Dead Pretty - Samantha Towle Page 0,39
shrug. “I have yet to see it.”
“How long have you lived here?”
I feel my spine stiffen at the question.
Relax, Audrey. It’s a perfectly normal question.
“Six months,” I tell him. Even I can hear the caution in my voice though. So, I try to cover it up with my own question. “What made a motorbiking guy like you move to snowy Jackson?”
“Research.”
“For your book?”
“Mmhmm.”
“You write fictional crime books, right? So, what are you working on right now?”
If he has switched to nonfiction and is writing a real-life crime book, I’m out of here.
“You looked me up?” He grins.
“Your books. Not you. Don’t get a big head. I work in a library. It would be weird if I didn’t look your books up.”
He’s still smirking, and I feel like I’m digging myself into a hole.
“And?”
“What?”
“What did you think?”
“I didn’t read them. Crime is not my thing.”
He nods, as if remembering me telling him this when he first told me what books he writes.
“But they looked good. You first published when you were still in the military, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you always want to be a writer?”
The waiter brings our beers over, interrupting, and asks to take our orders. We’ve barely looked at the menu. But after a quick scan, Jack orders the yakitori, and I decide on the seared scallops.
“To answer your question,” Jack says after taking a sip of his beer, “yeah, I always wanted to be a writer. My father … didn’t see it as a viable career path. He was ex-military. He pushed me in that direction, and I allowed him to.”
“But you keep writing.”
“Yeah. My—” He suddenly stops, cutting his words off.
“Your what?” I ask out of curiosity.
He shakes his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “Sorry, I lost my train of thought there for a minute. I was just going to say … my friend, he was the one who got me published. I kept writing while I was away. I would send him the chapters I had written. He kept them all. Typed them up and submitted them to a publisher without me knowing.” He laughs to himself. “I got my first book deal because of him.”
Listening to him, I get the impression that he’s hiding something. Maybe that the he was actually a she, an ex-girlfriend, and he doesn’t want to discuss past women while trying to get in this current woman’s panties.
“Wow. That’s one good friend. Sneaky”—I chuckle—“but good.”
“Yeah. He is good. The best.”
“Where is he now?” I take a sip of my beer.
“Gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
He blinks, looking past me. “Australia.”
I feel like there is a story there. About him and some girl who left him to go to Australia. But I’m not going to dig for more information. I’ve done enough asking about his past for the night. If I’m not careful, he’s going to start asking me questions about my life.
“Wow. Well, thank God for airplanes, right?”
He just smiles in response.
A silence descends on us. Surprisingly, it’s not one I created. Something is on his mind right now, but I’m not going to ask what it is.
The jealous girl in me doesn’t want to know if he is thinking about a long-lost love.
Ugh.
See, this is why I stay away from people. They’re too much hassle.
“Um … so thanks for bringing me here,” I say for the sake of saying something. “It’s a nice place.”
His broody eyes come back to mine. “You don’t have to thank me.”
I shrug. “I’m really enjoying myself, walking the dogs as well. Gary and Pork Chop are adorable. Do you know their stories?” I ask him. “How did they end up at the shelter?”
“Pork Chop’s owner passed away, and Gary was a stray. Found wandering around the streets. Shelly said he was in bad shape when they brought him in.”
My poor Gary.
I have a heartbreaking vision of a skinny, shabby-looking Gary, confused, lost, and wondering why his owners left him alone. Why they didn’t want him anymore.
“Hey. He’s okay now.” Jack reaches over, covering my hand with his.
I start at the contact.
“Shelly and Ron are good people. They will find him a forever home soon enough,” he adds in a soothing voice.
“I know.” I blink clear whatever emotion he saw in my eyes that prompted him to reassure me like that.
I’m really wishing my hair were down now, so I could hide my face with the thick curtain of it.
Clearing my throat, I slide my hand out from under his in the pretense of picking up my beer bottle.
I put it