All of You: The Lonnigans, Book 1

by Dee Tenorio

  “But when I’m with you…” He stopped to take breath, his forehead grazing against hers in a caress. “All of a sudden, I’m real. I’m stupid. I make mistakes left and right. And it doesn’t matter. I stop thinking about anything but you. How to make you smile. How to get you to talk to me. How to make you look at me that way that tells me no matter what you say, you care.”

  She shook her head. “No, Kyle.”

  “Yes, Jess.”

  She opened her eyes. “You don’t understand. I can’t care. I quit caring about other people a long time ago.”

  “Why?” He hadn’t given up. She knew that. Whatever her illusions were about a no-strings affair, they were gone now. And he had to lose them as well.

  “Because eventually, everyone will quit caring about you. If they ever really cared in the first place.” She felt herself go cold beneath his hand. “I don’t ask anyone to care about me. I specifically told you not to. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. If you can’t deal with that, you need to leave.”

  “You don’t want me to.”

  Something in her was shivering. Responding. It needed to be quelled. “I’m not going to give you what you want. I can’t.”

  “Try,” he murmured, his other hand sliding around her waist, heat seeping from it into her back. Those tingles only he could create began dancing down her spine while her belly warmed like chocolate liqueur. She softened into him, her breasts pressing into his wonderfully solid chest and their hips meeting with perfect alignment. He fit her, every jut and angle matching her curves and valleys. It didn’t make sense, but it felt like heaven. He lowered his mouth until it grazed hers. “For me, Jess…”

  Senses mesmerized, Jessica let him lure her in. His lips were soft against hers, kind and inviting. It could have been a first kiss. A promise. A vow—

  “No!” She jerked away, nearly unbalancing him. Again she saw disappointment turn down the corners of his mouth. “Don’t look at me that way. You don’t know, all right? You have no idea what it’s like to care and not have it returned. You, you’re loved by everyone you meet. Effortlessly. Even the people you say don’t think much of you are thinking about you. You have no idea what it’s like to be alone. So don’t you judge me, Kyle. You don’t have the right.”

  “I’m not.” But he was. She could tell. He was thinking her weak. Believing she didn’t know how to take risks. He was just like Dory, risks came easy to them. It was safety they didn’t understand.

  “Tell me what it was like. Help me understand.”

  She shook her head. Like she hadn’t gone through that line of questioning with the state-mandated shrink year after year. “Yeah, right after you tell me why you’re claustrophobic. Better yet, why not even your brother knows about it.”

  That shut him up for a few seconds. Precious seconds while she grappled for direction. If she sent him away, he’d know he’d affected her—unacceptable. If she let him stay, he’d slowly but surely burrow himself into the fabric of her life. He’d make her care about him. And eventually, he’d leave. He’d realize his infatuation was only physical. Once she stopped being a mystery, he’d get bored. Not to mention he wanted a family for some godforsaken reason and her maternal days were gone for good thanks to the dozens of kids who’d forgotten her once they had real mothers to care about.

  “It was the year Lucas left for MIT.”

  Jessica felt her eyes widen. Oh God, he was calling her bluff.

  “It was strange being away from him. We went from doing just about everything together to being a country apart, and I had to figure out what it meant to be independent for the first time in my life. To be alone. Contrary to what you think, I do know what it’s like to be alone. I just never choose to be. Not when there’s a whole world of people and places and things I can be a part of.”

  She bit her lip at the gentle reproof.

  He took a deep breath. “That year I was a minor part in a ten-car pileup off the 805 interchange. My car got pinned to the median and buried under two others. Three people died in that accident. Two others have permanent injuries. I walked out with a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder. That’s it. A few scratches in the scheme of things. If walking out with an oversensitivity to cramped spaces is the most I have to deal with, I’m not about to complain.”

  She hated how much she wanted to touch him right then. To wrap her arms around him and tell him he had as much right to his ghosts as anyone else. But it was an impulse she couldn’t indulge. Kyle would take hold of her right back.

