“Hey,” she said, pushing aside one of her earmuffs. “That should have been a perfect shot.”
“Nah.” He waved his arm. “I knew you’d miss.”
“What?”
“You were excellent with your stance and grip. But you’ll never hit anything until you see it first.” He touched his temple.
“What?”
“See it. Then shoot it.”
Jenny didn’t quite get that, but she was determined. She took several more shots, each time amazed by the kick of the recoil. Finally she grazed the edge of the target. See it, then shoot it became her mantra.
After too many rounds to count, she improved somewhat. There was so much to remember—the mechanics of the weapon and the stance. The fine adjustment of breathing and trigger squeeze. And Rourke was absolutely right. She learned to visualize where to put the bullet, and then she put it there. See it, then shoot it.
Once the target was riddled with holes in all its vital areas, she lowered the Glock and turned to Rourke, smiling more than she had since losing her grandmother.
He mouthed “good job” and gave her a thumbs-up.
Afterward, he showed her how to clean the gun “—a clean gun is a safe gun—” and stow the protective gear. “I’m proud of you,” he said.
It was a simple statement, yet it drew an unexpectedly emotional response from her. She glanced away, fluffing her hair where it had been mashed by the earmuffs.
“That was meant as a compliment,” he pointed out.
“I know and I… I’m grateful.” She took in a deep breath. How could she explain it? “I was thinking I’d outgrown the need for approval.”
“Everybody’s born with that,” he said. “God knows, I spent my whole childhood looking for it.”
Interesting, she thought. These glimpses into his past were rare. “And then you gave up trying to get along with your father and walked away,” she recalled.
“What makes you think I walked away from anything?” he asked. “Maybe I was walking toward something.”
“Like what?”
“Like the kind of life I wanted, not the one my family wanted for me,” he said simply.
“And did you succeed?” she asked him. “Is this the life you wanted?”
“It’s the one I’ve got,” he said. “Same as anyone else.” He turned away then, closing the conversation. Jenny was just as glad to drop the subject. It was getting too personal. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go there.
They stowed their protective gear. Then she cleaned the gun, step by step the way he’d shown her while he looked on appreciatively. “So are you going to write about what happened today?” he asked as she finished up.
Caught off guard, all she could think about was the feel of his arms around her as he helped her with her stance. She wouldn’t be writing about that anytime soon. “It might be a stretch to fit a shooting lesson into a food column.”
“It might fit into your memoir.”
She slipped her muffler around her neck. “I wish I’d never said anything about a memoir.”
“Why not? I want to read it.”
Like he’d read all those books in his house with the unbroken spines? she wondered. “Why would you want to read a memoir about a family bakery?”
“Maybe I want to know the ending.”
“I don’t get to plan the ending.”
“But if you could, what would it be?” he asked.
“I can’t answer that.”
“Why not?”
“I’d need days to think about it. Maybe weeks or months.” That was the problem with too much freedom, she thought. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what to do.
“Bull. Everybody has a vision of how they want to end up.”
“They do? Do you?” She zipped up her parka.
“Yep.”
“And…?”
“And maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
At some point, without Jenny noticing it, they’d stopped walking and were standing very close, bathed in the yellowish glow of the sodium-vapor lights of the parking lot. She could feel his body heat. When she tilted her head back, she saw that he was studying her mouth with unmistakable interest. The thought that he was going to kiss her nearly caused her bones to melt. She wanted it. She dreaded it. She wanted it.
The indecision—and then the desire—must have shown on her face, because he took her arm and spoke in a rough whisper. “Jenny…”
She studied him in the pale, shadowy light and a terrible notion took hold of her. Falling. She was falling for him. She could almost hear the wind rushing through her hair as she fell, and this was bad. It was bad because it wouldn’t work out for them. She already knew that. They’d end up hurting each other and he’d withdraw and she’d get stuck here in this town forever.
She couldn’t think with him standing so close and looking at her like this. “I think, before we…” She didn’t want to put this into words. “We need to talk, Rourke.”
His smile held a hint of bitterness. “We’ve been talking plenty.”
He really thought so. He actually seemed to believe nothing more needed to be said.
“I’m not going to fall into your bed like one of your bimbos,” she said.
“I didn’t ask you to,” he pointed out. “And you did fall into my bed.”
“Alone,” she said.
“Your call.” With that, he turned, walked to his car and held the door for her.
Glaring at him, Jenny got in and fastened her seat belt before he could remind her. She shivered against the cold seat. The night was bitterly cold, and they’d reached the stage of winter when the days were so dark and the snow so deep, it was hard to imagine the season would ever change, or that the sun was shining somewhere in the world.
“I’m going to remember that promise,” she said as he slid into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
“What promise?”
She nearly laughed at the raw panic on his face. “Rourke McKnight” and “promise” were a bad combination. “You said you’d tell me how you want to end up one day,” she said. “Personally, I think it’s a bad
