The Truest Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 4)

Other kids approached her. Awe moved through Jack as he watched her engage with the kids in a way he’d never seen from her. She was like a totally different person, and the kids seemed to gravitate to her, even though she wasn’t the only adult in the room.

“Uh, can I help you?”

Jack startled at the voice and turned to find the young man from reception standing next to him.

He hadn’t even heard him approach, he’d been so focused on Em. “What is this?” he pointed to the room.

The young man frowned. “Why?”

Jack glowered fiercely at him.

A flicker of unease moved over the guy’s face, and he swallowed hard. “Well, uh, it’s a playgroup for children who either have cancer or have loved ones who have or are dying from cancer. It’s a form of therapy and togetherness but in a normalized environment.”

“And why is Emery here?”

“You

know Emery?” The guy’s entire face brightened at her name. “Oh, she’s one of our volunteers. She’s a total sweetheart. Comes every Monday morning to play with the kids. They love her.”

The information moved through Jack in a painful ache as he turned to watch her.

It was like losing his chance with her all over again.

He mourned her.

He mourned her and what could have been.

But this … this evidence of her goodness just reminded him how far out of his reach Emery Saunders had become.

Jack’s chest tightened. It was too tight. His skin too.

Without another word, he marched out of the building. He sucked in a giant gulp of crisp, chilly air and rested his hands on his hips as he tried to get himself together.

He was shaking, for Christ’s sake.

Glaring across the street at the fancy car he now drove, Jack tried to force himself to move toward it. There was no reason to stay. There was no reason to engage in conversation with her. That’s what he told himself.

Yet, he couldn’t move.

Jack stood outside that building for an hour until people, presumably parents and guardians, arrived to pick up their kids. Most of them came back out not long later with children in tow.

Then she was there.

She stepped outside as she wound her scarf around her neck. He watched as she moved to the side, her mind elsewhere, and pulled her long hair out from underneath the scarf. It fell down her back in thick, silky waves and slim braids, and Jack imagined for the millionth time what it would feel like to run his fingers through her hair.

“Emery.”

Her head jerked in his direction, her expression one of surprise.

But for the first time since he’d known her, Emery didn’t blush upon seeing him.

Her surprise turned to utter blankness.

And that fucking killed him.

“Jack.” She nodded at him.

And then walked right by him.