As quietly as possible she moved in his small kitchen, pulling together all the ingredients for a spinach and mushroom quiche, mildly impressed at how well Dean’s refrigerator was stocked. But the small boxes of vegetarian sausage and plant-based chicken strips mixed in with Dean’s staples of bacon and beef tugged at her heart.
In that moment she realized just how much she’d missed her best friend. Even though she’d grown incredibly close to Angela, one of the members of her team, over the years they’d traveled from one corner of the globe to the other, their bond wasn’t the same as the one she had with Dean.
Inevitably when she was laying alone beneath the netting that covered her and her bed to keep mosquitos away, she’d have a twinge of homesickness that nearly always centered around the Carlisle family. A group of people she liked to claim as her own, even if there weren’t any blood ties. She’d missed Dean like crazy, but the entire clan held a special place in her heart.
The same heart that shivered in her chest at the jolt of pain that came from the remembrance of her deception to those she loved most in the world.
Something she did for own family, even though Helena had never shown her even a fraction of the warmth Tracy Carlisle did.
Somehow she managed to mix together all the ingredients, fill the pan, and set it in the oven without her brain actually engaging in the task, too preoccupied with its current path of self-damnation. Questions about the decisions she made—and roped Dean into—threatened to drown her under their weight.
She was still distracted when a hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump two feet in the air and spin around, brandishing the spatula she held to serve the quiche like it was a weapon.
Dean laughed and held his hands up, palms out to her. “I promise I come in peace.”
She smacked his bicep lightly, well, sort of lightly, and turned to silence the timer signaling the food was done cooking. “You don’t do anything in peace. You have redefined ‘troublemaker’ since childhood and I have pictures as proof.”
A look of mock panic crossed his face. “I thought you got rid of those.”
“Nope.” She popped the end of the word for emphasis. “A girl needs to be prepared.” She gestured to the table already adorned with silverware, napkins, and two glasses of orange juice accompanied by a steaming mug of coffee for Dean and a cup of tea for her. “Sit down, this only has to set for a few minutes, then we can eat. You don’t have to leave until eight, right?”
Dean’s eyes tracked her movements and gave her inexplicable butterflies when she caught him staring at her out of the corner of her vision. It’s simply been too long, she told herself. That’s the only reason I’m acting this way. It’s just Dean, after all.
He took a long draw from the coffee and inhaled deeply when she set the plate in front of him. “So Jillybean, to what do I owe the honor of this delicious meal?”
She shrugged and filled her own dish, taking the seat next to him. She had every intention of playing it off, but the cloud of deceit following her since her return was bothersome enough. “You’ve been amazing. I have asked the world of you and you’ve not only gone along with a ridiculous plan,” she glanced down at her ring and stroked the inside of the band with her thumb, “but you’ve managed to go above and beyond. And meanwhile…I haven’t asked one damn thing about you. How you’ve been, what’s going on at the ranch, and what in the blue hell Mat is doing here.”
She leaned forward and grabbed his forearm. “Please tell me that Mat actually is here and I wasn’t hallucinating that entire thing in some weird hangover-induced stupor.”
“No, he’s real. He moved here permanently almost a year ago.” Dean chuckled and pushed a forkful of the quiche in his mouth. The laughter dissolved into a moan of contentment. “Damn, this is phenomenal.”
Heat worked its way up the column of her neck. “Thanks for the compliment, Sparky, but I still want answers.”
His cell phone called out from the counter behind him and he leaned back in his seat to grab it. With an annoyed groan, he swiped several times across the screen before setting the device down next to him. He shoveled in the rest of his food in record time and stood up. “Shit, I’m running late.”
He disappeared in that moment, and faster than she could blink he reappeared with a towel slung around his waist, his hair damp from a record breaking shower. “Breakfas wath amating,” he garbled out around the foam and toothbrush hanging out of his mouth before vanishing again.
Dean emerged seconds later in a t-shirt and jeans. Disappointment swept over Jillian as he tugged his light jacket on and shoved his feet into a pair of tan boots. He caught her gaze from across the room and she noticed the lines forming around his lips. Even more questions than the unanswered ones that she’d already asked popped up in her mind.
A small smile that didn’t quite reach his dark blue eyes curled his lips. “How about I bring home Chinese and we can binge watch whatever reality show you need to get caught up on? We can talk more then.” His expression moved from thinly veiled concern to goofy in seconds and he threw her a wink before opening the front door. “That’s the kind of thing old married couples do on Friday nights anyway, right?”
Before she could answer, he vanished, softly latching the door closed behind him.
Chapter Ten
Dean
Thirteen Years Ago
“You’re kidding with that shit, right?”
Dean grinned over at Jillian. “Mighty dirty mouth for a proper lady there, Miss Monroe. Must be the influence of a good man.”
She rolled her eyes and splashed him with water as they trod in the pond that was far too small for any meaningful swimming. “First of all, we are fourteen. You can’t call yourself a man at fourteen. Second of all…yes, it is completely all your fault.”
