The Best Friend Bargain (Kisses in the Sand)

by Robin Bielman

  “I think I’m the one who should be thanking you. Listen, before you say what you need to tell me, I want to come clean about something.”

  “Oh?” Was he going to tell her about the coveted promotion at work?

  “I wasn’t 100 percent honest with you earlier.” He reached for her hand, but she tucked it into her lap. “I do want a second chance with you, but I should tell you part of the reason is because of my job.”

  His candor made this a little bit harder for her, but only a little, because she didn’t have feelings for him anymore. She loved Danny. So much so, it made Will’s actions much easier to accept. According to Sienna, Will needed to become a family man if he wanted a higher ranked position at work. The other two candidates were both married and one had a young son, but according to Sienna, Will stood out as the most qualified.

  “I know,” she said. “Sienna told me.”

  His stiff shoulders relaxed. “That’s…that’s great. I knew you wouldn’t see this as a step backward, but a chance for us to have an even better beginning.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m sorry, Will, but I’m not going back to London with you. I’m in love with Danny and want to make a life for me and my baby here with him.”

  “You mean our baby,” he said gruffly.

  Liv gathered her inner strength, pressed up a little taller. She could do this without getting emotional. “Yes, our baby. A baby you made it clear you weren’t ready for. If you want to be part of his or her life, I’m all for that, but the two of us as a couple are over. I don’t love you anymore.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Not this time.”

  He pushed his chair back with unnecessary force. Hurt flashed in his eyes. “If I walk out of this restaurant alone, you’ll never see me again.”

  “I’m okay with that.” The small part of her heart that still cared for him as a person broke at his easy-to-say threat.

  She’d watched him march away without a glance back.

  When she got home, Danny still hadn’t returned. It made her irrationally mad. Will made her mad. She ate half a package of Chips Ahoy and left a crumb trail on purpose, hoping Danny would get the message to come find her. He didn’t.

  This morning she’d woken with nothing but love in her heart for Danny. They had something real and irreplaceable, and she’d never feel this way about anyone else.

  She stopped pacing the sidewalk and opened the door to his shop. A buzzing sound told her he was working in the back so she tiptoed into his workspace, catching him unaware and watching him work for a minute.

  His white sleeveless shirt clung to his back and narrow waist. His threadbare light blue jeans hugged his butt. She watched the flex in his arm muscles as he used a hand-held electric sander. She’d never thought veins so sexy before. The whirring stopped, and he lifted the hem of his T-shirt to wipe his brow. His shoulders tensed, he turned slightly, and Liv assumed he’d caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye. She was blessed with a view of six-pack abs she could stare at all day, the waistband of his boxer briefs adding to the mouth-watering look.

  “Hey you,” she said, stepping forward.

  With her attention focused on the gorgeous male specimen before her, she didn’t notice the thick black power cord on the concrete floor until her shoe got caught in it. She tried to catch her balance with her arms out to the side, but wasn’t successful. Worry slammed into her, her heart pounded in her ears, her knees gave out. She toppled toward the ground.

  “Liv!”

  All she could think was, don’t land on your stomach, don’t land on your stomach. Her palms hit the cold concrete first, then her right knee. A sharp pain pierced her kneecap. Her belly grazed the floor before she concentrated all her efforts on pushing her palms into the floor and rolling onto her hip. Another shot of pain vibrated through the bone there.

  The side of her head hit something hard—a red toolbox?—and a killer ache lanced through her skull.

  “Liv,” Danny said again, at her side and gathering her into his arms.

  Tears stung the back of her eyes. She closed them as she went limp in Danny’s embrace.

  “Liv, talk to me. Tell me what hurts.” Panic touched each and every syllable he spoke.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I’m…I’m okay.”

  “Your head. How’s your head?” With a gentle touch he ran his hand over the spot she’d banged. “Shit. I feel a bump forming and…”

  Liv wiped at the tears slipping down her cheeks out of pain and fear.

