“Oh, lovely,” he murmured. “More than adequate. That makes me feel good.”
“Look at me!” She pointed to her breasts. “I should be the one feeling inferior.”
“You have the most beautiful breasts in the world,” he said. “I can’t imagine how they could be more perfect.”
Caley grinned. “So what’s the problem then?”
“Oh, there are several I can think of. First of all, if you’re running around naked, then I’m going to be running around sporting major wood. That’s just a fact. And I don’t think the public needs to be seeing that. And I also don’t think strange men should be looking at your body the way that I do. I like being the only one to enjoy that pleasure.”
“I like your body,” Caley said. “And I’d like showing it off to other women.”
“How about if I promise to flash an old lady at the airport? Would that satisfy you?”
Caley held out her hand to him. “I suppose it will have to do. And you were the one questioning my daring. You’re all talk and no action, Jake.”
Jake picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “You want action. I’ll show you action.” He carried her through the lobby, much to the interest of the front-desk clerk. Caley giggled as they stepped onto the elevator and she made Jake turn around so she could push the button for the third floor.
If she wasn’t already in love with Jake, then she was falling awfully fast. And right now, Caley had no intentions of doing anything about it.
7
JAKE SKATED IN A SLOW CIRCLE, moving the hockey puck along the ice with his stick. Then, sprinting across the ice, he took a shot at the plastic crate he was using for a goal. The puck popped up and then disappeared into glittering snow just beyond the rink.
He skated to the edge and searched for the puck. When he finally found it, Jake tossed it back onto the ice and plodded through the snow in his skates. Glancing up, he saw Caley standing on the stairs leading down to the lake’s shore. He stopped and watched her for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath and letting it go.
He’d barely seen Caley all day and when he’d tried to talk to her at the inn early that afternoon, she’d been preoccupied and irritated. They’d made plans for an early dinner and she promised to meet him at the boathouse. But she was three hours late and Jake ended up eating with his parents and siblings.
Everything had been going so well. Maybe this was bound to happen. If it was going to come to an end, then better with a bang than a whimper, he thought. Yet, he wasn’t willing to concede defeat just yet. He still had two more days, the rehearsal tomorrow and the wedding the next day. He turned away from her and returned to skating, moving around the perimeter of the homemade hockey rink.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Caley shouted.
“No problem.”
She watched him skate for a while. “I’d like to explain.”
“You want to talk, get a pair of skates and a stick,” he said. “I’m playing hockey right now.”
“Come on, Jake. Don’t be mad. I had to work. There was a big crisis and they needed me on a conference call. Then I had to write up a strategy report and send that in. And I haven’t been answering my messages, so my boss had a few choice words to say about the responsibilities of a partner at John Walters.”
“Do you even like your job?” Jake asked. He faced her, skating backward, until he reached the edge of the cleared ice. He skidded to a stop and rested his hands on his hockey stick.
“Of course I do.”
“Do you?”
“It’s a job. I get paid a lot of money. I like the money.”
“So, that’s what it’s all about then?”
“No. I suppose there’s some satisfaction in it. Although I spend most of my time making my clients look good when they do bad things. It’s not the most noble job on the planet. But I’m good at it. It’s what I do.”
“Maybe you should try something new,” he suggested. He skated toward the goal again and took another shot. This time, the puck hit the inside of the crate and knocked it backward. When he turned back around, Caley was trudging back up to the house.
He skated to the other end of the pond, watching her retreat. He felt an empty ache tighten in his gut and Jake cursed softly. Maybe it had been a little too perfect to last. He’d managed to convince himself that he and Caley had something special, that they were meant for each other. But the more he pushed, the more she drew away. He’d begun to think that maybe there were other reasons why she was so anxious to get back to New York.
“At least I didn’t love her,” he murmured to himself. “Not the way I could have.”
But even as he said the words, Jake knew that they weren’t entirely true. What he felt for Caley was more than he’d ever felt for any other woman, more than he could imagine feeling for another. He didn’t want to think of the two of them in finite terms, a relationship with a beginning and an end. Caley was the kind of woman who could keep him fascinated for a lifetime, the kind of woman he wanted to love.
Hell, if she was going back to patch things up with her old boyfriend, then he didn’t stand much of a chance. Jake drew a sharp breath as a sudden realization struck. Was this her way of evening the score? He’d rejected her years ago and now she’d reject him. It certainly would put her back on top, Jake mused. And that was always the game between them, who could best the other.
Jake continued to skate along the edge of the rink, moving fast enough to make his lungs burn and his heart pound. He turned the notion over in his head, but it was hard to reconcile it with the woman he’d come to know over the past week.
Though Caley might want to balance the scales, she’d done that in many other ways. He had fallen hard and hadn’t done much to hide his feelings from her. In truth, he’d done everything in his power to make her see how much he cared.
“Will you talk to me now?”
Jake turned the corner and saw Caley standing at the end of the rink, using a hockey stick to balance herself on her skates.
“Play,” he said.
“I can’t keep up with you.”
“Try,” he muttered.
When he came around the rink again, Caley skated after him, grabbing him around the waist and hanging on until they both fell to the ice. She hit hard, slamming down on her shoulder and crying out in pain. Jake quickly knelt down next to her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to talk to you. But you don’t want to listen.”
Jake helped her sit up and gently rubbed her shoulder. “All right. Talk. What do you want from me? I’ve pretty much put everything on the line here and for a while, things were good between us. Now it seems that everything is moving backward.”
“I don’t know what you expect,” Caley said. “Until a week ago, I was seeing another man. I’m not sure I’m ready to jump back into a serious relationship, especially with someone who lives halfway across the country.”
“It’s not halfway,” Jake insisted. “It’s about a third.”
“All right, tell me how it would work, Jake,” she said. “How would we do it? Would we spend every weekend together? Or would we see each other once a month? Would we talk on the phone every day? Would you go out with other women? Would I be free to date other men?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “We’d have to