“I just got back from a run.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I probably smell terrible.”
“I’ll risk it.”
I exhaled slowly, forced myself to look her in the eye. “I’m just not much for company.”
“My company in particular?”
“No. Any company. I suck at conversation.”
“Oh.” She saw me looking at that pie. “Well, that’s okay, I’ll just take my pie and go home. Night.” She turned around and stepped off the porch.
I couldn’t bear it. “Wait, wait, wait a second,” I said, opening the screen door. “Let’s not be too hasty.”
She looked at me over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“I guess I could try conversation. And some pie.”
She grinned. “Great. And don’t worry, Grams gave me all kinds of advice on how to talk to a man before I came over here.”
She moved past me into the house, and I inhaled the scent of her, apples, and cinnamon. My mouth watered. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes. Although it all sounded like something from an etiquette manual written while Roosevelt was in the White House.”
I had to smile. “Kitchen’s at the back.”
She followed me to the kitchen, where the sad remains of drab, tasteless meatballs and rubbery noodles were still on the counter next to my beer bottle. “Is that your dinner?” she asked.
Embarrassed, I swept it into the trash.
“You should have stayed over for supper with us.” She set the pie on the counter and looked around. “Got a knife?”
I pulled one from a drawer and watched as she sliced the pie, my insides rumbling. Manners, fuckhead. “Would you like a beer?”
“Sounds good, but I’d better not. I’ve already had two of Grams’s martinis and they can pack a punch. Next time.”
Two minutes later we sat down across from each other at my kitchen table, which I’d found at a barn sale and refinished along with two mismatched chairs. I dug into that slice of pie like my life depended on it and scarfed the entire thing down without saying a word. It tasted even better than I’d imagined.
“How was it?” Stella asked.
“Amazing,” I mumbled with my mouth full.
She laughed and got up, returning to the table with the whole pie in her hands. She swapped it with my empty plate. “Here. Have as much as you want.”
“This is dangerous. I could probably eat this entire thing.”
“Go ahead. It’s your pie.”
I went over to a drawer and took out another fork. “You eat some too. That way if it’s gone tomorrow morning, I can share the blame.”
She laughed and took the fork from my hand. “Okay. Maybe just a few bites.”
While we ate, she told me about making the pie with her grandmother today, how labor-intensive it was, how she’d never been too interested in baking from scratch before but found something really satisfying about it.
“When I go home, I’ve got strict instructions from Grams to teach my sister Emme how to bake this. She’s getting married next month, and Grams is convinced that homemade pie is the glue that holds a marriage together. Keeps a husband from straying.” She rolled her eyes. “She actually used those words. I love her like crazy, but she has some seriously old-fashioned ideas in her head.”
“I don’t know,” I said, sticking another bite into my mouth. “This pie is pretty fucking good.”
She laughed. “I’m glad you like it. But it’s not magical. Grams talks about it like it has mystical powers.”
“It might.” Setting down my fork, I tipped back the rest of my beer. “If I could eat something like this every day, I’d stay put.”
She smiled. “You’re not the type to stray, anyway. I can tell.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?” Curious, I sat back and studied her.
“I’m good at reading people. And I can tell you’re one of the good guys. You’re honorable.”
That’s because you don’t know that right now I’m thinking about how good your tits look in that sweater. “Really.”
She lifted her shoulders. “Really.”
God, she was so fucking pretty. And I loved that she thought I was honorable, even if I wasn’t so sure. I wanted to know more about her. “You just have the one sister? Or are there more of you?”
“There’s one more. The baby sister, Maren. She’s out in Oregon with her fiancé.” She laughed nervously. “Both my younger sisters are getting married before me. Feels kind of weird.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just always been first to hit the big milestones. This feels a little like a failure, to tell you the truth.”
“Nah.” I shook my head, surprised but flattered that she’d confide something so personal. “I’m pretty sure you’ve never failed at anything your whole life.”
A blush crept onto her cheeks. “What about you? Brothers or sisters?”
“Two sisters. Both older than me.”
“Are you close?”
I thought for a second. “We were as kids. But we don’t see each other that often. They’re married with their own families. You close to yours?”
She nodded and set down her fork. “Very. Family is really important to me. I have great memories of visiting Grams and Gramps with my sisters when we were young. We used to fight over this swing in the yard.”
“Swing?”
“Yes, there used to be one hanging from a big old birch tree. Gramps made it and he used to push us on it.”
I imagined the scene—three little golden-haired girls all clamoring for their turn. I’d have bet anything Stella let the others go first. I tilted my empty beer bottle this way and that on the table, torn between wanting to ask her more about herself and hoping she’d leave soon so I wouldn’t have to talk about me.
But I was surprised at how easy it was to talk to her. This was definitely the most words I’d said to anyone but Mack in the last few months. Maybe I could keep things focused on her. “You grew up downstate somewhere?”