  “And you know what? In the five hours it took to dig me out, the whole time I waited, I knew how lucky I was. I still know. It’s why I follow my instincts about everything. It’s how I know that what I feel for you is real and worth building. So, yes, I’ve lied to you. Not to hurt you. Not to pressure you. Just to know you. I’m not proud of it, but all we have is the day we’re living, Jess. If you constantly live for tomorrow, you’re never gonna live at all.”

  That much she knew wasn’t true. “Tomorrow always comes, Kyle. Usually when you can least afford it.”

  And finally, it happened. What she needed him to do and hated most to see. The light in his brilliant blue eyes faded and he accepted the inevitable. She was a lost cause. “So this is it? You just…send me and what could be out the door.”

  Jessica swallowed around the jagged lump in her throat. “I have to.”

  He wouldn’t be Kyle if he didn’t try one more time. “No, you don’t.”

  She made herself smile, though it hurt for reasons she couldn’t explain. Walking to the door before she made an even bigger fool of herself, she ignored the part of herself that wanted too much and listened to the part that knew better. She undid the locks, twisted the knob and opened it before lifting her chin and facing him one last time.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Leave it to our girl to kick your ass in the lame platitudes department.”

  Kyle slumped into the vinyl bench seat of Baldy’s and tried to summon a grin. Even a sarcastic one.

  “That about when she threw your ass out?” Dory asked, lifting a Sam Addams longneck to her lips.

  “Give or take a few seconds.”

  “Told you not to tell her.”

  “My brother told her.” A crime for which Kyle was still considering modes of revenge.

  “What’s that got to do with the price of eggs? The idea was to seduce her, kid. I didn’t think you’d have much trouble with the concept.”

  He wasn’t answering that. “When I called you, I thought you’d be a little more helpful, Dory.”

  “Why?” The older woman ran a restless set of fingers through her fluttery bangs, the weariness on her face shining through. When she’d whistled for him at the door of the bar, he almost hadn’t recognized her. The slightly blue, tightly permed hair he now knew was a wig was gone. Instead, her real hair was fine, steel-colored and cut in a jagged diagonal shag. She wore a sleeveless black cotton tee with snug dark jeans on her wiry body. He realized the reason for their instant rapport at once; Dory was Belinda in forty years. “I already got you every opportunity you’ve ever had. Plus, I was saving Jessica for my son, Daniel, but when you floated her boat I made an exception and believe me, buddy, I don’t ever short my kid. I really don’t see how much more helpful I could get.”

  “Help me fix this.”

  Dory shook her head at him. “Honey, you gotta face that it’s over. You had a chance when she couldn’t see you coming. Telling her you’ve got feelings for her?” She threw up her hands. “You didn’t just screw the pooch, kid. You went out back and shot Ol’ Yeller.”

  Kyle dropped his head back onto the top of the booth seat. Yeah, that’s about what he’d figured too. “I might accept it if I could just figure out why she’s so afraid.” It hadn’t escaped his notice that he’d bared his weak spot, but she hadn’t uttered a word about hers. He finally understood what it meant to have something sticking in your craw.

  The silence from
the usually vocal end of the table finally registered. He looked up to find Dory staring at him from behind her tipped beer. “What?”

  “Do you really love her? Not that hearts-and-flowers bullshit, but the real thing, the stick-with-her-through-anything kind. The kind that’s more important than what you thought you wanted. The kind that puts her first.”

  Kyle swallowed. Those were shrewd questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. “I want to say the second kind—”

  “Either you do or you don’t, kid.”

  “I don’t know,” he replied as honestly as he could. “When we’re talking, when it’s just me and her, it could be…” In his mind, he thought back to their date, to her face in the dark, her unwilling compassion in the elevator. Even the tinge of confusion on her face as she’d shown him the door tonight. “But every time we get close, she pushes me away. She won’t tell me why. I know she feels something. I can see how scared she is, she just won’t let me in.”

