by Julia London
What do I need to do to get you to talk to me?
“I don’t want to talk to him,” she said flatly.
“Don’t respond,” Rafe advised. “Block his number.” Wishful thinking.
Hallie suddenly brightened. “I’ve got it.” She typed something into her phone, hit send, then laughed and showed Rafe the text she’d sent. Give me a puppy and I’ll consider it.
Rafe was confused.
“Chris is afraid of dogs,” she said. “Like, really hates them.”
“What? Just when I think I can’t dislike this guy any more.”
“Right?” she said, giggling. “That will do it, trust me. The subtext is in his face.” She laughed. But Rafe’s doubt must have been obvious because she said, “Why are you looking at me like that? He’ll never do it. He seriously does not like dogs. He will definitely get the message.”
If it were Rafe, he’d crawl over broken glass to make amends. A dog seemed a whole lot easier. “Were you honestly prepared to live your life without dogs?” he asked in disbelief. “You love animals. You once had a pair of gerbils and a huge rabbit.”
“I was willing to compromise,” she said. “I was thinking of giving cats a try.” She hopped up from the bench. “Oh, man, I’m sore,” she said, bending backward.
“Next time, we hit the gym,” he said, and stood, too, depositing their coffee cups in the trash receptacle.
They began to make their way down the sidewalk, Hallie with her arm looped through his. Rafe imagined they looked like an old couple that had lived their entire life together. In a way, they were—they had lived many years in this friendship, him pining for her, her cheerfully coming along on a ride with him she didn’t even know she was on.
They strolled past the bank and a bulletin board where several community notices were posted, and paused to look. Hallie pointed to a very colorful poster in the corner. Join friends and family Thanksgiving Day for Kidz Korner performances of The Nutcracker. There was a picture of a ballerina below it, and below that, the time and place.
“A kid ballet!” Hallie said. “Isn’t Kidz Korner that organization that works with disabled kids?”
“And developmentally challenged,” he said. “The summer I graduated from high school, I worked there part-time.”
She smiled up at him. “See? This is what I’m saying, Rafe. You’re too good. You’re Mother Teresa good.”
“Trust me, I’m not. I happen to like kids, that’s all,” he said as they continued on. “So do you.”
“I do. But when I graduated from high school, all I could think of was boys. Anyway, why has no one snatched you up? It was always a mystery to me and my friends why you didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“I had girlfriends,” he scoffed.
“Yeah, like a new one every week,” she said with a laugh as they reached his truck. “Everyone said Luca was the player, but you were giving him a run for his money.”
Rafe opened the door of his truck for her. “You think I was a player?”
She slipped past him and turned around before climbing into his truck. They were standing too close again, and that electric thrum sparked again, but this time, it was a sharper jolt to his system. This closeness kept happening. Was he doing it subconsciously? Was she?
“I really don’t know,” she said. She tilted her head curiously to one side, and touched her fingers to his chin. “You need a shave.”
A second, two seconds, three, passed before either of them spoke or moved. He couldn’t shift his head from her touch. His gaze slid to her mouth, and he drew a long, slow breath. He had that feeling once again that he was going to kiss her. Just take her in his arms and kiss the breath out of her. And that was just the start of what he’d do.
Her hand skated down his chest. “Is something happening right now?” she murmured. “Asking for a friend.”
“I don’t know . . . is it?”
“I don’t know . . . is it?” she echoed.
Something was happening all right. The world was collapsing around them, and his heart was exploding in his chest. But the warning bells went off, and red flags began to wave. He thought of all the tricks he’d taught himself to keep his hands off her. Of all the things his father had said to him when he’d wanted to ask Hallie to his prom. People like the Princes don’t mix with people like us. And now the money issues at the ranch, the layoffs. What if he kissed her? What if he did more than kiss her? And what if, after all that, she backed off and things got weird, and holy hell, he’d never forgive himself if he got tangled up in something that broke his heart and cost his dad his job somehow on top of that.
So Rafe tamped down his feelings once again, smothered his desires, and leaned forward. He kissed her forehead. “Nope. Nothing is happening.”
She bit her bottom lip as she peered up at him. She looked like she was considering debating him. He wished she would. He wished she would tell him that something was damn sure happening, and she wanted it as bad as he wanted it. But she said, “Okay.”
He suppressed a sigh of disappointment. “Ready to go?”
Her eyes searched his face. She was clearly unsatisfied with that response, but she didn’t push him. She said instead, quite seriously, “Did I ever tell you I danced in The Nutcracker once?” And she fell away from him, into the seat in the truck. “I was eight and I was a sugarplum fairy. A defining role.”
The stunningly abrupt transition from sizzling heat to cold air was too much for Rafe. “You don’t say,” he said, and closed the door. He walked slowly around the back of his truck. It felt like his nerves were frying up like bacon beneath his skin.
When he got in the truck, she said, “In the middle of the dance, I stumbled out of my pirouette and slammed into a cardboard tree.” She gave him a sidelong look. “I crash into things a lot.”
