Sins of the Past (7 page)

By the time Jacob made it to her lips, Lorna was mumbling something incoherently. She repeated it over and over until he finally pulled back to see what she was saying. Jacob frowned when Lorna opened her mouth once more. This time instead of words, there was a strange noise that came out. Confused, he cocked his head to the side as the noise kept on repeating itself.

The sound of someone banging on the door, along with the doorbell ringing, jolted Jacob out of sleep. He was panting for breath as if he had run a marathon and was drenched in sweat. Jacob rubbed his hands over his face and groaned when he realized Lorna wasn’t really there and he had been asleep. The dream between them had seemed so real that he saw the thin sheet covering him tented from the erection he was currently sporting. He shook his head and grimaced, he had one hell of a hard-on, but at least whoever was at the door saved him from having to change his sheets because he had come on them. He had no doubt if the dream had gone on any longer, that’s what would have happened. Jacob couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a wet dream, but he did know he was a teenager when it had happened.

Someone banged on the door again and Jacob groaned as he rolled out of bed. “I’m coming,” he yelled as he searched for his crutches. By the time he threw on a pair of sweats and made it to the front door, Jacob was still panting and sweating. “There better be a good reason why someone is beating on my door this early in the morning,” he muttered when he got a glimpse of the clock. It was seven a.m.

“Oh bless your heart,” the woman on the other side of the door practically shouted when Jacob finally opened the door.

He just stood there blinking and staring at the woman who he recognized from the grocery store the day before. He had no idea what she was doing there or how she even knew where he lived.

“Oh, you poor thing. Look at you.” The woman tsked and looked at him with pity.

Jacob looked down at himself and wondered what the woman—whose name he couldn’t remember for the life of him—was seeing. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Come on. Let’s get you back in the house. I bet you’re in pain right now. Let me put this down and we’ll find you some medicine. I brought a breakfast casserole. It’s one of my specialties. Everyone loves it so you probably will, too.” The woman brushed right past him and into his house like she owned the place.

Jacob hesitated and looked up and down his street. He was looking for cameras to see if he was being punked, because that was the only explanation he could come up with. If that wasn’t the case, then he had no idea what was going on. When he looked across the street, he though he saw Lorna’s curtains twitch, but when they didn’t move again, he shrugged it off as his mind playing tricks on him. He wished it had been her waking him up at an ungodly hour instead of the stranger who he could hear moving around in his kitchen.

Sighing, Jacob moved back in the house and shut the door. He took a fortifying breath before making his way to the kitchen. He needed the patience to deal with the woman who according to Lorna was one of the main people in town that had made her life hell. There was no way he wanted her in his house any longer than necessary.

“Oh, there you are. Come on in and sit down. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”

I wouldn’t be on my feet. I would still be in my bed dreaming of my sexy neighbor if you hadn’t rudely barged in here.
Jacob held back the nasty comment he was thinking, but just barely. The saccharine tone in the woman’s voice was starting to give him a headache. “Look,” he paused.

“Ashley, silly.”

“Look, Ashley,” he continued when she supplied her name. “Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?”

Ashley just waved off his comment and continued to move around his kitchen, opening his cabinets until she found what she was looking for. “After seeing you at the grocery store yesterday, I figured you could use a little help. Anyone desperate enough to take help from that skank definitely needs my help.”

The last part was muttered under Ashley’s breath as she turned her back to him, but Jacob was a Navy SEAL. He was trained to be hyper alert at all times and that included his senses. He heard and saw what most civilians didn’t, which included her nasty comment. He felt his body heating as his anger rose. Just as he opened his mouth to give Ashley a piece of his mind, the doorbell rang again.

“Oh don’t you worry honey, I’ll handle everything.” Ashley put a hand on his shoulder to still him. “You just sit right down here and enjoy your casserole.”

She was gone before Jacob could even utter a word. Jacob stared around his kitchen wondering if he had somehow woken up in the twilight zone. Just the night before, he was having a nice dinner with Lorna and now, his kitchen was being taken over by her arch enemy and he had no idea how that had happened. The woman just barged into his life and that was something Jacob had no intentions of allowing.

He raised an eyebrow at Ashley when she came back into the kitchen smiling with another glass dish in her hands. The woman just walked right past him and began humming as she started going through his cabinets again. When she found a storage container big enough, Jacob watched in silence as she transferred whatever was in the dish into it and put the lid on it. When Ashley opened his refrigerator, he had enough.

“Okay, that’s it. You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”

Ashley gasped at his tone before answering. “Well, like I was saying. I told a few of the women in town about your situation yesterday. There was no way we were going to allow the new guy in town to suffer, so we got together and decided to cook for you. Consider this your own personal welcoming committee.” She held up the storage container and smiled. “I hope you like casserole.”

Before Jacob could say anything, the doorbell rang again. Once Ashley was out of the kitchen and headed for the door, he banged his head a few times against the table and groaned. He desperately wanted to get rid of the annoying woman, but it looked like he was in for a day in hell.

* * * *

Lorna flung the curtain closed and hoped Jacob hadn’t seen her. “What the hell is that bitch doing there,” she whispered to herself as if Jacob could hear her. When she heard the car come up the street and then banging as she was getting coffee, the last person Lorna expected to see when she looked out the window was Ashley practically beating down Jacob’s door. What shocked her even more was the fact he had let the evil bitch into his house then looked around as if he was making sure no one had seen them before he went inside and closed the door behind him.

