Jake’s green eyes connected boldly with her own, looking for something. And then he moved his feet back to where they’d stood moments before. Gracie slid her arm away.
The waves in the distance continued their swells and rolls as Gracie’s emotions came crashing back to the sand.
She felt betrayed by her own impulsiveness. She couldn’t believe she was making the same mistakes again—thinking with her heart, not with her head. Hadn’t she learned anything from her time with David?
She had to remember that the same Jake Peoples who had mesmerized her just moments ago could steal her dreams and her future with just one vote from his friends on City Council.
She could not allow him to steal her heart.
Chapter Five
J
ake tried to use the soft sand beneath his feet to explain feeling off balance. It couldn’t be that walking near Gracie Garcia rocked his world.
Jake couldn’t let the moment pass without saying something. But what? What sense could he make of the unexpected, wordless moment that clearly lay on them both with an undeniable weight? He couldn’t just ignore it, much as he wanted to play it cool.
Before he could match words with his racing emotions, Gracie spoke.
“We should probably go. My car needs to be fixed before everyone comes out and sees me with you. People are beginning to ask questions about the closing of the school, and after you showed up tonight...” She paused, looking out at the waves. “Well, I just don’t want to have to answer everyone’s questions.”
Like a surfboard standing in the sand, a wall went up between the two of them. He immediately sensed the barrier’s instant appearance.
Many dates in Jake’s youth ended on this very stretch of beach. Most of them finished with a kiss. But all that sloppy teenage ardor couldn’t compare to the surge of adrenaline that filled him when Gracie stood near. In the past, he could always tell when the feelings were mutual.
Now, though, Jake couldn’t read Gracie. He knew he hadn’t imagined her arms around his neck. He couldn’t possibly have made up the tingle at the top of his spine when she threaded her narrow fingers through his hair.
Maybe he’d just made more out of the events because he hadn’t been here in so long. Maybe he really wasn’t the family businessman who could accurately assess a situation and react accordingly. Maybe he remained the lawyer from Austin who got caught up in what he wanted to see instead of what was actually there.
Without a word, he turned toward the car.
The corner lot holding the Victorian house in which Jake’s grandmother lived sprawled across half a city block. As they pulled through the back gate near the refurbished carriage house Jake rented from Nana, he noticed Gracie’s head turn slightly.
Was she wondering how many of the modest homes from the neighborhood surrounding Gracie’s church would fit within Nana’s ornate wrought-iron fence? Jake had never thought about Nana’s estate in those terms before, but now he couldn’t help it.
Gracie didn’t let out so much as one syllable to help Jake understand her thoughts. In fact, she hadn’t uttered a single word since she’d asked Jake to leave the beach. Thankfully, the drive didn’t last long. Each passing minute stuffed more awkward silence into the car, pressing around them until he noticed that there remained very little room to even breathe.
“I’ll be right back.” He couldn’t get out of the car fast enough, but then slowed his gait in order to give himself the maximum amount of time away from the uncomfortable quiet.
The workshop adjacent to the garage opened with the same key that had been under the mat for years. Jake went straight to the upright toolbox in the back corner and pulled out a narrow red drawer on the third row, then rummaged through a small plastic box. Pulling the rusted screw out of his pocket, Jake compared it to a new one to make sure it matched. Satisfied, he pushed the drawer back in, walked over to the door and locked up.
The whole trip to the workshop couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes. Jake wished it could have eaten more time off the clock. In fact, he wished he could have turned the clock all the way back to their earlier drive down Gulfview Boulevard, before he decided to take the detour to the beach.
That’s what he got for listening to all that church nonsense. Feeling moved to walk in Gracie’s shoes had gotten him nothing but the verbal equivalent of a blister. God probably thought it was funny that Jake got Pastor Ruiz’s message so wrong.
Jake would not give God, Gracie Garcia or anyone else the ammunition to point out his mistakes again. No more church, no more benefits of the doubt. Only a few days remained until he would prove he could be the CEO Peoples Property Group needed. No mistakes from his time in Austin, no more mistakes in his time with Gracie. No more mistakes, period.
His future depended on leading Peoples Property Group. Not on a teacher in Port Provident today—or one from Jerusalem two thousand years ago.
