Page 31 of Handling Skylar
I couldn’t get those words out of my mind as I headed into town, checking all of Anna Kate’s haunts when she didn’t answer her phone or reply to my texts. Finally, she called and asked me to meet her near the diner. I was going to be eating dinner at Chase’s so had no intention of sitting down with her for a meal. I agreed.
When I walked up to her, she grabbed my arm and dragged me into the front of Jackson’s Jewelers.
“I forgive you for staring at that little shop girl trash.” Then she said in a harsh whisper. “When are you going to put a ring on my finger, Jake? I’m sick of waiting.”
Provoked beyond my control, I stared down at her suddenly wondering what I ever saw in her. “Sky isn’t shop girl trash, Anna Kate. She’s hard-working, owns her own business. Don’t speak ill of her again. As for us? We don’t belong together. I think we both know that. Let’s just go our own separate ways.”
“I can’t believe this.” She stared at me incensed and furious. “You’re breaking up with me?”
“Yes,” I said, stepping back. “I’m not marrying you.”
Her mouth dropped open and she her angry eyes blazed. Thrusting her hands into her hair, her expression incredulous, as if this was some kind of a joke. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious.” My tone cold and cutting, I lowered my voice as some people passed us with uncomfortable looks. “You don’t demand to get married, Anna Kate. That’s something that happens spontaneously. This is much too cold and calculating. I want more than that.”
“You think I need you, Jake?” She stepped back, a cold smile lifting the corner of her mouth and making her eyes hard. “You’re dead wrong. I’m Anna Kate Montgomery, and I’ll make sure everyone knows I broke up with you. If you ask me, I dodged a bullet there, after all. You and your scandalous family can go to the devil.”
She huffed a breath, turned on her heel and left without another word.
“Long after she left, I mulled over Chase’s words, dismissing Anna Kate from my mind. I went over to the Elliott Grove, needing manual labor. Chase’s words wouldn’t let me go and as I worked the anger in me coalesced and I stopped in mid stride and just stood there. I closed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. All these years. All this time I’d been blaming my brother, and I’d buried the resentment and anger so deep that until I forgave my brother, I never even knew it was there.
I was angry at my daddy and I’d transferred all that anger to Chase who’d borne the brunt of not only my disdain, but the isolation from the family because my daddy wouldn’t relent and allow him back on Chase’s terms.
Had all this been for nothing? He wouldn’t even show some sign that he wanted me to take over, that he may be selling the place out from under me?
My mind refused to function. I stared at the grove I was trying to rehabilitate and my daddy couldn’t even give me the time of day. Driven by desperation, I attempted to work it through, but kept getting overwhelmed by a churning mix of guilt, alarm and helplessness. I worked until my clothes were sodden, until my shoulders burned, until my muscles were quivering from sheer physical exhaustion, until it was too dark to see.
Then I drove home and raided my daddy’s liquor cabinet while they were sleeping upstairs. I saw that I had missed several messages from Chase, and I suddenly remembered we were supposed to have dinner at his place, and I felt guilt and sick over that, too.
The other messages were from Sky. Dammit, I hadn’t called her about tonight. What a fucking idiot I was. I angrily shoved the phone in my back pocket and grabbing the bottle of his good Jack, headed for the door. I went down by the river and started to drink. The physical labor and the lack of food or water took its toll. I was blindly drunk and still couldn’t seem to drown out all the anger and resentment I still felt.
I started walking, stumbling, then I fell down, but got back up. Staggering as headlights brightened the night, then cars whizzed by me. All of it a blur. When had I gotten on the highway?
I continued to walk, but the next time I fell, I didn’t get up. I rolled onto my back and looked up at the star-studded sky, wishing that I could just float away.
I think I passed out when the sound of tires on gravel and the voice that I had been hearing in my dreams said, “Jake?” Then running feet and someone touched my face.
I opened my eyes and there they were. The hazel eyes of the most beautiful woman in Suttontowne.Had I thought that all along? Yeah, Sutton, you have, you idiot. You’ve just been blocking it.Shit, that wasn’t good. That wasn’t a good thought. Thoughts. Not good ones to have.
I was trying to resist her. That was it. Resisting. It was a good word. I knew it well.
“I’ve been so worried about you.” Her voice was thick and strained.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice breaking a bit. “Sorry I stood you up. Things are so fucked up.”
“Are you all right?” she asked, her tone gentle when I expected anger. Here I thought I had to handle her and she was handling me…so damn well.
“No,” I said with a groan, fracturing even more at all the emotions raging through me, pain that couldn’t be drowned out even with all the liquor I’d consumed. “I had a collision with a bottle of Jack.” The grass was cool, wet, the slight breeze warm—the pain crawling up the back of my skull just a precursor to what was coming.
She wasn’t wearing her hat, her hair hanging free and, as she bent over me, the silk of it against my arm was almost unbearable. I couldn’t say I was upset to have this sultry, unique woman leaning over me, her hand on my chest, that sweet face all scrunched up with concern. It was as if she cared.
She was so beautiful; it broke my heart. I closed my eyes because I was losing my bearings all over again, but it didn’t have anything to do with pain, just an aching want that filled me up.
“Okay, I’ve been there before. Stay with me,” she said. “Look at me, okay?”
I opened my eyes again and took another look. I was staying with her, especially with that look of care in her eyes.
“Let’s get you up. Come on.”
