by Kilby Blades
He stepped off his stool and pulled her into his strong arms, her head resting against his chest. His heart beat strong under his sweater. “But you were always meant to be part of those dreams,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s not too late. Give us another chance?”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. The tragedy of the fire faded into the background, along with obstacles that kept them apart for all these years. This moment felt so much bigger. More important. Magical.
He reached down and tipped her head back so that she stared up into his eyes. Eyes filled with heat and longing.
She touched his cheek, his beard soft under her fingertips. Her gaze lingered on his full lips, and she nodded. Yes, she wanted that too.
But first, she needed to know. “What about you? Your football scholarship? The NFL?”
He shrugged and ran one of her curls through his fingers, his touch sending a shiver over her skin. “Bum knee from an injury during my senior year, so I came home after graduation. Opened a construction business and made a fortune during the housing bubble. Got divorced and lost half of that fortune. Then I transitioned from voluntary to paid firefighting, and I still do construction on the side.”
His fingers moved from her hair to her cheek, his body pressed flush to hers. “I’ve missed you,” he said, lowering his mouth.
Her heart soared as he came in for a kiss.
Tate’s lips halted on their descent at a loud crash in the living room.
She laughed softly. “Your cat has impeccable timing.”
He pulled back and his brow knit in confusion. “What cat? I don’t have a cat.” Then his eyes widened and he bolted for the living room, “Oh, shit!”
She followed on his heel. As they rounded the corner, he snapped on the light.
Sitting in the middle of the coffee table was a toppled nut bowl, scattered nuts, and a fluffy-tailed gray squirrel holding a peanut.
They all screamed at once.
Tate grabbed the blanket on the back of the couch, unfolded it, and held it out like a matador.
The squirrel dropped the nutshell as Tate tossed the blanket. In a panicked dash, the squirrel leaped from the table to the back of the sofa in time to avoid the falling blanket, then onto the floor. Tiny nails scrabbled on the hardwood around the corner into the front hall.
Oh my God, she needed to get her eyes checked. How had she mistaken a squirrel for a cat?
Tate swore and leaped over the back of the sectional with the blanket in hand. “You okay?”
Her heart pumping, she nodded and slipped off her heels.
“We need to trap that little bastard, and get him out of the house before he destroys the place,” Tate said, his jaw set in a determined line.
“I’ll try not to scare him this time,” she promised and dashed in stocking feet behind Tate.
Something crashed to the floor above them. He opened the front door as they passed, letting in a chilly gust of air. “We’ll flush him out if we can’t catch him,” he said.
She followed behind Tate as he took the stairs two at a time and met him at the top.
He pointed to the right. “You go that way, I’ll go this way. If you find him, call me and trap him in whatever room you find him in. OK?”
She nodded and headed into the open guest room where she’d left her things. Everything looked undisturbed, so she checked the bathroom where she’d taken her shower. Nothing. The closet door stood slightly ajar. She opened it the rest of the way and turned on the light. A pile of nutshells sat in the corner, and above it, a hole chewed through the ceiling from the attic above. Well, that explained how the squirrel got into the house.
A blur of gray fluff flew by the bedroom doorway with Tate on its tail.
She followed them and ground to a halt behind Tate where he’d cornered the petrified animal in an unfinished bedroom.
A mature female voice boomed from downstairs. “Tate, honey! Are you home?”
“Christ on a bike,” Tate muttered. Holding the blanket in front of him like he was about to block a pass, he turned to her. “T, it’s my mom. I have no idea what she’s doing here this late, but can you tell her I’ll be down in a minute?”
The squirrel chittered in a distressed wail, clambered up the wall, and launched itself onto the ceiling fan.
“Please don’t hurt the little guy,” Tanya said.
He craned his neck and shot her a reassuring half smile. “Don’t worry, T. I won’t.”
She closed the door and hurried downstairs.
“Mrs. Manning!”
Claire Manning stood inside the door with a man her age at her side. They were both dressed for a night out on the town. A look of surprise on his mother’s face shifted to delight. “Tanya, is that you?”
Tanya hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Tate’s mother. This Valentine’s Day held the best and the worst experiences she could ever imagine.
Tanya rushed into the woman’s arms and hugged her. “It’s so good to see you again.” Then she eyed the large wire contraption resting on the floor at Claire’s feet. “What’s that?”
“A trap. Tate told me he’s having a squirrel issue. I’d planned to leave this on the porch.”
The stress of the day had finally caught up with her. Unable to stop her giggles, Tanya broke into laughter. Trying to catch her breath and speak at the same time, she held her stomach, “He has it cornered upstairs in the bedroom.”
His mother’s eyebrows rose. “Is that why the front door was open?”
Tanya nodded and wiped away her mirthful tears. She was really doing a number on her mascara today. “I’m sorry, it’s been a stressful day.” Tanya stared at the man and held out her hand, “I’m Tanya.”
He shook it and smiled warmly. “Mike.”
His mother grabbed the wire trap and started at a fast clip toward the kitchen. “Time for introductions later, we need to bait this thing.”
Tanya headed to the living room for a handful of nuts while his mother slathered a bunch of crackers with peanut butter and they headed to where Tate had bunkered down with the squirrel.
