Andi
I STOOD IN front of the mirror and scowled. What was I thinking agreeing to meet Dalton for coffee? I couldn’t do anything with my hair, I also needed to lose a couple pounds (if my jeans had any say about the muffin top I was currently sporting), and I had nothing to wear.
In the end, I grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a sweater that at least I knew looked good on me, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. What did I care if I looked a step up from a homeless person? I didn’t.
Okay, I did, but I was determined to ignore that niggly little fact.
Aspen wouldn’t be home until after six, so I didn’t bother with a note before heading out the door. As I stepped onto the front porch, I almost ended up knee-deep in the carcass of a mutilated raccoon. I squeaked and pulled the front door closed with a slam. “Damn cat,” I snapped. Last week there’d been a mouse, the week before a possum. Aspen was convinced it was a neighborhood cat, although, we’d never seen it.
I locked up and pulled out my phone, dialing Aspen’s number. “Hey, lady,” she said.
“Hey. We have another feline gift, so watch out for it if you make it home before me. I’m running late, but I promise, I’ll get rid of it when I get home.”
“Dumb cat.”
“I know, right?”
“Why are you running late?” she asked.
Oh, shit.
“Coffee with a friend.”
“A friend, huh?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Which friend?”
I rolled my eyes. “Aspen, I have to go.”
“Oooh, so it’s a boy.”
I hit unlock on my key fob and my car beeped. “If I say it’s a boy, can we skip the third degree until I have a bottle of wine in front of me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, it’s a boy.”
“Yes,” she said. “’Bout time, lady.”
“I could say the same thing about you, you know.”
“I know.” She sighed. “We can talk about that over wine too.”
“Deal.”
“Is it Dalton?”
“That falls under the save for later subject,” I said.
“Oooh, so it’s Dalton. Okay, can’t wait to hear everything.”
I slid into my car and smiled. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”
“Sounds good.”
Aspen hung up and I took off to my doom. One thing I was glad I’d stood my ground on was my car. It might have been a low-end, cheapie, but it was relatively new and never broke down on me. Jeremy tried to take everything, but the car was in my name, so he failed to take that.
It didn’t take long to get to Starbucks, but the parking lot was packed, so it took a bit to find a parking space. I ended up having to walk from the far end, but I saw Dalton pulling open the door just as I turned the corner. He grinned and waited for me, allowing me to precede him inside. “You look beautiful,” he said.
“Ah, thanks.” I took in his dark jeans, tight black T-shirt, and motorcycle boots and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from letting out a school-girl sigh. He’d cut his hair shorter than I’d ever seen it and, not surprisingly, he rocked the look. “You look great, too.”
He grinned, and we headed to the counter. I ordered my normal skinny caramel latte and blueberry muffin and Dalton ordered a coffee, black. He also had them heat up some egg sandwich thingy and then led me to a table by the window since all the comfy chairs were occupied.
We’d just sat down when our names were called, and Dalton told me to “stay put,” while he gathered our stuff from the counter.
“So, fill me in on your life,” he said. No easing in with small talk, no beating around the bush...just get to the meat of it, which had always been Dalton’s way.
I smiled. “Not much to tell, really. Crappy childhood, married Jeremy to escape, brother went batshit and is now in a psych prison. Don’t talk to my parents, mostly because they refused to deal with my brother before he went fully batshit, so I’m batting a hundred so far.” I let out a quiet gasp. I couldn’t believe I’d just dumped that out. “Sorry, Dalton. I...ah...how about you?”
He studied me with his ridiculously gorgeous hazel eyes, and I had to look away, so I tore off a piece of my muffin and popped it into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
“Let’s revisit the escape part,” he said.
“No, let’s not.”
Dalton chuckled quietly. “Fair enough.”
“Tell me about you,” I said. “It looks like your sister got married and now has a couple kids.”
“Yeah. She lives in Scotland with Kade now. I’m back and forth, but not sure where I want to be. Although, with Dad dealing with his health stuff, I’m thinkin’ I may end up being here more than Scotland.”
