Dating a Single Dad

by Kris Fletcher - Comeback Cove 01 - Dating a Single Dad

His palms ran along the smoothness of her thighs, cupped her cheeks and pulled her tighter, urged her forward until her breasts settled in his hands and his thumbs were sliding across her nipples and she was making that sound again, the one that had haunted him all through the long days since the time he pushed her up against the wall, the little half gasp that made him feel strong and hot and so damned complete each time he remembered it.

  She drew back. Kissed and nipped her way down his chest. Made short work of his jeans and the condom and then, ah, then she was sliding over him, taking him into herself, her skirt still flowing around them like some kind of weird curtain, but it didn’t matter because it was Brynn and she was all round him and she needed him and—

  Something trickled onto his chest. Soft. Powdery. He opened his eyes and tried to make sense of it but it didn’t make sense because he could swear it was—

  “Sawdust?”

  She tipped her hand so more of the fine powder dribbled over his skin and back to the floor. She rubbed it into him, mixing it with his sweat, pouring it over her own chest and bending to kiss him again.

  “Every time you’re working, every time you smell sawdust, you’re going to remember this. You’re going to remember us.” She rubbed her cheek against his jaw and kissed him right below his ear. “You’re going to remember me.”

  * * *

  HIS BREATH WAS still coming in ragged gasps and Brynn was collapsed on his chest when Hank gripped her shoulders and pushed her upright, trying to see into her eyes. The fact that she kept her face averted sent a new and most unwelcome kind of shudder running through him.

  “Hey. Not that I didn’t appreciate what just happened, but this wasn’t... You aren’t— What’s wrong?”

  She rounded her shoulders, shrinking away from him and reaching for her shirt. She pulled her top over her head without once meeting his eyes. Gone were the teasing, the laughter, the saucy smiles that he associated with Brynn afterglow. He was getting colder and more fidgety by the minute, and lying on the ground half-naked sure as hell wasn’t helping the situation.

  “Brynn.” He pushed to his knees, tugged his jeans into place. “What’s going on?”

  She started to stand but crumpled back to the floor. He reached for her but she shook her head and shrank away from hm.

  “Don’t. Please. If you do, I’ll never get through this.”

  “Get through—”

  “Taylor is breaking up with Ian.”

  “What?”

  She drew in a deep breath and twisted her hands together in front of her. “She was calling him as soon as I left. She’s leaving the dairy and flying to Charlottetown tonight.”

  “She— Wait. What? Why is she— Why are you— I mean, I know she’s your cousin, but why are you—”

  “Because I told her to do it.”

  Brynn told Taylor to leave. Cold dread crept through him even as he shook his head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. And why did you— Start over, okay? From the beginning. Because I’m not following this.”

  She stared out the window and spoke in a voice so flat that he would never have believed it was hers. “Back in January she came to me and told me she wasn’t in love with Ian anymore. I told her she was wrong, that she just missed him. I told her I could fix it. Because, see, I can fix everything, and I was sure that it was just a matter of reminding her of things, getting her head on straight....” Her voice thickened. She looked up, swallowed, tried a couple of times before speaking again. “I was so certain...I talked her into it. She convinced you guys to hire me so I could be close to her. The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to force her to fall back in love with him, because I thought, hey, all I had to do was find the right switch and everything would be better.” She slumped back against the wall, covered her face with her hands. “I was such an idiot. I had no idea...no idea at all what I was playing with. No idea what love really means.”

  He pushed to his feet, knees still weak and untrustworthy. “So the last four months have been a lie?”

  “For Taylor. Yes.” Her eyes filled. “But not for—”

  “Don’t.” If she tried to bring them into it, her and him and Millie, he would never get back to what mattered. To Ian.

  He grabbed his shirt, pressed it to his face for a second, let it fall to his side. “You told Taylor to leave. To run away.” It was like a neon sign in his brain, red and glowing and blocking out everything else. Run away. Walk away. Move on.

  No. Ian. He had to think about Ian.

  “Why now? If she’s known this for months, what changed?” His gut twisted. He knew what had changed, and it had nothing to do with Ian and Taylor. But that made no sense. He had to be wrong, there had to be something—

  “There’s more to this, isn’t there?” About Taylor. Taylor and Ian. Because Brynn couldn’t really be doing this over the two of them. Could she?

  She didn’t move.

  “God dammit, Brynn, what else? Did she steal from the dairy, or cheat on Ian, or—”

  “No! No, God, no, Hank. I swear to you, she hasn’t—hasn’t taken anything or done anything wrong. She doesn’t love Ian but she cares about him, she never... Her biggest mistake was in listening to me.”

  The way he had listened?

  “Then why the rush? Why now? Why not wait until he’s home?” He rose to his feet. “What are you hiding, Brynn?”

  She crossed her arms over her stomach and pressed, so hard that he could see the push of her biceps. There was something else and she knew it and she wasn’t going to tell him.

  “I’m moving out of the cabin. Going to Taylor’s.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt. He should have expected it. But hearing the words made it worse. Harder. Real.

  “Of course you’re leaving.”

