Unforgettable

by Ann Christopher

  Pushing him away had turned into a cottage industry for this woman. Knowing that, he had no idea why he let it bother him so much every time she did it.

  Luckily, needling her was his cottage industry.

  “Ma’am, there’s nothing I can do,” the delivery guy said wearily. “We produce the signs according to your specs—”

  “What’s going on?” Daniel asked Zoya brightly. “New sign? Spin Gold? I like it.”

  Zoya’s entire body went rigid, as though Madame Tussaud had replaced her with a waxwork.

  “No,” she said slowly. “The name of my shop is Spun Gold.” She faced the delivery guy. “And I am not paying for this sign, so you can take it back to the city with you.”

  “Once you approve the proof, ma’am, the sign cannot be returned. You own this sign.”

  Zoya widened her stance. “If you think I’m going to—”

  “Can I help?” Daniel asked, keeping his expression Boy Scout-earnest.

  Zoya’s eyes flashed. If she’d been in possession of a rotten tomato, she’d have aimed it at Daniel’s forehead.

  “The most helpful thing you can do for me,” she said in a voice like a cyanide tablet with a candy coating, “is to let me handle this. Okay? Buh-bye.”

  “Suit yourself,” Daniel said, shrugging. With that, he headed down the sidewalk to Java Nectar.

  “I am not going to pay for this sign,” Zoya snarled behind him. “The proof I approved didn’t have any misspellings.”

  “Well, we can check the e-mail,” the delivery guy said.

  “We will check the e-mail—”

  Daniel arrived at Java Nectar’s outdoor seating area, selected an empty table that was just inside the wrought iron fence, about a yard from where Zoya and the delivery guy were facing off, scraped out a chair, sat, picked up the menu and sighed with tremendous satisfaction.

  The view was perfect.

  Like orchestra seats at Carnegie Hall.

  When Zoya made a choked sound, he looked up to discover her gaping at him.

  “Don’t mind me.” Daniel idly flapped a hand and turned a page in the menu. “I’m just getting lunch.”

  Zoya opened her mouth and closed it again, choking off what had promised to be a furious rant, and instead focused on the delivery guy.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said tightly. “I’m getting my phone so we can check the proof I e-mailed you.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Zoya marched off. Delivery Guy pulled out his own phone and made a call.

  “Yeah, listen,” he said with a furtive glance at the front door to make sure Zoya wasn’t coming back yet. “I know I’m late for my next delivery, but this freaking b—”

  Daniel shot to his feet, the top of his head preparing to blow off. “Call Zoya a nasty name and I will make it my life’s work to get you fired.” He hit Delivery Guy with a hard stare. “Your choice.”

  Delivery Guy grimaced at Daniel, but didn’t argue. “Let me call you back,” he said into his phone. “Yep. Bye.”

  Daniel had just enough time to school his features, sit down again and resume his menu perusal before Zoya came back waving her phone triumphantly.

  “Here’s the proof,” she told Delivery Guy, pointing at something on the screen. “No typos. Spun Gold. Not Spin. Spun. Your company owes me a new sign and I want it immediately. No later than two weeks. Don’t give me any of this twenty-one business days nonsense. Got it? And I think a fifteen—no, twenty—percent credit for the delay and my trouble would be appropriate.”

  “My pleasure,” Delivery Guy grumbled, looking as though he’d been force-fed a live earthworm as he packed up the defective sign and carried it off to his truck.

  Daniel kept his head down and worked on smothering his smile, but apparently he wasn’t discreet enough.

  “You have something to say, Daniel?” she asked in an icy voice that belonged deep inside some ancient crypt.

  “Well done,” he murmured, glancing up at her. “Kitten has sharp little claws, doesn’t she?”

  She’d had her hands on her hips and her glower firmly in place, but something in her expression softened.

  He found himself holding his breath, desperate for a flash of her true smile, but all she had for him was wariness and reluctant attention.

  “I’d, ah, love to see your shop,” he said quietly. “When you have time to show me around.”

