by Tijan
Dani looked for Mae. For a box. For anything.
“When was this?” Boone questioned further.
To Jake, it was a friendly request from someone who had friendly curiosity. To Dani, it was an ex-fiancé who had zoomed in on someone who shared his same territory.
Jake was clueless to the intelligent spark of anger in Boone that Dani had glimpsed from the beginning.
“Oh, way back.” Jake gestured in the air. “We go way back, kids.”
Boone shifted closer. “How long were the two of you…together?”
Jake hadn’t heard the slight pause.
Dani had.
Her hands found a rag and she started wiping at a polished perfect counter. There could’ve been spots.
“Ten years.” Jake nodded and asked, “Right, Dani? Ten years before you took off?”
“Ten years,” she remarked and continued to beat out the imaginary watermarks.
“Ten years,” Boone hummed. “That’s a long time.”
Jake thought he was talking to him, but Dani knew those words were another question to her downcast head.
“Did…” Dani looked up and around. “Did I just hear Mae?”
Jake looked to and he shook his head. “Nope. She’s over there talking with Kate.”
“Kate’s here?” Dani exclaimed, desperate and grateful.
Jake nodded as his face tightened. “She’s been…enlightening to ride with today. She’s been awful. All moody and…it’s like if she was pregnant.”
Dani glanced sharply at him and said, “Take that back. That’s not nice.”
Jake frowned and shrugged. “I know to the exact day when her period starts. It’s not rocket science. When I offer her a coffee in the morning, when she’s on her period, she doesn’t say anything. She just takes it and she’s impatient all day.”
“She doesn’t say anything?”
“Yep.”
“That’s awful.”
“I know. You could cut her tension with a knife, it’s that thick.”
“Because she doesn’t say anything when she’s got her period. She doesn’t thank you when you give her coffee, coffee that she probably paid for.”
Dani stared him down.
Jake shifted under her stare and sniffed, “So? I’m the one who goes in and gets the coffee.”
“Does she pay for your coffee?”
Jake shifted awkward and looked around.
Bullseye.
Dani pressed, softly, “She pays for your coffee and her coffee and she doesn’t thank you when you bring it out…do you thank her?”
“What’s with you?” Jake asked suddenly, but he still looked around.
“Stop avoiding, Jacob. Julia’s not going to bail you out of this one.” Dani smiled. “Do you thank Kate for the coffee that she pays for?”
“That’s different!” Jake exclaimed. “I go in and get the coffee.” He spelled it out, like she was two.
“I’m not two.” Dani leaned across the counter. “So don’t talk to me like I’m two.”
Jake flushed and scrambled off the stool. “I didn’t say you were two.”
Dani rolled her eyes and shook her head. She gave up the fight. “You’re never going to change, are you?”
“What?”
Jake was dumbfounded.
He stood helpless.
“You’re still…you’re immature and you’re a chauvinist. You just think of yourself first—”
“At least he’s considerate,” Julia interrupted the conversation as she rounded the corner.
Behind her stood Katrina Lloyds, Boone’s redheaded friend, and another bleached blonde with expensive white-colored clothes that molded to her slim figure. Pearls were wrapped around her neck—all their necks and wrists.
“Excuse me?” Dani sighed an inward breath and regarded her sister.
Gone was the short-lived concern that Julia had for her sister outside of Gracey’s Café. Instead was a simmering boil and Dani knew that Julia had found the missing photograph. Or, in fact, she’d found that the photograph was missing.
Dani doubted that Julia had been to Mae’s cabin to actually find the missing photograph.
“I said that my fiancé is considerate, unlike my sister.”
“It’s not nice to talk ill of the dead,” Dani taunted.
Julia’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched high and she asked, self-righteously, “Excuse me? I’m not referring to Erica and we both know it.”
“Did Erica leave all that settlement to you?” Dani asked suddenly. “I just found out about it.”
And it threw Julia—for a moment.
Julia bounced back and countered, “What if she did?”
“I’d like to talk her attorney.”
