by Jillian Neal
“Really?”
“Yeah, we’re really, really happy for you, Dan. We want to help.”
“Thanks,” Dan felt the emotion of everything that had happened to him in the past month settle in his throat.
Kara nodded and, in a moment of overwhelming adoration for her big brother, she scooted Fionna out of the way, threw her arms around Dan, and squeezed him tightly.
Fionna beamed at them.
“Besides, I need you to chill out and settle down because I’m having a baby, and you’re my only sane sibling,” Kara huffed as Fionna and Dan watched the extent of her pregnancy hormones come on full tilt. She smiled adoringly at Dan and began to sob.
Dan shook his head, but he embraced his little sister and let her cry against his chest. Fionna looked at him like she couldn’t possibly love anyone more.
“Meredith’s not nuts, just Tim,” Dan teased as Kara began to laugh at herself for crying.
“I know, but they come as a package.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to tell you that Tim may not be able to come because he thinks his immunizations must’ve run out, and that he might’ve contracted Rubella, and therefore he can’t be around me because it might hurt the baby,” Kara explained just before she cracked up.
“What?” Dan’s brother-in-law and his insistence that he couldn’t work, because of his illness of the day, drove Dan insane.
Kara was still giggling hysterically. “It’s a pimple on his ass. Meredith told me.” She managed to get out the explanation before she began crying again from her own laughter.
Fionna and Dan promptly guffawed at the story and Kara’s reaction.
Suddenly, Fionna stopped laughing. Her eyes opened as wide as saucers. “Dan, where’s your mom?”
Kara, Dan, and Fionna all took off towards Fionna’s bedroom in a heated sprint. It was very clear to Dan that his little sister clearly had a drawer similar to Fionna’s, and completely understood why it was imperative that Mrs. Vindico not get into Fionna’s bedside table.
Dan rushed into the room with Fionna and Kara right behind him. “Mom!”
Mrs. Vindico was in Fionna’s closet. She was laying clothes gingerly on Fionna’s bed, hanger and all.
“Dan, my lingerie is in there,” she hissed through clenched teeth as she gestured to a large antique armoire in the back of the closet.
Dan had taken up guard in front of the bedside table. He crossed his massive arms over his chest, determined to protect the delicate, intricate pieces of the woman he adored, from his mother’s bulldozer approach to life.
“Mom,” he barked, “let Fionna pack her own clothes!”
“Daniel, we have things to get done, dear. Now, clearly, after what happened last night, this isn’t a safe place for our sweet Fionna to stay. Your father and Governor Haydenshire’s boys are loading up the last of the furniture. Emily, Adeline, and Fionna’s dear mother, who must be who she gets her beautiful complexion from, is finishing up the kitchen, so I’ll just get this room done quickly. Then we can go and get your home all squared away.” She looked extremely proud of her plan.
Dan refused to move away from Fionna’s bedside table drawer, which contained several sex toys and an endless supply of romance and erotic novels.
He decided to command from his current post. “Mother, we will get everything taken care of. It doesn’t all have to be done today, but Fionna and I will take care of her bedroom, as it is hers and, therefore, she might not really want it intruded upon.”
Mrs. Vindico rolled her eyes and gave Dan the look she reserved for him when he’d done anything that didn’t meet her ridiculous expectations.
“Daniel, all women have more shoes than we let our husbands know we have, and a long silk dressing robe that we don’t want anyone but our husband to know about. I certainly don’t have any problem packing up Fionna’s. She is a sweet, kind, wonderful girl. There is absolutely nothing in here that she wouldn’t want me to see.”
Fionna whimpered and shot Dan pleading looks.
Kara stepped in. She pulled her mother from Fionna’s closet. “Mom, why don’t you and I go get the guest bedrooms all packed up? We’ll just let Dan and Fionna finish in here.”
Ignoring Kara, Mrs. Vindico continued piling Fionna’s clothing on the bed. She happened to grab the tight, leather miniskirt that Fionna had worn the night Dan had come home with her. She furrowed her brow, but then crafted her own story, “I bet that was part of a cute Halloween costume.”
