by Beth Andrews
“Good God.” Daphne gasped as she slid into the passenger-side seat. “How do people live with this cold? And they actually do things outside in the winter? Skiing and sledding and skating? Makes no sense to me.”
He turned on the car and blasted the heater, but all that came out was cold air so he turned it to low, prayed it would warm soon. He rubbed his hands together before placing them on the freezing steering wheel and slowly pulled out into the street.
Two blocks down the road, he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if I was...short with you. At the party.”
“Yeah, I figured. It’s okay. It’s actually sort of nice.”
Following the directions on the GPS, he turned left. “So you like someone snapping at you?”
“Not particularly. What I meant was, it’s nice knowing you’re not perfect after all.”
His fingers tightened on the wheel. “I never said I was perfect.”
“You wouldn’t, but let’s face it, you’re pretty darn close to it. I mean, look at you.” Turning in her seat, she waved a hand at him. “Good-looking. Smart. Successful. Funny. You don’t take yourself too seriously, you’re easygoing and everyone likes you. You never get mad. Tonight was the first time since my high school graduation that I’ve seen you get even mildly irritated.” He sensed more than saw her shrug. “Like I said, it’s nice knowing you can get pissed or annoyed or just have a bad day or be in a bad mood. Makes you seem more...real.”
He wasn’t sure why her assessment of him bugged him, but it did. Was that how she saw him? As a bland, nice guy, always smiling like some idiot who didn’t know any better? “Not everyone likes me,” he insisted, not knowing how to refute her other points when he knew most of them were true. He was easygoing, but what was the point of being otherwise? Too many things were out of your control, namely other people. Why bother getting upset when they didn’t live up to your expectations? “Zach doesn’t.”
“True,” she said, as they pulled into the private parking lot of the Bradford House. “But that’s only because he’s a dumb-ass who blames you and your mom for the lot that was his life. Plus, he knows you care too much about it, about him liking you. That you want to be close to him, to have the same type of relationship with him as you have with your other brothers. When you give people that much power over you, when you try too hard, it gives them all the control.”
He stared at her, stunned. He hadn’t done that. Had he? Yes, he wanted to have a relationship with Zach, but she made him sound like some damn puppy, overeager and desperate for approval.
Hell. This night just kept getting worse and worse.
* * *
IF PEOPLE DIDN’T want her opinion, Daphne thought as she climbed the B and B’s stairs, with Oakes behind her like a brooding specter, why did they ask?
Okay, so maybe he hadn’t specifically asked for her thoughts on his relationship—or lack thereof—with Zach, but he had brought it up. Had brought up their brother specifically. She wondered if he’d done it to make a point. To remind them both of the ties between them, the ones he probably saw as an obstacle. As too twisted and knotted to ever be unraveled.
At the top of the stairway she turned left, headed down the hallway toward her room. The building was quiet, a few lights burning in the hall. Funny how, only a few hours ago, she’d been so hopeful about this evening, so excited to be spending any amount of time with Oakes. But at the party, that hope had drained, that excitement had faded, and now all she wanted was to slip inside her room, wiggle out of this dress and go to bed.
She slowed her steps, glanced at his profile. He was unsmiling, his hair flopping over his brow. He made her heart stutter and he kept as much distance from her as possible.
It was almost enough to make a girl want to give up.
Yeah, he’d been courteous and nice—up until when he’d been ready to leave. But he’d still treated her with the polite distance of someone looking after a friend.
Or a kid sister.
She pulled her key out of her clutch. Him taking her back to Bradford House was him being the nice guy he was, not wanting her to have to find another ride. Or not trusting her to be able to do so.
She shouldn’t have gone to the party. Plan B had been a bust and she hadn’t been able to come up with a Plan C.
Sometimes a girl just had to know when to cut her losses.
Even at the dive bar, where she should have felt right at home, she hadn’t belonged, had been surrounded by people so far out of her social stratosphere she’d felt like a rock surrounded by stars.
And now those inner self-doubts, the ones she fought so hard to keep hidden, to pretend didn’t exist, were roaring, trying to escape from the cage she’d locked them away in long ago.
She gave an inner eye roll. God. Dramatic, much? She really needed sleep. It’d been a long day, filled with ups and downs and failed schemes, and the best thing she could do now was get some rest. Regroup in the morning.
Everything would look much better, much clearer and way more hopeful, in the light of a new day.
Facing Oakes, she smiled but kept her voice soft in deference to the other B-and-B guests. “Thanks for the ride.” She wasn’t deluded enough to think he’d do something as spontaneous, as wonderful, as kissing her good-night, so she unlocked her door. Opened it and stepped inside. “Good night.”
“Do you blame me?” he asked quietly.
“Excuse me?”
He stepped forward, close enough that she couldn’t shut the door without slamming it in his face. “Do you blame me? For the lot that is your life?”
Crap. Why had she said that about Zach? She’d always had a problem saying too much, giving away too many of her thoughts, her feelings. For the most part, she’d learned how to watch her words, how to hold some things back, lest they make a return trip and bite her in the ass.