That statement sent a shockwave through me. I suddenly wanted him close. Okay, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t sudden. I’d always had a helpless crush on the man.
“You’re a good man, Dalton,” I said, my voice heavy with emotion. I took a sip of my latte in an attempt to wash the weightiness away.
“Did you ever want to leave Savannah?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Where would I go?”
“The world’s a big place, Andi.”
“That ship’s kind of sailed for me,” I admitted. “At least for the moment. One day I’ll get to somewhere exotic.” I smiled. “France, maybe. But I have a pile of debt I need to get out from under.”
“Jeremy do that?”
“Get me into debt?”
“Yeah.”
I sighed. “Yeah, he sunk us.” After he blew through my trust fund, he attacked our joint savings. “He liked to buy his mistresses shiny things...things he didn’t buy for me, but liked to put on credit cards he opened in both our names. He went through my trust fund in less than a year.”
Dalton let out a quiet curse. “Hate to say it, but he was always a dick.”
“No kidding. But I was always a little naive. So I had to learn the hard way.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“About eighteen months,” I said. “We haven’t lived together for several years, though. Aspen and I share her three-bedroom duplex.”
“Aspen Westwood?”
“You remember her?” I asked.
“She’s kind of hard to forget.”
I grinned with a nod. “Yeah, that’s super true.”
“How’s she doing?”
I chuckled. “Gorgeous, funny, sarcastic, irreverent. Can’t find a man strong enough to handle her.”
Dalton chuckled. “In other words, she hasn’t changed since high school.”
“Exactly. It’s weird you picked that up so quickly.” I gave him a little smirk. “Are you done delving into my soul?”
“Not by a long shot, but we can save some for a future date.”
And with that, I was right back in high school. Although, this time, I was sitting with Dalton Moore, not just trying to capture the aura of his magnificence by being near him. It was a heady feeling, but one that made me fight to guard my heart. Dalton Moore could wreck me, so I needed to figure out a way not to let him in.
“My turn,” I said once I pulled myself together. “Married? Divorced? Lose all your money at the blackjack tables?”
“No, no, and no.” He grinned. “I was with the FBI—”
“Wait, I thought you owned a couple of dealerships?”
“Have you been Googling me?”
“I plead the fifth,” I said.
“I do own a couple. But they were used as cover more or less. I’m still consulting for the FBI, but have been helping my ex-partner out with security for my brother-in-law’s company. I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do next. The stores pretty much run themselves, so I don’t need to be there full time.”
“Wow, what’s that like?” I mused.
“Not having to be there full time?”
I nodded.
“Honestly, boring,” he admitted. “I like working, which is probably why I agreed to help Cole out so quickly.”
“Cole?”
“Ex-partner. Good buddy of mine,” he clarified. “’Course working in Scotland doesn’t suck either.”
“I bet. It’s always seemed like such a magical place to me.”
“It is. But they’re also a very down to earth people, so the magic’s wrapped in friendly.”
“Well, now I really want to go there,” I said. “I’ll have to add it to the France itinerary.”
Dalton laughed. “Maybe I’ll meet you and show you around.”
Dalton and me in a sexy foreign country? Um, no. I might explode. Instead of voicing that, I took a deep breath and sipped my coffee.
“What’s your schedule like over the next two weeks?” he asked.
“Pretty much work, then I’ll have time for a little more work, then perhaps some work.”
“Think you can find time in your work schedule so I can take you out to dinner?”
“I don’t know, Dalt. I’m pretty slammed.”
“Yeah?”
The challenge in his voice had me studying him for a second. Gah! I couldn’t figure him out. He appeared genuinely interested, but that seemed impossible to me. We may have grown up in the same socioeconomic world, but we were so completely different.
“Don’t do that, Andi,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Spin this. It’s dinner. We’re friends.”
“We don’t know each other,” I countered.
“We were—are friends.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “We were acquaintances and then my brother...” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My brother had ruined everything. No, actually, he’d tried to. Jeremy was the one who came in and put a cherry on top of my shit sundae.
“Don’t do that either.”
“You’re kind of bossy...I didn’t know you were bossy,” I lied.
