Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. He couldn’t be leaving. Not without his father. She started to follow, but was stalled three different times by various people needing various things.
By the time she cleared the Mad Mex food truck, she found Jack leaning against the hood of his car, head bent over an open binder, feet crossed at the ankles. Knowing he hadn’t bolted made her breathe a little easier. Jack was so engrossed in the binder, he didn’t hear her approach until she was close enough to see what he was looking at.
“Hey, where’d you get that?” She reached out and grabbed a corner, but Jack was faster.
He twisted away, pulling the binder out of reach and protecting it with his body. “None of your business.”
She reached around him one wa
y, then the other, but his arms were too long, his body too big. Their grappling for control over the binder degraded into a ridiculous game of keep-away. Miranda found herself facing Jack but still unable to reach the binder because he held her at bay with one outstretched arm, his hand against her head. This was exactly the way Dylan used to play keep-away once he’d grown bigger than Miranda.
“Can’t you see I’m studying here?” he asked with maddening civility.
“Jack.”
He bent his arm, and Miranda fell into him. Jack wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted the other, holding the binder way too far overhead for her to reach. “You’re so rude,” he said with a mock frown. “You need to work on that.”
She stopped fighting and sank into the feel of his body against hers. He’d already seen too much. She couldn’t make him unsee it now. “Damn Marty and his big mouth.”
Jack closed the binder with a flick of his hand and set it on the hood of his car, then closed his other arm around her. “For someone who says she can’t shut up about this project, you sure took your sweet time sharing it with the architect you’re sleeping with. Why did I have to hear all this from a man I don’t even know?”
The disappointment in his voice stabbed at her. “You don’t know me either. We only met a week ago.”
“It’s been over two weeks, and you’re not watering down what’s between us. We’ve both dated enough people in our lives to know when someone is special and when they’re not. We have something here, and you know it. Of all people who would understand and support your dream, I’d be your biggest fan. You didn’t even give me a chance.”
Her stomach tightened. A mix of guilt and self-preservation warred. “I… You…”
“Those designs, this project, it’s amazing, Miranda. Groundbreaking in so many ways. You’re talented and driven, and you’ve got a heart the size of Texas. It only gives me more to love about you. Why would you deliberately keep them from me? It’s not like this project is a secret. The whole fucking county knows about it.”
“Seriously? You expect me to talk about making tiny homes out of tin cans when you’re designing award-winning skyscrapers?”
“I hate the way you minimize—yourself, us. What you’re doing here is just as big as what I do, but on an epically more meaningful scale. I create buildings for wealthy developers, where people shop and work. You build homes for people who have next to nothing. You give hurting people not just a roof over their head but a place to call their own. A place to be proud of.”
His words cut right to the heart of Miranda’s purpose. One that often got hidden beneath layers of process and management and bullshit. She too often lost sight of what she was doing and why and had to re-center herself to remember. Hearing Jack put it all into words so easily made her feel both exposed and celebrated.
He heaved a sigh. “Are you ever going to let me in?”
“I’ve been keeping people out for decades. It’s not exactly a switch I can flip.”
He dropped his head back and stared at the canopy overhead. “You’re making this so much harder than it has to be.”
“Come to our place for barbeque tonight,” she said before she could think about it. “Fear fluttered in her belly. Fear of judgment. Of disappointment. Of rejection.
He righted his head. “Our place?”
She took a breath and forced herself to continue. “I live with Marty and his mom. Gypsy’s staying there too. She just told me he’s doing a barbeque tonight with friends.”
He seemed to consider the offer, and for a long moment she thought he was going to say no.
She slid her arms around his waist. “I’m…trying, Jack. This isn’t second nature to me.”
He smiled. “You are definitely trying.”
She laughed and jabbed his ribs.
“Text me the address,” he told her. “I should get my dad home.”
The fist in her stomach uncurled and her lungs released. Before she could step back, he took her face in both hands and searched her eyes. The affection and frustration there made Miranda want to run. This man wanted in. And that meant trouble for her heart. Big trouble.