  Danny dropped his hand, but not before she noticed his fingers tinged with blood. “The baby? How’s the baby?”

  “Fine?” God, she wished so hard for that. Surely their baby was protected inside her body despite her fall.

  “We need to get you to the hospital.” He scooped her up into his arms and stood. “Just keep still, okay? Let me do all the moving.”

  His heart galloped against the side of her face. “I’ve got you,” he said, grabbing what looked like a clean rag to hold against her head. He pocketed his cell and took long, steady strides to his car where he sat her down carefully into the passenger seat. “Hold this?” She nodded and took the rag as he buckled her in. “Okay?”

  “Yes,” she whispered even though she felt anything but. Everything hurt now, and she didn’t know if it was out of panic or if she’d landed harder than she wanted to admit.

  Danny raced down the road while Liv shut her eyes and prayed harder than ever for the baby. Terrible thoughts ran through her mind. Thoughts she hated with every fiber of her being. She tried to think about happy things, like honey and cake and watching Dancing with the Stars curled up on the couch with Danny. He didn’t really enjoy watching the television show, but he traded it for Woodsmith Shop, a program she wasn’t fond of. Only that was a fib because anytime she got to sit close to him put her in a good mood.

  He didn’t talk as he drove, yet tension came off him like a power surge. She tried to keep herself calm so he wouldn’t carry her anxiety, too, but she was pretty sure he did anyway, his hands tight enough around the steering wheel that his knuckles were white.

  Liv put her free hand on her stomach, wanting more than anything to keep some kind of connection to her baby. She couldn’t wait to feel those first movements beyond the flutters she’d convinced herself were a jab here or a kick there. It’s got to be a boy. And he will have all his fingers and all his toes and make it to forty weeks.

  Tired of holding the rag to her head, she shifted to rest her elbow on the door in order to keep her arm propped up. Were they almost there? Should she call Dr. Silver?

  A headache the size of Texas throbbed behind her temples, making her lightheaded. She’d been nervous about talking to Danny this morning so instead of her usual oatmeal with honey, she’d eaten only half a banana for breakfast. Suddenly, her arms and legs tingled, a shiver charged down her spine. Low blood sugar? Or nerves getting the best of her?

  The hospital sign came into view. Danny parked in front of the emergency room entrance and was halfway out his door before the car even came to a complete stop. He also left the keys in the ignition.

  He ran around to her side and carefully undid her seat belt, his worried hazel eyes on her stomach before meeting her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Liv.”

  She had no idea what he was apologizing for and didn’t ask because he gathered her in his arms again. “I can walk.”

  “No. I’ve got this.”

  A man on a mission, he strode through the sliding glass doors of the ER and went directly to the check-in counter. They were quickly taken back to an exam room and just as Danny sat her on the bed, the ER doctor entered.

  Liv tried to blink everything into focus, but the last few minutes were a blur. She didn’t like hospitals. The smell, the monochrome color, the memories of watching her nana take her last breath.

  The doctor introduced him
self and asked Liv what had happened. Danny jumped in to answer, his voice strained. “Now you,” the doctor said to her, his gloved hands combing through her hair. She flinched when he got close to the painful spot.

  As best she could, she described what had happened and where it hurt.

  “On a scale of one to ten what would you rate your pain?” the doctor said.

  She had a high tolerance for pain, which worried her because she answered six, which probably meant ten for most people.

  A flurry of activity followed with two different nurses coming and going. A fetal monitor was set up. The doctor talked fast, and Liv latched onto the words concussion, stitches, swelling around the kneecap. But she only cared about one thing. “Will the baby be okay?”

  “Your baby is safely cushioned inside your abdomen, but it is possible to have preterm contractions or leak amniotic fluid due to a fall, so we’ll call Dr. Silver and do an ultrasound. I’m more concerned with your head and knee at the moment.”

  Nodding to the doctor, she made eye contact with Danny. He’d been pushed to the corner of the small room and she wished he could hold her hand. A nurse reentered and spoke in a hushed tone to him. He ran a hand over his jaw, his expression grief stricken, but accepting.