She nodded. “Just north of Detroit. I still live there.”
“And you’re a therapist, right?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re good at reading people?”
“Partly.” She pulled all her hair over one shoulder. “But I think I’ve always been kind of good at it. I was very shy as a kid, not much of a talker. More of an observer and a thinker. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Were you a talker or a thinker as a kid?”
“Neither. I was just plain wild. An adrenaline junkie.”
She smiled. “I bet you had a lot of broken bones.”
“I did.”
“The military must have been a shock.”
I nodded slowly, wondering what all she’d heard about me. “At first.”
She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What made you enlist?”
I didn’t want to get into losing my mom and the shitty aftermath of her death, how I’d been so fucking angry, but also searching so hard for something good, something right, some cause worth dying for, so I kept it simple. “I was nineteen and needed to get out of the house. Didn’t have the money for college. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.”
“You were a Marine, right?”
“Yes.” I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck. My dim little kitchen, which only a moment ago had felt cozy, now felt slightly claustrophobic.
“Did you like it?”
I didn’t answer right away. “That’s a complicated question. But I’ll say yes.”
“Were you overseas?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Iraq, then Afghanistan.”
“What was it like there?”
I shook my head. Crossed my arms again. “You don’t really want to know that.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one really wants to know that.” My tone was a li
ttle harsher than I’d intended it to be, but she was pressing on a bad bruise. How many times had Brie told me not to talk about the war when we were out with friends because it was depressing and no one wanted to hear about depressing things on a Saturday night?
“I’m sorry,” Stella said, sitting back and putting her hands in her lap. Her eyes dropped too. “I don’t mean to pry. Sometimes I can’t help it.”
“I don’t need a therapist, Stella,” I snapped, hating myself for being a dick but needing to put my cards on the table. “I don’t have PTSD, I’m not depressed, and I sleep just fine at night. Not all of us came back damaged.”
Her cheeks went from pink to plum. “I never said—”
“Look, I don’t know what kind of shit is going around about me in this town, but they can all go to hell. I moved up here to get away from the talk.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” she protested. “Honestly, I was only trying to get to know you.”
“Well, maybe it’s better if you don’t.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. I was positive she was going to get up and leave any second—I would have.
“Boy,” she said. “You weren’t kidding about conversation.”
I grimaced. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m sitting here trying to figure out a way to apply Grams’s advice, but somehow saying how fun you are to talk to doesn’t seem quite right.”
Fucking hell, I was a jerk. But it was better she knew that up front, wasn’t it?
She stood up. “So I think I’ll just go. Keep the pie, you can return the pan to Grams whenever.”
When I didn’t say anything more, she walked out of the kitchen, leaving me there at the table, arms crossed and scowling.
I should have been relieved she was gone. So what if I’d enjoyed her company for a few minutes? I was bound to fuck it up sooner or later. And I didn’t need a friend, didn’t like people asking me questions, didn’t want her to know me. This was for the best.
I lasted about three seconds.
“Stella, wait.” Jumping out of my chair so fast it tipped over backward, I rushed through the house and caught her at the front door, grabbing her arm. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
She looked at my hand on her arm, then met my eyes. Her expression told me she wasn’t sure I was one of the good guys anymore.
I loosened my grip on her but didn’t let go. “Really. I’m sorry. I’ve never been good at small talk.”
She arched one brow. “You were fine at the small talk, actually.”
I frowned. Tried again. “Look, the last few years of my life have been difficult. They’ve left me with some … rough edges.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t relate easily to people.”
“Fine.”
“And I’m not interested in being social.”
“So I gathered.” She tilted her head toward the door. “That’s why I’m trying to leave.”
“But that doesn’t give me the right to be an asshole to you.” I squeezed her arm, then let it go. “So for that, I apologize.”
She glanced down at her arm where my hand had been, then looked up at me again. Her eyes were so blue, so clear. So honest. Part of me ached to be honest with her—not like I’d been at the table, not in a defensive way, but in a real way. A deeper way.
Who are you kidding? If she knew the truth about you, she’d still be running for the door.
“You know,” she said, drawing herself up, as if gathering her strength, “I let Grams talk me into coming over here tonight. Let her curl my hair and dress me up and convince me I’d been wrong about you.”
“Wrong about me?”
“Yes. I told her that you’d made it very clear you weren’t interested in me. But I came over here anyway, because the truth is, I’ve hardly been able to think about anything but you since we met. It doesn’t make sense at all, and it’s totally unlike me, but there it is.”
There were so many things I wanted to say. Tell her she’d been on my mind all day, tell her how beautiful she was, tell her how, in another life, I’d be kissing her right now, not clenching my fists because I was scared if she stayed here any longer, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her.
