Too late. Jace looked up, his scowl melting away as he saw me. He wasn’t smiling or relaxed, but he looked a lot calmer than he had a moment ago.
Well. Just because he’d broken my heart didn’t mean that I couldn’t be the bigger person. I took a deep breath, and smiled. “Hi, Jace.”
I could do this. I could do this. I could do this.
9
Jace
Leigh was standing in front of me, looking like a goddamn snack. It was warm out, now, actual nice weather, and Leigh was wearing more lightweight clothing as a result—a soft pink top that went with her hair and brought out her eyes, and a skirt that hugged her thighs, made me painfully aware of her curves.
I swallowed, struggling to keep myself from showing her how much I still wanted her. She wasn’t mine to have, or try to have, anymore. She belonged to someone else. And even if she wasn’t with someone—that lack of a wedding ring on her finger still taunted me—she had a son, someone else’s son, and I couldn’t be a part of that. I didn’t have a place in her life anymore. Her son was proof of that.
“Do you need something?” Leigh asked me, still smiling, like I wasn’t anything to her, like we could make polite talk like strangers, as if we hadn’t once been everything in the world to each other. “I mean, I’m sure that the crayons deserve your glaring, they probably insulted your mom or something, but what did the notebooks ever do to you?”
I chuckled in spite of myself, feeling the tension in my shoulders loosen. “It’s not… I’m trying to find a measuring tape. I have to go out and do a house inspection today, my first potential job. I could drive out to the next town over but that would take a while so I was hoping this damn place would at least have a measuring tape.”
“Well, it doesn’t, but the hardware store does.”
I raised my eyebrow at her. “Your brother isn’t going to let me within ten feet of that store.”
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s being an idiot. I’m not saying he doesn’t have a right to be upset, but there’s no reason he can’t be civil. And we need your business. I’ll override him and he’ll listen to me in the end. Even if he throws a bit of a tantrum first.” She winked at me.
My heart melted all over again, with Leigh winking at me and teasing me. But I had to be strong. Spending a bunch of time with her would be a bad thing, when I already wanted her so badly and I was already struggling not to beg her for a second chance, when I was already struggling not to kiss her in the damn general store aisle next to the pencil cases… it was a recipe for disaster.
Besides, I had to respect Andy’s wishes. As stupid as I thought they were, as frustrating as they were, he was hurting. I could understand that.
“I think that wouldn’t be a good idea,” I said slowly, reluctantly.
“You’re going to be bringing a lot of business to us,” Leigh replied. “It would be stupid of us to turn you away as a customer, no matter what our personal feelings on you are. You’re not… you’re not an asshole, or at least you weren’t when I last knew you. Andy needs to learn to separate the personal and the professional.”
“I appreciate it,” I told her, and I was serious, “I really do. But I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to rile Andy up again. I just don’t think it’s a smart idea.”
Leigh looked disappointed, and it made a pang strike through my chest, but she nodded and I swallowed down my own disappointment.
“Do you know why he has such a grudge against me?” I asked. “I know that he’s upset about my not ever reaching out to him, but I feel like… Andy was never a guy who had an insane temper. He tends to be pretty forgiving. I just—I don’t know, maybe I overestimated how easily he’d forgive me for it.”
“Do you regret it?” Leigh asked me, surprising me. “Not reaching out?”
“In a way,” I admitted. “But part of why I was chosen for special ops was because I had no attachments. Nobody to ask questions if I died or something else happened to me. It’s pretty grim but it’s true. If a soldier dies… usually the government can explain to his family what happened. But not with these missions. The family would be left with questions. Sometimes they can’t even get confirmation that the person’s even dead because that would compromise the mission or intelligence center, it would alert others. It’s shitty, I know, but it’s how things are done to preserve secrecy. It’s war.
So, on the one hand—yeah, I wish I’d said something about what was happening. I definitely wish that I had said a proper goodbye before I went into basic and I wish I’d called and written more before I got the transfer. Maybe then Andy wouldn’t be so upset. But once I was in special ops, I owed it to my comrades to keep quiet.”
Leigh nodded. “Andy can be pretty forgiving about most things. But if he chooses to hold a grudge, he’ll hold it for ages. If you give him some time, I’m sure that things will get better. He has to get used to you again, that’s all.”
I squinted at her. “Is there some other reason that Andy’s angry at me? Something that I don’t know about?”
Leigh shrugged and glanced away. “Andy’s driving to Portland tomorrow to meet a supplier. You can come by the store then and buy whatever you need. Once it’s done it’s done, and you’ll get all your supplies and we’ll get the business.”
That was… fair, I supposed. “All right. I’ll make do for today.”
Leigh smiled at me, warmly, almost but not quite the way that she used to when we were together, and my heart thumped so loudly and painfully in my chest that I was almost sure that Leigh could hear it.
“You sure that you’ll be able to survive?” she teased me.
“Well, it’ll be a tough go, but I think I just might make it. I once jury-rigged a bomb out of a few spoons and a bread tie.”
Leigh burst out laughing. “What voice even was that!?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling my face heat up. Leigh could make me goof off and be ridiculous, relaxed, in a way that nobody else could. It had been that way the last time, too.
