by Lizzie Shane
“Andi’s fantastic,” Mark went on. “I always hated the way things ended between us.”
Then why did you leave her, dumbass? Ty sipped his scotch, trying not to grimace at the taste.
“We both wanted a family so badly, but I knew myself well enough to know that I wasn’t the kind of guy who could ever raise someone else’s kids, you know? If I’d tried to pretend, the bitterness would have festered and it would have destroyed us. It was the hardest decision of my life, but I knew it was the right one. The best one for both of us.” Mark emoted for all he was worth, but the man was a shitty actor and Ty wasn’t buying it. “I’ve been really worried about her. We all have. But now that she’s met you, I’m even more sure it was the right thing to do. And how perfect is it that you already have your own kid? We all want to see ourselves in them, right? It’s biological for men. Instinctive. But for women, I think it’s different. They’re more capable of nurturing someone else’s cub, am I right? Which is perfect for you two. You need a mom for your kid—”
“You know what?” Ty interrupted, sick of listening. Andi wasn’t a handy mother in search of a cub to nurture. She was so much more than that and if this asshole couldn’t see how incredible she was, Ty wasn’t going to waste another second listening to this bullshit. He shoved his glass back at Andi’s dickhead ex. “I don’t really like scotch.”
He pivoted, striding quickly away, heading toward where he’d last seen Andi only to realize she wasn’t there anymore. Shit. Where was she?
Something agitated and urgent built inside him.
Was that what Andi saw when she looked at him? A handsome man who couldn’t get beyond the surface of things and what she could do for him to see the incredible woman she was underneath? Okay, yes, maybe that was who he’d been before, but Andi had believed he could be more. And he needed her to know he wasn’t that guy. He didn’t want her because she was a handy mother figure. He wanted her…
The thought trailed off, suspended for a moment in absolute clarity.
He wanted her.
Yes, he was attracted to her and yes he admired her and enjoyed her company, but this was something else. Something more. This was something in him reaching out to something in her.
This was… shit. Had he fallen for his assistant?
He waited for a reaction to the thought. He half-expected to be scared shitless by the enormity of it, but no panic came. It just felt right. Like everything with Andi felt. Two pieces of a puzzle—two very different pieces. Like yin and yang. But when they clicked into place, they balanced each other.
He spotted her, tucked into an alcove on one side of the dance floor, her head bent at what seemed to be an odd angle until he realized she was speaking into her cell phone. He hesitated, unsure if he should interrupt, and the gods smiled on him—she ended the call, tucking her phone back into her clutch.
He strode across the distance separating them, driven by an urgency he didn’t recognize. “Andi…”
He didn’t know what he would have said. Was I love you the sort of thing you blurted out at a Christmas party where you had to shout over Santa Baby? When she looked at him with a question in her eyes, he realized how out of left field a declaration of love would sound. Would she even believe him? And if she did, he hated the idea that her eyes would flicker with that uncomfortable pity right before she let him down easy.
Because while he’d always been confident he could have any woman he wanted, Andi was the exception. She’d always been the exception. The one person who saw through all his acts. Maybe that was why her opinion mattered so much.
Still. He wanted to tell her.
That nameless urgency drove him to stand only inches away from her, looking down into her face. Had she always been so beautiful? Her features hadn’t changed, but now he felt like looking at her was almost too brilliant. Like staring into the sun. “Andi…” he began again.
The PA system crackled to life. “Looks like we have a couple underneath the mistletoe! Andi Cooper and Ty Walker—it’s bad luck for the bride and groom if you flaunt this tradition!”
Ty had been prepared to ignore the announcement—until he heard his name and Andi stiffened, her eyes going wide as she tilted her head up to stare over his head. Ty followed her gaze. Sure enough. Mistletoe.
The crowd began to chant, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Andi flushed. Ty glanced over toward the dance floor where all eyes were suddenly on them—so much for their discreet little alcove.
“I guess we’d better…” he murmured, sliding his hand around the small of her back and bending his head.
“Ty…” she whispered. Protest? Plea?
Before he could decipher it, she went up on her toes. He raised his free hand to cup her face, she tilted her head up, and—
Sweet Baby Jesus, the woman knew how to kiss. Her lips were soft and pliant beneath his, silky sweet and so freaking tempting he angled his head and deepened the kiss without thinking, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth as his rational thoughts spiraled away.
She made a small, desperate sound in her throat, her arms tightening around him and only then did he become aware of her hands—one on his waist, one gripping his arm. Her body arched into his and he tugged her closer, until everything soft and womanly she had pressed against everything hard and male he had—
And a cheer went up.
Ty jerked back, lifting his head and releasing Andi’s lips, though he still held her in the circle of his arms as her family and friends hooted and hollered. He felt heat rushing to his face. Blushing. He was actually blushing. He’d kissed women in front of film crews and audiences and eager photographers who wanted to get a snap of him with his latest girl, but that was different. This was Andi. This was private, and the sight of one of her cousins eagerly recording it all with her cell phone made something tighten in his chest.
“Do I need to start thinking about planning another wedding after all?” Andi’s mother asked archly, appearing at their side as the next song started up and the rest of the party returned to the dance floor.
