Whisper of Attraction

by Melanie Shawn

“It’s only been a week,” he reasoned.

  “I know how long it’s been! Why are you always updating me on the amount of time that has passed since I’ve been here?!” She deepened her voice in what he assumed was an impression of him. “You’ve only been there a couple of days. It’s only been four days. You haven’t even been there a full week. It’s only been a week.” Her voice returned to normal. “Believe me, I’m aware of every day, every hour, every minute, every second that I’m here because it’s excruciating torture!”

  Lifting his arm, he squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger as he closed his eyes and reminded himself of what Brynn had said about emotional maturity. His baby sister might be brilliant, but she was still thirteen.

  Each day he’d tried a different tactic. Sympathy. Reason. Bargaining. Joking. Dismissing. Relating.

  Today he was going to go the tough love route.

  “Look, Iz, life is hard. The real world isn’t easy. Things aren’t always exactly how you want them to be. And how you deal with things when they aren’t rainbows and unicorns is what defines who you are. If you bail every time you’re in a situation that you don’t like, what does that say about you?” He took a breath and continued on his roll. “Do you think every person in the world likes their job and everyone is nice to everyone all the time? No. But they still show up for work. Do you think I wanted to be at boot camp? Do you think I liked having drill sergeants call me names and scream so close to my face that spit flew at it? Do you think it was fun to be kicked out of bed at the asscrack of dawn while a horn was blown in my face every morning? No. It wasn’t. But I made it. And I was stronger after. It built character. So suck it up and stop acting like a spoiled princess.”

  It was silent for several beats before his sister spoke in a deadly calm tone. “Are you finished?”

  Hearing the icy, detached quality had him feeling something he hadn’t even felt on his most dangerous black ops mission. Abject terror. He was scared shitless because he knew he’d fucked up.

  “Yes.”

  “First of all,” she began, “I am not a spoiled princess.”

  “I know,” he lamely conceded. “That’s why I said don’t act like one.”

  “Do you remember when Ryan Lassen asked me to go to the dance last year and I turned him down and he told me to ‘stop acting like a bitch’?”

  Shit. He knew where she was going with this.

  “When I got home, I called you because I was upset and I told you what he said. You said that you wanted to kick his ass because that was the same thing as calling me a bitch.”

  “I’m sorry—” he tried to apologize.

  “I’m not done. I didn’t interrupt you when you were speaking and I would appreciate the same consideration.”

  Even though he knew that she was only this composed because she was in a state of controlled anger, it was nice to hear her sounding more like herself.

  “Furthermore, boot camp has nothing to do with the situation that I’m in. When you joined the Marines you legally signed your life away and were gone for four years. You didn’t have a choice to leave. This is high school, not the military. And the reason I wanted to go to this school was because I wanted the best education possible so I wouldn’t get stuck in a job that I hated. But that was before I got here and realized that there was no possible way I could learn in this environment. The girls here are cruel and unrelenting. The no-bullying policy is a joke when the parents of the perpetrators are the largest financial contributors to the privately funded school.

  “And I am painfully aware that life isn’t always unicorns and rainbows. If that’s what you think my life has been like, then you haven’t been paying attention. I’ve had three stepdads and was dragged across the country without any notice when I was ten to live with a man my mother hadn’t even met in person. That same mother just left the country so she could go live with a different man she barely knows. And this time she didn’t take me. She signed over her rights so she wouldn’t have to and she was relieved.

  “And I admit, I was relieved, too, because I would get to live with you.” She let out a forced laugh. “You’re the only real family I’ve ever had. Mom barely acknowledged me and when she did she always dismissed me! Telling me things like ‘I might be book smart but she was street smart.’ But not you. You’ve always been there for me, loved me, and listened to me. You were the one person that I could always rely on. Until now.”

  Hearing her sound so cold and unemotional felt like a punch in the gut, but hearing what she actually had to say was a kick in the balls. He felt like he wanted to throw up.

  When she was quiet for a few minutes, he asked, “Can I talk now?”

  There was no answer.

  “Izzy? Can I say something?”

  Nothing.

  “Izzy?” He lowered his phone and saw that the call had been disconnected.

  He cursed under his breath as he tried to call his sister back. It went to her voicemail after two rings. So he tried again. This time it only rang once before his call was forwarded to her voicemail.

  Axel ran his hand through his hair as he left a message. “Iz, call me back. I love you.”

  The sick feeling in his stomach had worsened as he put his phone back in his pocket with the knowledge that his sister wasn’t going to call him back anytime soon.

  Part of him wanted to leave Whisper Lake and drive to the city and make her talk to him, but he wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. The truth was, he had no idea what the right thing to do was.

  All of his life, he’d handled everything alone. He’d never asked anyone for anything. Duke had offered him unsolicited advice, but he sure as hell had never talked to anyone about a problem he was having. Right now though, he wanted to talk to someone. He wanted to ask for advice from the only person that had ever made the emptiness inside of him go away.

  Brynn Daniels was more than just a job to him. In the short time he’d known her he’d developed real feelings for her. He felt like he needed her.