Fionna dropped her head into her hands.
“Mom!” Dan and Kara both shouted.
At that moment, Governor Vindico came to his children’s rescue. He took in Dan standing rigidly, arms crossed, in front of Fionna’s bedside table, the pile of clothing on the bed, Kara’s wide-eyed horror as she stood in front of the armoire in the closet, and Fionna’s face in her hands. With a sigh, he scrubbed his hands over his face. “Marion, dear, the car is full. Would you ride with me over to Dan’s, and we’ll unload the boxes in his garage and then come back for another load? I could really use your help.”
“I suppose, Arthur, but everyone needs to pick up the pace. They need to get squared away before Dan has to go back to work tomorrow.”
“We’ll get everything done, Marion. Dan will take care of Fionna, and she will take care of him.” Governor Vindico guided his wife out of Fionna’s closet and then out of Fionna’s room.
“Thank you,” Dan huffed.
“I’d just get this room done quickly, son.”
“I really, really love your dad,” Fionna gushed. Kara looked almost as relieved as Fionna. But suddenly Dan found himself being glared at by Fionna. Kara’s eyes lit delightedly as she watched.
“Uh, Officer Vindico, how exactly did you know which drawer I didn’t want your mother finding?”
Fourteen Days
Fionna was trying hard to look threatening, but was failing miserably.
Kara cracked up. “Oh, this is fun. Please don’t make me leave.” She and Fionna shared conspiratorial laughter.
“You don’t have to leave. You have to hold him down while I tickle him.”
His little sister and his girlfriend teaming up to attack him had Dan guffawing. “Bring it on, baby doll.”
“Well, let’s have it, darling,” Fionna cocked her jaw to the side and put her hands on her hips. She gestured her head toward the drawer in question.
Dan tried to think of a way out, though he was quite certain he was had. “Don’t guess you’d buy that it was an incredibly good guess?”
“Not a chance.”
Kara’s entire face lit up as she moved beside Fionna. “Here, watch me work. This is so much more effective than tickling.”
With a genuine laugh, Dan seriously doubted that his little sister had anything up her sleeve.
“Hey Fionna,” Kara drawled.
“Yeah, Kara?”
“You know that stuff that my incredibly nosy brother found of yours that everyone has, but no one talks about, and that your boyfriend should never go looking for?”
Fionna gave Dan a goading glare. “Yes, I do know that stuff.”
“Well, I was just wondering if you thought it was okay for me to use mine while I’m pregnant. Because sometimes Zach and I….”
Dan shuddered in horror. “Stop. Please, just stop now!”
“No, no go on,” Fionna giggled hysterically.
“See, Zach does this thing…” Kara baited as Dan’s entire body shuddered in disgust.
“Okay, okay, I was a jerk. The first night I stayed over here, I poked around a little while you were in the bathroom. I’m sorry. I don’t care. I think it’s really hot. I’m so sorry. Just please don’t make me listen to anything else about my sister’s sex life.”
Fionna and Kara gave each other high fives and laughed heartily. Dan was quite certain his face was the color of an overly ripe tomato.
“Now, make him pack them,” Kara ordered. Fionna promptly blushed and shot Dan anoth
er irritated glare.
Kara shook her head at him. “I’m going to go check on Zach and let her yell at you. Call me if you need me.”
“I’ll take care of him. Don’t worry.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I was desperate to find out everything I could about you, and I wanted to know what kinds of things you might like. I wanted to make you happy. It was a horrible invasion of privacy.”
Fionna crossed her arms over her chest and kept her eyes narrowed. Her face was still glowing crimson.
Since his mother was no longer in the room and wouldn’t decide at any given moment to stalk to the bedside table and unload it, Dan moved to Fionna. “I’m really sorry, Fi. Please don’t be embarrassed, baby. It’s incredibly hot. I would love to get in on that someday.” He took a chance and wrapped his arms around her. She bristled and debated.
