by Serena Bell
And those times, after, when they’d managed to make for themselves a very small but genuinely happy family. Those days as teenagers when they’d had breakfast for dinner and then gotten in Alia’s big bed and talked too late, because Alia was taking a break from being the perfect mom to be just a kid, too.
Those were good times. Maybe not family road trips to the Grand Canyon, Mom and Dad spatting over driving directions, Dad buying too many T-shirts and insisting on too many stops at visitors’ centers, mom gently mocking behind his back and overspending on ebooks—but good times, nevertheless.
“I don’t want you to go,” Alia said.
“You wouldn’t consider coming back to Seattle?”
She had been considering that very thing. Because in light of all the thinking she’d done this week about how and why she’d made a lot of her decisions—well, she’d realized a few things. That Becca was her family and it would be a good thing to be a lot closer, geographically, to her. That a big part of why she’d wanted to stay at R&R was the feeling that Jake and the veterans appreciated her—which was really another way of saying they needed her. But she didn’t want being needed to make so many of her decisions anymore. It was time for her to do what she wanted, and maybe what she wanted was to start her own pain-management practice and see a whole variety of patients, from all walks of life—all genders, all ages, all kinds of situations. That sounded like a great challenge and an awful lot of fun.
So much fun, in fact, that it made her extra wretched that she couldn’t tell Nate about it. Because he would love the idea.
“It’s something I’ve thought about,” she said carefully.
“Really?”
She’d made Becca’s day, she could tell.
“Don’t get your hopes up. I have a lot of figuring out to do first.”
“And you have to see what Nate says in his reply.”
Alia frowned. “Don’t. It makes it worse.”
“You can’t give up on him so soon.”
“I haven’t given up. I’m just…I’m being realistic.”
She helped Becca carry her suitcase down to the car, gave her a huge hug, and promised to visit soon.
“Very soon. Like not months, but weeks.”
“Promise.”
Then Becca was gone, and that was worse. Like she’d taken all her optimism with her, and now Alia had to face the truth.
There was no reply from Nate. There wasn’t going to be any reply.
Her phone buzzed and she practically jumped out of her skin. Yanked her phone from her pocket—
Jake: Can you come to the office?
It was hard to breathe, the disappointment was so crushing.
—
“There’s a package for you.”
Jake indicated a good-size brown cardboard box on the credenza in his office. He raised an eyebrow.
She crossed the room to peer at it. It was addressed to her in block handwriting, no return address. “Do you think it’s from the Unibomber?”
Jake grinned. “Seems doubtful. Although it came overnight, so someone obviously wanted you to get it quickly. You don’t have any enemies, do you?”
She shook her head.
“You going to open it?”
“I feel like I should use tongs. Gloves. I don’t know.”
He laughed. “You want me to open it?”
“No, I’m good. Wait, actually—do you have a knife?”
He pulled his penknife from his pocket and slit the packing tape that held the box shut. “I’ve actually got a patient now, so take it back to your office. I want to know what’s in there, though.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t lift the flaps and peer inside the box. Something in her wanted to prolong the moment. The hope—the hope that it had something to do with her letter. The hope that it had something to do with Nate.
She carried it into her office. The package was surprisingly heavy. She tried to guess, but couldn’t. She folded back the box flaps. The box was crammed with balled-up newspaper, underneath which she discovered a number of items individually wrapped in blue tissue paper over bubble wrap.
That was how she’d wrapped the items in Nate’s care package.
She tried to suppress the giddy joy rising in her chest, without success. It kept trying to surface and break, and she was grinning now, trying not to do that, either, because really, Nate didn’t have a monopoly on blue tissue and bubble wrap, and the care package could be from anyone. Her mom (though her mom wasn’t the care-package type). Becca (though Becca had been the one to claim that care packages weren’t worth the trouble). An old patient wanting to thank her for a job well done.
But she had to admit no patient had ever sent her a care package.
She wanted so badly for it to be from Nate.
The items were numbered, numbers written on half-size index cards in black Magic Marker, taped to the tissue paper. On the back of the first half-card, it said—she had to work to make out the words in the scrawl—This isn’t the real beginning, but it was a new beginning.
She peeled back the paper and bubble wrap to find a pair of water shoes and a photo, printed on plain paper, of a woman kayaking. On the back of the photo, he’d written, I couldn’t fit an actual kayak in the box.
She laughed. Out loud. She could actually hear his voice when she read the words. She could feel him in the room. And her heart was so full it almost hurt, because a care package meant he’d gotten her letter and he hadn’t crumpled it up and thrown it away. A care package meant he—
Well, it might not mean what she thought, right? It might just mean he’d wanted to be in touch…
She wasn’t going to allow herself to hope for more. He hadn’t come himself. He’d only sent objects. When she’d poured herself into that letter—
But there were those words, a new beginning. Surely he wouldn’t have said that if—
And a care package. No way that was a coincidence, which meant it was meant to echo the one she’d sent him—
In the next tissue-and-bubble-wrap package, there was some kind of device, with a hook and a nubby ball—some kind of…sex toy? Well, that would indicate that he wasn’t just being chummy, wouldn’t it?
