Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor #4)(25)

Her expression was innocent, but Jason knew when he was being mocked.

“I would have suggested a more lyrical toast,” he said.

“Feel free.”

After a moment, he quoted, “‘Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.’”

Justine gave him an arrested glance. “Who wrote that?”

“Matsuo. A Japanese poet.”

“You read poetry?”

“Sometimes.”

“I didn’t know men did that.”

“Being well read is one of the benefits of insomnia.”

They touched glasses and drank, savoring the berry and smoke flavors of a Willamette pinot noir.

“Alex mentioned that you own the cottage at the end of Dream Lake Road,” Jason said.

A glint of enjoyment appeared in Justine’s eyes, as if she’d been waiting for such a remark. “Why, yes, I do.”

“How did you end up owning it?”

“I never even knew about the cottage until this past summer. Zoë’s grandmother Emma owned it, but no one had lived there for years. It was in terrible shape.” She stared into her wineglass, swirling the bright liquid. “Emma had been diagnosed with vascular dementia, and she was going downhill fast. Zoë wanted to take care of her for the last few months of her life. So I offered to buy the cottage and renovate it, which gave Zoë and Emma some cash and also a rent-free place to stay.”

“That was generous of you.” From what he’d seen of Justine’s finances in a background check, she wasn’t exactly swimming in cash herself.

“It was no big deal,” Justine said. “And Alex outdid himself with the renovations—he threw in a lot of custom stuff we didn’t have to pay for.” A quick smile crossed her face. “Somehow I think that had more to do with Zoë than with me.”

“It doesn’t sound like you have an emotional attachment to the place.”

“I do now that I know you want it,” Justine said demurely, sipping her wine.

Jason grinned and said idly, “I might have an interest in it.”

Her slender fingers slid along the wineglass stem, and his gaze tracked the movement closely. “Does it bother you that there’s one little piece of lakefront you won’t own?”

“I don’t like loose ends,” he admitted. “Have you thought about pricing the house?”

“I haven’t even thought about selling it.”

“I’ll give you a half million for it,” he offered, enjoying the astonished look on her face.

“You’re not serious.” She saw that he was. “My God. No.”

Jason looked askance at her reaction. “It’s a generous offer.”

“It’s a stupid offer. Why would you offer to pay so much more than it’s worth?”

“Because I can. Why are you offended?”

Justine let out an exasperated breath. “Maybe because an offer like that could be construed as trying to buy someone.”

That reached down to the cynicism that was never far beneath the surface, and Jason found himself saying, “You’re not going to argue the fact that everyone has a price, I hope.”

“No. But you can’t afford my price.”

“I have a lot of money,” he countered.

“My price has nothing to do with money.” She stared at him with a bruised gravity that touched him. “And don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t try to impress me with your oversized wallet. It’s annoying. And it’s not fair to either of us.”

Jason gazed at her for a long moment. “I apologize,” he said gently.

Her face relaxed. “It’s okay.”

Conversation paused as the server brought their entrées. They had both ordered halibut sheathed in potato crust and doused with chardonnay cream sauce, accented with the crackle of fried basil leaves.

As they enjoyed the fresh, perfectly prepared food, they turned the discussion to their families. They quickly found they had something in common: Neither of them had one. In response to Justine’s tentative questions, Jason told her about the point in his life when everything had fallen apart, midway through his sophomore year at USC.

“It started when I realized I was never going to be more than competent at college ball,” he said. “I didn’t have the instinct that makes a competent player into a great one.” He smiled wryly. “And on top of that, I’d become obsessed with game design. Whenever I was working out or going through conditioning drills, all I could think about was when I’d get a chance to hang out in the campus digital media lab.” Catching the stem of his wineglass between his fingertips, Jason traced along it slowly, remembering. “So I went home at Christmas to tell my parents I was dropping out of the football program. I would pay my own way—I’d already written and sold a 2-D game, so I had a foot in the door. But the second I saw my mother, I forgot all about my personal crap. In two months, she’d turned into a skeleton.”

“Why?” Justine asked softly.

“She’d been diagnosed with liver cancer. She hadn’t told me. Refused treatment of any kind. That kind of cancer moves like a freight train. She died within a week of that visit.”