  She scrambled to her feet and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since walking into the cabin. He saw the tears, saw about a hundred shades of regret and sorrow and hurt and, damn him, he wanted to hold her and tell her it would be okay, they would be okay.

  But he couldn’t. She was running away, just like he had known she would.

  “Leaving is what you do best, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Brynn. You’re not leaving because of Taylor.”

  She took a small step back. Shook her head.

  But didn’t say a word.

  “I told myself you weren’t leaving by choice. I thought, oh, if things were different... But I was wrong. Leaving is your thing.”

  Her mouth moved in a silent no.

  “Oh, yeah, Brynn. Maybe you can keep lying to yourself, but I can’t. Not anymore. The temp jobs, the ‘walk away, Millie,’ the ‘accept and move on,’ the ‘oh, yes, I would want to keep seeing you’—you see a pattern here?” He balled up his forgotten shirt, threw it into the corner. “You know what? Leave. Now. Go ahead. It’s better this way. At least I won’t be walking around for the next two weeks wondering how much time, wondering what if...”

  “You knew. You knew we were never going to be more than this.”

  “Yeah, I knew. But I wasn’t spending the whole time we were together planning how to get away.” He stalked to the corner, grabbed his shirt, shook off the sawdust that clung to the fabric. “Tell the truth. If things had been different and you could have stayed, how long would it have taken? How long until you got bored with me and Millie and invented some reason to take off?”

  “I wasn’t...”

  “Last night, when you stood in my kitchen and said that if you were staying, you would have wanted to see where this might lead—were your bags already packed, Brynn? When you were crying and kissing me, were you busy thanking Taylor for giving you a ready-made excuse to get out before things got too serious?”

  She walked
to the door, leaving him reeling in the middle of the empty space with her words pounding through him and the scent of sawdust all but choking him. When she reached the threshold, she stopped and turned back.

  “I know you won’t believe me. I don’t blame you. But you and me... None of that was a lie. Not one minute.”

  With that, she walked away, her footsteps sounding softly on the porch and then fading as she stepped to the ground. He watched through the door and then the window as she walked up the path and disappeared into the stand of maples.

  She was leaving. She was going to pack up her car if she hadn’t already, and he was going to be left here, without answers, trying to console his child, who wouldn’t understand.

  And even though his head kept telling him that his brother had been handed a far worse blow, his heart was having a hell of a time believing it.

  * * *

  BRYNN WOULDN’T HAVE thought it possible to be even less focused when she returned to work than before she ducked out. Turns out it was.

  The building was quiet. People were leaving for the day. She would normally have been preparing to hit the road herself, but today she dreaded the thought. Taylor’s apartment was so filled with memories and sorrows that she could scarcely breathe when she was there.

  But she couldn’t stay in the cabin. Couldn’t look out the window and see the lights of Hank’s house and know they were forever closed to her. Choking on memories was infinitely better than drowning in regrets and hearing the echo of Hank’s accusations and wondering—

  “Well, Miss Catalano. It’s been quite an afternoon around here.”

  Brynn whirled toward the door, where Moxie stood as stiff as a guard at Buckingham Palace. Though Brynn doubted that even the most devoted sentinel could defend the queen as ardently as she was sure Moxie was about to protect her family.

  Brynn started to rise but Moxie pointed to the chair.

  “Sit.”

  Brynn sat.

  Moxie advanced slowly. “I’m not going to bore you with the details, because as I understand it, you have known about them far longer than I would have believed. What matters now is the future.”

  Brynn nodded.

  “I understand that you are willing to continue on here through the festival, ensuring it goes off as planned.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And that Taylor has briefed you on the most pressing of her duties, leaving you prepared to carry them out until such time as we can hire someone new for the position.”

  Again, Brynn nodded. There seemed to be no point in using actual words. Moxie was well aware of everything and anything Brynn would have tried to say.

  “It seems you two gave this a great deal of thought.”

  “We wanted to keep the disruption and...and the hurt to a minimum.”

  “So I understand.” Moxie ran a finger over her wedding band. “I’m guessing this is the family commitment you referred to when you turned down the job.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, at least that part makes more sense now.”

  It was the first thing Moxie had said that wasn’t true, for none of this made sense. Not one bit.

  “For the love of God, I hope this is the last commitment on your plate.” Moxie peered at her. “Or should we be bracing for another explosion?”

  Carter. “This should be the end of it.”

  Moxie frowned. “Interesting answer.”

  “It’s the most truthful one I can give, I’m afraid. Reading the future has never been one of my talents.”

  Moxie gave her that look again—the one that left Brynn feeling like she was being put through a combination X-ray/MRI scan.

  “You are a careful one, aren’t you?”

  Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. Moxie knew there was more. Or at the very least, she was highly suspicious.

  “Not careful,” she said softly. “Just...trying to make the best of a lousy situation.”

  “Humph. Going for the understatement-of-the-year award, are you?” Moxie shook her head. “Tell me the truth, girl. People are going to be pissed as hell with you, especially being as how Taylor isn’t here to face the music. Do you think you can shrug that off and keep running the festival?”

  “I’ve worked through worse.”