* * *
Tossing and turning all night left Gracie’s back sore and her head with a dull pain just over her right temple. She’d never before experienced a nonkiss that made her lose sleep.
She’d never before dreamed about a man who wanted to steal her life’s dreams.
She lost track of the number of times she’d awakened last night. Nothing helped. Not even counting sheep. All she’d wanted to count was the number of beats her heart skipped when Jake’s hands had brushed her arms.
Even now, hours after waking, every time her thoughts wandered to last night’s walk on the beach, Gracie lost the battle. But this month’s budget and bill paying called, and conquering the pile of papers covering the left side of her desk would take focus, not flights of fancy.
Gracie pulled out a pen and a book of stamps and set them alongside her computer keyboard, then opened her small business accounting software.
Before she could start, she heard a knock at the office door.
“Come in,” Gracie said, distracted once again from the task at hand.
“Holá, hermana!”
Gloria’s voice blew a beam of sunshine into the room. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Why are you sitting in the middle of a sea of paperwork? You should be dipping your toes in the water instead.”
Dressed in a floppy turquoise straw hat, a light cotton blouse and shorts, and a pair of matching rhinestone-bedecked flip-flops, Gloria looked ready for the beach.
“Because I didn’t build my business by slacking off. I may only be treading water right now, but if I stop, everything I’ve worked for will drown.”
“Gracie, don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?”
If her sister only knew about that turn of events at the beach last night.
“No, Gloria, I don’t. Jake told me he has to complete this stupid condo project in order to get the company’s board of directors to confirm him as the permanent CEO. If he doesn’t shut my school down ASAP, he’ll lose his job. Do you really think he’s going to let that happen?”
Gloria shook her head. “No, I guess not. When did he tell you this?
“Last night after church.” Gracie pulled another bill out of the stack.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to talk to him.”
“I wasn’t. Then my car wouldn’t start. He helped me out.”
“I see.” Gloria slowly leaned back against the door to the office. Gracie could tell her sister picked up on something unspoken. “So he told you his life story while he jumped your battery?”
Oh, he’d given her a charge last night, for sure. But Gloria didn’t need to know about that. “Well, no. We had to go to his nana’s house to pick up a part for the car.”
“He took you to his grandmother’s house?” Gloria crossed her arms. Gracie started to feel as though she sat on the stand, not behind her desk.
“I stayed in the car while he got the part from her garage,” she answered.
“So, when did he tell you about his job? I know where the Peoples estate is. It’s not far from the church. You’d barely have time to have a good conversation.”
Gloria’s ability to sniff out details kept her midwifery patients healthy and safe during pregnancy and labor.
At present, though, it pushed her younger sister into the danger zone. Long ago, Gracie and Gloria promised not to keep secrets from each other. She couldn’t break that promise, even now.
But would she really have to tell everything? She could still be truthful and not...well...almost-kiss-and-tell, right?
“You’re tapping your pen, Gracie. What are you hiding?”
“Nothing, really. We stopped at the beach for a few minutes while we were on the way to his house.” She pulled a bill out of the stack and started to write a check. If she was using the pen, she couldn’t very well tap it and tip off the sibling investigation squad any further.
Besides, by watching what she was doing, she didn’t have to look at Gloria.
“Mmm-hmm. So on your way to fix your broken-down car, you stop at the beach, where your business rival tells you he has to shut down your school or lose his job.” Gloria walked across the room as she spoke, coming to stand just across the desk from her sister.
Gracie gripped the pen tightly and reached for another bill.
“More or less.”
The phone began to ring, cutting off Gracie’s fight not to incriminate herself any further. After a quick glance at the caller ID, however, she decided not to answer.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Gloria asked.
“No.” The only person she wanted to say less to than Gloria was on the other end of the line.
Gloria stretched to read the caller ID screen, then with one quick motion, punched the speakerphone button. “Hello.”
“Hey, it’s Jake. I’m on my way over to your school. We need to talk. I know that moment on the beach complicated things...”
“Graciela Garcia de Piedra!
Eres loca?
Did you kiss him?” Gloria’s outburst probably blasted out the speaker on Jake’s cell phone.
