They arrived at the front door at the same time Mrs. Landry came around the corner. “How was the party?” she asked.
“Fun,” Danny said. “How are you feeling? Any better?”
“Not really,” Mrs. L. said, joining them on the stoop, “but I needed some fresh air. Dr. Flynn stopped by to check on me, bless his heart. He wants me to come in Monday for a chest x-ray. I told him if he wanted to see the goods, all he had to do was ask.” She winked, then coughed. One of those wet, barking dog coughs that Danny hated hearing from her. “And who is this lovely creature?”
“This is Olivia.” Danny put his arm around her. “Liv, Mrs. Landry, my landlady.”
“Nice to meet you,” Olivia said.
“You, too. There’s something in your hair.”
“Oh, uh…” Liv lifted a hand and, sensing her discomfort, Danny squeezed her tighter. “It’s cake.”
“Did you miss your mouth?” Mrs. L. teased.
“No, actually. My mouth was in on the action, too.” Danny couldn’t see Liv’s smile out of his periphery vision, but he felt it.
Mrs. L. gave one of her I-understand-I’m-a-grandmother grins. “I like this one,” she said to him.
“I do, too,” he answered easily.
“I was going to stop by on Monday, but since who knows how long Dr. Flynn will want to examine me, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve decided to put the house up for sale.”
“I’ll buy it,” he said quickly. He didn’t care about the asking price or the escrow length. He’d made this house his home and he wanted to keep it.
“I thought you might like to,” Mrs. L. said softly. “But Danny, I already have an offer from a young family. Frank and I raised our kids here and when they left and he passed away, something was always missing. I want to leave knowing this house will bring happiness to a new family. I’m sorry.”
Danny hadn’t heard her right. She wanted to sell, but not to him? His stomach twisted into a tight, uncomfortable knot. Asking her to reconsider got stuck in the back of his throat. Reading her frail, sympathetic expression, he knew nothing he said would get her to change her mind anyway. And as much as he wanted to be angry with her, he couldn’t. She’d never promised him the house.
He’d just assumed. Maybe taken the situation for granted. Deep down, he understood her feelings even though he wished he didn’t. He’d gotten attached to the home’s charm and character, but the four-bedroom house had way more space than he needed.
None of that mattered now.
He turned his head to look at Liv, tense at his side. She’d always felt his pain like it was her own, and he both loved and hated that. He shied away from anyone’s pity, but right now, her kind, warm eyes softened the blow.
“I’ve got this,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. With a tilt of her head, she focused her attention back on Mrs. L.
What did she have?
“We were hoping to keep this to ourselves a little bit longer, Mrs. Landry,” Olivia said, a smile in her voice. “But given what you’ve just told us, now seems like a good time. Danny and I are getting married and we’re having a baby!”
His best friend did not just say that. Sure, Liv had lied for him in the past, but this was taking it way too far. “Uh, Liv?”
“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before sharing our news.” She threw her arms around his neck, leaned into him. “But how could we keep it from Mrs. Landry now?” Liv turned her head. Danny saw cake in her ear. “You’ll keep our secret for us, won’t you? And let us make an offer on the house for you to consider?”
Danny couldn’t speak. Especially not when Mrs. L.’s entire face looked like one giant smile. Liv dropped her arms and twisted so they stood arm-to-arm. She laced her fingers with his. Besides her sweaty palm and shaking hand, he’d be hard pressed to find her looking nervous about what she’d just blurted out.
“That is wonderful news,” Mrs. L. said. She clapped her hands together and held them up as if in prayer.
Praying might be a good idea right about now.
“Congratulations. I can’t believe you two have been sneaking around without anyone knowing.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, then quickly dropped it back in.
Danny opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. He had no clue what he wanted to express, and he was worried the dismay simmering inside him would be evident in his voice. He didn’t like lying to sweet Mrs. L. Liv picked up the slack with, “We were taking things slow and trying to be very private. But when we got this little surprise”—Liv put a hand on her stomach—“we knew we were going to have to go public soon.”
Christ, he had no idea his best friend could lie so convincingly. And easily. When had she developed that skill? Combined with the new look and candid attitude, he wondered if he knew her at all anymore.
“How are you feeling?” Mrs. L. said to Olivia. Danny supposed that was a standard question, but the way Mrs. L. asked it, like she’d suddenly become deeply invested, had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“Not very well, actually.”
“I didn’t think so. You look pale.”
That’s because she’s making this crap up.
“Danny, stop dawdling out here with me and take your bride-to-be inside.”
Oh, so now he was the bad guy?
“Do you have any peppermint tea? It helps with morning sickness. Ginger does, too. Do you like ginger, Olivia? I’ll get you some fresh baked ginger spice muffins from the Beach Café as soon as I feel better.”
“Thank you,” Liv said. “And the house? Danny can—”
“Absolutely. We can talk about it later. Now go on.” Mrs. L. nodded toward the door. “I’m going to make a call and then go back inside.” She pulled out her phone and waved it over shoulder.