“Fine.” Julia smiled sweetly. “You’re friends with his colleague.”
Robbie.
“Robbie works with Erica’s attorney?”
“From what I heard, it’s why Robbie came back to town. He helped with Erica’s case from Phoenix and he moved back because he was promised partner when they won.”
Katrina coughed and moved to stand in front of Julia.
She smiled gracefully at Dani and murmured, “That’s…some sad news that you didn’t hear. I am very sorry, Dani, that you didn’t know about the settlement.”
“Kat,” Julia remarked behind her friend’s back.
Katrina turned, smiled, and shook her head.
Julia was reminded of the place and time.
Katrina turned back and soothed, “You both lost your sister, and I’m very sorry. Erica might’ve…she might’ve lived with those months that had been cheated from her.”
Dani doubted it. She murmured, “We still lost our momma.”
Julia sucked in her breath.
Dani ignored her and commented, “And Aunt Kathryn’s still gonna go. We all know it. If it was me, I would’ve been more heartbroken over losing the idea of a child—a life—than my own.”
Katrina, Julia, everyone had been silenced.
It was broken when the redhead moved and wrapped herself around Boone’s arm. She tipped her head back and purred, “Danny, honey, Katrina was just telling us about her father’s yacht.”
“I think it’s a little bit too big for the river,” Boone said dryly as he watched Dani.
Dani looked away and saw Mae’s questioning frown from across the room.
“No, but she was thinking we’d all retire there this evening. It’s supposed to be marvelous with the lights all over their backyard.”
Dani frowned, but bit her tongue.
The Katrina Lloyds that she knew from school would’ve never ‘sold out’ to parade her daddy’s money around like stock horses. Katrina hadn’t given a damn who said what about her. She did what she wanted and she wore what she wanted.
Artistic, poetic, and a flower child—Dani looked hard, but all those roots had been squashed away in the new Katrina.
Boone glanced at Dani and their eyes met.
Jake frowned, seeing the exchange.
“Maybe. I’ll have to confer with Drew and see if he had anything planned for the evening.” Boone patted the friend’s head, like she was a two year old.
Katrina asked, suddenly, “Dani, do you have plans this evening? Maybe you could join us? I know Kelley Lynn’s been trying to plan an event for all of us.”
Julia’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t refute the offer.
“Oh, that’s okay. Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be working here tonight, helping Mae out.”
“Okay.” Katrina nodded. No one’d been surprised by the rescinded invitation. “You know where I live so stop by whenever you get off.”
No other excuse came to mind, but Mae approached the group at that moment.
“Hello ya’ll,” she said easily with a gracious smile.
“Heya, Mae,” Jake said warmly.
“Jakey.” Mae nodded and shook her head. “What have you been putting your poor partner through today?”
/> “What?” Jake feigned outrage. “What is Kate filling your head with? I’ve been nothing, but compassionate and considerate and…everything else that puts me in a good light.”
Mae chuckled, “No, Jakey. I’m talking about the fact that she’s had your food ready to go and waiting in that squad car of yours for the past ten minutes. How much longer you going to make her wait?”
“Oh.”
No goodbye uttered, no see you later, just—gone. Jake hurried out the door in a flash and his fiancée didn’t look surprised at the abrupt disappearance.
Katrina chuckled. “Jake is so absentminded sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” Julia mumbled.
“Now, girl,” Mae exclaimed as she threw an arm around Dani’s shoulders, “what are ya’ll chatting about over here?”
Katrina said smoothly, “I just invited Dani over to my father’s for an evening spent on the yacht. I’m hoping she’ll stop by after you’ve let her off the hook for helping out.”
Mae’s too-noticing eyes glanced between Julia to Dani and then back to Katrina when she said, just as smooth, “I don’t think that’ll happen. See, my girl stood me up for our late nightcap last night and I’m cashing in the check tonight. She owes me.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that,” the friend, Lari purred, smiling in a silly fashion. She had an arm wrapped around Boone’s waist and his hand had slipped to fall onto the small of her back.
