The Will (The Magdalene Series) (Volume 1)(55)

Jake had no reply to that.

Strike that.

He had one. He just couldn’t give it to her.

Not now.

“I could see, in the beginning maybe. But seven years?” she asked.

He bent a knee, leaned deep and stretched a hand out, catching hers. “I have no answers for you, baby,” he told her gently, none of these words sitting well because they meant he’d lied to her gently. “And, it sucks but she’s gone. This is clearly f*ckin’ with your head but you gotta let it go because with her gone, you’re never gonna get those answers. Just settle in that it was whatever it was and she made it so we have each other now.”

“We have each other now,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

Her hand turned in his so she could curl her fingers around and she held tight.

And when she did, she held his eyes and kept whispering. “I’m glad, Jake.”

He held her back just as tight. “Me too, honey.”

She gave him a small smile.

And on that, Jake decided it was time to go. Her in this mood made him want to find creative ways to guide her out of it and he knew which way that creativity would go.

He was not Boston Stone.

In the beginning, the minute he saw her in her big black hat and big black shades at the funeral, he’d felt the urge, definitely. A woman like that, few men wouldn’t.

Then again, he’d felt the urge long before that seeing her pictures, reading her letters, listening to Lydie talk about her.

He didn’t know about the will at the funeral but he knew where Lydie was leaning, what she wanted. She never said it flat out but that didn’t mean she didn’t make the message abundantly clear and she did this repeatedly.

But Jake didn’t figure Josie would want anything to do with a guy like him.

He knew differently in the parking lot at the club when he let her off the hook, telling her his tastes for women leaned elsewhere.

He didn’t lie. He liked big hair. He liked big tits. And he didn’t mind his women showing skin.

That said, he also liked ass and legs and curves in all the right places and high heels and melodic voices and thick blonde hair and big blue eyes and pretty much everything that made up her package.

She’d surprised him by exposing she’d go there.

She said he wasn’t her thing but he knew she lied.

But now was not the time for her to make those decisions. She lost the only person she was close to on this earth—he knew not only a grandmother but a savior. And he sensed she was at a crossroads. He’d be a dick to make a play while the first was fresh and the last was uncertain.

He’d wait.

She’d told him at dinner her shit for brains boss was not likely to show for at least three weeks, maybe longer.

So he had three weeks to get in there and during that time, he’d go gently.

So f*cking her on the window seat in the room where she told stories to her recently deceased grandmother when she was a kid was not the way to go.

“I got furniture to move tomorrow, honey, so I best be hittin’ the road so I can hit the sack.”

Her hand flexed in his like she didn’t want to let him go and he liked that.

But she said, “All right, Jake.”

He downed the rest of his Scotch then got up, pulling her out of the seat.

She made it without taking a tumble. Then again, her feet were bare.

He held her hand down the spiral staircase, thanking f*ck the thing was wide so he could do it, and he held her hand all the way to the front door.

He kept hold of it as he put his glass on a table at the side of the door, took hers and set it beside his. He also kept hold of it even as he slid his other one from the side of her neck to the back and pulled her forward, leaning in.

Then he kissed her forehead and moved back an inch to catch her eyes.

“Another good night, Slick.”

“Yes,” she agreed breathily, her eyes holding his and hers were not hiding the fact she didn’t want him to walk out the door.

Yeah.

He was her thing.

He wouldn’t have guessed it. Wouldn’t even think it was possible. Spent years not thinking it was possible.

But yesterday, she let him in. Calling him when a new wave of grief poured over her and he knew she did that shit the instant it happened with the way her voice sounded on her message and even later, when he called her back.

He just had to glide the rest of the way in, slow and easy. For her. For him. For his kids.

Like Lydie wanted.

Precisely like Lydie wanted.

“Sleep tight, baby,” he murmured.

“You too, Jake.”

He grinned at her and squeezed her with both hands.

Then he let her go, opened the door and walked out, ordering, “Lock this behind me.”

“Of course,” she replied to his back. Then she called, “Goodnight.”

He turned at the door of his truck and gave her a low wave and a smile.

She waved back.

Then she stepped back, closed the door and she was gone.

* * * * *

Jake heard the TV when he came into the kitchen from the garage.

He threw his keys on the counter and was shrugging off his suit jacket when Conner came in.

His eyes went to his boy.

“What’s her curfew?”