica and the girls from Seaside threw together salads and grilled, and they all ate dinners together in the quad. When the stars came out, they fell into Jessica’s bed or the dunes by the ocean, and made love until they were too exhausted to move. Jamie went back to his own cottage in the wee hours of the mornings and tried to catch up on his emails, but after one or two emails, he was just too wiped to focus, and caught a few hours’ sleep instead. All the while, he craved the day he could wake up with Jessica in his arms. For now, they chose not to take advantage of their close living situations to the fullest extent. Vera was kind enough not to make mention of Jamie’s early-morning returns, and although he doubted she’d care if he stayed with Jessica until morning, that didn’t lessen the guilt that he knew he’d feel for doing so. Self-inflicted guilt, of course, but it was what it was.
Thursday morning he was heading out for a run with Kurt and Caden when his phone rang. He blew out a breath, debated ignoring it, but gave in to responsibility when he saw Mark’s name on the screen. Great. He’d blown off a few emails from Mark and a number of other employees the last two nights out of sheer exhaustion, and he hadn’t checked them yet this morning.
“Hey, Mark. How’s it going?” He twisted the mood ring on his finger. Every time he looked at it he thought of Jessica.
“How’s it going? Really? You knew we had a nightmare going down over here and you’ve completely ignored my emails and my texts.”
“What? Hold on.” Jamie scrolled through his phone. He didn’t have a single text from Mark. “Mark. I don’t have any texts from you.” He paced the cottage, anxious to get on with his run and hoping Mark was overreacting.
“My eye, you don’t. I texted you about seven times between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon yesterday. I called, but it went straight to voicemail, and I sent you emails.”
He and Jessica had gone to the beach yesterday. There was no cell phone reception on any of the lower Cape ocean beaches. It was like a time warp. Once someone descended the dune, they were off radar until they headed back up to the parking lot.
“What is going on?” Mark demanded. “Are you dodging me for a reason?”
“Mark, chill a minute. You must have texted while I was on the beach. Texts don’t come through at the ocean here. You know that.” Jamie went outside on the deck. Vera looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at him. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed.
“Don’t you check your messages?”
“They don’t come through. It’s all messed up. They don’t even register. What’s going on that’s got you wound so tight?”
“What’s got me wound so tight? I’ll tell you what’s got me wound. Remember that issue you told me to handle?”
Jamie ran his hand through his hair, racking his brain. He vaguely remembered something he’d told Mark to handle while he was at the pool, but he’d been distracted by Tony and Jessica. “Remind me.”
Mark blew out another frustrated breath. Jamie pictured him stalking across his fifteenth-floor office, bushy brows drawn together, dark eyes seething. “I’ll remind you, all right. Search engine bug. Young kids searching for toys, video games, and movies with dragons are getting ads for military equipment and ammo. If the media gets wind of this, we’re screwed. Mothers are already complaining like there’s no tomorrow.”
“All right, so our team tracked it down, right? Get PR on it. Do some damage control, and we’re back in business.”
“Are you kidding me? Did you hear what I said? Kids and guns don’t mix. What are you smoking at the Cape, Jamie? Do you hear yourself?” He mocked Jamie. “So, our team tracked it down, right?” He blew out a breath again, a habit he had when he was too mad to form a response.
“If our team had tracked it down, would I have called you? We’ve got our cyber investigation team on it to see if we were hacked,” Mark explained. “You need to be here. You’ve got to come back and take charge of this situation.”
“Mark, you’ve got our teams on it and the cyber investigators. Let them do their jobs.” Before meeting Jessica, Jamie would have packed up and driven back to Boston. But that was then. Now he didn’t want to miss a minute of time with her, and he trusted his team of professionals to handle the issues without him micromanaging.
“Jamie, if this hits the news, you’re going to have a media nightmare to deal with.”
Mark was right. If it got that far, they’d have a bigger issue on their hands, but he’d hired the best programmers in the country. His being there wasn’t going to change a thing. Or at least that’s how, for the first time in his life, he was rationalizing putting his business second to his personal life.
Jessica came out of Amy’s cottage wearing a nightshirt and a pair of cutoffs. She waved to Jamie, and the evening before came rushing back. They’d washed her bedsheets at midnight, after spilling body oil on them, and when they went into the dark laundry room to get them from the dryer, the room was hot, and so were they. They’d ended up making love on top of the warm dryer.
“Are you even listening to me?” Mark snapped.
Oops. He’d zoned out. He waved to Jessica as she walked toward her cottage. She had a heck of a sweet backside.
“Jamie!” Mark yelled.
“Yeah, sorry. Listen, I’m not leaving the Cape. Whatever I need to do, I can do from here. Just set up a videoconference. Give me a time.”