  “What if she did? What if she suddenly cracked her skull on being totally in love with you? Have you figured out what you’re going to do with her? Or is this a thrill-of-the-chase kind of thing?”

  He frowned and nudged his beer away. “She wouldn’t have to crack her skull…”

  “Stop pouting and answer the question. What is it exactly you want from Jessica?”

  A lot of things. Sex immediately came to mind, because there were a thousand and one things he still wanted to do with her. But there was more, infinitely more. He wanted her to be with him. He wanted to spend time with her, talk with her. He wanted her to stop hiding from him. He wanted—

  “Never mind, I can smell the grease burning between your ears.” Dory tsked loud enough to drag a smile out of him after all. “You have a lot to learn about love, Kyle. I can see you want her. I don’t think you know why just yet. Sure as shit don’t know the how.”

  “I want a family. That kind of thing takes time. I need to find the right woman. Get started.”

  “You think Jessica’s the right woman?”

  Yes. And no. “I think she could be. That I want her to be.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “You told me not to,” he reminded her.

  “I told you not to tell her you already have the rest of her life planned out for her. Jessica’s the kind of woman who’s going to want a say. Hell, boy, every woman would want a say. You can’t go around plugging women into random marital fantasies. They get pissed.”

  Jess sure as hell was.

  “Maybe your problem is you’ve been putting the cart before the horse. I mean, if you want more from your life, shouldn’t you be the one changing it?”

  Which might have been what Lucas had tried to tell him at the beginning of this disaster. “I’ll have to be now, won’t I?”

  Dory grinned at him. “Thattaboy. Besides, you never know when things might come back around. Look at me. I’ve had a crush on Greggy Groom for forty years. I might have a chance at him, finally.”

  The idea of waiting forty years for Jessica to come around was downright depressing. But Kyle found himself too shocked at Dory’s affection for possibly the most uptight, rightwing lawyer this side of the Rockies to dwell on it.

  She laughed. “I met him back when he was just starting out. We both worked in the same firm. I got fired when I got caught flashing him.” She laughed while Kyle choked. “Eh, we both eventually got married to other people and, don’t get me wrong, I loved my David. But I’ll always have a soft spot for Greggy. You think he’s a pious stick now, you should have seen him back when he had to work at it. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for the uptight. It’s just too tempting to yank their chains.”

  “I’m starting to feel bad for Mr. Groom.”

  Dory winked. “You just work on figuring out why you think you want a wife and kids so bad. If you figure out how to be happy on your own, you might figure out how to get Jessica to be happy with you until the wife and kids show up on their own.”

  Kyle lifted his beer and Dory obligingly clinked it with hers, trying to sound jovial when he was anything but. “Here’s to strategic retreats.”

  “No, honey. This is to opportunities coming around again.”

  Chapter Ten

  “And that should be that,” Jessica said to herself as she filed Lucas’s corrected contract four days after the debacle in her apartment. She’d let him stew a few days before she finally sent him the correct one to sign. It came back with typical speed, but she noticed he’d initialed each and every paragraph to let her know he’d read it. Well, good. A lesson learned.

  Too bad she hadn’t learned hers.

  She’d like to blame Kyle, but it wasn’t his fault. In the end, he’d left when she asked him to. He had nothing to do with the empty feeling inside her that had hollowed her out since the door snicked closed behind him. She was the one having trouble letting him go. Which made no logical sense. After all her experience at watching people she’d been stupid enough to care about walk away, she’d have to be an idiot to still be thinking about him or anything he’d said. But she was thinking about him and that had to stop.

  What she really needed to do was rid her brain of Lonnigans altogether. Lucas was handily back to work and in a few months they’d be just as clinical around each other as a nurse and her latex gloves. Kyle had already proven infinitely harder to shake but it could be done. It would be done.

  First, she’d have to stop having dreams about letting him in her bed again. She’d have to stop looking for his handwriting in her mail. She’d definitely have to throw away all the plants he’d sent. Her office had turned into a rainforest refugee camp in a matter of days. Most importantly, she’d have to stop remembering his face in the park, so damned happy to see her, even though she was ready to throw him under the fastest moving vehicle she could find.

