All He Desires – Nate & Eliza (Crossroads Book 12)

by Melanie Shawn

  In fact, when Neil originally asked her out the summer between ninth and tenth grade, she’d said yes because she thought it was Nate. It hadn’t been until he pulled out his jersey that she realized that she’d just agreed to date Neil Holmes, the star quarterback of the football team.

  That was something that she’d never admitted to anyone.

  At first, when she realized her blunder, she planned to just go to the movies anyway to save herself from the embarrassment of having to explain the mix-up. But, Neil hadn’t made it easy to do that. He’d made her laugh and since he looked exactly like his twin brother, he wasn’t too hard on the eyes. One date turned into two, two turned into three, a month turned into a year and a year turned into three. Over the time that she and Neil were together she’d thought that her crush on his twin brother was gone. That is, until that fateful night at Whisper Lake on her eighteenth birthday when a Freudian slip changed everything and the reality of her true feelings came crashing down on her like a piano in a cartoon.

  “Dr. Youn…sorry, Eliza.” Jarmen smiled widely as she knocked on the open door before entering. “Your nine a.m. just called and said that she couldn’t make it, her daughter is sick with a cold. But, we filled the slot with an emergency call we just got with a loose crown. She should be here in about fifteen minutes”

  Since she’d agreed to take over the office she’d been in contact with the staff from Oklahoma. This transition was only going as smoothly as it was because Dr. Lewis had such a strong team working for him. They were making the metaphoric passing of the baton as seamless as possible. Eliza was stepping into a well-oiled, well-run machine. Her life may have fallen apart, but she was all about silver linings and if you looked up silver linings in the dictionary, a picture of her new staff would be there.

  “Great.” Eliza looked up at the pretty brunette who had worked for Dr. Lewis for the past five years but then she realized what she’d said. “I mean, not great that the crown is loose, but glad we were able to fit her in.”

  A knowing grin spread on Jarmen’s face as she crossed the room and handed Eliza a manila folder. “Here’s Mrs. Holmes file, in case you want to look it over—”

  Eliza’s stomach dropped like a lead balloon and a sense of dread swept through her.

  “Mrs. Holmes?” she repeated over the large lump that had just formed in her throat as she silently prayed that she’d misheard the patient’s name.

  Neil’s mother Mrs. Leonora Holmes had always intimidated Eliza. She was very protective of her boys, especially Neil. Leonora had never made it a secret that she didn’t think Eliza was good enough for her son.

  The Holmes family had moved to Harper’s Crossing right before the twins started high school. They lived in the only upscale neighborhood in town. It was a small community of mini-mansions nestled between the golf course and a large manmade lake.

  Eliza had grown up in a normal middle-class family and lived in a 1200 square foot house, a house that she loved. She’d never forgotten the look on Leonora Holmes’ face when she’d dropped Eliza off after Neil had invited her to dinner to meet his family. Her expression had been equal parts horror and disgust that her son was mixing with the lower class.

  Eliza knew that she would inevitably run into the woman, since Harper’s Crossing was such a small town, but she hadn’t considered the idea that she’d have to treat her. Or that Leonora Holmes would be her first patient.

  Jarmen’s face lit up as she nodded, her chestnut hair falling over her shoulder as she did. Her smile was filled with warmth and her tone affectionate. “Yep, she’s quite a character. Dr. Lewis always referred to her as an ornery handful. But don’t worry, her bark is much worse than her bite.”

  Eliza didn’t have to refer to the chart in her hands to know that the Mrs. Holmes that she’d be treating was not Leonora. She may not have seen her in almost a decade, but she seriously doubted that woman would ever bring a smile to anyone’s face. And Leonora’s bite was worse than her bark.

  When she glanced down at the file she saw that she would be treating Ada Holmes, Neil’s grandmother.

  Oh, thank God.

  Ada Holmes or Nana Holmes, as those close to her called her, was indeed a spitfire just as Jarmen had described but she was also one of the kindest, most generous and most entertaining people that Eliza had ever known. She’d always gravitated to the matriarch of the Holmes family at any gathering, formal affair or social event that she’d been obligated to attend as Neil’s girlfriend. The truth was, she’d missed Ada terribly over the years and was excited that she’d get a chance to see her again.

  And in fifteen minutes that was going to happen. There was only one thing that was keeping the reunion from being completely stress-free. Ada Holmes could see through people like they were made of freshly Windexed glass windows. Neil used to tease her and say that she was a human lie detector. He’d boasted that there was only one person in the world that he couldn’t con, his grandmother, which looking back should’ve been a red flag, but she’d been young.

  The last thing she wanted was for the woman that she respected to know that her life was a mess. She also had to practice not having any reaction whatsoever when the inevitable subject of her grandsons came up…especially Nate. She had fifteen minutes to get her best Lady Gaga on and work on her p-p-p-poker face.

  Chapter 2

  Nate Holmes was in work mode. Which meant he was so consumed with the case that he didn’t hear the knock at his door, or hear it opening, or hear anyone enter or, from the irritated sound in Darla’s voice, hear the first few attempts she’d made to get his attention.

