“What a wasted trip. I’m sure Ryn told you she’s not here and we don’t know when she’ll return.” Jackson eyed Lake. He’d only met her a handful of times. Each one of those times he deemed her to be doable. Jessica threatened both testicles if he so much as looked at Lake for more than two seconds at a time. He didn’t look at her that way anymore. She reminded him of Maddie—too damn young and immature.
“You brought your sister along. Interesting choice.”
“How so?” Luke asked.
Jackson shrugged. “Safety reasons. Plane hijackings. Slamming into a semi on the icy roads. Any number of things could happen. I would have left her at home. That’s all.”
“Well my dear sister is stubborn.”
“I know the feeling.” Jackson dove into his breakfast. Reason nine hundred and ninety-nine why he would never let Ryn go: the woman had mad skills in the kitchen. Too bad the Jones siblings had to distract him from fully enjoying it.
“I had hoped since we talked on the phone that you would have reconsidered looking for your sister.”
Jackson shook his head, mouth full, taste buds in heaven. “She’ll come home when she’s ready. Sorry you wasted your time coming here just to hear me say the same thing I told you on the phone.”
Luke stared at his food. The guy’s brain never shut down.
“Where is your restroom?”
“Down the hall on the left.” Ryn smiled at Jackson, eyes big as if she worried answering that simple question somehow crossed a nonexistent line between her house and his.
Jackson grinned at her. He liked how she’d made herself at home. If his plans for the future worked out, they wouldn’t need two homes.
“Thank you. Excuse me.” Luke walked past Jackson, his expression filled with words he held back from Ryn’s ears. For that Jackson was thankful.
“Are you in college, Lake?” Ryn asked.
“No. I was before the accident, but I haven’t gotten back on that horse or any other for that matter. I volunteer at the hospital, working with young amputees.”
“I heard about your accident. Sorry to hear about your leg.” Jackson felt the need to say something, but he wasn’t good with emotions and the words that went with them.
“Thanks.” Lake stared at her plate. “It’s never a good time to lose someone you love.” Lake looked at Ryn. “My boyfriend died.”
Ryn reached her hand over and rested it on Lake’s. “That’s terrible.”
Lake nodded. “But if it had to happen I wish it could have been on a different day. Any other day.”
“Oh?” Ryn’s brow furrowed.
“We were on our way to a wedding.” She looked at Jackson.
He tried not to react, but his jaw muscle twitched anyway.
“Luke’s wedding.”
“Oh no. Your poor family.”
“Yeah, he didn’t get married that day.”
“But he did eventually, right?”
Lake shook her head. “I was in a coma so the wedding was postponed.”
Jackson looked away the minute he saw tears pooling in her eyes.
“His fiancée died in her own tragic accident before I came out of my coma. I woke up to no leg, no boyfriend, and no Jessica.”
Jackson flinched at the mention of her name.
“Life isn’t anything if not heartbreaking and unpredictable.” Ryn wiped away a tear of her own.
“I’d better make sure Luke didn’t flush himself down the toilet.” Jackson stood, eager to leave the hot mess of emotions at the table.
The bathroom door was open with the lights off, but the door to Jillian’s room was shut. He cracked it open. Luke sat on the bed, holding Jillian’s sweatshirt to his face. He didn’t startle or show a shed of guilt for being in her room, smelling her clothes.
“You love Ryn?”
Jackson shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “I do.”
Luke laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day. I honestly questioned if you were capable of it.”
“Jude wasn’t. But I’m not him.”
“You have to do that don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Separate yourself from the man you were and the life you left behind. It’s the only way to keep your sanity, isn’t it? She did it too. Jessica couldn’t love AJ, but Jillian did.”
“I never claimed to have my sanity, even now. This life is easier. Everything that plagued Jude is dead.”
“The anger plagued you. You were always angry. Jessica knew it, but she didn’t know why. Are you saying your parents made you angry?”
“Listen, Doc, I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me. I’m not the one sniffing my ex’s clothes.”
“If someone took Ryn from you today and you were without her for almost a year, you’d be sniffing her clothes.”
Jackson wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. He was a little pissed at her for washing his sheets after they got wet from sex after their shower. He wasted no time getting her naked and rolling around in his bed again. “I don’t know where she is. I’m not lying.”