Page 29 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

Once again, his acute observations cut too close to the bone. “You have seen the size of this town, right?”

He smirked. “It’s not large.”

“That’s one way of putting it. And maybe I like running with you and sharing our morning coffee.”

And hearing the slight lilt that twanged the ends of his words and how impassioned he was about his animal shelter and how liberating it was to share real details about herself. She liked a whole lot about Jack David, Tami’s meddling only upping his appeal. This was no longer a role. She wasn’t acting with him. All the lines were blurring, her commitment to finishing this job just as strong as her need to finish whatever she’d begun with Jack.

She leaned into him, could smell malt and hops and heat on his breath. “Tell me a secret, Not-Maxwell Jack David.”

* * *

That was a daring question, one Jack wasn’t sure how to answer. Sharing that he wanted her wouldn’t be new. He’d admitted that secret when serenading her in his shelter. She also knew he’d planned to keep away. And he’d tried, dammit. He’d sat there with Marco, his beer bottle close to shattering under his unforgiving grip. He’d watched, pained, as she’d joked with Imelda and Tami, as though she belonged on that stool, in this bar, in his town.

He hadn’t liked Tami talking to her much. That woman meddled worse than Marco and knew about the high school dance disaster, and the arrest he’d rather forget. That two-week period of his life had been something out of a “Just Say No” school assembly. It was partly responsible for Jack’s awkwardness with women now, but he didn’t fixate on it or ever discuss it. Kids were cruel. Shit happened. Dwelling on setbacks didn’t breed happiness. It didn’t mean he’d liked Tami chattering to Clementine.

He disliked that bearded man eyeing her even more.

The stranger had texted on his phone while occasionally watching her, innocent by all accounts. But Jack kept picturing him walking over, buying her a drink, taking her home. Jack was up and out of his seat before Marco could ask where he was heading. To Clementine. To a woman who wasn’t his but shouldn’t be anyone else’s.

Now she wanted him to share more than reptile facts and polite conversation. An urge tugged below his skin, to tell her about David Industries and his father’s cancer, details he hadn’t even shared with Marco. The pull was confusing and hard to fight.

“I stuttered as a child,” he told her. Not the thing he wanted to say. The safe thing, though still difficult. “It got worse in my teens, made those years hard for me—which I’m guessing Tami told you about.”

Clementine had the decency to look guilty. “She might have mentioned something.”

“I can always count on her.”

“You don’t stutter now.”

“Speech therapy helped, but ultimately, singing cured me. Focusing on the notes and rhythms loosened something in my brain. I’ve never seen my father so proud as the day I sang an Elvis song start to finish, not a stutter in sight.” Don’t ever stop singing, son, he’d said. Hearing your voice brings me joy. Jack hoped it would bring him that and more at this year’s festival, as long as he completed his research.

Clementine angled more fully toward him. “Tell me another.”

Her eyes kept flitting to his thumb, making him aware of his absentminded movements. She made him aware of the speed of his breaths—deeper and faster since sitting beside her. He’d become attuned to the chafing of his jeans along his thighs, the pressure of his laced boots. With her, all his senses heightened.

His thumb slid up and down his beer, drawing a slow circle, moving the condensation around. Was that a whimper from dear Clementine?

He smiled to himself. “I’ll give you another secret if you give me one of yours.”

The tiniest flinch darkened her face. “Who says I have secrets?”

A shaky question from a woman who’d lied about her name. “Here I was, just starting to like you, and you go being annoying again.”

She glanced around dramatically. “Who, me?”

“No. The other mysterious woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a bearded dragon named Lucy.”

“Does this kind of flattery get you far with the ladies?”

“If you listened to Tami, you’d know the answer to that.”

A covert smile tilted her lips. “Want a tip?”

“I’m all ears.” He was curious where Clementine was going with that sultry look of hers, the intimate drop in her tone.

She leaned in close, her warm breath ghosting against his lips. “From one idiot to another: when a girl avoids a question, calling her annoying won’t help your cause.”

He nodded sagely. “Who said I had a cause?”