The Bodyguard (45)

I felt so shy, standing in the doorway, as something totally astonishing hit me: These people were happily married. Everything about their body language—their faces, the way they were laughing—confirmed it.

Happily married.

I mean, you hear about people like that. In theory, they exist. But I’d sure as hell never seen anything like it before.

It felt like glimpsing a unicorn.

I started to back away. I definitely didn’t belong here.

But that’s when Doc looked up and noticed me.

Connie followed his gaze. “Oh!” she said, all warm and welcoming. “You’re awake!”

No escape now.

Knowing everything Connie had just been through, and knowing, too, how much of an interloper I truly was, I suddenly wished like crazy that Jack were there to cushion the moment.

And then, as if he heard me somehow, the kitchen door swung open, and Jack himself stepped in—looking windblown and manly in a plaid shirt and jeans—with his glasses a little bit crooked.

He also had a golf bag over his shoulder.

“You’re up,” he said to me, like there was no one else in the room.

Doc took in the sight of Jack. “Hitting golf balls into the river?”

“Every morning,” Jack said with a little nod.

“Golf balls?” I asked. “Into the river? Isn’t that, like, environmentally unsound?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s fine.” Then he walked over and kissed his mother on the top of the head. “Hey, Mom. How are you feeling?”

“On the mend,” she said, lifting her coffee at him in toast.

Jack seemed to register my discomfort. He strode right toward me, pulled me by the hand to the breakfast table, sat me down, sat himself right next to me, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I think they call that owning the room.

I held very still—astonished at how ordering myself to relax and act casual had the opposite effect.

Jack responded to my stiffness with the opposite. Knees apart. Arm languid and heavy. Voice as smooth as chocolate milk.

“You look amazing today,” he said. And I’d barely realized he was talking to me before he pressed his face into the crook of my neck and breathed in a full gulp of my scent. “Why do you always smell so good?”

“It’s lemon soap,” I said, a little dazed. “It’s aromatherapeutic.”

“I’ll say,” Jack said.

I knew what he was doing, of course. He was compensating for my bad acting. I clearly had some kind of stage fright, and so he was acting twice as hard make up for it.

He really was good.

The warmth in his voice, the intimacy of his body language, the way he stared at me like he was drinking me up …

No wonder I’d seen You Wish so many times.

I’d seen so many downsides to coming here. I’d worried about the boredom of being on duty with nothing to do. I’d worried about the difficulty of trying to do my job while pretending not to—and what that might mean for my performance. I’d worried that I might be an unconvincing actor.

It just hadn’t occurred to me to worry about Jack.

In those short minutes right after he walked in, though, as he worked to establish us as a genuine, loving couple in front of his folks … that’s exactly what it felt like we were.

I bought it, too, is what I’m saying.

I felt like he was glad to see me. I felt like he was savoring being near me. I felt like he liked me.

He seemed exactly, convincingly, heartbreakingly like a man in love.

Uh oh.

How would I make it four weeks without getting traumatically confused? I couldn’t even make it four minutes.

Just then, Hank showed up in the kitchen, the screen door slapping behind him. Instead of sitting at the table, he leaned against the counter and glared at the lovey-doveyness.

That was helpful. I could focus on that.

Jack’s mom didn’t even notice Hank. She leaned toward us and said, “Tell us about how you two met.”

We’d planned for this.

Jack eyed Hank for a second before giving his mom his full attention. Then, he poured a cup of coffee from the carafe and said, in a friendly voice, “She’s a photographer. She came to my place in the mountains to shoot our infamous albino moose.”

I gave Jack a look. The albino moose ad-lib was pushing it.

Hank wasn’t buying it, either. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You have an albino moose?” Doc asked.

Jack nodded. “Very elusive.” He gestured at me. “She was trying do a photo essay on it, but she never could find it.”

“Too bad,” Connie said.

“But I helped her look for a long time,” Jack said then, giving his mom a wink.

“You were kind to help her out,” Doc said.

“It wasn’t kindness,” Jack said. “It was pure selfishness.”

Hank snorted a laugh.

Jack ignored it. “Because it was love at first sight.”

Jack turned then and gave me the dreamiest, most lovestruck look I’d ever seen. Then he tucked a wisp of hair behind my ear. “I just wanted any excuse to be around her.” Then he leaned back and put his hands behind his head, like he was reminiscing. “I saw that feisty, stumpy little lady climb out of her Land Rover with five hundred cameras, and I just knew.”