Chapter Three
“Everything bagel with a small coffee,” Erin said to the lady at the counter. The woman poked the register keys with a fluorescent-pink nail, the chipper color offset by her black shirt that read MY CITY’S WEIRDER THAN YOURS. Rows of beautifully glazed doughnuts and bagels outlined the back of the register area, all nestled in rustic wicker baskets lined with white linen. Erin swiped at the drool pooling at the corner of her mouth as the barista plucked a bagel with a set of tongs and placed it in the toaster.
Nothing like garlic, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and onion slathered with cream cheese to momentarily forget she was back home for the summer after a ten-year hiatus. And to alleviate the sting of still being jobless. The only thing that would make her feel better at this point was the smell of Chinese food and the sight of thick fog blanketing the Bay Area. Yes, she was homesick enough to miss the daily weather system.
She tossed down the proper amount of cash, grabbed her coffee cup, and went to the counter across the room to fill it with the strongest drip she could find. Barry’s Bakery was a gem on Mississippi Avenue in downtown Portland. Bold, rich coffees. Fluffy, decadent pastries. The line to get into this building, which was nothing more than a hole in the wall, wound around the block well before six in the morning most days. That was the way most of the downtown food establishments worked. Because if Portland was known for one thing, it was great food, beer, and coffee. At least that was a plus.
Erin pumped the coffee into her cup, replaying every single interview she’d had in the past week through her head. All positive. All seeming to go well. And yet she wasn’t the perfect fit for their school. Your luck’s run out. You’ll be stuck here forever now. Seemed like her worst fears were about to come true.
Coffee drizzled onto her fingers as her cup moved out of the trajectory of the pump. Damn it. She really needed to stop zoning out. She grabbed a few napkins from the basket next to the half-and-half and whole-milk containers and dabbed at the liquid on the lacquered wooden counter.
A text buzzed through her phone as she filled her to-go cup with her favorite tortoiseshell blend and a dash of cream. She grabbed a lid, popped it onto the cup, and pulled out her phone.
ANDIE: SOS. I’m going to jump out the window if Mom makes me fluff her pillow one more time.
Erin imagined her sister’s lip curling before sticking out her tongue the second she was out of view of their mother. She would have done the same at nineteen. Possibly still would at twenty-eight if she was around her mom for long enough. Because even though she’d been back less than twenty-four hours, she could feel herself slipping back into that role of the daughter still viewed as six in her mother’s mind.
I love my family. Love them.
She’d chanted that through her five-hour shift at their family gourmet PB&J food cart downtown because when you were a grown-ass woman, you hiked up your big-girl panties and didn’t complain when family needed you most.
ERIN: Dude. Five hours in an Airstream scooping peanut butter.
Which she’d done before she’d endured the grocery shopping trip from hell.
ANDIE: Mom asked me to file her toenails. I REPEAT. FILING TOENAILS. Must. Save. Me . . . Withering away.
Dear Lord. If her sister decided to finally get her butt to college, she should major in theater.
ERIN: This is me playing the world’s tiniest violin.
Her sister sent back a middle-finger emoji.
You’re just back for the summer. Take care of Mom post-op and then pack your bags, she reminded herself.
Enough time for Erin to do her daughterly servitude and find a new job down in San Francisco, since her teaching license was restricted to California.
She’d think of these next six weeks as a holiday. An extended one. One that made Quantico seem appealing. As she said, she loved her family, but there was a reason she lived six hundred miles away. And it included appreciating her family to the max in small doses. The kind that could be measured in those infant liquid-medicine cups.
Please. Someone—anyone, take her out with a hammer. Make it quick.
“Bagel for . . .” The barista muttered the last word, but she could have sworn she heard her name. She strode up to the counter, still staring at her phone, at her sister’s message.
Barry’s was the best in downtown Portland because not only did they have the best pastries, but they were also very liberal with their cream cheese. She didn’t even want to think about how this little indulgence capsized her healthy-breakfast streak. Okay, fine, she’d done the whole yogurt-and-granola thing for a whopping two days . . . and it was absolute torture. In fact, if she didn’t get a bagel in her mouth in the next two minutes, she might spiral into a state of despair. Because, if anything, being under the same roof as her mom again really put her in the mood for overdosing on calories.