“Mom.” Andi pulled free of his hold, smoothing her hair away from her face as if he’d mussed it.
“What?” her mother asked innocently. “It’s good to see two young people in love.”
“We aren’t—” Andi started to protest, then seemed to catch herself. “It’s still very new,” she argued instead.
“Sometimes it only takes a day,” her mother sing-songed, dancing away toward the bar with a gleam in her eye.
“I’m sorry about that,” Andi whispered, not meeting his eyes.
“Why? I’m not.”
She looked at him then, her expression so alarmed he decided now was perhaps not the best time to confess his undying love. He’d ease her into the idea. Maybe on Christmas. Or at the wedding tomorrow. Weddings always put women in sappy moods, didn’t they?
And from the semi-panicked look in her eyes at the idea of the two of them being a couple, he was going to need all the help he could get.
* * * * *
She started apologizing again in the car on the drive back to the cabin.
“I’m sorry about that ridiculousness with the mistletoe. My family—”
Ty gritted his teeth, irrationally annoyed by her apology. “Andi, it’s fine. We’re good.”
Jade dozed in the backseat, her head lolling against the window.
“They shouldn’t have ambushed you like that. If I’d been paying attention I would have looked up and seen it—”
“Andi. Stop. You’re going to give me a complex. Was the kiss really that terrible?”
She went silent in the driver’s seat and he studied her profile. She sat tense. Upright. Her eyes straight ahead. Hands at ten and two. Rigidly in control. No sign of the woman who had melted like butter in his arms.
“For the record, the silence isn’t reassuring.”
She pursed her lips, still looking straight ahead. “I just
think we need to be clearer about our boundaries.”
Okay, he was confused. “I’m pretending to be your boyfriend. Did you want me to refuse to kiss you in front of your entire family?”
“No, of course not, but we shouldn’t have allowed it to get to that point. In a few days we’ll be back in LA and I’ll be back to being your assistant and I think it would behoove us to remember that.”
“Behoove.”
She didn’t look at him, but her mouth tightened. “We aren’t a family, Ty.”
“We just play one on TV?”
“Don’t make this a joke.”
He grimaced, no more amused than she was. “I make everything a joke. It’s my superpower.”
They pulled into the cabin’s small parking area then and Andi reached into the back seat to nudge Jade. “Jade? We’re home.”
But they weren’t home, were they? They were at the illusion of home they’d built for themselves, like an elaborate, perfectly dressed set for a television show.
Ty trailed the two females inside. He was starting to feel closer to Jade, but it seemed the closer he got to his daughter, the more Andi slipped away.
Ty helped Jade pull out the couch and the girl flopped onto it with a groan, still fully dressed. Andi had slipped back to the bedroom as soon as they got back and when he followed after getting Jade settled, he found Andi had already changed and climbed into the bed, the covers pulled up to her chin as she lay on her side with her back to him.
“Hey. Are you feeling okay?” Was she sick? It would explain the distant, listless mood she’d been in all day.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
Ty knew from personal experience that “fine” could be a minefield and it was one he wasn’t sure he was equipped to cross tonight. He’d never minded talking about the messy feelings stuff. His mother hadn’t raised a macho man and all his time in acting school had taught him that talking things out—especially with women—usually paid off. But he felt so out of his depth with Andi. She… mattered.
Tomorrow was soon enough to hash things out.
Electing not to push it, he murmured, “Sleep well.”
She was already sleeping when he fell into bed beside her fifteen minutes later, reassuring him that he’d made the right call. They needed their rest. They had a wedding to go to.
Chapter Seventeen
The wedding was perfect. Andi sat in the third pew at Clement Methodist with Jade and Ty as her little brother tied the knot, his face glowing with happiness. During his vows, something thick clogged in her throat and even though she knew it was a bad idea, she found herself reaching over to take Ty’s hand. He laced their fingers together and they sat like that as the minister said the words to make Alex and Megan man and wife.
She’d almost missed this.
She hadn’t wanted to come home. Hadn’t wanted to be a part of any of it since things fell apart with Mark. She’d distanced herself from her family, but had she really protected herself from anything? Or had she just missed out on all the good stuff?
The guests had been given bubbles instead of rice, but Mother Nature one-upped the wedding planner and as soon as the happy couple stepped out of the church, gorgeous fat snowflakes began to fall from the sky. Alex and Megan laughed as they ran to the waiting horse-drawn sleigh to be whisked away to the reception.
Andi watched them depart, hooking an arm around her mother for a side-hug when she saw her sniffling into her Kleenex. “It was a beautiful wedding, Mom.”
“It was,” her mother agreed tearfully. “When did you all get so grown up? I feel like I blinked and suddenly you’re all getting married or moving halfway across the country.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been back,” Andi murmured. “I’m going to try to visit more.”
“I understand why you needed your space.” Her mother caught her hand, squeezing it as the two of them began navigating the icy church steps in their heels. Ty had ended up on the sidewalk below, half-bent as he talked to Jade. “I know we should have been more supportive of your decision to divorce Mark. I know it was hard on you two when you kept miscarrying, but you just seemed so wonderful together—”
“Mom. It wasn’t my decision.”
