Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) Read Free Page B

Tristan was barely using the one crutch these days, but he was no doubt embarrassed just the same to hobble around in front of new acquaintances.
    Since they were obviously taking the ‘Jackal’ car, she moved around to the passenger side but found it locked. Instead of unlocking it from the driver side, Jack was suddenly there and gallantly opened her door himself.
    After a round of parting phrases, Chris disappeared into his house. Jack voiced a start command and the engine rumbled to life. Feeling Tristan’s astonishment, she turned, and sure enough, his eyes were bugging.
    “Did Daddy use a key?” His wide gaze suspiciously narrowed as he tried to solve this mystery.
    Jack grinned, but again he did not turn the expression to her. Following the SUV out of the circular drive, he verbally conversed with his car again until music thunked through the speakers.
    The twisty residential roads spilled into a boulevard. Streetlights were flickering on, and car brake lights were bumper to bumper on the interstate he merged onto. Tristan fell asleep.
    Shadows were beginning to fade into grayness with evening well on the way to becoming night. She could handle silence between them. Although it was uncharacteristic, they were both tired.
    What she did not like was feeling invisible. He was not acknowledging her presence in any way, and she was feeling insecure enough about this trip and their new relationship to let this go without a confrontation.
    “Is something wrong?” Twisting slightly in her seat, she eyed his profile.
    “Wrong?” Finally, he briefly met her eyes, but did not rest a hand on her leg or any of the other normal Jack moves.
    “What’s wrong?” Determination fueled the quiet demand, and she alternated her gaze from the windshield view of this strange, crowded city to the emotions crowding his face.
    “Nothing?” Blithely, he continued with the denial game.
    “You’ve been weird since we landed.”
    “It’s nothing,” he insisted. Just when she became convinced she was paranoid, his outburst came. “It’s just–you went all fangirl on my dad!”
    Startled into silence, she finally found her tongue. “It was kind of hard not to! When it was dropped like that on me.”
    “I know.” At this, he sounded regretful and guilty. “But damn Mariss, I thought you were going to ask for autographs or something!”
    “It caught me by surprise! Damn Jack!”
    Was he embarrassed by her behavior? This implication hurt her feelings. Intensely. Up until now, she had only seen a Jack who went out of his way to be considerate of her and Tristan’s feelings.
    Seething silently, she tried to hold back tears. What was it with crying lately? Why was she always on the brink of tears? She was tougher than this. Sternly, she pulled herself together and even let a scowl scrunch up her brows for good measure.
    This time, instead of voice commanding the stereo, he put out a finger to shut the volume down.
    “I guess it just gets to me because you are all into his stuff and not mine.” The husky words were quiet, almost petulant.
    Immediately, her eyes dried and jerked in astonishment to his face. In that way she was becoming accustomed to, she found one of Tristan’s moody expressions darkening his dad’s features. It probably was not fair to Jack that because of years of experience with Tristan’s moods, at times like this, he was an open book to her.
    “I’m into your stuff...,” she protested. While it felt stupid to reassure an adult about such trivial things, she understood. Many times she had not felt like an adult especially when it concerned people she loved. How childishly she had handled ‘winning Jack over.’ For emphasis, she firmly repeated, “I’m into your stuff.”
    “No. You’re really not.”
    “That’s not true! Stop saying that! I have everything of yours!”
    “Not listened to,” he muttered.
    “What?”
    “Look at your playlist. My shit has half the listens of—anything