She grabbed the to-go bag on the counter and, without another look, peeled back the paper and took a bite . . . and fought the instant urge to dry heave.
Cinnamon raisin. Her nose wrinkled. Worst flavor ever.
She knew the barista had been distracted when she’d taken her order, but that didn’t sound anything close to everything bagel.
She shrugged it off and took another bite. Right now, carbs were carbs. She’d take this one over waiting in line another half hour. She was about to leave the shop when she heard a gruff voice ask, “Where’s the bagel I ordered?”
“Which one was it, sir?”
“Cinnamon raisin,” someone said, the gravelly voice sending a curl of pleasure licking down her spine.
Erin swallowed hard, the two bites of bagel sinking like concrete in her stomach.
“No worries. We’ll get another one started for you . . .” The barista frowned, her hand clicking the metal tongs together. “Sorry, sir, we just toasted our last one.”
She looked down at the bag, examining the name scribbled in black Sharpie. Maybe there was a J, but the rest of it looked like a two-year-old had decided to scribble across it. Yeah, nothing resembling her name in there.
Affirmative. Not her bagel.
Heat prickled her cheeks, and she looked around to see if anyone had noticed her, anyone to call her out on her bagel thievery. Maybe if she just slipped out without anyone noticing . . .
She started toward the door, trying to play it cool. The worst she’d ever done was walk out of the grocery store with a ChapStick once. Didn’t even realize it until she made it to her car, then felt so guilty she went back in and bought it.
“Bagel for Erin!” the barista shouted, and tossed a white bag onto the counter.
She stopped, steps from the door. Crap. Now they were calling her for her actual bagel. While she had one in her hand. How was she going to play this off? The cinnamon scent of the stolen goods wafted under her nose, taunting her.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the other barista asked the man. The poor man she’d stolen from. Oh, why did she have to have a conscience?
“No. I only needed that kind,” he said. She could tell he was trying to be polite, but annoyance laced in his voice nonetheless.
And here she thought her mother was the only one who could make her feel guilty as hell.
Erin got a better look at the man. He was in firefighter blues, the uniform molding against his broad shoulders, the name Bennett stitched across the pocket on his chest.
Her heart skipped three beats.
No. It couldn’t be.
She hadn’t seen Jake in years, not since late-night sleepovers with his younger sister, Hazel, at the Bennetts’ house. Wistful glances were as far as she’d ever gotten. Jake and Erin’s brother, Reece, had been inseparable. Jake had been the wild child. Reckless. Hot in that bad-boy type of way that Erin only liked from afar.
He was a boy then. Now, well . . . now there was little resemblance to that carefree heartbreaker. Her heart had never been in the cross fire, both because she was four years younger and also the fact that braces and acne didn’t exactly scream sex goddess. Luckily she’d gotten over that phase. The sex-goddess situation was still to be determined because Lady O had been hibernating for the past year.
He shoved a hand through his jet-black hair, irritation written across his features. Very nice features at that. A strong stubbled jaw, cheekbones that were supremely unfair, and piercing blue eyes that glinted in the morning sun trickling in the storefront window.
She was going to hell. The man risked his life in the line of duty every day, probably saving children and puppies. And she’d just stolen his bagel.
“I’ll just go somewhere else. No problem.”
Standing forty minutes in line for a breakfast item constituted a big deal in her book. That pang of guilt twisted tighter in her gut.
Just let him walk out the door. He has no idea what you did.
“Bagel for Erin,” the barista called again.
Erin shrank into herself as the woman said her name even louder this time. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she looked around the bakery. C’mon, didn’t someone want to hop on the opportunity to claim the best damn bagel in the whole city that she should be eating instead of cinnamon raisin?
No takers.
Damn.
She strode up to the counter and grabbed the bag just so they’d stop calling her name. And now she was in possession of two bagels. What the hell was she going to do with this?
Before Erin could stop herself, she ran after Jake’s retreating figure, coffee in one hand, two bagels in the other. “Jake,” she called.
He turned around, and a shuttered breath escaped from her mouth. Frontal view was way better than the profile.
What was that old saying? Aged like fine wine? Erin was more of a beer girl, so she didn’t get all the hype of vintage years. But cheese? Now that was speaking her language. And Jake had aged to perfection, like a great parmigiana reggiano.