Prime example right here. Right now.
She forced a light laugh. “Don’t take it personally. Zach just needs an excuse to keep his emotional distance from you. From your entire family.”
Oakes edged ever closer and she found herself backing up a half step. “I didn’t ask about Zach. I’m asking about you. Do you blame me, Daphne? If I hadn’t been around, if I hadn’t been born, maybe my mother wouldn’t have stayed married to my father. Maybe he would have married your mother.”
“No. Oakes, I didn’t say Zach’s feelings were logical. Obviously, they aren’t. If you hadn’t been born, then my mother wouldn’t have been hired to be your nanny and would never have met your father, let alone had an affair with him and gotten pregnant.”
He shook his head. “Maybe blame isn’t the right word. Do you resent me for having the life you didn’t get a chance to have? I know Zach hates our father and that’s his right. He took advantage of your mother when she was barely an adult, got her pregnant. Or maybe it’s my mother you should place the blame on for staying with my father after she found out about the affair. For forgiving him and giving him a second chance. For believing he deserved a second chance. Keeping him tied to her instead of freeing him to be with your mother.”
“Please. Do you really think my mom and your dad would have lasted longer than six months? They had nothing in common. And I don’t think she loved him. Not really. She was infatuated. Taken in by an older, handsome, charming, powerful man.”
“Exactly. He took advantage of her youth. Her innocence.”
“And she learned a valuable lesson.” Because he seemed so upset, so angry on her mother’s behalf, she touched his arm. “Oakes, she wasn’t blameless in what happened. She knows it. She took responsibility for her choices long ago.”
“If my father hadn’t seduced her,” Oakes continued as if he hadn’t even heard her, “if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant, she never would have felt as if she needed to marry your father.”
> Daphne went cold all over. Oh, no way was she going there. She was not about to let him delve into her history, wasn’t about to share her past with him, the truth of it all.
She believed in truth and honesty and all of that—for the people she counseled at her internship. Not necessarily herself.
“If she hadn’t married him,” Daphne told him, forcing a grin she didn’t feel, knowing it probably wasn’t fooling him one bit, “I wouldn’t have been born. And then the world would have missed out in the glory that is me, so really, it was a win-win all around for everyone. Now, look at the time,” she said, checking an invisible watch on her wrist. “So late. No wonder I’m beat. Must be jet lag.”
“It’s only one hour difference from Houston to here, which means it’s not even eleven o’clock in Houston.”
How had he gotten so close to her? He now stood fully in her room, but that hadn’t stopped her from holding on to the door handle even though the door was now wide open. “Yes, well, I’m not much of a night owl. Early to bed and early to rise and all that. So, once more, good night. Thanks for the ride back here,” she added, in case he refused to leave until she’d used the top level of proper etiquette and politeness. But he just stood there and she needed to fill in the silence so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “The party was fun.”
“No, it wasn’t. At least, not for you.”
“I didn’t say I had fun. I said the party was fun.”
It had seemed to be a success. Plenty of people had laughed and drank and ate.
“I knew you looked uncomfortable,” Oakes said almost triumphantly. So glad she could help him get some sort of personal win for the old ego. “You didn’t enjoy yourself at all. Why?”
She sighed. First the questions about her resenting him, blaming him for her childhood, her family, now he wanted to know why she hadn’t had a great time at a party she’d essentially crashed?
“I did enjoy it,” she insisted, though the lie seemed to fall flat. “It’s tough, not knowing anyone—”
“Bullshit.”
She could only stare at him. And her silence, unfortunately, gave him the opportunity to keep right on talking.
“You’re one of the friendliest people I know,” he continued, then shocked her again by simply tugging on the door until she released the handle and closing it firmly behind him. Leaving them, neat as you please, alone in her room. “You never have problems meeting new people or making friends.”
What was with him tonight? First his being short and grumpy with her at the party and now this stubborn need to dig into her psyche, delve into her inner thoughts.
She’d thought she’d known everything about him, but now he was showing her there was much more to him than just a good guy who could always be counted on to have your back. Not that these new traits were all that fabulous. Actually they should, reasonably, have her rethinking her feelings for him. Instead, they did the opposite.
Like she’d said, it was nice, discovering he wasn’t quite as perfect as she’d always assumed.
He didn’t have to be perfect to be perfect for her. Besides, knowing and seeing his faults—at least a few of them, and who knew what she’d find once she dug deeper beneath the surface—made him seem even more approachable. As if they were on a level playing field instead of him being on a pedestal.
One she’d lugged into the room and pushed him onto, she admitted.
Since it looked as if he wasn’t going anywhere until he got some answers, she decided to give him a bit of the truth. Not about her family, not about her father or how bad it had been for her growing up. That was all history and she wasn’t going to dig it up for anyone. Not even him.
But she could give him something, could try to explain what had happened to her tonight.
“I am extremely friendly,” she agreed, crossing to the dresser and taking off her jewelry, sliding her bracelet off, then removing her earrings. “A big part of it is just my natural personality. I like people and enjoy getting to know them.”