“I’m so embarrassed.” After a moment of resistance, she buried her face in his chest. “Oh, my gosh! Your mom, I mean there is so, so, so, much more in there than a long silk robe, in fact, I don’t even own a long silk robe.”
Dan felt her energy spin tightly in her humiliation. “Honey, really you have nothing to be embarrassed about. I like that you love lingerie. Obviously, I love seeing you in stuff like that, but it means a lot to me that you want there to be more to it than just the act itself. It’s incredibly refreshing, actually. And the stuff in there….” He gestured to the bedside table drawer and paused. He wasn’t certain how to explain it to her. “Do you remember this morning when you asked me if I thought you were wild the way your dad thinks you are?”
Fionna nodded against him.
“I think that all of that, and all of the lingerie, they all make up that cocktail of you; the sweet, amazing woman that I’m crazy about. The woman I can’t wait to move into my house. You may not have known much about me before we got together but, believe me, honey, you’ve changed me completely and all for the better. And,” he pulled away just enough to kiss her forehead, “I think you should definitely keep all of the same stuff in the bedside table in our room, at our house. You know the one you threw all of the condoms out of when you went through my stuff?” He finally broke through her abashed state and made her laugh.
A minute later, she pulled away and moved to sit on her bed beside the piles of clothes. She looked overwrought.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Dan seated himself beside her.
“Nothing; but maybe that’s what’s wrong.”
“Fi?” He’d gleaned nothing from her cryptic reply.
She drew a deep breath and turned to study him. “We’ve been going out less than a month, Dan. Now, I’m moving into your house. Doesn’t that scare you, even a little? What if we’re doing this because I was stupid, and my house really isn’t safe anymore? I’m just dumping my stupid mistakes in your lap.” Tears of fright began making their way down her beautiful face.
Dan lifted her face tenderly into his hands, and gazed down into the sienna depths of the most amazing women he’d ever come in contact with. “Fourteen days.” She furrowed her brow. “Fourteen days is how long we’ve been dating. And in the past fourteen days, you’ve made me feel things I swore I’d never feel again. You’ve made me believe that maybe life really is worth living, because for ten damn years, honey, I never believed that.”
“You made me understand that I could have it both ways. See, I was damned and determined never ever to fall in love again, because that meant that I had to stop loving Amelia and I couldn’t. I can’t. I never thought there was a woman in the world who would understand that, who would allow that, who would accept that. But you,” he shook his head in disbelief, “you did so much more. You welcomed it, because you are the most astounding thing that has ever happened to me.”
“So, for fourteen days, I’ve lived. I’ve done more than breathe in hatred and vengeance when I drew breath, and I’ve seen the world through your eyes, instead of through a red haze of anger and volatility.”
“I’ve slept for the first time in years. You have healed me and filled me in ways I thought I’d never be filled again. So, yeah, I’m scared. Scared I won’t be enough for you because, my God, Fionna, you deserve so much more than me.”
She shook her head vehemently, but he continued. “But what absolutely terrifies me is thinking about waking up and you not being in my arms, or coming back to the house, I’ve occupied for the last few years, and it not being my home because you aren’t there. I’ve done a whole lot of incredibly stupid things in my life, Fionna, but I will do anything in my power to keep you and to be everything you need and you want me to be, but I cannot lose you, Fi.
“That would end me. I couldn’t go on. I know this is fast and it’s been kind of a crazy ride, baby doll, but I’ve experienced enough of the absolute worst possible things this world has to offer to know when I just happened to somehow, by some incredible miracle, get the absolute best thing there is out there.”
“If you don’t want to move in with me, then I’ll have them unload the trucks. But please, I’m begging you; let me move in here, because I can’t survive without you. I just can’t. I’m just not that strong,” he choked and blinked back tears of his own.
Fionna wrapped her arms around him tightly as he cradled her to him. “I just love you so much sometimes it scares me, because I can’t live without you either, not anymore. I just can’t, and I know I’m not supposed to. It’s just a lot.”
“I’m not going anywhere, honey. I will always be right here.”
She nodded against him and began shuddering with her sobs.
