Forgiving Patience (11 page)

“So what about those dates? You want
to come over for dinner at my house tomorrow night and make the first one
official?”

“It’s my house—and no, we will not be
dating.”

“Why?”

She crossed her arms over her
midsection. “Because you’re a jackass.”

“Now who’s being insulting? You
should really work on your self-control, it causes a frown line right there.”
He brought his hand up to rub the center of her forehead.

“Don’t touch me.” Instead of stomping
away, she sped walked toward her car. She was not the one who was being
insulting, and she sure as hell wasn’t out of control. Just showed how well he
really knew her.

She didn’t hear any footsteps from
behind, so she could only hope that he wasn’t following her. A clap of thunder
shook the ground, causing her to slightly jump. She’d forgotten about the storm
that seemed to be brewing in the west. A fat raindrop landed on her cheek,
falling slowly down her face. She’d trustingly left her keys in the car and was
steps away when she heard gravel crunching.

Another clap of thunder boomed in the
sky. The storm was getting closer and ready to show its ugly face. Maybe she
would be able to sleep tonight with the soothing sounds.

She was opening her door when Jake
reached around her and slammed it back into its closed position.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“This…”

His words were lost against her lips.
She was pinned between her car and Jake, left to either fight him or allow him
to invade her mouth. This was not a tease. This was him being greedy. She
brought her hands up to protest, but her defenses went unnoticed. He braced
himself up by placing his hands on the car, on either side of her, pressing his
body even closer. Her body had found a welcome home nudged between his thighs.
She could feel all of him behind his running shorts. If she wasn’t careful, she
could get lost in his smell, his touch, and the strongest of the three—his
taste. The taste of beer mixed with warmth was intoxicating.

She had to stop her hands before they
fumbled their way over his tempting head of hair. She opened her mouth enough
so he could slip in and take over like a man who meant business. A man who
wasn’t afraid of what he wanted. Their tongues tangled together as he let out a
groan she could feel rumble in his chest.

To her surprise, she felt strong and
sexual. Something she’d never had a man, or allowed a man, to make her feel. He
ran a finger down her cheek, leaving a path of heat. There was no escaping him
and the feeling of need.

The light pole above gave off a soft
yellow glow, and with the help of the moon, she could see his eyes go a shade
deeper. He stopped his hand on her chest, broke away from her trembling lips,
and spoke softly with his lips still touching her mouth. “I can feel you.”

There was nothing she could say in
return that would’ve sounded close to what she was feeling. She was
inexperienced, so instead of words, she took a ragged breath and stared into
those dangerously sexy eyes, searching for more emotion…more connection.

“The way your heart is pounding right
now, mine is doing the same. With every thud, I want you even more.” His eyes
brightened as if recalling something special. “Do you remember that party we
were at…the one where we spent half the night talking by the fire?”

She smiled. “Em was so excited
because it was the first party she’d thrown and a lot of her boyfriend’s
college friends were going to be there.” Anna remembered being so nervous that
night. Even back then, she didn’t do well in large crowds where she was forced
to mingle. Her solution was to drink. Looking at the man in front of her—she
was still trying to decide if that was a good idea, or a bad one. “That next
Monday at school, everyone was saying how it was the party of the year.”

“It was pretty memorable,” he agreed.
“It will always be one of my favorite nights—but not because I got to hang out
with some college freshman, but because I got to spend it with you.” He moved
beside her and leaned against the car. “Within five minutes, I knew you were
something special.”

“Was that five minutes before or
after the bet you made?”

Jake burst out laughing. “You’ve
never really gotten past that part, have you?”

In all honesty, it was never that big
of a deal that Jake only waltzed up and talked to her that night because one of
his friends bet him he couldn’t talk the
sweet girl in
school
into bed. And
she’d probably easily gotten past that part because not once while they were
talking did he try to get her into his bed. They spent the entire night getting
to know each other. He asked how long she and Em had been best friends, and she
asked him endless questions about the following year’s baseball team.

Trying to cover her smile, she said,
“I just like reminding you how it really happened.”

“Well, then,” he lightly nudged her,
“let’s not forget about the two wine coolers that ended up down the front of my
shirt and jeans because
someone
couldn’t handle their alcohol.”

“Fair enough. We both made some
mistakes.”

“What I did wasn’t a mistake.” His
deep tone had Anna turning to look up at him. “I would gladly take on another
bet if it got me you. The only thing I would like to do over is the way the
night ended. If I’d known it was going to take you two months to understand
that I really was into you and wanted to go out on a date, I wouldn’t have let
Em drag you away so easily without getting a goodnight kiss.”

And if she hadn’t been semi-drunk at
the time, she might not have been so easily pulled away. She recalled laying in
her bed after Em drove her home, wondering if maybe she had lost her chance to
be kissed by one of the most popular boys in school. But then the following
Monday he seemed to be everywhere she was. After every class her stomach would
flutter, just thinking that he might be waiting for her outside the classroom
door. At the end of the day he asked if she wanted to come over and have dinner
at his house. He claimed his mother made the best fried chicken—which later
Anna learned was true—but because she started overthinking what dating a guy
like Jake would mean, she ignored his advances. She was sure Jake was used to
having occasional sex when he dated someone, and it was a hang-up for her.

After two months of him never giving
up and her desperately wanting to say
yes
, she agreed to a date. One double
date with Em and her boyfriend led to another solo date…until it was known all
over town they were indeed a couple. It was the best year-and-a-half of her
life.

