“Five sisters,” he said. He held up his hand and spread his fingers wide. He strode toward the stairs, realizing he needed some space between them before he did something dumb like give in to the urge and plant a kiss on her that made her cling to him while she moaned his name. “Five.”
Jessie laughed as she fell in beside him. “You poor thing. Your parents must have been exhausted by that many girl hormones.”
“No, they had it easy,” he said.
She frowned, not understanding.
“My parents divorced when I was six months old,” he said. “They each remarried and Mom had three girls and Dad had two.”
“Oh, who did you live with?” she asked.
“Both, half-and-half, fifty-fifty.” He shook his head as he started down the stairs. He could feel Jessie watching him as she followed, so he forced his voice to stay light as he added, “The lone boy, the bargaining chip in the divorce, and chief babysitter for both houses—you could say I specialize in mediation and girls.”
“Yeah, so I noticed,” Jessie said.
Zach turned to see what she meant by that, but they had reached the bottom of the steps and Jessie ducked around him before he could see her face. Over the next two hours he didn’t think he was imagining that Jessie was avoiding him.
While Zach spent dinner joking around with the girls and talking shop with Brad and Sam, Jessie flitted around the room, making sure everyone had what they needed. Despite the fact that they had landed at her house with no notice, she seemed pleased to have them there.
She joked with Mac and Carly, praised Jillian’s whoopie pies to the sky, asked Gina how she enjoyed managing The Grind, and shared some stories about Gavin as a boss. He was a total pushover for his furry patients, not even minding when they piddled during an exam or occasionally snapped at his fingers. This surprised no one.
When Jessie had the girls say good night at bedtime, Gracie and Zach busted out their special handshake to much applause. Maddie demanded a handshake of her own, so she and Zach worked out a complicated variation on patty-cake that involved a spin and snap that they made their own.
Zach watched Jessie head upstairs with the girls. As soon as they were out of sight, he went to work cleaning up the kitchen. He didn’t want her to think they were here to trash her house and then leave. Sam joined him at the sink.
“So, Jessie, huh?” Sam asked.
“Just a neighbor,” Zach replied. He knew Sam suspected more but there was no more.
“Right. So, the electrical current running between you two is my imagination?” Sam asked.
“Just a neighbor,” Zach repeated.
“Seriously, dude.” Brad joined them, picking up a towel and wiping down the salad bowl Zach had just washed. “I’m surprised your hair isn’t standing on end.”
“Funny.” Zach ran a soapy hand over his hair. Droplets of water dripped down his bangs and he shook his head much like Rufus shook off water when it rained. The other guys ducked and Zach laughed.
Gina, all dangerous curves and wild red curls, joined them at the counter. She had an unopened bottle of wine in one hand and a corkscrew in the other. She batted her big brown eyes at Sam, and held the bottle out to him.
“Hey, Triple-Shot, you mind?” she asked.
“Huh?” Sam tore his gaze away from Jillian, where it usually lingered, and turned to Gina. “Sorry, what?”
Gina’s eyes flashed and she blew out a breath that puffed out her lower lip and tousled the curls that hung over her forehead. Silently, she held out the bottle to him.
“Oh, sure,” he said.
He set to work getting the cork out of the bottle while Gina watched him with her heart in her eyes. Zach glanced at Brad to see if he was getting this.
He winced when his gaze met Zach’s. Oh, yeah, he was getting it. Gina wanted Sam who wanted Jillian, who was oblivious to all of it. Zach suspected a mighty train wreck coming in the not-so-distant future.
He shook his head at Brad and said, “And that is why I don’t do relationships and all of my shenanigans happen out of town, as in not in my neighborhood.”
Brad returned his head shake. His gaze drifted to where his wife, Emma, sat with her forever friends, Carly, Mac, and Jillian. Emma was laughing at something Carly said. Her lips were parted in a wide warm smile and her straight pale hair reflected the light from the fire in the fireplace. Zach glanced back at his friend. If he were a cartoon, hearts would have replaced his eyeballs, as he was completely besotted with his wife. It was positively unmanly.
