The rest of the room was less exciting. She had a navy plaid sofa with a single chair by the window. She’s found the simple maple dining table and chairs at a thrift store. Back the other way was the short hallway that led to her bedroom. There was also a decent-sized bathroom.
Nothing fancy, but the place worked. The rent was reasonable, the neighbors quiet. She worked a lot of hours and didn’t need any more. One day, she thought wistfully. One day she would have a house and husband and kids and maybe a dog. Until then, this was fine.
She pointed to the dining table. “I have cupcakes,” she said. “I’ll make coffee to go with them. Unless you want milk.”
“You gave me cookies. I have them in my truck.”
“They’re for later. The cupcakes are for our conversation.”
He looked from the platter in the center of the table back to her. “How can you eat like you do and still look like that?”
She felt some of her tension ease. “I taste rather than have a whole serving. Plus I work in a bakery. After a while, the good things start to be less tempting.”
“I wish that were true for me.”
He took the seat she offered. Shelby went into the kitchen and started her coffeemaker. She’d prepped it before she’d left, hoping things would work out. In a way, she was surprised they’d gotten this far. Her plan had potential, but it required cooperation. And Aidan not thinking she was insane.
Now that he was here, she didn’t know what to say. How to start. She’d been practicing opening lines for a couple of weeks now. Ever since she’d figured out what she was going to do. She’d known the what, but not the who. Not until she’d heard about what had happened on New Year’s Eve and had seen Aidan the next day.
He could have been blasé about what had happened, but he hadn’t been. He’d been angry at himself and ashamed. He’d wanted to change. All of which was in her favor.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked.
“Just black.”
She took her coffee the same way. Every calorie saved, she’d always thought. Now she carried two mugs to the table and took the seat across from him.
Aidan was tall, with broad shoulders. He still wore his workout clothes—a T-shirt over sweats. Both were loose, but she caught sight of the muscles lurking underneath. Given what he did for a living, it made sense that he was in good shape.
His face was nice, she thought. He was good-looking without being too pretty. She liked his dark brown eyes, the way they met hers steadily.
Silence stretched between them.
“This would be your meeting,” he said as he reached for one of her cupcakes. She’d picked chocolate with a nice coconut frosting. Simple, but delicious. The best desserts usually were.
She drew in a breath and said the first thing that came to her mind. “I want to buy a house.”
His eyebrows drew together. “I don’t sell real estate.”
“I know.” She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. This was going to be harder than she’d thought.
“Yesterday, you said you were sorry about what happened with that woman.” She sipped her coffee. “Are you still?”
He nodded, then took a bite of his cupcake. “These are good,” he said when he’d chewed and swallowed.
“Thanks. I like that you want to change. It’s not easy. Old habits and all that.”
“Yeah. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do yet. I’m giving up women. That’s for sure.”
“And how long do you think your antiwoman pledge will last?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks. A couple of months.”
“A long time.”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “Tell me about it. But I don’t know what else to do. I won’t be that guy again.”
“Do you want to fall in love?” She held up her hands. “Not with me. That’s not where this is going. But ever?”
“I don’t know.”
An unexpectedly honest answer. “Because you’d be stuck?”
“I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“You were hungover. You couldn’t help yourself. I won’t tell anyone.”
Emotions flashed across his face. She tried to read them and couldn’t.
“I want to not treat women badly,” he said at last. “No, that’s not right. I was honest about what I wanted and if the lady agreed, then we had a good time. It was supposed to be okay for both of us. I don’t know what went wrong.”
“One of your temporaries wanted more.”
“And I couldn’t remember her name.”
He spoke with what felt like sincere regret.
“Now you want to be different.”
He looked at her. “If you think you can change me,” he began.
“I don’t.” She shrugged. “I don’t believe people can change each other. We have to make the choice to be different ourselves and then make it happen. You want to act differently around women, but you don’t know how. Has it occurred to you that maybe the problem isn’t that you couldn’t remember her name, but that you never saw her as a person in the first place? That you don’t see any of them as people?”
He glanced longingly toward the door. “Okay then. While this has been great, I need to go.”
“Five minutes,” she said quietly. “Give me five minutes. I’m really going somewhere with this and I think you’ll be interested. Plus, it’s not scary. I promise.”
He deliberately glanced at his watch. “Five minutes.”
“Thank you.” She paused while she figured out the best and quickest way to say what she was thinking, in a way that would get him to see her plan had real merit.
“You do what you do to avoid getting stuck. Which is the same as being in love, right? You don’t want the serious relationship.”
He gave her a brief nod.
“Logically you go the other way. A series of short-term, meaningless flings. And while there is some pleasure in that, it’s not exactly who you want to be.”
Another nod, this one slightly less cautious.
