Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,240

feed pigs today?”

That made me smile. “I sure did. And cows and horses and goats. And gathered eggs from chickens. Did you know they lay them from their butts?”

“No. And I really didn’t need to.”

I clucked my tongue. “Jaime Owens, you should really pay more attention to where your food comes from.”

“In this case, I think ignorance is bliss. Call me tomorrow?”

“Will do. Night.”

“Night.”

I spent the rest of the evening preparing for the meeting and trying to keep thoughts of Jack from distracting me.

But it was impossible.

I relived that kiss a thousand times. I felt his hands around my wrists. His tongue on my neck. His thigh between my legs.

Closing my eyes, I pictured him in his little house. What was he doing right now? Was he thinking about me? Did he still miss his wife at night? Did he ever try to ease the loneliness with other women? I felt a vicious stab of envy for any woman who’d been with him, and a pang of longing so fierce it shocked me.

Yes, his mood swings made me dizzy, but he was masculine and strong and real. He was a soldier. A survivor. And he’d worked for what he had—worked long and hard with his own two hands. He wasn’t afraid to get dirty.

That was sexy.

I’d never been so attracted to a man in my life.

But there was nothing I could do about it.

Jack

What the hell had I done?

You know what you did. You let your guard down. You lost control. You fucked up.

I had fucked up. Badly.

I’d been a complete asshole to Margot, who didn’t deserve it. I’d messed around with a woman who was working for me. And I’d betrayed Steph’s memory.

I felt guilty about everything. I needed to talk to someone…someone who knew me, someone who would understand.

It wasn’t that I sought forgiveness—I’d never have that—but more a need to remind myself who I was. So after I finished up in the barn, I went home, cleaned up, picked some of the wildflowers growing in front of the cabin, and drove out to the cemetery.

We’d buried Steph according to her family’s wishes. She and I had never even talked about what we wanted in terms of burial—who thinks of death when they’re young and newly married? And afterward I’d been in such a fog of grief and regret, I’d let her parents and sister make the decisions, everything from where she would be buried to what clothing she’d be buried in.

The only thing I’d asked was that they let her wear her boots.

“Hey, babe.” I lowered myself to the grass in front of her stone and hung my arms over my knees. “Brought you these.” Laying the wildflowers in front of the pink granite marker, I took a minute to pull some weeds that had sprouted around it since last week. I bet Margot likes hothouse roses, not wildflowers.

Tossing the weeds aside, I frowned and put Margot from my mind. Concentrated on imagining Steph here beside me, on all the familiar things I loved and missed about her until my heart ached. “I’m having kind of a rough time. August is always hard for me.”

If I closed my eyes, I could hear her voice, and I always knew what she’d say.

Are you sleeping OK?

“Not much at all.”

What about the meds?

“I don’t take them.”

She’d get exasperated. Jack. You have to! They were helping! You were finally getting a full night’s sleep on them.

“Fuck sleep.”

Did you come here to argue with me? We’ve been over this a thousand times.

“It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.”

You weren’t driving the car that hit me.

I closed my eyes and saw her walking along the highway, headlights careening toward her in the dark, felt the guilt slam into me with the force of five thousand pounds of metal and glass.

You weren’t driving the car that hit me, Jack.

I shook my head, tears in my eyes. “Doesn’t matter how many times you say it. I’m to blame.”

Why do you think that?

In my mind, another car moved through the dark—toward me this time. “You know why. You’re the only one who knows why.”

Stop it.

“‘Just as he has done, so it shall be done to him.’”

Jack! I’ll never believe that. Never. You did what you had to do.

My throat constricted. I tried clearing it, but my voice still cracked. “The price was too high.”

She was silent. Of course she was.

She only ever saw the good in me. And yet what I’d done had cost her life—I