That Thing Called Love

by Susan Andersen

  He shrugged. “Jake went off to college when I was like a newborn and didn’t bother coming back until a few weeks ago. Deputy Bradshaw—Max—is his half brother. He’s been in town practically my whole life, but he and Jake were like enemies and shit all through school, so he never acknowledged me as a relative. I got no idea why they think now is a good time to try to fix their relationship, let alone drag me into it. Maybe they think they can make up for all the times they weren’t there when I might’ve actually liked them to be.” Gazing out at the currently deserted road, he shook his head. “They can’t.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then slowly said, “My mom has cancer. She sent me here so I could—” crooking her index and forefingers, she sketched quotation marks in the air “‘—live a normal life’ while she concentrates on getting well.” Her hands dropped to her lap and, staring down at them, she said in a low voice, “The truth is, though, I don’t know if she will. Get well, that is.” Tears welled in her eyes.

  Oh shit, oh shit! Crying girls scared the bejesus out of him, because he never knew what to do to make things better. But he reached for her nearest hand anyway and gave it a squeeze. “Are you that convinced she won’t?”

  She went very still, her only movement that of her sweetly curved boobies as she drew in a shuddery breath. “No,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “Look,” he said to the curtain of hair that spilled between them, masking her face, “my grandma and grandpa died this year, so I know what it’s like to lose family. I can’t promise you that everything will turn out fine, ’cause the truth is it doesn’t always. But Jenny says that it’s just as easy to keep a positive outlook as a negative one—and that sometimes doing so sends positive energy out into the universe and generates positive results in return.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s too woo-woo for you, but I found when things turned to shit, thinking that way kind of helped.”

  The eyes she suddenly raised to lock onto his own were so sad and yet filled with such resolve that they just devastated him.

  “Yeah?” she demanded quietly. “So, why aren’t you taking your own advice?”

  “Huh?”

  “If you’re all about the positive, why not take your dad and uncle up on their offer to get to know them better?”

  His first thought was to summarily blow her off. But before he could so much as open his mouth to tell her that she hadn’t been there when he was growing up, so she didn’t have the first idea what she was talking about, she was already going on.

  “It sucks that they weren’t around until now, and I can’t pretend to know how that must have felt, because my dad died in Afghanistan before I was born—which was crappy but at least didn’t feel like he’d deserted me. But don’t you see? Just the fact that they’re alive and at least wanna get to know you is good news. Isn’t it?” Her blue-eyed gaze bored into his. “Because what if it turns out you like them? You might have years and years to do all kinds of great stuff with them.”

  It had never occurred to him that Jake or Max could die. Not that he knew them well enough to get all torn apart about it if they did—not like he had when Grandpa died.

  Not like the way he knew he would if something happened to Jenny.

  Still it gave him an awful feeling in his gut. As if something scaly were slithering around in there.

  “Did you ever miss him?” he asked. “Your father?”

  “Sometimes, like on father/daughter days at school.” She rolled her shoulders. “But mostly I never knew him—so I didn’t have anything I could point at to miss.”

  “That should have been me, too, ’cause fuck knows I never knew my old man, either. But when I was little, I kept thinking he’d show up for some of my stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just...events, you know? My graduation from preschool and open-house nights at my grade and Junior high schools. Baseball games. Which, okay, Jake’s been at since he came back. But he wasn’t at the Thanksgiving pageant to see me be a turkey or at the Christmas one the year I was the blue satin We Three Kings of Orient Are. My grandma made me that robe and the matching head towel thing.”

  Shaking off the stab of loneliness that speared through him at the mention of his grandmother, he turned to Bailey, and his forehead furrowed as a thought struck him. “If you didn’t have a dad, who taught you to play baseball so good?”

  “I had coaches, just like you. But it was my mom who spent nights and weekends throwing or catching the ball with me.” She flashed a smile radiant with adoration. “She doesn’t even like sports. But she spent hours helping me, encouraging me to improve because I like baseball. And until she got sick, she never missed a game.”

  She drew in an unstable breath. “Man. This is so hard.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, it sucks. I know, ’cause I went through it with my grandparents, who were like my mom and dad, since my real mom died giving birth to me and—like I already said—Jake wasn’t around.”

  She straightened. “But we’re going to go to the game with them anyway, right? And you’ll put yourself out there with them for at least that night?”

  He could see that, for whatever reason, it was important to her that he try. So he gave her a game smile.

  “Sure. Whatever milady wants.”

  Oh, crap. Had that actually come out of his mouth? Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  He shoved to his feet. “Well, I’d better get home before Jenny sends out the troops. But I’m mad glad you’re coming with.” Realizing she’d never actually accepted, he said, “You are, aren’tcha?”

