Page 76 of Attraction & Repulsion

“Jax!”

When she was only a few feet from Jax, he turned around, causing her to almost smack into him.

“What?” he spat.

It was impossible to blame him for being upset. If she’d seen him laughing with another woman at a bar, she’d be too.

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear,” Carson wheezed, breathless. “He’s another attorney who just moved here. He wanted to visit Prescott.”

Ignoring Jax’s glare, she studied his beautiful eyes, which were dark and sunken. Even his midnight hair seemed more unruly than she remembered it, wild as if he had just been in a haboob.

“How have you been?” she asked.

He let out a sigh. “I’ve been better.”

“No thanks to me.”

“I mean, you did break my heart,” Jax teased, giving her a knowing smirk.

“I don’t blame you if you hate me,” Carson murmured, but glad that he could at least joke about their split.

Raking a hand through his hair, he then slid it down his face. “I could never hate you, Carson.”

At the sound of her name on his lips, her heart faltered. She continued anyway, “Yes, but you have every right to hate me. There are not enough sorrys in the world to forgive what I did to you. Please know that I truly am sorry. At the very least understand that I had my reasons. I did it because I love you.” Her tongue twisted and froze. Would he notice her use of present tense?

There was the tiniest glimmer in his eyes. He had noticed. Then he focused on the courthouse across the street. Christmas lights were still twinkling in the surrounding trees, like floating colorful lightning bugs. The city would soon be taking them down.

In her haste, Carson had forgotten to grab her jacket. The night air was freezing her skin, although the feeling was preferable to the stale smell of beer in the bar. Her fingers were going numb, so she shoved them in her jeans pocket and fidgeted with a piece of lint.

“Believe it or not, I do understand your reasons,” Jax said. “That doesn’t mean I agree with them. But I can understand why you ended us. I just hope that one day you’ll realize how wrong you were.”

Little did he know Carson was already processing her mistakes.

A car in the parking spot in front of them pulled out, and a new one took its place. A group of middle-aged women stepped out laughing and shouting at one another. Ridiculously large foam cowboy hats sat upon their heads. Carson hoped they weren’t going into Mustang Saloon. She was in no mood to listen to woo girls.

“How’s your family doing?” she asked, hoping to steal a few more minutes with Jax.

“Doing fine.” He leaned against the two-hour parking sign they stood next to. “Except Beau.”

“What happened to Beau?”

“I think he took our breakup harder than us. He really liked you.”

A huge grin pulled her lips up, and she rolled her eyes. “Well, you tell your brother I really liked him, and tell your family I say hello.”

“I will.” Pushing off the metal pole Jax straightened. “So, just another attorney, huh?” he ribbed, sounding like Raegan.

“I promise.”

“Good,” he said. “I was afraid I didn’t make enough of an impression on you, if you could move on so quickly.”

Cocking her head toward the bar, Carson said, “Yeah, well I better get back before he comes looking.”

Jax nodded in understanding. “It was good seeing you.”

“You too.”

“Maybe we can catch up one day,” he suggested.

---