“Now you want to change, but don’t know how. I’m suggesting that part of the problem is you see women as either wives or playthings. You don’t have any women friends in your life.” She waved her hand. “I’m not counting family. Your mom, cousins and the like. I’m talking about the everyday garden-variety woman you interact with.”
He leaned back in the chair. “Go on.”
She told herself it was great that he hadn’t bolted. Now came the tough part. Telling him about her.
“My mom was my dad’s second wife. Kipling and I are half brother and sister. My mom was great. Sweet and loving. She adored my father.” Shelby drew in a breath. She told herself to stick to the facts. To stay in her head and everything would be okay. It was only if she lost herself in the memories that she got into trouble.
“My dad was a difficult man,” she began, then made herself stop. Martina, her therapist, was always reminding her to talk about the past with authenticity, no euphemisms. “No. That’s not true. He wasn’t difficult. He was violent. He beat my mother and when I got older, he beat me.”
The stark words hung in the air between them. Aidan’s expression tightened but he didn’t say anything.
“One of my earliest memories was of my mom screaming as my dad hit her. I remember being so scared. But when I was little, he never hit me, so in a strange way, I was safe. He didn’t hit Kipling—not like he hit my mom. Maybe it was because Kipling was his son. I don’t know.”
She reached for her coffee, then realized her hands were trembling and put down the mug. “Kip left when I was about ten. He was a great skier and went off to train. He swore he would always be there for me if things got bad.” She felt her mouth twist. “That’s how we
described what happened. In terms of how bad it was.”
Had he put her mom in the hospital this time? Were there broken bones? Because like so many families dealing with something awful, they spoke around the truth.
“I remember asking my mom why she stayed and she said it was because she loved him so much. It didn’t make sense to me, but I knew in my heart she would never go. And he didn’t hit me, so we just lived like that. With the unspoken rules. Don’t make Dad mad. Don’t try to protect my mom. Don’t get in the way.”
There had been so many awful times. Nights when she’d cleaned split skin and held ice against bruises. Times when she’d tried to figure out if a bone was broken and whether or not she should call 911.
“And then I turned thirteen.”
Shelby still didn’t know what had set off her father. Whether it was her birthday or the onset of puberty or what. But the day after she turned thirteen, he hit her for the first time.
“It hurts,” she said quietly. “I’d heard her scream a million times, but until he decked me with his fist, I had no idea how much pain there could be. The shock of it stunned me. The sense of betrayal, of helplessness. My mom tried to stop him, but he pushed her into the wall and kept coming after me.”
She’d been knocked unconscious. There had been dozens of bruises but no broken bones. To this day, she didn’t know if she’d had a concussion because going to the doctor was out of the question.
“I called Kip the next morning. He was home in twelve hours and he got me out of there. He was already on the ski circuit, with endorsements and stuff. So he could afford to put me in a boarding school. I stayed there through high school. My mom would visit. Only my mom. I didn’t see my dad again for years.”
Funny how she could get through all this without tears. Maybe she’d cried herself out years ago. She wasn’t sure.
“I would plead with her to leave him,” she continued. “Kip would get us an apartment. Dad never had to know. But she wouldn’t do it. She kept talking about how much she loved him and how he loved her.”
She looked at Aidan and was grateful for the lack of emotion on his face. His dark eyes gave nothing away and that was how she preferred it.
“She was always bruised. She did her best to cover it up, but I knew what to look for. She would stay with me for a few days, then go back to him.”
She shifted in her seat and put her hands on her lap. “We lived like that for years. Then she got cancer. It was bad. By the time she told me about it, she only had a few weeks to live. I went back to be with her. Which meant being with him.”
She squared her shoulders. “It all started again. I knew more and tried to protect myself, but he would come after me while I was sleeping. I would wake up with him beating me. It was horrible. More horrible than you can imagine. Kip was just starting back with his training after winning at the Olympics. I didn’t want to bother him, but I didn’t think I could take it anymore. Then he was injured and in the hospital in New Zealand. The doctors weren’t even sure he would walk again. I knew I had to get through my mom’s last weeks on my own. For her. I had to do my best not to let him surprise me. But it’s hard not to sleep. A couple of times I got a hotel room for the night, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. I was genuinely scared for my life when these two men showed up.”
Her tension eased as she remembered the shock of opening her mom’s front door and finding Angel and Ford on the steps. “They were from CDS. Mayor Marsha had sent them to protect me.”
Aidan’s brows rose. “How did she know what was happening?”
For the first time in several minutes, Shelby smiled. “You’re asking the wrong person. All I knew was that it was a miracle. My dad was arrested on multiple charges. Apparently he wasn’t only a bad guy at home. I stayed with my mom until she died and then I moved here.”
