One in a Million

by Jill Shalvis

  “Aw,” he said. “Sweet.”

  “I was talking to the coffee.” When the caffeine hit her system, she opened her eyes.

  Tanner had set everything on her counter and had moved to the wall of windows. He was hands in pockets, looking out at the water.

  She knew there was no way he could miss the fact that she had a perfect view of his boat. And therefore him, when he was out there working.

  Now she was sorry that she’d pretended otherwise that first day at the bakery.

  He turned to face her, brows up.

  She ignored him and eyed the box of doughnuts. She didn’t want to be rude and dive in, but she could smell the sugar. It was calling to her.

  Tanner came back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter next to her, comfortable as you please in her space. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry to get to the doughnuts so she tried to control herself.

  He nodded to a stack of travel brochures for faraway, exotic places like Bora Bora and Anguilla.

  “You planning on running off?” he asked.

  “Just keeping up on the latest hot locales for honeymoons. Brides are usually incredibly picky about the location, thinking that’s the most important part of the honeymoon.”

  “And it’s not?” he asked.

  “Let’s just say that I tend to cash my checks fast, before reality sets in and they realize they’ve made a mistake.”

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “We both know relationships are one big ouch.”

  “True enough,” he agreed. “They’re messy and complicated, and screw everything up.” He limped over to the drink carrier and pulled out a second coffee. When he caught her looking at him, he shrugged. “It’s a double espresso kind of morning.”

  She nodded toward his leg. “It’s bothering you.”

  Another shrug, one that said it always bothered him, he lived with it.

  “Isn’t there anything that can be done about the pain?” she asked.

  “I don’t like pain meds.”

  She could understand that. But she found she wanted to understand so much more. They weren’t supposed to be doing this, getting to know each other, and yet she couldn’t help herself. “So how is it you went from the navy to the oil rigs?” she asked. “Was it like once-an-adrenaline-junkie, always-an-adrenaline-junkie sort of thing?”

  “After my tour of duty, I knew I didn’t want to be career navy. But my college scholarship was long gone and I needed money.”

  “To support your family,” she said.

  “What there was left of it,” he said. “My mom needed some help. I needed a good-paying job fast so I followed the guys to the rigs. They were working abovewater but the money was far better below, planting explosives. I was the resident expert.”

  Yeah, he was definitely a long way from that wild kid he’d once been. He’d grown up hard and fast, molded by circumstance into a strong, capable man who was focused. Determined. And, apparently, fearless. “Dangerous,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I had the expertise. Why not use it? And yeah, maybe I can see how people thought the job appealed to the adrenaline junkie in me, but that’s not what drew me. I was going to partner with the guys in Lucky Harbor Charters and I wanted to bring my fair share to the table. The job fulfilled all my needs.” He gestured to the empty cup in her hands. “Feeling human yet?”

  “Getting there,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He opened the box of doughnuts and held it out. “Nothing with powdered sugar.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” She picked out a maple bar. Tanner did the same, and they ate there, standing up facing each other in her kitchen.

  A kitchen that suddenly felt a lot smaller than usual. She licked her thumb to get the last of the glaze, sucking it into her mouth.

  Tanner’s eyes dilated black.

  She went still, letting her thumb slip free with a little suction sound. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “For?”

  “The porn-star noises.”

  He flashed a grin. “That was my favorite part.” He held out the box. “Another?”

  “I think maybe I should stop at one.”

  “Not on my account,” he said, and took a second doughnut for himself.

  Callie blew out a sigh and did the same. “I won’t be able to button my jeans.”

  “There’s always your PJs.”

  They both looked down at them and for a moment she wished that she’d listened to her own advice from her site and was wearing some really sexy lingerie.

  From the countertop her phone buzzed an incoming text. With maple glaze all over her fingers, she carefully swiped the screen with her thumb. “Siri, read my text.”

