Simply Irresistible (30 page)

“You know, you’re standing right here,” she said softly. “And yet I feel like you’re far away. You hold back so much. Do you
do it on purpose?”

“Yes. I’ve done it on purpose for so long I’m not sure how to do it any differently. You know me, Maddie. You know what I
do, where I like to go—”

“I know that about a lot of people, Jax. I know that about Lucille, about Lance. Hell, I know that much about Anderson.” She
poked him in the chest. “I want to know more about
you.
I want—” She was toe to toe with him, getting mad, standing up to him.

She wasn’t afraid of him. She was in his face, holding her ground, and he’d never been more proud of her. “You know more,”
he said quietly. “You know my friends, and that I have a screwed-up relationship with my father. You know I drive a beat-up
old Jeep so that my big lazy dog can ride with me wherever I go. You know that I don’t pick up my clothes and that I like
to run on the beach.”

She made a soft noise, and he stepped closer and brushed his hand over her throat, where, to his chagrin, she had whisker
burn. “You know how much I like to touch you.”

Her eyes drifted shut. “And I like all those things about you,” she admitted. “Especially the last…” A soft
sigh escaped her, and she met his gaze. “But you’re still hiding—I can feel it. What are you hiding, Jax?”

With a long breath, he took her hand. “Telling you would involve breaking a promise. I can’t do that.”

“Because of what happened to you when you were a lawyer?”

“Nothing happened to
me,
” he corrected, voice rough with the memory.

She slid a hand up his stomach to his chest, holding it over his heart. “You were trying to help her, Jax. You didn’t know
what she’d do. You couldn’t have known.”

“I failed her.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “And now here I am, back between the rock and a hard place.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t.” He looked into her face, so focused on him, so intent, and drew a deep breath. “Your loan on the inn.
I know who holds the note. I know that if you’d make contact, your refinancing would be approved.”

Her brow furrowed. “You can’t know that for a fact.”

“I do. I know it
for a fact.
I’ve tried to get you to look into it, but—”

“Oh, my God.” Her mouth dropped open, and she stepped back from him. “It’s you.
You
hold the note.”

He reached for her, but she slapped his hands away. “No. No,” she repeated, her chest rising and falling quickly. “Is it you?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? All those times we talked about it—”

“And every single time, I tried to steer you—”

“You
tried
to steer me. You tried to
steer
me.” Her eyes were filled with disbelief. “I’m not a sheep, Jax. I was lost and stressed and overwhelmed and freaked out,
and you… you had the answer all along.”

“I was trying to protect the here and now, and also you. I wanted you to refinance. With me. But your stubborn-ass pride would
have reached up and choked you if you thought you were accepting anything from me that you didn’t earn. I knew that unless
it was your idea, you’d go running hard and fast.”

She shook her head. “So you kept it from me to be noble?”

He grimaced, swiping a hand down his face. “Yes, but in hindsight, it sounded a lot better in my head.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned away from him, then whipped back. “And the trust outlined in Phoebe’s will. You know all about
the trust, too?”

He wished she would just kill him dead and be done with it. “Yes.”

“Is it you? Did she leave the trust to you?”

“No.”

“Then—”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“That, too.”

She jerked at his answer as if he’d slapped her, and she pretty much sliced open his heart at the same time.

“I remember distinctly asking you if there was anything else I should know about you,” she said very quietly.

“This isn’t about me. It wasn’t my place. It still isn’t my place—”

“You’re my friend. You’re my—” She broke off,
staring at him from eyes gone glossy with unspeakable emotion. “Well,” she finally said quietly with a painful pause. “I’ve
never been exactly sure what we are, but I’d hoped it was more.”

“It was. It is. God, Maddie. I
couldn’t
tell you. I made a promise—”

“Yes. I’m getting that. And since you certainly never made me any promises, I have no right to be mad.” She ran a shaky hand
over her eyes. “I’m tired. I want to go back to the inn.”

“Not until we finish this.”

“Finish this?” She let out a mirthless laugh and started walking to the Jeep, her steps measured and even, her fury and hurt
echoing in each one. “I think we just did.”

Maddie tiptoed into the dark cottage. The only lights came from their Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Pressing a hand to her
aching heart, she went straight to the kitchen, to the cupboard where Tara kept the wine.

It was empty. “Dammit.”

“Looking for this?”

She whirled at Tara’s voice, squinting through the dark to find her sister sitting on the kitchen counter in a pristine, sexy
white nightie, holding a half-empty bottle of wine in her hand.

“I’m going to need the rest of that,” Maddie said.

“No. The sister getting regular orgasms doesn’t get to have any pity parties.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure the orgasms are a thing of the past.”

“What? Why?”

“Because he hid things from me. From us.” Moving
into the kitchen, Maddie hopped up on the counter next to Tara. “You’re probably too drunk to retain any of this, but it’s
Jax.
He’s
the note holder.”

Tara had gone very still. “Did he… tell you that?”

“Yes, because suddenly he’s a veritable pot of information. He knows about the trust, but he remained mum on that, the rat
bastard.”

Tara stared at her for a long moment. “He probably had his reasons. Good reasons. Maybe even
very
good reasons.”

Maddie sighed and thunked her head back on the cabinet. “Why are you drinking alone?”

“I do everything alone.”

“Tara…” Was there no end to the heartaches tonight? “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Oh, sugar.” Tara tipped the bottle to her mouth. “Are you always so sweet and kind and… sweet and kind?”

“I’m not either of those things right now.”

Tara closed her eyes. “I look at you, and I feel such guilt. I’m so full of goddamn guilt, I’m going to explode.”

“Guilt? Why?”

