by Laura Drewry
Or maybe … maybe it was the way smiled up at him, the way she’d smiled at him so many times before, with her blue eyes so full of hope, her pretty mouth quivering and wobbling until she managed to get hold of it.
Whatever it was, Nick suddenly knew that’s what was missing between him and Lisa; that feeling like his heart was going to bust his ribs if it swelled any bigger, like he’d been punched in the solar plexus and his next breath depended on her and her alone, and like … Oooooh, shit.
Nick kept his phone up to his ear, too, stumbling to get his tongue to work. “Hey.”
“Are we just going to stand here or what? Look out.” Carter shoved Nick out of the way and lifted Jayne into a hug, carrying her back into the little storage room. “Happy birthday, Jay. Let’s see what you’ve done with the place. When are you opening?”
“Next Saturday.”
He set her free, and though Nick might have imagined it, it seemed like Carter gave her a gentle shove in Nick’s direction. He hugged her tight, trying really hard not to inhale the soft scent of strawberries against her neck, trying even harder not to give away what he’d suddenly realized. What he should have realized a looooong time ago. No, he wouldn’t screw things up. Not today. Today was Jayne’s birthday and he wanted it to be perfect for her.
Growing up, Jayne had always made a big deal of Nick’s birthday; she’d spend hours on his card, building little worlds between the sheets of construction paper that recreated things they’d done since his last birthday. She’d find a whole bunch of things for him that she probably couldn’t afford, like the 1970 Matchbox Ford Mustang, or the Ichiro Suzuki rookie card, and then she’d let him pick what they’d do that day.
Nick grinned. What he wanted to do on his birthday usually ended up being what he thought she wanted to do.
“Happy birthday,” he murmured, tightening his hold. Her body curved against his, soft and warm, her breath ragged against his neck. She fit so perfectly, always had. With great reluctance, he set her down slowly, straightened her turban and tried not to notice the way she scrambled to tighten the belt around her robe. “Nice outfit.”
“I was in the shower,” she choked. Her smile quivered a little, but not too bad. “I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
“Hmm.” He tapped her nose, then turned her toward the stairs. “Go get dressed, ’cause we’ve got a busy day.”
A slow sparkle started in her eyes, until her lips finally curved into a smile, and then she was off up the stairs two at a time. They waited until she disappeared into the apartment then went back to the truck and hauled out the long flat box. Once they had a grip on it, they maneuvered it through the door and up the stairs, but not without banging the wall a couple times.
He was pulling the plastic off when she yanked open the bathroom door and started toward them, dragging a comb through her hair as she moved. Knee-length shorts, a plain purple T-shirt, and not a speck of makeup.
Wow. Something twisted a little in his gut, but he buried it under a grin.
“What did you do?” she asked warily.
“This was all him,” Carter laughed. “Straight out of the How to Be a Prick handbook. He got you a gift for himself.”
“What?” She tried to step around Nick but he blocked her.
“It’s not just for me, Carter. I think, deep down, she really wants it, too.” He tucked her hair back behind her ear and wagged his brow at her. “Forty-two inches might sound a little big, but trust me, I’ll squeeze it in.”
“What!?” Panic flashed across her blue eyes followed instantly by something else, something warm and—holy crap—sexy as all hell. Her mouth opened in a small o and she tried to step away, but Carter pulled her back.
“Holy hell, Jay,” he laughed. “Look at you thinkin’ all sorts of slutty things this early.”
Nick had never seen anyone blush that deep or that fast before. Damn, she was cute, but before she exploded on the spot, he stepped out of the way and let her into the living room to see the gift he got for her for himself.
“Plasma, HD, Ethernet port, two USB ports, DVD and Blue Ray, could hook you up to surround sound if you had speakers …” He stood with his hands on his hips, smiling at the shiny new TV he’d set on the table in the corner. “Cable guy will be here on Monday.”