He didn’t know what that meant. All he knew was that his mind was still wrapped around the taut sensations of restraining himself. His longing for her still reverberated in him, was still devouring him from the inside out.
As Hallie continued her blithe chatter about a childhood ballet, Rafe suffered in silence all the way back to the ranch.
Chapter Ten
Hallie stood in the drive at the ranch and watched Rafe pull away.
What the hell had happened in town? Because something had happened. One minute they were laughing at the text from Chris, and the next, he was kissing her on the forehead when she knew, she knew, he wanted to kiss her.
She’d definitely wanted to kiss him.
Or was it a case of her wishing too hard and imagining heat all over again?
But could she really invent that kind of moment? Because it felt a lot more intense than the day of the prairie chickens. Today, the way he’d looked at her—like he was starving, like he was desperate for a drink of water, that look of wanting—was something she’d seen before. Not just in the last week. Maybe not as potent and blistering, or so deeply seated in his eyes that her blood had begun to rush, but she’d seen various shades of that look before.
Actually, many times before.
But it always disappeared. Like a switch, like something he could turn on and off. Those moments always ended in the same way, too—he’d laugh at something she’d said and send her away, like she was a kid and he was kissing her on the forehead and sending her off to bed.
She didn’t want to be like a kid to him. She had wanted him to kiss her. Really wanted it.
And still, Hallie was confused about how she felt about that. She wasn’t certain of her motives. She didn’t trust herself to kiss Rafe for the right reasons, and not because this was some sort of weird rebound thing she was going through. She would die if she did that to him. She cared too much for Rafe. She truly loved him. He’d been one of her best friends forever, and she couldn’t think of a better way to mess it all up than to have some so
rt of rebound crush and act on it.
But again, was it a rebound? It didn’t feel that way. It felt weirdly genuine.
This was so confusing! The only thing she knew for certain was that she and Rafe were in a sort-of-cool space, but at the same time, a not-so-cool space.
With a small shake of her head, she walked into the house. She was suddenly feeling so tightly strung that she needed to stuff something into her mouth and into that tension. That jelly donut hadn’t come close to touching the confusion she was feeling now.
In the kitchen, Hallie dug through the fridge—where was a plate of nachos when you needed it—and finding nothing appetizing, she grabbed the milk and closed the fridge door. She shrieked—Luca was standing right there, frowning down at her. The milk slipped from her hand, but Luca dipped and caught it against her leg.
“What the hell, Luca?” she said irritably as she reached for the milk carton and slid it onto the counter. “You scared the crap out of me. You should announce yourself!”
“How could you not hear me?”
Good question. She gave him a good once-over as she opened a drawer in search of a cereal bowl. He was wearing work clothes—dirty jeans and a canvas jacket. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked. “I thought you were living your best life at Ella’s house.”
“First of all, you’ve seen Ella’s house, and so you have to know that the only being that can live its best life out there is Priscilla the pig, and second, we are staying at my loft in San Antonio. And third—” He thrust his arm at her. He was holding her reception dress, which Hallie had failed to notice in the middle of her near heart attack. “What about you, Hallie? What kind of life are you living? Because I found this hanging from the arbor like a slain soldier.”
“I forgot to take it down,” she said. “I’m surprised the groundskeepers didn’t take it down.”
“The groundskeepers? The groundskeeper. We’re down to one guy. Come on, Hal, what is going on?”
“Nothing! I was messing around. Where is the cereal, anyway?”
“I haven’t seen you eat cereal since we were ten,” Luca said, and opened up the pantry, walked inside, and returned with a box of Cheerios. “And what do you mean you were messing around? With your wedding dress?”
“For like the thousandth time, that is not a wedding dress, it is a reception dress.”
“Same thing.”
“So not the same thing.”
“Whatever it is,” he said, holding it up, “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t belong hanging from an arbor with vines growing out of it.”
“I was taking pictures of it for my Instagram page.”
“Your what?”
How could she live among so many people with such limited knowledge of social media? “I’ve started a new Instagram page. It’s a ruined wedding account.”
Luca sighed. He draped the dress over the back of the barstool and pressed his hands against the bar. “Hallie. I’ve always had your back. But it’s been six weeks or so since the big bombshell, and you’re still wallowing—”
“Luca, stop,” Hallie said. “I am not wallowing. It’s an art project, that’s all. It’s something to do.” She poured Cheerios into her bowl. “It’s not like I have anything to do right now, so indulge me. Let me take a few pictures.” Luca didn’t speak. Hallie shrugged. “Well? Am I right or am I right?”
He sighed. “So how long are you going to hang out here with nothing to do? How long before you have a lawn chair in the cemetery?”
She gasped. “That is never going to happen,” she said firmly. “Actually, I have plans. First, I’m going to get in shape. I’ve started running.”
Luca snorted. “Okay,” he said, as if he thought that was some setup to a joke.
