Probably, Declan should just give up on being shocked by this woman. But right now, he was too busy being righteously turned on to care.
Kiss was probably a misnomer for the way Tess had placed her mouth on his, their lips touching in the slightest of contact. But then she released a barely there exhale against his mouth, leaning closer rather than disengaging, and Declan didn’t think. Driven by pure instinct, his arms wound around her, one hand cupping the back of her head as the other found purchase on her shoulder. He let his lips fall open—not obscenely, because for as much fuck, yes as he had sizzling through his veins right now, he still remembered they were in public. But it was enough. Jesus, it was everything, because in that split second, with their mouths connected and Tess’s body hot under his hands, Declan learned something about his wife that he’d never, ever have guessed.
She tasted like need.
No. That wasn’t quite it.
She tasted hungry.
Tess pulled back as quickly as she’d leaned in, making Declan fight for his equilibrium. “Sorry,” she whispered, the flush on her face absolutely killing him. But oh, no. He wasn’t about to let her apologize for that kiss.
“I’m not,” he said. The medical tape holding his post-IV bandage in place pulled at the crook of his elbow as he lowered his arms to his sides, reminding him of his purpose. Their purpose. Tess wasn’t here because she cared for him in that way, and he needed to squash that notion before he let the damn thing fully form.
He did not belong with her, no matter what she tasted like.
“Congratulations!” Tess’s friend, Charlie, appeared at Tess’s side then, with the baby on her hip. Talk about another thing he’d never expected, Declan thought as Tess turned to take the boy, her face lit up like a holiday. He’d have to examine his shock later, though, because then Connor was there, and Harlow along with him.
“Congrats, man.” Connor shook his hand while pulling him in for a clap on the opposite shoulder, and even though the move wasn’t even a full embrace, Declan’s pulse kicked.
“Thanks.” With the judge still conceivably in earshot, it was probably best to keep all pretenses in full gear.
Connor dropped his voice as they moved toward the courtroom door, likely for that same reason. “Not to be a buzz kill, but now that this is done, you should probably get some rest.”
The shite of it was, his friend wasn’t wrong. Dec would never admit it out loud, of course, but he felt like he’d been awake for days, and been made to run a marathon in 100 degree weather on each of them. “I s’pose.”
“Have you, ah, thought about where you’re staying?”
Before Declan could admit that he hadn’t, Harlow interrupted neatly. “He’s staying with us, of course.” She paused, her heels clicking against the tile in the hallway outside the courtroom where they now stood. “Unless you’ve made arrangements to stay with Tess?”
“What? No.” Declan shook his head, hyper-aware of Tess’s presence only a few steps away as she situated Jackson in his stroller and talked with Charlie. “I had planned to crash in a hotel, actually.” Not ideal, but it would do until he could find an efficiency to rent on a month-to-month basis for the duration of the trial.
“Dude, that’s crap,” Connor said. “Harlow and I have a perfectly good spare room. Plus…”
He trailed off, but Declan caught the truth in his friend’s stare just before Connor averted his eyes. “Y’don’t think I should stay alone. On account of my condition.”
Connor’s shrug was as stiff as a dress uniform at a funeral, making Declan’s shoulders follow suit. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to have someone nearby.”
“I’m fine.” Ah, hell. The words had come out like barbed wire. “I’ve been livin’ by myself since I left the Air Force. No worse for the wear.”
Declan held up his arms as proof, but Christ, they might as well have been made of bricks. Still, he wasn’t about to go all third-wheel at Connor and Harlow’s place, especially not when they’d surely try to convince him to stay for the duration of his time in Remington. They’d only just moved in together a couple of months ago. They belonged in their place without a party-crasher, and an ailing one at that.
“Why don’t we do this,” Harlow said, splitting a soft but shrewd gaze between him and Connor that told them both she’d get what she wanted, no matter how she had to go about it. Jesus, no wonder Connor was crazy for her. “Since it’s been a long day, why don’t you come stay with us for tonight, Declan? Then, tomorrow, after you’ve had a good night’s sleep and a great breakfast, which Connor will totally make for both me and you”—she paused here to smile, and damn, she was good—“we can help find you a place to stay that’s close by. Sound good?”
