Page 46 of Dublin Debacle

Jack stood with his back to her in the living room, wearing the pajama bottoms that had belonged to her father.

On her father, they’d just been pajamas. On Jack, they emphasized his narrow waist where he’d cinched the drawstring. The T-shirt she’d given him stretched taut across his chest and arms. She suspected it was too tight to be comfortable. If she got the nerve up, she’d suggest he discard it.

“Is this your mother and father?” Jack waved a hand to the portrait on the wall of a young couple smiling up into each other’s eyes.

“Yes, it is.” Emily approached, coming to a stop beside Jack. The photograph was the same one she’d seen hung in her mother’s room in Boston. She’d thought her father had abandoned them, sending them back to the States because he didn’t love them. She’d asked her mother why she’d hung the picture. Her mother had said that it reminded her of how much they’d loved each other. They’d had their whole lives ahead of them, full of hope and love, only to be separated for most of their marriage. It made her sad to think of them and all the time they’d lost.

Emily had witnessed the sadness in her father’s eyes. That, plus her mother’s dying wish, left her melancholy. She turned toward the wine to find the bottle still full. “Did you decide against a glass of wine?”

Jack followed her. “No. I prefer to have company when I drink wine.”

“If you’d rather have beer, I have some in the refrigerator.”

“I’d love some wine,” he said. “Would you like me to pour?”

Emily nodded. “Please.” She let him pour because her body was trembling. Not from fear, but in anticipation of what could happen—if the man was truly interested.

Jack poured two glasses of wine and handed one to her. He held his up and touched it to the rim of her glass. “To finding the Flamethrower.”

“To finding the Flamethrower,” Emily echoed and sipped her drink.

Jack drank half his glass of wine before staring across at her and back at the photo in the frame. “You look like your mother.”

Emily smiled. “She was a beautiful, kind and caring woman. We were fortunate to have her for as long as we did. I wish we could’ve had her for a lot more time than we did. But we made the years count. She loved us with her whole heart. And she loved our father as well.” She glanced up at Jack. “What about you? What was your childhood like?”

“Not nearly as interesting as yours. Unlike your parents, mine divorced when I was six. My mother went off with another man while my brother and I stayed with my father. He did the best he could, working and raising two mischievous boys. He taught us the value of hard work and showing up. And though she left him, he never spoke badly of my mother.”

“Where are they now?” Emily asked.

Jack smiled. “After my brother and I graduated from high school and joined the military, my father found the love of his life and is happier than I’ve ever seen him. The two of them live on a little five-acre farm in Kentucky and raise a variety of animals. Now that Dad’s retired, he has all the time in the world to do what he wants. Though he doesn’t push the idea, I think he’s waiting for grandchildren to spoil.”

Emily glanced over the rim of her glass. “And are you and your brother going to give him any, or are you like so many young people these days, choosing not to have children?” She sipped from her glass, her gaze on him, surprised at how interested she was in his answer.

He shrugged. “It was part of my plan until I lost Laura.”

A strange tug of envy pulled at her gut. What was it like to love someone so deeply that when you lost that person, you lost the desire to love again? What was it like to be loved so deeply? “You must have loved her very much,” Emily said softly.

Jack nodded. “We were young, excited to find each other in a wartime situation and eager to see if the magic extended back in the States.”

“And you didn’t get to test that theory.” Emily drank the last of her wine. “I guess I’ve never really been in love. Infatuation and lust, yes. But love?” She shook her head and set her glass on the counter. “Not the kind of love you had with your Laura.”

“What I had with Laura was a long time ago. I was a different person, so young and naïve.” He set his glass beside hers on the counter and faced her. “Would we have stood the test of time with our careers in the military? I don’t know.”

“And never will.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you think you’ll ever fall in love again?” she asked and immediately wished she could take back the words. “You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”

“Do you think you could quit talking about my first love long enough for me to do this?” Jack cupped the back of her head and captured her mouth with his in a passionate kiss that melted every bone in Emily’s body. She leaned into him and curled her fingers into the white T-shirt to keep from sliding to the floor.

His tongue swept past her teeth to caress the length of hers in a slow, sensual glide as his other hand wrapped around her waist and pressed her body close to his.

The evidence of his desire pressed into her belly, sending electric currents racing through her and heat coiling at her core.

Emily forgot about her uncle’s attack, forgot that she had almost been kidnapped, forgot the hateful words painted on her Mercedes and everything else. Her world revolved around that kiss, his hands on her body and the fire igniting between them.

Her hands crept up his chest and around his neck. She wrapped her calf around the back of his leg and pressed her sex against his thigh. What was happening was so good, intoxicating and mind-blowing. The only thing that could make it better would be if they were naked.

Then Jack pulled back, his hands curling around her arms, warm and strong. Cool air swept between their bodies as he stared down into her eyes. “You can slap my face and kick me out of your home, if that’s what you want. It’s just that I’ve wanted to kiss you since you first filled my glass full of beer and set it on the bar in front of me.”

She laughed, her hands sliding downward from his neck to rest on his chest, the thin cotton T-shirt not much of a barrier between her skin and his, but more of a barrier than she would have liked. “Is beer that important that you want to kiss the one who serves it?”

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