Aidan leaned toward her. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I didn’t want to dump all that on you, but I didn’t know how else to explain what I want to do.” Now came the hard part. “There have been men in my life. Boyfriends. Sort of. I want what most people have. Love and a family. But I’m not good at picking the right guy.” She rested her hands on the table. “Because of what happened with my dad, and my mom dying, I started seeing a counselor. She helped me realize that I always pick a guy who can’t commit. The delightful charmer who will never stay or be faithful, or the guy who isn’t over his last relationship. On the surface, I look like I’m so together, but on the inside, I keep myself from getting involved with someone who can love me back because I’m afraid. Except for Kip, I don’t actually trust men. Because of that, I pick ones that are so flawed, the relationship can never work. That way I’m never truly at risk.”
* * *
AN INTERESTING SET of facts, Aidan told himself, but it had nothing to do with the building rage inside of him. He didn’t know where Shelby’s father was right now, but he wanted to go find him and give him a taste of what he’d been doing to his family. He wanted to reduce the man to a bloody, broken mass of pain and suffering. Then he wanted to wait a few days and do it all again and again.
He could understand being annoyed or pissed or even furious. But there was no excuse to take out any of that on someone else. He’d grown up with four brothers, so he’d been in plenty of fights as a kid. But there were rules and one of them was you stick to your own size and gender. And after about age fifteen, you give it up. Aidan believed his own father was an asshole, but even he’d never hit a woman.
“Aidan?”
He looked at Shelby. “What?”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Sorry. It’s your dad. Where is he now?”
“In prison. He’s serving consecutive sentences. Even with good behavior, he won’t be out for about fifty years.”
“I want to go find him and punish him.”
She reached across the table and lightly touched his hand. “Thank you. I appreciate the thought, but it’s not necessary.”
“I need to hurt him.”
“It won’t change him.”
Probably not, but that wasn’t what had him telling himself to let it go. Beating up her father wouldn’t help Shelby. That was the real point of it.
“I wish I’d known you then,” he told her. “I would have helped.”
Her breath caught and she cleared her throat. “Thank you for saying that. I believe you. Which is part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. About my problem. And yours.”
“That you pick the wrong guy because you’re not willing to trust a man not to physically hurt you and that I pick the wrong woman because I don’t want to get stuck?”
She nodded.
He tried to remember the last time he’d had a conversation this honest and couldn’t. Shelby had laid it all on the line. He figured he had to do the same.
“I’m not looking for home and hearth,” he admitted. “I just want to stop being a jackass.”
She laughed. “A worthy goal.” Her humor faded. “I thought I was doing better. I thought I was healed. Then I went out with a guy I knew was a total flake. He swore he was seeing only me, but he wasn’t. It was then I realized I wasn’t as far along as I thought.”
She pointed to the cupcakes between them. “Everything else is great. I went to culinary school and discovered I’m more of a dessert-pastry chef. I moved here and bought into the business. I have friends, I’m going to be an aunt in a couple of months. It’s all good.”
“Except for Mr. Right.”
She nodded.
He was no longer as concerned about what she wanted from him. Shelby had been through a lot and if he could help, he wanted to. If she was looking for the perfect guy, by now she knew he wasn’t even close. Anything else was doable.
“Where do I fit in?”
“I
need to learn that I can trust a man who isn’t my brother,” she told him. “I was hoping we could be friends. Real friends who do things together. I thought if we could do that, we could get over what’s holding us back. You obviously need to start seeing women as something other than short-term sexual partners. I thought we could work on this together. Hang out. Get to know each other. Develop a relationship based on trust and respect.” She wrinkled her nose. “Without the complication of the whole boy-girl thing.”
Honest to God, Aidan didn’t know what to say. Friends? Her points were valid and he could see how her plan might work, but damn.
“Would there be a time limit?” he asked.
“Sure. I don’t know. How long until we’re both better? Six months?”
So until June.
“Just friends.” Because he wasn’t sure he’d ever been friends with a woman before. Not since maybe high school. “Nothing else.”
“Nothing,” she said firmly. “We’ll do stuff and talk and you’ll see that women are more than a booty call and I won’t be scared anymore. In six months we’ll both be better people and we’ll go back to our regular lives.”
He wanted to protest the booty-call comment but knew he’d earned it. Friends. Just friends. Was it possible? Did he want to bother?
The thing was, if he didn’t, wouldn’t he stay exactly where he was? And he knew he didn’t want that.
“Maybe,” he said slowly.
She brightened. “So you’ll think about it?”
There were a lot of ways to answer the question, but he figured they both deserved the truth. “Shelby, I’m pretty sure I won’t be thinking about anything else.”
CHAPTER THREE
AMBER DUTTON CLOSED her eyes and made a low moaning sound at the back of her throat. “You’re killing me.”
Shelby did her best not to preen. Impressing her customers was one thing, but impressing Amber was harder. Amber had owned Ambrosia Bakery for over ten years. She knew the business inside and out and she’d tasted more than her share of chocolate mousse.
Best of My Love (Fool's Gold) Page 3
