Page 60 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
Jack sat where he was, totally still, letting Jenna’s words reverberate through him.Thathadn’t gone as he’d expected. As he’d hoped. He’d managed barely one sentence before Jenna had gone full banshee on him and started screaming. And some of the stuff she’d said—well, it hadhurt. A lot. Was that really how she thought of him? As someone who neglected his family just so he could make money and feel important?
All right, yes, it might have been who heusedto be, but he wasn’t now, and Jennaknewthat. The fact that she would throw all that at him now felt like a very low blow. When she’d first started her tirade, he’d been waiting for a chance to interrupt her and explain, but the longer she’d gone on, the more he wasn’t sure he wanted to. If this was what she really thought about him…
Well, it was hard not to wonder if what they’d had together was remotely real. Maybe she was right, and ithadbeen nothing more than a distraction… for them both. A moment out of time, because they were very different people with different ideas and goals. Clearly. Hadn’t Jenna shown him just how much by throwing all that at him without even giving him a chance to explain?
A sigh escaped him, low and defeated. He really had thought this day would be going in a different direction, but maybe it was easier like this. Simpler, anyway…
Except it didn’t feel either easy or simple.
And, Jack realized, Jenna had played into all his fears just as he’d played into hers. Throwing back all the parts of himself that he was ashamed of and trying to change, while he’d basically re-enacted her worst moment, by fumbling the receipt of her declaration of caring. Definitely not in love, she’d said, which suddenly, improbably, made Jack smile.
Are you so sure about that, Jenna?
She had protested that point repeatedly, which was interesting, and yet… if that was how they both reacted when they felt vulnerable, what hope could they possibly have? Jenna had pointed a mirror at the worst parts of himself, while showing him her own worst parts. It had led, Jack conceded ruefully, to a pretty awful exchange.
And yet… wasn’t that what real love was—accepting the worst along with the best, and choosing to love anyway?
With a new purpose firing through him, Jack leapt up from the sofa, and forgetting his coat, strode outside into a winter wonderland that was very cold. Jenna was nowhere in sight, the twisting road that ran alongside the lake into Starr’s Fall completely empty and banked with snow.
It was over four miles back to town, and Jack didn’t think she’d walk that whole way. She must havestartedwalking, though, and so Jack did the only thing he could think of and started heading back toward Starr’s Fall. He wished he’d brought a coat, though, because night was falling, and the wind was cutting right through his cashmere sweater.
Ten minutes felt a very long time to walk, his shoulders hunched, his hands jammed into his pockets, as the wind continued to slice through him. It was getting so dark he wasn’t sure he’d even see her on the road, and the two of them being out here like this was potentially dangerous. He didn’t even know what he’d say to her if he managed to catch up with her, or whether she’d listen.
Then he saw her figure about twenty yards ahead of him, looking hunched and miserable as she plodded along.
“Jenna!” he yelled, his voice a roar ripped away by the wind. She kept walking. Jack started jogging down the road, as he yelled again. “Jenna!” Still nothing. Jack drew a deep breath and kept going. If he had another heart attack out here, he knew who to blame. “Jenna!”
Finally, thankfully, she turned around. Glared at him with her arms folded and her face still streaked with tears. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, exasperated as well as out of breath. “Besides freezing to death?” He gestured to the empty road, resting his hands on his thighs as he struggled to catch his breath. “Or do you want to give me another heart attack?”
Jenna’s expression of angry defiance morphed into one of pure panic. “Jack! You aren’t!” She rushed to his side. “I’ll never forgive myself if?—”
“I’m not,” he told her wearily as he straightened. “I’m not in that bad shape. But why did you run out of my house like that? You didn’t give me a chance to explain?—”
She stiffened, her hand dropping from his shoulder. “You explained very well?—”
“No, I didn’t,” he cut across her sharply. “I said I had a job and that I’d said I’d take it. That was it.”
“That was enough!” Jenna cried. “I can put two and two together as well as anyone?—”
“And come up with about forty-six,” Jack interjected. “Look, I’m not saying I handled that moment well. I didn’t, and that’s in part because I felt so torn about it all?—”
“Well, please don’t let me get in the way of your emotional conflict,” Jenna snapped.
Jack grabbed her hand and held it between his own. “Jenna, please. Can we not argue? We’re two reasonable adults. I know I sent you into a panic back there, because it reminded you of that guy from before, and I am truly sorry for that. But can we have a reasoned discussion about this, preferably somewhere warm?”
* * *
Jenna stared at Jack’s face, the weary yet determined expression hardening his features, and felt herself relent. She still didn’t feel good about any of it, but Jack was right. She could be a reasonable adult. At least, she was trying to despite her recent outburst, and she knew they needed to have a conversation. Besides which, yes, fine, shemighthave overreacted slightly, because she’d been feeling so raw.
“Okay,” she told him. “Let’s go back to your house.”
It was a fairly frigid and miserable walk back through the cold and the dark, with neither of them speaking. Jenna still had no idea what Jack intended to say. Why tell her he’d been offered a job and was going to take it unless he was planning to break up with her? She could not see a single other scenario.
“All right,” Jack said once they were back inside. He blew on his hand before stirring up the fire and then pouring them both stiff whiskeys. “Let’s try this all again.”
Jenna shook her head slowly. “Jack… I appreciate I might have been more than a little over-the-top in my reaction before, but… you told me you’d decided to take a job in New York City. I mean, what more is there to say?”
