Worth The Effort (The Worth Series Book 4: A Copper Country Romance)

by Mara Jacobs

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “All the more reason to do it.”

  Deni nodded, knowing Alison was right, yet getting the creeps just thinking about it. She tried to see herself finding a neat little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that was new to her and enjoying a meal there. Maybe she’d even invite Claire or Charlie. But the vision of her bed and its warm covers supplanted her happy vision.

  “You can do this, Denise,” Alison said. Deni nodded again, though she didn’t feel quite as confident. “I was surprised at dinner the other night when you introduced yourself as Deni. Is that the name you prefer?”

  “Yes,” Deni said, with a bit of sheepishness. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you that. I think I thought therapy was supposed to be, I don’t know, more formal or something.”

  “Therapy works best when you’re comfortable.”

  “Then, after a while, it seemed weird to tell you I go by Deni, you know?”

  Alison was nodding. “Of course. No worries, we’ll go with Deni moving forward.” She made to rise from her chair, and Deni followed suit.

  As Deni was putting on her coat and boots, Alison said, “I’m not sure how often I’ll be with Petey when he might be working with you all on this project. My guess is not very often, but are you okay with situations like the other night?”

  Deni thought about it, wanting to be totally honest with Alison. “I am. I was kind of nervous about what Sawyer would think knowing I was in therapy, but I didn’t want to pretend I knew you from somewhere else or start lying, you know?”

  “I don’t think Sawyer would have any issue with you being in therapy. He may have the hermit reputation, but he’s hardly a caveman. He had the skills and savvy to build up that company before he…took some time off.”

  “Time off?” Deni thought there was a big difference between taking time off and living a life that made people think you were the Brockway Mountain Hermit.

  “After his wife died.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air between them. “I…didn’t know. I guess I assumed hermits didn’t marry.”

  “I’m only telling you what anyone in town would tell you—he was always kind of a loner, but he didn’t really check out until after Molly died.”

  “Molly.” The name conjured up the vision of a vivacious blond with a ponytail and teasing laughter. Someone vibrant and full of life. “How’d she die?”

  “Car accident,” Alison said, but there was just a tiny hesitation in her voice that made Deni want to ask more. But then, she didn’t want it to seem like she was interested in the life of Sawyer Beck—even if he had kissed her.

  “That’s really sad,” she said as she did the final buttons on her coat.

  “It was. It is,” Alison said. Deni moved to the door, and as she turned to say goodbye, Alison reached out and put a hand on her arm.

  “You know, I think the light box may be having a good effect,” she said to Deni.

  “You do? Why?”

  “You may not have realized it, but not once today did you mention your mother.”

  Deni left Alison’s offices feeling more confused than ever. But she thought that might be a good thing.

  Chapter Eight

  Architecture is the art of how to waste space.

  ~ Philip Johnson

  “Doing okay?” Sawyer asked Deni as he drove them both back to Houghton from Green Bay. She’d been quite talkative during their meeting with the owners of a now-defunct indoor driving range. She’d asked good questions—even a couple that Sawyer hadn’t thought to ask.

  It’d been a good meeting, other than feeling even more so that this thing might be a pipe dream.

  He’d set up this Saturday meeting yesterday morning. He couldn’t even explain to himself why he’d then emailed Deni and asked her to join him. She’d responded that she was available and had been interested in this particular range because of the fire that had put it out of business a year ago. After seeing her laptop Wednesday at the meeting, he wasn’t surprised that she’d already found this place and done the homework on it. He’d responded that he’d drive and would pick her up at the office at 8 a.m. to get to Green Bay by noon. The owners were only giving them two hours to ask questions and take a look around the site.

  Other than an initial assessment of their meeting when they’d first left Green Bay, she hadn’t said a peep since he’d begun the drive home.

  “Deni? You okay?” he asked again.

  Her head nodded, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Hey,” he said, taking a good look at her now. “Seriously. Are you okay?”

  “Could you please keep your eyes on the road?” she answered.

  But it wasn’t a bitchy tone in her voice. It was…fear.

  Sawyer assessed the road conditions and the blowing snow. It wasn’t great out, but he’d driven in much worse. Besides, he’d taken his F-150 today instead of the Bronco. New tires, four-wheel drive, big-ass truck. They were fine.

  “The roads aren’t that bad,” he said calmly, trying not to sound like a stereotypical boastful male driver. Just his luck that right then a particularly strong gust created a white-out, not allowing them to see more than ten feet in front of them.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hands clenched in her lap. Totally white-knuckling it.

  “Hey, Deni, it’s okay. Really. I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t drive in weather I thought was truly dangerous.”

  Another short nod, but her hands clenched harder, if that was even possible.

  “Would you like me to stop for a while? Pull over?”

  She looked over at him with a look of relief. “Would you? Just for a little bit? Maybe until the wind calms down and visibility gets better?”

  Sawyer didn’t mention that the visibility wasn’t likely to get much better as the day went on. It was late afternoon now and would only be getting darker. But he was becoming concerned. About her, not the roads. He’d driven in crappy weather like this, and a lot worse, his whole life.

