“Jules, you’re the stoker. I’m the captain.”
“So?”
“So, when you’re the person in back, you can go only where the person in front steers you.”
“Maybe I should try being in the front,” she suggested. “That way, I can steer.”
“For the eighteenth time, until you can learn how to hold yourself upright, I’m not letting you near the front seat.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have control issues, Kane Chatterson?”
That was an understatement if ever there was one.
As they pedaled clumsily around the driveway, Kane’s thoughts kept turning to the idea of Julia...dating. And how distasteful the idea was. He’d be damned if he’d let his family set Just Julia up with his brainiac younger brother Kaleb. Or, for that matter, Luke’s macho navy SEAL friend, Renault. The guy sounded like a total loser, if you asked Kane, and not at all the type of man Julia should be interested in. What kind of name was Renault anyway?
He’d almost volunteered to go as her date himself, but knew better than to set himself up for rejection with his family there to make fun of him. Plus, her suggestion that he bring his own plus-one was all the evidence he needed that she’d rather give someone the Heimlich maneuver again than go to a social function with him. So now he was stuck trying to teach her how to ride this stupid tandem bike, completely unsure of whether he wanted her to succeed or fail.
All he knew was that if she didn’t start maintaining some sense of balance, he was going to fall and break his other shoulder and wind up doubly screwed—with all of his family witnessing the potential crash.
“Hmph,” he said as he overcorrected to the right. “Now that you’ve met my family, you can see that I came by my control issues naturally.”
“That’s definitely a fair assessment.” He heard her chuckle from behind him. “Hey, did it bother you when your dad was asking you all those questions about your future?”
Julia was more likely to pedal while she talked, and the only way to remain upright was to keep her pedaling in sync with him. Which meant he had to keep her distracted with conversation.
“Not really,” he admitted. “I know they all worry about me, but I guess I’ve given them plenty of reason to in the past.”
“Why would they worry? Because they don’t think you’re meeting your true potential?”
“That and the fact that I went through a lot these past two years.”
“Any chance you want to tell me about it?” she asked.
They’d successfully made it around the driveway twice, and Kane wanted to venture onto the asphalt road now that their audience was slowly trickling into the warmth of the house, taking Julia’s discarded coat inside with them.
“Not while I’m trying to keep us from falling on our faces.”
“I think I know what your problem is,” Julia said, and he felt the pace of the pedals pick up tempo, along with his heart rate.
“Trust me, I’m dealing with more than just one hang-up.”
“You’re afraid to fail.” He heard the smugness in her voice and didn’t want her thinking she was right. Or worse—him to start believing it.
“And you’re not?” he asked.
“I’m not afraid of it, no. I simply refuse to.”
“Have you ever failed at anything?”
He felt the bike jerk ever so slightly and wondered if his question had surprised Dr. Smarty-Pants. He knew from past experience, both on the mound and from participating in Drew’s group therapy, that now was the time to push for an answer. “C’mon, Jules. You can tell me.”
“I think it’s no secret that I don’t do so well at personal relationships.” He could barely hear her admission as a minivan whizzed by them along the neighborhood street.
“Yeah, I don’t know how you define personal relationships, but you handled yourself just fine back there with my spectacle of a family, including my old man.”
“That’s different. That’s simply blending in and keeping a low profile. Besides, your dad was grateful that I saved his patrol boat from being blasted out of the water on that last round of Battleship.”
Kane wasn’t one for pep talks, receiving them or giving them. But he had a feeling there was more to this failure story of hers, and the only way he was going to hear it was if he assured her that he was on her team. “Plus,” he continued, “you’ve managed to make it through the ranks as a naval officer. I doubt you could do that if you had some serious personality flaws.”
“Actually, all I have to do is be a good doctor and follow orders. So the Navy has been pretty easy for me.”
“Then help me figure this out. What kind of relationships are you talking about?”
“You know,” she said, and he could almost hear her blush. “The one-on-one kind.”
“Like with friends?”
“Well, that and...” Her voice trailed off.
Kane pulled off the road. They’d gone at least a mile by now and were almost at Snowflake Boulevard. Although Julia was finally able to maintain a steadier pace and they’d had only one near miss when they’d had to swerve around a raccoon darting past them, he definitely didn’t want to tempt fate by steering them into a higher traffic area. Plus, he wanted to look at her. He planted his feet on the ground and pivoted his torso around.
“That and what? Dating?”
“Yes, dating.” Her head slumped forward, and her whole body probably would have followed suit if she hadn’t had to stand on tiptoe to balance on the still bike.
He wasn’t sure if the rosiness on her cheeks was from exertion or from embarrassment at him blurting out something she wasn’t an expert at. Remembering the vision of her in her spandex workout pants that day at the hospital, he doubted the bike ride had been too strenuous for her. Which meant Just Julia wasn’t comfortable with him seeing a perceived weakness. And he couldn’t blame her. Not that he knew her all that well, but he was on a first-name basis with inadequacy and recognized the feeling when he saw it.
