Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(5)
And that was when I started my romance novel. It was basically a desperate attempt to distract myself from that hurt clawing its way through my heart. Everything was changing, no one needed me, and I needed . . . to just be okay. I’ve always loved reading, and writing seemed like the most incredible thing in the world. So for the first time, I let myself get lost every night in a completely made-up world. A world set in the Regency era where a kilt-wearing Highlander and a virginal youngest daughter of a duke fall in love and escape the pain of reality in each other’s arms.
What started as a silly idea quickly became important to me. Meaningful. It felt like stepping into my skin for the first time. There’s this unexplainable buzzing joy in my head while typing and plotting and even just daydreaming about my story. It’s the one place I have full, bright, and unwavering control. I had no idea what I had been missing out on all my life. And now I’m nearing the end of this story that no one around me knows exists and I’m not sure what to do with it. Delete it? Print it out and burn it in a fire? Those feel like the only two options since I think I might die before letting anyone else read it.
“Does she want to do the tour?” I bring myself to ask Noah in a level, casual tone even though my urge is to bite out something like But you won’t go with her, right? Because this is what I’ve gotten great at these days. Pretending I’m okay with everything.
He shrugs a shoulder. “She hasn’t made up her mind yet. I told her I’ll support her no matter her decision.”
“And we’ll support you.” I use my hands to smooth a stack of paper napkins into a perfect square beside the register. “You know that, right? If Amelia wants to go and you want to visit her . . . we’ll make sure the pie shop runs smoothly while you’re gone. Just like last time.”
This technically may be his pie shop after inheriting it from our grandma several years ago when the first signs of Alzheimer’s started presenting themselves, but it also belongs to all of us in the sense that we all grew up in here. Grandma always had a soft spot for Noah, though, and he had one for her. They shared a bond that the rest of us didn’t feel as strongly. Not for any real reason other than it’s just how some people gravitate more to certain people in this life than others. After my parents passed, Noah needed my grandma, and the girls needed me.
Needed being the key word.
A few minutes later, with the pie shop’s ledger in my tote bag and a great idea in mind for how to finish the last chapter of my novel, I’m in front of the coffee shop. It’ll be so good to focus on—
Wait. Is that . . . ?
My stomach bottoms out. Because right there in the town’s communal parking lot beside the coffee shop is an all too familiar blacked-out Land Rover. It’s parked directly beside my red-and-white ’85 Ford pickup truck in a move that couldn’t be anything besides intentional. The sleek SUV stands out like a sore thumb among the other rust buckets. Or like a snooty thumb—reigning supreme over all the other trucks and trying to assert dominance. This is the SUV of my nemesis. My nemesis who apparently isn’t married.
What the hell is Jack Bennett doing back in Rome, Kentucky?
Ignoring the weird flock of butterflies storming my stomach, I fling open the doors of the coffee shop like Aragorn entering the great hall in that one Lord of the Rings movie. I don’t have to even look around to find Jack. There he is, sitting at my favorite corner table with a streak of sunlight slashing over his chiseled face as if he’s the hero instead of the villain.
He’s wearing a vintage-looking shirt. Notice I said vintage-looking. Because it isn’t actually vintage. Jack would never thrift a piece of clothing. Everything he owns is new and expensive—and most likely custom made. (Which is wild to me considering his teacher salary matches mine.)
Take for instance the shirt he’s wearing. I’m sure if I were to look it up online, I’d find that it easily retails for over a hundred dollars. It’s a camp collar button-up with thick sage-and-cream stripes that run vertically down what looks like butter-soft material. On his lower half is an impeccable pair of mustard-colored trousers, rolled once, maybe twice at the hem, and casual brown boots. The only contradiction to his luxury style is the tacky, colorful, plastic-candy beaded necklace he’s wearing. He owns a handful of them in different forms. Oh, and he has several tattoos. But they’re all cute sticker-style designs of things like a smiley face, a cartoony Polaroid of an adorable worm with glasses popping out of an apple, a swirly ice cream cone, a tiger in a cardigan with a thought bubble that says rawr . . . you name an adorable design, and he has it.
This is Jack’s hook. His style is whimsical yet so charming, and dapper, and well done. It’s part of his tactic to win people over immediately with colors and textures and designs that the average man wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. Not me, though. I don’t fall for his fashion fa?ade. Or his nice hair that is neither blond nor brown but lives in an undefinable middle that changes without rhyme or reason. It is, however, classically, and predictably mussed. His bone structure is one that most people would consider exceptionally nice and sometimes he has scruff on his face and sometimes he doesn’t. I don’t keep close enough tabs to know for certain if there’s a pattern to it or not. But today, he’s clean-shaven.
Across from him sits not his fiancée but his leather laptop bag. One light brown, rustic boot is propped up on the foot of the table leg and his attention is focused on his laptop open in front of him like he’s someone important. He’s not. He’s a seat stealer, that’s what he is.