Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (38 page)

When she met his eyes, he was the one to look away. It only took a few seconds, but when he looked back, he seemed steeled, at the ready for what was to come.

“First I want you to know that I am so sorry I didn’t tell you about Tristan, that I was pregnant. I know—I know that you had a right to know—”

“I know. We’ve been over this. I’m over it. Okay?”

“But you have a right to know—have had a right to know all along, before we ever got serious that...”

Suck it up Marissa
. Gliding her gaze over a degree to his earring instead of his eyes, she confessed, “I may not be able to have more kids.”

Jack heard her out, and his hand instinctively sought out the scar on her stomach. However, the visible scar was not the medical problem. It was the scar tissue inside, and her chances of conceiving fell far below those of the average woman her age.

“Mariss, LA has some of the best doctors in the world. When we begin thinking about more kids, I will take you to the best doctor, whoever, and wherever they may be.”

“And then? What if it just doesn’t happen? And Tristan was your only chance to experience the years of pregnancy to four years old?”

“If that is part of having you, then bring it on, Mariss. I can deal. It’s a win win just being with you and Tristan. More kids are just a bonus, not a requirement.”

“Despite what you just said? And everything you have said before about kids? Because this is important, Jack. It matters before we get married.”

“I know without a doubt that fate was at work in that tour bus five years ago. We don’t know how it will turn out. What is important is that we don’t let our fears keep us from following our fate. “

“Like I did by not telling you I was pregnant—”

“No. Like I did. By not coming to see you the hundreds of times that I thought about you.”

Between them, Tristan shifted, opened his eyes to them, and then with a sleepy, content sigh closed them again. Jack took her hand as he moved to the edge of the bed. “Come’re, Mariss.”

Taking a seat on the couch, he rubbed his tired eyes and drew her to his lap.

He raised his arm, twisting it slightly, uncharacteristically eying his own tats, “These...”

The music notations seemed to jump off his skin as she realized he was at last revealing the secret song.

“These are the chords. The same chords make up, so far, three songs with changed tunes. The first, I wrote when I was twenty about an imaginary woman I knew would come into my life. My fate. The second song, I wrote during the week after I met you. That I thought I found my fate. The third, I wrote in the week I stayed at your house. How fate was not always easy. And in these last weeks, another one is coming together about holding on to fate.”

“These same chords are three different songs?” She wasn’t a musician and could not understand the concept.

Quietly, without using the amp, he played them. Each was different because of the changed tunes and changed verse entry points. The cords mostly remained in the same order and when she listened hard enough, she heard this vague continuity.

In that moment, every doubt that had ever besieged her about this relationship dissolved. Fate had spoken to her when they had first spoken, and instead in fear, she had let what she thought was reality speak for her. Jack had believed in what fate had in store for his life. He had seen a wife and a family and at some point, she had been lucky enough to become his fate.

“
IT IS BEAUTIFUL,” MARISSA
admitted.

Despite the several times she had flown with Jack, it had never been precisely at sunset when the sun setting in the clouds was like witnessing a peak into the gates of heaven.

“I like being in the sky,” Tristan chimed in. “When I grow up can you teach me how to drive the plane, Daddy?”

“I will,” Jack promised and begin to make the necessary preparations for landing.

It was the family vacation they all needed and deserved, and although they only had just over a week, they planned to make the most of it.

“Is this your house?” she wondered as they ascended the steps to the unusual home. Just beyond, the surf crashed although the water was too dark to see.

The house, however, was lit up and Tristan declared, “It looks like an egg. A giant dinosaur egg.”

Marissa had the same thoughts, but she kept them to herself. The inside of the dome home, however, was a different story. It was quite possibly one of the loveliest homes she had been in, and that included Jack’s house in LA, and Meg’s home in Malibu. Jack explained that it was a family home and that he had grown up vacationing here. Immediately, she knew it to be the beach home that he had once told her held some of his happiest memories.

Dying for a drink, Marissa opened the fridge and was surprised to find it stocked. Selecting a cola for herself and a juice for Tristan, she turned to Jack. “Beer?”

“Just water for now. I was thinking we might pop open some wine in a bit.”

Left unsaid was ‘when Jack Jr. went to bed.’ Over the last couple of months, T.J. had involved into Jack Jr. and even J.J. Marissa could see in Jack’s eyes that it was a rush to refer to his son as a junior.

On the patio fire pit, they grilled hotdogs in the grill, and smores for desert. Tristan fell fast asleep after they took a short walk on the dark beach, a quick swim in the patio pool, and showered with their suits on in what Tristan dubbed the “sickest shower ever.”

Like Jack’s shower, it was complete with lighting, however a waterfall effect spilled down one wall, and to be enclosed inside, one navigated a small glass brick maze.

The lull of the crashing waves was a therapeutic wind down from the tour, and both were mostly quiet as they relaxed on the patio. The lounger was a double with plenty of room for the both of them, and she snuggled against his length. The high glass barriers kept the wind from freezing them out, and as she stared up at the stars, she was surprised when he began to point out the constellations in the night sky.

“My dad taught me,” he answered when she wondered about this new side of him.

“It’s kind of weird to think as kids that you vacationed all of the time just an hour down the beach from where I lived,” she mused. “In fact, Olivia’s family rented a beach house here, or close, every other year or so…we could have seen each other…”

“I would remember you Mariss…”

“And I would remember—Meg. Was she a little hellion even when you guys were young?”

“Hey come on, she apologized,” Jack protested.