Connor wanted to argue. Declan knew the guy too well not to feel it.
But he didn’t. “Okay. But if you change your mind—”
“I know,” Declan said, and just as he hadn’t been able to tell Harlow that he hadn’t known a good night’s sleep since the day he’d been tossed from the Air Force, he also couldn’t tell Connor that he wouldn’t change his mind for all the world.
Declan looked down at his empty plate and was forced to admit that Harlow had been right. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed a good meal and the promise of a bed that hadn’t been slept in—or worse—by hundreds of people before him. At least, for tonight.
Not that he’d be sleeping much. Then again, he was used to that.
Kind of tough to catch quality shuteye in places you didn’t really belong.
“Thanks for dinner,” Declan said, ushering the thought from his brain as he passed the closest thing he had to a smile in Harlow’s direction. The chicken piccata she’d made while Connor had shown him around the guest room and the rest of their place had been nothing short of delicious. “I’ll have to get the recipe from you.”
Harlow laughed enough to make up for his shortfall. “Sorry to disappoint you, but a cook, I’m not. It’s from one of those meal service places that send you a box full of food and a list of directions. If it’s recipes you’re after, you need to bug this one.”
She nudged Connor with one elbow, and Declan couldn’t hide his surprise. “You cook?”
“When there’s time,” Connor said, not missing a beat. “You cook?”
Declan shrugged to hide the stiffness suddenly invading his shoulders. “Part of the deal with the disease.” He’d quickly learned that a strict but solid health plan—including preparing nearly all of his own meals—was in his best interest. Blood sugar was a finicky bitch.
Connor leaned back in his chair, his overlarge frame making the thing groan. “You want to air that out?”
Harlow chose that moment to take the empty plates to the kitchen, exchanging an entire conversation with Connor in a single, silent glance.
Declan shuttered his expression, allowing only one brow to lift. “Impressive, that.”
“Believe me, I know,” Connor said, his eyes still on the path Harlow had taken out of the room as if the mere memory of her presence was enough to fuel him.
Welcome to the very reason Declan hadn’t wanted to interrupt them for even one night. “I meant the way you are together.”
“Ah.” Connor’s smile lost none of its luster as he refocused on Declan. “Yeah, we definitely know each other inside and out. And nice try, by the way. But just because we haven’t been face-to-face for a while doesn’t mean you can dodge the question with me so easily.”
Shit. “What question?”
Oh, but Connor wasn’t having an inch of it. “You’ve had a helluva six months, Dec. If you want to talk about it—”
“I don’t.”
The reply had been too gruff and too fast to stick, because Connor’s reply was all frown. “Are you sure? Because you called me a few months ago, and you sounded like you wanted to talk. I didn’t…” He trailed off, his voice laced with guilt. “I was dealing with a lot at the time. I’m not trying to make excuses,
but…well, I should’ve asked then, and I didn’t, so I’m asking now. You’ve been through a lot. Do you want to talk about it?”
Hell. Of course, Connor would remember that night Declan had had a weak moment and called him up out of the blue. And, of course, he was the kind of guy who’d feel bad about it in hindsight.
Which meant it was time to kill this conversation, fast. “I appreciate the offer, and everything you’ve done for me now. I do. I’m just…” Don’t go there. Just don’t. “Tired, I guess. It’s been a long day.”
Neither claim was a lie, outright, which is likely what sold them to Connor. “Okay. I won’t be a pain in the ass about it, then. But the offer stands anytime.”
“Deal,” Declan agreed, trying not to let his relief find his face.
“I’ll let you turn in,” Connor said. “Breakfast tomorrow, though, yeah? I make some mean blueberry pancakes, if I do say so myself.”
“Sounds great, man. Thanks.”
