Always the Best Man

by Michelle Major

  “How many times is a few?”

  Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Why do you care, Jase?”

  “How many?”

  “Most nights,” she answered through clenched teeth. “My doctor in Boston gave me a prescription for pills to help, but I haven’t refilled it since I’ve been back. Davey had trouble adjusting when we first got here, and I wanted to hear him if he needed me.”

  “And now?”

  She shrugged. “I watch him sleep. He’s so peaceful, and it makes me happy. This morning my mom’s schedule allowed her to watch him for me when he woke up, so I came into the office to get a few things done.” She looked up at him, her gaze wary. He noticed something more now, the shadows under her eyes and the tension bracketing her mouth. It didn’t lessen her beauty or her effect on him, but he kicked himself that he hadn’t seen it before. This woman was exhausted.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” he said, gesturing to the shiny clean space. “But I’m glad you did.”

  She rewarded him with a small smile. “It was a pit in here, Jase. It’s like you don’t even care.”

  “I do care,” he argued. “I care about my clients and this town. So what if the office isn’t spotless?”

  “You’re a business owner and you’re running for mayor. People have expectations.”

  He choked out a laugh. “Tell me about it.” He didn’t mind taking grief from her because the brightness had returned to her gaze. The Emily he remembered from high school had been so sure of herself and her place in this world. She’d held on to that pretense since returning to Crimson, but the more time he spent with her the more he could see the fragile space between the cracks in her armor. A part of him wanted to rip away all of her defenses because they were guarding things that held her heart captive. But he hated seeing her troubled and knew she hated revealing any weakness.

  “Thank you for this job. I know you didn’t want to hire me.”

  No. He wanted to kiss her and hold her and take care of her. The kissing and holding weren’t going to be helped by working with her, but he could take care of her and that was a start.

  “You were right,” he admitted. “I needed help. There are too many things on my plate right now, so I’ve been ignoring the office. It’s starting to show in my work, and that’s not going to help anyone.”

  “The town loves you. They’ll cut you some slack.”

  “They love what I do for them.”

  “You do too much.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no such thing. Not for someone with my history.”

  “The Crenshaw family history isn’t yours, Jase. The weight of a generations-old reputation shouldn’t rest on one man’s shoulders.”

  If only that were true. “My dad isn’t going to help carry the load.” He didn’t want to talk about this. Emily was here so he could help her, not the other way around. “I have to be at the courthouse at nine, so we should talk about what else needs to be done. I’m going to get a cup of coffee first, and you’re an angel for making it. For all of this. Thank you, Em.”

  She tapped one finger on the screen of the desktop computer. “Eight thirty.”

  “Already?” He glanced at his watch.

  “No, you have to be at the courthouse at eight thirty.” She moved around the desk, her hips swaying under the fitted cropped pants she wore. She’d paired them with a thin cotton sweater in a pale yellow along with black heels. It was more casual than yesterday but still professional. “I’ll get your coffee.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to.” She tipped up her chin, as if daring him to contradict her. “So you can get ready to go.”

  Before he could argue, she disappeared around the corner.

  This place wasn’t good enough for someone like Emily. His office, even though it was clean, was too shabby for her crisp elegance. He imagined that she’d fit perfectly into the upper echelons of Boston society. Emily looked like a lady who lunched, a fancy wife who could chair events and fund-raisers and never have a hair out of place. Yet as he followed her, he watched wisps of blond hair try to escape from the knot at the back of her head.

  She poured coffee into a travel mug, and Jase was momentarily distracted by the fact that the clean dishes and coffee mugs were put away on the shelf above the utility sink.

  Emily turned, thrusting the stainless steel mug toward him. Her fingers were pink from the water and had several paper cuts on the tips. Not as delicate as she looked, his Emily.

  No. Not his. Not even for a minute.

  But she was here. Although he’d done her a favor, he needed her. He wanted her. Any way he could have her.

  “You’re welcome in my office while I’m gone.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and felt a small amount of satisfaction when she sucked a breath. “I should be back by noon.”

  “You have a meeting with Toby Jenkins here at one thirty.”

  He nodded, thankful he’d set up the calendars on his cell phone and office computers to sync automatically. He was in the habit of entering meetings in his calendar, but that didn’t mean he remembered to check it every day.

  “I told my mom I’d be home by two today. Davey still naps in the afternoons, and I like to be there when he wakes up.”

  “I can pick up lunch on my way back. Any requests?”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “It’s the least I can do, Emily. The way you transformed the office went beyond anything Donna could have done. It feels good not to be surrounded by my usual mess.”

  One side of her mouth curved. “I’m glad to be useful.”

  What had her ex-husband done to beat down the spirited girl he’d known into this brittle, unsure woman? Jase wasn’t a fighter, but he would have liked to punch Henry Whitaker.

  Instead, he gave Emily a reassuring smile. “You’re the best.”

  Her smile dimmed, but before he could figure out why, she tapped her watch. “You need to go or you’re going to be late.”

  “They’re used to me being late.”

