Page 10 of It’s You

As soon as he was a safe distance away, Darcy tried to disentangle her hand from Jack’s. He wasn’t having it. He tightened his grip until Darcy had no choice but to hold his hand or make a scene by grabbing hers away. Since she’d had enough scenes for today, she relaxed and didn’t fight him.

Darcy looked down at their joined hands.

The last time her fingers had been laced through Jack Beauloup’s, she’d been fifteen years old.

His hand had trembled as it had reached for hers in the darkness of the backstage curtains.

Adult Jack didn’t quake or tremble when he touched her.

Adult Jack burned her with the heat of his body, with the unmitigated desire pulsing in his fiery eyes.

She still hadn’t caught her breath since he’d laced his fingers through hers.

It wasn’t fair that, other than a slight gasp, he was utterly composed.

“Can you let go of my hand?”

“No chance.” Jack watched until Vale sat down at a table with several older ladies, who tittered worshipfully at something he said. “Proctor. He’s an arrogant bastard.”

“He’s not my favorite.” Darcy sighed.

Jack turned to her. “Sure doesn’t like you.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Remember Phillip Proctor? I mentioned him before?”

“The one that didn’t work out.”

“Yes. Vale is Phillip’s father.”

“Ahhh,” said Jack.

He strolled back to their table, and Darcy, whose hand was still firmly clasped in his, had no choice but to follow. She noticed that the longer they held hands, the more she became accustomed to the white hotness of his skin on hers.

“Why does he hate you?”

“Phillip and I dated for a while, before we had a…a falling out.” She couldn’t keep the uneasiness from tracking across her face.

“What else?”

“He relocated to Canada somewhere. Never came home again.”

“Proctor blames you?”

Darcy nodded.

“I was the last one to see him,” she answered, sitting back down at their table.

Darcy had expected to see Willow here. She wished she and Willow could go home, change into sweats, make a fire, and curl up on their living room window seat with hot tea.

Darcy needed to talk to someone, and as electric as she felt around Jack Beauloup, she was also feeling exhausted by the emotional roller coaster of their reunion.

“I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about him.”

“Not all of my memories of him are good,” she answered simply, looking away. She was relieved to see Amory approaching them.

“Mom’s been looking all over for you, Darce!” Amory pressed his lips to her cheek as Jack discreetly dropped her hand. “Honoria wants to do pictures before cake.”

Thank God for small favors.

“I’ll go find her. You seen Willow?”

“The elusive Doctor Broussard,” Amory said, his eyes clouding over. “She went home.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, already. Reception’s been going on for three hours, Darce. We had a pretty awkward lunch by ourselves, so thanks for that.”

“What are you talking about?” Darcy laughed.

She thought he was kidding until she looked at her watch and felt her brows knit together as she realized it was ten to three.

But the wedding had only ended about an hour ago!

She dug her phone out of the purse she had left at the table.

2:51 p.m. Impossible. She hadn’t been in the woods for more than an hour. Tops.

Her stomach turned uneasily as she realized that the napkins and place settings that had been set on every table when she sat down for champagne after the ceremony were now gone. She looked down at the tablecloth and saw crumbs and a brown smudge. Evidence of lunch having been eaten.

“Time flies when you’re having fun, eh, sis?”

Darcy turned to look at her brother, and he winked at her. “Don’t forget about the pictures. Jack, I’ll be over tomorrow to work on the garage, if that’s okay. I’m outta here.”

“I don’t understand,” Darcy whispered, more to herself than Jack, who sat beside her in silence. “It can’t be three o’clock. It’s only…”

Darcy’s heart was racing, pounding so loudly she heard the thumping in her ears. She swallowed, wishing she could calm down, turning her eyes to Jack, who looked at her, waiting, worried.

“Jack. What the hell is going on?”

Calm down. It’s going to be okay.

“Get out of my head,” she hissed, trying to take a deep breath but starting to feel dizzy.

Nothing was making sense. Jack’s sudden reappearance, hearing his thoughts, his glowing eyes, losing time. It was too much to try to understand. She felt like she was going crazy, and Jack was the common thread that ran through everything.

He reached out to take her hand again, and she flinched away from him, sitting ramrod straight in her chair, staring at him.

“Darcy,” he started, slowly, softly.