  “Nate!”

  When he finally snapped out of his trance he looked up and saw that the office manager was standing beside him. Darla was in her eighties, with a thin frame that looked as frail as fine china and a voice as rough as sandpaper. He would’ve thought that her vocal chords had been damaged from years of smoking, but as far as he knew she’d never picked up a cigarette in her life.

  Darla had served in the Army at a time when roles in the military were limited for women and she’d been assigned to administrative detail. She’d mentioned that all the other girls had smoked, but she’d always been frugal and had only allowed herself one “indulgence.” Instead of spending her hard earned paychecks on nicotine she’d opted to spend them on “hose.” Which, Nate discovered meant nylons. Apparently, they’d been very big in the forties.

  “Your grandmother is trying to get ahold of you,” she rasped. “She said it’s an emergency.” With that declaration she turned on her orthopedic shoe heels and headed back to the front of the office, which she ran tighter and with more authority than any drill sergeant he’d ever served with.

  He picked up his cell phone and saw that he’d missed two calls from his nana and had a string of text messages that all read variations of the same thing: Emergency! Time sensitive! 911! Call now! Pick up your phone!

  If it was anyone other than Ada Holmes declaring a state of emergency, he would not be as calm as he was currently. But since the last time she’d classified a situation as “a matter of life and death” and the cause had been the pizza delivery man not giving her peppers before he drove away—he now took her Bat-Signals with a grain of salt.

  Over the past few years he’d tried to warn her that she was going to be the “grandma that cried wolf” and that one day there would actually be an emergency and her family wouldn’t take her seriously. But in typical Nana Holmes fashion, she’d shut him down with the precision of a heart surgeon wielding a scalpel. She’d simply responded with the argument that at her age, ignoring anything she deemed an emergency could mean the difference between life and death. He’d never mentioned it again and always responded as if her house was on fire.

  He pressed the call icon and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “You need to come pick me up. I’m late.” Nana wasn’t big on small talk or niceties. Some people found her abrasive, but he found it refreshing. “Y
our brother was supposed to give me a ride to the dentist, but he’s a no show.”

  The fact that his twin brother hadn’t shown up was not a big surprise, but the fact that Nana had depended on him for a ride was. It was no secret in the Holmes family that Neil wasn’t dependable. In fact, for years Nana had joked that Neil was as useful as a cat in a dog show. Their dad had referred to him as being as dependable as a flat tire on more than one occasion. Their mom had always babied and defended him and claimed that everyone was too hard on him. Nate had always kept his opinion of his twin to himself. He kept most things to himself.

  “I’ll be right there, Nana.”

  He disconnected the call and shut down his computer. His screen went blank but his mind was still working out the issues that he was trying to solve as he left his office and made his way out the back to his truck. Whenever he got engrossed in a project, especially one as high stakes as what he was currently working on, he’d lose time. It was like he was submerged into an alternate world and when he reemerged, time would have lapsed. Hours. Days. Weeks. Even months.

  But at least when he was working on a cyber job he was still available for things like dentist appointments. The other aspect of his job took him away physically for days, weeks, even months. A large part of why he was an asset to Elite Security was that his Ranger training qualified him for bodyguard work and his computer and tech abilities qualified him for cyber security work.

  The few people in his life that were close to him had always complained that he let his work consume him. They weren’t wrong. He did.

  Being gone for long stretches of time was just part of the job. And getting engulfed in his work wasn’t a conscious choice, or going into “work mode” as his family referred to it, it was just how he was programmed. Which was probably why there were only a few people in his life that he was close to, and also why the relationship, or more accurately arrangement, that he was in currently worked so well. The woman he’d been seeing off and on for the past two years was even more of a workaholic than he was.

  Bailey Rossum was a pediatric surgeon who had no fantasies of romance and happily ever after. They were two adults that were attracted to each other, were physically compatible and were each other’s plus one when they were available. He’d attended several hospital charity functions, weddings and holidays with her and she’d accompanied him to multiple fundraisers and formal family functions.

  Bailey was smart, funny and gorgeous. It was no hardship to spend time with her in or out of the bedroom. But he never missed her. They’d go months without seeing or contacting each other and she wouldn’t even cross his mind, and he doubted that he crossed hers.

  She was the only woman he’d ever been with that had not just accepted his ways but mirrored them and had never taken his lack of interest personally. No other woman had understood that particular trait and he didn’t blame them. They wanted his attention, and although he never ignored them intentionally, it still didn’t change the fact that when his brain was engaged in problem-solving mode, there was no room for it to hold any other data. Like remembering dates, calling or texting.

  Of course, Nana Holmes had an opinion about that phenomenon, just like she had an opinion about everything. She maintained that “the right girl” would break through those barriers. The right girl would take the lead in his priorities. The right girl would inspire him to make time. The right girl would captivate his interest even more than breaking codes or finding the right algorithm or finding pattern disturbances.