Still, Zach was happy for him. Emma was a great girl, and they were going to make spectacular parents. Brad’s own upbringing had been cold and distant and Emma, with her exuberance for life, had brought warmth and light into Brad’s life. They were kindred spirits, a perfect pair, but Zach knew from personal experience that their connection was unicorn rare.
His gaze moved over to Gavin, who was sitting beside James. Gavin was tall and rawboned, good-looking in that salt-of-the-earth, reliable-as-the-sunrise sort of way. He was Emma’s younger brother and had been in love with Mac, the pretty brunette of the group, since he was ten years old, or so the story went. When Mac had come back to town for the first time in seven years to stand up for Emma at her wedding to Brad, Gavin had made sure she didn’t leave him again. They were disgustingly happy together.
Carly said something that sounded like it had to do with James’s stamina. Not to let the comment go unchallenged, James jumped out of his seat next to Gavin and swooped down on his fiancée, planting a kiss on her that was just this side of get-a-room-please. Yeah, Carly had picked up James for a one-night stand months ago and now here they were engaged. Zach was happy for his feisty Italian female equivalent. Except she wasn’t like him in his commitment phobia anymore. Carly had found someone, a really cool someone, and moved on into couplehood.
“Is it just me or is everyone suddenly pairing up?” Zach asked Brad.
“It’s not you. It’s happening.”
“But why?” Zach protested. “We’re in the prime of our lives. Why are we all rushing off to be in relationships and get married?”
The room had gone quiet as they all turned to look at him and Zach realized he might have been a smidgeon too loud.
“Seriously, why? What is so great about relationships?”
No one said anything for a moment but then Carly looped her arm around James’s shoulders and said, “Well, duh, because you can crack some marbles whenever you want.”
Zach felt his jaw drop. “Oh, no you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did.” She grinned.
“Game on, people,” Zach said. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Alternate expressions for orgasms. Go.”
He pointed to Sam.
“Jet one’s juice,” he said.
“Ew,” the girls all groaned together.
“La petit mort,” Jillian said. She was obsessed with all things French and said it with a French accent that Zach was pretty sure made Sam’s pupils dilate.
“Climax,” Gina offered.
“Shoot your wad,” James said.
“Come,” Emma offered. Brad pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck and shuddered. Emma laughed and kissed him.
“The Big O,” Mac said. Gavin wagged his eyebrows at her and she blushed and then giggled.
“What’s The Big O?” Jessie asked as she entered the room. Everyone stared at her. Her eyes went wide and she said, “Oh, oh!”
“Yeah, just like that,” Carly teased.
They all laughed, and Zach was pleased to see that Jessie laughed with them.
“Any reason why we’re talking about that now?” Jessie asked.
“We’re coming up with euphemisms for the word ‘orgasm,’” Zach said. “Whatcha got?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Rockets and wat
erfalls,” she said.
“Brilliant! And it’s the Beyoncé reference for the win!” Zach said.
The girls clapped her on the back and Jillian gave her a one-armed hug and said, “Nicely played, sister.”
Jessie’s grin was as big as Maddie’s and Gracie’s when they’d busted out their new high fives with Zach. He wondered how long it had been since Jessie’d had a squad of her own, if ever.
The grown-ups lingered as they packed up the dishes they’d brought, finished their dessert, and bundled up to go back out into the freezing January temperatures.
Zach was the last one to leave, clutching his slow cooker under one arm while he stood awkwardly at Jessie’s door. He didn’t know what to say. Women fell into very specific categories for him: family, employees, friends, and women he wanted to sleep with.
Jessie wasn’t family or an employee, and she could be a friend but, unfortunately, it had become clear to him when they were upstairs and he’d been swamped by the urge to kiss her that she was also someone he wanted to sleep with, and he never felt that way about his female friends. Ever.
The girls in his Maine crew were friends first, which nullified any interest he had to see them naked, but Jessie was different. She was a neighbor. She could become a friend but he had a feeling that even if she became his best friend he was still going to want to see her in her altogether. Worlds were colliding. This would not do.