Jayne stared at it for a couple seconds, then moved her gaze up to meet his. “A TV? Really, Nick?”
“Damn right.” He flashed her a wink and handed over the remote. “I mean, it’s obviously not what you were expecting forty-two inches to be, but …”
“Wow.” She blushed deeper as her laugh settled over him. “Well, honestly, I don’t know if I should say thank you or you’re welcome. Safe to assume you’ve already programmed SportsNet into the favorites?”
“No,” he drawled. “But I plan to.”
Her smile widened. Hell, he almost saw teeth on that one.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“So you keep telling me.” He and Carter started for the stairs, but she didn’t move. “Come on, we’re going for breakfast.”
“Hang on, I’m not ready.”
“Ready for what? You look great.”
“No, I look like I just jumped out of the shower so some dumb ass could give me a gift for himself.”
The smile was still there. Good.
She jabbed her comb into his chest and pointed toward the kitchen. “You make coffee and I’ll get ready.”
“We’ll have coffee with breakfast.”
“Then sit and stare at your new toy for a couple minutes.” She disappeared into the bathroom again, leaving Nick to stare after her and Carter to stare at Nick.
“You’re in a heap of trouble there, buddy.” Carter’s voice was so quiet, at first Nick thought he’d imagined it, but the slap on the shoulder and the sympathetic look Carter gave him confirmed it. And Carter was right; Nick was in a shitload of trouble and he hadn’t even done anything.
He’d only thought about it.
Every other time he’d hugged Jayne, the little flame he felt in his gut flickered hot then simmered, but not this time. It burned hotter by the second, and when she looked at him with those huge sexy eyes, he knew he was done for.
He also knew he was going to have to talk to Lisa and that gnawed at him. She deserved better than this, and so did Jayne. The truth of the matter was he liked Lisa, but he also knew he’d never feel for her the way she wanted him to. He tried, God help him, he tried, but it just wasn’t there.
And now, no matter what he said, it was going to look like Jayne had come between them and she’d be blamed for something she had nothing to do with. This was all Nick’s fault, and he’d have to find a way to make it right, but how was he going to explain to Lisa that she was about as perfect as a woman could be, that she’d never done anything wrong, and yet …
A hair dryer started up, things banged, drawers opened and shut, and water ran. While they waited, Nick and Carter gathered up all the garbage from the TV and stuffed it back inside the box for the recycling depot.
Good choice, if he did say so himself. It fit perfectly in the corner, and the way she had the furniture arranged made it easy to see from any angle. She’d love it. Eventually.
When Jayne finally emerged, Nick tried not to stare, but with her hair pinned up off her neck like that … a hard elbow from Carter snapped Nick out of it.
“Ready.” She pulled a few cards out of her wallet, tucked them in one of her back pockets, and grabbed her keys.
“One more thing.” He pulled out a smaller box he’d tucked inside the TV box and handed it to her.
“Feels like DVDs.” She narrowed her eyes at him as she slid her finger under the corner of the wrap. “Oh my God, are you going to make me sit through all the Star Wars movies?”
“No, but I wish I’d thought of that before I found those.”
Her mouth snapped shut as she pulled out three of her favorite John Hughes movies: Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, a
nd Pretty in Pink.
“Seriously?” She stared back at him, holding them against her chest as though she half expected him to snatch them back. “Will you guys watch them with me?”
“No way,” they answered together, then Carter handed her another package.
“But we might watch these ones with you.”
She ripped through the wrap and squealed as she pulled out The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, and Home Alone.
“Okay,” she grinned. “Now I’m happy you brought the TV!”
“Good. Can we go eat now?”
Choices were limited when it came to having breakfast out, but thankfully Jayne had never been one for fancy dining. They found a booth at the diner, where she ordered a ridiculously small fruit cup with yogurt, and Nick and Carter ordered steak and eggs with extra hash browns.
While they waited, Nick set a small package on the table in front of her. Her blue eyes looked up at him, all soft and girly, then down at the package. He slid his napkin out from under his fork and pushed it across the table, too.