  “I’ll be in the waiting room,” he mouthed to her.

  “Okay,” she mouthed back.

  But it wasn’t. Because she had the strangest feeling watching him turn to leave that he wouldn’t be back.

  …

  Danny sat slumped in the hard plastic waiting room chair. He could barely take a breath for worry jamming his lungs. His jaw hurt from the constant clenching, his muscles were rigid enough to tear if he moved the wrong way. Every medical term the ER doctor had thrown out was like a punch to the gut. If anything happened to the baby, Liv would be devastated. He would be, too.

  He’d tried to reach her before she hit the ground and his toolbox, but with his periphery vision compromised he’d been unable to react fast enough. Seeing the fear on her face as she lost her balance had cut deeper than he’d ever imagined. Things seemed to happen in slow motion after that, each agonizing second it took him to reach her twisting his gut tighter.

  This is a precursor. Every year his vision would continue to decline and how would he keep those he loved safe if he couldn’t rely on his eyesight? He’d watched out for Liv since she wore braces and a boy band backpack. How did a guy stop feeling responsible after so many years? The answer was he didn’t. It hurt like hell to know that one day his eyes would fail him—and those he kept close.

  It killed him to think about getting attached to a child and not being the man he or she came to for safekeeping. A father was supposed to be invincible.

  A text from Bryce pinged on his cell, freeing him from his thoughts. His friend was in a meeting and would get here soon. Why had Danny texted him? Oh yeah, because he needed someone to stop him from punching a hole in the wall.

  That he even thought about punching something told him this went beyond Liv’s accident. She was under his skin. Had been for weeks if he were honest. He didn’t want these feelings of devotion and attachment, like she belonged to him and no other man would get to touch her ever again.

  Falling for his best friend, heart and soul, hadn’t been part of their deal.

  He rubbed his chest like that would wipe away the sensations and keep his heart from breaking. Liv deserved more than a guy losing his sight had to give, and the last thing Danny wanted was to feel like an obligation.

  Should he try and get in touch with Will? Danny had no idea what had happened yesterday, but Liv hadn’t mentioned his name on the way here so he’d leave it alone.

  Otherwise, he might accidentally punch him if he showed up.

  For the past fifteen years Danny’s feelings for Liv had always been strong. Bonding. But now that they’d crossed the line of friendship, feeling things meant feeling everything. Affection. Attachment. Jealousy. Desire. Uncertainty.

  He glanced around the sterile waiting room. A dad sat with his young daughter in his lap, her head on his shoulder, thumb in her mouth. Outwardly, she looked okay, which meant something had to be bothering her on the inside.

  Unbidden memories coasted through Danny’s mind. Summer time. He’d been eight or nine and his mom had been sick with the stomach flu. His dad had taken care of him and his sister, and kept close tabs on his wife, too. Russ Ellis never stopped doting on Mary Ellis. He always put her before himself and lavished her with affection and compliments, even when she drove him crazy.

  On the second or third day she was sick, his dad had taken one look at his mom and known her illness was more than the flu. “I know her face better than my own,” he’d said before loading her into the car and driving her to the hospital. She came home without a gall bladder.

  Jump ahead to the day before Danny’s sixteenth birthday and his stomach was in shreds over his upcoming driver’s test. His dad drove him to the steepest hill in the neighborhood, parked in the middle of the road, and exchanged seats with him. “You want to drive on your own?” his dad had asked. “Prove to me you can.”

  Danny stalled the first time he let up on the clutch, but not on the second try. Or the third. He had this, and the grin on his dad’s face told him his dad knew it, too.

  The ER door opened, drawing Danny’s attention, and he shook off the past. He could—would—never be like his dad.

  A nurse gave him a small smile. “Olivia is doing well,” she said, “but we’re running some tests so it may be a while. If you want to grab a coffee or some food, you’ve got time to do that.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll wait here,” he said.

