by Olivia Dade
“Well, all you get is one. Me. Sorry about that, Sam.”
Penny’s voice came from the bottom of the Bookmobile steps. Constance had never closed the door, which confused her for a moment. How had the interior gotten so warm with an opening to the frigid winter morning only feet away?
But when she turned her head to look at Penny, the haze of confusion cleared in an instant. Small and slim and shivering in the cold, Con’s friend—one of her closest friends—had wrapped her arms around herself. Her short brown hair ruffled in the wind, the pixie cut only becoming more adorable as it grew disheveled.
Penny quickly bounded up the steps. “I didn’t expect to find you here, Sam. But I’m glad, since I need to talk with both of you. I wasn’t sure I’d have time to track you down before my meeting with Tina.”
Constance looked from one to the other, taking in the family resemblance as she’d done so many times before. Pale skin: check. Gorgeous brown eyes: check. Wide smiles: check.
But other than that, Penny and Sam didn’t look too similar. Maybe because of their different fathers. In fact, if Con hadn’t known better, she’d have bet that Sam was related to her redheaded BFF, Helen, rather than Penny.
At the thought, all the warmth in the Bookmobile seemed to dissipate. Constance edged around her two visitors to close the door and shut out the chill, then settled back in the driver’s seat.
Penny tugged on her brother’s beard. “I like this. Makes you appear wise beyond your years. Maybe even professorial, if you wore a corduroy blazer with elbow patches.”
It did make him look older, which Con most definitely did not appreciate. She needed more reminders of Sam’s status as Penny’s kid brother, not fewer.
“But with boots and a faded shirt, I believe Angie would use the term ‘lumbersexual’ when it comes to you,” Penny added.
He tilted his head. “Is that a good thing?”
“Well, it’s apparently a new and growing subsection of her erotica collection, so…” Penny shrugged. “I guess so. The most recent addition was an anthology. Lusty Lumberjacks: Handling Wood for Your Pleasure, if I remember correctly.”
So much for that brief chill. Constance squeezed her eyes shut, blindly shoving another pencil into her sliding bun to halt its descent.
Her belly clenched at Sam’s low chuckle. And even without seeing him, she knew exactly where he stood in relation to her. She could somehow feel him, which sounded dumb and impossible, but what the hell could she say? It was true.
“Are you okay?”
Con had a feeling Penny’s question was directed at her, so she reluctantly opened her eyes. Don’t look his way, she ordered himself. And don’t imagine him as a lusty lumberjack handling his wood. Just focus on Penny.
Her friend was frowning, and she reached out a slim hand to feel Con’s forehead. “Does your head hurt? Are you feverish?”
“I’m fine.” Con smiled at her, despite her aggravation at the entire situation. “Just thinking about my schedule today.”
Sam’s eyes pinned her to the driver’s seat, assessing her much too closely. “You were thinking about your schedule. That’s why you’re all flushed?”
His voice dripped with skepticism, and she glared at him.
“I’m already running late because of your brother,” Con said, turning back to Penny. “So I need to leave soon. What’s up?”
Her friend, usually so calm and measured, actually started bouncing up and down. “We got the site!”
“Huh?” Con and Sam spoke in unison.
“For the wedding!” Apparently spying their blank expressions, Penny elaborated further. “Have both of you forgotten that I’m getting married in less than a week?”
“Of course not,” Con said. “But I don’t understand. I thought you were getting hitched at the courthouse.”
Penny nodded. “Yes. Unless we somehow scored the only location that really appealed to us, even though it was fully booked for the next year.”
This time, Sam closed his eyes. “Oh, Jesus. I know where this is going. Penny, I’ve told you before that while I fully support cosplay, I don’t need a reminder of what you and your fiancé do in the privacy of your—”
“Thornfield Hall!” Penny shouted, in an explosion of joy Con had never witnessed from her before. “They had a last-minute cancellation, and we got Thornfield Hall!”
Con grinned at Sam, relishing his discomfort. “Ah, Thornfield Hall. The stone manse built by our Nice County founders after their travels in Europe. What possible objection could you have to such an illustrious structure, Wolcott?”
His lips pulled into a sullen line, and his cheeks turned pink. “You know what.”
“Who cares if your sister and her fiancé like to role-play in bed a little? Penny makes a fetching Jane Eyre, don’t you agree?”
His eyes seemed to close even tighter, and if Con wasn’t mistaken, he was humming to himself.
Penny shook her head at Con. “Stop tormenting him. And Sam, the mere mention of Thornfield Hall shouldn’t embarrass you. It’s not as if Jack and I are going to strip down and consummate our marriage in the middle of the mansion’s library.”
“You’re my sister,” he muttered. “It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to hear about Jane Eyre ever again. It’s creepy and gross.”
In that moment, he sounded just like one of Con’s kid brothers, and she couldn’t help smiling. Especially since thinking about him like a brother was infinitely safer than thinking about him like a lover.
“You’ll need to move past your distaste for the wedding venue.” Penny winked at Con. “Unless you’re so traumatized you’ve decided not to attend the ceremony?”
