by Zoe York
“I sent you—” he said at the same as she started, “I got your message, I just…”
They shared a nervous laugh, then he pointed around her to his truck. “I need to get something…for work. But then I’m heading back inside. I’m having a cup of coffee with Ryan, and Maya just woke up.”
“Perfect timing.” She held up a small cooler bag. “I brought tiny sandwiches and cookies to have a tea party with her.”
He couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. Even as his lips twitched, he knew she was going to take him to town.
“What? You’re not scared of playing make believe with a little girl, are you?” She didn’t hide the scorn in her voice.
“Course not. But Maya and I already have plans to look at a My Little Pony.”
“Ahhh.” She stepped past him. “I’ll just have to invite Rainbow Dash to join us.”
He turned and watched her stomp into the house, her long brown hair swinging loose down her back. Yeah, he definitely should have called her.
He stayed outside on his phone for almost twenty minutes, despite the cold. Work stuff didn’t take long, but Dani had knocked him off-kilter, as she always did. So after he responded to a few work emails, he surfed the net for a few minutes, being a coward. By the time he went back in, the tea party was almost over. Three year olds apparently moved at the speed of light when excited.
He finished his coffee, but the earlier conversation with Ryan wasn’t going to resume. And with the frosty reception Dani was giving him, he knew it would be best to cut his losses. He was surprised Dani stood up when he announced he was heading out.
“I’m going to head out as well,” she said, dusting off her knees from sitting on the floor. He had to force himself not to stare at her. As always, he was torn between not wanting to reveal how much he wanted her and needing to hungrily soak up every bit of her that he could—the inviting crease of her jeans at her hips, the way her soft black sweater curved over her breasts and showed a hint of shadow where her necklace dropped into the V-neck.
“You can stay,” he said lamely, feeling stupid when she rolled her eyes.
“I could,” she retorted drily. “Thanks for the permission.”
He lifted both hands to say, my bad, and said goodbye to both Ryan and Maya. Once outside, he stood on the porch for a minute, replaying the conversations—the night of the funeral, and when she arrived today. Where could he have turned it around? What could he have said differently? He hesitated there, and before he could depart, Dani stepped outside and joined him.
“I owe you an apology,” he said in a hurry. Might as well get it over with.
“No, you don’t,” she muttered, heading down the stairs toward her car.
He followed her. “Listen…” he trailed off, but damn it, they needed to clear the air. “I wasn’t hitting on you.”
She lifted her brows, giving him a bland, disinterested look. “Pardon?”
“Cut it out, Dani. You know what I’m talking about.” Shut up, said a small voice inside him. This isn’t the way to go. He ignored it.
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“When I suggested we have coffee. That wasn’t a come-on.” All the ways he’d imagined confessing how much he wanted her, telling her over coffee wasn’t even on the list.
“You asked me if I’d have a different answer if you hadn’t had a girl waiting for you. Don’t forget that part.” She stopped beside his truck as if to say, you stop here. Don’t follow me to my car. She was smart to do that, because he would have. Now that they were talking, they weren’t stopping, even if they were standing on Ryan’s lawn.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “She’s a friend. You could have come inside.”
“So you haven’t slept with her?” She finally met his gaze and the fire in her eyes almost knocked him over.
Damnit. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. “I didn’t sleep with her that night.”
“Oh, gross.”
“That’s mature,” he snarled. As soon as he said it, he hissed, wanting to take it back, but it was too late.
— THREE —
THEY were this close to having a knock-down, drag-out fight over a nothing conversation. Not the conversation. The woman. She hated seeing Jake with others. He didn’t date a lot, but when he did it was like a hot blade slicing right through her middle. “I didn’t say it was gross because it involved sex, you Neanderthal! I just don’t need any details about you screwing another woman.”
That admission strung out between them like a fragile bubble, all shiny and wobbly in the wind. Attention grabbing in a don’t touch it or it’ll pop kind of way. He glowered at her, and for a minute she was sure he’d move away from it. Now wasn’t the time. It was never the time. If there’d ever been a time, it would have been the night of the wake, but he’d had a friend visiting him.
“Why is that?” His voice dropped to a low, smoky note that made her quiver from the inside out, and she wanted to punch him for affecting her.
“You know why.” Of that she was now sure. He knew, and he didn’t do anything about it.
He shook his head, stepping back. Right on schedule. “I just wanted to apologize. When I asked you… Given all that’s gone on, I really just wanted to reconnect with you.”
The bald-face lie burned at her. For five long years, she’d settled into the narrative that he didn’t want her. But the way he was looking at her now? There wasn’t anything friendly about it. She wasn’t going to hide how she felt. Maybe putting it out there and being rejected again was the only way to finally move forward. “There’s only one way I want to reconnect with you, Jake, and it’s not as friends over coffee.” She’d barely spit the words out, an angry, hurt mess of feelings, before the house door swung open behind Jake.
Ryan and Maya stepped outside, and Jake took a giant step back, staring at the ground.
“Dannnniiiii!” The blond tornado tumbled down the stairs and across the snowy lawn toward them, launching herself against Dani’s legs. “You no go home!”