“You didn’t seem to enjoy getting to know anyone at the party,” he said, leaning against the door, his arms crossed.
“I introduced myself to a few people,” she said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed and slide her heels off. She stretched her legs, pointed her toes then flexed her foot, did a few ankle circles. “It’s just... I hadn’t realized how I’d feel...being surrounded by so many obviously wealthy people.”
He frowned. “What?”
This was why she hadn’t wanted to tell him. It sounded so stupid, so immature, when spoken aloud. Giving him even more ammunition against them being together, as she acted like some insecure teenager.
“I regressed, okay?” she said, a snap to her tone that she hadn’t meant to be there. She inhaled and held it for the count of five. Felt better once she exhaled. “It was like going back to high school, all the pretty, pretty rich kids with their designer clothes and expensive cars and huge homes. And then there was me, getting dropped off by my mother in her secondhand truck. You know, I used to ask her to drop me off at the corner,” she admitted, ashamed at herself for being embarrassed, for caring what other people had thought. “So no one would see us. She must have thought I was embarrassed of her. I’ll have to remember to tell her I wasn’t. I just... I didn’t want to be different.”
“I can’t imagine you not wanting to be different. You were born to stand out.”
Nothing he could have said would have pleased her more. “Thank you.” She had to clear the emotion from her throat. “You’re right. I do like being different. Did. But I always wanted those differences to be my own, to be my personality and my style and the way I thought. Not my social or familial situation.”
She shook her head, feeling foolish for letting her memories, her past, come back and cloud what should have been a very nice evening. An evening where she could have met new and interesting people.
“Zach paid for me to go to that high school,” Daphne continued, talking about the private school she’d attended. “He and mom wanted the best for me. But mom drew the line at him supporting us fully. So I was a fish out of water. And you know, it wasn’t even the other kids that bothered me. Most of them were decent. There were even some with similar backgrounds to me, those who’d earned scholarships or whose parents had somehow managed to afford tuition. And I didn’t really experience teasing or harassment or anything. It was just me. Knowing I was so different from them. I was always friendly, but I never made any real friends there. I knew it would be too one-sided. But most days I felt as if I was playing make-believe, pretending to be upbeat and happy. Pretending it didn’t bother me, that I wasn’t envious of their wealth, the seeming ease at which they lived each day. And I just... I couldn’t force myself to do that tonight.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly.
She snorted. “Tell you that I was having a flashback to adolescence and was freaking out that I was afraid no one would like me, or that they’d figure out I got this dress off the rack during Nordstrom’s seventy-percent-off sale?” She shook her head. “No. This is my problem—one I am working on and will continue to work on. I promise, at the wedding, I will be my usual charming, effervescent self, bringing joy and spreading sunshine to everyone I meet.”
To convince him of her sincerity, because it was obvious the man was concerned about her, she closed the distance between them with a smile. She needed to show him that she really was all right, albeit a bit embarrassed to have acted so insecure this evening.
She held up two fingers. “I really am okay,” she promised him solemnly. “Scout’s honor.”
“I think Scouts hold up three fingers,” he said. “Isn’t the one you’re doing the Vulcan salute from Star Trek?”
“No. That’s like this...” She held up all four fingers and separated the
ring and middle fingers. “Well, I guess two fingers can be the Lynch family salute. One meant to represent honor and honesty and all good things, like peace on earth, equal pay for equal work and justice for all. Amen,” she added because it seemed to need a strong ending.
“I don’t want you to feel insecure at the wedding,” he said, obviously not believing she was as okay as she’d claimed. “If you’re uncomfortable at all, at any time, just let me know.”
“That’s sweet and I’ll take you up on it but honestly, Oakes, I’m good. And I’ll be just fine at the wedding. If I can avoid all those death glares being sent my way by Kane’s mother, that is.” She shivered dramatically. “That woman is scary.”
Gwen Bartasavich wasn’t exactly a sweet, kind, cuddly sort of mother—Daphne doubted she would have been one even if her husband hadn’t cheated on her and left her for another woman.
For Oakes’s mother.
“Gwen’s not that bad,” Oakes said. The man was nothing if not kind and patient. Even with the woman who’d rather gut him with one of her spiked heels than look at him. “She’s had a difficult life.”
“Well, she hasn’t helped herself by making bad choices, choosing to hold on to her feelings for a man who doesn’t deserve them and blaming everyone else for her problems.” Realizing what she’d just said, she grimaced. “Nothing personal against your father or anything.”
Oakes grinned. “Believe me, I’m aware of my father’s flaws. Hard not to be when faced with so many so often.”
She returned his smile, but the lightened mood dimmed a bit when his gaze dropped to her mouth for a heartbeat. Then two. Her pulse skittered. She wanted to rise onto her toes, press her mouth to his. Wanted him to see how things could be between them. But she wouldn’t make the first move. Wouldn’t let him claim she’d pushed him into something.
He slowly uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the door, bringing his body within inches of hers. All she had to do was take that one step to bring them together.