No Perfect Hero, page 21
It aches to hear the uncertainty in her voice, to feel it in the subtle tension in her touch, waiting to pull away at a moment’s rejection. Like she thinks once the passion's over, our temporary truce might break and I’ll tell her not to touch me, to get out, get away from me.
Not anymore. I can't fucking do it, even if a part of me says I should.
That scares me a little, but not enough to thrust her away.
So instead, I turn in the circle of her arms, leaning my hips against the railing, and wrap her up tight to haul her more firmly against my body, smiling down at her.
She goes soft instantly, her smile warming as she rests her chin against the peak of my ribs.
She still looks half asleep, my t-shirt falling off her tanned, freckled shoulder and her eyes drowsy and glimmering liquid-dark like leaves. The best green shade of summer I’ve ever seen. “You didn’t wake me?”
“Looked like you needed the beauty rest, darlin'. Especially since you’re due on shift and on your feet for another eight hours soon.”
Haley laughs. “So you're tracking my work hours now?”
“Nah.” I grin. “Grandma texted me that I’d better not let you oversleep.”
Her eyes round. “Oh my God. How did she know I was with you?”
“I didn’t think of that.” Choking back a laugh, I clear my throat. “Maybe she was just asking me to be neighborly. She raised me to have manners like that, you know.”
“I’d never be able to tell.” With a half laugh, half groan, Hay thuds her forehead to my chest. “I don’t...I didn’t mean to...”
“I know,” I say. “I know. It’s okay, Hay. We did something we both wanted to, and I’m all right with it if you are.”
“Yeah,” she says softly, sighing and turning her head to rest her cheek to my chest, her half-lidded gaze drifting out across the sea of grass and sky and gently swaying trees. “I think I’m more than all right with it.”
“So?”
“So...?”
Fuck. Why do I feel like a nervous schoolboy all of a sudden instead of a grown-ass man?
This tiny firestorm of a woman has me all tangled up. “How do you feel about doing this some more until you leave?”
She’s quiet, but she doesn’t tense. Doesn’t tell me with her body language that she’s upset or angry or rejecting the idea, or even scared. She’s just thoughtful, and after a minute she licks her lips and says, “And by a few more times, you mean?”
“Whatever we want it to mean. A thing. For now.”
“For now.”
“Since you’re not staying, I mean.”
“I’m not?” she says tentatively, and my chest tightens like that’s the only way to keep my heart from slamming right through it.
My arms tighten on her, then relax, and I take a deep, steadying breath. “What’re you saying, Haley? You've got Chicago waiting. Soon as you've got your cash reserve replenished, you'll–”
“I’m saying I like it here, Warren. And it’ll be a good long while before I save up enough money to start over again in a city that expensive. I don’t have a free place to crash there. Crazy cost of living and all, so...” Her words are casual, but her voice is anything but.
It's hitching and soft and nervous. I can feel her heartbeat slamming against me, twin to mine, like we’re two stiff statues who can’t quite say the right thing. If we’d just let them, our hearts would break away from all our problems and crash together into something simple and bright. “So, yeah. I’ll probably stay. For a while. Maybe a long while.” She swallows audibly. “So if we had 'a thing' as you so eloquently call it...”
“Have,” I correct sharply.
“Have?”
“We have a thing, Hay,” I whisper.
Fuck, everything is chapped inside me, and I cup her face to kiss her, drawing her up into words that I print against her mouth as I draw her toward the door, the bed, another round of this furious, needy thing between us.
“We have a thing, beautiful. And I’m okay with it not having an end date.”
13
Pregnant Silence (Haley)
During my entire shift at Brody’s, I can’t help thinking about what Warren said.
We have a thing. And I’m okay with it not having an end date.
Sweet Jesus.
I’m not even sure what he means. 'A thing' without an end date might mean anything in strange, growly mountain man speak.
Honestly? I’m not sure I want clarity.
Because I’m not the only one who’s only in town temporarily.
With him bounty hunting whoever he’s after, he’ll probably finish his job here and move on when he’s ready. Hell, it’ll be funny if he leaves before I do, when I don’t even belong here.
Do I?
Waitressing at Brody’s isn’t exactly a dream job. But it’s fun and mindless and the people here like me.
They give me the social fix my extrovert half needs, which makes me feel at home in this little town that’s nothing like Seattle or Chicago or anywhere I’d ever imagined living.
Plus, it leaves me free to have my life on my own terms with my paints and canvases every morning, my feet tired but my mind on fire and my soul at ease. Here in Heart’s Edge, everything is simpler, with the exception of one hulking man.
Work doesn't leave me with a dozen deadlines hanging over my head like the office did. I can just walk away from Brody's without more burdens following me home and crushing my creative drive.
And it’s weird to think that right now, as I sling drinks and wipe down tables and laugh with the regulars, that I'm actually looking forward to going home.
I can't wait to see the cabin and find Warren and Tara and Mozart waiting for me.
It’s near dawn by the time I finish helping with cleanup and shutdown and pile myself and my sore, aching feet into the Mustang.
It’s a picturesque place by day, but in the early morning darkness, there’s something sweet and magical about it.
