by Nicole Helm
He straightened in his chair. “How can that even mathematically be possible?” He was a little tired of everyone believing he was the problem. Okay, maybe sometimes he was, but surely not all the time.
“You know how you get when you’ve got your eye on a new project? You start taking notes and making up plans before you even have the property or the measurements. You probably already have a list of the things you want to do to the Jasmine Street house, in the order you’re going to do them, with pricing all figured out.”
He shifted in his seat, scowling at his beer. Well, so what?
“You get this idea and run with it, planning every inch before you even know what you’ve got.”
“Now you’re insulting my business practices?”
“No, it’s not an insult. You’re passionate. But that doesn’t work with people. Houses you can change. You can knock out a wall and put a cabinet over that pipe. People are people. You see a woman you think is attractive and you think, What do I have to do to get her to be the one? You don’t ask if she is the one. You go about trying to manipulate the relationship into where you want it to go. They’re a project, not a partner.”
“That’s not... That’s...”
“It’s right-on. And a woman doesn’t want to be a project, even for as wonderful as you can be. If you don’t see them, what’s the point?”
“You believe there’s some magical one for everyone?”
“No, but you have your eyes set on finding a wife.”
“I...do...not...”
“Please. I’ve watched... I mean, I’ve known you for five years. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to notice you get the same master-planner light in your eye when you see a dilapidated house and an attractive woman.”
“You’ve been paying attention.”
She looked down, and just the faintest tinge of pink spread across the fair skin of her cheeks. “Hard not to when they’re a revolving door. And that’s another thing—you’re never alone. At least not before your embargo. Half those women you dated were probably just because you were bored or lonely.”
“I am not lonely and I don’t manipulate people.” Okay, so maybe he got a little antsy when he was by himself and didn’t have work to do. Still. Lonely and antsy were two very different things.
She shook her head, her eyes meeting his again as the embarrassment seemed to fade away. “No. You’re sweet and kind—don’t get me wrong. You just get this preconceived notion of how a relationship should go before you even start it. Then you try to control everything to make it so. And I think your intentions are honest and good, but that tactic doesn’t work.”
“So, how’s it supposed to work, Ms. Expert?”
She shook her head, looking a little sad. “I’m not saying I’m an expert. I’m just saying people don’t want to be controlled. They don’t want to be maneuvered. People just want to be able to be themselves.”
“Did some asshole break your heart?”
She laughed, but when her eyes met his, something squeezed painfully in his chest. And since he wasn’t a big fan of pain, he pushed it away. He’d ignore whatever that was. Whatever it meant.
“I think I’ve broken my own heart plenty, without the help of anyone else.” She pressed a palm over her heart, a faraway look on her face as if she was thinking about something else. Maybe even someone else and that also gave him a little stab of pain. “But you can’t keep bashing against the same wall hoping it will break. You have to change.”
“Or maybe I just need to find the right person.”
She shook her head. “You’re not getting it.”
“Maybe you’re wrong.” He really wanted her to be wrong. She had to be. He’d been alone for months now, which sucked, but he’d done it. And he didn’t treat people like houses. Man, if he could do that, things would be a hell of a lot easier.
Leah didn’t say anything else, and since he’d finished his beer, he pushed away from the table. “I should probably head out. It’s getting late.”
She nodded wordlessly and followed him toward the door. He reached to pull it open, but her next words completely stopped him.
“So, I’m sorry.”
“You’re...sorry?” He turned around slowly. “Are you...having a stroke?”
She sighed. “You’re doing this big crazy favor and maybe I shouldn’t have said the stuff about...relationships.” She looked at her feet, then muttered a quick “Even if I’m right” at the end.
“That is possibly the worst apology I have ever received.”
“I’ll try to find worse for next time.”
He couldn’t help grinning, and she grinned back, and they were back on even ground. No weird moments. No wondering what it might be like... Nope.
She shrugged and looked away. “Anyway.”
“Listen, it’s going to be okay. In fact, everything is going to work out just fine.” And he really did believe that. Leah wouldn’t have asked him for this if it wasn’t necessary, and he was very good at making necessary things happen.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I have a blueprint. And I will manipulate the situation to go exactly as I want,” he said in a robot voice.
She shook her head in disgust. “Good night, Jacob. Work on letting that one go in the next ten years.”
“Hmm. We’ll see. Now, before I go, I’m going to kiss you on the cheek and you’re not going to jump like I’ve zapped you with a cattle prod.”
She rolled her eyes, but he saw the nervous swallow before she turned her cheek toward him.
It was a mistake, but as far as he was concerned, it was a harmless one. He rested his palm against the cheek she offered, let his fingers glance across her hair. He leaned forward, then gently turned her face the other way.
“I prefer this cheek,” he said softly, mouth way too close to hers. Briefly he thought about kissing her again there. Lingering. A real kiss, not some crazed outburst. But that would be a mistake that wasn’t harmless, so he brushed his lips against the soft skin of her not-offered cheek and then stepped back.
