— TWO —
WHEN Jake told Tasha she should come down on her next weekend off, he hadn’t thought she’d take him up on it. He hadn’t even told her about the funeral, just said he needed to get back to Pine Harbour for work.
Prickly discomfort crawled up his back as Dani stared at him. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was on the ugly side of five beers and a couple of shots of whiskey. “She’s a friend from up north. I wasn’t expecting her.” He popped open the door, because the woman he’d sort of been seeing—for a single night, and some casual flirtation before that—was standing outside his house. What else could he do? “Do you want to come out and meet her?”
Dani’s eyes flared wide in that familiar, Jake, you totally don’t get me look he hated because no, he totally didn’t get her. She shook her head. “It’s snowing. I should get home.”
“Wait.” He waved at Tasha, who looked bundled up enough in a parka and oversized toque to wait a minute, and closed the door again. “Listen. I’m…” What? There was no end to that sentence that wouldn’t open a can of worms. “We should have coffee soon.”
Dani shook her head. “It’s been a long, emotional day. Week. Month. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re drunk, Jake. And I have to get home.” She nodded in Tasha’s direction—fuck—and sighed. “And you have a guest.”
“And if I didn’t?”
She laughed and looked straight ahead. “That’s the douchiest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, Jake Foster. Get out of my car.”
Shit. He hadn’t meant it like however she’d taken it, but he wasn’t thinking straight. “I’m going to ask you again when I’m sober.”
“Okay.” She said like it was anything but. Like if she wasn’t as polite as she was, her retort would have been a brusque “Whatever”.
He climbed out of her sedan and carefully shut the door. He nodded at Tasha, who slowly approached him. She lifted her hands tentatively, like she wasn’t sure if she could hug him. He was painfully aware of Dani’s car driving away—that they were visible in her rearview mirror, and he stepped back and gestured to his door. “Hey, Tasha. Come on in.”
Inside he paused for a second, then realized he was being a terrible host. “Can I take your coat?”
She nodded and shrugged out of it. “Is it okay that I stopped by? You said…”
“I know. Yeah, it’s fine. I was just at a funeral.” He looked at her. They’d known each other for almost a year, and when he’d gone up to the hunting lodge she worked at after the shooting, he’d finally taken her up on months of open invitations. Fuck. This was a woman he’d slept with, and he was treating her like a stranger. “Hey. It’s nice to see you.” He pulled her in for a hug, then waved his hand around his foyer. “Welcome to my house, I guess. This is a bit of a surprise.”
She rocked back on her heels and tucked her thumbs into the back pockets on her jeans. “Nice place.” She grinned. “I’m heading to Toronto tomorrow, but I thought you might put me up for the night?”
“Of course.” Jake chewed on his lower lip, biting back an offer for her to use his spare room. What the hell was that about? Tasha would have gone ahead to her sister’s place in Port Elgin if she just wanted a bed to crash in. She was offering something as much as asking, and no part of him wanted to take her up on it. “Want a coffee?” He needed to sober up. And figure out where his head was at.
“Lead the way.” She offered him that same open smile that had sucked him in a week earlier. Man, it was tempting. But it was one thing to have a fling with her in Tobermory. It was another to sleep with her in the house he’d built for Dani. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He needed to stop thinking about it like that.
Dani. How fucked up their relationship had become. He’d spent her last year away at college trying to think of a way he could ask her out without causing WWIII with her brothers. He’d poured himself into the design and construction of this house, ostensibly as a way to make a splash with the rebranded Foster Construction, but deep down he’d always thought of it as proof that he was good enough for her. That he could be a serious suitor, even if that was ridiculously old-fashioned.
And then she’d moved home. Four years didn’t ease the ache he’d felt when she’d brought a boyfriend with her. The guy didn’t actually move to Pine Harbour, but he was around. A lot. Enough that Dani was once again off-limits. Which was Jake’s own fault for pushing her away.
He poured water into the coffee maker. He’d been caulking the sink when Rafe stalked into his half-finished house and started ranting about how his sister was spending the night at her boyfriend’s place. He’d made a complete mess of the job and didn’t bother to fix it until the next day when his hangover faded away.