“And I’m maybe thinking of going back to school.” She watched her brother to gauge his reaction. The email she’d received had taken up residence in her head. What if she finished her bachelor of fine arts? What if she learned how to teach kids what she could never truly master herself? What if she struck out, all on her own, and accomplished something with no one’s help? What if she did all those things? Wouldn’t she be happy? Wouldn’t she be proud?
“Really?” Luca perked up. “This is interesting. Go on.”
“I got an email from the Comeback Center.”
“The what?”
“The Comeback Center at UT Austin. Apparently it’s this program that entices people who didn’t finish their degrees to come back and finish them.”
“I thought you had given up on dance.”
When he said it like that, it sounded so lame. It sounded like she was a quitter. “I gave up on being a professional dancer. But maybe I could teach it.”
Luca stared at her a moment, thinking it through. “I think,” he said slowly, as if he was choosing his words, “that this is a great idea.”
Hallie immediately brightened. “You do?”
“Absolutely.”
She grinned. “I’m just thinking about it. There’s a lot to consider.”
“Keep thinking,” he said with a wink. “Okay.” He pushed away from the bar. “Let’s see this Instagram page or whatever.”
Hallie fished her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her Instagram page to show him. But when she looked at the account, she gasped.
“What?”
“I don’t believe it! Yesterday, I had one hundred and ten followers. Today, I have twenty-seven hundred!” She twirled around on her barstool with a grin. “It’s taking off. It’s going viral.”
“That does not sound good.” Luca came around the bar and looked over her shoulder at her phone. He peered at the photos of her dress, at the invitations burning in the fire pit. And another one she’d added last night of a garter. Not her garter, because she’d never gotten around to getting one. But a party favor garter she’d picked up at some bridal event somewhere through the years—she’d found it in her closet. She’d wrapped it around the neck of an old stuffed bear she had stuck in her closet. She’d arranged the bear’s legs and arms to appear to be a flailing so it looked like it was choking.
Luca leaned over her shoulder. “You took these?”
“I did,” she said. “I used the camera we got for our birthdays, what, ten years ago, remember?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I always thought you were a really good photographer. You have an artistic eye. These are really good, Hal. I find myself curious about the lunatic behind the photos, and I already know how crazy she is.”
Hallie grinned with pleasure. “I have to text Rafe,” she said, switching over to her texts.
“Rafe. Rafe Fontana?”
“He’s the only Rafe I know,” Hallie said as she began to text him the news.
“Why are you texting Rafe?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “Rafe and I have this thing—”
“A thing?”
“Not like that,” she said, frowning at him. “We’re really good friends, you know that. And I told him about my page. I just want to tell him how many people are following it now because he’ll get it. He gets me.”
She paused there. She never held anything back from Luca, but something whispered that this was different. There was a lot in her head she still needed to make sense of. Her friendship with Rafe had developed many different faces—he was a good soul, a balm to the wound in her heart—but there was more to the story and she was only just beginning to realize it.
Whatever the story, it all came back to Rafe—his soul was pure light. He was the sort of man anyone would want in his or her corner. He had an innate ability to understand things that were too hard to put into words. He listened. He was kind, he was considerate, he was smart . . . all the things that made him perfect. Add the heat that had been stirring between them, and wow, Hallie felt like she was walking around with
a powder keg in her head. Yes, her feelings about Rafe were complicated, and Luca would not understand.
Speaking of Luca, she suddenly noticed that he was studying her a little too closely. His scrutiny made her squirm, so she stood up from her stool. “He’s teaching me to run,” she said.
“Come again?”
Luca looked suspicious. Damn it. He knew her too well. If she wasn’t careful, he’d pin her down and make her talk. “You heard me.” She stood up and tried to move around him, but Luca threw out his arm like a crossing guard so that she couldn’t pass. “You didn’t eat your cereal.”
“Too many carbs.”
Luca gave her a withering look. “I saw you put down half a cake two days ago. Don’t act like carbs are suddenly your nemesis.”
“I’m a new leaf,” she said, and pushed his arm aside. “I’m a runner now. Move.”
“Well, that’s just crazy talk,” Luca said flatly. “And FYI, people don’t need lessons to run.”
She thought about Rafe’s hands on her hips, and a tiny little shiver swept down her spine. “I happen to be very bad at it, so there.” She tried again to push him aside, but Luca wasn’t having it. Hallie was suddenly reminded of the summer Luca shot up, growing a good six inches taller than her. That had ended their occasional fistfights. Hallie had won them all up until that point.
“You can’t be that bad at running.”
“Be supportive! I’m really trying to change, Luca. I’m getting out of my head. I’m shedding my old skin.”
“Gross,” he said.
“Truth.”
“And Rafe is helping you get out of your head, et cetera?” he asked, the suspicion back.
“Why not? You know how he is—he’s fit and he’s a teacher and he’s always helped me.”
Luca studied her a long moment. He pressed his lips together, like he was thinking, and then he said, “Actually, I do know how he is.”
He said that in such a strange way that Hallie wondered what exactly he meant, but before she could ask, Luca pulled her, against her will, into a tight embrace.