  And that was another reason why he needed to stay away.

  CHAPTER 11

  “What was I doing?” Brynn murmured to herself as her eyes scanned her bedroom. “I know I came in here for a reason.”

  Now she just had to remember what that reason was.

  Scatterbrained didn’t scratch the surface of how she’d been feeling. Between work, the play, online counseling, and the man that had wormed his way into her every waking and sleeping thought, her brain was totally fried.

  Axel had been in town for three weeks today, but their interactions were still sporadic and impersonal. He hadn’t contacted her by text or phone since the auditions. She saw him some mornings after her walks, and a few times at the theater, but all of their meetings were short and not terribly sweet. She missed him.

  Really, truly missed him.

  She missed his voice. She missed the sparkle that he got in his eye every time she smiled. She missed his dry sense of humor. She missed the way his roughened hands felt wrapped around hers. She missed the feeling of connection that she had with him, one that she’d never felt with anyone else.

  “No,” she reprimanded herself, knowing that her emotions were misplaced.

  She needed to get a grip and put a stop to this. She missed a man that was living in back of her house. Working at the same place she worked. Whom she barely knew and showed zero interest in getting to know her better.

  It wasn’t healthy. It was borderline pathetic.

  Brynn was beginning to think that she might need to revisit the idea of dating again. She still wasn’t sure if she was ready, but ready or not, it might be past time.

  She jumped when she heard her phone ring. Suddenly she remembered why she’d left the kitchen. It was to get her phone. She wasn’t as obsessive about having it near her when Ryder was home. Not that she’d seen him all day.

  Ryder had been outside with Axel since he’d woken up at noon. These days, if
her son wasn’t with the twins or Fiona, (now officially his girlfriend), he was hanging out with Axel, helping him do repairs. That relationship wasn’t helping her schoolgirl crush. Apparently, seeing a man teach her son things like how to install an air conditioning unit, clean out gutters, repair a cracked driveway, and replace some roof tiles was sexy.

  Who knew?

  The phone rang again and Brynn had to search for it. She finally found it buried beneath her comforter. She pulled it out and saw that it was her mother calling.

  Besides the daily updates on her father, Shea had been checking in on her new tenant, asking Brynn how the work he’d promised to do was coming. Each time Brynn updated her, she could practically hear her mother telepathically saying I-told-you-so.

  Brynn had definitely been skeptical when her mother had called and told her that some stranger was not only paying rent but was also going to be handling the repairs and upkeep that both she and her mother had been putting off. But it turned out her doubts were unfounded. Not only had Axel lived up to his end of the deal, he’d gone above and beyond the list of tasks her mother had given him.

  Right now he was out drywalling the garage, which actually hadn’t even been on the list that her mother had sent him. Yesterday, Axel had knocked on her back door and asked her why there was Sheetrock stacked against the walls in the empty garage and Brynn told him that her plan was to one day convert the space into a game room for Ryder.

  Then he’d apologized for bothering her and left. It had been the most they’d spoken since she’d shown him the theater on his first day of work.

  This morning, she’d looked out and seen that the project she’d started, and by started she meant she’d purchased and stored the drywall in the unfinished garage two years ago, was being completed by a tool-belt-wearing Axel.

  He looked really good in a tool belt.

  She took a fortifying breath before answering the phone. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hello, Sunflower. Did you see that your father was on CNN this morning?”

  “No, Mom.” Brynn exhaled as she lowered down to sit on the edge of her bed. “I told you, I don’t watch any news about him. He’s just a man that hasn’t been in my life for thirteen years, and was barely in it before that.”

  “A man that happens to be your father.”

  “Not to me, he’s not.”

  “You don’t get to make that decision. It’s not healthy the way you block him from your life.”

  Brynn closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking in a calm tone. “Please, don’t tell me what’s healthy and not healthy for me.”

  “Just because you have a fancy degree doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I never said anything about my degree.”

  Her mom ignored her. “I’m still your mother and I happen to know that you’re never going to have room for love, joy, and commitment in your life as long as you keep bottling up all of your anger, resentment, and abandonment issues.”

  “I’m not bottling up anything.” Her father was a non-issue in her life.

  “Yes, you are. The negative energy that you’re holding onto is clogging your emotional system the same way your hair clogs the shower drain.”

  Gross.

  “But it’s okay, because you’re going to release it all soon. And then you’ll be free. You’ll be clear. You’ll be empowered.”

  “Great.”

  Her mother had been making predictions about Brynn’s life before Brynn even knew what predictions were. Some were ominous and vague, like the one she’d just made regarding her “releasing it all soon.” And some were specific, like when Shea started putting bananas in Brynn’s lunchbox every day in fourth grade. When Brynn asked her about it, her mother said that she’d need the potassium to help her heal. Two weeks later, Brynn fell out of a tree that she’d been climbing and broke her arm and leg.

  When her mother told her that was why she’d had her eating the bananas, Brynn asked her why she didn’t just tell her not to climb the tree. Her mother told her that her gift didn’t work like that. Even at eight, Brynn had thought, then what’s the point?