  “Text from Best Grandma Ever,” Siri said. “Darling, the word on the street is that you keep going out into the wild wearing strange combinations of clothing. You’re not going to catch a man like Tanner Riggs in sweatpants. Put on some of them fancy skinny jeans they sell nowadays. Show him what you’ve got.”

  Callie closed her eyes. “Thank you, Siri.”

  “Yes,” Tanner said, smiling. “Thank you, Siri.”

  “You’re going to forget you heard that,” she said.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not,” Tanner said. “And for the record, you could totally catch me in your sweats.”

  “Stop,” she said, and blew out a breath. “Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but tell me again why you’re here?”

  “Because you didn’t show at the bakery,” he said. “You let your asshole ex scare you off.”

  “You think he’s an asshole?”

  “I know he’s an asshole.”

  She took another big bite of the maple bar and let the sugar soothe her. “For all you know,” she said, “I did something first that prompted him to leave me.”

  “Babe, even if that was true, the words are simple. I don’t want to get married. That’s all he had to say, preferably before the wedding day. Instead, he pussied out and screwed you over good.”

  “Why do guys say that when talking about weakness?” she asked.

  “What, pussy?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, why isn’t it that instead of acting like a pussy, he acted like a man’s ego, because we all know there’s nothing more fragile than that.”

  He grinned. “You’re right. I stand corrected.” His smile faded. “Is he the reason you left Lucky Harbor?”

  “Maybe a little bit.” Humiliated, angry, disillusioned, she’d stayed in San Francisco after graduation. She’d been finished with love, finished with forever-afters, and most definitely finished with men in general. But finding a job after graduation wasn’t easy, and she’d fallen back on something she’d been good at—weddings.

  And no, she hadn’t missed the irony.

  “Was yesterday the first time you’ve seen him since your wedding day?” Tanner asked.

  “You know, usually people avoid talking to me about this. I think they’re afraid I’m going to cry or something.”

  “Are you?”

  “Hell no,” she said. “Not over him.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Definitely not,” she said.

  “Gotta talk shit out,” he said. “Or it’ll kill you.”

  “You don’t seem like a big talker,” she said.

  “I pick my moments.”

  “And this is one of them?” she asked.

  He slid her a look. “If I said yes, what would you want to know?”

  Everything.

  That thought was a little much for her to swallow, and she couldn’t imagine how he’d feel, so she kept it to herself. “I saw you with your son on the boat yesterday,” she said. “Things looked…tense.”

  “We’re working on it,” he said. “I’ve got about fifteen years of resentment to battle my way through.”

  “And his mom?”

  “She’s decided that she needs a mom break,”
he said. “I’m up at bat.”

  Callie took in the easily spoken words, which didn’t match the pain in his eyes. “You’re going to do great,” she said quietly.

  He met her gaze. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You always do the right thing. It’s who you are, it’s hard-wired into you.”

  “And you got all that from our breakfasts?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Or from your grandma?”

  She blew out a long breath and mentally debated whether to actually ’fess up. But she supposed it was time for the truth. “I had a huge crush on you in high school. I was basically your stalker and you didn’t even know it. I could write your bio.”

  He arched a brow. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Hear what?”

  “My bio. The things you think you know about me.”

  “Oh, well…” She wasn’t sure how they’d gotten on this road, but she couldn’t back out now. He was watching her with those eyes that somehow always drew far too much of her truth from her brain and out her mouth. “I know you got Elisa pregnant at seventeen.”

  “Everyone knew that,” he said.

  “I know you had a promising football career with a scholarship on the line, but you gave it all up so that you could support her and the baby.”

  “Anyone would’ve done that.”

  “Actually,” she said softly, “no, they wouldn’t have. You made that choice for her and Troy’s future, not for yourself. I know that Elisa ended up getting to go to the college you’d wanted to attend.”

  He took her coffee cup and set it on the counter. “Don’t make me out to be any kind of martyr. That’s not me.”