Not much different than tonight. Except tonight he’d been drinking in memory of a woman who’d been like a sister to him. And she was gone. Dani wasn’t gone, but she still felt brutally off-limits…
God, how many missed opportunities had he had? Over the last few years, those opportunities had faded away. She’d grown up, and that possibility he’d always seen in her eyes—that he’d felt like a pervert for wanting to act on—it disappeared. Wariness and judgement took its place as she turned into a grown woman who had no time for a man like him.
Someone who stands still and lets life swirl past him while he thinks too damn hard.
“Jake?” He blinked up at Tasha, who was staring at him with a saucy look on her face. “I don’t feel like I’ve got your full attention.”
He made an apologetic face. She wasn’t wrong.
“Would this help?” She grabbed the hem of her sweater and peeled it off. Underneath she wore a loose tank top. And under that…nothing. She was beautiful, he couldn’t ignore that. His dick perked up, because it had no soul, and when she sauntered around the counter and pressed herself against him, he thought about giving in. It would be easy. And fun. And he didn’t have enough of either of those in his life right now.
But he’d have another woman on his mind. He couldn’t ignore the disturbing reality that Tasha looked a bit like Dani, too. Tall. Long legs. Dark wavy hair. Pretty. God, he was a pig. But only one of them made him want to build a house so they could fill it with babies, and it wasn’t the woman in his arms.
He sighed and gave her a friendly hug. “I’m sure that always helps, Tash, but I’m not in the mood tonight.”
“Really?” She pulled back and gave him a look of genuine surprise. That made two of them. He certainly hadn’t thought twice about sleeping with her nine days earlier.
He squeezed her hips and eased her a step back. “I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression?”
“No…I’m a big girl.” She cocked her head. “Is this about the funeral? Because we can just cuddle. Or I could give you a—”
He cleared his throat. He didn’t need her to finish that offer. “It’s more that I thought what we had was a one-time only thing.”
She arched her eyebrows, like she didn’t really believe him. “Then the invitation to visit was a bit silly.”
“I meant it at the time. You leave quite an impression on a guy.”
She shrugged and nudged her way past him to take over making the coffee he’d stared at for God knows how long. “Okay.”
“I’ll make up the spare room for you.”
She grinned over her shoulder. “That sounds like an unnecessary waste of clean sheets when we could keep each other warm tonight, but whatever.”
Whatever indeed. He beat a quick retreat upstairs before he gave in to the base part of him that appreciated when a beautiful woman wanted into his bed.
— —
“I’m fine.” Ryan swung his door open, letting Jake step inside.
“Good.”
“Really.”
Jake didn’t bother to respond again. Ryan was obviously not fine. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his red-rimmed, dark-shadowed eyes suggested he may not have slept much in the same period of time.
A week had passed since the funeral. They’d slipped into the beginning of December, and life kept swirling on. Jake knew from his older brother, Dean, who’d been one of the OPP officers on the scene at the grow-op bust when Lynn was shot, that the investigation was still ongoing.
Three police officers had been shot as well, and one of them—a tactical officer from elsewhere in the province—hadn’t made it. The other two, Rafe Minelli and Trent Bradford, would make full recoveries, but they were local boys. Dean and Rafe and Ryan were all good friends. They’d all grown up with Lynn. There was no corner of Pine Harbour that this tragedy didn’t reach.
Jake held up the yearbooks he’d dug out of his father’s attic. “I thought you might want to see these. Lynn practically wrote a novel in mine our graduating year.”
That wasn’t exactly the real reason for his visit, but it made a good excuse. While Dean had called Ryan a couple of times, and seen him at the funeral, he hadn’t been out to visit yet. And this morning over breakfast at Mac’s, Dean had asked Jake to check in on Ryan.
Go yourself, asshole, Jake had said, slapping the diner table between them. Dean had shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Fuck, Jake had thought. He got it. Dean had been on the scene, and he hadn’t ended up shot. Somehow it was different for Rafe, who’d tried to save Lynn’s life. They all knew that Dean had just been doing his job. Lynn had been shot by one of the growers, not a cop. But guilt didn’t always understand logic. Shit like this tears friendships apart. And Jake knew too much about letting friendships slip through his fingers because of stupidity and silence. So here he was, his brother’s messenger boy. “We’re all worried about you.”
“We’re surviving.” Ryan pointed to a steaming pot of coffee. “Just put some on, you want?”
“Sure. Kids are at school?”
“Boys are. Maya’s upstairs having a nap.”
