Nobody But You (17 page)

One corner of his mouth quirked. “You got that all from just looking at us, huh?”

She shrugged. “I'm good at reading people.”

His eyes met hers and held. “I'm getting that,” he said. “I'm also getting that you had to be.”

She didn't want to go there. “You could just come right out and say you're sorry for leaving, you know.”

“I'm working my way up to it,” he said.

“How's that going?”

“Hud's not ready,” he said.

“Ever think that maybe you're projecting?”

He didn't move, didn't even breathe as far as she could tell, so she handed him the wine. “I project,” she said conversationally, taking the bottle back when he'd taken a drink. “And trust me, it's not healthy. I projected all Lucas's assholery onto myself, and I let it color how I see myself. But then I realized that no one's going to like me if
I
don't like me…” She trailed off and took another sip of the wine, and when she lowered the bottle, she discovered he'd moved after all.

Closer.

He slid his fingers over her jaw and tilted her face up to his. “You're smarter than hell, sexier than hell, and I like you way more than I should,” he said. “Tell me you got over that hump, Sophie, and that you learned to like yourself even half as much as I do.”

She didn't realize she was chewing on her lower lip until he bent his head and kissed that lip. And then the corner of her mouth. And then the other corner…And then he stared at her, letting her see that what he'd said was true, that he liked her a whole lot more than he should. Her breath caught.

“Tell me,” he whispered against her lips, making them tingle in anticipation. She knew how he kissed now, with his entire heart and soul, and it so contradicted everything about him that it always threw her off-balance.

He
threw her off-balance. In the best way.

In fact, she wanted to be thrown off-balance right this minute.

As if guessing where her thoughts had gone, the very corners of his mouth turned up.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “But has anyone ever told you that you're deadly up close?”

“Sophie.”

She sighed. While
she
could be distracted, she should've known that he couldn't. “Yes, I got over myself. I know now that I didn't do anything wrong. That I'm a good person.” She closed her eyes. “That I deserve better.”

“Good.” He kissed her then, until she crawled across the blanket and into his lap, sighing when his arms closed around her.

“This is a little scary,” she whispered.

“A lot scary.”

She tipped her head back to his. “I'm still not keeping you.” As if her body didn't agree with her mouth, her fingers tightened on his shirt. “I'm not going to keep anyone, not ever again.”

“I know,” he said, and stroked a hand down her back, soothing her even as she did her best to hurt him.

“But you don't want to love anyone either,” she said. “That hasn't changed, right?”

He didn't answer, and she closed her eyes. “Jacob.”

His big hand continued to stroke up and down her spine, and she felt hot tears prick at her eyelids. “We're so screwed up,” she whispered.

“In a very large way,” he agreed.

He did that thing he did, where he lightly tugged at a loose wave of her hair. Then he produced chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

“I might have to rescind my no-love rule,” she said, a cookie in each hand. “Cookies are my sweet spot.”

He smiled. “They're not your only sweet spot.”

Her “sweet spot” quivered, a fact she firmly ignored. “I miss baking. No oven.”

“Tell me again why you took this boat. Or better yet, why you stay on it. You could've gotten whatever you needed, money…nice things…”

“Money and nice things didn't work out so well for me,” she said. “I'm trying something new to find my happy.”

He stared at her and then smiled, shaking his head.

“What?”

“You expect me to believe that being here on this boat is making you happy?” he asked, disbelief heavy in his voice. “And be careful here,” he said when she opened her mouth, “because I'm the one who held your hair back while you threw up from seasickness, remember? You hate this boat.”

“Yes, but…” She grimaced. “I'm still getting some mileage out of knowing Lucas is miserable because I'm living on his baby.” She didn't look at him, not wanting to see what he thought of this.

But he laughed. “Okay, remind me to never piss you off.”

And that was just the thing. He
had
pissed her off, several times now. And yet she didn't feel like retreating, or never speaking to him again, or strangling him with his own pillow in the dark of the night.

Well, okay, maybe she had once or twice…But she'd also felt like making up with him in ways that just thinking about made her squirm uncomfortably. In the best possible way.

J
acob gathered everything back into the bag he'd brought down from his cabin and stood.