“No!” Sam’s eyes flew open, his expression turning stricken. “I want to be there. You’re my family, Pen.”
Penny’s faux innocence melted away, replaced by warmth and an odd tinge of something that looked like regret. Or guilt.
Con didn’t understand it. Regret? For such gentle teasing?
Penny tugged her brother into a hug, holding him tight. “I’m just kidding, Sam. I wouldn’t get married without you. Even if we had to refuse Thornfield Hall and go back to the courthouse.”
He ducked his head, resting it on her shoulder. “You can count on me to be there. Wherever you choose. Thornfield Hall, the courthouse, Siberia…anywhere. I wouldn’t miss your wedding for any reason.”
“I know.” Penny squeezed him one last time before letting him go. “Listen, I see Iman coming this way. Con needs to get going, and I have a few more wedding details I need to discuss with you. Let’s debark from Big Bertha and talk inside the library.”
“Remember to bring up my concerns in that meeting, Wolcott.” Relief poured through Con as she opened the door for them. Soon, Sam would be leaving the tight confines of the Bookmobile. And once he did, she could concentrate on something other than him and the attraction she couldn’t seem to shake. “You IT boys need to fix my problems once and for all.”
“How could I forget?” Sam aimed his normal grumpy look her way before descending the steps. “You send us complaints at least once a day.”
Con willed him to leave faster. “Because they never get resolved.”
With each centimeter separating her from Sam, her breath came more easily and her heart rate slowed. Even Penny’s assessing gaze, sweeping from her brother to her friend, didn’t bother Con.
“I put you two at the same table for the reception.” Penny huddled close to Sam, attempting to avoid the wintry wind. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Nope.” Con fastened her seat belt.
“We’ll behave,” Sam added.
“Hmm.” Penny stared at Con for another moment. “I suppose we’ll see.”
Then, with a final wave, she turned and dragged her brother back toward the shelter of the garage.
Iman climbed inside Bertha, closed the door behind her, and flopped onto the pa
ssenger seat. “I’m so sorry, Con,” she said, sounding breathless. “I got waylaid by a woman who needed directions to the local history collection. Please tell me I didn’t make us late for our first stop.”
“We’re fine.” Despite her distraction, Con made sure to smile at her employee. Poor Iman worried way too much. Con was trying to break her of the habit, but with only limited success.
“Are you sure?” Iman buckled her belt.
“I’m sure. We’ll get there on time, no problem.” Con flipped off the lights, pulled up the steps, and finally got the Bookmobile on the road.
She didn’t look back. But if she were a woman prone to fancy—which she wasn’t—she’d have sworn the smothering weight of Sam’s gaze rested on her until she turned the corner and the library receded out of view. The same airless sensation seemed to descend on her every time he looked her way, lasting until his attention turned elsewhere.
One of these days, she’d stop missing it when it disappeared.
2
“I don’t know what to do about our mother,” Penny said.
She’d chosen one of the very few topics that could effectively drag Sam’s thoughts away from temptation incarnate. The personification of all his hottest fantasies. The most annoying damn woman ever to stand bestride the earth in jeans and steel-toed boots, glaring at him like a cranky superheroine as she mangled various figures of speech, destroyed computer equipment, and took an ever-firmer grasp on his mind and his balls.
Constance Chen. Fucking Constance Chen.
Sadly, not fucking fucking. If they were doing that, she’d probably kill him through sheer hotness. And he’d die a happy man.
“Sam?” Penny tapped his arm. “Did you hear me?”
He shook his head. Apparently, not even the mention of his mother could distract him from thoughts of Constance anymore. The woman had become his kryptonite, decimating his ability to concentrate and his desire for any other female.
“What about her?” Sam said, forcing himself to pay attention to Penny. “Has Joan contacted you?”
Penny shook her head. “No.”
“Me, neither. I haven’t heard from her since her fourth wedding. And that’s been…what? Five years now?”
Their mother hadn’t even bothered to call when his father—her former husband, for Christ’s sake—had died from a sudden stroke last January. A card from Oregon had arrived in the mail the week after the funeral, containing only a few words in her neat print:
I’m sorry for your loss. Best wishes. Joan.
When he’d received that card and read it in the emptiness of his father’s house, he’d wept for his dad, a man who’d never fully healed from the sudden, wholesale desertion of the woman he’d loved and married. Sam had also wept—selfishly, he knew—for himself, a thirty-year-old man with absolutely no close family. And the next day, he’d put his condo and his father’s home up for sale and started looking for jobs near his sister, even though he’d only met Penny a handful of times in his entire life.
“Five years sounds about right. I hadn’t planned on inviting her to the wedding.” Penny pursed her lips. “It’s not as if she’s central to my life. I barely remember living with her. She left me and my father before I turned five.”
Sam’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “When she got pregnant with me.”
Before giving birth, Joan had divorced her first husband and married Sam’s father. But she’d only given her new family a half dozen years before moving on a second time.
When I have children of my own, he thought, they’ll never question whether or not I love them. They’ll know that I’d never, ever leave them.
As soon as he found the right woman, he planned to start a family. Immediately.