But touching her would’ve been wrong. And at this point in my life, when I had a chance to choose between right and wrong, I needed to choose right. There had been too many times in the past where the choice hadn’t been mine. I needed to atone for that.
“So was I?” she pressed. “Wrong about you?”
I stood a little taller and forced myself to look her in the eye. “No. You weren’t.”
Eleven
Stella
I knew it, I thought as I made my way across his front lawn, arms crossed over my chest. Normally I stuck to the walkways, but tonight I cut right across the grass. I knew I should have ignored Grams and listened to my gut. I just made a fool of myself.
Instead of going in the house—I really didn’t want to answer Grams’s questions or deal with her disappointment (my own was enough)—I plunked myself down on the front porch steps. The smell of sawdust and raw wood reminded me of Ryan … or was that my sweater? I sniffed the sleeve and winced. Maybe I should have let Grams douse me with Chanel No. 5.
Even the magical pie had failed me. Or maybe it was me who failed the pie.
From my jeans pocket, I pulled a tissue and wiped off the offensive red lipstick. Why had I even bothered? I wasn’t Emme, who could charm a man just by smiling at him, and I wasn’t Maren, who had always been at peace with herself just as she was. I wasn’t even Grams, who’d kept Gramps waiting outside her school for five extra minutes so everyone could see her climbing into his fancy Packard.
I was me. Boring, beige me, even in red lipstick and a tight sweater. And I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been rejected twice in one week.
I’m not sure how long I sat there feeling sorry for myself before I heard a voice.
“Hey.”
I gasped, my heart racing. “Oh my God. You scared me.”
“Sorry.” Ryan tucked his hands into his jeans pockets and came closer. He’d changed, I noticed. And his hair was wet, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.
“It’s fine.”
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Different things.” I didn’t have to share anything with him. “What are you doing out here?”
He looked toward his house. “I felt bad. About the way you left. I came to see if you were still awake.”
“Why would you feel bad?” I rose to my feet. “There’s no shame in being honest.”
“No?”
“No. I’ll take honesty over pretense any day.”
He met my eyes. “Me too.”
“Well then, nothing to feel bad about. Why should you pretend to feel something you don’t?” I started to go up the steps but he grabbed my hand.
“Stella. Wait.”
I let him tug me back down, but I wished I was wearing my own clothing and not this stupid fuzzy sweater.
“I wasn’t honest,” he said. “At my house.”
“What?”
“When I said you’d been right about me—that I had no interest in you.”
“I don’t understand.”
He put his hands back in his pockets. “The truth is, I haven’t stopped thinking about you either.”
The ground shifted beneath my feet. “You haven’t?”
“No. I lied because I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From me. Everything else I told you about me is true. I do have rough edges. I don’t relate well to people. But I’m not interested in changing that. I don’t need to be fixed.”
“I wasn’t trying to fix you, Ryan. I was trying to flirt with you.” I lowered my head. “And I’m feeling pretty embarrassed that you couldn’
t tell the difference.”
“Hey.” He put one hand beneath my chin and lifted it. “This has nothing to do with you. You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. And if things were different—” He stopped. Took his hand away.
“If things were different, what?” I asked.
“If things were different,” he said, slowly and seriously, “I wouldn’t be standing here telling myself not to touch you.”
My breath caught. “Is that what you’re doing?”
He nodded once.
God, he was gorgeous. And his voice was so low and sweet. His body so big and strong. I wanted to know what it was like to kiss him for real. To feel those arms around me. To press my chest against his and let my heart beat hard against it.
“I had a dream about you last night,” I whispered.
He swallowed. “Actually, I had one about you too.”
“In my dream, we were holding hands, and we ran up a hill and rolled down the other side. And then I told you to kiss me.”
He cleared his throat. “Uh, mine went a little differently.”
“Did you kiss me in your dream?”
“Yeah. I did.” His eyes were locked on mine, dark and glittering with a fire I could feel under my skin.
“Ryan. Kiss me now.”
“It would be a mistake, Stella.” But he gripped my upper arms and pulled me so close I could feel his breath on my lips. “I’m not the man in your dreams.”
“Prove it,” I whispered.
One second later his mouth was on mine, and I was wrapped in the strongest, warmest, tightest embrace I’d ever felt. His tongue swept between my lips and I was dizzy with the taste of apples and cinnamon. I couldn’t feel my feet on the ground.
His hands moved underneath my sweater and roamed over my back. God, it had been so long since anyone had touched my bare skin, even longer since I’d welcomed it. He slid them down over my ass and pulled me even tighter against him. I could feel the thick, hard bulge of his erection through our jeans and desperately wanted more.
Would it be different with him? Would I be different? Was it worth the risk to try?
But all of a sudden, he pushed me away and took a step back. “Go inside now, Stella,” he said, breathing hard.
“But—”
One and Only Boxed Set Page 58
