She filled two more drink orders, handed out more pretzels and nuts, and listened to Fergus regale the bar patrons with boyhood tall tales of his life in Ireland. She smiled as she pulled another tray full of drafts, thinking it was likely they'd heard the stories a dozen times or more, but, if they were like her, they never tired of listening to them. The town had rallied around Fergus after his stroke and the love Blueberry Cove had for him was made obvious each and every night, right here in the pub.
As comforting as it was to see firsthand that he was doing well enough, maybe her little voice was right, maybe he didn't need her to stick around. He'd be the first to say so, and had. Often. Maybe she should start planning her next adventure. It was hard to ignore the pang she got in her chest, every time she really gave that a thought. Leaving Fergus, leaving her family, the Cove. It had never been difficult for her before, but now . . .
A roar of laughter from the other end of the bar had her glancing again at her uncle, who was deep into his role as the entertainer, truly in his element. This place gave him purpose, gave him joy. It was both his life and his lifeline and she was both thrilled and relieved that he'd recovered enough to be able to maintain the place.
So, what gives you purpose? What gives you joy?
Kerry shook her head and allowed herself a private dry smile. Since when had she needed a purpose? Life gave her joy. Her big and bold life. There didn't need to be more, didn't need to be a specific thing that gave her life meaning. Not when she could do so many things, experience so many kinds of joy. She couldn't imagine that one place, one thing, would hold her interest for long, much less forever. Her thoughts immediately flashed to one place, one person, who'd held her interest far longer than any place, or anyone else had. A place and person she'd done her damnedest not to think about. Not since she'd packed her duffels and headed out, headed home. That's what she did. She came, she stayed, she enjoyed . . . then she moved on.
But in that moment, watching Fergus, her heart clutched inside her chest as she felt the love of family, the security of home, and, along with it, a deep sense of fear. Which was ridiculous. She, of all people, didn't do fear. She was the opposite of that, she was fearless.
She went back to work, and maybe her smile was a bit too bright, her laughter a bit too loud, the pokes and prods she enjoyed exchanging with the localsâher localsâa bit too forced. SheâKerry McCraeâwasn't afraid of anything. Certainly not of losing anything. Or anyone. She'd lost more by the age of three than most folks did in a lifetime. She'd been cured of fear before she'd been old enough for grade school.
She was in the back of the pub, delivering another round to the guys playing pool at the table Hardy and Perry had left behind for a rousing game of darts, when a hush fell over the folks crowded around the bar.
A man's deep, accented voice boomed through the sudden hush. “I was told I might find her here. Kerry. Kerry McCrae.”
If Kerry's heart had clutched in her chest before, it fully stopped functioning altogether the moment that voice reached her ears.
This is why you don't let yourself think about him, because then you won't stop thinking about him. And now you're hearing things.
Even as she thought the words, as she rationally knew that there was no way she'd heard his voice, not for real, some small part of her understood that the impossible had actually just happened.
She looked up, a fierce expression on her face, one meant to forestall even the remotest possibility that he was indeed right there. In the pub. Looking for her. It didn't work, of course. Because he was there. Standing right there. And she thought her heart might beat right through her chest wall.
So much for being fear-proof.
Someone, she didn't even notice who, took the badly wobbling tray of drinks from her hand as she moved toward him, seemingly without even moving her feet. It was like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe this whole night had been a dream and she was in bed, right now, and would wake up any second, and laugh at herself, then swear at herself, for letting him into her dreams. Again.
But it sure didn't feel like she was dreaming.
He was tall, a good half foot taller than her five-foot-seven frame. He was muscular, with thick shoulders and arms, narrow hips, big thighs earned over a lifetime of hard physical labor. His curly hair was close cropped and bleached white blonde from the sun, setting off eyes so blue they blazed from his deeply tanned face like twin lasers. He wore beat up khaki trousers, heavy leather work boots, and a faded forest green polo shirt with a somewhat ratty collar and the words
CAMEROO STATION
stitched in yellow over the front pocket, the threading equally frayed from hundreds of washings and the day-to-day abuse it endured given its owner ran a cattle station that was three-thousand-head strong and more than two thousand square miles big.