The creature dangled upside down from the ceiling fan, clutching on for dear life when Tanya and Tate’s mother slipped inside with the trap. Tate had the window wide open and stood nearby with the blanket. Mike had been reluctantly relegated to the living room to wait it out.
“Hey, Mom. What are you doing here?” Tate asked, then caught sight of the trap. “Sweet.”
Claire propped open the cage door and arranged the squirrel bait inside. “Mike and I were on the way home from our date—”
Blanket still in hand, Tate’s head snapped around. “Mike? Mike who?”
She laughed softly and blushed. “Mike Garibaldi…he owns the hardware store downtown. We’re dating.”
Tate’s brows popped up followed by a look that could only be described as hurt. “You are? When were you going to tell me?”
“At brunch, on Sunday,” she said, then cleared her throat and winked at Tanya. “I’m not the only one who’s been holding out, am I? Why don’t we leave our little friend here, and take our chat downstairs.” Tate’s mother smiled at Tanya. “I think we all have some catching up to do.”
Inching out of the room, they closed the squirrel inside with the baited trap and joined Mike downstairs. Tate greeted him with familiar warmth. Turned out, Tate was also a frequent customer at Mike’s store.
Tate lit a fire and they gathered on the dove gray sectional. Wine in hand, they settled in and traded stories.
Tanya went first. She filled them in on her years in L.A., her hit single and ensuing lawsuit, her career change to become a flight attendant, and buying her home in Maplewood without realizing Tate and his mother lived only a few miles away.
Claire went next and regaled them with how she’d visited Mike’s hardware store for years and how their long-standing flirtation had recently turned into a relationship.
Finally, Tate shared his story about the
purchase of his home, the on-going renovations, and his immense pleasure at hosting his first official house guest.
Two hours later, Claire and Mike left with one extra passenger stuffed to the gills with peanut butter and mixed nuts. They planned to release the well-fed squirrel in Mike’s backyard across town.
But before they left, Claire caught Tanya alone in the kitchen.
With misty eyes, she pulled Tanya in for a hug. “I’m so sorry about the fire, sweetheart. But you being here is like a blessing.” When she’d released her, she brushed away a tear. “I’ve never forgiven myself for not telling Tate you came to see him that night.”
Tanya released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”
Tate’s mother smiled and squeezed Tanya’s arm. “For Tate, you were the one who got away. Be gentle with his heart. He’s a good man.”
Tanya’s throat tightened. “I know,” she whispered. “I promise to do right by him this time.”
“That’s all I ask, honey.”
After seeing them all off, Tanya and Tate returned to the sofa and snuggled in front of the fire.
A quick glance at the cable box revealed the time at almost midnight. This truly had been Tanya’s best and worst Valentine’s Day ever.
Tate pulled her close and brushed back a lock of her hair. “Where were we?” he asked, eyes sparkling and wearing a crooked smile. He traced her lip with a finger.
She shivered under his touch. “Am I forgiven just a little?”
“Only if you promise to make it up to me,” he teased, then clasped her hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss.
Had it only been a few hours since her world tilted on its axis and she’d found Tate again? Whatever this was, whatever this could be, she wanted to give it the chance it always deserved.
It had taken her ten years of chasing her dream to figure out that it wasn’t the music career her father wanted her to have as much as what it had represented…happiness.
“I promise that and more,” she said. Bridging the gap between them, she cradled his head in her hands and kissed him in a dance of lips and tongue until everything receded and all that remained was she and the boy who’d pulled her from grief and stolen her heart at seventeen.
Olivia made it to Bach’s Upper West Side apartment building by 2 a.m. and slipped inside behind a couple too absorbed in a quiet conversation to notice her.
After the squirrel debacle and confirming their win, Olivia visited the fire scene. She slipped the beautiful photograph of Tanya and her father into the top drawer of the charred nightstand next to Tanya’s bed.
Like Tate and Tanya, Olivia had lost someone on 9/11. Her grandmother, a kitchen worker at Windows on the World, died in the collapse of the north tower when Olivia was eight years old. One of the most treasured possessions Olivia owned was a picture of her sitting on her grandmother’s lap when she was five. When Olivia had seen the surveillance footage inside Tanya’s townhouse, she knew what she had to do. She had to save that photograph.
She nodded at the doorman manning the security desk. He eyed her with recognition as she passed, tipped his head and smiled. Hanging back, Olivia waited for the elevator doors to close in front of the canoodling couple and caught the next one.
She remembered nights like that in another life when she’d been with Marcus, and she wondered if she would always feel like an outsider looking in. But if that were true, why was she on her way to the 17th floor? She and Bach could easily tally their winnings tomorrow, but the truth was that she needed him—and only him—tonight.
The win hadn’t been enough. Even with the threat of their nut-loving little friend, they’d beaten the odds and won. She’d watched Tate and Tanya kiss less than five minutes before the stroke of midnight, but the rush she felt had fled by the time she’d driven through the Lincoln Tunnel, leaving her aching for comfort that only one person could provide. Screw how much this could complicate things.