“You maxed out your card for me. You were willing to stay here, even alone if you had to, to take care of things. And all
I wanted was to leave. You have so much to give, Maddie. You’re a giver, and I’m a…” She scrunched up her face to think. “Sucker.
I’m a life sucker. I suck at life.”

“Okay, no more wine for you.” Maddie took the bottle. “And we
all
maxed out our cards. Well, except Chloe, cuz she turned out not to have any credit, but you and I both—”

“For different reasons,” Tara whispered and put a finger over her own lips. “Shh,” she said. “Don’t tell.”

“Okay, you need to go to bed,” Maddie decided.

“See that.” Tara pointed at her and nearly took out an eye. “You love me.”

“Every single, snooty, bitchy, all-knowing inch,” Maddie agreed. “Come on.” She managed to get Tara down the hall and into
the bedroom, where Chloe was still sleeping. Tara plopped down next to her and was out before her head hit the pillow.

Kicking off her shoes, Maddie changed into pj’s and crawled over one sister and snuggled up with another, both making unhappy
noises as she let her icy feet rest on theirs beneath the covers.

“Maddie?” It was Tara, whispering loud enough for the people in China to hear. “I’m sorry.”

“For drinking all the wine?”

“No. For making Jax hurt you.”

“What?”

Tara didn’t answer.

“Tara, what do you mean?”

Her only answer was a soft snore.

Maddie bolted awake sometime later, fighting for breath. Gasping, she sat straight up as horror and smoke filled her lungs.
“Oh, my God!” she cried, fear clenching hard in her gut. Fingers of smoke clouding her vision, she shook her sisters. “Get
up, there’s a fire!”

“Wha—” Tara rolled and fell off the bed.

Chloe lay on her back, eyes wide, wheezing, hands around her throat, desperately trying to drag air into her already taxed
lungs.

Maddie leapt off the bed and dragged a suffocating Chloe with her. God, oh, God. “Who’s got their phone?”

“Mine’s in the kitchen,” Tara rasped through an already smoke-damaged voice.

So was Maddie’s.

Nearly paralyzed with terror, they turned to the door and staggered to a halt. There were flames flicking in the doorway,
eating up the doorjamb, beginning to devour their way into the room.

No one was getting to the kitchen.

Tara ran to the window and shoved at it. “It’s jammed!”

Chloe dropped to her knees, so white she looked see-through, and her lips were blue. Maddie grabbed a T-shirt off the floor,
dumped water from the glass by the bed onto the material, which she then held over Chloe’s mouth. “Inhaler. Where’s your inhaler?”

Chloe shook her head. It was clenched in her fist and clearly hadn’t given her any relief. By the way she was fighting for
air, she was deep in the throes of the worst attack Maddie had ever seen.

“Maddie, help me get this open!” Tara cried, straining at the window.

Maddie already knew that window was a bitch. The sill and window frame had been heavily painted over several times, the last
being a decade ago at least. They hadn’t worried about that before because it’d been too cold to open it.

“Air,” Chloe mouthed, no sound coming out of her, just the wheezing, her eyes wide with panic.

Her panic became Maddie’s. The window wouldn’t budge, and they didn’t have time to fight it. Chloe was
going to pass out. Hell, Maddie was going to pass out. The smoke had thickened in the past sixty seconds, the heat pulsing
around them and the fire crackling at their backs.

Maddie grabbed the small chair in the corner, dumped the clothes off of it, and swung it at the window. She used the chair
legs to smash out the last of the sharp shards and grabbed the blanket from the bed, tossing it on the ledge so they wouldn’t
get cut on the way out.

They shoved Chloe out first, and she fell to the ground, gasping for fresh air. Tara went next, holding on to Maddie’s hand
to make sure she was right behind her.

Maddie hit hard and took a minute to lie there gasping like a fish on land. From flat on her back in the dirt, time seemed
to slow down. She could see the stars sparkling like diamonds far above, streaked with lines of clouds.

And the smoke closed in on the view, clogging it and blocking out the night.

Sounds echoed around her, the whipping wind, the crackle of flames, and, oh, thank God, sirens in the distance.

“Good,” she said to no one and closed her eyes.

A
t two o’clock in the morning, Jax was lying in bed attempting to find sleep when his cell rang. Hoping it was Maddie saying
that she’d changed her mind, that she wasn’t dumping his sorry ass, he grabbing the phone.

It was Sawyer, and Jax took a long breath of disappointment. “Been a while since you’ve called me in the middle of the night.
Ford need to be bailed out again? Or are you just that excited for Santa?”

“You need to get out to the inn, now. There’s been a nine-one-one fire call.”

Jax rolled out of bed, grabbed his jeans off the floor and a shirt from the dresser. He jammed his feet into boots, snatched
up his keys, and was out the door before Sawyer got his next sentence out.

“—Fire and rescue units have been dispatched. Do you have Maddie?”

“No.” Christ. He sped down the highway, heart in his throat. “I dropped her off an hour and a half ago.”

“I’ll be there in five,” Sawyer said.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

It took him an agonizing seven minutes to get into town, and when he passed an ambulance racing in the direction of the hospital,
his heart nearly stopped.

He flew down the dirt road, his heart taking another hard hit at the sight of the inn with flames pouring out of the windows
and leaping high into the night.

The lot was a mess of vehicles and smoke and equipment, making it nearly impossible to see. He peeled into the area, pulled
over, and barely came to a stop before he tore out of his Jeep. His pulse was pounding, and his legendary calm was nowhere
to be found.

The cottage was gone. Completely gone. The second floor of the inn was on fire. It was a living nightmare. The lights from
the rescue rigs slashed through the night as he passed police and fire crew and leaped over lines of hoses and equipment to
come to a halt before the blackened shell of the cottage.