He paddled a few short feet until his toes touched the grainy bottom and he walked the rest of the way to the edge, plopping down on the towel stretched across the rock and baking in the summer sun. “Come on, Jillybean, it’ll be fun. Also, feel free to not mention to my mother all the words I’ve taught you over the years. She still yells at Tanner for swearing and he’s an adult.”
The reflected shine on the water made reading her face impossible. “I don’t know…”
“S’mores.” He pulled out the biggest gun he had, her favorite dessert. The same one she’d never had until the ripe old age of ten when he’d first introduced her to the gooey creation that she immediately fell in love with. “We can roast hot dogs and make s’mores and I can tell you the most gruesome ghost story I can think of before I send you home to your bed in the glass castle.”
Jillian groaned as she followed the same path he’d just taken and stretched out on the blanket beside him. It was weird seeing his best friend change and he wasn’t sure he liked it. The skinny girl who’d made herself right at home in his world seven years ago was looking…different.
Sure all that makeup crap that her mother had caked on her face for certain functions made her look strangely untouchable, but even now when it was just the two of them hanging out by Fredrock and every single one of her freckles stood out, she wasn’t the same.
Her long flame-colored hair glistened in the sun. She was still much shorter than him, but her small body was filling out in ways he couldn’t help but notice. And he couldn’t give her full lips more than a passing glance or thoughts about her would go to places they absolutely did not belong.
Jillian was beautiful.
He cleared his throat and stared off in the opposite direction. No matter what, this was still Jillian. She was his best friend, not a girl he should be looking at that way.
“I’d have to be back by midnight.”
The smile returned to Dean’s face. Damn, he loved winning. “You know my mom gives me a curfew even when it’s summer and even when I’m just in the backyard, so that isn’t an issue.”
She rotated her head and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Y
ou better make my s’mores right this time. The marshmallow has to be on fire before it’s actually done.”
He rolled his eyes and laid back on his towel beside her. “Don’t worry, I know what to do.”
Several minutes of silence stretched between them with only buzzing from a random passing dragonfly or bee to break the quiet. Before he was actually ready to move, Jillian stood and grabbed the clothes she’d worn to cover her swimsuit and began pulling them on.
“I need to go home and shower and at least pretend that I care what boring function my parents are going to tonight.” She neatly folded the towel that he would throw directly in the dirty clothes bin as soon as he crossed the threshold of his house and twisted and tugged until her hair was in something that looked way too good to belong on a girl who just spent the past two hours swimming in a pond. “They’re leaving around seven-thirty so I can just come around eight. Henry and Frieda don’t care and they’ll never breathe a word to my parents.”
With a grumble he managed to keep contained in his brain, Dean rose to his feet, slung his towel over his shoulder, and shoved hers under his arm. “I’ll wait for you by Fredrock. You don’t need to walk all the way to my house by yourself. And you know my dad will insist on driving you home.”
She took a few steps away, then turned back to him and bit her bottom lip and raised her hand, curling her fingers in a small goodbye. She opened her mouth and closed it, then cleared her throat before speaking. “See you then.”
He was almost certain he caught a glimpse of red on her cheeks he didn’t think came from the sun.
Weird. Girls were just plain weird. The uneasy roll of his stomach made him wonder if weird was contagious.
***
Jillian
Thirteen Years Ago
“I’m perfectly capable of walking to your house by myself. You didn’t have to stand there like some creeper watching me from the time I walked out the back door.” Jillian crossed her arms and huffed as she stomped past where Dean was waiting by Fredrock, exactly as promised.
Dean shoved his hands in the front pockets of his denim shorts. “Even if I didn’t want to make sure you were okay, my mom would’ve skinned me alive if I didn’t. She harps on us all the time to be considerate and gentlemanly. Whatever the hell that means.”
The corners of her stomach tickled from the butterfly wings a sudden bout of nerves created in her belly. Nerves? With Dean? She tried to ignore that and focus on her rapidly fading irritation with him. “Your mother is a saint to put up with you alone, much less all four of you.”
“Hey,” he nudged her shoulder as they crested the small hill that brought his home into view, “I’m supposed to be your best friend. As in you have my back through thick or thin.”
Jillian threw him a suspicious look in the slowly fading light of the late summer evening. “I thought you said you were making a bonfire.”
With all the exaggerated drama only Dean could affect, he rolled his eyes and threw his hands up toward the sky before dropping them against his thighs. “I am going to make a fire.” He pointed to a mound in the distance. “See, I have a stack of logs and branches ready to go.”
She frowned as they closed in on the pile of wood. “Why didn’t your dad already get it going? Or Wyatt or Tanner?”
He dipped his chin and zeroed in a lethal laser gaze. “Seriously? I mean…seriously? Jillybean, you’ve known me for seven years. Do you really think I need my dad or any of my brothers to build a fire for me?”
Jillian lifted one shoulder and surveyed the wooden structure in the center of a two foot tall ring of stone that reminded her of pictures she’d seen of teepees. She plopped down on one of the dozen Adirondack chairs situated around the pit. “I don’t know what it takes. The fireplaces at my house are all gas, so my dad just pushes a button and they light up.”