She pressed Bach’s buzzer. The door cracked open less than a minute later, and a sleepy-eyed Sebastian greeted her wearing only pajama bottoms, his bare, chiseled chest on full display. “Liv?”
“Hi,” she whispered, at a loss for anything else to say. But no words were necessary.
A lazy smile slipped onto his lips and his blue eyes shimmered with a naked softness. He met her gaze with an array of emotions that sucked her breath away. Relief mixed with yearning and desire. The two things he’d never acted on or said out loud. Feelings she knew well and denied just as fiercely.
He reached for her hand and tugged her inside. She entered the darkness and he led her to his bedroom. Stripping down to her underwear, she crawled into his bed after him. He wrapped his arms around her and spooned her tight to his body like he had so many other nights. Tonight was different; she felt it deep in her soul. Tucked beneath the blankets, she let his warmth permeate her skin.
“How many times did your mum call today?” he asked quietly, his breath warming her hair.
She would’ve found the answer comical if the calls hadn’t pissed her off so much. “Thirteen.”
“Did she ask about Marcus even once?” His voice was an aching whisper.
Olivia’s throat tightened. The cork popped on her bottled emotions, and they spilled over like wasted champagne. A sob broke free. “No…”
Of course, not. Marcus hadn’t been a wealthy doctor from a good Chinese family. He’d been a British musician with a kind heart who’d loved her unconditionally—a thoroughly unacceptable choice by her parents’ standards. If he had lived long enough to put the ring on her finger they’d found in his pocket the night he died, her parents would’ve disowned her.
“He was my brother, Liv. I miss him, too…” Bach said gently, stroking her hair as she shook and her wails hit a crescendo.
Minutes passed. He held her tight, his chin tucked alongside her neck. After what felt like an eternity, she swallowed hard, completely wrung out of tears, and breathed his name. “Sebastian?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s time we let him go,” she sniffled.
“I know.” His voice a gentle caress.
Looking back, she realized Sebastian had been leading her to this moment for a long time. She was finally ready to embrace it. That didn’t mean leaving Marcus’s memory behind, it meant living her life alongside it.
She pushed the pall of sadness off her shoulders with a final desperate shove. “Let’s go to Florida,” she said, and wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks.
His arm tightened around her. The corded muscles making her feel safe and cared for. He laid a gentle kiss on the back of her head, and whispered, “I’d like that…”
“Promise me something?” she asked, squirming out of his grasp to pull a few tissues from the box he kept on this side of the bed just for her. He’d seen her at her worst more than once, but she’d never been self-conscious about blowing her nose in front of him until now.
“All right…”
She spooned back into his warmth and gave him a half-hearted elbow. “Update the algorithm. No more effing squirrels.”
Chuckling softly, he moved her hair aside and kissed the delicate skin at the base of her neck. “I promise that and a whole lot more…if you’ll let me.”
The touch of his lips sent a shiver far and wide, awakening long dormant bits of her anatomy. She smiled in the dark, and whispered, “I’ll consider it.”
He gave her another squeeze. “That’s all I ask. Sleep now, Livvie. Tomorrow’s a new day.” He found her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “We’ll face it together, all right?”
For once, the thought gave her a thrill. Her body relaxed against him, the only place she wanted to be. Content, she drifted off to sleep, and for the first time in five years, she looked forward to what tomorrow might bring.
“Love Ya, Baby” by Marie Booth
A Gates Series Story
I gritted my teeth, holding back a growl. My boss was ta
ll, good looking, generous and patient, but he was late and I had a situation only he could deal with. His San Francisco breakfast meeting should have ended by nine-thirty, giving him plenty of time to get back to the club.
Male voices in the hallway gave me a bit of hope. Finally appearing, Damien smiled a greeting as he entered. “Good morning, Rachel.” He continued in the direction of his office. “I’m expecting a call at noon from the architect.”
“Good morning, Mr. Granger.”
My irritated tone and formal address stopped him in his tracks. “Is it going to be one of those days, Ms. Abercrombie?”
“You can count on it. My coffee’s not done because Victor is set on making it again today. He left a note on my desk.” I read it aloud: “I’ll be up early to make the coffee. I have a special blend I want to try.”
We glanced at the wall clock. Eleven a.m.
Damien shrugged. “As long as it isn’t that island blend. The office smelled from coconut for weeks.”
“It’s eleven.”
“I know, but he works late every night.”
I slumped. “It’s this movie project he’s working on. An entire film score. He doesn’t like to disturb Sloane, so he comes to the club if he thinks he’ll be working through the night.”
My boss treated me to a wry smile. “She has him wrapped around her apron ties.”
Pot-kettle. Damien could talk about Victor giving in to Sloane but Damien adored his Cassie. Both men treated their wives like goddesses, which was as it should be.
“Could you speak to Victor about starting the coffee earlier? Maybe actually setting the timer?” Ever since he’d learned to use the office coffee pot, he’d been experimenting. Sometimes to our horror. I could still smell the spicy taco blend.
“Can’t you…” Damien stretched out his hands in a pleading gesture.
“He’s your partner.”
“We inherited our positions from our fathers.”
“C’mon.” I laughed. “Would that have made a difference?”