With everyone else, I managed to keep them at a distance, apart from Reece and Donovan, but from the get go, with Thalia, I’d been different.
My days during the summer were spent as a run-around at my dad’s law firm. The same law firm my dad expected me to become a partner in, once I graduated. It was so not going to happen, because my interest lay in criminal law and the justice system – a lot more going on. Family law would bore the shit out of me within a week. My ambition was the reason I’d been thrown together with Mia. Actually, blackmailed would be a more apt description.
Every time I thought about the wedding, I broke out in a sweat. I kept telling myself that we could marry, live separately and then once I’d graduated we could divorce, but I didn’t think it was going to work out like that.
The biggest hurdle was my family. At the end of the day they were family and you only got the one. Did I have the balls to stand up to them once and for all by cancelling the wedding? Would my father really hold my tuition fees back if I did?
With a heavy sigh, I looked at Thalia who was watching me silently.
“Why do you look so sad?”
“Just thinking,” I replied, bringing our joined hands to my lips where I placed a kiss on her knuckles and wrist.
“Jack, you need to stop,” she said, shivering.
With my eyes closed, I took a deep breath. When I opened them again her eyes were still focused on mine. “I know. I forget about everything when you look at me.” I let go of her hand and brushed some hair from her face, which had fallen loose from her ponytail.
“Tell me about Jack; about growing up here.”
I laughed. “You sure you want to know, you might not like me afterwards.”
“How I feel won’t change with the telling of your past. I promise.” She said then kissed my stomach. Any lower and she’d have discovered just how much I didn’t want to talk.
“I had a fairly normal childhood. Constantly getting in trouble for not doing chores, forgetting I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Liam, kissing girls in the barn, you know that kind of thing.”
I could feel her laughing against my stomach.
“I can believe all that. What else?”
No one had ever asked about my past before, not even in college.
“I love being outdoors and take every opportunity to be out in the fields, or fishing with one of the guys. I still find enjoyment from being out on my bike, even though I seem to use that to let out my frustration these days. I love using the tractor on the field and the love of my life to date is my horse, Trigger.”
“Trigger?”
Smiling at the memory, I continued, “Yeah, when I was a kid I used to watch these black and white movies with my granddad about the Lone Ranger and his horse Trigger. My grandfather died two days before Trigger was born so…”
“So you named the horse in your grandfather’s memory. That was a lovely thing to do, Jack.”
“Yeah.” I felt all choked up. Coughing and sitting further up in the chair I unsettled Thalia. She pulled away, sitting upright, avoiding eye contact with me. Was she embarrassed after being cuddled up next to me?
Reaching out, I took hold of her chin, bringing her face back around to mine. “Don’t be shy with me, not me.”
Smoothing my thumb around her chin and lower lip she inhaled and stuck her tongue out, licking the tip of my thumb.
I couldn’t do this to her. Yes, I wanted her more than anyone or anything I’d ever wanted, but I couldn’t carry on like I was with her while I still had a fiancée and weddi
ng hanging over my head, it wouldn’t be fair. Shit, I was also forgetting that she was supposed to be Liam’s girl.
Her eyes fell when I moved away. “I can’t cross this line with you while I still have everything going on in my life, plus you’re my brother’s girl. Goddamn, I shouldn’t have even been holding you out here. I forgot all about Liam.”
“So did I,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to be around much. I need to keep my distance from you, because if I don’t, we’re both going to get hurt.”
Fuck, she looked upset.
“You’re right, Jack. I better go inside and get dressed.”