“So, this was fun,” he said.
He patted his thigh, hoping Rufus took the hint to stop sniffing Chaos the kitten, who was curled up into a tiny orange ball in an attempt to ignore the big dog who’d been licking him all evening.
“It was,” Jessie agreed. She gave him a rueful look. “I owe you an apology.”
“What for?”
She blew out a breath and laced her fingers in front of her in a pose of regret very similar to Maddie’s earlier. “The other day, I mistook what all of those women were doing in your house. I didn’t realize they were your employees who’d been trapped by the storm.” She looked up at the ceiling and a soft pink blush of mortification filled her heart-shaped face. “I thought you were a player.”
“Me?” Zach asked. He blinked twice, the picture of innocence.
Jessie burst out laughing, her blue eyes twinkling when they met his. “I know, it’s ridiculous, right?”
“Well, it’s not that far out of the realm of possibility,” he said. He felt a sudden need to defend his masculine charm.
“You’re right, of course, you’re right.” Jessie nodded but she was still laughing and he got the feeling she was just saying this to mollify him. “But I am sorry I thought that about you. It wasn’t fair. My ex-husband was a player, a real bad boy. I used to find that an attractive quality, you know, before I realized that ‘bad boy’ is just a euphemism for a dick.”
Zach barked out a laugh at her blunt speaking. Smart, funny, pretty, a loving mom—Jessie had it all going on, and it was making him like her and not in a friendly way either. The feelings Jessie brought out in him felt dangerous and Zach knew better than to ignore the warning. He had gone for the happy ever after once before and had learned the hard way that it wasn’t for him. Too much risk.
“What changed your mind about me?” he asked.
“Mac and Emma were talking about how you are a big brother to all of your field marketers,” she said. “That you’re the one who pushed to have the brewery offer scholarships to employees so they can go to college and how you take care of everyone you meet. That’s a pretty great quality to have.”
“Nah, it’s just doing what’s right,” he said.
“Well, I still say it’s pretty great,” she said.
They were standing close together. The house was quiet. Rufus had finally stopped harassing the cat and was sitting beside Zach, waiting to leave. Zach knew it was time to go; he knew it, and yet, he found it very hard to leave Jessie. As if he was being pulled into her orbit, he found himself leaning toward her.
“Momma!” One of the girls cried from upstairs. “I can’t sleep.”
Both Zach and Jessie jumped as if they’d been caught kissing. She put a hand on the back of her neck and looked away and Zach adjusted the slow cooker under his arm.
“I’d better go,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Good night, Jessie.”
“Good night, Zach.”
Before he did something crazy like toss the slow cooker into a snow bank and drag her up close and kiss her, Zach pushed open the storm door and strode out into the cold, dark night with Rufus by his side.
The bite of the wind pinched his cheeks and blew back his collar as if looking for a way to sneak in under his coat. He glanced up at the sky and noted it was clear. The stars were brilliant pinpricks of light in the relentless black above.
Rufus bounded in the snow next to him, pausing to track scents every few feet, and Zach gave him an exasperated look.
“I almost kissed her, Ruf,” he said. “Like that wouldn’t be awkward as hell. You need to up your game and run better interference.”
Rufus, who had his snout shoved into a snowbank, pulled up his head and barked at Zach.
“Don’t judge me,” Zach said. “I am way, way, way out of my comfort zone here.”
Rufus shoved his face back into the snow, and Zach trudged on. His own house was dark and empty. He glanced back over his shoulder at Jessie’s house, whose windows spilled yellow light across the snow and glowed with warmth against the frigid temperatures outside. Zach felt a pull, a longing to be in the house of light, but he ignored it, pushing it down deep, where all of his sadness and disappointment were kept on lockdown.
He had a job he loved, a squad he hung out with, and plenty of girls to call if he wanted company in the sack. He had a great life, the perfect life. He didn’t need or want a relationship, especially with someone like Jessie Connelly with her big blue eyes and adorable kids. Nope. That was not for him.