Sophie did the same. “You told me I could stay here.”

A commander had once told Jacob he was the hardest sonofabitch he'd ever met, and Jacob had believed it. He'd been in some pretty ugly places and had done some pretty ugly things. People tended to give him a wide berth.

But not this woman. Nerves and fears or not, she still went toe-to-toe with him.

He fucking loved it.

Whether she knew it or not, she was comfortable with him. It made him want even more from her. Things he hadn't imagined ever wanting from anyone. Things he'd promised her he didn't want.

Which put him in the ridiculous position of either continuing to lie to her about that, or swallowing emotions he didn't know what to do with anyway in order to keep her in his life. “Yeah,” he said. “I told you that you could moor here. And I meant it. Indefinitely.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Indefinitely?”

“Yes.”
Expect more from me
, he wanted to say.
Demand it from me. You deserve it
. Instead, he smiled. “No worries. I'll collect my rent.”

She didn't smile. Instead she stared up at him. “I'm sorry I assumed you were lying to me.” She said this quietly but also slightly begrudgingly, which made him smile. “I'm not good at letting people in.”

“I think you're doing pretty damn good,” he said.

She stared at him as if she wasn't sure how to take him. So while they were on that, he said, “And you should know, I don't lie.”
Well, except for how I feel about you…
“Too much to remember. I'm lazy, Sophie. Very lazy. We square?”

“You're the most unlazy man I've ever met.”

“Say it.”

She looked at him for a long beat. “We're square,” she finally said. “Are we friends?”

Is that what they were doing? He hadn't put a label on it, but if he had,
friends
would have been in the mix.
Friends. Lovers…
“Is that what you want?”

She stared into his eyes, and then her gaze dropped to his mouth and she licked her lips, nearly causing him to groan.

“I think we're a little more than that,” she said.

“Is that what you want?” he asked again.

She stared at him. “It's a start, right?”

“And the end?”

“You don't seem like a guy concerned with the ending of anything.”

True enough, he thought. And he had no idea why he was pushing on this. Except he did. He wanted more and yet he wasn't exactly in a position to offer it. “You know what I'm asking. I'm asking if we're going to be more than friends.”

“For the duration, you mean?”

His own words, of course, put right back on him. He'd said she was his for the duration, and he was hers. He'd meant it. He just hadn't known how much…or how badly he'd want the duration to be extended.

She cocked her head and studied him, and he did his best to look like the kind of guy she couldn't live without. And maybe also the kind of guy she wanted to take belowdecks and lick from head to toe.

“I have no idea what to do with you,” she said.

“I've got a few ideas.”

She snorted. “Stop. I mean it.”

He sobered. “I know.”

“And you know it's not you, right?” she asked earnestly. “It's me.”

He laughed at her use of the cliché. He couldn't help it. And she smiled and gave him a push. “It's not a line. I mean it.” Her smile vanished. “We both know I've got some things to work out. In my head.”

And she wasn't the only one. Reaching over, he took her hand in his, liking it when she entwined their fingers. Bringing their joined hands up to his mouth, he brushed his lips over her knuckles.

Her breath caught.

“Sophie?”

“Yeah?” she asked a little breathlessly.

“Take your time,” he said.

She let out a whoosh of air as if greatly relieved, and not for the first time he wanted to hunt down the men who'd been in her life, starting with her dad, who should've protected and cherished her and not let it be the other way around.

“We don't have a lot of time,” she said. “You're leaving.”

True story. “What do you need?”

She hesitated.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“Well…that's just it. I need you to talk to me. I need your deep, dark secrets.”

“How do you know I have any?” he asked.

“All men do.”

“Ah,” he said, not particularly thrilled to have been looped in with her ex and her dad but getting it. “All of us, huh?”

“Every last one of you,” she said, sounding very sure.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Where should I start?”

“Well…” She considered. “You could tell me what you think of cats, since I'm thinking of becoming a cat lady. There's your favorite food. Your feelings on sexy undies. Things that make you homicidal,” she said.

The last part did something to him deep in his gut. She'd buried her lede, afraid to ask outright if he was a dick when he got mad about something. He got that too.

“And let's throw in your worst sexual experience,” she said.

He went brows up at that one. “I don't like cats,” he started.

