She decided her best course was to ignore this and said, “He ejected a reporter today.”
Jack’s arm tensed spasmodically on her shoulders before he muttered, “I haven’t met him and I already like him.”
“Though, the bad news is, you’ve lost Belinda’s blind devotion. She’s now in love with Dirk.”
Jack looked down at her. “I didn’t know I had it.”
She stared up at him in astonishment.
Was he blind?
Then again, women probably fell in love with him when he walked down the street. Like at that very moment, women were probably looking out the windows of restaurants as Belle and Jack walked by, all of them falling madly in love with him.
“You had it,” she told him instead of sharing her thoughts.
“My heart bleeds,” he remarked dryly and pulled her closer, curling her so her torso was twisted to his even as she was walking forward. Her arm had to wrap around his stomach for balance and she had to tip her head way back to look up at him before he murmured, “Maybe you can fill the void.”
“I’ll try,” she breathed, he grinned and leaned down to touch his mouth to hers.
Then he straightened and uncurled his arm so she was walking plastered close to his side, not half plastered to his front.
He did all of his without breaking stride.
If she tried something like that she’d fall flat on her face.
He could, she thought, do anything.
Anything.
They walked silently the rest of the way to her cottage.
She shared her cottage with a neighbour. They owned the garden level. Belle owned the elevated ground floor.
Therefore they walked up a short flight steps to get to her door, each step held a pot of burgeoning flowers. Her cottage was painted white. The front door was a brilliant, Prussian blue. She opened the door and led them into the mud room, her many jackets hanging on hooks, ready for her walks.
She closed the door behind Jack but grabbed his hand when he ducked his head to avoid the low ceiling at the foot of the stairs in preparation for climbing them.
He turned to her in enquiry.
“I didn’t ask you here just to make you dinner,” she told him and she watched as his body braced. “I asked you here to show you something.”
He didn’t speak so she moved around him but kept her hand in his. He ducked again as she guided him up the stairs to the landing which led to her back hall as well as to her kitchen, her bath and her second bedroom. Then she took him up two more steps to the back hall and turned left into the living room.
She knew when he saw it because she felt his body jerk through his hand.
Then he stopped dead in front of her couch.
Belle stood beside him and looked at the massive canvas hanging over her couch.
It depicted a graceful, Savannah mansion (the “haunted” one where they’d once lived) with lushly blooming garden, an oak tree in front, moss hanging from its branches. Its colours were muted, beautiful blues and greys mostly, and lightning split the sky behind the watery portrayal of the house.
“The Storm Series,” Belle whispered and felt his hand squeeze hers before, slowly, his head turned and tilted down to look at her.
She caught her breath at the raw look in his eyes, a look she couldn’t read but it felt as velvet as the air from that morning.
“I have most of them here at the cottage,” she went on nervously when he didn’t say a word. “I thought you’d appreciate seeing them.” He still didn’t speak and she began to feel funny. “You can, um…” She hesitated then surged on, “Take your time. Wander the house. I’ll start dinner.”
Then she dropped his hand and escaped to the kitchen.