  You’d think he’d asked to videotape her next dental exam by the way she gaped at him. “It’s a fiber arts store. People buy stuff for quilting and knitting. You don’t think you’re going to find golf clubs or a man cave in the back room, do you?”

  “I want to see what you’ve built.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you built it.”

  Long pause, almost like the idea tempted her.

  “It’s not a good idea,” she finally said, which was no surprise.

  What was surprising? All the ways, big and small, that this woman managed to hurt him.

  She shifted restlessly. Smoothed her hair. Cleared her throat.

  “Listen. About last night...”

  Daniel sat up straighter, listening hard.

  A vivid blush crept over her cheeks. “I think we need to—”

  Behind them, the door to Spun Gold banged open. “Service industries with no service. Customer’s always right. Don’t they know that?” said a craggy male voice. “Don’t know why we have to get ugly. Make threats and—hang on. That you, Danny Boy?”

  Daniel hastily stood and faced Zoya’s father, his heart pounding hard, which was a real problem when it felt like it was lodged in his throat. “It’s me, Big Shel.”

  Sheldon Thomas, of the now defunct Sheldon’s Tailoring, emitted a whoop of surprised laughter and opened his arms. “Well, give an old man a hug, boy! How you been?”

  Daniel tried not to get choked up. He really did. But the sudden loss of his friendship with Big Shel all those years ago had been almost as painful as the implosion of his relationship with Zoya. Whereas Daniel and his father couldn’t be in the same room for ten minutes without challenging each other to a duel and naming their seconds, he and Big Shel had always just clicked. Maybe it was because Big Shel never had a son and was happy to have Daniel hanging around and watching a ball game on a Sunday afternoon. Or maybe it was because Big Shel was always glad to see Daniel and had never felt the need to polish him up into some ideal son that no human being could ever possibly achieve.

  Most likely it was because Big Shel was one of the greatest men who’d ever put on a pair of pants.

  Regardless, Daniel had always wondered what he knew about why Daniel and Zoya had broken up, and what sort of reception Daniel would receive if he ever saw him again. As Zoya’s father, Big Shel would have been well within his rights to swing on Daniel’s head with a baseball bat, but all Daniel’s worry had been unnecessary.

  He should have known that Big Shel, unlike Zoya or his own father, would never give him the cold shoulder.

  No matter what.

  The man had aged, but who hadn’t? His short Afro was all white now, the lines in his caramel-skinned face more prominent. The right side of his face remained still and his smile pulled to the left side, the result, Daniel figured, of his brain surgery. But his voice was strong, his eyes bright and his herringbone slacks perfectly creased and cuffed, as always.

  Clearing his gruff voice, Daniel leaned across the fence and gave him a bear hug. The joke was that Big Shel was a little guy, as petite as his daughter.

  “Good to see you, man,” Daniel said.

  Big Shel slapped him on the back before pulling back to study him with eyes that were as sharp as ever behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Why such a stranger, Danny Boy? We missed you.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Zoya said sourly.

  Daniel swiped his nose with the back of his hand and tried not to notice the strain in Zoya’s profile as she glowered off in the other direction.

  “
I’m, ah, sorry about that.” Daniel swallowed hard. “I heard about your health scare awhile back. I’m sorry about that, too.”

  Big Shel flapped a hand. “Water under the bridge. I’m good as new. So where you been at?”

  “I, ah, joined the Air Force. Then I moved to Napa after my discharge. Ran a winery.”

  “You back for good now?”

  Daniel’s gaze involuntarily flickered back to Zoya. “I am.”

  Frowning, Big Shel turned to his daughter. “Why didn’t you tell me Danny Boy was back, Z?”

  Zoya shrugged irritably. “I am not the town crier. You have eyes. You can see that Daniel is back. Leave me out of it.”

  Big Shel’s studied her long and hard. “It’s past time for hard feelings. Don’t you think?”

  “Well, there it is.” Zoya crossed her arms, carefully avoiding Daniel’s gaze. “A clean slate because my father says so. How nice.”