Jake nodded.
“The boys will like the yearbooks,” Ryan added as he filled two mugs. He stared at the carafe for a second as he shoved it back into the machine, his lips pulled thin. “I mean, I will too.”
Jesus. Jake didn’t know what to say. It’s okay if you’re pissed off at your wife for getting killed? It was okay, but it didn’t sound okay. “Milk in the fridge?”
“Yeah.” Ryan grabbed an almost empty sugar bowl from the counter and two spoons while Jake got the milk. Busy work instead of awkward-as-fuck conversation. Fair enough. Jake fixed his cup as he liked it, then passed the milk jug to his friend. Ryan waved it away and sighed. “I’m not the greatest company.”
“That’s grief, man. It’s selfish. Gotta be. Only way to give yourself space inside to deal.”
“People keep saying that.” Ryan twisted his spoon in his cup.
“It’s true.”
Ryan blinked slowly a few times before responding. “You lost your mother, right?” His words came out in a rough, scratchy rush.
Jake nodded. “I was ten. Sean was just a toddler. Dean was twelve and Matt was five.” Ryan hadn’t moved to Pine Harbour until he married Lynn, so he only knew the Colonel as a gruff older man—a retired officer who showed up to regimental Christmas dinners. “It was hard on my father. You’re doing okay.” Jake respected his father, but it hadn’t been easy. For any of them.
They sat and drank coffee in silence for a few minutes. Ryan was the first to break it, with a sigh. “Their teacher sent a note home yesterday reminding me to send apple sauce.”
Jake didn’t really follow, and his confusion must have been obvious on his face.
“I’m all they have now and I don’t even know what Gavin and Jack take in their lunch.”
“You need to send apple sauce? What kind of fucked up school rule is that?”
Ryan shook his head. “No. But Gavin loves it. And I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
The corners of Ryan’s mouth tugged down. “He’s not talking a lot right now.” He tipped his chair back, rocking on the back legs. “God, I just want the world to pause for a minute. Just long enough for my kids to figure out that I’m not going anywhere.”
Jake remembered that ache, that everyone around him was happy about birthday parties and Christmas, and he just wanted his mom back. He could still taste that strange bitter resentment in the back of his throat, even after twenty-two years. “I’m sorry, man.”
Ryan closed his eyes and shrugged.
“Something specific going on?”
“Lynn’s sister is coming up for a family dinner next weekend. Gloria came by after the boys caught the bus this morning to give me the heads up. Apparently she’s engaged.”
Jake froze, his pulse thudding like sludge in his veins. “Oh?” Rafe was going to propose to Olivia soon. Shit like this tears apart friendships. “That must have been hard to hear.”
“Never mind. File that under the grief being selfish thing.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t want to see anyone be fucking happy right now. Her sister just died. Her niece and nephews lost their mom, and she’s going to be….” Ryan rubbed a hand over his lower face and grunted. “It doesn’t matter. I can keep it inside.”
From upstairs, Maya cried out, and Ryan shoved to his feet.
“Do you want me to head out?”
“Nah. It’s time for her to get up, and she’ll be happy to see someone other than me. She’s got a new My Little Pony she’ll be thrilled to tell you all about.”
While Ryan went to get his daughter, Jake pulled out his phone and tapped a quick message to Dean. Next, he called his foreman overseeing the final days of interior work on a new build house they’d sold. “Hey Johnny, did the tiler finish up?”
The sounds of a busy construction site filled his ear. “Yeah, but I haven’t seen the plumber yet. Can you text me his number?”
That’s what Jake liked about his foreman. He didn’t ask if Jake could call the guy. He’d do it himself. Jake would bump up his Christmas bonus for that little gesture. “Sure thing.”
When he hung up, he realized he didn’t have the number in his phone—or couldn’t find it, which was more likely. Every time the damn thing had an update, everything changed. He kept a paper backup of everything in his truck, so he threw his coat on and jogged outside.
Right into Dani.
He skidded to an awkward stop. “Hey. Hi.”
“Jake.” She said his name with wariness, which didn’t surprise him. She hadn’t responded to his text thanking her for the ride home after the wake. And he couldn’t get the memory of her calling him a douche out of his head, but while he’d picked up the phone a few times, he hadn’t been convinced she’d want to hear from him, and had aborted each call before connecting.
“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.