Jake did a double take as recognition washed over him. “Erin? Wow, I haven’t seen you in—”
“A while.” A little over ten years. Not since she was seventeen, and he’d gone off to fight forest fires in central Oregon during a particularly dry summer.
“I heard you were back up from San Francisco.”
What was that? Oh, just her pulse ratcheting up ten notches. He’d kept tabs on her? Not that she didn’t do her own social media stalking every once in a while.
He cleared his throat, and his fingers combed through his thick black hair. She clenched her fingers tighter around the bagel bags before she did something stupid like scale him like she was a friggen mountaineer. “Reece mentioned you were teaching down there,” he amended.
“Yeah, I’m just up for the summer to help out with my mom’s surgery and fill in at the food truck.”
His lips tugged into a smile, and creases formed in the corners of those ice-blue eyes.
Um, yeah, the whole lady-bit region was totally on board with that grin. Hot men were a staple of California life, but Jake didn’t fit the mold of what she’d become accustomed to over the past decade. He didn’t emit the expensive salon-haircut pampering vibe. No, his mussed hair and the way-past-five-o’clock shadow elicited thoughts of rugged, filthy desire. A man who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Someone capable of taking care of a woman’s needs.
Hello, ten years of pent-up imagination. Nice to meet you, old friend. Yup. Somehow, standing in the middle of a coffee shop, holding his stolen bagel, didn’t seem like an appropriate time to fantasize about her brother’s best friend. Try telling that to the sudden need pulsing between her legs.
“I always loved their peanut butter.”
“Thanks.” Erin hid a smirk by taking a sip of coffee. Truth circle? She’d kept a jar of Jif stashed under a floorboard in her room throughout high school. Homemade peanut butter was okay, but nothing compared to Jif, in her mind. She was a traitor to her own family.
What the hell was she supposed to say again? Her brain had fuzzed over after he’d first looked at her. She gripped the bags in her hand, and the plastic crinkled, cutting through the Jake Bennett haze that was as thick as Bay Area smog. Oh, right. Bagels.
She cleared her throat. “I didn’t just stop you to catch up, though. There was a mix-up, and I grabbed your bagel instead of mine.” She held up the bagel, a bite mark marring the fluffy bread.
His lips spread into a wide grin. “You know, if you wanted to talk to me, there are easier ways than bagel thievery.”
Jake stared down at the bagel that Erin held in front of her. Or at least he was trying to focus his attention there. Instead, his gaze kept drifting to the black tank top that conformed to every luscious curve. She’d just been a kid when he’d last seen her. Since then, everything had been replaced with a feminine softness that he wanted to bury himself in.
“I’m sorry.” A flush filled her cheeks and ran along the delicate column of her throat. Damn. Reece’s younger sister was no longer little. And he was a shithead for even having thoughts like that about her. In fact, Reece would probably throat-punch him if he’d been in the vicinity.
“No problem.” His daughter would just give him more of the evil eye he’d become accustomed to lately. “I’ll head over to Patsy’s on Albina.”
They didn’t have nearly as good of a selection, but it’d have to do. Because if he spent any more time with Erin, he might do something stupid, like reach out and tuck that stray strand of hair behind her ear. He clutched his hands into fists.
Jake could be counted on for a lot of things: a ride home from the bar, a perfectly grilled steak, keeping his men safe on the job. But most of all, he kept his word. Even a promise made to his best friend years ago, swearing that not a damn hair on Erin’s head would be touched by Jake.
That day still rang clearly in his mind. They’d just gotten home from a varsity baseball game senior year, and Reece had fled to the kitchen to grab a couple of sodas from the fridge. Erin had come downstairs, her hair dripping wet, fresh from the shower. At the time, his first thought had been, She’s cute. But more in a little-sister way because she had just been a freshman at that point. Reece had walked back in the room, tossed him a Coke, and said, “Don’t mess with my sister.” And that’d been the end of that. Bro code was in full force, and he didn’t intend to break that, no matter if it was more than a decade later.
“Did you want this everything bagel?” She held up the white bag, her red painted nails biting into the paper.
“I appreciate the offer, but I needed a cinnamon raisin.”
