“Being in your arms feels so right.” I leaned in to kiss him again.
All too soon, he released me and took my hand, leading me to a sheltered section of beach. He had already laid a couple of blankets on the ground. Once sitting, he pulled me between his legs and kept one arm around my waist as he passed me a hot chocolate with his other hand.
He turned me inside out. When I was with him, I felt as though I’d known him my whole life, and when we were apart, I desperately longed for his company. He made me feel protected and cherished, as though nothing could harm me while I was with him.
I turned my head slightly so I could look at his face. “Will you tell me about Jacob?”
“What do you want to know?” he asked me while caressing my face.
“Everything.”
He laughed and pulled me back against his chest to snuggle tightly. “Okay then, here goes. I’m twenty-two years old and was born in New York. My parents moved to Boston in 1931. Eleanor still lives in Brookline and runs a respectable boarding house. She visits me often. The only time she couldn’t visit me was during the war when I was stationed in England.”
I turned around to face him with a look of concern. “Where in England?”
“Leominster in Herefordshire. I was in the 5th Ranger Division toward the end of the war. I remember the local children were great fun. We used to give them chocolate and gum in exchange for them going to buy us fish and chips. The kids were the best.” He smiled warmly at the memory and I was glad he had some good memories during the war.
I leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
He took hold of my hair, which had come loose from my clip and smoothed it behind my ear, caressing my face at the same time. “Now, please tell me about Rose.” As I looked up into his eyes, they were sparkling with passion . . . for me. My heart was pounding so much, I felt as though it was about to jump out from my chest.
He leaned forward and placed such a tender kiss to my lips, then smiled at me. “Sitting there, looking gorgeous and ready to be kissed does not mean I don’t want to hear about you, Rose.”
I smiled up to him, then turned and leaned back against him again. “I’ve lived all my life in Cape Elizabeth. I had an older brother, Charlie. He was killed in France during the war.” I started to sniffle. Whenever I talked about Charlie, I always ended up in tears.
“Rose, please don’t cry.” Jacob turned me slightly and wiped my tears away with his thumbs.
After a few minutes, I took a deep breath and wrapped my arms around Jacob’s waist, snuggling in close to his warmth. “I mentioned my younger brother, JT, the other day. He makes me laugh with the things he gets up to with his friends, Walt and Levi. Father grounds him nearly every other day. It doesn’t last long though as Mother gets frustrated when he’s underfoot all day long. He’ll then go and find his friends, and end up being grounded again. He can also be very annoying.”
Jacob started to laugh. “Isn’t that what brothers are supposed to be like?”
I elbowed him gently in his side. “Please tell me you weren’t an annoying brother to Eleanor?” I raised my eyebrow in question.
Jacob pulled me closer. “Probably, but not all the time. Eleanor is a great sister. Sometimes, I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.”
“I feel like that about JT—well some of the time,” I said, just before Jacob leaned forward to give me a sweet kiss. “I don’t want tonight to end.”
As if my words had broken the spell around us, he looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, you might be missed.” I nodded before we untangled ourselves and Jacob took my hand. He pulled me up from the ground, and straight into his arms for a wonderful kiss.
Breaking the kiss, Jacob threaded his fingers through my hair and pushed it behind my ears. “Will you meet me again, Rose? I’m working for the next few nights, but I can meet you on Friday.”
“I’d love to meet you, too.” He sighed as though he regretted his next words, “Come on, I’ll walk you back.”
Jacob wrapped the blankets up in some sort of waterproof sheeting and hid them between some large rocks. He then took my hand and pulled me back into his arms as we started walking to my house. Just before we came into view of Mother’s parlor windows, he turned me toward him and kissed me with so much passion, he left me breathless. My toes curled, my skin tingled, but before I knew what had really hit me, he pulled away again. “I’ll see you, same place, but a bit earlier if you can make it on Friday.” He kissed my knuckles before he left without another word. All I wanted to do was cry.
How could I feel so much for a man I’d only met fourteen days ago?
Chapter 8
Mack checked her watch to see if she had enough time to read some more, but to her surprise, she hadn’t realized so much time had lapsed. She closed the diary and sat back, gazing far into the distance, right across the sea.
Her mind was filled with thoughts of Rose and Jacob; she couldn’t help but wonder what had become of them. She thumbed the pages but fought the urge to turn to the back of the book. This time, she promised herself she wasn’t going to jump to the last entry to find out. At least, she hoped she wouldn’t do that. Mack wasn’t exactly known for her patience.
She collected her things together and started to walk back to the cottage to see if Thomas and Lucas had returned from fishing.
She stopped dead when she entered the cottage because she was greeted with a bloody mess in the kitchen . . . literally!
“Auntie Mack¸ you’re back. I caught a yellow perch and Thomas caught two, so Thomas is gutting them. Will you cook them for dinner?” Lucas asked with a very happy face as he danced excitedly from foot to foot.