With This Forever by Debra Clopton

Author:Debra Clopton [Clopton, Debra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Windswept Bay, Book Ten
Publisher: DCP Publishing
Published: 2018-01-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Jake went jogging the next morning. After he and Sammy Jo said goodnight. After the kiss that knocked him off his feet.

After dropping her off at her door, he’d hightailed it back down her stairs like a puppy with his tail between his legs. What had he been thinking? Since the first day he’d spotted her standing in the doorway of her shop, it had been as if he’d been functioning in a dream. Driven by something he’d never been driven by. And he’d wanted to be the man who kissed her on the beach.

And then he’d kissed her. And his world had tilted and suddenly, he was scrambling backward like a man on a slippery slide to another dimension. Was he ready for the emotions that had slammed into him as he’d kissed Sammy Jo?

The question reverberated through him with every thud of his running shoes slapping against the pavement along the ocean drive where he would meet up with his brother Trent for their weekly Saturday morning jog.

He couldn’t clear his head. A kiss was a kiss; always had been. Until last night. He had wanted to kiss Sammy Jo in the moonlight for her bucket list. He just hadn’t thought about the impact. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Sammy Jo kissing someone else. He’d wanted that bucket list item all for himself.

He had never felt what he felt when his lips touched hers. It was as if something inside him had come alive, as if she intertwined throughout him and filled him. She had shaken him to his core and he didn’t know what to do, or how to react to what he was feeling. So, instead, he’d shut down.

He tried to block it. Tried to pretend nothing had been different or special. Tried to be casual. But he knew that she knew something was wrong. She’d been very quiet on the ride home. He had been very quiet too, though he had started to say a few things but shut down in the end.

He’d told her goodnight and as lame as it was, he’d kissed her on her forehead before he’d left her. He just touched her cheek, backed away and then hurried down the stairs and back to his truck, back to his bungalow, where he had barely slept. He was an idiot.

“Hey, Jake. Wait up.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Trent jogging across the road from the side street leading up to where he and his wife lived at the top of the hill.

“Hey. Sorry.”

“Man, you were a thousand miles away.” Trent fell into stride beside him. “I saw you coming, plowing down the road like a train, lost in thought. What is on your mind, man? You just kept on going and passed me up without a thought.”

Jake rammed his hand through his hair, and slowed. Moving onto the shoulder, he stopped running. He stared out at the ocean below them. It was a beautiful place to jog but right now he saw none of it.

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