Great. Mrs. L. had the entire town—a town he loved and felt a part of—on speed dial, which meant by tomorrow morning everyone would believe Danny had a fiancé and a baby on the way.
“What was that?” he asked, annoyed at Liv for stirring up more trouble in two minutes than he had in the entire six months he’d lived in White Strand. He kept his personal life private, but she’d just opened him up for inspection under a small-town microscope.
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The lie you just told. Is that precise enough? Jesus, Liv, what were you thinking?” He knew the answer to that. She wasn’t. He’d helped bail her out of more missteps than he could count because she acted first, thought later. But now she was messing with his life. He didn’t like it.
She stared at the ground. “I wasn’t…I thought I could help you keep the house.”
“I don’t need your help.” He regretted his gruff reply the second she drew back.
Damn it. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but he didn’t need her compromising his reputation.
She sucked in her bottom lip, unexpectedly drawing his attention to her mouth and reminding him how he’d wanted to lick the frosted corner less than an hour ago.
“Funny, considering I’m pretty sure I just saved your butt.”
“By claiming me as your fiancé and baby daddy.” He met her gaze, and her sincere, forest-green eyes fringed with long dark lashes breathed life into her lie. Man, she was good.
Which meant how in the world was he going to get out of this mess?
Chapter Two
He wasn’t getting out of this mess. No. He was going to step knee-deep into it.
Because Liv was his best friend and he’d do anything for her.
And so far, all she’d said after she plopped down on the couch in the family room with a guilty look on her face was, “I’m pregnant.”
Danny’s fingers itched to punch a hole in the wall at the same time his heart told him to wrap his arms around her. He went with option three and sat on the opposite side of the L-shaped couch.
“Want to start
at the beginning?” he asked.
She nodded. “But first, I am kind of freaked out that I was able to lie to your landlady so easily. I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me. Well, that’s not exactly true. All day I’ve been going over in my head how to ask you to marry me and also, this?” She pointed to the side of her head. “It’s a mess. I’m thinking like a lunatic. The woman sitting next to me on the plane told me it’s the pregnancy hormones. Not that that’s any excuse for lying. But I did have my fingers crossed behind my back.” She scrunched up her nose, her eyebrows pinched together. “That counts for something, right?”
Ask him to marry her? Lunatic didn’t quite cover it. “Right.” He had to give her something. She looked embarrassed and ashamed and he was still in shock so didn’t have any other words at the moment.
“Could I have something to drink? And some crackers if you’ve got any?”
Danny jumped to his feet. It was his turn to feel apologetic. He should have offered immediately, especially after Mrs. L.’s comments. “Shit, Liv. Sorry. I don’t have any tea, but we’ll get you some at the store. Uh…” He remembered Sophie drinking ginger ale when she hadn’t felt great at the start of her pregnancy. “I’ve got ginger ale? And saltines.”
“Perfect.”
He hurried to the kitchen and came back with a glass filled with ice, the soda can, and an entire sealed packet of crackers from out of the box. She grinned at him as he handed her the crackers and poured her drink. Her smiles always reached her eyes, but this one seemed to have an extra kick to it, and it hit him that she was happy about the pregnancy.
He grinned back, glanced at her stomach. His best friend was going to be a mom. Warmth spread through his limbs. Despite, or maybe because of, Liv’s growing up with a mom who showed very little love or affection, he pictured Liv being great at it.
“Thank you.” She ate a few crackers and took several sips of the soda. Then she let out a deep breath. “I met someone in London. In a coffee shop the second week I was there. His name is Will.”
Danny pressed back into the couch. It stung that she hadn’t told him this sooner, a quick text saying, Met someone! But it did explain her lack of communication. Liv did things all or nothing. Jumped first and thought about her actions later. Despite how she’d often been ill-treated when they were younger, Liv trusted people to a fault.
“He liked my American accent. Funny, huh?” A faint shade of pink bloomed across her cheeks. “He struck up a conversation and we ended up talking for hours. He was sweet and smart and seemed really interested. After everything that had happened those last few weeks at work, he was the distraction I needed.” She nibbled the corner of a cracker.
“One date turned into two, then three, and after that I was spending all my time with him when he wasn’t working. He took me sightseeing and on several trips to France and I forgot about my troubles.”
And apparently her best friend. Danny pushed the unwelcome thought away. He didn’t begrudge Liv having a happy life without him. She deserved to be happy wherever she was.
“I fell in love with him and thought he loved me too. We never talked about what was happening between us, but I felt his affection more than I’ve felt any other boyfriend’s. When I discovered I was pregnant, I panicked at first. We always used protection, but I’d hoped he’d be open to the idea.” She brought her fist up to her mouth, dropped her gaze to the coffee table. When she looked back up, her eyes were glassy.
Danny stood and sat beside her.
“He told me he wasn’t interested in being a dad, but that he…he liked what we had together. That casual worked for him and couldn’t I just take care of the problem?”
Danny hissed in a breath. That sonofabitch. He didn’t know Liv at all.
She sniffled and it about killed him. “When I told him I thought we were more than casual and no way could I end the pregnancy, I could see how much that bothered him. Will never let anyone else make decisions for him. He walked away and when I didn’t hear from him for a week, I decided to fly here.”
