understand.” Her tone was soothing, like a shrink would use, or a hostage negotiator.
“Don’t patronize me,” he said.
“I’m sorry you feel I’m doing that. It wasn’t my intention.” She stopped for a moment, thinking, as if to come up with the right words to make him understand. “I respect your commitment to responsibility in writing the book you want to write. But I have undertaken this assignment and Cheryl is expecting tangible results. I’m not backing down from the challenge of you. It’s best you accept that. So, we have to start somewhere.”
“And you think talking about the story is the way to go.”
“It worked for Corinne.” She folded her hands in her lap. “If you have a better idea that would be awesome.”
“Look, I appreciate your willingness and enthusiasm.” Although he could think of better uses for it. “But I write action-adventure. A woman like you has no frame of reference for that so talking is a complete waste of time.”
“I haven’t been in the military or gone to war if that’s what you’re saying. But I read extensively and go to the movies. I can help you dissect the plot. I have ideas and that can be helpful.”
He’d started his last book as a therapeutic exercise to work through all the crap life had thrown at him. Pulling that stuff up was like exposing his soul. Doing that with her just wasn’t going to happen. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t want her to see the darkness inside him.
“Ideas?” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the unnaturally tidy top of his desk. “You’re Pollyanna. No offense, but you can’t possibly have suggestions for what I write.”
“Really?” She sat up straighter in the chair, almost literally stiffening her spine.
“In my opinion, yes.”
“It’s hard to form an opinion without information and you don’t know anything about me if you truly believe I’ve had no life experiences.”
“So you were engaged. There was a proposal. Probably a ring. Not a big deal.” He saw something slip into her eyes but it didn’t stop him. He’d been engaged once, too, even took the next step and got married. It didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but mostly he wasn’t very good at being a husband. “Since you used past tense I guess you broke up with him. Still not gritty—”
“He died. Whether it happens in a war zone or the home front, death is not pretty. It’s raw and painful. I think that qualifies as life experience.”
He studied her and realized his mission, real or invented, had been successful. He’d managed to put clouds in her eyes and make the sunshine disappear.
Damned if he didn’t want to undo what he’d just done.
Erin sat in the passenger seat of Jack’s rugged jeep trying to figure him out. First he’d said he had no use for her, then later in the afternoon offered to take her into town. She had a long-term rental car from the airport and was prepared to shop on her own, but he’d insisted on driving. His excuse was that they might as well buy supplies together, but she had a sneaking suspicion there was another reason. One that would tarnish his tough-guy image.
“So, Jack,” she began, “I think your ogre act is just that. An act.”
He turned right onto Lakeview Drive, then gave her a quick, questioning look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You were all gruff and abrupt earlier. Patronizing me about a ring, a proposal and a broken engagement being the equivalent of a hangnail in the action-adventure world.”
“It is.” His profile could have been carved in stone on Mt. Rushmore. It was all sharp angles and hard lines.
“But when I corrected your assumption that I was shallow and typical by revealing that I lost someone close to me, I think you felt bad about jumping to conclusions and invited me to go shopping to make up for it.”
There was another glance in her direction before he returned his gaze to the road. “In the army I operated on gut instinct and never second-guessed my actions.”
“That was training for combat situations. In the regular world you replay a conversation and sometimes regret responses. It’s normal. You asked me to go shopping because you can’t take back what you said and are trying to be nice.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.” She adjusted her sunglasses. It was a beautiful day in late September and this road to town went around the lake. The surface of the water sparkled like diamonds as the sun sank lower in the cloudless blue sky. “The problem is that your nice muscles haven’t been stretched in a while.”
“You know what I think?”
“Not a clue,” she said, wishing she could see his eyes behind those too-sexy-for-words aviator sunglasses. “But I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“Damn straight.” He looked over, his mouth pulled into a straight line. “I think you’re a fugitive from fantasyland.”
That would be a step up for her after nursing Garrett through cancer and watching him take his last breath. “Oh?”
“I’m not a nice man. If you were smart, you’d ditch this job and get the hell out of here. Away from me.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“You think I’m fragile and I think you’re a fraud. So what we have here is a standoff.”
“Guess so,” he said. “Sooner or later one of us is going to blink and it won’t be me.”
“Sounds like a challenge or a treaty to me. Maybe both.” It was going to take a lot of convincing to make her believe he was as unfeeling as he wanted her to think he was.
“For the record, it makes good sense to coordinate shopping since you’ll be doing the cooking and don’t know what Harley likes.”
That made her smile. Big bad warrior was hiding behind the world’s most unattractive dog. But she just said, “Understood.”
“You hungry?” The words were unexpected, but they were nearing the Blackwater Lake city limits.
“Starving.”
“Me, too. Let’s get something to eat.” He glanced over quickly as if checking to see whether or not she’d noticed him being nice. “Grocery shopping will go easier that way.”
“I think so, too.” And that’s the first time they’d agreed on anything in the last twenty-four hours.
He stopped the jeep at a stand-alone building near the end of Main Street, not far from city hall. There was a sign on the outside that read Bar None, with crossed cocktail glasses on it.
“Don’t