Erin nervously tucked the strand of glossy hair Jake had eyed earlier behind her ear, teeth raking over her bottom lip, which proved to be very distracting. “At least let me give you some money to pay for it. I feel terrible. It looks like you just got off work.”
Normally he’d be wearing his civilian clothes when he finished a shift, but he’d been too tired to change out of his blues after the charity event this morning. “A double, actually.”
Her frown deepened. “I think I’ve just been moved up a circle in hell.”
A smile twitched at his lips. “If we’re really getting into semantics, I think that means you moved up two circles, since it was a double.” Teasing her was one of his and Reece’s favorite pastimes. She was easy to rile up, but the true definition of a firecracker. She had no problem handling herself.
She put the bagel-wielding hand on her hip and pursed her lips. “I’m at least attempting some bagel diplomacy over here.”
“Anyone not related to Reece and I might almost believe it.” He was shitting her, of course. Reece was one of the good guys. He’d managed to keep Jake from doing anything too stupid in high school. He most likely owed the guy for keeping him out of jail with half the harebrained ideas he’d come up with. Bumming a police scanner off his older cousin and following around police cars when he was in high school? Probably not the smartest of choices. Though, nothing catapulted you into adulthood like a positive pregnancy test and a disappearing baby mama.
“You know, you’re probably right.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Why even bother? I know who I’m dealing with.” She brought the bag up to her face. Those pretty pink lips wrapped around the bagel as she took a bite. Jake’s throat went dry.
She wiped a crumb from her lip, and it took every bit of self-control to tear his gaze away. Seemed that feisty streak in her hadn’t been extinguished over the years. He liked that in a woman.
Reece’s sister. Off-limits. Stop, idiot.
“This is how you treat a friend you haven’t seen in ten years? California turned you into a cold woman,” he teased.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying? I can’t hear you over the crunching of this delicious bagel.” She licked a dab of cream cheese off her finger. “So good.”
He chuckled. She’d be eating her words if she knew this was for his daughter. He was gentleman enough not to make her feel bad. But as much as he was enjoying this chance meeting with Erin, he really needed to get back to Bailey and give his mother a reprieve. Even if Bailey was a good kid, a twelve-year-old was a lot to handle by anyone’s standards.
“I’m glad you take satisfaction from my personal pain.”
“Payback for all those times you called me Heron Erin.” She gave him a playful shove, and Jake kept his hands firmly in his pockets because the alternative was pinning those hands to the nearest storefront wall and devouring that mouth of hers.
“I guess the nickname doesn’t apply anymore,” he said. Jake and Reece had been inseparable when they’d met in elementary school. During the summers, Erin had liked to follow them around when they’d played out in the neighborhood. She’d tagged along in that annoying little-sister kind of way. At the time, they had come up with Heron Erin because her neck was a little long, and it had stuck over the years. But the kiddish nickname didn’t fit now.
“Assholes.” Her smile faltered a fraction. “I really am sorry, though. My offer still stands to buy you another bagel.”
They’d made it to the edge of the storefront, brushing past customers waiting in the line snaking down the side of the building. For late June, the weather was uncharacteristically warm, and Jake cursed himself for not changing into his basketball shorts before he’d left the station.
Erin didn’t look like the heat bothered her at all, which wasn’t surprising since she’d always loved the sun. Sunlight streaked through her blonde waves, creating a halo around her face, and her red skirt rustled in the light breeze, kicking the material up to the middle of her toned thighs. The coffee from earlier must have taken effect because his pulse pounded in his ears.
He thumbed the coin in his pocket, giving his hands something to do. Leave before you do something stupid.
“It’s fine,” he said. He just needed to get down to Patsy’s, grab something for his daughter, and pick her up from his mother’s house. Even if she didn’t show that she missed him, he sure as hell wanted to spend some time with his daughter before she completely shut him out once she got to high school. Time seemed to speed up the older she got. “I’ll catch you around.”
He made it a few paces, and she was still at his side, taking a deep pull from her coffee cup, looking up at him with rich hazel eyes. She arched her brow.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What a coincidence. I happen to be walking in the direction of Patsy’s, too.”
“Oh, really. Where is your car parked?”
“Right in front of Patsy’s, of course.” She smiled sweetly.
“You never were a good liar.”
“And you were never good at shaking me when I tailed you and Reece. Trust me. I’ve had years of experience keeping up with you guys. Just watch me.”