  A vivid image of long brown hair, emerald green eyes and a smile that could bring even the strongest man to his knees immediately flashed in his mind’s eye.

  There was one girl that had done all of those things.

  He’d met her on the first day of school freshman year in Mr. Hawkins’ human physiology class. They’d been assigned as lab partners and that was the one and only class in his entire scholastic career that he’d ever gotten less than a ninety percent in. The second she’d walked into the class, wearing jeans and a sleeveless baby blue turtleneck, his brain had short-circuited.

  When she’d stepped up to the table and introduced herself as his lab partner he hadn’t been able to say anything. The wind was knocked right out of him and time had stood still. In that instant, he’d lost the ability to think, to speak and even to breathe.

  The class had started and he hadn’t heard a thing the teacher said. His entire world shrunk to her presence. It was as if her body was radio waves and he was tuned to her channel. It’d taken almost a month before he’d been able to hold a normal, well normalish conversation with her. But even then he had to put all of his energy and brainpower into doing so. Which meant he didn’t have anything left to put towards the actual class work.

  He’d worked for months and months trying to build up the courage to tell her how he felt. Unfortunately, that had never happened. In a sick twist of fate, his brother had beaten him to it. And he got a front row seat to her relationship with his twin brother.

  It’d changed the trajectory of his life.

  Once the girl he’d loved from afar had started showing up at his house for dinners and he’d had to watch his brother kiss, hug and touch her, instead of finishing high school in the normal four year time frame he’d planned on, he’d fast-tracked his education and graduated after sophomore year. He’d left to go to college two years early just to get away from her. Well, her and Neil.

  He’d accepted a full scholarship to MIT and once he started college in Massachusetts he’d stayed away. At first he’d thought that he’d successfully put his past behind him. He’d thrown himself into his studies and the fact that he was so young surprisingly worked for him with the opposite sex. The girls in college thought he was some kind of prodigy and had been more than eager to educate him in things that you couldn’t learn in a classroom.

  For two years he didn’t speak to or see the girl that he’d fallen in love with who happened to be dating his twin brother. But then one morning he’d woken up with a foreboding feeling of twin telepathy—or a “disturbance in the twin force”—as Neil put it. He’d picked up the phone and called his brother. Neil had assured him nothing was wrong, he was just a little stressed because he had decided that he was going to be breaking up with his girlfriend the following night. Which, also happened to be both her eighteenth birthday and grad night when all of the seniors were up at Whisper Lake. Neil’s reasoning was that she wouldn’t take it as hard since it was her birthday and grad night. He’d said that she would be distracted by graduation and becoming an adult.

  Nate hadn’t pointed out the complete and total idiocy of his brother’s plan. Instead, acting on pure impulse he’d got in his car and driven eighteen hours to Whisper Lake. He hadn’t had a plan, which was extremely out of character for him. Maybe it was because he’d just finished a week of finals and barely slept so he wasn’t thinking straight, but all he’d known was he needed to be there. To see her.

  Usually he had a good idea of what the probable outcomes would be. But he never could’ve predicted or prepared himself for what had transpired that fateful night. The night that he’d never forget. The night he’d never told a single soul about. The night he would never forgive himself for.

  His phone buzzed with an incoming text and he wasn’t surprised to see that it was from his nana asking where he was. She’d never been a particularly patient woman and with each year that passed it seemed that what little patience she did possess was shrinking faster than her ever-declining height. She insisted that she was still five-one, but she was barely four-ten on a good day.

  Another text came in. The Washington team that he was heading remotely on his current assignment had met their milestone a week early, which meant there was light at the end of the tunnel. He might even wrap this up within the next few days. All he wanted to do was be back in front of his computer. He did his best not to let this interruption frustrate him.

  Thankfully, his grandmother didn’t
live far and the dental office was only two doors down from the security company that he worked for. In fact he might even be able to go back to work while she was at her appointment.

  Although, that wasn’t taking into consideration the fact that she was afraid of needles and if whatever procedure she was getting done included them, it was more than likely that she’d want him by her side. Or Dr. Lewis would. Nana tended to be in rare form at the dentist.

  As Nate drove along the lakeside and up to Nana’s house he saw that she was already waiting outside for him. She was standing on her porch, her hair pulled up in a bun and her winter coat on over a dress.

  It was a pleasant sixty-four degrees out, not jacket weather for most, but Nana always dressed formally when she was out in public. She’d been born into old money and was stuck in her ways. Back when it was trendy for girls to wear sweats with words spelled out across their butts, she’d practically had a coronary. It was so beyond the scope of decency in her firm moral compass that she’d even started walking up to those women and explaining the importance of decorum and presenting one’s best to the world. It was a miracle that the young ladies she’d lectured had all given her respect and/or humored her.

  His truck bounced slightly as he pulled into the driveway as close as he could to the walkway. She wasted no time and was climbing into the passenger seat before he’d even unwrapped his fingers from the gearshift after placing it in park.

  “Nana, I was going to get the door for you.” He leaned across the console and kissed her on her soft, wrinkled cheek.