  “Not with me running the show.” She pointed to the door. “Now go. I’ve got your inner sanctum to tackle.”

  He laughed, then wished her luck and headed back out into the bright sunshine. It was the best start to a morning he’d had in ages.

  * * *

  By the time he parked in front of his father’s trailer a few minutes before noon, Jase’s mood had disintegrated into a black hole of frustration. Even though he expected it from Emily’s text, seeing the Crawfords’ 4Runner at the side of the mobile home only made it worse.

  He didn’t want Emily here. This part of his life was private, protected. Most people in town knew his father, or knew of him if they’d lived in Crimson long enough. But even as a kid, Jase had never let anyone visit the run-down home where he’d lived. Not even Noah.

  He stood on the crumbling front step for a moment trying to rein in his clamoring emotions. Then he heard Emily’s laughter spill out from the open window and pushed through the door.

  Her back was to him as she faced the tiny counter in the kitchen. “Canned spaghetti is not real food,” she said with another laugh.

  “It’s real food if I eat it and like it,” his dad growled in response, but there was humor in his tone. His father sat in one of the rickety wooden chairs at the table. He watched Emily like she was some sort of mystical being come to life inside his tumbledown home.

  “I’m not a great cook,” she shot back, “but even I can make homemade meatballs. I’ll teach you.” He could see she was dumping the can of bright red sauce and pasta into a ceramic bowl.

  “If we’re having Italian night,” his dad said, pronouncing Italian with a long I, “you’d best bring a bottle of wine with you.”

 
Jase let the door slam shut at that moment. Emily whirled to face him, her smile fading as she took in his expression. Declan shifted in the chair, his own smile growing wider.

  “Just in time for lunch,” his dad said, even though he knew how much Jase hated any food that came from a can.

  “How was the courthouse?” Emily covered the bowl with a paper towel and put it in the microwave shoved in the corner of the counter.

  Taking a breath, he caught Emily’s scent overlaid with the stale smell of the trailer. The combination was an assault on his senses. The hold he had on his emotions unleashed as he stalked forward, shouldering Emily out of the way to punch in a minute on the microwave timer. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, crowding her against the kitchen sink.

  “My fault,” his father said from behind him. “I forgot I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. When you didn’t answer your cell phone, I called the office. Emily explained you were unavailable but was nice enough to drive me.”

  Jase looked over his shoulder. “You should have rescheduled the appointment.”

  “It wasn’t a problem,” Emily said. “Your office was organized and I—”

  “I offered you a job as a legal secretary,” he bit out. “That’s work with professional boundaries. Inserting yourself into my personal life isn’t part of the job description.”

  Those blue eyes that had been so warm and full of life iced over in a second. He expected her to argue but instead her lips pressed together and a moment later she whispered, “My bad. Won’t happen again.”

  “Jase, what’s crawled up your butt?” his dad asked, his voice booming in the tense silence that had descended between him and Emily.

  She lifted one eyebrow. “I’m not going to stick around to find out.” Skirting around him, she gave Declan a quick hug. “Enjoy your spaghetti. I’m going to hold you to that cooking lesson. But grape juice, no wine.”

  “Thank you, darlin’.” His dad’s voice softened. “You’re a good girl. I’m sorry about this.”

  “It’s not on you,” she whispered.

  Jase didn’t turn around, his hands pressed hard to the scarred Formica. He heard the creak of the door as it opened and shut, not the angry bang he expected but a soft click that tore a hole in his gut. Still he didn’t move.

  The chair scraped as his father stood. He moved behind Jase to take the bowl out of the microwave. For several minutes the only sound was the spoon clinking and the rustle of a newspaper.

  “She doesn’t belong here,” Jase said finally, rubbing his hand over his face as he turned. “Emily works for me now. That’s all, Dad. She isn’t part of this.”

  “That girl has been a part of you for years,” Declan answered, setting down the spoon in the empty bowl.

  Jase felt his eyes widen before he could stop the reaction. He’d never talked to anyone, especially his father, about his feelings for Emily. He understood Noah knew but had never spoken it aloud.

  “I’m a bad drunk,” Declan said with a shrug. “But I was never blind, and you’re my son. I know you better than you think.”

  “Emily’s in a rough place now. I’m helping her get back on her feet. That’s all.”

  “You’re embarrassed about me and how you grew up.”

  Another bit of unspoken knowledge better left in the shadows. “You’re in a better place, Dad. I’m proud of you for staying sober.”

  Declan choked out a laugh. “I’m the one who’s proud, Jase. But you take on too much that isn’t yours. My reputation and our family history. The way you were raised. You’ve overcome a lot, and you don’t need to be ashamed of it. You don’t have to make it all better.”

  Jase thought about his ancestor’s picture in the town jail and how he wanted his family legacy to be something more than it was. “If you won’t let me move you to a better house, I respect that decision. But I don’t want her here. You need to respect that.”

  “From what I can tell, Emily Crawford is plenty capable of making her own decisions.”