He picked up the pace, just to see her little legs move double time. Okay, so he still got a lot of satisfaction out of giving her a hard time. Sue him.
To his surprise, she kept pace with him, even though she only came up to his shoulder.
“You’re going to have to try better than that. I’ve got ten years of long-distance running under my belt. I can do this all day,” she said.
The whole damn family had a persistent streak as wide as the Columbia River. He couldn’t say he didn’t mind the company, even though his head was aching to make contact with his pillow.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Her toned thighs flexed with every step, and it took every ounce of concentration not to fall flat on his face or run into a parking meter. He shoved his hands in his pockets and focused his gaze to the sidewalk.
“Not a chance. I also can’t help it if one of my twenties hops onto the register when you’re ordering.”
They were still speed-walking down the street, Erin clutching her cup of coffee in one hand, the two bagels in the other, her cheeks turning a deep shade of pink. She looked up at him with a look that screamed Try me. I won’t take your shit.
And there came that word again popping into his head. Cute. But this time there were a few more adjectives tacked on. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re stubborn?” He slowed his pace, and they settled into a lazy walk. They were two blocks away from Patsy’s, and Jake wasn’t ready for their time together to end just yet.
She took another sip of coffee, and Jake caught himself staring at her lips again. He’d been out of the dating game for a while, but he could appreciate a beautiful woman when he saw one, and on a one-to-ten scale, Erin ranked a solid fifteen. Five bonus points for humor.
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” she said.
“I say it as an objective bystander.”
She chuckled, and they fell into stride next to each other, walking down the bustling city block. “People here just have a hard time appreciating a thing called tenacity.”
“Is that so?” They made it to the front of the shop, and Jake made a show of looking around. “Hmm. Where’s your car, Erin? You said you parked in front of the shop, right?”
She swatted him in the biceps. “Let me buy you your damn bagel, and then I’ll walk you back to your car.”
The next fifteen minutes passed by in a blur, and before he knew it, they were steps away from Jake’s truck.
He leaned against the tailgate, not in as much of a hurry as he’d been when he’d first parked on Mississippi Avenue. Why the hell was he stalling for time?
The best answer he came up with was that he found himself doing the gentlemanly thing of keeping up polite conversation. He’d keep telling himself that was the reason he hadn’t hit the “Unlock” button to the truck yet.
Erin’s gaze took one long sweep across the length of the truck. “A step up from the beat-up Camaro you used to drive back in high school.”
He’d forgotten that he’d given Erin rides to school when she’d missed the bus, and she’d tagged along to movies at the drive-in. The Erin standing in front of him was practically a stranger. A ten-year absence would do that, he guessed.
He sighed. “That was a great car.” Women tended to prefer the back seat in his more rebellious days. But when Bailey had come along, he’d needed something more practical, so he’d grown a pair and sold it for a truck. He didn’t often let himself think back to those days. What was the point when he had so much to focus on now?
Erin shuffled from side to side, gripping her coffee cup between her hands. “I should get going. You sure there isn’t anything else I can do to make up for the earlier mishap? I’d take a few more bites of this, but I won’t give you the pleasure of seeing me choke on my own guilt.” Her eyes glittered with amusement.
The tongue on this woman. Yeah, he pushed any further thoughts about that portion of her body out of his mind before he needed to punch himself in the face. He’d grown up with her. Played laser tag in their backyard on long summer nights. This was obviously his body reacting to sleep deprivation. “Always a pleasure, Erin.”
Before he thought better of it, he scooped her into a hug. Yup, that was a key mistake. He inhaled the tantalizing scent of coconut as her hair brushed the bottom of his chin. He definitely wasn’t paying attention to the way her breasts brushed against his chest. Five seconds into the hug and he was contemplating making up a reason to stop by the Jenkins house sometime next week.
And then it clicked.
He did need her to do something. She’d be the perfect candidate to take to Josie’s wedding. It was a lot to ask. But his family already knew her—she was friends with Hazel, another bonus. Her family wouldn’t even think twice about Jake bringing her as a date because the Jenkins family had been a big part of his and Hazel’s life years ago.
A safe choice. And it beat the hell out of Melissa from down the street with the cat-hoarding problem.
“Actually, there is something that you can do.”