Page 8 of Promised Summer
Karla’s arm blocked my view of Jones, recalling me from the summer of regrets. She’d rolled up her sleeve to show me faint red lines running along her forearm.
“Baby, did you scratch yourself? Did you fall?” I asked, completely in worried-dad mode.
She nodded, and I carefully grabbed her arm to examine the injury. Thank goodness it wasn’t bleeding, but the scratches still needed first aid. I would hate it if they scarred.
I turned back to Jones to find him still watching us, this time more carefully and considering.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. There was so much more I wanted to say to him, but Karla came first. “We need to head back and get her all bandaged up. Could we catch up another time? Please?”
“I live a ten-minute walk away. Let’s go,” he said and turned around.
“What?”
“C’mon,” he said, looking over his shoulder at us. “We need to get Karla treated.”
I was fully prepared for him to reject me, yell at me, or say he never wanted to see me again. He had every valid reason to do so. I wasn’t expecting him to offer to treat Karla at his home.
Even in his anger with me, Jones was still the kind soul I knew. When we were kids, he could never leave a person in need alone. It was the very reason we’d become friends in the first place.
As I followed behind Jones’ wide back down a small trail I hadn’t remembered being there ten years before, I was transported to the first time we’d met. The view had been the same then, but Jones had been holding my hand as he pulled me out of my tears. His then-tiny back had spanned my entire world as a kid, and it seemed nothing had changed since.
A few minutes later, the trail had evened out, and the foliage thinned to reveal a lone cabin at the base of the hill. Jones beelined to the sliding door in the back, not even having to unlock it first. After growing up and living in the city for all my life, I would never get used to the relaxed security around these parts.
He left the door open, which I took as a cue for me to follow. He glanced at me from the kitchen when I entered. “You can lay her on the couch over there,” he said, nodding to the living room opposite the kitchen.
Karla had fallen asleep in my arms during the walk here. Her little head was pressed against my chest. These past few months, I’d sometimes wished I could always hold her like this and shield her from all hurt and sadness, but I knew it was an impossible wish. I laid her down on the giant couch that took up half the living room and rolled up her sleeve. I could only be there to help her when she fell.
Jones came to our side with a first-aid kit in hand. He knelt beside me. I reached for the kit, but he shot me a glance. “You should wash your hands first,” he reminded me and nodded to thekitchen.
I went to do as he said and returned to see that he’d already wiped her arm with a clean, damp towel and was in the process of rubbing ointment on her scratches. I grabbed bandages from the first-aid kit and covered the wounds after he was done. I rolled up her other sleeve and pant legs to check if she had any other injuries and was relieved to find none.
Straightening her clothes, I turned to Jones. “Thank you for treating her wounds. We’ll get out of your hair now,” I said and made to pick Karla up, but Jones reached out a hand to stop me.
“She’s probably tired after an exhausting morning. You should let her rest.”
“But—”
“Do you want a drink?” he asked, suddenly shooting up and striding to the kitchen. He’d already filled a cup with ice and water before I could follow.
“Why are you being so nice to me? Why do you keep helping me?” I couldn’t help but ask when I accepted the cup.
He tilted his head like he was confused by the question.
“I’m not. I’m helping Karla.”
“Yeah, but she’s?—”
My daughter. My throat tightened, and the fears that haunted me every night as I lay awake in bed taunted me, telling me that arealfather wouldn’t have lost their kid.
“—innocent in all this,” Jones finished with ahand gesturing between us. His deep timbre released me from the clutches of my own thoughts, and I could finally breathe again.
I thanked him and took a small sip of water. All the while, I could feel Jones’ dark gaze on me, watching me, appraising me, and maybe even checking me out?
He didn’t bother hiding the appreciation in his eyes when he looked me up and down. I couldn’t help but stand up straighter, and if his little smirk was anything to go by, my little actions hadn’t gone unnoticed.
How stupidly embarrassing. This was not the time to try to look good in front of a man I’d hurt and broken so many promises with. But when he looked at me the same way he did in my memories, I wondered if he was still stuck inthatsummer, the same way I was?
“You have a daughter,” Jones said, breaking the silence.
