Mia didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any sympathy, because he hated that. Always had.
And she respected his wishes. If he didn’t want to talk about Victoria’s temper, about the abuse, that was his business.
Besides, the night was a big enough bummer as it was. Scandals. Affairs. Divorce. Painful high heels. They didn’t need to stroll down memory lane with Victoria McKibbon.
“You hungry?” he asked, standing upright as if jerking himself away from his thoughts.
“Starving.”
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Ten minutes later Jack made his way toward her with a bottle of red wine under his arm, two glasses sticking out of his coat pocket and a heaping plate of food in his hands.
The twinkle in his eye—that twinkle she’d recognize if he were eighty years old and disfigured by some terrible accident, that twinkle that led her heart places it had no business going—was like a siren song, leading her off course.
Get ready, that twinkle said, because I’m coming for you. And I’ve got a plan.
In the past that plan had usually involved a ladder and a rooftop scheme.
Her heart lurched at the sight of him. The memory of who he’d been to her.
“You want to go on the roof?”
“Do we need a ladder?”
“Nope.”
She blinked, looking around the glittering party that was all for him, and saw just how far he’d come from the roofs of Wassau. And how much she didn’t belong here.
“Jack,” she whispered, “I’m sure you have plenty of people here you need to schmooze.”
He sighed, but the twinkle didn’t diminish. “You’re probably right.”
“See—”
“But I don’t care,” he said. “I want you to come up to the roof with me.”
That probably wasn’t a good idea. She was sad and nostalgic, and turned on by the sight of his hand around the bottle of wine.
But she was Mia and he was Jack and the years and memories between them were a hard knot of grit and rock that neither of them could forget or gloss over.
There was a lot they needed to talk about. His dad, Walter. The ranch and the rough winter they’d had. The financial problems that only seemed to get worse every time she turned around.
“Come on, Mia,” he said, that twinkle turning into something far more persuasive.
“Let’s go.”
And that was it. Five years after marrying him, she was throwing her hat in with the devil. Come what may.
The problems could wait.
Tonight wife, she reminded herself. Tomorrow divorce.
3
Jack swiped a keycard and opened the door to a secluded rooftop patio.
“That kind of seems like cheating,” she grumbled.
“You expected something else?”
“A little breaking and entering, yeah,” she said, following him to a cold fire pit surrounded by single and double chaise lounges.
“I’ve changed my ways,” Jack said and she snorted.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’ve known you my whole life, Jack. And you don’t change.”
“Well, neither do you,” he said. “Pick a seat, any seat.”
She didn’t play coy, she took one of the doubles, setting down the plate of food he’d given her to hold, and he sat down next to her. A living heat, an electric presence, and her body woke up with a tingle and a start.
From his pocket he pulled a Swiss Army Knife that looked like it could launch rockets and popped open the wine.
“You sure you should leave the party?” she asked. “I mean, it’s kind of your shindig.”
“I did my part. Oliver can handle the rest.” He handed her a glass of wine, her fingertips brushing his and—as stupid as it seemed, as high school and clichéd—a zing ran through her blood, warming her up from her toes to her hair and everywhere in between.
“Besides,” he said. “This might be the last night with my wife.”
He said it as a joke but she didn’t laugh.
“You’re going back next month,” she said, glad it didn’t sound like an accusation.
He nodded. “One of the drills broke and we need to see what happened. Might be a problem with the mechanism, in which case all the pumps might malfunction at some point. Or it’s just tampering by the militia.”
Something in Jack’s voice sounded beaten and she’d never heard that when he talked about his work.
“Aren’t you excited about going back?” she asked.
“Excited?” He smiled down at the food. “That’s not the right word. Resigned maybe.”
“Because of the militia?”
“Because nothing ever changes there,” he said. “We do work and go back a few months later to do the same work all over again. I’m just…tired. I think.”
“You need a break,” she said. “You could come home—”
”Home, as in the Rocking M?”
She nodded and he laughed. “That’s your home, Mia. Not mine. Never mine.”
He turned to her, put his hand on her wrist, and her body burned at the contact. “Even with a divorce,” he said. “If something happens to me, you still have power of attorney. And when Dad dies, the ranch will go to you.”