  “Sure,” he said, getting his bearings. “We’re coming into Iron Mountain. We can go to a coffee shop or something and wait till it gets a little better.”

  Only when he saw the tension in her shoulders ease did he realize just how nervous she really was.

  “You went to Tech, right?” She nodded. “And you’ve been with the firm since then?” Another nod, her hands still clenched. “Are you just really nervous because someone else is driving, or are you like this on iffy roads all the time?” Before she could answer, he added, “And if so, how are you able to function up here?” As soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back. Maybe she had issues about fear or anxiety that were heightened by winter driving. Maybe that was why she was seeing Alison.

  The day after their dinner, he’d briefly wondered about that—the reason Deni was in therapy. But then his mind went back to the time he himself had seen Alison on a professional basis, and his mind had shut down, not wanting to relive that awful time in his life. Instead, he’d strapped on some snowshoes and taken a walk along the Lake Superior shore, letting the vast white frozen landscape cleanse his mind.

  But it hadn’t. Even though he’d stopped pondering Deni in therapy, he couldn’t stop thinking about her pink nails. Or the little dimple that appeared in her left cheek when she’d laughed at Petey’s jokes. Or if her body was as lean and strong as it appeared to be under her baggy clothing.

  And he kept coming back to that kiss.

  It wasn’t even as if it’d been the first kiss since Molly had died.

  A woman he’d known at Tech had reached out to him when Molly died to express her sympathy. She’d known them both, though Molly more than Sawyer. At the time, she’d been married. But about a year later she’d divorced and again had gotten in touch with Sawyer. He’d made the drive to Superior every other month or so for a couple of years, neither wanting more than the comfort of the other’s body.

  She’d started dating someone
a couple of years ago, and Sawyer had to admit he was relieved when she’d put a halt to their get-togethers. And was genuinely happy for her when she told him she was remarrying.

  There’d been a few hook-ups with other women since then. All out of town and none more than a couple of nights, if that.

  But not one kiss in any of those encounters had affected him like kissing Deni in front of the Commodore.

  He’d realized walking along the shore, Lucy sinking into the snow beside him, that what he’d felt kissing Deni had scared the hell out of him.

  And he liked that.

  She hadn’t answered him about how she coped in the Copper Country with the winter driving.

  Her hands were still clenched in her lap, and he thought that her breathing sounded heavier than it had a moment ago.

  He looked around for someplace to pull off the road. He wasn’t sure she’d make it the next couple of miles to Iron Mountain.

  There was a larger commuter lot just before the turnoff from Highway 141 to Highway 2, and Sawyer pulled in. The lot was nearly deserted, being a Saturday. The three cars that were parked had heavy burdens of snow on their hoods and roofs, clearly having been left for longer than just ridesharing to Green Bay for the day.

  The lot had been plowed recently, but there were already drifts being formed from the blowing snow. Sawyer stopped near the entrance of the lot and put the truck in park, but keeping it on for the heater.

  If they were here a while, he’d have to cut the heater or at least get out and make sure snow hadn’t blown a drift onto the tailpipe.

  Back in drivers’ ed, they’d told the story of couples parking in the Copper Country and backing into snow banks that covered the cars’ tailpipes enough that the young lovers died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Sawyer had never known if the story—legend? myth?—was a deterrent to kids making out or a safety lesson, but it’d stayed with him.

  Not enough to stop high school make-out sessions, but he always checked the tailpipe beforehand.

  But there’d be no lengthy make-out session here. Not as silent as Deni had been with him today. Besides, he just wanted to make sure she was all right, then he’d get them to Iron Mountain and some hot coffee and food.

  That always helped him.

  But where to start? “Deni?” he cautiously started. “Are you—”

  “My father was killed in a car accident,” she said. Her shoulders eased a little, making Sawyer realize how tense they’d been.

  “Oh. I—”

  “In a snowstorm,” she added. Her shoulders fell a little more. She rolled her neck, and he watched her chestnut hair sway across the back of her wool coat. Her hands unclenched and lay limply on her lap. She looked down at them like they were foreign objects. He watched her. And waited.

  “He was on a business trip north of Detroit. A trip he took at least a couple of times a month. No big deal, right? But this time… Apparently the visibility was really bad.” Her hands smoothed her coat against her thighs, the flash of her nails mesmerizing to him as he waited for her to continue. He knew exactly how hard this was for her to talk about.

  “I was eight, and we were really close. And…and…”

  “You still miss him,” he finished.

  She nodded, but didn’t look at him. Then she took a deep breath, her shoulders coming down to what he now realized was their normal posture.

  “I do miss him. And winter driving has freaked me out at times, when there’s really bad visibility.”

  He didn’t say that he’d seen much worse. She’d been in the Copper Country long enough to know this was maybe a five on a scale of one to ten.

  “And I know this isn’t that bad,” she added, and he smothered a smile by bringing his hand to his mouth. She finally turned to him, and he could see those big brown eyes. It wasn’t fear so much as resignation that shone through. “And most times it doesn’t even faze me. I’ve gotten used to it. I just seem to be having a hard time with it lately. The roads are bad, or it’s a heavy snow, or poor visibility, and I start thinking about my dad. And then I get on kind of an obsessive loop about it, and it grows into a much bigger fear than normal.” Her eyes broke away from his, but not before he saw a flash of something that resembled embarrassment.