“Jake and I were just talking for a minute.” She crouched for one last kiss. “I’m going now. Where are you going?”
“Get my bwothers from the bus!”
“Cool, you have fun.” Dani stood and waved at Ryan, then waited until the father and daughter duo were safely out of earshot before turning her attention back to Jake. She walked around him, giving him a wide berth as she headed for her car.
But she wasn’t leaving without calling him on his shit. In for a penny… “You know what? You need to dissuade yourself of this misguided idea that I’m somehow an innocent young girl that you’re not allowed to be attracted to. We are equals. We are both adults. And as an adult woman, I’m telling you to get your head out of your ass.”
“Even if I wanted to—“
Dani snapped. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation, although that night five years earlier had been…sweet. This wasn’t sweet. This was raw and bitter and laced with regret. “You do want to. Need I remind you that—“
“This isn’t the time, Dani.” He was practically yelling now, so unlike him. She liked getting under his skin, making him mad. This was good.
So she pushed a little harder. “It’s been five years. I’m guessing there’s never been a good time.”
He raked his hand back through his hair, his jaw set firmly and his eyes glittering with no longer disguised frustration. “Ryan wants the world to stop spinning. His sister-in-law just got engaged.”
Dani reeled backwards, emotionally and literally. She felt unsteady on her feet for more than one reason. “That’s…kind of shitty. But I don’t see what it has to do with us.”
“Rafe and Olivia…” Jake trailed off, an unhappy look ghosting across his face before he scowled again. “And they make sense. You and me…we’re like matches and a jug of kerosene.”
Yeah. Now she got the picture. Once again, the chemistry between them was t
aking a backseat to everything else. And this time, she couldn’t argue with him, because he was putting Ryan first.
“It’s almost Christmas, Dani. Everyone is fucking happy and he’s barely holding it together.” He stepped closer, but not close enough. Not reassuringly close. “I can’t deny that I want you.” God, that was a bittersweet admission after all this time. “But now’s really not the time. But I’m hoping we can…be friends. For now.”
“You know what? It’s okay. The fact that we’ve danced around each other for so long and never acted on it…it’s probably a sign.” She lifted her hands in the air, as if it was just that easy. If only. “I’m done.”
“Done what?” He shifted again, and suddenly he loomed over her, stealing her breath. “You’ve never given us a chance, either. I’m just asking for some time.”
“You just finished telling me that there is no us. So time…sure, take all the time you need.” She pressed herself to the full extent of her height. He was less than half a foot taller than her, but he was broad. And fierce. She might be able to do fiery and pissed off, but he was a caged tiger. Staring him down wasn’t easy.
Mostly because this close, with this much emotion stewing between them, she just wanted to kiss him.
But it wasn’t the time. Fuck him. He could take all the time he wanted. She wasn’t waiting.
She was moving on.
— —
Three long, scowl-filled weeks passed without seeing Jake again. The usual round of holiday parties were canceled or limited to family only. As close as the Fosters and Minellis were, they didn’t have any combined celebrations this year. Even Rafe and Olivia’s second wedding was shaping up to be family only, just a private dinner on New Year’s Eve at a restaurant for their siblings and parents.
Dani was glad she wasn’t going to spend their marriage celebration ignoring Jake. That would be awkward.
She was hiding in her bedroom mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve—the least festive, most somber holiday in her memory—wishing that she’d volunteered to work the day shift. She’d be heading in to work after an early dinner, but frankly, she could have done a 24-hour shift. Her black mood was best suited to being behind the wheel of an ambulance, not playing dutiful daughter and sister.
Someone knocked tentatively on her door.
“Come in,” she called out.
Her once and soon-to-be-again sister-in-law, Olivia, slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside. “You don’t sound like you really want company.”
“Meh. I like you.”
“Can I hide in here for a bit?”
“Sure.”
“You’ve been scarce the last few weeks.”
Dani shrugged. “I’ve been working a lot. Visiting with Ryan and kids when I’m not.”
“Rafe has been there a few times. It sounds like they’re doing okay.”
“Yeah.” Dani looked down at her flannel sleep pants and t-shirt. “I should get dressed now that people are arriving, eh?”
“It’s just your brothers.” Olivia giggled as Dani shot her a look of mock horror. “I know, I won’t say that in front of your mother.”
Anne Minelli liked things to be done a certain way, including—especially—family meals. They didn’t have a lot of those after Rafe and Olivia had broken up. And this was the first year in a few that Zander would be home for a full week. Her oldest brother was in the Army, a full-time soldier stationed out West. He’d fly back on New Year’s Day, after the intimate wedding.
“Hey, I had a meeting with Jake a couple of days ago about some construction work we need done for the movie”—Olivia was the on-site lackey for a film production coming to Pine Harbour in the spring— “and…he was grumpy. I’m not used to that from him. It’s more of a Minelli trait.”
Dani glowered at her for real this time.
“Exactly. Just like that.” Olivia winked. “And his mood got even worse when I innocently mentioned you—”
“Oh God, why did you do that?”