  She rose, too. Slid her narrow hands into her jeans back pockets. “Yes. I’ve never been to a professional game, so I’m totally stoked.”

  “Sweet. I’ll give you a call later this week when I find out what time we’re gonna leave.” Grabbing the back of his neck, he simply looked at her for a moment. “Well, hmmm. So, I guess I’ll see ya soon, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “All right, then.” He backed down the stairs, then finally turned. And picking up his bike, he threw a leg over and shoved off.

  “See you, Austin,” she called. He waved, kept peddling and didn’t look back.

  But he smiled the entire way home.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “YOU’RE KIDDING ME! He was in the hot tub? And you didn’t climb in with him?”

  Jenny, sprawled back on the mushroom-beige chaise lounge that thrust out from one end of Tasha’s comfy couch, looked up at her friend and sighed. It had been more than a week since they’d touched base. Thanks to the continuing flood of reservations from the online discount sites, she and her staff had been crazy busy. She could have sworn it was Friday just yesterday—yet here they were again, smack in the middle of another one.

  Jake and Max had headed out with the kids not long after school got out. Their reasoning was better to be too early for the seven o’clock Mariners game than late, and this way they could get fish-and-chips at Spuds’ on Alki before heading to the Sodo district.

  She and Tasha were in full take-advantage mode. Tash had even turned Bella T’s over to Tiffany just so they could catch up—although they did plan on going back to the pizzeria for the dinner rush.

  Impatiently tapping the toe of her shoe against the hardwood floor, her friend gave her a stern look. “I’m waiting, Salazar.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” But she explained the situation more comprehensively than she’d done the first time, starting with her initial sighting of Jake in the spa, clear through to her decision to fix the gap problem as he had more or less dictated.

  When she fell silent, Tasha skipped right past nearly everything she’d said to lock onto a single fact. “Man, I bet that man is seriously pretty in a nearly naked state. He’s so easy on the eyes fully dressed that I’m boggled simply imagining
the stripped-down version.”

  “Partly stripped down.”

  Tash gave her a puzzled look. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend? You say ‘partly’ as if the man not being full Monty naked is a plus.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  Tasha effortlessly ignored that, as well. “Thank heaven you at least had the good sense to be wearing your good undies instead of those raggy beige ones you had on the day we went jeans shopping.”

  “Hey! I got rid of those that day, remember? Well, okay, maybe it didn’t register on your radar, but it’ll be a wicked long time before I forget shelling out enough cash to pay off the national debt for a handful of underwear.”

  “And worth every penny.”

  “Yeah, I gotta admit, they’re beautiful. Sometimes I open up the drawer just to admire them.”

  Tasha shot her a smile that might scare a woman less accustomed to the strawberry blonde’s one-track mind. “Speaking of which,” she said, ruthlessly corralling the conversation back into the pen where she wanted it. “Hello! built, almost nekkid guy.” She raised an auburn eyebrow. “And you hid from him in your cottage?”

  “I know.” Jenny sighed and hugged a chocolate-and-tan zebra-print throw pillow to her breast. “Not my finest hour. But it wasn’t entirely my fault. It was those damn kisses the week before.”

  “Which, as I’ve told you more than once, you should be looking to repeat at every opportunity. I mean, what the hell, Jenny. You’ve plainly got the hots for him.”

  “For all the good that’s gonna do me.”

  “Okay, a full-blown relationship might not go anywhere, seeing as how he’s leaving in a little over a month.”

  “With Austin in tow!”

  Tasha’s pale brow furrowed. “I know, sweetie. That’s going to be rough on you. But it’s gonna happen regardless—and as much as I hate to admit it, at this stage in Austin’s life, he could probably stand a little male influence. Preferably from a man who won’t spoil him rotten the way Emmett did.”

  “I can’t deny that,” Jenny admitted. “And I might even believe it’d be good for Austin, if I felt confident Jake won’t revert to his old habits and disappear from his life for huge blocks of time. Because what happens when the newness wears off, Tash? It’s just so damn hard to tell at this stage if he’s in it for the long haul. He hasn’t been around long enough for me to make an informed decision.”

  “Kissing him a few more times would likely help.”

  The sound that burst from her was half laugh, half snort. “God, you’re single-minded.”

  Tasha nodded. “What can I say—it’s been a long dry spell for both of us.” Her lush mouth twisted into the droll equivalent of a shrug. “Don’t you think it’s about time one of us got lucky?”

  “I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind that.”

  “Me, either. And if it has to be you, let me at least live vicariously.”