His body shifted next to hers. “Why
did you leave me, Anna?”

The words cut through her. They were
sharp, heavy, and full of hurt. She could not only see the pain in his
expression, she could feel it. She knew that same pain all too well. He’d
broken her heart and caused her to try to cover up that same hurt.

“You left me, Jake. That night in
May, you left me.” She could feel the tears starting to cloud her vision. God,
why did she have to cry in front of him? The first tear fell down the cheek
he’d just touched.

She turned from him, like she had so
many other times during her short two-day stay, and this time he didn’t stop
her. She had to get away from him and the memories he represented. Why did he
do this to her? Why did he kiss her—why did he make her feel things she’d never
felt before…and why did he have to bring up the past?

“Anna?”

She kept her back to him. She
couldn’t let him see the tears he’d caused.

“I’m sorry.”

She could hear him walk away, leaving
behind a broken heart and a storm of emotions.

Chapter Six

Anna slammed the door of the small
studio apartment and threw her keys and purse down on the small table closest
to the front door. “Home sweet home.”

Her newfound temper was bubbling
over, bordering on hysteria. She wasn’t familiar with this new emotion. How was
she supposed to handle it? Was it okay to scream and let valuable breakables
fly across the room—she didn’t know the correct protocol. She’d seen many
tempers flare as a child, but they seemed to stem more from hate and evil.
 

Taking a much needed, calming breath,
she flopped onto the small sofa centered in the middle of an area that could be
considered the living room.

Men. Who did they think they were?
Egotistical, arrogant, sons of bitches. She was twenty-nine years old and a
woman very capable of making her own decisions when it came to her life. Jake
had no right making it sound like it was her fault she’d left Patience. If
things could have been different, she would have wanted to stay. She’d dreamed
of staying here and building a typical white picket-fenced family. She’d wanted
to be one of those girls who lived and died in the same zip code.

She fisted her hands before relaxing
and raking them through her messy ponytail. Why couldn’t things have been
uncomplicated? She’d been back for less than two whole days, and already her
time had been spent either being run over by a man or arguing with a man. The
whole weekend would have been a bust if it wasn’t for seeing Em and making a
couple of new—at least she hoped—friends. She liked both Jesse and Georgia.

Anna slumped back on the sofa,
instantly wanting to throw her feet up on the coffee table, before noticing it
didn’t look like something feet were supposed to rest on. She took a long look
around the sparsely decorated beige room. A flat screen television sat in front
of her, flanked by two bookcases. The kitchen was small but offered a stainless
steel stove and refrigerator, so there wasn’t much to complain about there.
Frozen dinners were all she had on the menu for the coming weeks. The bed was
very hotel chic with its leather headboard and heavy taupe quilt. Overall, she
knew it was a step up from the childhood home she’d expected to be sleeping in.
It looked very similar to the office Garrett occupied. The only negative was
the overwhelming lack of color. The only splashes in sight were two pink throw
pillows oddly out of place. She’d thrown them off the bed the night before,
refusing to accept Garrett’s apology. Garrett seriously owed her more than a
few frilly pillows to make up for his error in judgment concerning Jake and her
house.

She wished she could pinpoint exactly
when everything went wrong. This was not what she had planned in her head. She
was a planner; that’s what she did with everything in her life, and this was
definitely not the way it was supposed to play out.

For starters, she wasn’t supposed to
see Jake this early in her trip back to town. When she first saw those charming
good looks, her first response should have been to run back to her car, forsaking
the apology. He was dangerous to her system.

Why hadn’t she put up more of a fight
when he grabbed her? Why did she let him touch her and bring on these sudden
lapses in judgment? At least now, maybe her nightmares of the past would be
replaced with a new set of dreams—dreams that were a nightmare all in
themselves.

Right now, she was supposed to be in
her house, going from room to room, facing down the demons that resided there.
Demons that still haunted the six-year-old girl who remained buried deep inside
of her. Girl and woman both deserved freedom. She was finally ready to take
control of her life, free that scared girl, and Jake was standing in her way.
Whether he knew it or not, he was preventing her from being able to move on.

Reliving the pain that was permanently
attached to the house wasn’t something she was looking forward to, but it had
to be done if she wanted to move on with her life back in Linden. Instead, she
was sitting in a beige room, emotionally exhausted from her close encounters
with Jake, and from finding out he was sleeping in her house—probably her old
room.

Nothing good could come from her
seeing Jake—dancing with Jake—kissing Jake. Oh God, had she really just kissed
him? She had to answer herself honestly, because what else could she do? Yes,
she did kiss him. It was he who instigated it, but she had definitely kissed
him back. What a moron. She no longer was safe around him.

The thought of him inside the same
walls she’d once lived in for most of her life made her feel embarrassed and
surprisingly turned on at the same time. Boys had never, under any circumstances,
been allowed in her room—not that she had really wanted them to be, but
imagining Jake stretched out on a bed in the purple room warmed her body. What
was wrong with her? She didn’t want him in that sinful room, that evil house.

Men had never made her wet her
panties. Yeah, she could appreciate them from afar, but not to the point that
she was picturing them in bed…maybe sleeping butt-naked.

Really,
Anna? God—stop, no more thoughts.
He was just unexpected, and it was weird to see him again.

You are mad at him, Anna, don’t
forget that. It would be smart if you’d forget all about him and stay clear of
Jake Lawrence.