  With a final sidelong glare at her, Big Shel turned back to Daniel. “Stop by tomorrow ’round one. We can watch the Pats whoop up on the Bills.”

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, startled and pleased. “I’ll bring chips and beer.”

  “Z? You’re welcome, too,” Big Shel said.

  “Tomorrow? Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve got a busy day of winding yarn,” she said sweetly.

  And there it was. Another rejection. How many were they up to now? Four? Five? Daniel found himself gripped with a sudden violent longing for another lazy Sunday in front of the roaring fire at their house, with bowls of turkey chili in their laps while they jeered at whichever team dared to face the Pats that week. But no. Zoya wasn’t having any of that, was she?

  Why wouldn’t she sit down with him for a little while? Where was the harm in something that would make her father happy? In that irrational moment, Daniel forgot about his plan to just wave and keep going, but maybe it had only ever been a delusional fantasy.

  Because Daniel could never muster up any indifference—pretend though it may be—toward Zoya. Not when he hated everything about her, especially the eyes that held no warmth for him and the mouth that refused to smile his way.

  “Your loss,” he said, his voice brittle.

  “Not really.”

  With that, she breezed off, disappearing back into her shop and banging the door as she went.

  Daniel hung his head, trying to lock down some of his hostility toward her.

  Big Shel seemed to know it. “Some things take time, Danny Boy.”

  Daniel laughed harshly. “Yeah? Well, some things never happen. No matter how much time you give them.”

  Big Shel cocked his head and gave him a thoughtful look. “Come on. You don’t believe that.”

  Daniel opened his mouth for a rebuttal, and it was going to be a good one, too, powerful and clever. But Big Shel had already slid his hands into his pockets and begun meandering back to the shop.

  “See you tomorrow,” he called, leaving Daniel alone with his best friends, the twins Anger and Bitterness.

  Slumping back into his chair, he stared moodily at the passersby and tried to focus on the menu and the non-Zoya parts of his life. Given all the signs, he’d be doing a lot of that for the foreseeable future.

  So...

  Lunch with a real estate agent. He checked his watch. Almost time. He hoped there were some nice apartments available near the winery, but it didn’t really matter in a town this small. He could walk wherever he—

  The door to Spun Gold banged open again.

  He quickly looked around, pulse thumping hard.

  “Listen.” Zoya hurried over, her expression grim. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter 8

  Daniel tried to rein in that familiar kick of excitement low in his gut. “What’s up?”

  “If this is going to work, we need some boundaries,” she said, her color high.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You don’t want to see me. I don’t want to see you—”

  He felt his jaw clench.

  “—and this is a small town. You can’t just show up.”

  “I can’t walk down the public sidewalk past your shop?”

  “You can’t sit”—she gestured at his table— “here and listen to my conversations. You can’t show up at my father’s house.”

  “He invited me.”

  “How about you say, ‘No, thanks, Big Shel’? Couldn’t that work?”

  Daniel shrugged. He found this annoyed side of Zoya extremely fascinating, he had to admit. “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to watch the game with him.”

  “Watch the game with your own damn dad. Leave mine out of it.”

  “Yeah, no.”

  “You don’t see me showing up at your parents’ house.”

  “If my mother were here, she’d tell you you’re always welcome.”

  “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

  “Okay. I get it.” He laid his arm across the back of the chair and leaned back, the better to study her. “You’ve had the run of the town for the last fourteen years and now you think you get to tell me where I can go and who I can see. Doesn’t work like that, Kitten. You don’t get custody of Journey’s End. Sorry.”

  Poor Zoya now seemed on the verge of apoplexy, with a red face and a vein grooving down the center of her forehead. “I expect to run into you at Java Nectar or, I don’t know, the grocery store. I don’t expect you to spend Sundays on my turf.”

  “Big Shel’s a guy. He’s not your turf. You talk to him and tell him how you feel. If he wants to disinvite me...” Daniel shrugged again.