“Have you dated much?” he asked.
“I dated a man in med school.”
Just one? That long ago? “So what happened?”
“He was my professor. I was a little out of my element and he knew it. I’d never been in a relationship before, and he convinced me that what we had was special.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“Apparently not. After a couple of months, I found out that he not only was married but also had a history of sleeping with his students, and I was just one more in the books for him. I felt like such a fool when I finally figured it out. I vowed never to be in a relationship again without knowing every single detail about the man I was with.”
“So you’re just bad at picking the right guys.” He reached out and lifted her chin from where it had sunk. What he really wanted to do was pay an office visit to this professor and bust a textbook over his scholarly, philandering head. “That doesn’t mean you’re a fool.”
“Really? Because the way I was raised, lack of knowledge is the same thing as foolishness. I let my emotions rule my head and wound up completely in the dark about the type of man he was.”
“Trust me. You won’t be a fool again. I already told you I’d help.”
“Actually, I think I’m doing pretty well on this bike, which means you don’t get to pick my date after all.”
“What about your Aunt Freckles? Is she still pulling out all the stops to get your dating life up and running?”
“Don’t even get me started on that. Last Wednesday, I met one of my online matches at the hospital cafeteria during my lunch break, and—”
“Hold up. You had some guy you don’t even know meet you where you work?” Kane was stunned. He knew she was inexperienced, but this was just careless. He didn’t
remember jumping off the bike, but he was pacing back and forth along the shoulder of the road before he realized she was clearly not as bothered by the situation as he was.
“Did I break some secret dating rule?” She crossed her arms over her chest, and he tried not to stare at the way the gesture forced her thighs to balance the bike between them.
“Of course you did. The rule is Stranger Danger 101.” His legs grew tense and his stomach dropped at the potential risk she’d put herself in. “Why didn’t you just give him directions to your house and provide him with duct tape and the blueprints to your basement so he could hide your body?”
She tightened her blond ponytail. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?”
“Better this reaction than the one I’d have if I found you buried underneath your back porch inside a fifty-five-gallon drum.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch so many serial killer documentaries.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t set yourself up to become a victim.” Okay, even he knew his outburst was over the top. But sometimes his imagination got the best of him, and more than sometimes he spoke without thinking. Plus, seeing her straddling the red lateral tube was doing something funny to his blood flow. And his jeans.
“Kane, I was in a public place. With plenty of people around. And Aunt Freckles taught me how to do background checks after that coffee fiasco with the open relationships man. The guy from Wednesday was harmless. In fact, he was a seventh-grade science teacher.”
“Then what was wrong with him?” Kane asked, stopping himself from firing off more inappropriate questions. Was he ugly? Had he lied about his height? Did he chew with his mouth open? Did he completely lose his cool and overreact at the thought of her going out with another man?
“How do you know something was wrong with him?”
Kane tilted his head forward and raised an eyebrow.
Julia let out a breath. “Okay, so he was a little too full of himself. But in his defense, I didn’t quite meet his expectations.”
Now that was hard to believe. If you asked Kane, Julia probably exceeded most guys’ expectations. She was definitely out of Kane’s league, for sure. Of course, given his track record, it seemed like only gold diggers and wannabe starlets were the types of women in his lineup. Good thing he’d retired from relationships when he’d retired from professional baseball.
“How could you possibly not be what he was looking for?” He pulled off his wool sweater and handed it to her when he saw her shiver. Then he thought of a better way to warm her up and mentally kicked himself. “Actually, let’s get this thing turned around and you can tell me on the ride back. It’s getting pretty cold.”
He climbed back on, and as they pedaled more fluidly, Julia kept him entertained with the story of her lunch date who had talked nonstop throughout their meal and had regaled her with tales about the importance of science and how he thought it was very commendable that she was studying to get her nursing degree and how he’d almost gone into premed but he thought he could do more good molding young minds.
“Wait. Why did he think you were getting a nursing degree?”
“Apparently, when I’d used the dating app to change my profile questionnaire, I checked some wrong buttons. My smartphone is really frustrating. It’s always deleting texts and mismarking my entries and doing that autocorrect thing. I’ll never figure the damn thing out.”
He doubted it was an issue with her phone so much as her fingers. “So, did you correct him and tell him you were a neurosurgeon?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And he laughed and didn’t believe me at first. Then he spouted off some statistics for med school and how hard it was to get accepted to a good program. He went on to inform me that he’d been rejected by several of them, so he was pretty sure they didn’t just let any pretty face in. I was wearing my surgical scrubs, so I had to pull out my hospital ID badge to prove it.”
Good. Served the pompous knucklehead right. The only thing that didn’t make Kane want to throw a fastball at the guy’s stomach was his agreement with the assessment of Julia’s pretty face. “How’d he take it when you put him in his place?”