Leigh was still grinning at me, and I never wanted to leave this moment. I wanted to keep making her laugh. I wanted to keep talking with her, and to maybe even ask her out…
But I couldn’t do any of that. She wasn’t mine anymore.
“I’ll see you around, then?” I told her. “Tomorrow?”
Leigh’s face grew more serious again. “Right. Tomorrow.”
My head was still swimming when I got to Rachel’s house. It was a lovely house, and didn’t seem to have a whole lot of problems going on with it, which was a good thing—although Rachel had a lot of changes she wanted to put in place. I nodded along, making notes in my notebook, seeing what the bones of the house were and which parts we’d have to keep the same to prevent the entire building collapsing on us. It was the sort of thing that I could see just by looking at the house and its walls but that most people couldn’t, one of those things that took training and expertise.
I wasn’t oblivious to Rachel’s eyelashes fluttering at me, her slow warm smiles, and the way she’d find excuses to brush up against me. But I hoped that if I ignored them, she’d get the hint and stop before I had to call her out on it. I didn’t want to embarrass her or make things awkward between us, especially since we were technically client and employee—I was working for her.
Even if I had been interested in her, and I definitely wasn’t, it would be awkward for me to start a relationship with someone who was technically my boss.
“One final thing,” Rachel said, leading me over into a spare bedroom. “I know that this isn’t really your wheelhouse but I figure—you might know someone. This is my daughter’s bedroom and I’d love for a big, gorgeous mural to take up the room. Something really professional. I don’t suppose you’d know anybody who could do that?”
“Not off the top of my head,” I admitted. The only person I knew of with artistic talent was Leigh and I wasn’t sure if she’d ever done anything like that. “But I can ask aro
und and see about finding someone.”
“Thank you.” Rachel smiled at me, stepping closer, her hand falling to my arm. “You know… I never stopped thinking about you.”
Ah. So, we were doing this. Okay then. It was a bit frustrating but at least we could get it out into the open and over with quickly?
“Now you’re back and single… I’m single again…” Rachel squeezed my arm. “We could always try it again? Give it another shot? We were pretty great together.”
I took her wrist and lifted it gently, taking her hand away from my arm. “Rachel, I’m flattered, really. But I’m not interested in getting into a relationship right now.” Not with her, anyway, but there was no need to be cruel, I figured. “I’ve got to work on getting my business off the ground. That’s my big priority.”
My entire life had changed now that I was honorably discharged. Not that I’d never known life outside of the military. But it was going to be an adjustment. Getting into a relationship would be a distraction and maybe for the right person (for Leigh, my mind whispered treacherously) I would be willing to make time but not for someone I didn’t really feel anything over. Not for ‘old times’ sake’ or anything like that.
Rachel hummed, her eyes sparkling. “Well. I’m not the sort of person who gives up easily.” She winked at me, and I groaned inwardly. Great. Looked like I was going to have to deal with my boss flirting with me throughout this job—but I couldn’t afford to turn this job down, and I was sure I could easily ignore whatever flirting Rachel persisted in.
I stepped away from her, out of her range, and didn’t smile. “Have a good rest of your day, Rachel.”
Here’s hoping I wouldn’t end up regretting this by the time it was over.
10
Leigh
The next day I was working the counter when Jace walked in. I felt an odd mixture of relief that he was here and anxiety at having to deal with him again. Yesterday we’d talked for only about a minute and a half, and I’d been such an idiot, laughing at his jokes and melting into a puddle inside, that I was terrified I’d do or say something stupid and expose myself all over again.
You need this business, I reminded myself, putting on a smile. It wasn’t—or at least I hoped it wasn’t—the gushing melting smile that I wanted to give him, like I was back in high school again and just as much of an idiot for him as the first time around. “Morning!”
“Hey.” Jace was looking around a bit warily.
“Andy’s not here,” I promised him. I’d made sure that Andy was headed for his meeting in Portland, like he’d said he would. If he’d ended up cancelling, I would’ve been outside to do some kind of interception before Jace got inside.
Maybe Jace had a point—it would be best not to rile up Andy further and give Andy some time to cool down. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t find ways to benefit both our store and Jace’s business in the meantime. He shouldn’t have to drive out of town to get small, regular supplies like a damn measuring tape.
I could see Jace’s shoulders relaxing, his stance becoming less ramrod. “Never thought I’d be as good as hiding from my best friend.” He paused. “Not that I’ve really been a friend to him the last few years.”
This was such a can of worms. I couldn’t talk to Jace about the Andy thing without Sammy coming into the conversation, and I didn’t want Jace to know. I got out from behind the counter. “Let’s get your supplies.”
Jace knew what he wanted, going through and grabbing everything with a keen eye, so it didn’t take us long, thank God. Hopefully we could end this quickly and I could go back to still being hopelessly attracted but without him around to make it worse.
I rang him up and helped bag his smaller purchases, and noticed that Jace wasn’t saying anything. I glanced up at him and saw that he was staring above my head, at the landscape painting that hung on the wall above the door to the office.
“Did you paint that?” Jace asked.