  “You better believe I will.”

  She wheeled around to head back inside.

  “But I’m starting to get the idea,” he called after her departing back, “that you still have feelings for me.”

  She stopped cold, her shoulders going rigid. It took her a second to face him again, which gave him the time he needed to school his features into bland curiosity.

  But then she came at him, walking down the sidewalk and into the Java Nectar seating area so she could plant her hands on his table and get in his face.

  “I know this will come as a complete shock to someone like you, who has an ego the size of a herd of elephants, so it’s a good thing you’re already sitting down.”

  Daniel snorted out a surprised laugh, riveted by the rough sound of her voice and the way the sunlight caught her brown eyes, creating sparks of gold.

  “You are not the center of the known universe,” she continued. “Has no one ever mentioned that to you?”

  He leaned in, the better to feel the heat radiating off her body and catch a whiff of jasmine on her skin. “The question is whether I’m the center of your universe.”

  Her sweet mouth twisted into a disdainful sneer. “Not even a little bit. Sorry.”

  “You understand my confusion, right? I’m polite. I’m clean. I give to charities and pay my taxes. But you can’t stand to be in the same block with me.”

  “I’m sure it’s a common problem.”

  “Hmm. What did you say? I was distracted by the view.”

  He shot a pointed look at her titties, a good fifty percent of which were on display because of the way her posture made her top gape open. Just to really rile her, he ran his fingers over her collarbone (thrilling; velvet and fire) and watched closely for her reaction:

  She shivered, her pupils dilating.

  And that made what she said next all the more amusing.

  “Enjoy the view all you want,” she said silkily, not moving an inch. “That’s as close as you’ll ever get to them again.”

  “I disagree. No one would have thought I’d have your thighs around my waist last night, and look how that turned out.”

  “We have a certain chemistry. I’ll admit it.”

  The admission caught him by surprise, but he kept his poker face on.

  “Your body admitted it last night, but it’s nice to hear your mouth admit it, too.”

>   “But we can’t go around having sex in semi-public places,” she added.

  “I have a bed...you probably have a bed...”

  “I’m done having sex with you, Daniel. Sex clouds the real issue.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we’re toxic together.”

  In a sign of how unhinged he was becoming where she was concerned, this assessment rubbed him the wrong way. The two years he’d spent with Zoya in college had provided him with the biggest laughs and the highest highs of his life. It didn’t seem right that their ugly end should wipe all that out.

  “Toxic’s a strong word.”

  “You got a better word?”

  “Volatile.”

  Something in her expression twisted. She abruptly straightened, depriving him of the spectacular view. “I’m done with volatile. I’m too old for it. Bye, Daniel.”

  Not so fast, Kitten.

  Reaching out, he caught her by the wrist, but kept his grip loose enough for her to break, if she wanted.

  Evidently, she didn’t want.

  She stared down at him with open impatience. “What?”

  “We like fucking each other. We haven’t gotten that out of our systems yet. We’re both adults. Why stop?”

  “Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.” There was that taunting laughter again, sharpened to a razor’s edge, and his gut tightened accordingly. “My dildo can fuck me just as well as you can. And it won’t stab me in the heart when it’s all over.”

  All his rage at her flashed to the surface, reflexively tightening his hold on her fragile bones. “You can’t stab what’s not there, Kitten.”

  To his enormous satisfaction, that hateful laughter died a swift death. If he’d hurt her, he considered it a tiny fraction of the pound of flesh he wanted to extract from her over the way she’d hurt him.

  “Let. Go. Of. Me,” she said, nostrils flaring.

  He turned her loose.

  She took a deep breath. Tugged the bottom of her top to straighten it. Shot him a cool smile.

  “See? This is our problem. We can take an otherwise beautiful day and turn it into something ugly. Why would you want any part of that?”

  He stared her in the face. “Because of the fucking.”

  Zoya stiffened. For one twisted second, he actually thought she’d take a swing at him. Actually hoped she would. Anything to show he still affected her as much as she affected him. But then—