Dani’s eyes chilled and she looked towards the door.
Mae caught the movement and frowned. She looked back to Boone and Lari, to Dani, and back again. The door opened behind them and Julia walked out first. She stopped beside them and met her sister’s eyes coolly.
“I’d like Mom’s photograph back, please.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t, Dani.”
Katrina frowned and looked at Dani in sympathy.
Lari and her friend stopped just behind, confused, but silent.
Dani took a breath and met her sister’s eyes again. “That picture belongs to me as much as you.”
“Erica had that picture.”
“Yeah, well, Erica wasn’t just your sister.”
“Sometimes,” Julia bit out, “it feels like she was. I was there for her all those years, but you weren’t. You ran.”
Dani felt the stab in her gut, but she retorted, “I’m not running anymore. And the picture wasn’t just Erica’s. She found it and kept it. Just like she kept other things that didn’t belong to her.”
Julia sucked in her breath and cried out, hoarse, “You did not just go there—”
“I did.”
“Jake fell in love with Erica. He wasn’t yours—”
“Ten years with someone doesn’t just erase itself. Jake knows that now, but have you even noticed it?”
Julia glared, but silent.
“But you have. It’s why you don’t want Jake to even talk to me. Look how that’s worked out.”
“Jake and I are getting married in two—”
Katrina stopped it as she wrapped an arm around Julia’s waist and said quietly, to both O’Haras, “Maybe this could be said in privacy another time.”
Dani looked over, unable to forget that Boone had heard the entire exchange. She’d known, but she couldn’t stop the words. It was as if her mouth took over and what lay dormant inside spewed out.
She felt another stab to the gut as she saw Boone’s face. He was just…hurt.
Dani closed her eyes as she sucked in her own breath. She unwrapped her arm from around Robbie’s shoulders and now, he shifted to wrap her in his. As she had comforted him, he was the one who was the comforter now.
“Fine,” Julia bit out and moved towards their car.
Katrina walked beside her, with her arm still around her friend’s waist.
Lari turned and laid a hand to Boone’s chest. She tipped her red hair backwards as she smiled up to him and said, coyly, “I’ll see you later?”
Boone’s eyes rested on Dani’s slumped form, but he nodded and murmured, “Hmm mmm.”
“Good.” And Lari kissed him lightly on the lips. “I can’t wait.”
“Lari,” her friend murmured.
Lari jumped flirtatiously in front of Boone and giggled, “Susan and I are going shopping with the girls. Call me later on after you’re done doing the ‘brotherly bonding’ thing with Drew.”
Boone didn’t need to respond or mutter an affirmative.
Lari and Susan quickly darted to their Porsche and the gravel spewed underneath their racing tires as they peeled out of the parking lot.
As the dust settled, Dani finally looked up.
Boone shifted on his feet as he stuffed his hands into his front pockets. He said, almost scornfully, “Was there anything about you that was real?”
“That was part of the problem,” Dani said softly. “I wasn’t right.”
“You could’ve—” But Boone bit off his words.
A car pulled into the parking lot and two doors opened and slammed shut.
At Boone’s smothered curse, Dani looked over and saw Jonah with Trenton. It was a late lunch for them and they looked like they’d been in the river all morning. Their hair was still wet.
Jonah spied Dani first and grinned. The grin vanished when he saw who stood in front of them.
“I—” Boone shook his head and left.
He continued to shake his head, but turned and left.
Jonah didn’t stay anything. He went inside and ate lunch with Trenton. There was an unspoken message not to talk there. It’d be talked about later, in privacy. Closing her eyes, she pressed her fingers to her temples and rubbed at the headache forming. She thought again how her life was one big mess. When she went back in, Mae looked up and frowned from the floor where she was kneeling. Her hand rested over an open box that contained popcorn bowls and she pushed herself up with a hand to her hip.
Dani saw the searching gaze and readied herself.
Mae proclaimed, “That man and you have history.”
Here it came.
Dani sighed and asked, “How do you know that?”