“Gloria, I’m not crazy. Now hush.” Gracie shot a stern look at her sister and picked up the receiver. She would say as little as possible while in the company of her shocked sibling. “Okay, Jake. I’m just here doing some paperwork.”
“Your sister’s there? Do you need me to wait?”
“She was just headed to Surfside Beach.” Gracie tried to force confidence into her voice, but barely trusted herself around Jake after last night.
“Okay, I’m on Gulfview. I’ll see you in about five minutes.”
She laid the handset softly in the cradle, hoping Gloria would be as gentle with her.
No such luck. “Graciela, what do you mean that you’re not crazy? After church you said you didn’t want to talk to him—but somehow, a few minutes later, you find yourself on the beach, having a ‘moment’?
Explica, por favor.
”
“I didn’t kiss him. I promise. I don’t know how to explain it, Gloria. It just happened.”
“Gracie, nothing ever ‘just happens’ to you. You’re the most deliberate planner I know. It drives you crazy to assist me with births because you can’t organize labor.”
Gloria didn’t realize how perfectly her reminder fit the situation. Just as the natural process of childbirth seemed to take over Gloria’s clients, being there on the beach last night with Jake felt organic. Gracie could no more have held back from being attracted to Jake than a mother could keep from pushing on a contraction.
“I know, Gloria. We’ll talk it through when he gets here. It’s not going to happen again.” Gracie tapped her pen on the desk in a quick rat-a-tat.
Gloria quirked an eyebrow at the display of nervous energy. “Sure it won’t.”
“I’m serious, Gloria. I know now he doesn’t have any help to offer me, regardless of what the City Council expects. I’m just going to tell him I understand that and I’ll find a solution on my own. I should hear about that grant any day, and once I get that funding, it’ll be tough, but I’ll rearrange some priorities and do what it takes to keep the school running...somewhere, somehow.”
Gracie looked straight at her sister, making a promise with her eyes. “I’m going to meet with him right now and explain it, then I won’t need to see him again until the City Council meeting, when I’ll have to come up with something by myself.”
“Bien.”
Reaching out, Gloria patted Gracie on the hand. “I’ll let you take care of business. I’ll be at the beach for a little while if you want to join me when you’re through.”
Gloria turned toward the office door.
“Okay. This shouldn’t take long, and then I need to run by my P.O. box to check for that grant letter. I’ll call you later and see if you’re still down at the beach. A little break with some sand and sun sounds like just what the doctor ordered to take my mind off things.”
After Gloria left, Gracie tried to collect her thoughts in the few minutes before Jake’s arrival.
Last night, he said things between them weren’t personal, only business. Then with no warning, everything turned very personal. Too personal.
These days, Gracie couldn’t afford many extras. She knew about prioritizing. And even though she’d thought of nothing else but last night’s moment in the moonlight, the price was too high. Saving
El Centro
was the only thing that mattered.
She needed a plan. She needed new options. She did not need Jake Peoples. She didn’t need anything that took her away from running her school and remaining available to her students. Attraction and relationships, even of the casual kind, didn’t have a place in her life’s budget. When she’d broken that rule and made time in her life for David, she got shortchanged. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
In order to save her school—her life’s work—she couldn’t.
The bell on the front door jingled, breaking into Gracie’s thoughts.
The instant Jake walked through the office door, his presence filled the small space. Even though he was dressed casually in khaki pants and a navy knit polo shirt, Gracie’s breath caught a little in her throat. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He looked polished.
He looked unaffordable.
“Gracie, I need to apologize to you...”
Jake’s words began to flow out with a rush, but Gracie interrupted. “Really, Jake, if we just—”
He cut her words off. Two strides closed the distance between them. “Gracie, you don’t need to say anything. This is my fault.” He leaned against the desk, using his hand for balance. He came so close to Gracie that she could feel the heat his body generated.
She couldn’t help but stare. Five fingers, with neatly trimmed nails. The faintly defined muscles in his arm showed the effort of a man who worked out, but not to excess.
Remembering how much she’d let her guard down and wanted those arms to hold her last night made Gracie’s eyelids slide closed.
She didn’t want Jake to apologize.
“Gracie? You can’t even look at me now?” Jake’s voice cracked.
“No, Jake. That’s not it at all. It’s just...just my head.” Gracie flicked her wrist dismissively.