River's End (River's End Series, #1)(95)

He nodded. “It’s the first time I’ve woken up beside anyone but Lily. I’m sorry, Erin, it might happen sometimes. I don’t take change very well. I don’t adjust very well. I should have explained that. I should have told you a lot of things before I made love to you.”

“You mean, had sex with me.”

“No. I mean, made love to you. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t something I didn’t intend to have happen. I just couldn’t admit that to you, and especially to myself. And not for the reasons you think. It wasn’t about you and Joey. It was about letting go of Lily.”

Erin jerked her head around. She never expected that. Lily? It was his past that bothered him? Not her past? Not her sluttiness that made Jack hesitate in his pursuit of her? He had her attention finally.

“Letting go of Lily?”

He nodded. “I never pictured moving on. Not really. I lived with it. The grief. The pain. Missing her. But I never had any interest in finding someone new. I never thought I would. That’s why you got so much shit from me at first. I knew what was going on; and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

Erin let out a long breath. The heat from the rocks seeped through her cotton shorts and warmed her butt. The sun felt hot on her arms and face, as it lit up the river before her. The air stirred softly as if the heavens were also exhaling a long breath. Mostly, however, she felt her heart lifting as she listened to Jack. But at the same time, her stomach sank. Jack didn’t mean that. There was no way Jack meant that.

“I know what you’re doing, but you have to stop. Of course, you have to be in love with me; how else can you face your boys? I couldn’t figure out why you said that. Not until I saw you with Charlie, comforting Charlie, while trying to explain what you’d done. You have to love me to justify what you did with me, in order to face your kids again. That’s the kind of man you are, and the kind of father you want to be. You don’t bring home sex. You don’t subject your kids to watching you with someone besides their mother. So you have to love me in order to justify sleeping with me. Or wanting what Joey had. I can face that. You need to face it too.”

Jack’s eyes were hot on her face. She stared into the ripples of the river as it gently moved over the rocky bottom, catching sunlight and glistening before it shattered again.

“I wouldn’t do that. Not even for my kids.”

She stiffened her back.

“I can love you, Erin, and there doesn’t have to be an excuse for it. Or a reason. I can love you because you make me smile and laugh, when nothing else has for a long time. I can love you because I feel better just thinking of you, let alone, what you do to my heart when you’re near me. It’s not new. It’s not even that big of a surprise. It just is.”

She shook her head. No. Jack was wrong. She knew Jack better than he knew himself. He could never love her. She wasn’t whom he wanted or what he needed.

Jack sighed and pulled his knees near his chest before locking his arms around them. “Okay, Erin. Okay, you don’t have to believe me yet. I deserve that. I didn’t do anything right with you, starting with the day I first saw you beside your car. I probably deserve your reaction for that. Just tell me one thing, how long?”

She shifted her gaze to his. “How long… what?”

“How long will it take you to believe me? If I still tell you I feel this way, in say, a month, will you believe it?”

She scoffed. A month was nothing. He smiled. “Okay, six months? Then, will you believe me?”

She shook her head. “You won’t be saying that in six months.”

“But if I do, will you believe me?”

She hesitated and wanted to believe him now, right this second. But she knew better. She didn’t actually believe Jack would be pursuing her in six months. So what harm was there in agreeing now? “Okay, fine. In six months, when I prove you wrong, you’ll thank me.”

He smiled at her. “Will you move into the house with me?”

“No. Never. You’ll thank me for that too.”

He threw his head back and flashed his teeth in a smile. “So I get to sneak into your trailer? Okay. That might be fun.”

She glanced at him. “You intend to keep on doing this?”

He looked deeply into her eyes and didn’t blink or flinch. “I intend to do this for the rest of my life.”

Had he just swung a brick into her gut? But… his tone was serious, stern, and soft. He seemed to believe it with every ounce of his upstanding heart. She pitied him on the day he realized she was right, and started to feel bad about all this. But she could wait him out.

She glared at him. “I’m not quitting my job either.”

He sighed. “I feared you’d probably dig your heels in about that. Okay. I probably deserve it for being a prick to you about a number of things. I’ll deal with it. You can work in your damn bikini and I’ll work around your damn pool in the middle of my fields. But have you decided if you’ll see Allison yet?”

“No. I haven’t decided, and if it doesn’t work? I’ll still be illiterate. You’re willing to keep claiming how much you love me if I’m still stupid?”

He stared at her a moment longer, then got to his feet, towering over her. “I want you to see Allison because I worry about you. Not because I care how it reflects on me. I accept you as you are today. I like you. And most of all, I love you. So I get this is a lot to take in. I have two sons, and there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with me. I get you need to adjust to that. But when you do, will you let me know?”