Someone pointed and his gaze swiveled to her, fixing her to the spot as neatly and securely as if he'd lassoed and roped her to it. And he could have if he'd wanted to, of that she had no doubt. Some dizzy part of her rapidly spinning brain figured he probably couldn't get his bullwhip through airport security. Another part acknowledged that the past year she'd spent convincing herself that he was just a man, like any other man, not some larger than life hero she'd foolishly romanticized into someone bigger, bolder, and even more brash than she was had been a complete waste of time. Because he was all of that, more than that.
“Jax,” she said. “Cooper Jax.” As if saying his name would somehow break the spell, vanquish the mirage she was still faintly hoping she was seeing. It didn't. Instead it brought the mirage a few strides further inside the pub as folks moved to clear a path. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she emerged from the back, until the two were standing no more than five yards apart, encircled by the completely hushed crowd. She wished she'd sounded strong, strident even. This was her turf now, her world. He was the interloper, the traveler. But her voice was hoarse even to her own ears, a mere rasp; her throat was too tight, too dry, too . . . everything, to manage anything more than that.
His smile was brief, a slash of white teeth framed by a hard jaw, but his gaze never wavered. “It's been a year. More than. And I've come to realize there's a question I forgot to ask you before you left.”
She had no idea what on earth he was talking about. She'd worked his cattle station for close to a year, the longest she'd ever stayed in one place. She'd left to come home for Logan's wedding. And, if she were honest, to save herself from having to decide when to leave. Because she'd come close to admitting that maybe she didn't want to. And she never let herself want. At least not anything that wasn't in her power to get.
Fear. Of losing.
If there was nothing to lose, there was nothing to fear.
“What might that be?” she asked, having to force the bravado that was normally second nature to her. From the corner of her eye, she caught Fergus, his gaze swiveling between the two of them . . . a broad grin on his face.
Codger
. To think she'd stayed for him. He was the only one who knew. The only one she'd confided in. Of course he was loving this.
Jax walked closer, and a murmur of unease swelled, but Fergus waved his good hand, like a silent benediction, approving of what was about to unfold, and they fell silent again.
Jax's gaze was locked exclusively on hers, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two people in the room. Everything else fell away, and she felt herself getting pulled in, swallowed up. That was always how he'd made her feel, as if she was this close to drowning . . . and that maybe she should stop trying so hard to keep her head above water.
He stopped a foot in front of her, and she lifted her gazeâand her chinâto meet his. “I thought if I gave you room, gave you space, you'd figure out that Cameroo Downs was where you belonged,” he said.
His words, the rumble of his deep voice, that accent of his, held her as surely as if he'd put his hands on her.
But then, that's why you left, wasn't it? He never put his hands on you, never once tried to hold you, much less anything more.
“Then you left,” he continued, “went home, and I told myself once you were gone, you'd realize it, and you'd come back.”
She struggled to listen to his words, to take in their meaning, but they were so completely at odds with what she'd thought of him, of what she'd thought he must be thinking about her, that it was hard. Impossible, even.
“But it's been a year. And you haven't come back. Not so much as a word from you.”
“Jax,” she said, the word not much more than a broken whisper. She cleared her throat. “I never saidâyou knew I wasn't coming back. You knew when I started, that I wasn't staying.”
“When you started, yeah,” he said, then moved another inch closer, and what little air she seemed to have pulled in, deserted her just as swiftly. “But by the time you left . . . I thought . . .”
She let herself sink deeper, and looked into his eyes. “You thought what?”
“It's been a year,” he repeated, and for the first time, she saw something behind that bold, fierce, confident gaze of his, something she'd never seen before, though she couldn't quite say what it was. “And I realize now that I should have asked.”
“Asked me to stay?” she said, hating the tremulous waver in her voice, hating more that she wasn't quite sure how she'd answer him if he asked now. “You could have just called.”
A titter went up in the crowd, and was just as swiftly snuffed out. It all barely registered with her.
“No, not that. I mean, yes, I wanted you to stay. But not as a wrangler. Or not only as one.”
And then she realized what it was she saw. She would have recognized it right off if she'd let herself acknowledge that it was the same thing she'd seen in her own eyes.
Fear.
What could Cooper Jax possibly be afraid of?
Fear of wanting what you can't have? Of losing what you want most?
But that couldn't be, because that would meanâ
“I wanted you to stay as my wife.”
The crowd gasped as one, and she might have gasped too.
“I've come all this way, Starfish, because I need to know. If I'd asked you then, if I'd pursued it, pursued you, would you have ever considered marrying me?”