she blew out a breath. “Meaning?”
“Well, we haven’t stopped arguing or trying to outdo each other since we met.”
“I’m not trying to outdo you. I’m trying to figure you out.”
He glanced at her, one dark eyebrow rising above his sunglasses. “And what conclusions have you jumped to?”
She scowled. “Who says I’ve jumped? Maybe my conclusions are spot-on.”
He faced front. “Care to share them with me?”
Inexplicable nerves knotted her stomach as his smile vanished and his brow furrowed. It was pointless trying to deny how much more attractive she found the laughing, smiling John to the quiet, dangerous one.
She cleared her throat and focused on the road ahead. “I might be wrong, but I get the impression you’re in Templeton under duress.”
Silence.
She pressed on. “Am I right?”
He maneuvered the car through the traffic, his jaw tight.
When it was clear he wasn’t going to provide an answer, Sasha’s palms turned unusually clammy. “So, you’re not going to tell me how you’ve found yourself in this unfortunate situation?”
“I don’t know if it’s unfortunate yet.”
Curiosity sparked like a flint inside her. “I would’ve thought you’d have come to that decision upon our first meeting. I wasn’t exactly welcoming. And then the decidedly chilly phone call...followed by this morning’s fun and games—”
“Where you attempted a full-on assassination.” He glanced at her. “There’s nothing you or anyone else in this town could do that would be worse than what Kyle’s done. Don’t worry about your hostility toward me since I arrived...I’m not.”
A strange sensation skittered through her chest at his clear dismissal of her actions...and her. Cursing the heat that struck her chest and face, she looked to the side at the passing facades of the pretty, pastel-painted Victorian houses turned bed-and-breakfasts. She blinked against the frustration burning her eyes. “Great, well, that’s good. If there’s any chance of this working out, we need to get along.”
“You don’t want this to work out.”
She snapped her head around. “What?”
“Didn’t you say you have an offer for me? For the fair? That means you want me out of here ASAP.”
Sasha glared, wishing for a second time he’d remove his stupid glasses. Moreover, she wished they weren’t driving this fancy bloody car with him in the actual, and metaphorical, driver’s seat. “Yeah, and God willing, you want the same.”
“I don’t know what I want yet, so don’t hold your breath.”
Sasha curled her hands tighter around the straps of her bag in her lap. Her passion for the fair was so deeply seated no one but her grandfather and her best friend, Leah, could possibly understand what John Jordon’s presence did to her.
The man confused her. Gave her zero to work with...or on. She had to figure out a way to break through his ice-cold veneer whenever they talked about Kyle. She’d made him smile a few times, which was one thing, but clearly anything to do with his father sparked a livid anger she’d be hard-pressed to break.
She couldn’t lose this chance to make the fair hers again. Not now. Not after all the careful planning and waiting. She breathed deep. It was always best to tackle a challenge head-on. Not avoid the ugly and sit safe in the pretty. That achieved nothing. If she could figure out how much loyalty he had to Kyle, she’d know how much of a barrier John would erect against selling Funland to her—and how likely he was to find a way out of that godforsaken, and possibly devastating, clause. She swallowed. “I’ve got a question.”
He glanced at her. “Hmm?”
“Why don’t you call Kyle ‘Dad’? Seeing he’s summoned you here and kicked Freddy to the curb, I’m assuming your father trusts you, otherwise why would he—”
“Kyle called me here because he can’t afford to trust anyone else. You and I both know he has enemies all over Templeton and beyond. I’m here because he’s halfway up shit creek without a paddle. Believe me, if he could’ve asked anyone else to ensure all his loose ends were tied up, he would have.”
“But you’re his son. It makes sense he’d—”
“Son?” He eased to a stop at a red light. “He slept with my mother. That’s it.” He whipped his sunglasses from his face and tossed them onto the dash. “He’s not my dad. That’s the first and last time I hope to have to tell you that.”
His glare was a strange, complicated mix of sadness and anger that struck Sasha’s chest like a demolition ball.
“What the hell happened between you two?” she whispered.
His broad chest rose and fell beneath the tight stretch of his shirt as his gaze left hers and wandered over her face, coming to a stop at her mouth. “We’ll never have enough time together for me to tell you what happened between Kyle and me so let’s just concentrate on why we’ve been thrown together like this. Business, Sasha. We talk business only from now on.”
She pursed her lips and turned away from his mesmerizing blue eyes, her body rigid with a nervousness she’d never experienced around his father. The anger emanating from John was in no way normal, yet she didn’t sense any violence in him like she had in Kyle. In John, there was only sadness—and a whole dollop of a man recovering from huge betrayal.
The question was, what the hell did he intend to do about it? And would she get caught in the guaranteed and dangerous cross fire?
* * *
JOHN TRIED AND failed to level his breathing as he pressed hard on the gas and screeched away from the light. Damn Sasha and her incessant questions. Her intelligent, far-too-aware gaze didn’t help, either. Did she ever quit interfering? Or flirting? John inwardly cursed. Flirting? She wasn’t flirting—he damn well wanted her to flirt. That was the crux of his frustration and he was more angry about that than anything Kyle had exposed him to so far.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
God, he didn’t want to shout at Sasha and he certainly didn’t want to frighten her. He loved women. Loved the kids he worked with even more. His father had already seeped into his blood, turning him into someone he’d constantly fought so hard not to be. An angry, bitter man like Kyle.
The busy road caused him to stop and start in a long queue of traffic, bringing his nerves to the point of breaking. A tense silence hung heavy in the air, pressing on his chest and making him want to apologize as they slowed to a stop at a junction. He couldn’t show her a single facet of the personality he left in Oxford. The funny, kind history teacher whom the staff held in high regard because “he has a way with the kids,” or the guy who scribbled away at a Tudor mystery novel in his spare time. John smiled wryly.
God, he’d love to know what she thought of that John Jordon.
He sensed her study of him and turned. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes almost black as she stared with open curiosity. He snapped his eyes to the windshield and his armor slid into place with a resounding clunk inside his head. He’d been a good man, a good teacher and mentor for a long time. He liked that person and intended keeping him under wraps for the entirety of his time in the Cove. More and more people would soon know he was here and wonder why. He would find a way to leave Kyle without a penny of his immoral earnings and then leave.
Forging friendships—he glanced at Sasha—and starting to like people was out of the question. If he kept up the mystery surrounding himself, no one need know how he was venting an anger so deep it was shameful. The less Sasha got to know him, the easier he could leave town guilt-free because she had no idea who he really was and how much John actually cared about