  “My point,” she said, “is that you do whatever needs to be done. Even if it’s not in your own best interests.”

  “Yeah, I gave up a scholarship,” he said, “but I got something out of it. Troy. He’s not all that into me at the moment and that’s likely to get worse for a little while, but I don’t regret any of the decisions I made. Because in the end they led me to him. I’ve screwed this daddy gig up more than a few times, but I plan on getting it right this time.”

  “How did you screw it up?”

  He was quiet a moment, studying her. “I don’t regret the navy,” he finally said. “That’s where I grew up. But I was away for long periods of time, and then the same on the rigs.”

  “But that’s how you made the money you needed to support them,” she said.

  “True, but…” He shook his head and she thought that was it. He was done talking.

  “I nearly died there,” he said quietly, shocking her. “And I’d have left my son without a dad and my mom without a son to take care of her.” He met her gaze. “I set out to be a better man than I was a kid, and in doing so, I’ve learned that there are more important things than money.”

  Her throat was tight when she said, “And you don’t see how good a man you are?”

  “I’ve still got a lot to make up for.”

  He wanted redemption for the wildness of his youth. He wanted to make amends. He wanted to man up and be a dad.

  She admired the hell out of that.

  Tanner’s phone buzzed and he read the text, his mouth going tight. “It’s from Elisa. I’ve got to go.”

  She straightened and set down her coffee on the counter. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office.” His smile was grim. “Again. And here I thought those days were long gone.” He moved to the door.

  “Tanner?”

  He turned back. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t doubt your ability to be a dad,” she said softly. “You’re a great one.”

  He stared at her for a few beats and then moved back to her, planting one hand on either side of her body, caging her against the counter.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to kiss you,” he said, voice low and…damn. Seductive as hell.

  “You are?” she breathed. “Why?”

  His mouth was at her ear but he lifted his head to look at her with a smile. “Because I want to.”

  “You want to kiss me?” she whispered, needing to hear it again. She couldn’t help it; she’d dreamed of this for so long when she was younger.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I want to kiss you. To start.”

  Holy. Smokes. “But…” Her body quivered. Bad body. “But we talked about this. We’re both way too screwed up, remember?”

  “I don’t feel screwed up right now.”

  She felt her stomach clench a little, in a good way, the kind of excitement humming through her veins that she usually associated with opening a gallon of ice cream or a new bag of chips. “But your text…you have to go.”

  “In a minute,” he said, staring at her mouth.

  Oh boy. He wasn’t helping. In fact, he was making her want things. Lots of things, not a single one of them ice cream or chips. So she closed her eyes. This made him seem even closer. They weren’t touching, not a single inch, but she felt completely surrounded by him. Intimately so.

  She wanted more. “I’m off men, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He took his hands off the counter and pulled her in, hard against his body.

  She took two handfuls of his shirt. For balance, she told herself.

  But the truth was, she wanted to put her hands on him. His chest was warm and hard beneath her palms. It almost hurt to look at him, he was so damn good-looking. Those dark, dark eyes that held his secrets and emotions in check, that square jaw with a sexy amount of scruff.

  Everything about him saying badass tough guy who didn’t ever do soft and gentle.

  And yet he did exactly that when his hands, strong and warm, slid up her back and then down, pulling her in even closer.

  Then he looked down on her face for another second, his brown eyes soft but full of intent as he slowly lowered his head.

  “W-wait!”

  He paused, eyes on hers.

  She had her hands over his heart and could feel the beating beneath her palms. Slow. Steady.

  The opposite of hers, of course.

  “Callie?”

  “I…can’t remember what I was going to say.”

  His eyes were smiling into hers. “So I can continue?”

  She cleared her throat and nodded. “Carry on,” she whispered.

  He started with a brush of his lips against one corner of her mouth, a butterfly touch. And then the other corner.

  She heard a soft sound, an almost whimper, and realized it was her.

  He slowly sank his fingers into her hair and she melted. No