“Couldn’t help myself.” Her friend shrugged. “What’s going on?”
Dani sighed and threw herself back on the bed. “It’s a long story.”
“Excellent. I’m in no hurry to go downstairs.”
So Dani filled her in, trying to be objective on all points. She might have failed when it came to describing dropping Jake off at his house for a booty call. And she definitely kept some of the hotter details to herself, like the intense way Jake stared at her mouth or what it felt like to have his hands on her. She hadn’t forgotten in five years. She feared she never would.
Olivia listened to the recounting of the last fight with her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Wow.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Jake’s being a real jerk.”
“No, he’s…” Yeah, he was totally being a jerk. “Is it bad that I want to defend him? He didn’t see this coming.”
“Yes, that’s awful. Don’t excuse him. That’s how five years of silent crushing has slipped by.”
“Damnit.”
“You need to show him that you won’t wait for him to screw his head on straight.”
She’d already made that decision. “I told him as much.”
Olivia leaned in. “You need to show him.”
“Is that what you did to win back my brother?” Dani waved her hand in the air. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Rafe and I didn’t talk enough. It sounds like you and Jake talked too much. Not well, not calmly…”
Dani nodded miserably. That was exactly the problem. “Maybe we’re just not meant to be.” That physically hurt her to say out loud, even though she’d said as much to Jake a few weeks earlier.
“Is there any doubt about how you feel about him?”
“No.” And didn’t that just make her feel helpless?
Olivia softened her voice. “And do you know that he wants you, too?”
“Yes.”
“So boy likes girl, and vice versa. But that knowledge isn’t moving you guys forward. What you need to do is show him what he’s got to lose.” Olivia got a positively evil gleam in her eye. “Make him jealous.”
Dani thought about all that had come out since she’d seen that woman at Jake’s house the night of the wake. Jealousy certainly had spurred a lot of feelings to be dumped on the table.
It was evil. It wasn’t mature or responsible. And fuck it all, she was game. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. He loses his mind every time you have a boyfriend. All you have to do is hug another man and he’ll drag you to the nearest dark corner.”
Dani just blinked at her friend. Really? She’d never seen any evidence of that. “And you see that, but Rafe has no clue?”
“I think that’s a case of willful blindness. On the part of all of your brothers. And Jake’s, too.”
“And you’ve never talked to Rafe about this?”
Olivia laughed. “No. That would put my own sex life in peril, and I just got it back.” She sighed. “You’ll tell your brothers when you’re good and ready.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Not yet. But there will be one day.”
Your lips to God’s ears. But it certainly didn’t feel likely from where Dani stood.
Dinner was quiet, but drama-free, and everyone else headed out for the Christmas Eve Mass at the same time she left for work.
Since Ryan was off on leave, every shift had her partnered with a random paramedic—filling vacation holes, basically. Tonight it was all younger EMS workers on shift, and Matt Foster was waiting for her in the staff lounge with a smirk on his face. He lazily tossed his feet on the chair opposite and stretched his big, muscular body in all directions. “You drew the short stick tonight, Minelli.”
“Aw…afraid I’ll put you to shame from the driver’s seat?” As the junior paramedic in a new pairing, she knew she’d be expected to drive t
he bus and she didn’t mind at all.
“Tell you what. You do the rig check in under forty-five minutes, and I’ll drive tonight.”
She blew a raspberry. “We both know that’s not a good idea.”
“Don’t think you can do it?”
“Oh, I know I can do it.”
“Fine. Sub-forty-five check, and I’ll buy your drinks on our next night off together. You blow it, and the tab’s on you.”
She leaned over the chair his feet were propped on and gave him an innocent look. “Don’t count your beer steins before they’re filled.” Yanking the chair back, she shoved it under the table as his legs hit the floor. “Come on, you can time me.”
“I was going to finish my coffee!”
“I can time myself…”
“Fat chance. I’m coming.”
Forty-three minutes later, she triumphantly shoved a completed checklist in his face.
“Good job.” He braced his arm on the side of the ambulance and grinned at her. “You off on the 27th?”
“Yep.”
“The Green Hedgehog. It’s a date.”
The collegial acceptance meant a lot to her, and if she was smart, she’d leave it at that. But his words reverberated through her head. Who would make Jake more jealous than his handsome, out-going, younger brother? She couldn’t tell him, but Matt was a total player. He wouldn’t be offended if she flirted with him a bit. Probably wouldn’t even notice. “Excellent, I’m looking forward to drinking all of your beer. You’ll drive?”
He laughed. “Sure thing, baby girl.”
Okay, so maybe it would be a little challenge to get him to flirt with her.
For Christmas Eve, they had a pretty quiet shift. Two motor vehicle accidents, only one requiring transport to hospital, and a case of indigestion posing as a heart attack—which meant that when they got to the hospital, they had to wait around forever in the hallway with that patient because other people hadn’t had quiet nights at all and all the Emerg beds were full. They were already an hour into overtime, just shooting the breeze with their patient who’d totally recovered, but still didn’t have a bed so he could be confirmed as fine, when her phone dinged.