“The guy is the biggest douche on the planet.” Danny took her hand, held it tight. “He doesn’t deserve you.” Liv nodded before she slumped against the cushions. He tucked a finger under her chin and raised her face back to his. “Hey, I’ve got you. You know that, right? I’ve always got you. So what’s this crazy plan of yours?”
Danny knew Liv’s reckless idea had to have come from her own childhood. She’d never known her biological father. He’d skipped out before she was born, leaving her and her mom to struggle a lot during those early years before Joy married. Combined with that was a mother who made it clear she’d never wanted to be a mom. The scars of being abandoned and unwanted still lived under Liv’s skin.
“I really hadn’t meant to blurt things out like I did, but I’ve been thinking about us and got this wild idea that since I like you better than anyone else we could get married so that… so that…” She looked somewhere over his shoulder. “I am totally pathetic.”
“You’re not—”
“I am. Just because the last thing I ever wanted was to bring a child into this world the same way I was doesn’t mean things will be the same for him or her. And just because I’m terrified this will be the final”—she let out a shaky breath—“slip up to push my mom away for good is no reason…” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “Is no reason to do something so drastic and dastardly.”
Danny chuckled. “Dastardly?”
Liv’s gaze reconnected with his. “Yes, and stop laughing. This is serious.”
“Very. I know.” He pressed his lips together to let her know he agreed, but while he’d listened to her talk, his muscles had relaxed and his shock been chased away. There were a lot worse things people had to deal with.
“The first thing I did when things went wrong was come running to you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Like hell you shouldn’t have. I’m glad you’re here. And I might remind you that when things blew up at work, you didn’t run to anyone, you took yourself to a new place and that’s one of the bravest things you’ve ever done.”
“Look where it got me.”
“Not where. What.”
She blessed him with a small smile. “Do you always have to see things on the bright side?”
“For as long as I can.”
Liv squeezed his hand. “How’s that going?”
Danny didn’t want to talk about his choroideremia, the rare genetic disease that slowly caused blindness, but Liv didn’t pity his future, she just wanted an update. Insisted on them, actually, because life’s too short not to be an utter pain in the ass to your best friend, she’d said.
“It’s gotten a little harder to see at night and in my periphery.” With any luck he wouldn’t be blind for at least fifteen more years.
“It’s still okay out in the sun?”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t light sensitive yet, but knew the day would come when he’d rely on sunglasses if he wanted to go outside. CHM harmed the eyes’ photoreceptors.
“The vision loss is different for everyone, right? Which means you are going to set new standards,” she said confidently. She always spoke with conviction on the topic.
“That’s the plan.”
“Speaking of plans…so the part of my brain acting like a crazy person thought if we got married, I’d get a reprieve from all the mistakes I’ve made and tell my parents about the baby in a couple of weeks. They like you more than they like me, and being married to each other wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it? Like in movies where friends agree if they’re not married when they turn thirty, they’ll marry each other.”
Didn’t those couples end up falling in love? Christ, did Liv harbor secret feelings for him? If that were true, he’d have to put a stop to this right now.
“Now that I’m sitting here with you, though, the sane part of my brain is telling me to forget it. So what if I got knocked up like my mom
warned me against a hundred times? I’ve always been damned if I do and damned if I don’t anyway. There’s no reason to get married just to get my parents approval and save my ego. I’ll go apologize to Mrs. Landry and tell her the truth. I can handle the pity. It’s not like I haven’t experienced it before.” Liv sat taller. “But if I do that you won’t be able to buy this house.”
Danny shrugged.
Liv narrowed her eyes. “You really want this place.”
“We don’t always get what we want.”
She thought on that for a minute. “Is my idea really so awful?”
He rubbed the side of his neck. “You’re talking about a marriage without an end date?”
“Yes. I mean there’s never a guarantee but—”
“You’re not secretly in love with me, right?”
“What? No, you big oaf.” She pushed him in the chest. “But obviously you have reservations—which you should—so forget it.”
When he didn’t answer right away, she moved to stand. He put his hand on her arm.
“Let’s do it,” he said, hoping she didn’t hear the hesitation in his voice.
They stared at each other for several seconds, playing the read-your-mind game they’d gotten good at over the years. “You’re sure?” she asked.
Not really. But he’d vowed a long time ago to protect Liv and do anything for her. Now that extended to her and her baby. Danny wanted to give them the certainty and security he knew Liv had never had with her own family.
“You know where I stand on marriage, so if I’m going to break my rule for someone, it’s going to be for my best friend.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. This is going to be okay. Inside these four walls, we’ll just be roommates, and outside we’ll figure it out as we go. Sound okay?”
“You don’t drink straight from the milk carton, do you?”
“Eww. No.”
“Then I think we’re off to a good start.” Danny ignored the worry and conflicted feelings that niggled at the back of his mind. They could do this without any negative impact to their friendship as long as they communicated and stayed honest with each other. “Can I ask you something?”
The Best Friend Bargain (Kisses in the Sand) Page 2