Chapter 7
Jessie knew what time Zach left for work, seven o’clock sharp. His garage door would roll up and he would drive out, looking cold and hunched in the driver’s seat while Rufus sat in the passenger seat beside him, sitting up as if he, too, were ready to clock in for his day at work. The sight of the goofy cinnamon dog with the poofy hairdo and a clip-on tie on his dog collar never ceased to make her laugh.
Because their schedules were similar, she also knew what time Zach came home, five thirty on the nose. He parked at the end of his driveway to grab his mail and while Rufus ran to the house, Zach drove into the garage, meeting Rufus at the front door usually with a bag of takeout in hand.
She knew that he and Rufus played in the snow every morning before they left for work and every evening when they came home. They stayed out there for a half hour with Zach wrestling the big hairy beast to the ground right before Rufus rolled to his feet and chased Zach around the yard. She had learned by observation from her kitchen window that Rufus liked to chase a battered yellow Frisbee and Zach had a strong throwing arm.
She noticed that Zach usually went back out in the evenings, without Rufus, for a couple of hours and she knew that when he did he was hanging out with his Maine crew or his field marketers, spreading the love for his Bluff Point brewery. She felt a pang of loneliness in her chest when she thought of all of the crew at Marty’s Pub playing darts, singing karaoke at the Bikini Lounge, or bowling a few frames at the lanes in the next town over.
That life was not for the single mom, however, and mostly she was okay with it. She wouldn’t give up her time with her girls for anything, but still, sometimes she was lonely.
She glanced at the phone in her hand. She was sitting under an afghan on her squashy couch, enjoying the few minutes of peace and quiet that she got between getting the girls to bed and passing out herself. She noted on her social media app that Mac and Gavin were t
agged in a post by Zach that showed them all having a snowball fight on the town green. The pang of lonely she’d felt morphed into a suffocating submersion of sorry-for-herself, and she shook her head and switched off her phone. Her life was so much better than it had been for so long, she could not indulge in feeling bad.
She was proud of the life she had managed to carve out after the train wreck of her marriage. Being with her girls, without the looming moody cloud of her ex-husband and the managing control of her father-in-law, was like getting a new lease on life and she loved it.
Sure, sometimes she wanted to have a conversation that did not involve nagging someone to finish their supper, brush their teeth, tie their shoes, pick up their toys, or go to sleep. But she would never trade in the exuberant hugs and sloppy kisses she received every day, and even hanging out with a squad of adult friends would be a distant second to that.
She knew what Zach and his friends did, because she was friends with Mac and Gavin on social media, and they were frequently tagged in the photos Zach put up on the brewery’s social media page. It had become Jessie’s habit to check her phone right before she did lights-out to see what the crew was up to. Always, they were laughing, sometimes making goofy faces, and occasionally one of them, pregnant Emma, had fallen asleep—yes, even while bowling.
If Jessie scanned the group pictures looking for glimpses of Zach, she was sure it was only natural. A woman needed to know what sort of person her next-door neighbor was on the off chance he was a demented killer, a peeper, or some other sort of undesirable ick. This was just normal neighborly attentiveness, Jessie assured herself. She was not lightly stalking him. Really, she wasn’t.
She reminded herself that she had no interest in a relationship. Once she’d left her ex, she had promised herself she would never be dependent upon a man again. Ever. She’d only been out of her very bad marriage for six months and she was still getting her bearings. Her ex- husband, Seth Connelly, had done a number on her and she knew she wasn’t quite right in the head as yet.
She and the girls had been seeing a therapist, Dr. Hawkins, because not only had Seth been a lousy husband but he was a lousy father, too. He’d disappeared a few months ago, telling her he needed to go find himself. Last she’d heard, he was sipping chi-chis on a beach in Costa Rica with no intention of returning. She supposed he was looking for his soul in the bottom of a coconut bowl. Whatever.
Every Dog Has His Day Page 6