  “I did the right thing,” she said astutely to absolutely no one. The depressing thing was she was pretty sure that even she wasn’t listening to herself anymore.

  “Jessica?” Dory’s voice came over the intercom softly, which had Jessica turning her head curiously. Dory didn’t do anything softly.

  She reached out for the button. “Yes?”

  “Could you come out here…a moment? I—I think I need some help.”

  Jessica didn’t bother responding, but snapped up from her desk and crossed the yards to her door. Dory sagged in her seat, her usual ruddy color a strange gray. Her lips were vaguely bluish, her eyes dazed when they slowly met her gaze. She flashed on Dory’s ever-present bottle, the one she claimed was full of candy…

  “Where are your pills, Dory?” She rushed to the desk, seeing that Dory already had the bottle in her hand. Her grip was viselike, but Jessica pulled it free. Pills—real, little white pills—scattered across the desk, some flaking, looking tiny and melty on the blotter.

  “I took them already.” Dory sounded strained and breathless. “They aren’t working.”

  Jessica grabbed the phone and immediately dialed 911. She took Dory’s hand, following the instructions of the woman on the other end. Dory had aspirin in her purse, and she took two of those. Jessica’s hand shook so much that she probably spilled half the cup of water between the dispenser and Dory’s desk.

  “Don’t look so scared honey, this is just what happens when your life is as surprising as mine.”

  “Yeah?” Jessica heard herself laugh, but it was a nervous twitter.

  “You think this isn’t a surprise? I had plans with this sexy little mechanic for my lunch hour,” Dory said dryly, then she sighed painfully. “God, I’m gonna get wheeled through this building like Godiva getting dragged by her goddamned horse.” She groaned. “Greggy’s never gonna forgive me for this. Oh, bring your cell phone, will ya? I need you to call Daniel.”

  Jessica raced back into her office, grabbed her purse from under the desk and ran back outside. Dory was all set with her woven wicker bag on her lap and her ankles crossed. For all their hurry, they
still had interminable minutes to wait.

  Finally, the doors whooshed open. The next thing she knew, the paramedics came, flanked by firefighters for some reason. Jessica waved them over and they had Dory up on the gurney, strapped in and under oxygen in no time.

  Jessica ran to keep up as they asked questions about medications, times, pain, babbled numbers to each other during the elevator ride and loaded Dory into the red-and-white ambulance with a jolt. Jessica climbed in alongside, holding Dory’s hand and taking her purse when asked. It was all painfully slow and blurringly fast. The only constant was Dory’s cold hand in her own and the frigid fear building in her belly.

  They took her immediately into the ER’s curtained areas, gesturing Jessica to the waiting seats. Which was when things really got slow. People came and went, some serious emergencies, some minor. Kids were in extreme abundance, coughing, wrapped in blankets of all colors despite the summer heat, some crying, some sleeping. Some people looked as scared as she felt, some looked like they’d been there a thousand times. Twenty minutes felt like hours.

  In the midst of it all, Jessica felt sorely out of her depth and alone. Completely alone.

  When she was young, being alone used to bother her. Like the other kids in her foster homes, she’d wanted a family of her own. The mother, the father, the siblings in a gingerbread house where everyone smiled and no one ever died. By the time the Hansons came and went, with their promises of an adoption that ultimately fell through, she’d decided that her family would be what she made it because it was clear she wasn’t getting out of the system. Time and again, she’d taken the role of mother hen. Guiding the scared kids. Nursing the sick ones. Loving the lost ones. Her “siblings” came and went, as did she. Even if they’d wanted to stay close to her, most of them would have lost her in the shuffle—if any of them even bothered to try. In the end, after losing so many of them to one thing or another, being alone just seemed the better choice. Family wasn’t meant for her, a fact she accepted. Embraced.