  “How are things going with Mr. Fixer Upper?”

  “Are you talking about Gannon or Axel?” Brynn smiled to herself. Her mother wouldn’t get the reference. Gannon was the hero from Brynn’s favorite Lucy Score book, Mr. Fixer Upper. She had to amuse herself in these conversations or she’d lose it.

  It was every woman for herself when she was talking to her mother.

  “Who’s Gannon?”

  “Never mind. Everything is fine with Axel.”

  “And what about you? How are things with you and my handsome grandson?”

  “Fine.”

  “And is Ryder spending all his free time with Axel?”

  Brynn thought about lying just so she didn’t encourage her mother’s “intuition,” but she went with honesty.

  “Yes.”

  “As soon as I read Axel, I knew he was exactly what you both needed.”

  “We don’t need him.”

  She might want him, badly, but need and want were two very different things.

  “Yes you do. You’re just too stubborn to admit it. You’ve always been stubborn.”

  Her phone buzzed again and she jumped at the chance to end the call and not go down the Brynn-is-stubborn rabbit hole.

  “Okay, well, dinner’s here. I gotta go. Love you, Mom.”

  She hung up before her mom could respond and saw that it wasn’t pizza after all, it was Ali. She didn’t need to take a deep breath before she answered this call. “Hey.”

  “Hey, chickadee! What are you up to?”

  Oh, just trying not to lose my mind.

  “Not much.”

  “I was calling to see if Ryder’s going to the Friday Night Freshman Lock-in.”

  “He is.”

  “And you’re not working it, right?”

  Every year since Brynn started working at Whisper Lake High, she’d been one of the staff that chaperoned the Freshman Lock-in. It was a tradition that went back as long as the high school did. Its purpose was to build camaraderie within the class.

  Fifty years ago, the freshmen kids would camp out at the lake. Now they all stayed in the gym and there was no “in-out” privileges, terminology Brynn had petitioned to change since the kids loved to make inappropriate jokes about it. They kept the kids busy with team-building activities and provided pizza and snacks. There was a three-to-one kid-to adult supervision and security ratio, which kept things fairly under control.

  Brynn was torn over whether or not to be relieved that she didn’t have to endure another night filled with fifty teenagers or sad that she wouldn’t be going the only year her son was. But it was a non-starter for Ryder. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of her chaperoning.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Perfect!” Ali said enthusiastically. “The twins are going, too and Ethan and Kade have their Friday night fantasy football thing at Lanterns, so me and Jess were thinking mini-girls’ night. You in?”

  “You’re a newlywed.” Brynn pointed out the obvious. “Don’t you want to take advantage of having the house to yourself?”

  “Oh believe me, there will be all kinds of having the house to ourselves advantages taken. The fantasy football stuff will be done by ten.”

  A night out with the girls sounded like just what the doctor ordered, even if it was just for a couple of hours. Plus, the alternative would be staying here. Alone. She’d probably just wander around her house hoping to catch a glimpse of Axel through the window.

  Again, borderline pathetic.

  “I’m in.”

  “Perfect.”

  She hung up at the same time the doorbell rang. As she walked to the door, her mind wandered back to three weeks ago when she’d sat out on the deck with Axel. Her heartbeat sped, her palms dampened, and her cheeks flushed at the memory.

  Okay. It was definitely time
to get back up on the dating horse.

  * * *

  “Where did you learn how to do all this?” Ryder asked as he held the drywall in place while Axel drilled the screw into the post.

  “One of my stepdads taught me.”

  “One of?” Ryder echoed.

  “I had a few.”

  “How many?”

  “Eight.” Axel moved over to the next piece of drywall that was leaning against the wall.

  The look of disbelief that crossed Ryder’s face made Axel grin. “Your mom married eight guys?”

  It was probably nine by now, but Axel didn’t share that. “Yep.”

  Ryder shook his head slowly. “I don’t think my mom’s had eight boyfriends in her whole life.”

  Axel tried his best not to have any reaction to that information, keeping his expression blank. He didn’t want Ryder to see just how interested he would be to hear all about Brynn’s dating history. The information he had on it was scarce, to say the least. She’d been married at sixteen, divorced a year later, and…that was it. The trail went cold.

  There was no digital evidence of any other relationship that a background check had been able to produce. Axel was not tech-savvy. But Nate Holmes, the computer genius at Elite Security was. The facial recognition program Nate developed was used by the CIA and FBI. It scanned the entire internet, past and present. He knew it was thorough because when Nate was developing it, he’d used Axel as a test subject. It had produced several hits on him of pictures that he hadn’t even remembered taking that were on people’s social media accounts from over a decade before. Some were taken during his Marine days, and some were taken at random bars and events.

  Brynn had a very limited social media footprint. That was the terminology Nate used. There were a few pictures she’d been tagged in from friends and with Ryder. But there were none that showed any traces of romantic connections.

  Axel wanted more information, but he didn’t want to seem obvious about it.

  “Your mom doesn’t date a lot?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible while he measured the next piece of Sheetrock.

  “She doesn’t date at all.”