The Will(85)

When it did, I had another overwhelming urge—an urge so overwhelming, it was a yearning to do the same to Jake.

More accurately, to be to Jake the person in his life who could stake that kind of claim of his jeans (an inappropriately heated thought).

But more, his person.

I sighed as I realized my pretending needed to be well and truly done for even if Jake was holding me close, I knew it was simply Jake doing with me what he would do with his daughter if she would allow him to do so in front of her peers.

On this thought, I spied Noah standing with his companions to the side of the end of the bleachers. In spying him, I saw he was studying Amber and doing it closely.

His friends were as well, and if I was not mistaken, a couple of them were doing it not with speculation or indignation but admiration.

I looked to Amber and saw her resolutely avoiding eye contact with Noah and I knew, as a woman but also someone who was once a teenaged girl, she knew he was there.

Her slight of Noah didn’t go unnoticed. I saw his jaw get hard and then I saw his gaze turn to me.

I held his eyes momentarily before I looked away, fought back my grin but didn’t fight back my murmur of, “That’s my girl.”

I knew Jake heard this when his arm around me got tighter. I also knew Jake saw it when Amber looked over her shoulder and leaned to the side to catch my eyes.

I winked at her. She grinned at me. My entire frame warmed delightfully and it warmed even more when Jake pulled me so tight to his side, I had to twist slightly into him to accommodate the embrace.

“You take care of my girl,” he said softly.

I looked up at him. “Yes, Jake. But I believe I get more out of it than she does.”

His gentle gaze held mine captive when he replied, “Then you believe wrong, Slick.”

I pressed my lips together and looked away for the warmth I was feeling was so acute, so lovely, even precious, I needed to concentrate on walking so I didn’t get overcome by the feeling and fall flat on my face.

It was within five more feet of our advance when it happened.

And what happened was that a remarkably attractive, tall, buxom redhead approached our parade, crying out, “My babies!”

“Fuck,” Jake muttered.

I quickly glanced up at him as he stopped us.

He no longer looked content.

And I saw when I looked in the direction his eyes were aimed that he stopped us because the advance of our party was halted by the woman bearing down on Amber to give her a tight hug that Amber markedly didn’t return.

The woman didn’t seem to notice as she let Amber go and moved promptly to wrest Conner away from Ellie and do the same.

Unlike his sister, Conner hugged the woman, though it appeared to me that he did this more out of consideration than fondness, and I knew in that instant the woman was Donna, Conner and Amber’s mother.

It was then my study of her heightened and I noted she looked very like her daughter except for the fact she was far more curvaceous. And this last wasn’t lost on me in any way that Donna, Jake’s ex-wife, had big hair and big…other stuff.

Precisely the reason that Donna was Jake’s ex-wife and I would never be Jake’s anything.

She turned to Amber, pouting disingenuously, “You never call.”

Before Amber could reply, her eyes went to her son.

“And if I didn’t see you at Wayfarer’s, I’d never see you.”

“Mom—” Conner started but it was then, two things happened.

One, I noticed a man hovering a bit away, watching these proceedings.

He was very good-looking. He was also quite young. I would place Donna at around my age, no younger, perhaps older. The man hovering in a way that made me think he belonged to her couldn’t be older than thirty, but he could be younger.

And even good-looking, at a glance I knew he wished to be just like Jake. He wanted to have that big man commanding presence, the self-confidence, the manner, but this would always be nothing but a desire. To have what Jake had you had to be born the man he became. You couldn’t want it. You simply were going to be it until you were it.

The other thing that happened was that Donna’s eyes came to Jake and I, took us in quickly with back and forth flicks of her gaze (most specifically our arms around each other), and finally settled on Jake.

“Jake,” she greeted.

“Donna,” he returned.

Her gaze came to me just as I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Ethan was sidling close to Jake.

“This is Josie,” Jake introduced me, unnecessarily indicating I was the Josie he was speaking of by giving me a slight shake.

“Yeah, Lydia Malone’s granddaughter,” Donna stated, her gaze moving the length of me.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “And you’re Conner and Amber’s mother. Lovely to meet you.”

The last was a lie.

It was this because she had once had Jake in the way I wanted him and I had to admit I was envious. I wasn’t proud of that emotion but I couldn’t deny I had it.

It was also a lie because she threw Jake away and I read between the lines of what he told me about their end that this had hurt him and I very much didn’t like that.

It was also a lie because neither of her children had mentioned her once and it was clear at the very least that Amber needed her mother and her mother was not available to her.