Here, it's one more lovely little house settled among its neighboring cabins with the stars winking out one by one overhead. The only light is the faint glimmer of lamps through a window here and there, like fireflies in the dark.
One of those lights is on in my cabin, and it guides me home like a beacon.
It's hard to keep a Mustang quiet, but I try just in case I’m waking Warren up.
I shouldn't worry. Before I left, I told him it was okay to treat my half of the cabin like his, and maybe deep down after that conversation this evening, I hoped he'd wait for me.
I’m not disappointed.
But when I ease the door open on the darkened living room, it’s not his voice I hear between the heavenly smell of scrambled eggs and bacon and brewing tea. It’s Ms. Wilma’s, and she’s murmuring soft things to Tara as she eases my niece down on the sofa and covers her with a blanket.
I tilt my head, blinking. Warren’s in the kitchen in a grey denim apron of all things, making a cartoon caricature out of himself as he cooks with exaggeratedly quiet gestures. I smile, knowing how focused those thick fingers of his can be.
He looks up as I step in and grins, holding a finger to his lips, nodding toward Tara. Ms. Wilma straightens and smooths her skirt with a quick, warm smile for me.
“She woke up and said she wanted to come home to wait for you,” she whispers. “I couldn’t say no, dearie, but the little turnip was unconscious before I even got her here.”
I wince. “Sorry if she woke you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’d been up for half an hour already. We Fords are born early risers.”
I bite back a laugh so I don't wake Tara. As I look at my niece sleeping snugly on the couch in her little pajama set with her hair pulled down from the pigtails, I can’t help how my heart goes soft.
She doesn’t even stir as a wobbly, still quite catnip-high Mozart scrambles up onto the couch and snuggles against her. His purr says it all.
I want to protect her from everything. My lips twist, wondering how the hard 'talks' Marie and John are having in Maui are going.
Whatever happens with them, she has to know she'll always have a family. To give her the shelter I never had as a little girl, and that my sister didn’t have either.
I know Marie wants to keep Tara safe just as bad as I do, or my niece wouldn’t be with me right now.
What Tara doesn’t know is that this Hawaii trip really is her parents' last-ditch effort to save their marriage. John may be a good guy, and Marie’s my sister and I love her...but sometimes two people just don’t work.
No matter how much they love each other or their daughter. They’ve been trying so hard to hide it from Tara, but I wonder if it’s why Tara tries to be so bright.
She knows. Kids always do.
She knows, but she’s trying so hard to make her family happy anyway.
I swallow the lump in my throat and settle down on the couch next to her, gently brushing her hair back.
“Thank you, Wilma,” I murmur. “Tara really adores you, you know. Every day she always wants to show me new sketches she draws of your flowers. And the new types of crochet stitches you taught her? I think she's died and gone to heaven sometimes.”
“Oh, I adore her too,” Ms. Wilma answers with the brightest, warmest smile that makes me miss my mother, miss someone who would smile at me that way. “It’s good to have little voices and little laughter around the house again.”
At that, she throws a pointed look at Warren. He coughs in the back of his throat, ducking his head and suddenly focusing very, very intently on the skillet and the spatula in his hand.
I cover my mouth with my hand to hold back a giggle. This looks like a familiar exchange, but it warms me so much to be included.
It’s only now that I realize I’m not used to the feeling of a nuclear family, these people who wait up for you to come home and make breakfast for you and look after your niece when you’re at work.
The Fords aren’t my family. Not really. I’m not even sure if, after one night and an uncertain promise, I can even call him my lover.
But they make me feel at home.
They make me realize, wherever I start over, I know what I want out of life.
This feeling. This carefree, wonderful feeling, like my art isn’t an afterthought and my job isn’t a dull time sink, and the people around me aren’t just placeholders in what my life is supposed to look like.
As chaotic as this is, as crazy, as completely accidental, I could see a life that looks something like this.
The kind of family I never had. But the kind I want with a husband and children and room for my art.
A family of people who support each other, who reach for each other, instead of hunkering back behind their defenses, leaving everyone to fend for themselves.
It’s not something I’d ever thought of before. It’s not something I even thought I knew how to create, but now?
I want to try.
And I know I can.
I realize I’m watching Warren as these thoughts circle through my head. He glances up from the stove, catching my eye with an amused head tilt. I twitch, jerking my gaze away and coughing quietly into my hand, face hot.
Whatever I’m thinking about is for later. For Chicago.
This, right now, is like a practice run.
A trial without an expiration date.
That’s all it is.
Sure.
When I look up again, Ms. Wilma is watching, her eyes gentle, her smile warm and knowing, as if she’s picked up on my thoughts.
I can’t hold her gaze, and I look away, tucking my hair back and pulling up the plunging neckline of my jersey, suddenly feeling too exposed in this tiny skirt with my cleavage hanging all out.
Ms. Wilma chuckles, leaning over to pat my knee, then straightens and turns toward the door.
“I’ll be off,” she says quietly. “Should count out the register and check today’s arrivals on that ghastly Kayak site Flynn insists I use. Do come up to the house for dinner some time, though, Haley dear. I promise my cooking is far less…coarse than my grandson’s.”
