Nobody But You Read online

  His smile turned into a grin. A Cheshire-cat grin. Had she been cold only a few minutes ago? Because suddenly she was sweating and fumbled to drop her heavy bathrobe.

  “A striptease isn’t going to save you, but I’m game for you to try.”

  She froze in the act of shrugging out of the robe and choked out a laugh. “Do lines like that ever work for you?”

  He grinned that lethal grin, and instead of answering, crooked a finger at her, the universal sign for Get your ass over here.

  A part of her wanted to flee, but apparently a bigger part wanted to throw herself at him, because she heard herself say, “Just tell me the penance already.”

  Good Lord. Not Take a hike or Eff off…just Tell me the penance.

  Seriously? she asked herself, and perfect, now she was actually sweating. Around them, the temp had dropped, but she was sweating.

  Unlike her, Jacob showed no sign of sweating, or being ruffled in the slightest. Instead, he cocked his head and studied her like a bug on a slide. Except she didn’t feel like a bug. Not with his eyes so dark and warm, his lips curved in a way that made her own mouth dry.

  She wanted that damn kiss. Wanted it bad too. Which settled it—she needed to sell the boat and get her own place with a nice hot shower that had a handheld showerhead so she could go back to taking care of her own business, business that she’d sadly neglected lately.

  When the corners of his mouth curved further, more panic filled her. What if he could read her mind?

  Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around her wrist, tugging until she stood directly in front of him, looking down at his big, hard body sprawled out on her bench.

  “I want four straight truths,” he murmured softly, staring up at her. “And then I want my original reward.”

  The kiss.

  Her knees quivered. Other parts did too. And an intense heat flashed through her, but she had a decent sense of self-preservation, and her inner alarm was going off now. This man was a danger to her mental stability. And maybe her heart too.

  And yet she still didn’t run. “My truths are ugly,” she said.

  And they were. She’d grown up with a father who’d been ill a lot of the time, and when he hadn’t been ill, he’d been deeply depressed. She’d spent most of her childhood trying to get his attention, to please him, but neither had ever happened. So what had she done? She’d fallen in love with the first guy who’d turned his head for her and given her an ounce of attention—a guy who’d been rich and charming and utterly unreachable.

  And she’d never been able to reach or please him either.

  Of course, she’d then compounded her error and had married him young. Not even twenty-one when she’d given him her vows, she’d spent the next few years knowing she wasn’t good enough for him and never would be, no matter how much she tried.

  And she’d tried it all. There’d been a lot to do as Mrs. Lucas Worthington III. It’d been exciting for about a month and then…completely overwhelming.

  Sophie’d had a life before she’d married Lucas. She’d worked at a law firm, heading toward becoming a paralegal, and had loved the demanding work. She’d had her own friends. But being Lucas’s wife had come with a lot of demands. Too many to half-ass it. Needing to make him happy, she’d given up her own ties and the job she’d loved to do the Stepford wife thing. She’d joined the Junior League for Lucas’s business, doing everything she could to make his life easier.

  While losing her own. “Very ugly,” she added softly.

  Jacob ran the pad of his thumb over their entwined fingers. “We all have ugly truths,” he said.

  She knew that. And though she didn’t trust him—she didn’t trust anyone—she somehow knew that if she was honest, he would be too. She had no idea how she knew this about him, a perfect stranger, she just did.

  Unable to think clearly with his hand on her, she pulled free and sat down. She pulled her legs up close and wrapped her arms around them. “One.” She sucked in a deep breath, and there in the dark of the night, admitted her mistakes. “I married the first man to give me the slightest bit of attention because I was young and stupid and way too trusting.”

  Jacob nodded, noncommittal, not judging, and somehow that gave her the courage to go on. “Two, I compounded my error by giving up my life to help him live his.” She paused, but Jacob still sat there, calmly, quietly, like he had all the time in the world for her.

  “Three,” she went on. “Predictably, I couldn’t please him, and it was like with my dad all over again. The harder I tried, the worse it got, until I completely lost myself—my own fault.” God. This was hard. “And four…” She paused. Four was the worst one to admit because it made her an active participant in what had proven to be the lowest point of her life. She closed her eyes and dropped her forehead to her knees, not wanting to see what he thought of her when she made the confession. “In retribution, in the divorce I took the one thing he loved above all else. I wanted to hurt him, and now I’m the stupid one who has nothing but this stupid boat.”

  Jacob didn’t speak.

  Sophie let out a slow breath and stayed still, telling herself there was no reason to be embarrassed. What did she care what he thought of her? But oh, how she wished he’d speak.

  She startled when one of Jacob’s big hands stroked up her back and settled on the nape of her neck. Warm. Sure. “Did he hurt you, Sophie?” he asked.