She stomped away from the window and ignored the way her heart ached as she changed into her work clothes. Lorna had thought Jacob was different. He was the first man, other than Uncle John, who saw her when he looked at her and not just a product of the town outcast. If she had known she was going to pour her heart out to the man one night and watch him let her enemy into his house the next morning, then she would have never given him the time of day in the first place.

Lorna rubbed her chest as it tightened and she forced herself to hold back the tears threatening to fall. Her Uncle John was the only man she had ever cried over and she loved him with all her heart. Jacob didn’t deserve her tears. She ignored the voice in the back of her head that told her she was starting to fall for the man as she gathered her keys and headed out to her car. Lorna forced herself not to look over at Jacob’s house as she pulled out of the drive and headed down the street. She had put herself out there and got nothing but heartache back in return. As she drove, Lorna decided she had learned her lesson. She wouldn’t allow herself to be hurt ever again. She only had herself to rely on and Lorna planned on keeping it that way. If that meant she had to avoid Jacob, then that’s what she would do. Eventually, he would get tired and give up.

Lorna frowned when the bell to her shop door rang as the door opened. She was flat on her back under the VW she was working on when she heard footsteps headed her way. She pushed herself so the trolley she was lying on propelled her from under the car. She had no idea who was in her shop, but there was no way she was going to greet them lying down. She wouldn’t put it past someone in the town to try something while they had the advantage.

Lorna’s heart thumped as she gripped the wrench she was using and stood. The footsteps grew closer and she watched waiting to see who would come around the corner. She saw one of his crutches before she saw Jacob and froze. Lorna had successfully avoided the man for two days, but it looked like her luck had just run out.

“What are you doing here?” She glared at the man to let him know she wasn’t happy about his visit.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for a couple days now. I figured you couldn’t run away from me if I came here.”

“I haven’t been running away from you.” Lorna could hear the lie in her own voice and when Jacob raised one brow, she knew he could too.

She swallowed back a moan at how sexy Jacob looked when he did that. The expression made him look arrogant and gorgeous at the same time. Add that to the smirk he was currently giving her, and the man was devastating. Lorna tightened her grip on the wrench to keep from throwing it at him.

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about.” She knew she was being a bitch, but Lorna didn’t care. She couldn’t let him back into her heart.

“I think we do. I don’t know what happened between us, but I miss you.”

Jacob moved toward her and Lorna backed up with each step he took until her back hit the wall and she had nowhere else to go.

“Look at me Lorna.”

She shivered at the feel of his warm breath on her cheek and shook her head. She couldn’t look at him. Lorna couldn’t look up into the eyes of the man she had been falling for. She had missed him like crazy as well and if she looked at him, then she would lose all of her resolve and do something stupid like throw herself at his big feet and beg him to choose her over Ashley.

“Look at me, baby.” Jacob gripped her chin between his fingers and turned, giving her no choice. “Tell me what I did so I can apologize and we can move past this. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for the past two days.”

The sincerity showing in his eyes made Lorna weak in the knees. “I won’t compete with her. I won’t give her the satisfaction.” She knew she wasn’t making any sense to him by the way Jacob frowned at her. “Ashley. I saw you letting her in your house the other morning. You know how I feel about her.”

She watched as the light entered Jacob’s eyes and he understood exactly what she was talking about. Instead of starting to babble excuses like she had expected, the bastard just grinned, which infuriated Lorna. “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she said as she started hitting his chest. “I know what I saw. Was she any good? I bet she was with all the experience she has. You better go get yourself checked. You never know what kind of creepy crawlies you have down there now.”

At her last statement, Jacob started laughing out loud. “Jerk,” Lorna muttered and started to push against his chest so she could get away from him. There was no way she was going to stand there while he laughed at her, but the gigantic man refused to move from where he had her pinned against the wall. She growled and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest and stomp her feet like a three-year-old. There was no way she would give him the satisfaction of seeing her throw a tantrum.

“It sounds to me like you’re jealous,” Jacob said between laughs. “You have nothing to worry about between me and Ashley. She isn’t the one I want.”

Before Lorna could respond, Jacob pressed his lips against hers. She tried to hold herself stiff against him, but the man knew how to kiss. Eventually, she gave in to the insistent press of his tongue and opened her mouth to him. Moaning as his masculine flavor invaded her mouth, she gave in and leaned into his body as he teased and tickled her tongue with his before drawing it back into his own mouth. Lorna happily went and explored as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to climb the man.

Jacob’s grunt brought her back to her senses, and she gasped as she pulled away from him. With just one kiss, the man had managed to throw all of her willpower out the window.

“While you were watching out the window, did you happen to see all of the other women in town arriving at my house?”

Jacob’s question confused Lorna. He couldn’t go from kissing her senseless to expecting her to be coherent enough to carry on a conversation. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Ashley taking it upon herself to invite her and every woman in this community over to my house. For some reason, they all came bearing casseroles.” Jacob shivered and Lorna watched as his face turned a nasty shade of green. “I never want to see another casserole in my life.”

Lorna stared at Jacob for all of two seconds before slapping her hand over her mouth to keep her giggles from slipping out. She had to breathe through her nose which caused an unladylike snort to come out. Unfortunately, that caused her to laugh even harder until she had tears streaming down her face. Lorna was finally able to get herself under control when her belly started to hurt.

“Damn, that felt good. I needed a good laugh.”

Jacob glared at her. “I’m glad you found my situation so amusing since it was your fault they were there in the first place.”