  “Fine. I understand you have about a month to help us while we get someone new here. Until then, I expect you to give three hundred and ninety-eight percent to this company with every breath you take. Is that clear?”

  “Very.” And probably more than she deserved.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. But let me give you fair warning, miss.” Moxie leaned forward, her gaze boring into Brynn’s. “If anything goes wrong, I’m holding you responsible. And believe you me, that’s not a position I would want to be in at all.”

  * * *

  A COUPLE OF DAYS after his world went to hell, Hank ended his call, shoved the phone back in his pocket and let loose with all the curses that had filled his brain during his conversation but had remained locked up because, geez, who says those kind of things to his grandmother?

  Feelings temporarily vented, he yelled down the hall.

  “Mills! We have dance rehearsal tonight after all.”

  She flew out of her room, lab coat flapping, and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “But you said—”

  “I know.” He had been sure the dance would be nixed now that Taylor was gone. Who could expect Ian to get up there and high-step it when everyone watching would know that he had just had his heart handed to him on a silver platter?

  Apparently, Moxie had no trouble with it.

  “Your great-grandmother says we need to do this no matter what. So let’s get going.”

  Millie skipped down the hall. “But this is good, Daddy! Brynn will be there and we haven’t seen her since she left. I miss her!”

  You aren’t the only one, kiddo.

  He grabbed his shoes and shoved his feet inside, directing all his swearing abilities at himself now. He’d been an idiot. A complete and total numskull. He’d known something was up and he’d talked himself into believing Brynn wasn’t the kind to walk away.

  Yeah. That had worked out really well.

  His logical brain insisted on pointing out that really, all Brynn had done was speed up the inevitable, that she would have left no matter what. It didn’t help. He’d been doing a damned fine imitation of a zombie ever since Brynn packed up her hatchback and drove off to Taylor’s place. And to be honest, half the reason he’d been hoping they would shit-can the dance was because he didn’t know how he was supposed to be in the same room with her, knowing what she had done but wanting her just the same.

  Damned Moxie. Damned festival. Stupid damned idiot self.

  Half an hour later he was in his familiar place in the Northstar lobby, doing his best to avoid looking at Brynn. She stood alone by the floor-to-ceiling windows, sketching things in that blue notebook, scratching them out and drawing again.

  Millie, of course, had burst in and overflowed with hugs and stories. He had settled for a nod. The only consolation was that no one else seemed to know how to deal with Brynn, either. If it were possible to measure sidelong glances and lowered voices, he was pretty sure the Norths would set a new record tonight.

  “There’s Uncle Car!” Millie stopped twirling in circles and ran to throw her arms around Carter, who had scooted in from the interior stairs. He must not have seen her coming for instead of catching her in his usual bear hug, he stumbled backward and almost landed flat on his ass. In fact, if Hank didn’t miss his guess, Millie was the one who kept them both upright.

  It seemed Carter was losing some of that porn-star snap in his old age.

  “Sorry I’m late.” He steadied Millie, who wrinkled her nose and bac
ked away.

  Brynn studied him for a long moment before shaking her head and heading to the table.

  “Okay.” Her voice was pure steel. She glanced at her notebook, bit her lip, but tilted her chin up. “Here’s the new lineup.”

  He’d heard more enthusiasm from Millie on the way to her last dentist checkup. They made it through the warm-up and then the first verse with barely a stumble. A miracle, considering he was pretty sure none of them were focused on the moves tonight. Midway through the chorus, Carter missed a step and slammed into his side.

  “Ow!”

  Carter glanced at him. “Jesus, Hank. Watch where you’re going.”

  “I didn’t—” he began, but Brynn shook her head.

  “Keep going. It’s good practice in case there’s a problem when we’re live.”

  He scowled but counted the beats and stepped back into the song, feeling a tiny burst of pride at being able to find his place again. One thing was sure: Brynn’s line about being ready for anything that might happen during the actual performance was pretty accurate. If they could make it through this rehearsal they could get through any—

  “Shit!”

  He saw Carter heading for him just in time to step out of the way. Too late for Carter, though, who grabbed for him, missed and promptly kissed the tiles.

  “Jesus H.—” Carter’s words were lost in a rush of questions from the rest of the clan.

  “Carter, are you okay?”

  “Uncle Car, you fell!”

  “For the love of God, boy, go home before you hurt someone.”

  Brynn’s voice, low in his ear, was the only one that registered. “Help him up. He’s drunk.”

  What the hell?

  Shoving aside the reflexive jolt of pleasure at her nearness—over, dammit—he reached for Carter, bent extra low and sniffed. Sure enough, Carter’s breath was laced with rye and Coke.

  He glanced at Brynn, hating himself for turning to her, but not too proud to admit that she was the one with the clearest head. She bit her lip and leaned in close.

  “Get him out of here, please.” Standing, she said loud enough for all to hear, “Oops. Guess that stomach bug decided it wasn’t finished with Carter. Let’s call a halt. If anyone wants to stay and practice one-on-one, I’ll stick around a while. Everyone else, sorry for dragging you out. I should have realized this was too much to ask tonight.”