Kathleen Cooper stopped moving, forming a human roadblock on the side of the steps. “What do you mean? Debbie said—”
“I don’t know what Mark told his mother or what she told you, but Mark was the one who wanted out. I told you that.”
Their friends and family flowed around them, most of them already to their cars and on their way to the reception, but her mother was staring at her, her face shocked. “No. You showed up at the door with a suitcase and said you were getting divorced. That you couldn’t live with him anymore.”
“He wanted us to live in the house together until the divorce was finalized. As roommates. I couldn’t do that after he served me with divorce papers.”
“Oh sweetie,” her mother whispered. “We thought it was what you wanted. That you wanted to walk away. You wouldn’t talk to anyone.”
“I couldn’t.” She’d felt her parents disapproval pulsing off of them in waves and it had just made everything worse—but had she tried to explain? She couldn’t remember. She’d been a mess. The memories of that time blurred together, though she remembered what happened next. She’d run.
“Andi,” her mother swallowed. “We would have listened—”
“I should have explained.” Andi squeezed the hand she was still holding. Time to stop running. Time to stop missing out on the people who loved her because Mark had been an ass. “I felt so ashamed. Like I’d failed in the most fundamental way. Part of me felt like everyone knew. Like you could all see it on me and I didn’t want to talk about it, but I shouldn’t have frozen you out. Any of you.”
Her mother squeezed her hand back, her eyes glistening. “We love you so much.”
“I know, Mom. I love you too.”
They hugged on the steps of Clement Methodist until her father climbed up to peer at them with a bemused expression. “Are these happy tears?”
Andi beamed at her father. “Very happy tears. Don’t you know we Cooper women always cry at weddings?”
Her father smiled, looping his arm around the shoulder of each of his girls. “It’s good to have you back, Andi-girl.”
“It’s good to be back, Dad. I’m going to try to make it less of a rare occurrence.”
“You could always move back,” he suggested as they descended toward the sidewalk that wrapped around the triangular town square. “Bet you could get a job here in a heartbeat.”
“I already have a job. And I think, crazy as it sounds, that I would miss LA too much. It fits me.” Maybe not as she’d been five years ago, but it fit the woman she was now.
“Is it just LA you would miss?” Her father eyed the man waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“Everything good?” Ty asked, one arm casually draped over Jade’s shoulders.
“Perfect,” Andi replied.
Except it wasn’t quite perfect. As they arrived at the reception hall and the party went into full swing, that became more and more clear.
She was a different woman, that was true, but underneath it all she still wanted the same things she’d wanted before. A family. The husband. The children. The certainty that she loved well and was well-loved.
Were those things really impossible for her now? Or had she been afraid to want them again? Afraid of the pain that came with losing that dream.
The reception made her feel off-kilter, stirring everything up, twisting her around, but she was so happy for Alex and Megan that the happiness overwhelmed her confusion.
She danced. She ate cake and drank champagne—even though it was barely noon. The wedding had been at ten in the morning to work around the Clement Methodist Christmas Eve services, but Megan and Alex declared that meant they had that much more time to celebrate afterwards. And celebrate the
y did.
It was perfect. Almost.
* * * * *
“Ty Walker! My man! How’s about a scotch?”
Andi’s ex sidled up to Ty at the bar, offering him a glass of amber liquid as if it wasn’t an open bar. “I’m good. Thanks,” Ty said, indicating the half-drunk beer he’d been peeling the label on as he waited for the bartender to pour him waters for Andi and Jade. His girls had been flailing on the dance floor for the last twenty minutes and that was thirsty work.
Ty had let them pull him out on the dance floor for one dance, though he was about as much a dancer as he was a singer. Broadway was not in his future. Andi had giggled at his moves—which had made it all worthwhile—while he’d threatened her with ruination should any video of his dance stylings ever surface.
Jade, thank God, had inherited her mother’s sense of rhythm.
Something went still inside Ty as he stared at the dance floor, the impact of that thought echoing. She’d inherited… What had she gotten from him?
Part of him understood what Andi’s ex had said last night, about the power of seeing himself in his child—but he still wanted to deck the asshole. For hurting Andi, if for nothing else.
Ty didn’t know why Mark seemed so determined to be chummy with him. Maybe to bask in the reflected glow of his fame. Or possibly to advertise to the good people of Clement what a healthy divorce he had by palling around with his ex’s boyfriend. Either way, it was annoying as hell.
At least he hadn’t tried to approach Andi again. Maybe the idiot had enough self-preservation instincts to recognize that wouldn’t have been good for his health.
The bartender set the waters in front of Ty and he reached for them, but he was too slow, Mark had already snatched one up in an eager hand, abandoning his scotch offering on the bar. “Let me help you with that. You’ve got your hands full.”
“I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it.” He’d hooked the neck of his beer between his fore and middle fingers, which let him pick up one of the water glasses with the same hand, leaving one hand completely empty. He extended his hand for the water, but Mark was determined to be helpful.