“Shh, baby, please don’t cry.” He felt her tears pierce him like shards of glass. He rubbed her back and tried to brush away the emotion.
Her exhaustion from their horrific night, his mother penetrating her safe-hold, her discovery that he’d found out a little more than she was quite ready to share, and then giving up her home had simply been more than she could quite withstand. Dan held her closely and felt guilt over his part swirl relentlessly in his gut.
Garrett knocked on the open door. Emily followed him into the room. He caught Dan’s eye and gave him a sympathetic headshake. “Happy tears, angry tears, exhausted tears? Geez, girls cry about everything.”
Fionna turned from Dan and let Emily embrace her.
“I’m gonna go with angry and exhausted.” Dan felt defeat settle on him.
“No, it’s just…it’s kind of been a lot lately,” Fionna informed Garrett. She seemed to find solace in Emily.
“Yeah, well, take it from me; you two need each other. I’ve never seen either of you so happy,” Garrett scoffed. “You know, I gave him hell thinking he was gonna be the one to freak, when clearly I should have been yelling at you,” Garrett’s voice was kind and gentle. He tousled Fionna’s hair, as she rolled her eyes.
“It was just a little freak out. I have them occasionally.”
“I’m pretty certain this was mostly my fault,” Dan admitted.
Emily hugged Fionna again. “Kara said Mrs. Vindico was trying to pack up your room.” She bit her lip before continuing. “I’ll help you finish. We can get everything done before she gets back, if we hurry.”
“Baby, is there anything in there that might break or that is hanging up?” Dan gestured to the antique armoire. Fionna shook her head. “Why don’t Garrett and I just carry it out like it is? We can put it in our closet at the house. It’ll never have to be packed or unpacked.”
Relief eased over Fionna’s features as she nodded. “Thank you.”
Garrett chuckled and kissed the top of Fionna’s head sweetly. “Satin and lace can’t possibly weigh that much.”
“Shut up, Garrett,” Fionna threw her elbow out and caught Garrett’s stomach. He feigned injury. Dan shook his head.
Quickly figuring that having a few minutes alone with Emily might make a world of difference, Dan tried not to lament the fact that he alone hadn’t been able to soothe her.
“Come on, Haydens
hire. Lift with your legs.”
Garrett laughed as he and Dan lifted the large, heavy piece of furniture and maneuvered it carefully out of Fionna’s closet and down the stairs.
With Her, For Her
Dan climbed back up the stairs without consciously deciding to eavesdrop. He halted outside the door when he heard the words, “He really does love you, Fi. I can tell. He’s crazy about you,” Emily was vehement, as if Fionna didn’t believe that herself.
“I know; I can’t believe how lucky I am. I just kind of freaked. Do you think I’m crazy moving in with him? It’s been two weeks, even if I kind of knew beforehand.”
Silence loomed. Dan’s pulse churned and then sped rapidly. He prayed that Emily would tell her that it wasn’t crazy, that she should move in with Dan. He didn’t understand how she’d known before him, but he didn’t care.
“You know, I think everyone thought I was just a sassy kid when I said I was going to marry Rainer, when I was four, but I was serious. I still think people are just waiting on us to fall apart, because you can’t possibly love the same guy your entire life. But just because everyone else doesn’t do it the way I did it, or the way you and Vindico are doing it, doesn’t make their way right and our way wrong.” Dan was deeply impressed. He just needed Fionna to hear what her friend was saying.
“I don’t know about you, but I kind of think my love story is the best.” Fionna laughed at Emily’s teasing words, but Dan knew she did believe that.
“Fionna, other people moving in together after two weeks might make me concerned, but something about the two of you when you’re together, it just seems right. I can feel it, and I know you can feel it.”
“I can, but I’m really mad at him. I don’t know how to feel about that. If he weren’t so sweet, and so freaking good-looking, and so damn good in bed, I’d be really pissed that he found my vibes. I am pissed, but being mad at him makes me hurt. I knew he’d done something. He felt guilty that morning when I walked him out.” Fionna’s words rocked through Dan. He’d had no idea that morning how incredibly powerful she was.