“Why not?”

“They're smug fuckers. I hope that's not a deal breaker,” he said, smiling when she cracked up. “My favorite food is cereal. I can eat it three meals a day for long stretches of time without getting tired of it. As for sexy undies, I
love
them. But my favorite undies are no undies at all.”

Her eyes warmed.

“As for what makes me homicidal…”

She froze. “Yeah?”

“It's people who wear flip-flops. I think it's the toes.”

She sucked in a breath. “Toes.”

He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I have a toe phobia.”

She laughed. “You do not.”

He did not… “As for your last question…I had the worst blow job of my life on a heli, though I suspect it was because she was also piloting the thing while we were going at it.”

She blinked. “Wow. I can't beat that. But…” She kicked off her sandals and waved her bare foot in his direction. “Do
my
toes wig you out?”

Her toenails had been painted bright blue and there was a white daisy on one of them. “Cute,” he said. “And since they make me want to start there and nibble my way up your mile-long legs and see what else I find, I can say on good authority that no, your toes do not wig me out.”

“You're doing it again,” she said quietly.

“Annoying you?”

She shook her head. “The opposite.”

He smiled. “Good.” Leaning in, he lowered his voice to a bedroom whisper. “My turn. Tell me a secret so dirty it turns you on just to admit it.”

She choked on a laugh. “I…can't.”

“Can't? Or won't?”

“Can't.” She paused. “Because it's about you.”

“Even better.”

She bit her lower lip and he went insta-hard. “Your secret would be safe with me,” he promised.

She pondered this seriously. “Something else to think about,” she said.

T
hey ended up in Jacob's cabin, specifically in his bed where they spent several hours, but eventually Sophie left, claiming something about needing to take her vitamins and how she couldn't sleep outside her own bed. He knew why she really left.

She needed some space.

He did too. Or so he told himself. But without her in it, his bed seemed huge.

The next day Soph flew to Dallas to spend a few days with her family and his bed got bigger each night. It was late on one of those nights that his phone
ping
ed. When he glanced at it, he was surprised to find a…tweet? The only way that could happen was if someone had signed him up for Twitter.

Kenna, no doubt, the little brat. And she'd also apparently set his phone for notifications when someone tweeted about or to him. She would pay for that…

He accessed the notification and stared down at the message, which had come from someone called CedarRidgeNumberOneMom. It didn't take a genius to figure out who that was.

He laughed in disbelief. Shaking his head, he backed out of the Twitter app—
definitely going to strangle Kenna
—and texted his mom.

In less than a minute he got another Twitter notification.

He had to laugh as he called her. “Mom, you can call me whenever you want. You don't have to use Twitter to talk to me.”

“Oh, baby, I know that. But calling is passé. No one calls anyone these days. It's all about social media.”

For the first time, he wondered just how much trouble his mom had managed to find over the years. He'd always assumed that he'd taken the much harder road than Hudson, being in the military, living that life.

But honest to God, he had to wonder if he hadn't had it easy in comparison to his twin. “How about we keep things old-fashioned?” he asked.

“But, honey, you're never going to catch a girl that way.”

He'd caught one fine. He just had no idea how to keep her. “I'll manage,” he said.

“Fine, but you don't have the best of tastes. You remember last year when you were into that Weston girl? She dumped you at recess and crushed your heart. I want to meet this next one and make sure she's good enough.”

Kim Weston had been his sixth-grade crush. “Got it, Mom. You're in charge.”

“I mean it. I'm watching you,” she said, a note of teasing coming into her voice.

His heart squeezed. “Wouldn't have it any other way.”

“Good. I picked a girl for your brother and he's going to marry her. So see, you can trust my judgment.”

When she disconnected, Jacob stared out the window at the lake for a long time.

He knew Hud was serious about Bailey, but only because he could see it with his own eyes and because Kenna had told him so.

He hadn't known they were going to get married.

For some reason this hurt more than anything else, that they were so distanced from each other that Hud wouldn't have told him such an important thing going on in his life.

Jacob was willing to take his part of the responsibility, and yeah, his part was more than fifty percent.

But Hud wasn't giving an inch here. He needed an inch, dammit.