  God, the care in his voice, layered with absolute steel. “Not the way you think,” she managed. “Not…physically.”

  His thumb stroked over her skin, rough with calluses but somehow comforting. “There’s a lot of ways to hurt someone,” he finally said. “To make them bleed.”

  The utter truth. And since she didn’t trust herself to speak, she didn’t.

  “Little Lucas is an idiot,” he said.

  A shocked laugh bubbled out of her, and she lifted her head as her heart began a heavy beat. Because she knew what was coming next.

  The kiss.

  Her gaze fell to his lips, which seemed to curve slightly. “You going to give me a topic?” he asked.

  She blinked. “Topic?”

  “For my three truths and a lie.”

  Oh. Right. He’d just given her a stay from paying up. Even if she wasn’t all that sure she wanted one. “Your topic is…” There were so many things she wanted to know about him. Where he’d been, what he’d been doing, if he was staying…But he’d been good to her, so she started with what she thought might be the easiest for him. “What brought you back to Cedar Ridge?”

  He took a long pull on the bottle and offered it to her. She drank, too, incredibly aware that her mouth was right where his had just been.

  He appeared to think about his answers for a moment before speaking. “One,” he said quietly. “For the past nine years, the military’s been my family. Two, I just recently lost someone close to me there, someone I thought of as a brother. Three, afterward I realized I had blood family that I’d walked away from and shouldn’t have. Four…” He shrugged. “So I came back. It was natural for me to do so. There’s a lot for me to do here, work-wise and family-wise.”

  She was pretty amazed at his work ethic, that he’d take on lake patrol shifts while on leave…and also impressed that he wanted to make things right with his family. That said a lot about him.

  And he’d been right when he’d said he was good at this game. He was good. But maybe because pain recognized pain, she could easily see his lie.

  A few minutes ago Jacob had wanted nothing more than to have five minutes alone with Sophie’s ex for ever making this warm, sweet, sexy, amazing woman hurt, however he’d hurt her.

  But then she’d switched the game up on him, put him beneath the microscope, and that sucked. He waited while she studied him, but it sure wasn’t easy, not after he’d just unintentionally stripped himself bare-ass naked for her.

  Or maybe it had been intentional. Maybe he’d wanted someone to hear him, to forgive him
.

  Turning the bottle in his hand, he studied the way the light from the boat’s control panel shined through the liquid, which was how his legs felt at the moment. Liquid. Good thing he was sitting down.

  Her voice washed over him. “Four’s the lie.”

  He didn’t ask how she knew. Somehow, as the night had fallen, the sky going black, cocooning them into the illusion that they were entirely alone on the planet, creating a sensation of intimacy, it didn’t matter that she’d seen right through him.

  “And you cheated too,” she said. “Because it was only half a lie. You came back, but it wasn’t natural at all, was it?”

  He slowly shook his head.

  Unbelievably, she used his own tactic against him and waited him out. He couldn’t remember anyone ever doing that before.

  Nor had he ever cared. He told himself he didn’t care now, that the Scotch had just gone to his head. But the truth was that Sophie Marren had gone to his head. Sophie of the sharp yet somehow vulnerable eyes, Sophie with the sweet laugh and sexy body, just out of arm’s reach… “I made a mistake in walking away from my family like I did,” he said. “At the time I thought I had no choice, but I was wrong, something I didn’t realize until…” Christ. He closed his mouth, unable to spell it out.

  Sophie slid her hand into his and squeezed as if she was willing her strength to become his. “Your brother-in-arms died,” she finished for him gently.

  “Brett,” he managed. “Killed in a roadside bombing.”

  Soft green eyes cradled his. “I can’t even imagine,” she said. “But you know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

  “Yeah.” He paused and then admitted the rest. “But I feel guilty all the same.”

  “Life’s unfair,” she said. “Bitterly so. But being home again must be a bittersweet silver lining?”

  Because her gaze was so clear and deep, making him feel exposed, something he didn’t do ever, he closed his eyes. “Coming here is about guilt too,” he said. “I just kept thinking if it’d been me who’d died, Hud would’ve gotten a letter or someone at the door. After all those years of not seeing him, a stranger would’ve had to say good-bye for me. I was selfish to stay away from him for so long.”

  “What about your mom?”

  He opened his eyes and stared at her. Shit. She was a sharp one. “I’ve seen her,” he said, admitting a truth he’d told no one before, not even Hud. “I came into town whenever I was on leave to check on her.”

  She raised a brow. “Hud didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “We fought right before I left, when we were eighteen. He said…”

  He let out a breath, remembering it as if it were yesterday.

  “What?” Sophie asked quietly. “He said what?”

  “He said if I left, I should stay gone because we were no longer brothers.”

  “Oh, Jacob,” she breathed. “And you believed him?”

