Page 127 of These Summer Storms

“When did you getthis?”

They were on the couch on one side of the room, Alice leaning back against one tufted arm, her legs draped over Jack’s lap as he sat back on the camel-colored leather. They were wrinkled but dressed again (they weren’t raised by wolves), though Jack’s shirt was mostly unbuttoned, and he’d pocketed her underwear (maybe a little raised by wolves).

One of his hands traveled the inside of her leg in a lazy, possessive slide, lingering just inside the hem of her dress, like he wasn’t ready to let her go, which was fine, because she wasn’t ready to go. Night had fallen, heavy and dark outside, and for those stolen moments, it seemed like they controlled time—if they didn’t leave each other, they could keep everything at bay.

Jack’s free arm was draped across Alice’s lap, and she tracked the patterns of his tattoo. “It was the first thing I noticed about you.”

“Really?”

“Actually, no. The first thing I noticed was that you were stern.”

His brows furrowed. “Were you unsettled?”

“I was too distracted to be unsettled. You just looked so serious. Like you took everything seriously.”

“I was serious that day.” He’d lost Franklin. And come for her. “I was taking you seriously.”

She traced the circle of the compass face. “I know. I like that. That you take me seriously.”

“I’m not always serious.”

“Were you serious when you got this tattoo?”

“You really want the story.”

She smiled. “It’s not every day a girl who grew up sailing meets a guy with a sextant on his arm.” He offered a tiny laugh, and she said, “It was between that andYou know what they say about guys with sextant tattoos.”

Another laugh rolled out of him. “I don’t, actually.”

“Me, neither. Which is why I want the story.”

“When did you notice it?” He leaned back against the couch and looked down at her, his dark lashes at half-mast—long and lush enough that she’d be jealous of them if she weren’t so happy to look at them.

“You rolled up your sleeves on the train platform, while we were waiting for our cars.” She shrugged. “I like tattoos.”

“You don’t have one,” he said, his confident tone a reminder that he could speak on the issue with authority.

She shook her head. “I like them in the way an artist appreciates art—precision detail work on an uneven surface. I can acknowledge the challenge in it and admire the skill it takes to make one as beautiful as this. But I’ve never had anything that I loved so much I wanted it tattooed on me.”

“Well, that’s your first mistake,” he said, squeezing her thigh just enough to make her breath hitch. He pretended not to notice. “Not every tattoo is about love.”

“No?”

“You’re an artist,” he said, tilting his head toward the painting she’d leaned against the desk. “Is all your art about love?”

“The stuff I finish is,” she said. “Butyourmistake is believing that love is an inherently good thing all the time.”

“That’s pretty cynical.”

“Maybe. I think it’s pretty honest.” Her attention flickered to the painting on the floor. “I wonder if it’s been here the whole time—tucked away in the vault as a constant reminder that he remained pulling my strings.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Jack said, “It hung in his office in New York.”

“It did? Really?”

That tiny smile that she found absolutely too charming flashed. “When do you think you’ll be able to take for granted that I’m not lying to you?”

It was hard to do. The idea that her father had liked her painting enough that he’d displayed it in a room where he met with—everyone—she looked to it, still perched by the desk. “Why is it here, then?”

---