  Two hours later Dr. Silver told him Liv had suffered a minor concussion. Because she was complaining of dizziness, Dr. Silver wanted her monitored for the next twenty-four hours. She assured Danny—three times since he kept asking—that Liv and the baby were going to be fine, and he could head up to the maternity floor to be with Liv.

  He didn’t head upstairs.

  Instead, he walked to the gift shop and bought a blank card with daisies on the outside. Twenty minutes later he handed the card off to the front desk with Liv’s name and room number on the envelope and left the hospital, each step harder than the last. But he loved Liv enough to walk away.

  He texted Bryce and Zane, swung by his shop to lock things up, and headed home for a quick shower and change of clothes. Traffic sucked, but he got to the Los Angeles restaurant to meet Jennifer for dinner only a few minutes late. She’d been cool with changing their appointment from lunch when he’d texted her that an emergency had come up. Before walking into the restaurant he called the hospital and was connected to the nurses station on the maternity floor for an update on Liv.

  “Hello gorgeous,” Jennifer said when he sat across from her at the square table covered in white linen. “Everything okay back home?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He slipped a matching cloth napkin onto his lap.

  “Good. I’m hoping that means I can have you all week.” She put aside her fancy day planner and put her elbows on the table while she gave him a serious look.

  “All week?” He’d brought an overnight bag and made plans to crash with a friend since he and Jennifer had an early appointment with the project manager on the hotel tomorrow morning.

  Jennifer unleashed a smile. “I’m designing Robert Downey Jr.’s new house, and I mentioned you. Showed him pictures of your work and he wants to meet with us tomorrow afternoon. If it goes well, he’ll probably want us to meet with his assistant the next day. And”—she paused for dramatic effect and, for the first time in hours, the weight on Danny’s shoulders lifted some—“my friend at Vanity Fair is doing a spotlight on up-and-coming furniture designers and she wants a quick chat with you on Thursday.”

  “Wow.” He broke eye contact, leaned back in his chair.

  “Right? And this is only the beginning of how bright your star is going to shine.”

  A waiter stopp
ed at the table to deliver a bottle of champagne. “I thought we should celebrate,” Jennifer said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” This deserved some celebrating, the only problem being the woman he most wanted to share the news and celebrate with sat in a hospital bed.

  How was she feeling? Had the dizziness subsided? Did she miss him or hate him?

  Jennifer lifted her glass to clink with his. “To many more years of success,” she said.

  Danny tapped her glass with his and took a healthy sip. He’d worked hard these past eight months and what he had to show for it far exceeded his expectations. Timing is everything, his dad often said.

  “You don’t look as happy as I thought you’d be.” Jennifer opened her menu, but kept her eyes on him.

  “Got a lot on my mind.” All of it centered on Olivia and how she’d taken his note. He’d done the right thing writing her. It didn’t take the crushing pain away, though. You can’t offer her safety and security for the long haul.

  “You’re wondering if RD’s got an Iron Man suit lying around, aren’t you?”

  Danny smiled. He appreciated Jennifer’s sense of humor when he needed it. “I wouldn’t say no to trying it on.”

  “So you’re good to stick around?”

  “I’m good to stick around.”

  The job was supposed to be his end-all and, with the opportunities Jennifer presented, he planned to refocus his efforts. His future had been decided when a rare genetic disease slowly started stealing his vision, and he didn’t want to be resentful or angry about it. He wanted to deal with it on his terms.

  Alone.

  …

  Olivia opened her eyes slowly, expecting—no hoping—to see Danny. Instead, two other handsome faces greeted her.

  “Hey, Linc,” Bryce and Zane said at the same time. They sat in chairs near the window, their caring smiles filling her with fondness and warm feelings. Through the open blinds she noticed daylight hung on by a tiny thread.

  “Hi guys.” Her gaze slid east.

  “He’s not here,” Bryce said, and Liv’s eyes bounced away from the doorway and back to her friend. “He had a meeting in L.A.”