He smiled. “Look, your brother was a dick, Jeremy was a dick. I get that you have to deal with whatever your part was in the marriage, but with your brother, you were a kid. You can’t take that on.”
I blinked back tears. “That’s what they say.”
“Damn, sugar, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I shook my head. “I should go.” I slid off the stool.
“Andi, don’t run away.” He reached out and grabbed my arm.
“I’m not doing this with you, Dalton. Not in a Starbucks.”
“Then let’s go for a drive.”
“No.” I forced a smile and pulled my arm from his touch. “I’m going to go before I can’t.”
“Babe—”
“Okay, you need to stop.”
“Stop what?” he asked.
“Calling me babe and sugar and whatever. That ship sailed a long time ago.”
“It did?”
Shaking my head, unable to respond, I slipped out the door and rushed to my car. I arrived to find my rear driver’s tire flat.
“Oh for the love and glory be!” I snapped. What else could possibly go wrong today?
“Andi,” Dalton called as he jogged toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a flat tire,” I complained. “It’s fine. I’ll call Triple A.”
“I’ll change it,” he said.
“I don’t need you to change it, Dalton.” I waved my phone in the air. “I have Triple A.”
He smirked and held out his hand. “Keys, Andi.”
I dropped them into his hand and stepped out of his way, irritated that my attempt to flee had failed. I heard him swear and closed the distance between us. “You can’t change it?”
He glared up at me. “The tire’s been slashed.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Slashed, Andi.” He tugged on the rubber and showed me the large gash. “No nail, no loss of air. Sabotage.” He rose to his feet and walked to the other side. “This one too. Are you having any issues with anyone?”
I shook my head.
“Your ex?”
“Not anymore.”
He sighed. “Would you tell me if he was harassing you?”
“Of course I would, Dalton. Goodness, I’d never let a chance to share all of my issues with you go by,” I droned, hoping my sarcastic tone drove home my irritation. “In fact, the amount of times I had to stop myself from tracking you down just so I could share is staggering.”
“Damn, you’re cute.”
I raised my hands and held them up in an effort to ward off the demon that was Dalton Moore. “Stop.”
“Stop what?” he asked, all innocent and crap as he yanked my spare tire from the trunk.
“Stop doing your QB thing. I’m immune to it, so don’t waste your breath.”
“You’re immune to it?”
“Yep.”
He chuckled. “You weren’t immune to it when I asked you to Homecoming if I remember correctly.”
“That was a long time ago, and I think you may have forgotten how that turned out.”
“That’s on you, sugar.”
I dug my cell phone out of my purse.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m calling Triple A.”
“Andi,” he admonished. “You’re not callin’ Triple A and you’re not escaping the conversation we’re going to have sooner than later.”
“You know my life was going really well before you...”
He raised his eyebrow in challenge.
“Okay, no it wasn’t,” I conceded. “But I have a plan. It’s a good plan. A plan that doesn’t include men. Most of all, men who show up suddenly just to mess with my sanity.”
He chuckled. “How about we just plan on two old friends getting some closure on a few things that happened in the past?”
“Nothing with you is that easy.”
“Try me.”
“Gah! You’re infuriating.”
He laughed again. “Because I’m irresistible?”
“No, it’s definitely not that.”
“Dinner. Tonight. I’ll take you to Lady and Sons.”
Lady and Sons was Paula Deen’s restaurant in Savannah and sometimes difficult to get into. “You need reservations six months in advance to get in there, Dalton. If you don’t, you have to wait for hours.” A bit of an over-exaggeration, but not by much.
“I know a guy.”
I dropped my head back and muttered a curse. “Of course you do.”
“Say yes.”
I met his eyes again. “If you’re paying, and I mean for anything on the menu, then I’ll say yes.”
“Well, I’m not gonna take you to Lady and Sons and make you buy a coke and a side.”
I bit my lip and sighed. “Fine.”
“Good.” He threw one of my flats in the trunk and closed the door. “I’m gonna drop you home, then I’ll get a couple new tires sorted for you and bring them by when I pick you up tonight. Or I can drop you home and leave my car in case you need to go somewhere.”