Ever think that maybe you're projecting?

On that thought, he picked up his phone again and called the guy who'd leased him the cabin.

“When I first contacted you about renting this cabin, you asked if I was interested in buying,” he said. “I wasn't ready then, but I'm ready now.”

Sophie's visit to Dallas went predictably. It'd been great to see her sister. Good to see her parents. And bad for her mental health.

Par for the course.

As she got back to Cedar Ridge, she felt…like she'd come home.

The boat itself, not so much.

She got back just in time to take an afternoon shift at the assisted-living center attached to the hospital. A flu had knocked out the girls at the front desk. Sophie sanitized the entire place and then got them all caught up on paperwork.

While on break, she wandered down to the residents' social room to see if she was needed. It was here that the residents watched TV, played games, or just sat around and talked.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to the chess table, where Carrie was currently in the middle of a game.

With Jacob.

She'd missed him.

Carrie made a move, beamed, and then rose to her feet. Leaning over the table, she cupped Jacob's face and kissed him on the top of his head.

Sophie froze for a beat, torn between not wanting to intrude on what was clearly a private moment and melting into a pile of goo at the sweetness between Jacob and his mom.

But then Jacob's gaze slid to hers and he, too, rose to his feet.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to—
oh
,” she breathed when he smiled and she realized her mistake.

Not Jacob, but Hudson. He'd cut his hair, and she hadn't immediately seen the difference in his eyes and smile—which were friendly and warm but not…Well, she wasn't sure she could accurately describe the way Jacob looked and smiled at her. Mostly it was with the heated, personal knowledge that came from having been as intimate with her as a man could get.

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “You two look so much alike…”

He smiled. “Twins.”

“Maybe.” She laughed a little self-consciously. “It's hard to get used to.”

“I know. But maybe as the woman helping us keep Jacob in Cedar Ridge, you'll get used to it?”

She stared at him. “Oh, I'm not—we're not—” She shook her head. “I think you've overestimated what Jacob and I are to each other.”

“Oh,” Carrie marveled, coming closer. “You're the one my Jacob's seeing, aren't you?” She took Sophie's hand, her smile bright. “Look at you. I just knew you'd be pretty. He always did like the pretty ones.”

Hud grimaced. “Mom—”

“Oh, I know, he'll kill us, blah, blah. Might as well make it worthwhile, yes?” She smiled at Sophie. “Where did you two kids meet? School? A football game? Oh, I know! You're his English tutor?” She shifted in close and spoke in a stage whisper. “Listen, honey, I read his essay and I know you must have written it for him. No way did he read enough Shakespeare to write that on his own. I realize he's charming as all get-out, but you've got to encourage him to do his own work, okay?”

Sophie glanced over at Hud, who stood there at his mom's side, tall and broad like Jacob, eyes still warm but also something else now. Challenging? Waiting for her to react to his mom's jumbled ramblings?

Well, what he didn't know was that Sophie had been judged before and found wanting, and she no longer did anything for approval. Turning her back on him, she smiled at Carrie and squeezed her fingers gently. “I'll do better next time. I promise,” she said. “And are you done kicking your son's butt in chess? Because I'd love a game.”

Carrie clapped in glee and gave Hud the brush-off with a wave of her hand.

He started to object. “Mom—”

“Baby, it's okay. I know you only came by because you're feeling guilty over how busy you are lately, but as you can see, I'm busy too. Run along now. Mama's gotta kick your twin's very pretty girlfriend's tush in chess.”

Hud shook his head but pulled Carrie in for a hug. This time when he turned to Sophie, the warmth was back in his eyes, along with a grudging respect. “She cheats,” he warned her.

“What?” Carrie said, hand to her heart. “Well, my goodness, I do no such thing, Hudson.”

“Hand to heaven,” Hud said to Sophie, and to her shock he gave her a good-bye hug as well.

“What was that for?” she asked when he pulled free.

“For giving him a challenge close to home, for putting a smile on his face.”

“And how do you know that was me?” she asked, a little flustered with the praise she wasn't sure she deserved.

“A twin
knows
.”

She wondered what else he knew and felt her face heat.

He chuckled, for a minute the sound so much like Jacob that she blinked. And then he was gone.