“Just in case.”
“Jeez,” Carter grumbled. “I hope you’re not expecting anything else from me, because I thought I outdid myself on the movies.”
Jayne laughed as she peeled the paper away. When the key and juice box finally tumbled out, she stared down at them for a long time before finally lifting the key and letting it dangle by the silver chain.
“This looks an awful lot like the one I gave back to you a week or so ago.”
“One and the same.” He tugged it out of her hand, moved around the table, and fastened the chain around her neck before going back to his chair, purposely avoiding Carter’s stare.
Trembling slightly, she fingered the key where it lay against her skin. “Why?”
He reached for the juice box and held it up off the table. “This is so you’ll remember that no matter what, you’ll always have a lunch date when you want one, and that”—he pointed the juice box toward the key—“is for anytime you want to come home again. Duke misses you.”
“Nick.” Her bottom lip trembled, her eyes filled, and she snapped up the napkin just as their food arrived.
“Oh, for crap’s sake,” Carter groaned over a snort. “If I’d known a fifty-cent juice box and rusty old key were all it was going to take, Jay, I would’ve kept Ferris Bueller for myself.”
“Try and take it back,” she choked from behind the napkin. “And I’ll break your arm.”
She was so easy to please, it was just too bad being happy made her cry so much. But if that’s what it took, then Nick was glad to be the one to make her cry. How twisted was that?
When they were done, they squished her between them in the cab of the truck and set off to every garage sale they could find. It might be her birthday, but it was also a sunny Saturday, and there were books to be had. At every stop, Nick and Carter wandered the tables, making her laugh with things like Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots or the almost bald Barbie wearing nothing but a pair of short-shorts and a single running shoe.
Lugging it all back into the store, Nick wouldn’t let her sort a single book.
“Go grab some better footwear.” As cute as her toes were all painted up, those flip flops weren’t going to do her a damn bit of good on their next trek. Back in the truck, he stopped outside the bakery just long enough to run in and grab the late lunch he’d preordered.
“Do you ever think of anything besides food?” Jayne laughed as he set the bag on her lap.
“Occasionally,” he muttered, figuring she probably didn’t want to know what he’d been thinking about lately. Carter obviously had some idea because he let rip with a snort that made Jayne jump.
Twenty minutes up the highway, Nick pulled into a makeshift parking lot and tucked their lunch into his pack. “Ready?”
“I guess.” She didn’t sound very confident. “Where are we going?”
“Lake Eloise.” He grabbed her hand and gave it a tug to get her moving. “It’s a couple miles up the trail.”
“Up?”
Nick nodded and grinned. “It’s downhill on the way back.”
The trail was just as he remembered, buried deep in the trees with roots and boulders making it a lot more challenging than the jaunt around the golf course trail. So far as he knew, Jayne had never been up here, and he couldn’t wait for her to see the lake.
About a quarter mile up, the trail leveled off under the early afternoon sun, then rose again. A couple mountain bikers rode by, grinning through the dust and grime on their faces, and a while later an older couple with a rat-sized black dog passed by on their way back toward the parking lot.
Carter kept up the chatter with stories from the hospital; which nurses were cute, which were crazy stalkers, and which doctors were sleeping with which nurses. Nick couldn’t keep any of them straight, but Jayne could; she even caught on to a few who were messing around with more than one nurse at the same time.
A huge yellow wasp buzzed around Jayne’s head, diving away from her swats, then swerving back again and again.
“That’s what you get for smelling so good.” Carter ducked as she swatted the wasp toward him.
“Very helpful.” She jumped away from it a few more times before it finally decided she was too much effort and flew off into the trees.
About a hundred yards from the lake, the trail banked sharply. Once Nick and Carter were down, they reached back to help Jayne down.
“Close your eyes.”
“Yeah,” she scoffed. “And you’ll walk me right into a tree trunk. No thanks.”