  “Hey,” he softly said as he reached a hand out to lay over hers. The heater had been running steadily since they left Green Bay, and the cab was warm to the point of hot. But her hands felt like ice.

  This must have been what she was seeing Alison for. Residual feelings about her father’s death seemed to be causing her problems.

  Well, shit. He knew all about that.

  “Hey,” he said again. “It’s okay to still miss him. And to get freaked out about driving in crappy weather. It’s perfectly natural.”

  “But it’s more—”

  “My wife died in a car accident, too,” he said, shocking himself.

  It wasn’t that he kept Molly’s death a secret or anything. It was common knowledge in the Copper Country, but it wasn’t something that he just casually mentioned.

  Apparently he did with Deni.

  “I’m sorry. And here I’m going on about—”

  He pulled his hand from hers and pressed a finger against her mouth—against those magnificent lips. “That’s not what I meant or was going for. I only brought it up to say that it’s been ten years, and there are times when I go crazy thinking about it.” So true. “And then…” He paused, not sure he was ready to put into words the thoughts that he’d been having lately.

  “There are times when it seems so long ago, like it happened to another person and has no bearing on my life today.” Her head moved in the tiniest of nods, as if she didn’t want to dislodge his fingers from her mouth any more than he did. “And then I feel like a total shit for those feelings…for forgetting her.” He dropped his hand. Her mouth, her skin, felt so good, but to feel so good as he explained his feelings about his dead wife? It didn’t seem right.

  “You’re not a total shit. And it’s not about forgetting. It’s about moving on,” she said.

  They sat like that for a moment, not precisely looking at each other, but not looking elsewhere either.

  “Umm…” she said, just as he was about to suggest they drive on to Iron Mountain.

  “Yes?”

  “I need to talk about the other night.”

  “Yes?” He was hoping it’d be about something Petey said about the project. But he knew it wasn’t. He was about to get called on the carpet, and he deserved it.

  “I need to talk about that kiss.”

  Yep, just as he’d thought.

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Nine

  Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking.

  ~ Douglas Coupland

  Well, nuts.

  Deni watched as Sawyer dodged her stare. It was obvious that he regretted the kiss and didn’t even want to acknowledge it.

  And it was all she’d thought about for the entire day as she sat next to him first the warm, cozy truck, then at the meeting with the driving range owners, and now in this deserted parking lot.

  Oh, okay. It was all she’d thought about since Wednesday night. Talk about obsessive loops!

  She’d been able to put the replay aside for bursts of time to work, go to therapy, and basically lead a normal life, or as normal as her life had been since this funk had overcome her last October.

  But today, being so close to him—smelling his scent, feeling his physicality beside her. It’d been almost hypnotizing until she’d looked outside and seen nothing but white. It was like a switch had flipped inside her, and a bubble of anxiety rose up, almost suffocating her until he’d pulled into the lot in which they now sat.

  “The kiss,” she said again, as if to get herself back on track. The track she’d thought of the whole drive down and most of the way back.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry. I was totally out of line. You’re a professional, I’m a professiona
l…”

  Did he truly regret it? That would mess everything up. She looked at him, and his sentence died as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Self-consciously, she licked her lips. The flare of hunger she saw in his eyes gave her the courage to go on.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  “Not what? A professional? I think that meeting we just had proved you wrong.”

  “No. I’m not sorry about the kiss.”

  “No?” he asked, tilting his head, as if measuring her or waiting for the other shoe to drop. “You got pretty riled up at me.”

  “I did, you’re right,” she admitted.

  That. That was exactly why she needed to do this. “And, honestly, getting riled up at you was the most emotion I’ve felt in a long time. And I…” She looked away. It was all well and good to think she could be so aboveboard with a man, to lay it all on the table. But in reality, she’d never been the aggressor with the guys she’d dated.

  Not that this was a date. Or that she was asking Sawyer to be her boyfriend or anything. Her mind started to whiz out on tangents, fragmenting her focus. She willed herself to pull it together. This was what she needed right now. All she had to do was ask for it. She stared at him, unable to speak.

  “What are you saying, Deni?” he asked. There was confusion in his voice, but also…hope?

  “I’m saying, that…um…if you’d maybe want to kiss me again, that…”

  “Yes?” He was closer to her now, nearly in the middle of bench seat. His hand moved, and suddenly her seatbelt was unbuckled, sliding over her body to the door.

  “I wouldn’t mind—”

  He was on her.

  She wasn’t sure which delicious sensation she felt first—his hands nestling into her hair or his lips on hers. But the playing in her hair quickly floated out of her mind as her lips opened under his, and she felt the warm glide of his tongue. She tangled hers with his and heard his breath hitch. Her brain turned off, but not in the dull haze of late. It was a haze that fogged her up but no way was it dull.

  Lust. A haze of lust. It was the last coherent thought she had before turning everything over to her body and how Sawyer’s kiss was making it come alive.