  “I absolutely believed him then,” Jacob said. “And by the time I didn’t, too many years had gone by. It was too late.”

  “I believe it’s never too late.” She cupped his face and stared into his eyes, her own glossy and a little bit crossed as she focused in on him with such fierce concentration that he had to smile.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to take away from this conversation we’re having,” she said slowly, “but I think I’m maybe a little bit drunk. And you should know, when I’m drunk, I’m always right.”

  That wrung a low laugh out of him.

  “No, I’m serious. I know I’m responsible for what happened to me, for letting my emotions take over, for choosing this boat over the house. I was stupid and childish, but luckily, I learn from my mistakes. And part of what I learned is that love isn’t for me. I just don’t have the same level of emotions I used to have. It’s…broken. I’m broken. But I know that about myself and I’ll use that knowledge, making sure I keep relationships light. Open. Not love.” She paused and looked at him from beneath hooded eyes. “What did you learn from your mistakes?”

  He stared at her, aching that she believed that she wasn’t meant for love. But he wasn’t either, so he wasn’t one to talk. “I learned that walking away was bullshit. I went to see my mom and ran into Hud before I could call him.”

  “How did it go?” she asked, looking like she already knew the answer.

  “Not well,” he admitted. And how did you expect it to go, genius? You didn’t even call him. You just happened upon him at the hospital.

  It’d been cold. And wrong. “So actually, no, I haven’t learned from my mistakes, but that’s going to change.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “You know, you’re a little…”

  “Pushy?” she asked. “Annoying?”

  “Different,” he corrected. “In a good way.” A very good way…He paused. “You said you can’t do love, not ever again. But for me, it’s not that I can’t. It’s that I won’t.” He thought of how it felt to walk away from his family. Like he’d ripped off a limb. And losing Brett had nearly killed him. He shuddered. “Love isn’t for me, never will be.”

  She took that in, looked like maybe she’d argue the fact, but then changed her mind. “So are you going to go away again?”

  “I’m on leave,” he said. “I still have to go back to finish. I don’t have a choice there.”

  “And then what? After you finish? And truth,” she said with a small smile. “Or you’ll owe me.”

  He wouldn’t mind that one little bit, but he surprised himself by answering honestly. “I’ll be back. To stay.” He met her gaze. “Now you. Why do you stay here, in a town where you were so badly hurt? What holds you here?”

  She hedged, biting her lower lip, tipping him off to yet another truth.

  She hadn’t told him her entire story.

  Somehow she’d pulled off what no one else could, getting him to let down his guard and open up. A little terrifying. “Where’s your family?”

  “Dallas.”

  He smiled. “I knew I heard the South in you.”

  “You do not,” she said with a definite twang.

  He smiled. “It comes out when you’re especially irritated.”

  “It does not,” she said, twang heavier now.

  He laughed, and she crossed her arms. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said.

  “Of course not. And the accent’s hot.”

  She looked torn between being embarrassed and pleased.

  “Tell me about your family,” he said.

  She reached for the bottle. He obliged.

  She tossed back another gulp and then proceeded to nearly cough up another lung.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Never better.” She let out a long exhale. “Okay, let’s see. My mom and dad live in a house they got from my grandparents, who also grew up in Dallas. My sister lives close by with her husband and two kids. She’s a nurse and has the perfect life. My mom’s a saint who takes care of my dad.”

  “He sick?”

  “Depressed,” she said, surprising him. Her voice had changed to practically a whisper, like it was hard to say. Hard and painful, and he wanted to pull her in close and hold her. Not because he wanted to bury himself inside her—which, for the record, he did—but because he felt compelled to ease her pain.

  “It’s debilitating,” she said, “and he can’t take care of himself.”

  She’d already told him she’d been unable to please the guy, and he ached for the little girl she’d been, for the young woman who’d been further hurt by the next man in her life because her husband hadn’t given her himself either. If she were his, Jacob thought, he’d make damn sure she felt loved. But she wasn’t his. And given that he’d told her he didn’t do love, she never would be.

  And she told you she couldn’t love. But he didn’t want to believe that, didn’t want to think of her so beautiful, so animated, thinking she was incapable of love.

>   “My dad worked for NASA as a physicist,” she said. “He was under a lot of stress. Something cracked deep inside him at all the pressure, and now he does…well, nothing, really.” She shrugged again. “I think that’s why I stay on the boat for now. I’ve learned that when you don’t know what to do, you do nothing. Otherwise you get yourself in bigger trouble. The boat…me living on it…it’s me not doing anything until I know exactly what to do.”

  He wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she deserved more, but who the hell was he to judge? “It’ll come to you,” he said.

  “Yeah. I know.” She chewed on her bottom lip, belying her