It’s a tapper. An actual tapper, so you can reach back and tap behind your shoulder blades. Seriously, you can buy anything on Amazon. And I confess, I bought one for myself, too.
Okay, so not a sex toy. But kind of cool. No, really cool. She tried to picture how he’d found it. Had he typed “tapper” into Google? Or stumbled on it accidentally? It didn’t matter, she guessed—either way, he had bought it and wrapped it up, thinking of her all the while.
The next item was a swimsuit. A sporty blue one-piece. One she definitely would have picked out for herself. The note inside said, I wanted to get you a string bikini so next time we go swimming together it’s way easier to get you naked. But I know this is more your style.
Happiness fizzed in her chest. Next time. Get you naked. Not a casual, friendly sort of care package, not at all. A care package.
Now her heart was pounding, trying to escape the cage of her ribs, and she was breathing fast, like she’d run a race. Blood rushed in her veins, light and hot as smoke.
Suzy’s homemade cookies. You’re lucky I didn’t eat them all before they made it in the box. I wanted to send Cow Chip cookies, but a) there are none in Oregon, and b) I didn’t want to copy you.
A baseball scorecard. No, not just a baseball scorecard, but the baseball scorecard, the one she’d helped him fill out that day at the Mariners game. And packets of mustard, ketchup, and relish. Because, and I quote, “That’s how you eat a hot dog at a ballpark.” I think I knew that day. I don’t think it’s 20/20 hindsight. I honestly think I fell in love with you while leaning over Becca. Probably not something I should admit. Possibly not very romantic. Don’t tell her. But you know me well enough by now to know I’m more honest than romantic.
He was, and she loved that ab
out him.
And a hideous scarf.
Huh?
Her happy internal soundtrack ground to a halt with one of those record-scratching noises.
There was no note with the scarf.
She shook it out in case there were answers in there somewhere.
She examined the pattern, in case it had some significance, but she couldn’t detect any. In fact, there was nothing good you could say about the textile design, except maybe that it seemed to have incorporated every possible type of floral and paisley in every possible shade and hue, and therefore got points for thoroughness.
“What, you don’t like it?”
Nate stood in the doorway, tall, muscular, burnished, smiling. Looking every bit as beautiful and capable as he had that very first time she’d seen him. Intimidating, powerful, infinitely desirable—and for a moment her mind pulled away into that old place—I want him too much—
And then she hurtled across the room and into his arms, and he was kissing her and kissing her.
Chapter 28
She broke the kiss off when he slid his hands under her shirt. “I think it was probably implicit in my promise to Jake that there would be no happy endings in my office.”
He laughed. And then his face got very serious. “How would you feel more generally about a happy ending?”
She was very slowly, very cautiously, allowing herself to believe in what was happening. The care package, his being here—
But she didn’t want to misinterpret him now. Didn’t want to read too much into the kidding around. Like thinking that by “happy ending” he meant happily ever after.
“Li. I love you. I can’t help it. Because you’re you and I can’t get enough of you. And I missed you so much, and after I read your letter, I realized I’ve been hiding, too.”
“Hiding?” That was the word that popped out of her mouth, which was crazy, because of all the amazing things he’d said, she should have responded to one of the other ones, but all she seemed to be able to do was ask this asinine question.
“You know. Like you said in your letter, that you were hiding behind Becca and then just plain hiding. I was, too. Hiding out. Wrapping myself up in J.J.’s life. Because it felt wrong to be happy. It felt wrong to let myself have you. When—when he—”
“Shh.”
“I don’t cry,” he lied. “Ever.”
“I know.”
“I’m not crying.”
“I know.”
He held her so hard it hurt her ribs, but she didn’t care. At all.
“What are we going to do?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to take you away from this job. If it’s what you want. But I do love you. And I would like to spend a lot more time with you. Like maybe all the time. Like maybe sleep in the same bed with you and wake up in the morning next to you and tell you everything that goes through my mind. Everything that happens.”
She was flummoxed by happiness. Struck dumb. She opened her mouth, tried to gather her thoughts, closed her mouth again. Tried one more time: “But you have to take care of Jim and Suzy and Braden.”
“No. I don’t. That’s what I mean about…about hiding. I wanted to think they needed me because then I would have somewhere to be and something to do and I wouldn’t have to think about what it meant that I was going to have a life and J.J. wasn’t. If I had his life—if I took care of the things he was supposed to be taking care of—then that would somehow be okay. But it’s not. It’s not, and I realized, Jim is Braden’s dad. He doesn’t need another dad. A kindly uncle, maybe, but not a dad. And—they’re missing J.J., of course they are, they miss him like fury, but they’re also complete, if that makes any sense at all.”
It made perfect sense. “They love you. But they don’t need you.”
“Exactly.”
Because that, she thought, is what it means to love unselfishly.
