Only His (Fool's Gold #6)(79)

“Can I have my ice cream now?” she asked.

“Sure.”

He kissed her again, then sat up. He pulled her into a sitting position and passed back her bowl.

“Better?” he asked.

She forced herself to take a bite and smile. “Perfect.”

But the ice cream settled uneasily in her stomach.

In an effort to distract herself, she searched for a safer topic.

“The last of the gold should be gone by Tuesday,” she said. “Once they started crating it, the process went faster than I would have thought. With the artifacts taken away, the tourists will leave, along with the archaeologists.”

“About time,” he grumbled. “It’s good that Piper Tate is damned efficient.”

“Did she scare you?”

“Some.”

She laughed. “I think she would be fun to work with. She knows what she wants and she goes for it.”

“Not always a good quality in a woman.”

She raised her eyebrows.

Tucker dug into his ice cream. “Pretend I didn’t say that out loud.”

“I will if you tell me what’s happening with Will.”

Tucker slumped back against the sofa. “Anything but that.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about how we feel.”

Tucker gave an exaggerated shudder. “You win. Will came to me a few days ago and said he wasn’t sure he wanted to transfer.”

“He’s been avoiding me.”

“Why wouldn’t he? You’ve been yelling at him for days.”

“He was wrong.”

“You don’t know that.” Tucker wasn’t smiling anymore. “He’s entitled to what he thinks about the situation with Jo. Just because you’re okay with her past doesn’t mean he has to be.”

“You’re taking his side?”

“I’m saying you don’t get to dictate the terms of his choices.”

“All she did was tell him the truth. She didn’t want to talk about her past. She told him he wouldn’t accept it and he promised he would. Nothing changed about her, except he now has new information.”

“That makes him wrong?”

“He shouldn’t have said he would be okay with anything she told him.”

“Okay, I’ll accept that,” he said. “But just because Will doesn’t like that Jo spent years in prison, for a crime she did commit, let’s remember, doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

“Maybe,” she said, grumbling. “I don’t like it, though.”

“Neither do I,” Tucker said. “He’s unhappy, you’re unhappy. It doesn’t make for a comfortable working situation.”

This was the second good point Tucker had made in as many minutes.

“I should probably stop glaring at him,” she admitted.

“That would help.”

“It’s not professional.”

“True.”

“This is not a time to be agreeable,” she told him.

He put down his ice cream and faced her. “Jo’s your friend and you’re being loyal to her. That’s great. Will is my friend. I’m staying loyal to him. You’re right, what Jo did happened a long time ago, but it’s still relevant. He doesn’t talk much about his childhood, but I do know his dad was in and out of jail when Will was a kid. That can’t have been easy. Jo telling him about her past probably pushed some buttons.”

She hadn’t considered that. “You could be right.”

He grinned. “Let me know when you decide.”

JO FINISHED UP at the bar. It was after two in the morning. She was usually home by now, but these days she found herself working later and later.

She still couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness, but at least she’d let go the sense of impending doom. She no longer believed she was going to be run out of town at any second. Mayor Marsha’s kindness had gone a long way to dissipate her fear. Her friends were faithful and supportive. Getting over Will would be an ongoing journey, but at least she would take it to where she belonged.

She locked the front door and walked through the quiet streets to her house. The nights were colder these days. The days shorter. Fall had arrived. There was already snow on the mountains. Fool’s Gold was beautiful in every season, but she thought it was at its best in winter.

A police car drove by. The female officer waved at Jo, who waved back. Twinkling lights beckoned from the windows of Morgan’s Books. The flags that hung from the streetlights were decorated with turkeys and horns of plenty. She’d already received three different invitations for Thanksgiving.

Home, she thought, telling herself that contentment would be enough. This was home.

She turned onto her street and crossed to her house. As she walked up the path, something moved on her porch. The shadow stepped into the light and became a man.

Will.

The harsh bulb wasn’t kind. He looked as bad as she felt. Tired, drawn, sad. Or maybe that was just her mind’s way of trying to make her feel better. Maybe he wasn’t hurt at all. Maybe he was leaving and he’d just stopped by to make sure she knew she wasn’t good enough for him.

She squared her shoulders. He might have battered her heart, but he wasn’t going to break her.