Page 39 of Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Faith nodded, surprised by how right that word sounded after so many years of fierce independence. For the first time since she was young enough to believe in fairy tales, she didn’t have to face the monsters alone.
“Together,” she repeated, and felt something inside her heart begin to heal.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
The autumn airturned to an unexpected winter freeze the second week of December. The scent of snow was thick in the air, but the ground was still too warm for any flurries to stick.
The house, Faith was told, would be finished by the first of the year. Even now, they were working on purely aesthetic aspects rather than structural changes. It was everything she’d ever wanted—her Victorian masterpiece rising from the ashes of neglect like a phoenix.
What wasn’t everything she’d wanted was the careful distance Jake had been maintaining since her breakdown in the kitchen three weeks ago.
Faith stood in her new office in the west wing tower, staring out the octagonal windows at the construction crews below. The room was complete—soft blues and creams contrasted with dark cherrywood furniture and scattered Persian rugs on the newly refinished hardwood floors. Paintings they’d chosen together at a gallery downtown were splashes of color on the pale walls, back when Jake still touched her hand while they debated the merits of impressionism versus realism.
Now he treated her like spun glass.
She’d noticed it immediately after she’d told him about Steve. The way he’d pull back just before their fingers touched when passing her coffee. How he’d kiss her forehead instead of her lips, as if anything more passionate might shatter her. The careful way he asked if she was “all right” when she grew quiet, as though he expected her to crumble at any moment. When she’d asked why he’d never tried to make love to her he’d told her that he respected her too much. How could he kiss her like she was oxygen one moment, and then put her on the shelf another?
“I’m not broken,” she whispered to the empty room, but apparently Jake didn’t believe that.
They still saw each other daily—he was finishing the house, after all. They shared meals that Gretchen prepared, took walks through the neighborhood to admire other restorations, attended Ruth’s friend’s art gallery opening where Jake had been charming and attentive and hadn’t once pulled her close during the slow dancing.
Jake stood exactly three feet away—close enough to be polite, far enough to avoid accidental contact. Faith found herself counting the careful distance between them, hyperaware of how they both seemed to be holding their breath.
Faith had tried to bring it up once, asking if something was wrong, but Jake had given her that patient, understanding smile and assured her everything was fine. That he just wanted to “take things slow” and “make sure she was comfortable.” As if she were a trauma victim instead of a woman who’d fought her way back from hell and built a successful life.
She understood his intentions were good. Sweet, even. But she missed the man who’d challenged her, who’d looked at her with desire instead of pity, who’d kissed her like she was a woman worth wanting instead of a fragile bird with broken wings.
A sharp knock on her office door interrupted her brooding.
“Come in,” she called, expecting to see Jake with an update on the crown molding.
Instead, the door burst open with enough force to rattle the windows, and a whirlwind of red wool scarves and indignation swept into the room.
“Goodness gracious, it’s cold enough to freeze the brass buttons off a sailor’s coat out there!” Ruth Murphy announced, unwinding what appeared to be several yards of scarf from around her head. “I swear, last year I had the air-conditioning on at Christmas. Mother Nature’s having herself a crisis, mark my words.”
“Ruth!” Faith jumped up, genuinely delighted. “What are you doing here? I thought you were visiting your friend in?—”
“Boring as watching paint dry,” Ruth interrupted, shaking snow from her elegant coat. “Lorena’s gotten old, Faith. All she wants to talk about is burial plots and the outrageous cost of dying. Depressing as a funeral parlor. Besides, I had a dream last night that told me I was needed here.”
Faith had learned not to question Ruth’s dreams. The woman’s intuition was unnaturally accurate.
“Jake!” Ruth hollered toward the hallway. “Get those bags in here so I can show Faith her present!”
“You brought me a present?” Faith asked, touched by the thoughtfulness.
Heavy footsteps echoed up the tower stairs, followed by Jake’s voice, slightly winded. “What have you got in these bags, Gran? You weren’t gone long enough to shop this much.”
He appeared in the doorway, arms loaded with shopping bags, looking like a pack mule. When his eyes met Faith’s, she caught that now-familiar flash of heat quickly banked, replaced by careful friendliness.
“It’s payback for shipping me off when all the excitement was happening here,” Ruth declared, settling into Faith’s reading chair like a queen claiming her throne. “Don’t think I didn’t realize what you were up to, young man. I didn’t even get to see the explosion damage up close before you had me carted away like yesterday’s newspaper.”
Jake set the bags on Faith’s desk, and she was acutely aware of how he avoided even accidental contact when their hands might have brushed. The careful distance felt like a physical ache.
“How did you get back here, anyway?” Faith asked, needing to focus on something besides Jake’s deliberate avoidance.
“Greyhound bus,” Ruth said proudly. “Edward was livid. But I met the most interesting people. Including two young ladies at the Dallas station who were clearly new to their profession—they didn’t seem to know very much about the finer points of their trade, so I gave them some pointers.”
“You gave prostitutes advice?” Faith’s voice squeaked.