Pausing only for a quick goodnight to Harlow as he passed by the kitchen, Declan headed for the guest room. His gut tightened as he moved through the living space, lined with photos of Connor and Harlow together. One of them all dressed up at what had probably been some work function, bunches of the two of them in groups with various friends, a photo of them at the batting cages—which seemed a little weird, but they looked too happy for it to matter—along with three or four pictures of Connor and a group of guys who looked like they were all close, laughing at the camera in that carefree way Dec had only felt once in his life. When he got to the shot that someone had taken of him and Connor and the rest of their unit-mates after a training run, their smiles all matching the camaraderie Connor had clearly found again here in Remington, Declan turned abruptly toward his room. Grabbing for the sort of deep breaths he’d learned about in that yoga class Nic had introduced him to back in California, he metered his inhales and exhales until he could get the image back into the mental box where he kept it locked away.
Belonging like that wasn’t for him anymore. His body had made damn sure of that.
Even if the truth of it was threatening to crush him, bit by bit.
“Stop bein’ so fuckin’ dramatic,” he muttered. After a quick trip to the bathroom across the hall for a nice, long dance with his toothbrush, Declan slipped back into his room. Swapping his jeans and T-shirt for a pair of sweatpants, he drew back the covers and lay in the middle of the bed, staring up at the ceiling. They might as well get acquainted, he figured, since they’d likely be best friends by the end of the night. The depth of the sleep he’d gotten today at the hospital had been a surprise, although, maybe with the way his blood sugar had crashed, it shouldn’t have been. But then he’d woken to Tess’s hand on his shoulder, her brown eyes like whiskey in a crystal tumbler, glinting in the light, and Christ, it had felt startlingly good not to surface back to reality alone.
Maybe it was because he was alone now, or perhaps it was a byproduct of his exhaustion, but whatever the reason, he found himself wondering what she was doing. Was she settling her son into bed for the night? Doing the dishes? Binge watching Netflix? Was she an Orange is the New Black kind of woman, or—no, probably Mindhunter, knowing her tenacity. And when she’d done the dishes, had she taken off the wedding ring he’d placed on her finger, just hours before, as he’d promised to have her and hold her? When she’d fit against his touch, her cheek warm and soft in his palm?
Declan looked down at his own hand, the weight of his wedding band suddenly very present on his finger as he thought of the woman who’d put it there.
And in that moment, Tess Michaelson became that much more dangerous, because Dec hadn’t just married her.
He liked her.
9
Tess was running late. Which was pretty much the lead-in for any and every given day of her life (helllllooooo, she was singlehandedly single-parenting an almost-ten-month-old who was teething like a frickin’ pirhana. Between the drool stains and the lack of quality sleep, of course she was always late). Except this day just so happened to be the first day of Declan’s trial, and she was supposed to pick him up in twenty minutes.
Where were her fucking pants?
“Ah!” she cried, snatching a pair of mostly clean capris from the laundry basket at the foot of her bed. Jackson was playing happily in the ExerSaucer that Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jonah had gifted him—Tess could’ve kissed both of her friends/fellow attendings on the mouth for purchasing an item that kept Jackson both contained and occupied—and she shot him a smile as she yanked on her pants and went to work on her hair. Halfway through her brush-to-ponytail routine, her cell phone rang, and crap, maybe Declan needed something.
Her heart kicked involuntarily, although, whether it was at the thought that he might need something or the thought of the man himself, she couldn’t be sure. They’d traded two calls and a dozen or so texts in the week since they’d left the courthouse, all of them perfunctory. He hadn’t seemed to have warmed to the idea of the trial, but he’d given over all the information Tess had needed to get him added to her insurance, along with doing all the pre-trial tests and scans Dr. Gupta needed to get him started today. He’d said he was feeling okay every time she’d asked, and Connor and Harlow had both confirmed that he’d seemed well when Tess had (not so) casually dropped the query into their conversations. Declan had moved into a rental apartment after only one night with the couple, though, and shit, what if he was having another crash? What if he was having cold feet? What if—
“Hello?” she said as she whipped the phone to her ear, concern turning the word breathless.