  But she was working for him now. It was what she’d wanted, and it changed things. Not his need or desire, but his inclination to act on it. “Her name is Emily Whitaker, Dad. She was married. She has a son. Neither one of us is who we were before.”

  His father smiled. “I think that’s the point.”

  Chapter Six

  Emily looked up from the old rocker on her mother’s front porch at the sound of a car coming down the gravel driveway. It was almost nine at night, and Davey had been asleep close to an hour.

  She hadn’t expected her mother to return from her date with Max Moore so soon. But when Emily recognized Jase’s Jeep, her first inclination was to run to the house and shut the door.

  He’d hurt her today, and she hated that anyone—any man—had the power to do that. While she understood that Jase’s reaction had been about his own issues, a part of her still took the blame he’d placed on her. Her faults sometimes felt so obvious it was easy to hold herself accountable for any perceived slight. Flawed as she might be, Emily had never been a coward.

  So she remained on the rocker, her legs curled under the thin blanket she’d brought out to ward off the evening chill of the high mountains. Although she couldn’t concentrate on the actual words, she kept her eyes trained on the e-reader in her lap as a door slammed shut and the heavy footfall of boots sounded on the steps.

  “What are you reading?”

  She ran one finger over the screen of the e-reader but didn’t answer.

  “You can ignore me,” he said as he sank into the chair next to her, “but I won’t go away.”

  “There’s always hope,” she quipped, her fingers gripping the leather cover of the e-reader tighter at his soft chuckle.

  They sat in silence for a minute, and Emily’s grasp began to relax. As if sensing it he said, “I’m sorry, Em.”

  “It’s fine,” she lied. “Point taken. I overstepped the bounds.” There she went, instinctively making his mistake her fault.

  “My reaction wasn’t about you. What you did for my dad today was kind. It made him happier than I’ve seen him in a long time to have a beautiful woman caring for him.”

  “No big deal.”

  “Don’t do that.” His hand was around her wrist, warmth seeping through the fleece sweatshirt she’d pulled on when the sun disappeared behind the mountain. “It was special to him, and it should have been to me, as well.” He stood, releasing her, and paced to the edge of the porch. “I love my father, but I hate the man he was when I was younger. He was mean and embarrassing. Everyone knew the problems he had, but that didn’t stop me from being humiliated when I’d have to get him home after a night at the bars.”

  She could see the tension in his shoulders as he gazed out into the darkening night. “He showed up one year for a parent-teacher conference so drunk he ended up puking all over the first-floor bathroom. I never let him come to another school function.”

  She flipped closed the cover of her e-reader, her heart already melting for this man’s pain. “Jase—”

  He turned to her, folded his arms across his chest. “It killed me to live in that trailer growing up. The only saving grace was that no one but me had to see him at his worst. Even Noah, all the times he picked me up, has never been inside. That place represents my greatest shame, and my dad refuses to move. To see you there with all of the memories that seem to seep out of the walls to choke me... I couldn’t stand it. It felt like you’d be contaminated by it.”

  Emily stood, placed the blanket and e-reader on the chair and walked toward him.

  Jase shook his head. “You’re too good for that, Em. Too good for him. I’m sorry I lashed out, but I still hate that you—that anyone—has seen that piece of who I am.”

  “No.” She stepped into his space until
she could feel his breath whispering over the top of her head. “You’re too good to give in to that shame. Where you came from doesn’t change who you are now.”

  “Are you kidding?” He didn’t move away from her but leaned back against the porch rail as if he needed space. “That trailer and what it represents made me who I am. The night in my front yard, you said I was perfect, and I know what my reputation is around town. Nice Jase. Sweet Jase. Perfect Jase. No one sees anything else because I don’t let them. Everyone thinks I work so damn hard despite my family’s reputation in Crimson. I work hard because of where I came from. Because I’m scared to death if I don’t, the poison that has crushed the self-respect of so many people in my family will take me down, too.”

  Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes and she saw who he was under the Mr. Perfect veneer he’d spent years polishing to a bright shine. He was a man at the edge of his control and a part of her wanted him to shuck off his restraint. With her. Yes. She could handle it. She would welcome whatever he had to offer.

  He blinked, and the moment was gone. His chest rose and fell like he’d sprinted up Crimson Mountain. She placed her hand on it, fingers splayed, and felt his heartbeat thrumming under her touch. “You aren’t your father.” She said the words softly and felt his breath hitch. “I know what it’s like to want to prove something so badly it makes you into someone you’re not. Someone fake and false. You’re real, Jase. Not perfect. Real.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, lifting his palm to press it over her hand. “For what I said and how I treated you.”

  She let a small smile curve her lips. “I think this makes us even.”

  “You did good today. In my office and with my dad. Thank you.”

  This was the part where she should step away. If they were even, it was a fresh start. But she couldn’t force herself to move. Emily might not believe in perfect, but she had learned to appreciate real. The knowledge that Jase was different than she’d assumed both humbled and excited her. Of all people, she should have known not to judge a person by who they were on the outside. She’d built an entire life on outward impressions only to watch it crumble around her.