“Yeah? How ya gonna do that?” I challenged.
He grinned. “I’ll get Samantha to pick me up.”
“No, don’t do that. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” he countered. I crossed my arms and he sighed. “Okay, she’s not quite a fan, but that’s only because she doesn’t know what happened.”
“How does she not know what happened? Pepper tells her everything.”
“Gag order.”
“I just figured you’d both ignore that and at least tell Samantha,” I admitted.
“Well we didn’t.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
Dalton squeezed my upper arms and smiled. “Don’t freak out, sugar. She and I never discussed it again.”
“Which is weird since you dated.”
“We never dated.”
“I heard you hooked up at her twenty-first birthday.”
“Checking up on me?” he challenged.
“Southern town, Dalton. News travels.”
“Fair enough.” He laughed. “Pepper and I weren’t meant to be and when you meet Connall, you’ll understand why.”
“Okay, well, enough about Pepper.” I sighed. “You can drive me home, but I won’t need your car before you pick me up for dinner.”
He grinned and walked me to his car. Neither of us spoke much as we drove to Aspen’s duplex, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence...it was nice. And that scared me more than anything. I often felt the need to fill the silence in situations like this, but not today.
Pulling up to my house, Dalton climbed out of his well-equipped BMW, and walked to my side to open the door for me. Then he walked me to the door (the raccoon was gone… I have no idea where), drew me in for a sweet hug, and then let me go. I closed myself in the house before I spiraled.
Shit!
* * *
Dalton
Arriving home, I flopped onto the sofa in the game room and dragged my hands down my face. My parents’ house was empty, so I took a moment to relish the silence and try to figure out the impossible.
After Jet attacked Pepper back in high school, he’d been arrested, but his rich parents bailed him out (again). I had threatened the school board, and managed to get Jet thrown out of school, but Jet’s arrest was tentative, at best. It was his word against Pepper’s (by stopping the attack, I had kept Jet from doing any physical damage, ergo, no proof).
Pepper had been forced to testify and Andi had been whisked away with the family. Or so we thought. What Pepper and I discovered (only because we ran into her in the courthouse hallway), was that Andi had testified about the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her brother and even had some video proof. They’d sealed the records, and Andi had made me and Pepper swear to tell no one (which had resulted in a gag order from the judge). Andi had then left our school and disappeared from our lives. I’d asked her to Homecoming long before the incident with Jet, but Andi wouldn’t return any of my calls, so I ended up going alone. She’d simply dropped off the face of the earth and I’d never fully let that go, which was obvious to me as soon as I saw her again.
So, here I was reaching out to a woman who broke my teenage heart a long time ago and it was very probable I might be a little insane.
An hour after I arrived home, I heard the front door close, and then, “Unca!”
I turned to the sound of Liam’s voice and smiled, reaching my arms out and catching my nephew as he jumped onto my lap. “Hey, buddy.”
“Li-Li!” Samantha called.
“He’s in here, sis,” I replied.
Samantha walked in and smiled. “You cheeky monkey. You know it’s nap time.”
Liam shook his head. “I’m no’ tired.”
I chuckled. Cauld Ane babies matured much faster than human babies, and typically had an almost full vocabulary by the time they were eighteen months. At five, Liam certainly did, although he didn’t always pronounce words correctly, and had a unique accent that shifted between Scottish and southern. I thought it was cute as hell.
“Baby, you need to take a nap.”
Liam yawned. “I’m no’ tired, mum.”
I chuckled. “You just yawned, buddy. I think maybe your body knows you’re sleepy but maybe your mind doesn’t.”
“Will you read me a story, Unca?”
“Sure, bud.” I rose to my feet, keeping Liam in my arms. “I’ll read you a story.”
Samantha grinned. “Finn’s down already, so I’m going to get something to eat. Can I make you a sandwich?”
“Yeah, Samantha, that would be great. Thanks.”
I carried Liam upstairs and chuckled quietly to find my nephew had fallen asleep on the short trip. I settled him in the bed and left the room.