Page 54 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

He stayed his course, still strutting ahead. “Were you honest earlier, when my mother asked how long you’d be in town?”

“Which part?”

“You said you’d stay in town at least until the festival’s over, which implies you might stay longer. Was that true?”

“It was.” Past tense. Unless she could figure out a way to have her cake and inhale it, too. God, she wanted to inhale Jack.

He turned down a long hall and paused by a doorway, then he faced her. “Why?”

He’d thankfully quit pursuing the job questions, but this topic shift was as daunting as splaying her heart on a chopping block. His face was impassive, unreadable. Evasion was an option, but he’d confided in her too much today to reciprocate with another lie.

“Because of you,” she whispered.

His stoic face relaxed. “Good.”

She wobbled, feeling breathless…and unhinged. Fantasizing about staying in Whichway was a stupid hypothetical game. It meant leaving Lucien and starting life from scratch. It meant abandoning Nisha to a beggar’s fate.

“Looks like I have some convincing to do.” Jack leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. He kissed her deeper until she moaned, then pulled away with a mischievous smirk. “Want to see my playroom?”

“Sure” was as witty a reply as she could muster. It was tough to focus when her future was barreling toward her at an alarming rate.

Jack took her hand and led her in.

She blinked at her surroundings. “It’s purple.” Like really purple. Purple carpet. Purple walls. Purple ceiling. A felt-like fabric covered the entire sound room.

“My granddad had my father build it. Bought a killer sound system, set up all the instruments on stage. He played in a band and would jam with the guys. I never picked up the whole instrument thing, but I’d come in here when I was upset or frustrated and blast music. Tune out the world.”

She eased her fingers from his grasp and stepped on stage. The ceiling was low, adding cocooned warmth to the funky room. She dragged her hand over the mic stand, the bass guitar’s strings, made a row of chimes trill with her index finger. Behind the drum kit, on the wall, hung a framed gold record. “Is that Elvis’s signature?”

Jack’s footsteps thumped quietly as he approached. He gripped her hips and pulled her back into his chest. “It was Granddad’s prized possession—Elvis’s last known signed record. He left it to me in his will. I brought it to the festival last year and put it on display. You should have seen the fuss. The tribute artists kept posing with it and snapping pictures.”

“I’ve never seen an actual gold record,” she said.

One that was undoubtedly worth a bucket of cash. Lucien would drool over it, could probably earn a mint selling it off. She immediately bit down on her tongue. This wasn’t a thing to be sold for money. This was a precious memento, and she was a guest in this house. A house she planned to rob.

The room suddenly felt too small.

Jack’s hands wandered around her hips, securing her in a tight hold. “I want to thank you,” he murmured. “Chloe may have pouted when we left the dining room, but I haven’t seen her this happy in ages.”

“It was nothing.” She leaned her head back onto his shoulder, tried to elongate her neck, allow more oxygen into her lungs.

“It wasn’t nothing. Things have been rough with her the past year.”

“Because of your father?”

“My mother, too. She’s been more distracted. I think the older Chloe gets, the more alone she feels. With our age difference and my work schedule, she’s pretty much an only child. All our aunts and uncles and cousins live in different states. And our mother isn’t exactly young and hip.” Jack rubbed his thumb along Clementine’s belly in a slow pattern. It wasn’t soothing her much, but it seemed to calm him. “She needs a woman to look up to,” he said.

Nope. The thumb rubbing definitely wasn’t soothing. “She has teachers, and she talked about friends.”

“She got in trouble recently, spray painting graffiti in town. Just to fit in, like a typical teen, but I think she’s lost. Isn’t sure who she is. Spending time with a woman like you could really help her.”

Forget stretching her neck, Clementine needed an oxygen mask. “You give me too much credit.”

“You don’t give yourself enough.”

He didn’t have a clue. Clementine was as good a role model as Al Capone. She was a criminal. She had no friends. The hours gossiping in Chloe’s room had been selfish time to pretend she was normal, to swoon over Chloe’s crush and just be a freaking girl. Not a con-woman. Another reason to quit procrastinating.

Agitated, she shrugged off Jack’s hold and banged into a cymbal. The clang vibrated in her chest. “Chloe’s smart enough to scare you in the woods. She’ll be fine.”