“Hey!” Warren protests, then darts a guilty look at Tara and lowers his voice. “I’ve been cooking for myself for years.”
“Yes,” Ms. Wilma says dryly, folding her hands primly, “and that puts you ahead of ninety percent of the male species. But it simply doesn’t change the fact that you cook like a soldier and you always have.”
“I am a soldier,” Warren retorts.
“Are you?” Ms. Wilma asks, quiet and pointed and suddenly so serious.
Warren quiets, his motions subdued.
He jerks his gaze to look out the window. “Don’t,” he murmurs. “Not here, Grandma. Not now. You just—”
“Know my grandson?” she finishes for him. “Yes, I do.”
“If you know me so well, you know why I’m not happy,” he bites off grudgingly.
“If you’re so interested in my business affairs, you can either choose to get involved, or you can stay out, but last I checked, I had no need for an advisory council,” she retorts firmly.
Dang. Even if I have no idea what the hell is going on...
This woman’s got a core of steel I admire more than anything else.
And she’s certainly got Warren in hand, because he says nothing other than a murmured “I’m sorry, ma’am” that she accepts with a tart nod.
Her fierce expression gentles, though, as she flashes me another warm smile, then turns to let herself out.
I hold my tongue until the door closes, then whistle softly under my breath. “That was something.”
“That’s my grandmother,” Warren answers with a touch of cynical fondness. “I never know if she’ll show up to find out what’s up with the gossip about us or rake me over the coals for sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I blink. “There’s gossip about us?”
“I kind of went caveman on your ex in the middle of a crowded diner, Hay.” Warren snorts. “Yeah. There’s gossip.”
I smile sheepishly. “I suppose. But...what was that about her business affairs?”
Warren’s shoulders tighten. I expect him to shut down, tell me to mind my own business again.
I don’t need to know, it’s too dangerous, the usual.
But after a few more scrapes of the spatula against the skillet, he mutters, “It's nothing. I’m keeping an eye on some people. They’ve got their hands in some pretty shady business, and Grandma doesn’t see it. She’s thinking of investing with them to keep the business afloat when she’s ready to retire, so she doesn’t have to outright sell Charming Inn or Brody’s.”
I don’t have to be a genius to know that the person he’s talking about is Bress, after the way Warren went after Flynn over keeping secrets from him on that front. It's making more sense.
After a few weeks in town, I’ve picked up that they have history but they don’t speak anymore, mostly from Stewart, who stops by almost every night for a different kind of burger and a quick chat.
I try to be nice to him, but there’s something about him that leaves me uncomfortable. He's too quick to play diplomat, not-so-subtly trying to diffuse this...whatever it is between Warren and Dennis.
He’s not flirting with me. Not really, and I think maybe that’s it, too.
He acts like he’s flirting, but there’s something too fake about it that makes me wish he wouldn’t bother, especially if neither of us are interested. I don’t need more fake in my life.
Still, he does give me juicy tidbits here and there, about how Bress and Warren were in the military together. Once, he mentioned her, and I don’t know who she is, and he wouldn’t give me a name, but I guess there’s more than one reason why Warren came back to Heart’s Edge.
There's no denying something's brewing between him and Bress. I’m worried about what will happen when it finally comes to a head.
If I push any more, though, I know Warren will cut me off the same way Ms. Wilma cut him off, so I just sigh, looking down at Tara and settling the blanket more securely over her.
She must be worn out, if the smell of breakfast hasn’t even started to wake her up. I still feel bad she got caught in the middle of my mess with Eddy.
“Sounds like a tough decision for Wilma to make at all,” I answer neutrally.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess. But if she ends up in bed with the wrong people, it’ll end in heartbreak, sooner or later.”
If that isn’t apt, I don’t know what is.
I’m not even sure who’s going to get her heart broken for ending up in bed with the wrong person.
Ms. Wilma...or me.
I doze on the couch for a bit, before I’m woken up by a suddenly energetic Tara just in time for food to be ready.
She’s like one of those old Tamagotchi pets that were popular when I was a kid. You have to take care of her 24/7, but she’s really only perky and active when you’re around and paying attention to her, and when you hit her on switch, it’s go go go.
And her pep tells me it’ll be afternoon before I get to steal a proper sleep before my shift tonight, when she’s managed to fill up her sketchbook with drawings and hell, now I’m out of two different shades of blue from trying to capture the hues of the Heart’s Edge sky.
So after breakfast – Warren really is a good cook, no matter how Ms. Wilma teases – I kick him out to go help around the inn with some long-neglected repairs, then get myself and Tara cleaned up so we can go do some shopping at the feed-slash-art-supply store.
It’s a little weird, still, that when I go inside, Ms. Thatcher greets me by name and tells me her daughter got in a new stock of these oil paints from a different supplier, and I might want to try them.
It makes me feel like I belong here.
Small town hospitality can really mess you up, I guess.
As I’m talking to Tara about her first sketchbook and what she did and didn’t like about the paper texture so we can pick a better one this time, she pauses, frowning and tapping her finger against her lower lip.
“I want to draw Warren,” she proclaims firmly. “What kind of paper should I use for that?”
