He shrugs, but he can’t keep that cocky grin off his face. “I think she’s singing I lost my way.”
“Remind me to Google it later.” Apparently he has a knack for ruining things, and I’d almost found myself liking him. It’s too bad he’s so goddamn full of himself. Who the fuck corrects someone’s singing?
“You want to come in?” he asks as he opens the car door.
I want to say no but instead I unbuckle my seat belt. Way to stick to your guns, girl. Well, if he can be a know-it-all asshole so can I. “You know this isn’t exactly walking distance,” I inform him as I get out and slam the door behind me.
“Three miles? I thought you grew up in the city.”
My next rebuke dies on my lips when I finally look at his house. If there had been any doubt that he and I are from vastly different worlds, this settles it. It isn’t the older homes I love, but it still steals my breath away. The house had been built into the side of the bluff, curving along the rocky terrain so that it captured a full view of the sea from every angle. I’m still ogling it when Jude takes my hand and pulls me forward. I go because I’m too flabbergasted to pull away and because part of me wants to know what it feels like to walk into a place like this. It’s so far outside my reality that even my broke-ass imagination can’t picture what’s inside. I barely pay attention when he drops my hand to key in the garage code. As the door ratchets open, my eyes land on a motorcycle.
Figures.
Jude catches me staring at it and shrugs. “There was a time in my life when I thought I needed that.”
“And now?”
“It’s mostly for show.” He nods to the spot next to it. “That’s my true love.”
It’s a canary yellow Jeep and far from what I pictured him driving. Something about his attitude the first time we met suggested sports cars—the ones with two seats and no room for baggage.
“Max would love that.” I flinch when I realize I’ve brought my kid into this again. It’s bad enough that they met at the store. Max is my whole world, but there are parts of me that I protect him from. Jude exists in those dark areas that he doesn’t need to know about.
“I’ll take him for a ride.”
I don’t speak. What is it about Jude Mercer that leaves me tongue-tied?
“I should be going,” I finally force out. “I need to get Max by four.”
Jude holds up his phone. “Looks like you have twenty minutes to kill.”
Unlike me, he has an answer for everything it seems.
I wander behind him as he leads me into the main house and my mouth falls open. If the outside had been impressive, there are no words for the inside. Naked, wood beams line the ceiling, matching the slick, hardwood floor. The furniture is minimal—modern square lines and a few carefully selected pieces all facing the floor to ceiling windows that look out over the bay. Today the water looks calm but the waves are there—tiny tremors that slice knifelike through the glassy surface and are gone as quickly as they appear.
My heart jumps as his hand clamps down on my shoulder and for a second my own carefully poised surface shatters like the water.
“Can I get you some water? I might have soda, but that’s questionable.” There’s a smile in his voice and between that and his hand still resting on me heat begins to spread through me. It’s a warm and welcome sensation like coming home and I haven’t felt it for a long time. I turn away from him and everything he’s offering me and catch sight of an easel across the room. On it a half-finished canvas reflects the subtle tide outside the window.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’ve seen the water every day for four years and today I see it for the first time. He’s captured the hint of movement in a clash of blues and greens. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”
It’s a stupid thing to say because I don’t know anything about him. Not really. Except that he’s patient and he doesn’t actually ride a motorcycle and he has no sense of when it’s going to rain and that he’s so much more than he gives away. To me he is as unfinished as the painting awaiting his return and I want to pick up the brush and fill him in until I can see all of him.
“I think you’re looking at it with mom eyes.” He chuckles as he turns to study the canvas.
“Mom eyes?” I repeat. “What the hell are those?”
“Oh, you know. Remember when you were a kid and your mom put every picture you brought home from school on the fridge?” He glances toward me and the grin slides off his face.
“My grandmother raised me. My sister was the artistic one, so…”
A muscle in his jaw clenches and relaxes as if my life story upsets him more than it does me. “I bet you do it for Max.”
“You have me there,” I surrender. I do it for Max all the time, so why am I thinking about my mom and the life I lost so long ago? “I think the ocean makes me think of the past and not the present.”