No point in defending himself. She was right-he’d taken off right after Hunter’s funeral. He’d been too devastated by loss and guilt to stick around. A few months later he’d realized he needed to make sure Meri was all right. So he’d hired a P.I. to check in on her every few months. The quarterly reports had given him the basics about her life but nothing specific. Later, when he’d started his own company, he’d gotten his people to keep tabs on her and he’d learned a lot more about her. He’d learned that she’d grown up into a hell of a woman. Obviously she hadn’t needed him around, taking care of things.

“The downside of food as a friend,” she continued, “is that there’s an ugly side effect. Still, I couldn’t seem to stop eating. Then one day I made some new friends and I stopped needing the food so much.” She grinned. “Okay, friends and some serious therapy.”

“You were in therapy?” The reports hadn’t mentioned that.

“For a couple of years. I worked through my issues. I’m too smart and weird to ever be completely normal, but these days I know how to pass.”

“You’re not weird,” he said, knowing better than to challenge her brain. Meri had always been on the high side of brilliant.

“A lot you know,” she said. “But I like who I am now. I accept the good points and the bad.”

There were plenty of good points, he thought, doing his best not to look at her trim body. She had plenty of curves, all in the right places.

They continued to jog next to each other. After another five minutes, Meri increased the speed again and went into a full-out run. Jack’s competitive side kicked in. He increased not only the speed but the incline.

“You think you’re so tough,” she muttered, her breath coming fast and hard now.

“You’ll never win this battle,” he told her. “I have long legs and more muscle mass.”

“That just means more weight to haul around.”

She ran a couple more minutes, then hit the stop button and straddled the tread. After wiping her face and gulping water, she went back onto the treadmill but at a much slower pace. He ran a few more minutes-because he could-then started his cooldown.