“Well,” she mused. “I was thinking about moving to Seattle and starting my own pain-management practice. It would be a lot of work, and some risk—but I think it’s what I want to do.”
“Give up this job?”
“It all ties together. Did Becca ever tell you what it was like for her and me?”
He shook his head.
She told him. A father who had vanished behind a closed door and then from the face of the earth. A mother who had hidden herself behind another closed door—still physically there, but nearly as much a ghost as her husband had been.
Two little girls, one equipped for the world, the other barely getting by.
“There was no payoff for me in needing anyone to love me. There was no payoff for me in needing anything. All of me was wrapped up in being needed.”
He was an even better listener than Becca was. He listened with his whole body, and when she cried and he wrapped her up, that was the best of all. She stayed there for a long time, letting him hold her.
“I could get used to this,” she said, and he said, “Please do.”
When she’d gotten herself all sorted again, she explained, “Wanting this job so desperately was me being seduced by being needed again. But I realized sometimes it’s the people who don’t know they need who need the most. Like my old patients in Seattle. The rehab center I worked for. They didn’t think they needed what I could do, but that just means I had that much more to offer them.”
He grinned at that. “Twisted logic. I like it.” And then, cocking his head, giving her a wicked smile, he said, “Seattle, huh?”
“Baseball,” she said. “Cow Chip cookies. Winter rain.”
“Fall rain. Spring rain. Summer rain.”
She laughed. “Admit it, you love it.”
“I do. I’m one of those weird Pacific Northwest people who love the rain.”
His lips found hers.
“What about happy endings?” he asked, when they surfaced for air. “Are there happy endings in Seattle?”
“Oh. Lots of those. Multiple times a day, if you want.”
“I want,” he said.
She had forgotten a lot of important details in a week and a half. How hot his mouth felt on hers. How expertly he used his tongue. How he often seemed to have more than two hands. That sound, caught halfway between grunt and groan, that he made when she found him under the denim of his jeans.
The dark, covetous look in his eyes. And she had to admit it to herself, she would never not want him to need her like that. Never. She could be a little bit selfish about that.
She looked at her watch. “I have a client in three minutes. But I will meet you in my room in sixty-three and a half minutes.”
How his fingers felt pushing her hair behind her ear, how his expression could change in an instant from ravenous to tender—and back again.
“Deal.”
—
It was different from every other time with her. He guessed each time would feel this way, something new, a set of revelations.
This was slow and sweet. No playing, no talking, because there were no games and nothing to say. Just two people who felt comfortable enough in each other’s arms to come out from hiding.
There were kisses, blending into more kisses, and he’d missed this so much, kissing her, holding her, her body yielding against his, but strong, too, resistance in all the right places. The kisses softening so there were no distinctions, only mouths and tongues and then just heat and wet and pressure and he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so much like he wasn’t a body with parts but a single glowing self. Although—he wasn’t going to get all sappy about it—he was a guy and that never-ending goddamn demand that drove him was still alive and well, and after a while of just kissing and touching her tenderly, he’d had about enough of that.
She had, apparently, too, because she’d managed to get one of his thighs between hers and was rubbing herself against it, and the little noises she was making into his mouth got deeper and huskier and more demanding, and he wasn’t sure she had
any idea what she was doing with her hands anymore. One of them was pulling his hair and the other was sliding into the waistband of his pants—
She resisted when he tried to put enough distance between them that he could peel her out of her clothes and get himself out of his own, almost tearing his T-shirt in the process. Between each item of clothing, she tugged him back into those deep, sweet kisses, whimpering each time he pulled away from her. He lifted her, set her on the bed, tried not to break the kiss as he flailed at the nightstand for a condom—
This time, she was the one to pull away. Breathless, eyes sleepy, face flushed, lips swollen. The curves of her body laid out before him like the best feast ever. God, she was gorgeous.
“I have an IUD. You don’t have to do that. Assuming you’re—”
“Clean.” He’d already torn the packet open, and he looked at the thing with the loathing he always hid in a dutiful, gentlemanly way, and then threw it gleefully across the room and grinned at her. “I’ve never done it without a condom.”
“Me neither.”
He was worried about his staying power, because right now it felt like he’d go off the second he got inside her, or maybe before if he didn’t hurry the hell up.
But as it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. Because once he was inside her all he wanted to do was stay there as long as he possibly could. To be in her, on her, over her, raised up on his arms so he could stare into her eyes, watch them go all cartoon-spirally when he thumbed her nipples and slid a hand down to find her swollen clit, all the while marveling at how hot and tight and sweet she was, how he could go all night like this, the perfect rhythm, long strokes, filling her completely and watching her eyes close in bliss—
Well, he could have gone all night, except then she clutched him and lifted her hips suddenly and made an oh! sound of surprise, her body clenching around his, her head thrown back, her mouth open, and she was so unrestrained, so unhidden from him, the way she thrashed under him, her face screwed up with it, that he gave up and poured himself into her.