“No. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“That’s fine. Let me take you home.”

“No. You’re not taking me anywhere.”

“Darcy, we need to talk. There are things you need?—”

“What I need is an MRI, and I probably had too much champagne. And you …” She stared into his brown eyes.

She watched as a pool of copper lava surrounded his black pupils, growing brighter.

She could hear him repeating her name over and over again in a loop.

Darcy Turner, Darcy Turner, Darcy Turner.

“You need to stay away from me, Jack Beauloup.”

Darcy stood up abruptly and grabbed her purse, intending to leave. As Jack rose from his chair, she looked up at his face, into his eyes, without thinking. She gasped at the deep regret she saw there.

I’m sorry, Darcy. I’m so damn sorry. But I can’t do that.

She clenched her eyes shut as hard as she could.

When she opened them, he was gone.

Darcy held herself together throughout the photos, standing in back of her cousins to hide the rips on her dress, made polite goodbyes to family and friends, and drove home.

But once the front door clicked shut behind her, the floodgates opened.

Willow found her sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the door, head bowed and tears flowing.

She helped Darcy up without a word, ushered her up the stairs and into her bedroom, where she told her to change into comfy clothes and then come back downstairs.

A few minutes later, Darcy heard the whistle of the kettle through the old hardwood floors.

“Chamomile or Earl Grey?” called Willow from the foot of the stairs.

“Earl Grey. Thanks, Will.”

As she headed downstairs, Darcy pulled her sleeve over her hand and brushed away the remainder of the tears.

She settled in her favorite corner of the large, plush, chintz-covered window seat in the front room of the Victorian house she shared with Willow.

Hugging her fleece-covered legs closer to her chest, she rested her cheek on her arm, looking out the picture window at Magalloway in the distance.

Willow marched into the living room with two big, brightly colored mugs, each with a tea string hanging over the edge and steam rising over the rims. She handed Darcy a cup that read, “I climbed Mount Washington and all I got was this crummy cup.” Darcy held the warm ceramic in her hands and gave her friend a grateful smile.

“So? Spill the beans. And I mean every detail.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” Darcy sighed as Willow sat across from her, cross-legged in black yoga pants and a gray T-shirt.

“Well…you went inside during the wedding. We sat down at the table, and Honoria came to say hello. And then Amory showed up with Jack. Start there.”

“He can hear my thoughts.”

Willow’s brows creased momentarily before she neutralized her face.

“And I can hear his.”

Willow nodded slowly.

“It didn’t necessarily seem to surprise him, and he said that it’s a weird thing that married people in his family can do sometimes.”

“Two things,” said Willow crisply. “One, people can’t hear each other’s thoughts. And two, you’re not married to Jack.”

“Uh. I know. I mentioned that.”

“And he said…”

“He didn’t have an answer. He kept saying that. He kept saying he didn’t have all the answers, and while I definitely get the feeling he knows more than I do, I believe him. On some level.”

She thought of his voice when he said, “I don’t have all the answers, I promise.” She was pretty sure he’d been telling the truth.

“What else?” Willow prompted, averting her eyes, sipping her tea.

“Umm. Besides the fact that he was my first kiss, and he’s shown up here out of the blue after twenty years? Besides the fact that he can hear my thoughts, and I can hear his? Hmm. Well, let’s see. He said he would never hurt me. That it’s a sacred pledge or something.”

“Uh-huh. What else? Why was he gone so long?”

“He said he had to go away to learn things.” Control. “And there was this encounter with a bear…”

“A bear bear?”

“We came across a black bear while we were walking. Jack put himself between me and the bear, then told me to run. I didn’t want to, but he insisted.

I looked back after about four or five yards, and he and the bear were in a showdown, almost. The bear was mad, but not charging, and Jack wasn’t moving.

Then he hissed something, and the bear took off into the woods like a shot. ”

“What did he say to it?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like ‘Ship away,’ but I probably heard it wrong.”

“Ship away?” Willow looked up, eyes alert. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think so. Who knows? I was freaked out. And his eyes were glowing.”

Willow shook her head quickly back and forth. “G-glowing, Darce?”

“It looked like it. But it was so sunny, and we were in Dooley Meadow.”

“Could have been the sun?”

“Could’ve been, I guess.”