I nodded. It was a picture of a section of woods where Jace and I had spent a lot of time, this one part where the river curved and you could sit on the slope and listen to the water, stare up at the trees and pretend that you were the only people in the world.
“You were always talented,” Jace went on. His voice was soft and fond, and he was still staring at the painting. Did he recognize where it was? Did he know that it was one of our places?
“Thank you.” Jace had always loved my art and encouraged me. So had Andy and my parents, and Dawn. It was expected that I would get into an art school, in NYC or some other big, important city. “Did you ever go to art school?”
Ack. I’d been so busy dreading seeing Jace again and my body betraying me that I hadn’t even thought to dread this question. Everyone in town already knew my story, or the basics of it. They’d seen it happen to me, after all. Seen me give up my art school dream in favor of raising my son. Not that people couldn’t do both college and parenthood, and I had a good support system. It just hadn’t felt right to me. Maybe in a few years, when Sammy was older and could handle being without me.
I knew everyone in town, and they knew me, and I didn’t really know anyone outside of town. So, I’d never had to answer this question before. I’d never thought it would really come up.
“No.” I shook my head. “Wasn’t in the cards.”
I could see Jace glance over at the little area that I had set up for Sammy, his play and work area.
Jace nodded, as if to himself, and I braced for the pity. I’d gotten a fair bit of that when I’d first started explaining why I wasn’t going to art school, telling the neighbors and customers that I was just going to finish my two-year degree at the local community college and focus on raising my son.
Instead of pity, however, Jace just said, “Do you still enjoy painting? Would you still like to do it?”
“If I could, sure,” I blurted out without thinking, surprised by his question. It wasn’t at all what I had been expecting him to say. I’d been braced for something more along the lines of oh, that’s tough, I’m sorry to hear that.
“Well, you might want to bust out your brushes.” Jace smirked at me. “I have a potential job that I think you’d be really good at.”
“Oh?” That definitely wasn’t what I’d expected. It was sweet of him to think of me, though. It made my chest flutter.
“Rachel Martin just got a new house,” Jace explained. “She’s having me do the renovations on it and she wants someone to paint a mural for her daughter’s bedroom. And I realized I knew one hell of a good artist. If you were interested. I know Rachel would pay you, so it wouldn’t be a free gig.”
Rachel Martin. She’d married this guy from Portland, and had moved there, but had gotten divorced and moved back here to be closer to her parents. I guess her husband wasn’t really much in the way of pitching in with the kids. I could sympathize. I’d never been a huge fan of Rachel, but I could be honest that it was because Rachel had dated Jace in high school while I’d been dying inside crushing on him. She’d never been mean to me or anything like that. There was no reason I couldn’t work for her now—and the money would be good. I wanted to be able to start a savings account, actually have some money set aside in case of a rainy day. Maybe get to work on a college fund for Sammy, although that often felt like a pipe dream.
“Okay,” I said to Jace. “I’d love to take the job if you think I can do it.”
“Oh, I know you can. You were always so fucking talented. This’ll be a breeze for you.”
My cheeks heated up. Jace had always been so supportive of my art, of me. I had almost forgotten that. And now he was standing here grinning at me, looking soft in a way that he hadn’t when I’d first seen him in the park and had taken in the new hard edges of him.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “Anyway…”
Jenkins and Withers entered the store, already in the middle of an argument over something or other and grabbed their coffee. I ran Jace up quickly and hoped that
the addition of the two old men would distract him and allow us to say goodbye before I did something horrible and obvious like blush any deeper.
Jace just kept staring at me softly, his eyes warm, almost but not quite smiling at me. God, did he have to keep looking at me like that? Like no time had passed at all between now and the last time we’d seen each other?
“Pass the sugar!”
“You don’t need it, your blood pressure’s bad enough as it is!”
“Dammit, I’m old as dirt, I can have sugar if I want it—”
I looked around Jace just in time to see one of the mugs of coffee get knocked out of Jenkins’ hands and hit the floor, shattering, coffee spilling everywhere.
“Now you’ve done it,” Withers said.
“Me? You’re the one who knocked it out of my hands!”
To their credit, both of the men tried to bend down to pick up the pieces, but Jace moved before I could, gently making them move back out of the way. “No, no, don’t you worry, we’ve got this.”
“You two go sit down,” I said, grabbing another mug. “I’ll get you guys more coffee and we’ll clean this up. You guys relax.”
“We’re real sorry, Leigh…”
I waved off their apologies. “It’s just a mug! Don’t worry about it, really.”
Jenkins and Withers both protested for another minute but allowed me to shoo them out onto the porch. I quickly made them some replacement coffees and got it to them, then grabbed the rags and quick mop from the back as Jace picked up the pieces of the mug and put them in the trash.
“Thanks,” I said, passing him the rags and taking care of the coffee spill with the mop. “I appreciate it.”
“Hey, it’s no problem.” Jace flashed a dazzling smile at me. I loved how… open he was being right now. It made me wonder about the guardedness I’d seen in him when we’d first met up again in the park. Had that been because of Sammy? Or had it been remnants from whatever he’d been doing in the military?
Second Chance with Brother's Best Friend: A Single Mom Secret Baby Romance Page 5
