That Thing Called Love

And the smile dissolved.

“I gave your request a lot of thought,” she said. “And I’ve decided to do what I can to make Austin’s transition as easy on him as possible.”

He sat straighter in his seat. “Thank you.”

“Like I told you yesterday, I’m not doing this for you. And you might want to hold the thanks, anyway, because I don’t know if you’ll like my take on how you should handle things.”

“Lay it on me.”

“For starters, I wouldn’t tell him your plans to haul him back to New York yet, if I were you.”

His brows drew together. “You don’t think he should be prepared?”

A plate with scrambled eggs, toast and a ramekin of yogurt, blueberries and handmade granola was slid onto the table in front of her, and Jenny looked up at the waitress, giving her a smile. “Thanks, Brianna.”

“No problem.” The young woman turned Jenny’s cup over in its saucer and filled it with coffee. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thank you.” Glancing around, she saw that she and Jake were the only diners left—not that there’d been that many to begin with. “Go grab your own breakfast. And tell the crew to work around us if we’re still here when they’re ready to set up for lunch.” A chore they performed as soon as the breakfast crowd cleared out and they’d eaten their meals.

The girl shot her a grin. “Will do.”

She watched Brianna walk away, then turned back to Jake. “I absolutely believe Austin needs to be prepared,” she said, picking up the conversation. “But if you lead off with the fact you’re taking him from Razor Bay, he’ll shut down on you so fast it’ll make your head spin—and it will only take you that much longer to gain his trust. Look, you might be accustomed to packing up and taking off at a moment’s notice, but trust me, Austin is not.”

He studied her. “What makes you think I am?”

“Please,” she said with dismissive scorn. “There’s a wealth of stuff about you on the internet.”

“You looked me up?”

“Of course.” She tipped her head. “Do you find my assessment off the mark?”

He hitched one shoulder. “No, that’s pretty accurate.”

“So you’re used to living life on the fly. You’re also an adult. He’s a kid who’s lived in one place his entire life.”

“And is probably dying for a change.”

“Why, because you were at his age? That’s something you should definitely discuss with him, but aside from longing for a daddy when he was younger, I can’t say that I’ve ever witnessed signs of Austin being dissatisfied with his lot.”

He started patting his chest and her eyebrows drew together. “What are you doing?”

“You slipped that knife in so sweet and slick, I want to be sure I don’t bleed to death before I even realize I’ve been shivved.”

She shrugged. “Put yourself in his place for a minute instead of trying to shoehorn him into yours. I know you’re getting up there in years but—”

A bark of laughter interrupted her. “Jesus, you’re a pisser.”

Jenny ignored him. “—try to remember back to when you were thirteen. How open would you have been if a man you’d never met suddenly inserted himself into your life and, without giving you so much as a moment to get to know him, told you he was gonna haul you away from everything you knew to a life different from anything you could imagine, clear on the other side of the country?”

“In all honesty?” He gave her an ironic smile. “I probably would’ve burned rubber packing my bag. But in the interests of that putting-myself-in-his-place thing, I agree that a different kind of kid might be pissed.” He gave a grudging nod. “I’ll keep my plans to myself until we get to know each other.”

“And I’ll work on trying to get him to spend some time with you.”

“Thank you.”

She shrugged and picked up her fork. She’d prefer to move to another table where she could eat her breakfast in peace, but for the sake of cooperation, she stayed put. But the sourdough toast and eggs in her standing Saturday order tasted like wood chips and glue.

He didn’t try to talk to her while she forced herself to eat every bite. For a while she appreciated it. But as the silence dragged on, she felt an antsy need to fill it with something.

Anything.

She shifted in her chair. Set her fork down and looked at him across the table.

Got hung up for a minute on his eyes.

Stop that! Dammit, what was it about him? She’d never been one to go all crazy over a handsome face. Yet with him—well, it was scary how unlike herself she felt when she looked at him too long or too closely. She was so not the bubbleheaded Ooh, what pretty eyes you have—what’s your sign type.

So why did she look at this man and feel darn near that vacuous?

Giving herself a mental head-smack now, she sat a bit straighter in her seat. “Why did it take you so damn long to get here after Emmett died?”

She almost crowed in self-approval, but managed to confine herself to a silent Thatagirl. Put him on the spot.

He leveled those glorious green eyes at her. “The phone call was made to my home rather than my assistant—”

“Maybe because no one knew you had an assistant,” she snapped.

He sighed. “Look, I stipulate that everything is my fault, okay?”

Jenny reined herself in, because these knee-jerk reactions weren’t helping. “I’m sorry,” she said and put real effort into sounding as if she actually meant it. She gave him the slightest nod. “Go on.”

“Said the queen to the peasant,” he said drily.

Shooting him her snootiest look, she twirled her hand to urge him to get on with it.

He only laughed. “It was a perfect storm of lousy luck. The housekeeper had been with me less than a month when I left on this trip, so by the time it occurred to her to contact Lucinda—that’s my assistant—the news was several weeks old. I was photographing the reefs and the Karangetang volcano in the Sangihe-Talaud Archipelago of Northern Sulawesi at the time. It’s remote, it’s freaking monsoon season, which our scheduler should have known before he set the damn trip up, and we only got access to a satellite phone when we came back to Minahasa about every third weekend or so.” He shrugged. “Even when I heard about it, I was obligated for an additional six days. Then it took time to get a flight to the Philippines and even more time to get a flight from there to Seattle. I don’t go to the most accessible spots in the world.”

“So even if you heard right away, you wouldn’t have been here any sooner?”

“I had a contract! Would you have left this inn in the lurch?”

“For Austin? In a New York minute.”

His expression went blank. “I genuflect to your superior parenting skills. But I’m trying here, okay?”

And since Jenny had caught a glimpse of genuine pain cross his eyes before he slapped on a poker face, she nodded. For the first time she really saw that he was, indeed, trying—and that maybe this wasn’t as easy for him as he’d made it appear up until now. “Okay. I guess the important thing is that you’re here now. But you’ve gotta understand that this isn’t going to be easy.”

“I know,” he said wearily. “Believe me, I get it that I’ve got a lot to make up for.”