Page 4 of Signed With Love

He raises his hands in surrender and starts to back away. “You’d better get moving, brother, she’s walking away.” Chadwick turns and climbs the stairs.

“Shit.” I curse and turn around. By the time I get rid of my friends, Claire’s at the end of my driveway. I rush after her.

Billy told me to never grab her arm to get her attention. She hates it. You get into her line of sight or wave your hand to let her know you want to speak. So, I run. I chase her down and get ahead so I can get her attention. I’m thankful Billy showed me the proper way to do it, even if he did this with a smirk and a shake of his head.

I extend my hand, letting her know I want to sign something. She halts, her body jerking again.

I’m sorry.

Her face falls, then she’s signing. I watch her face, her hands, her body, that gorgeous mouth of hers. The way the sun reflects off the blue flecks in her eyes. The smooth column of her neck. Shit.

What? I ask, then shake my head. She signed so quickly, and I wasn’t focusing hard enough. I don’t understand. I made sure I learned that phrase first because I knew I’d fuck this up.

I have to pull my shit together. She shoves past me and disappears down the road. I have a feeling this time she doesn’t want me chasing her down again.

I drag my fingers through my long hair and tug. I’m resting my hands on the back of my head when my name is called.

I turn and walk back to my porch, my boots crunching on the rough terrain, then I grab my beer to take a long swig. The coolness helps my dry throat. I fucked that up so badly. It shouldn’t have been so difficult. I’ve never been one to get distracted, but Claire does that to me.

“Jamison, did you really learn sign language just to communicate with that woman?” Rylee asks, her brows scrunched. I’ve known her as long as Chadwick’s been madly in love with her. She escaped from Texas to Alaska a few years ago and hasn’t looked back since.

The support of my friends is everything to me, but I kept this one thing from them. “Yeah,” I admit, not that it went how I planned.

“You fucked that up as bad as Finn did landing last week.” Chadwick shoots me a smirk.

Okay, that was bad; we had to repair the landing gear, but he made it home in one piece. That’s really what matters for bush pilots. The bush country is some of the harshest land, so making it home safely is always our goal.

“I landed just fine,” Finn growls.

I let them bicker. With a beer in hand, I walk inside, leaving my friends behind.

They follow me anyway. “What I don’t get is why did Miss Hottie come over to begin with? She seemed shocked as shit you did all that with your hands.”

“It’s called American Sign Language.” Rylee rolls her eyes. “The fact he knows it is amazing.”

“The question remains, my good buddy.”

“Her parents rent Mom’s old place.” I sit at the table and grab the deck of playing cards. The deck is old and worn, poker being something we play often to relax. I set my beer aside and start shuffling.

“I heard about that. Since when do you rent Daisy's place?”

This is the first time someone’s lived there since I lost her. But when an old fishing buddy of Mom’s asked if I knew of a place in Casper, I couldn’t say no. The place was sitting empty anyway.

That’s just how we do things up here in Alaska. If a friend needs something, we all help out. Besides, we got to talking about the old times when he hunted for treasure with Mom, and we ended up spending the entire day together. It was nice to catch up with someone who knew her like I did.

“It was time, and they wanted out of Anchorage,” I say.

“And they have a hot daughter,” Chadwick adds, sliding a chair opposite mine. He pulls some money out of his back pocket and rests his beer on my kitchen table.

“I hadn’t met her then. What’s wrong with you?”

“I haven’t seen you go crazy for a woman like that in years. Well, not since Lizzy fucked you up.” The problem with close friends is that they know all your shit and don’t forget. The last thing I want to discuss is my ex. Maybe this is why I’ve kept everything from them.

I toss in my ante. “She comes by once a month to drop off her dad’s rent check. I wanted to be able to thank her.” To just share a conversation with her. Maybe get to know her. Ask her out on a date as a friend. Although it’s obvious, I’m really fucking out of practice and don’t need to be dating anyone.

“Well, then, brother, you didn’t get paid.” They all laugh, but I jerk my head to the window. I’ve still got a bit of daylight left, but not much.

“That's perfect!” Rylee tosses in some cash and steals the stack of cards from my hands, then shuffles them between us. “Now you have a reason to go to her.” She passes us our cards for a game of Texas Hold’em.

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