CHAPTER THIRTY
Hope
* * * * * *
IT WAS MORTIFYING.
Absolutely, tummy-churning mortifying.
What had I been thinking?
I had to have been drunk. Drunk on life, on farming, on everything that tingled in my blood. I’d just been so happy. So light and giddy and caught up in the magic of a dream come true.
But that wondrous joy had made me loose-lipped and stupidly courageous.
I should never have said those things to Jacob.
I should never have been so idiotic to push him into kissing me.
God!
That person goading him wasn’t me. That person kissing him had been a crazy, reckless girl who put everything on the line in one insanely tense fight.
A week had passed since then.
A week since I’d almost broken Jacob, destroyed myself, and somehow enjoyed the exquisite sensation of his lips on mine, his tongue tangling with mine, his body pressed against mine.
I still couldn’t believe it was real.
It had to be a dream, right?
A kiss from Jacob wasn’t something I’d ever earn in reality. And certainly not the kiss we’d both tripped head first into. The kiss that changed me as a person, woke up my soul, and shot alive my heart in ways I never believed possible.
But it had happened because the mortification was still there.
The shame and horror when Della caught me clinging and kiss-drunk on top of her son within viewing distance of her house. When Jacob had kissed me, I didn’t think about who might see. When the touch and taste of his lips met mine, my thinking capacity was done.
Finished.
I became a creature of lust. I wasn’t responsible for my actions. I think back now and blush at the force and speed things escalated.
All because of me.
I’d attacked him—pure and simple.
First with words and then with touch.
I’d done everything I said I wouldn’t, and I’d made Jacob hate me even more.
But the crazy thing was?
He’d attacked me back.
He’d kissed me.
Yanking the brush through my hair, I tugged a little too hard. My cheeks pinked in the mirror, relieving the angst and sickening guilt when Della halted her galloping horse, threw the reins away, and leapt to our side.
God, I was her guest.
I slept under her roof, ate her food, and lived in luxury thanks to her hospitality. And what had I done? I’d pushed her son into the grass, mauled him, and who knew what would’ve happened if she hadn’t arrived.
That was the power Jacob had over me.
He turned me into a girl I didn’t really like. A girl who did things she promised she wouldn’t do. The urge to help him, heal him, love him overwhelmed me to the point where I was no longer in control.
And what made it even worse?
Della didn’t care we’d practically been tearing each other’s clothes off. She didn’t even look at me as I turned scarlet and tugged my singlet down as fast as I could.
She’d merely thrown herself at Jacob and grabbed him as if certain he was dead. She’d shaken him, glowered at him, and demanded to know if he needed an ambulance.
And the whole story came out.
Della had experienced a terrible case of déjà vu. The meadow wasn’t helping her nerves as it continued to gather a ledger of incidents. First, Ren collapsed from his condition after leaping off a tractor, then she saw her son tumble from the very same tractor his father had.
Thanks to her husband passing out in that meadow, Della didn’t think. She didn’t see me. She only saw another loved one being claimed by death far too early.
That made me doubly guilty because it was me who’d pushed Jacob to the ground.
Me who’d straddled him into the dirt. Me who—
Argh!
I yanked the brush harder, trying to shut up my thoughts.
It was over.
Della was okay. Jacob said he was fine. And he’d barely looked at me since.
Life had fallen into a taut rhythm where I still helped Jacob with his work, but whatever chemistry existed between us had been locked behind a fireproof door, and Jacob had become immune.
My heart kicked unhappily as I slipped a black T-shirt over my lacy white bra and clutched my silver locket. The lace from my mother and the jewellery from my lover.
Lover?
You kissed one time.
You’ve been working together for a week, and he’s barely spoken two words to you since.
He’s hardly your lover.
Giving my reflection the bird, I hauled on a pair of jeans and left the bathroom.
I could usually bypass Della at this time of the morning, but today, she caught me.
She stepped from her bedroom wing as I exited the bathroom.
I smiled shyly. “Oh, morning, Della.”
We’d cleared the air a few nights ago when we’d had dinner, just the two of us, and I’d explained my role in what’d happened.
I’d told her how I pushed him. How I said things. How I did stuff I probably shouldn’t have.