Although Marissa knew she would never truly forgive Meg for doubting Tristan’s paternity so publicly, she loved Jack all the more for being loyal to his sister. “Alright, alright,” she conceded. “Forget about your sister. I would definitely remember the dude dragging around a guitar instead of a board.”

He laughed at her joke, then huffed, “Well, I did surf.” Then his lips remained curved in abashed grin, “Only when Meg made me. Yeah, she was always a hellion.”

They laughed, and when he reached for her glass to refill it with the wine they were ingesting, it teetered on the edge of the table before clinking in shards of glass on the patio.

“Oh!” Jumping back, she jested, “Possibly, you don’t need anymore…”

“But you do. Stay put, and I will grab you another glass.”

“I think I am done too, Jack…”

“One more glass, Mariss.” His eyes were ripe with amusement, and shadowy with smoky heat. “You are going to need it to keep up with me tonight.”

“Oh really? And just what is it you have in mind, Jack Loren?”

A flush that had nothing to do with the blush of alcohol heated her skin when she read the husky inflection in his voice and the heat in his eyes. Good things would follow, and a prickle of desire manifested as goose bumps on her skin.

“All in good time, Mariss.” After picking up the larger glass shards, he disappeared into the house.

Her gaze wandered the constellations trying to remember which was Big Bear, and which was Orion, and the Dragon. Or had he said some were one and the same?

Jack appeared and first used a handheld dust buster on the shattered fragments before setting an unbroken glass on the table next to their lounger. With the flourish of a waiter in a five star restaurant, he poured the wine letting the spillage fall from a foot above the glass.

When he stopped at the halfway mark, she lifted a brow, but said nothing as the cushion dipped with his weight and he resumed his seat. One of his bare feet entwined with hers. Instead of picking up his own drink, he picked up the guitar and began to play.

She hadn’t heard the song much, but it was significant enough to her, that her eyes riveted immediately to the notes encircling his arms.

“Think of a new verse?” she wondered while reaching for her glass.

“Maybe. Maybe a whole new song…”

Which according to his past explanation would mean—

…and there it was.

Encircling the stem of this new wine glass, clinking against the base as she tipped and twisted the glass for a better look—was a ring...

The band was shiny and black, as was the stone. Once, in a hotel jewelry shop, she had admired and even tried on a black gold set with a black diamond ring. This one was very similar.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it, but how did…Jack how did you know?”

“I know a little bit about you, Mariss…”

“I guess you do…” she answered, but in amusement remembered the appalling story of a hotel boutique sales girl. The young woman had flagged Jack down when he went into the store alone and revealed everything she, his fiancée, had looked at that day—including some extravagant jewelry that he had spoiled her with later that night.

“What I really want to know…” Calloused fingertips ran down her cheek. “And, I’m almost scared to ask…”

‘The questions that hold forever answers; the hearts that give unlimited chances…’

‘One love returned as two, destiny, fate, and one sweet truth.’

“Marissa, will you marry me?”

He was on one knee next to the chair, and she stared in shock from one oddity to the next. From Jack massaging each of her fingers in his and to the still half-filled glass of—

It was not the wine they had been drinking. It looked to be champagne. The bubbles gradually made their way to the surface, and the wind seemed to suspend a gust waiting on her answer.

“I will, Jack. You know I will.” Leaning forward, she dragged him back into the chair with her kiss, and spoke against his lips. “But that ring—do I have to carry a champagne flute with me everywhere I go now?”

“So funny, Mariss…” Grasping the glass by the stem, he took a glug. “To you, and me, and Tristan. Whatever and whoever life has in store for us. I love you Mariss, and I want to share it all with you.”

Passing the glass to her, she pinched it between her middle finger and thumb. “To you and me Jack. And our everlasting love that perseveres through everlasting,” here she stopped, unable to say crap at this momentous moment. Instead, she drained the last of the bubbly liquid.

“Now, how do I get this ring on!”

The sexy smirk she could forever stare into, and would, the rest of her life, curved, and he took the glass from her hand.

“Wait!” Putting her fingers out to halt him, she implored, “I want a picture of it. Just like that.”

Tristan cam was on Jack’s phone, and she actually had to go into the house to find her own. When she returned, the glass was again over half full of bubbly, and he shrugged with that boyish sparkle. “Makes a better picture, right?”

After a dozen attempts, they ended up with half that many of the glass and themselves in the same picture.

“Drink up Mariss, if you want that ring…”

Searching those dark mischievous eyes, she called his bluff, “Drink up Jack, if you want to put that ring on my finger.”

He drank it half down and offered it to her for the rest. She had already drank more than she had in a while, but how many times did a girl get engaged? Well, if she didn’t count the first time.

Using a flat edge knife from their smore cooking earlier, Jack hit at the glass stem effectively breaking it in half and freeing the ring.

Eagerly, she held her hand out wondering if it would fit, but Jack stopped just before the first knuckle. “Ever since I first laid eyes on you, my heart knew that you would be my wife. Marissa Loren. And thank the deity above for sending Tristan to make sure we ended up together.”

The metal slid against her skin, over the first knuckle, and she stopped it just before the second. “I love you Jack. Always have, you know.”

“I know, Mariss. And, I’ve always loved you right back.”

The ring was a perfect fit.

“YOU SURE YOU WANT
to do this?” The stool on which Jack perched glided smoothly across the foot that separated him from the fully adjustable chair she was poised upon.

“I’m sure.” A smile of reassurance curved her lips, but her eyes darted nervously to the array of sterile instruments just an arm’s length away.