Carter had already walked ahead, then turned and let out a low whistle. “Not bad, cuz.”
“Jayne.” Nick knew she’d do it, but not without a final warning glare and a long sigh. When he was sure she wasn’t peeking, he tucked her hand under his elbow and guided her toward the lake.
“It’s all flat,” he said, laughing at the way she lifted her feet so high off the ground while her free hand groped the air around her. “A little trust might be nice.”
They came into the clearing at the lake and Nick almost whooped. It was almost exactly as he’d hoped it would be; a few other people were hanging around, but far enough away that they wouldn’t bother each other. Okay, where to put Jayne?
“Don’t look yet.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and brought up the camera app.
“What are you doing?” Still her hand groped the air, reaching nothing.
“Keep your shirt on.” A few feet to the left, a couple big steps toward the lake. There. Perfect.
“Don’t open until I tell you,” he said. “I’m going to step away for a second.”
She tried to keep her grasp on his elbow, but he pried her fingers off and jumped out of her reach, dumping the backpack on the ground near his feet.
“Okay. Open them.” Before she could react, he started snapping pictures.
Jayne opened her eyes slowly, almost as if she was expecting something horrible to be staring her in the face, but a second later, her eyes flew wide. Beautiful.
Lake Eloise, one of the deepest glacier-fed lakes in the region, was as blue as blue could be, and all around it, covering almost every inch of earth, were thousands and thousands of bright yellow dandelions.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, then choked on a laugh. “It’s gorgeous!”
Ignoring the wasps that buzzed all around her, she sank down to her knees and ran her hands over the golden heads, causing a ripple of yellow flowers across the field around her. Nick snapped a few more pictures, then tucked his phone away and just stood watching her.
A dirty key, a juice box, and a field of dandelions—nope, dates didn’t come any cheaper than Jayne.
Carter whistled again, a little sharper, until Nick looked over at him. He bobbed his head farther up the lake where three blondes were sitting. Nick waved him off and flopped down next to Jayne.
“Worth the hike?”
“Absolutely.” She plucked the b
iggest dandelion she could find and held it upside down over her wrist. The sun filtered through it, leaving her pale skin bathed in soft yellow light. “This is so cool.”
“Yeah.” He snapped one off as far down the stem as he could, then used the corkscrew tip of his pocketknife to poke a hole near the end. He snapped off another one, fed its stem through the hole in the first, and then repeated it over and over again.
“Thought it was time you had a new one.” He took his time, making sure each new head was secured before moving on to the next one.
Jayne didn’t make a sound, just sat with her knees tucked up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, watching him with those huge blue eyes. For every new stem he threaded together, his heart beat faster knowing he was that much closer to finishing, that much closer to breaking the spell that seemed to be hanging over them.
Nick worked slowly, stretching the time out as long as he could until there was nothing left to do. He moved up beside her and slowly slipped it over her head, careful not to get it stuck in all those pins in her hair, his fingers brushing against her neck as he eased it down.
Her eyes, as blue as the water itself, brimmed precariously until one fat tear sneaked over her lashes and down her cheek.
“Hey.” Nick caught it on his thumb and brushed it away, but instead of lifting his hand, he opened it, and cupped her cheek in his palm. “No crying on your birthday.”
“Nick.” His name was nothing more than a breathy sigh from her lips; sexiest damned sound he ever heard.
She was so close, so still, and God help him, if she didn’t stop looking at him like that … One kiss, that’s all; one taste, one chance to pull those pins out of her hair and let it tumble through his fingers.
“I, uh …” He moved closer, just a little, and leaned in … did she just wince?
She jerked away, flicking her hand across the back of her neck. “Ow!”
“What?” It took Nick a second to focus, then he pulled her hands away from her neck so he could get a look. Sure enough, there were two thin black stingers sticking out of the back of her neck, one almost dead center and the other just to the left, both spots already red and starting to swell. Jeezus.