“Well, this is a surprise. I was fully expecting you to send me to voicemail, as usual.”
Her mother’s voice hit her like a box of bricks, and she mentally kicked herself in the shins for being so distracted and rushed that she hadn’t checked her caller ID. “Mom. This is actually not a good time.”
“Of course it isn’t, dear. With you, it never is.” Not that a little thing like Tess’s assertion was going to slow her mother down. If anything, the attempt at deflection just made Bronwyn Jameson dig in harder. “I need to speak with you about Elizabeth’s wedding. She tells me you’ve RSVP’d as not attending.”
“That’s because I’m not going,” Tess replied, ignoring the squeeze in her belly that she always felt when talking to her mother in favor of searching for her flats. She’d long since stopped expecting any pleasantries from the woman, and anyway, it was easier when Bronwyn didn’t pretend to care about anything other than herself or what she wanted. At least, things stung less that way.
Her mother scoffed, but softly, because manners. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why on earth wouldn’t you go?”
Tess replied in list form. “Because I have a job that makes three-day weekends difficult. Because I have a baby who makes traveling difficult. And because I haven’t seen Elizabeth in a decade. Maybe more. We aren’t close.”
Also, because you’d spend the whole weekend showcasing my flaws to every single human in attendance, she added mentally. She’d rather take the night shift on New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, and Halloween than sign on for that.
“Oh, Tess, please.” Her mother sighed, all disdain. “Elizabeth is your cousin. I understand that weddings might be…uncomfortable for you, what with everything that happened with Alec. But do be sensible.”
The jab landed as it was meant to, right in Tess’s solar plexus, and okay, yeah, it was time to end this conversation, stat. “What happened with Alec is that we got divorced, Mom. That was me being sensible. As for Elizabeth’s wedding, I can’t make it. I also can’t argue about it, because I’m running late for something important. Bye!”
Tess jammed her thumb over the end button, then jammed her phone into the back pocket of her capris. Her mother wasn’t going to let this drop—Tess hadn’t come by her relentlessness by accident. But Bronwyn could tastefully bitch about Tess’s non-attendance at this wedding all she wanted. No way was
Tess giving in.
Not even she had enough armor to make it through three full days of familial vivisection.
“Nope,” she whispered, shoving down the emotions that wanted to ransack her chest. She had far more important things to worry about.
Like the fact that if she didn’t leave in the next thirty seconds, she was going to need a time machine to make it to Declan’s apartment anywhere close to on time.
Scooping Jackson out of his ExerSaucer and giving him an extra-close hug to defray her stress, Tess grabbed his diaper bag and her keys, sternly reminding herself to always, always check her caller ID before answering her phone. She had to bribe him into his car seat with King Henry the Octopus and a bunch of raspberry kisses as distraction, but he let her strap him in (thank you, baby Jesus) without too much fuss. She navigated the trip to the address Declan had texted her once he’d signed the month-to-month lease, pulling up outside the—whoa—squat, crumbling building she could only describe as ugly as original sin.
“Okaaaay,” Tess said under her breath, wondering why on earth anyone would live here voluntarily. The fact that it was doing a bang-up job of impersonating a prison (did the place even have windows?) aside, the building seemed to have seen the last of its better days forty years ago. It wasn’t in an unsafe part of the city, per se, but Tess was more than a tiny bit stunned that the building hadn’t been snatched up by some developer and slated for demolition, to be replaced by something newer and shinier and far more attractive to renters.
Mercifully, she found a parking spot close to the front of the place, so she was able to balance Jackson on one hip in a well-practiced move and make her way inside in less than a minute. The walls between apartments might as well have been made of construction paper, and even from the hallway, she caught not-quiet strains of speed metal, an argument over who had eaten “the last goddamn bagel!”, and someone power-walking over their kitchen linoleum in what had to be five-inch heels made of titanium.
Beyond Just Us (Remington Medical Book 4): A Single Parent Marriage of Convenience Romance Page 7