For some reason, a picture of Constance with a child on her hip flashed in his stupid brain before he could suppress it. The sudden ache in his chest almost made him flinch.
“From what my dad says, she wasn’t too interested in parenting even before she left. Lately, though…” Penny waited to finish her thought until a group of ladies from the circulation department entered a room at the far end of the hall. “Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if I should invite her to the wedding. Or at least tell her I’m getting married. I know it sounds stupid. I have no expectation that she’ll drop everything and rush to my side. But she’s my mom, Sam. I feel like I ought to give her the opportunity to come through for me at least once in my life.”
“Finding true love with Mr. Rochester has made you very forgiving.” Sam tugged a strand of his sister’s fine hair. “More forgiving than I am.”
“People make mistakes, Sam. They lie and do stupid things.” She gave a soft snort. “As Jack confirmed when we first met. But falling in love with him helped me unbend a bit, and I’m more willing to give people who’ve hurt me another chance. Including our mother.”
Sam ducked his head to look his sister directly in the eye. “You don’t owe her anything, Pen. Not a thing.”
“I agree.” She sighed. “But I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I should tell her about the wedding. Invite her to it.”
“Just let me know what you decide. I’ll support you no matter what you do.” He drew his sister into his arms, hugging her tight. “You know that, right?”
And he would. He’d been living in Nice County, minutes away from Penny, for less than a year. His relationship with her still felt friendly rather than familial most of the time. Yes, she spent time with him, but no more than she spent with her other close friends like Angie or Constance or Helen.
She’d never asked his advice before. Certainly not about their mother. This conversation constituted maybe the first truly personal exchange they’d ever had.
He wouldn’t risk his relationship with his only remaining family for anything. Not even for Constance, the woman who’d refused to leave his fevered thoughts and dreams for months now. And definitely not because of his desire to avoid Joan, their absentee mother.
“I know.” His sister laughed against his chest. “You’re the most loyal brother ever.”
“I love you, Pen.” He pressed a kiss on top of her head. “Even if you and your fiancé are kind of gross.”
She gave his arm a playful smack.
“Ouch!” he protested. “Jesus Christ, woman. I’m reporting you to the Mean Big Sisters Board for cruel and unusual behavior toward a sibling.”
Her slight frame began to shake as she laughed again. And in that moment, his heart felt fuller than it had in months.
***
“We have to win the Department of the Year prize money,” Kamal told the other three men sitting around the table. “For new equipment, but also because we need another person in the IT department. Someone who can spend all her time in the branches.”
Sam’s supervisor leaned forward, pinning his employees with a look that clearly discouraged protest. “And I do mean her. I plan to hire a woman the next time a position becomes available.”
“You won’t get an argument from me.” Jun sat back and laced his hands over his stomach. “This department is a sausage-fest.”
“Some of the ladies here might feel more comfortable asking for help from another woman,” Owen added in his usual quiet way.
Kamal turned to Sam. “Any objections?”
“I completely support that idea.” Sam tapped his pen against his notepad. “I don’t like having all men in IT, especially compared to the preponderance of women in other departments. I think we’re inadvertently sending the message that women are less qualified for IT work. None of us believes that, but the optics are damning.”
“So we’re agreed.” Kamal appeared pleased. “What’s the next item on the agenda?”
Sam sighed. “The Bookmobile. Again.”
As quickly as he could, he gave his report about the Bookmobile’s continued technical problems. “Ms. Chen seems to think I haven’t tried hard enough to fix everything.
She’s getting pissy.” He sat back in his chair and grimaced. “Pissier than usual, I mean.”
Three blank faces stared back at him.
Kamal responded first. “Con has never spoken less than politely to me. Sometimes she uses profanities, but they’re never directed at me or our department.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, dude,” Jun agreed, popping open a can of Mountain Dew. “She’s no-nonsense, but she’s always nice. Which is more than I can say for a few of the others. There are some cranky-ass women up in here.”
“And men,” Owen added. “I’m sorry, Sam, but I have to disagree with you. Constance has gone out of her way to be kind to me. When my mom died, she arranged for people to bring me food for weeks afterwards. And on the few occasions I’ve filled in for you and helped her, she never got impatient, no matter how long I took to fix something.”
Of course. He should have known. Constance was clearly using the same tactic as he was to defuse their sexual tension. Arguments rather than intercourse.
Generally, Sam considered himself an easygoing guy…around everyone but Con. And from what he was hearing, Con in turn saved up all her crankiness for him. Which was unfortunate, because now he looked like a douchebag in front of his coworkers.
He squirmed as their confused expressions turned accusatory.
“Have you done something to anger her?” Kamal asked. “If so, please make things right as soon as possible. You’re the point person when it comes to the branches and the Bookmobile, so you need to maintain good relations with the department heads. With everyone, actually.”
Kamal had earned his supervisory role not only because of his expertise with library software and user interfaces, but also because of his consummate professionalism and social polish. He dealt with technical issues the administration encountered, smoothed any feathers ruffled by other members of his department—mainly Jun—and advocated for increased funding for IT. All while clad in a slick-looking suit and tie.