“Night,” she said, her voice firm and sure. Her expression looking anything but those two things.
He nodded, though, because lingering was unacceptable, and turned to walk to his truck. Something heavy weighed on his chest, so he couldn’t resist a joke. “Make sure to ogle my ass as I walk away. Then your parents will really believe you can’t keep your hands off me.”
“Your ego is astounding.”
Jacob laughed, offering a wave as he glanced back. Maybe it was a trick of the light, a figment of his imagination, really ill-advised wishful thinking, but he could swear she was staring at his ass.
It was definitely going to be a long week of pretend. Lots of different kinds of pretending.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEAH WATCHED OUT her front window with her heart in her throat. She wiped sweaty palms against the thighs of her jeans. Ten years since she’d seen her parents and brother face-to-face, and they should be arriving any minute.
Why did she think she needed to do this? Was it really necessary to go through all this pain? She liked her life, had a support group of friends she cared deeply for. Did she really need her family back?
She glanced at the clock. They were pretty close, according to her brother’s text. Everything in her chest jittered and ached. Another glance out the window and she saw the familiar blue minivan.
How the thing was still running fifteen years later was something of a miracle. The engine was probably held together by duct tape at this point, but Dad had a way with eking every last ounce of goody out of an engine.
The nerves weighing down her stomach made her sick, but she still hurried to the door and slipped her feet into boots and her arms into her coat. As she stepped
outside into the frigid afternoon, she wondered how she was going to navigate all this heavy awkwardness.
And then Mom stepped out of the passenger side, and tears sprang unbidden to Leah’s eyes.
Ten years had changed her, changed them all, and yet the recognition was immediate. Leah had been afraid there would be awkwardness. A kind of stilted not knowing how to be around each other, but the moment her eyes locked with her mother’s, nothing else mattered.
She crossed to her mom and they had their arms around each other almost immediately. Leah had never been much of a crier; she’d built an intolerance to it over the years of being poked and prodded and sliced open. But today, standing in the middle of her driveway, hugging her mom for the first time in ten years, she sobbed like a baby.
She wasn’t sure how long they held on to each other. Her tears or her mother’s or both all but freezing to her face and neck. Finally Mom pulled away, grasping Leah’s face between her palms.
“My beautiful girl.”
Leah didn’t even try to get herself together. It was no use. This was...big and messy and emotional, and no amount of toughness or pretending it wasn’t would change that.
“Hi, Mom.” Time had added wrinkles and gray. Where Leah’s memory was a thin woman with long, curly hair, Mom was now pleasantly plump, her hair a curly bob.
But nothing had changed the amber color of her eyes, watery as they were. Nothing had erased the way she said “my beautiful girl” with all the reverence of prayer. And nothing had changed that grip. Once upon a time, that hug had been stifling and suffocating, but today it felt like heaven.
She glanced beyond Mom to Dad. He looked infinitely older. Not just in wrinkles and weight and gray, but just all-around like an old man. And still, when she looked at him, shiny blue eyes and that kind of pained hope on his face—so much like when she remembered waking up after the transplant. He’d looked at her just like that.
And when she moved to hug him, and his arms tightened around her shoulders, he smelled exactly the same as she always remembered. Peppermint and grease. It was comfort and home and she breathed it in deep.
She could have stayed out here all day, just being held by them, crying over them, but it was freezing and they weren’t wearing coats. “Let’s get inside before everyone freezes to death.”
Finally, she glanced at Marc. Her big brother. They’d never been especially close considering she’d been born a sickly blob of problems that he’d always been cautioned to be careful with. So this reunion was a little more awkward. Plus there had been the whole their-parents-separated-because-of-her thing.
“Hey, sis,” he offered, a corner of his mouth quirking upward. “You look...well, all grown-up.”
She had to swallow to speak. “I hear that happens in ten years.” He looked grown-up, too. At four years older, he’d still been only twenty-two when she’d left. Just a year out of the police academy. At the time, he’d seemed so old and put together and just frustratingly in charge of himself, but ten years apart made her realize even if he had been those things, he’d still been baby faced and young.
Now he was thirty-two, his dark hair still cropped short, little lines around his amber eyes, so much like Mom’s. He was a man. A man she knew even less than the older brother who’d always been something of a silent enigma.
“It’s good to see you looking well,” he said, so formally it hurt her heart. But as he stepped inside her house, he gave her shoulder a squeeze. And, hey, it was something.
“I do okay these days.” She shed her coat and kicked off her shoes, remembering at the last minute to put them in the closet instead of haphazardly in the entryway. “So, um, come in. It’s a bit of a work in progress. The house had been abandoned for about ten years when I bought it, so, you know. Some things are still a bit of a mess.”
Mom’s arms linked with hers. “It’s lovely. My goodness, how handy you are. Well, I assume your man helped.”