“Let’s just say some men are intimidated by my education and my job. At least, that’s what I have to assume, since he hasn’t contacted me since then. Well, not including the email he sent me right after lunch saying I should have been more honest and he didn’t think we had enough in common.”
“Sounds like it was his loss.” Kane sure hoped Julia didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. Other than apparently giving Freckles her passcode so her aunt could download that ridiculous app, knowing full well Julia’s limited abilities with electronics. Of course, he’d had to fix her phone several times and now knew her passcode, as well.
“Maybe. The good news is that I only have one more date to go before Aunt Freckles will let me call it a day with this whole experiment of hers.”
“Is that what it is? An experiment?”
He couldn’t see Julia, but imagined her shrugging. “Experiment, charade, demonstration of why I’m better off being alone. I prefer to refer to it as anything that doesn’t imply my failure.”
“Oh, we’re back to that word again?”
“We are. Which means it’s your turn now to tell me about your shortcomings.”
He turned in to the driveway, and he was half hoping the twins were outside to beg for a ride or a wrestling match or even a tutorial session on advanced mathematics—anything to distract Julia from finding out what a disaster he’d made of his life.
“Too bad I can’t go into more detail about that right this second,” he said. “Now that I’ve lost this bet, I’ve got a pie-eating contest on the line as my last shot at redemption.” He parked the bike and held it steady while she climbed off.
“I hope that someday you will tell me,” she said, not making any move to walk away from him. “Or if not me, maybe a professional therapist.”
“I don’t need a shrink to tell me what’s wrong with me. I already know. I’ve made my choices, and I’m moving on and trying to be happy with my new job. My new life.”
He began walking toward the house and was shocked when her delicate hand grabbed under his biceps to pull him back. Her lips pursed in seriousness. “Kane, I meant what I said in there at dinner. I really think you are incredibly talented. What you’ve done to my house is just amazing. I hope you can put to rest all those ghosts that are haunting you and take some pride in your work.”
It was more than ghosts haunting him. Growing up, he knew that, in his family, he wasn’t the smartest—like his brother Kaleb—or the best-behaved—like his brother Kev—or even the toughest—like his sister Kylie. He definitely wasn’t the friendliest—like his brother Bobby Junior. Sports were the only thing Kane’d been good at—the area where he excelled. The feeling of his long-standing inadequacy in all other aspects of his life had been relieved only on the pitching mound. When he’d lost that, he’d lost himself.
Julia’s bad luck with relationships was nothing compared to Kane’s career setback. How could he explain that as much as he wanted to be successful like the rest of his siblings, he didn’t have the brain power or the patience to do so? He could never make someone like Dr. Smarty-Pants, who learned to remove brain tumors with robotic arms because challenges were fun for her, understand what it was like for someone who’d barely graduated high school.
He couldn’t.
But he could still appreciate her going to bat for him and trying to make him feel like he wasn’t some old has-been. “You know, I meant to thank you for what you said at dinner. Nobody’s ever defended me like that before. I appreciate it.”
“I don’t think anyone else appreciated it. They were all so quiet after I spoke up. I hope I didn’t offend them.”
&
nbsp; He laughed. “They were quiet because they’ve never heard anyone defend me like that, either. At least, not anyone who isn’t related to me.”
“Well, it does make me feel better to know that your family is willing to stick up for you.”
Just then the front door opened, and Aiden launched himself off the porch. “You won the bet, right, Dr. Julia?”
“I sure did. My bike-riding instructor was a little bossy, but after a while, I got the hang of it,” she said, winking at Kane over the nine-year-old’s head.
“Our new bike was fun, right, Uncle Kane?” Caden jumped down three steps in a single leap.
“Once she finally learned to relax and trust me, it was fun,” Kane replied, winking back.
It was true. Riding the bike with her had been exciting, to say the least. He thought about his sister Kylie’s accusation in the café the other day. His family was right. Kane hadn’t been fun for a long time.
But today he was actually enjoying himself. At least, he had been, before he saw the headlights of Renault’s Jeep pulling into the driveway.
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t wanna go door-bustin’ with me?” Aunt Freckles asked when she dropped Julia off in front of her house later that night.
“Positive. I’d rather go against Bobby Chatterson and Aiden Gregson in a pie-eating challenge than fight off a line of people in a crowded department store.”
Freckles chuckled. “Kane was certainly giving them a run for their money. That is, until he decided to shove his pumpkin pie into Lieutenant Renault’s face.”
“Oh, Freckles, I doubt he decided to do anything of the sort. Kane said it was an accident, and he looked pretty upset with himself afterward.”
“It wasn’t himself he was upset with, Sug.” Her aunt checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Kane was getting pretty territorial from the moment that Renault fellow walked in the door.”
“I think he just feels a bit protective around his nieces. He was hovering over me when I was holding little Gracie, too. When he squished his way onto the sofa and sat down right between me and Lieutenant Renault, I had to remind him that I’ve taken classes on pediatrics and knew how to hold a baby.”
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