She bit back the giggle that threatened to spill out as he gathered some small twigs and two weird looking rocks, mumbling the entire time about the glass castle, his nickname for the cold, unwelcoming house she grew up in. She turned her head and gave a little sigh as she drank in the sprawling two story brick structure Dean called home. It was spacious, only slightly smaller than hers, but even from the outside it held a warmth she’d never experienced at her own place.
Glass castle was, sadly, a completely accurate nickname. Untouchable, uninviting, unfeeling.
A bright spark caught the corner of her eye and she whipped her head back around to face him. “What in the world are you doing?”
Dean looked up at her with a blatantly confused expression. “I’m starting a fire.” He enunciated each word clearly and slowly. “What part of this doesn’t make sense, Jillybean?” He lowered his head and returned to striking one stone against the other.
“Don’t you need like a lighter or a match or something?” She fidgeted with the hem of her shorts romper, too afraid to blink for fear Dean’s little experiment would wind up in him getting hurt. Freaking show off.
He grinned the same carefree, mischievous grin that most certainly always signaled trouble. “Watch and be amazed.” He hit the rocks off each other a dozen more times and a spark caught onto the small pile of ground up something, causing it to smoke. He grabbed a few twigs from the pile and, with more care than she’d ever seen Dean Carlisle exhibit, stuck them in the middle of the gray column rising gracefully from what looked like nothing more than dirt and he gently blew into the billowing cloud. A flame appeared on the branches so quickly it seemed like magic.
Jillian’s mouth fell open as he situated the fiery stick in the middle of the upright logs and repeated his actions two more times. Within minutes the small flickering grew into a small inferno. This boy somehow managed to create all this completely on his own.
Her awe quickly dissolved into irritation as she lifted her eyes and caught him standing beside the growing fire he’d built, hands on his hips and an arrogant smirk plastered across his face. “Proud of yourself there, Sparky?”
One thick, dark brow lifted and he looked down at her. “Um, Sparky?”
She drew her brows together and pursed her lips, dropping her voice an octave. “Boy make fire. Boy get new name. Boy now Sparky.”
Dean rolled his eyes toward the rapidly dimming sky and plopped into the seat beside her. “You are such a dweeb, you know that, right?”
Jillian folded her hands across her abdomen and laid back in the chair. “You’re the one who has a dweeb for a best friend. Don’t you think that makes you the real loser here?”
Before he could respond, Connor appeared bearing a tray laden with hot dogs, buns, condiments, and, most importantly, all the ingredients for s’mores. Closely behind him, Michael and Tracy Carlisle followed with paper plates, glasses, and pitchers of lemonade and iced tea.
They ate and talked and laughed. It was easy, fun, and relaxing. And something Jillian could never get enough of. She knew that long before she was ready she’d return to her very privileged and very fortunate life, but one that lacked the connection and affection the Carlisles exuded effortlessly.
“Hey.”
Dean’s voice unceremoniously broke the spell she’d fallen under staring at the flames dancing in the fire pit and listening to the chatter around her. She turned her head toward him and blinked several times to bring his face into focus.
“You weren’t serious about that whole Sparky thing, right?”
She grinned over at him. “Oh, I am beyond serious. For now and forever more you shall be my Sparky, maker of fire and chief Neanderthal.”
He threw one of the marshmallows in her direction and she laughed, batting it away before it collided with her cheek. They both fell back into a comfortable silence, occasionally responding to something his parents said or, more often, Dean sending a well directed barb back in Connor’s direction, usually resulting in both boys earning a scolding from their parents.
Jillian’s eyes grew heavy as her full stomach and the hypnotizing flames lulled her int
o a blissful state of comfort. Voices of people she’d grown to love fell into nothing more than distant murmurs as sleep stole her away.
Deep down in a corner of her heart she never showed, she wished this crazy family that was sometimes a little too loud, always offered joking insults that were often accompanied with reckless dares, and that showed each member endless amounts of love and acceptance was hers.
Chapter Eleven
Dean
Present Day
“It’s not funny.” Jillian planted her hands on her hips and frowned.
Dean grabbed his midsection and doubled over, her irritation with him only fueling the waves of laughter rolling through him. “No, no, no.” He tried to stand and wipe the tears from his eyes. “You’re right, it isn’t funny. It’s damn hysterical.”
She sighed, but the corners of her lips twitched with a repressed smile. “We’re on a tight timeline here, Sparky. If it takes all day then it takes all day, but I have to pick colors and place settings and bridesmaid dresses and my dress…” Her gaze dropped to her feet. She crossed the small living room, angled one leg beneath her, and sat down on the couch. “It doesn’t really matter anyway. I should just agree to whatever Mother thinks is best.”
Once more, a sharp stab of pain pricked the edge of his heart. She had no earthly clue how genuine his vows were going to be. The confession of his true feelings danced on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it down again. He hadn’t a clue what the right time would look like or exactly what he was waiting for, but he had to hope in some magical sign. One that certainly wasn’t presenting itself right now.
He took a seat beside her and searched for words that would be neutral, but as honest as possible. This was definitely not the moment he was waiting for. “Hey, it matters. It is irrelevant that this may be an unconventional wedding, what you want matters.”
Meant to be More (Meant to Be Series Book 4) Page 8