Leah had to focus not to tense. “Yeah, Jacob helped a lot.”
“I love the name Jacob. Such a sturdy, solid name. When do we get to meet him?”
“He’s coming for dinner tomorrow night.” How were they already talking about this?
“What’s wrong with tonight?”
“Oh. Well, I thought you’d want to settle in. Get used to everything. You know...” Get reacquainted. Be a family.
“Nonsense. He’s responsible for all this, isn’t he? He should be here.”
“Responsible?”
“Don’t think it escaped my notice that you didn’t really reach out to us until you had him in your life. I need to meet him immediately.” She squeezed Leah’s arm. “I absolutely need to meet the man who brought you back to us.”
It took great pains to swallow down the words she desperately wanted to say. I’m the one who brought me back to you. “He probably has plans, Mom. I had hoped—”
“Doesn’t hurt to ask. Why don’t you go call him up while we unload?”
“Mom. I...” But what was the use? Wasn’t that the point of using Jacob? The fact she knew she couldn’t get it through her mother’s head that she did not need a man. A man had not fixed her. That was just what Mom thought. There was no getting around it.
“All right. I’ll call him.” She forced her mouth into a smile. This was part of it. Her penance for the hug. For leaving. For everything. She would just have to grin and bear this little point she and her mother did not agree on.
Because, at the end of the day, that hug had been worth it. Feeling her mother’s arms around her, hearing her say “my beautiful girl.” It was worth it. That love, that care was worth the things she didn’t agree with.
She took a deep breath and let it out, then pulled out her phone and called Jacob.
* * *
IT WAS WEIRD to be nervous. Jacob couldn’t help it. This was not real in any way, shape or form, but his palms were kind of sweaty and his stomach was definitely uneasy.
It was just the lying part. The acting part. Sure, he did a decent job, but it was still nerve-racking. So many ways to slip up. Of course, none of those really affected him. This was Leah’s lie, and if her parents found out, there were no consequences for him.
Except Leah’s disappointment. Which, because they were friends and not for any other reason, would bother him. Deeply.
He pulled his truck against the curb in front of Leah’s house. Though it was dark, he could make out a hunched figure on the porch. He stepped out of his truck, frowning at Leah’s pacing form. “What are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“It’s freezing, Queen Whack Job.” He hunched in his coat. The wind was bitter cold. He didn’t want to be out here to walk from truck to house, let alone skulking.
“Hey, Assy McGee, what if my parents hear you calling me that?”
“Assy McGee is way worse than Queen Whack Job.” But as he approached he could already tell she wasn’t irritated with him. She was distraught. Miserable. Not a good start to the family reunion, then.
“Hey.” He reached out for her arm, holding her in place so she’d stop pacing. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just...needed some air.”
“It’s that bad?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Hard.” She shrugged, looking suspiciously as though she’d been crying.
“You expected that, right?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Obviously even with a coat she’d been out here too long.
“Let’s get you inside.” He went to open the door, but her words stopped him.
“You shaved.”
He wasn’t sure why that sounded like an accusation. “Well, yeah. Wouldn’t want your parents to think I’m a dirty hippie.”
She snorted and almost smile
d, but that died after a second. “She’s never even met you and you’re already the savior.”
“Huh?”
Leah shook her head. In the weak porch light he could see the anguish on her face. “She thinks hooking up with you, like, magically cured me of my ran-away-from-home ways. That you’re the reason I reached out to them. She’s never even met you, and yet you have all the credit and praise and I’m still the girl to be handled. Maneuvered. Saved and fixed.”
Jacob didn’t know what to say to that. Obviously her request for him to come over a night earlier than planned wasn’t just some spur-of-the-moment suggestion. It was something much bigger than he knew what to do with. At least without knowing the full story.
And as much as she’d told him, it was all vague half stories. Nothing concrete. Nothing to understand this.
“I don’t have to be here.”
She shook her head, a rough not-at-all-happy laugh escaping her lips. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re acting like it does.”
“Nope. It doesn’t. Ten years didn’t magically change anything, and you know what? I deserve it. I deserve to have to bite my tongue. This is my due, and I’ll suck it up and take it. That was the lesson I was supposed to learn. Grow up. Be an adult. Bend over backward and think about other people more than I think about myself. Right? That’s how it’s supposed to work. So let’s go in there and pretend we want to do each other.”
“Um...”
But she was already stomping inside, guns blazing, shoulders back. This is my due. Damn, that seemed sad. Maybe there was some way he could smooth it over for her. Clearly he was missing pieces of the puzzle, but even more clearly her parents did not understand Leah.
Handled, maneuvered, saved or fixed were the last things he thought she needed.
“Jacob’s here,” Leah called, grim determination set in every line on her face. A plump woman with curly hair and a tall man with a grizzly mustache appeared, smiling broadly.