  “I do miss kissing,” Jenny said wistfully. “Maybe that’s why Jake’s hit me so hard.”

  “Sure, kissing’s good,” Tasha said. “But I miss sex. That’s the downside of living in a small town. There are only X number of men you’d even consider getting busy with. And if you’ve been there, done that with the ones you’re interested in—or some of those just aren’t that into you...” She hitched a shoulder, then pinned Jenny in place with her overcast-sky eyes. “Well, that’s the reason a Razor Bay girl grabs her opportunity at a man like Jake Bradshaw when she gets one. She doesn’t ignore it.”

  Jenny was abruptly tired of the subject. “Look, if you find him so damn hot, why don’t you take a shot at him?”

  “Maybe I will. If you’re just gonna let him go to waste.”

  Over my dead body, sister! The immediate, visceral rejection sent heat blistering through her veins.

  But she didn’t say it aloud. God. At least she didn’t do that.

  Not that it mattered. Tasha knew her too well, and the corner of her best friend’s lips promptly curved up in a knowing smile.

  “Uh-huh.” She gave Jenny a who-do-you-think-you’re-fooling look. “That’s what I thought.”

  * * *

  JENNY AWOKE TO THE MUFFLED sound of shuffling footsteps in the living room. Blinking owlishly at the red numerals on her bedside clock, she saw it was one-eighteen. Oh, God, was Austin sick?

  Throwing back the covers, she stumbled drowsily across the room and opened the door.

  At first she didn’t understand what she saw. Why was Jake opening Austin’s bedroom door and slinging an arm around the boy’s shoulders? Then her mind cleared a little.

  Of course. The game. They must have just gotten back. It was obvious Austin had been asleep—he had that near catatonic look he got whenever he was awakened before he was ready, which was basically anytime before noon.

  “There you go,” Jake said in a low, encouraging voice as he guided the teen across the threshold. “You want help getting ready for bed?”

  That elicited the first sign of life from the teen. “Do I look like some stupid preschooler to you?” Clearly it was a rhetorical question, for he stepped deeper into his room and slammed the door in Jake’s face.

  But faintly, through the wooden panels, came a belatedly mumbled, “Thanks for taking me and Bailey to the game.” His bed creaked a protest as he likely fell face-first upon his mattress.

  Jake’s hand raised as if to knock, yet he settled his unfurled fingers and palm lightly against the door. The longing in the gesture and in the little she could see of his expression squeezed Jenny’s heart.

  As if he felt the weight of her stare, he suddenly turned, pinning her in his sights.

  Making her aware of the lace-trimmed baby doll she had on—and the nearly full moon illuminating the little bungalow.

  Well, hell.

  Not that her nightie was of the transparent variety—she lived, after all, with a teenage boy. And Jake didn’t possess X-ray vision, so no way could he see the tiny matching panties beneath it.

  But its silky orange, pink and white-flowered fabric that flowed down her torso to culminate at the top of her thighs, with a second tier that ended just a few inches below that, plus its narrow straps and the white lace trimming its skimpy, not-much-more-than-two-triangles bodice screamed lingerie.

  Worse, coupled with her crazily mussed hair, it whispered bed. Why the hell hadn’t she put on her robe?

  “Whoa,” he said...and wasn’t shy about checking her out from head to toe.

  Instead of running for her room as any sane woman would do, she found herself squaring her shoulders to make the best of her less than impressive breasts.

  Jeez, girl, are you crazy? her saner self demanded. But her lusty, curious side saw an envelope and gave it an experimental push.

  Which truly was crazy, and she eased out of her let’s-thrust-my-boobs-in-his-face pose and cleared her throat. “Did the kids have a good time at the game?”

  “Yeah, the kids were a kick—they really got into it. It was fun for Max and me to see it through their eyes, though I doubt big bro would ever admit that out loud. Damn thing went into extra innings, though. And if that wasn’t bad enough, we were stuck in the parking garage for more than an hour. Next time we’ll take the Bremerton ferry instead of the Southworth so we can walk on. Driving into town pushed getting back at a reasonable hour way past good sense.” His gaze continued to roam, then abruptly returned to her face. “Nice nightie.”

  She hummed something incomprehensible and once again cleared her throat. “Yes, well...hmmm.” She flapped one hand vaguely toward her bedroom. “I’ll just go grab my robe.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to go to any trouble on my account.”

  Damn him, he wasn’t supposed to be wry and charming. It was ridiculous enough that she’d been unwill
ingly impressed with the way he’d handled this outing with Austin and the plan that he apparently had for the two of them to see additional Mariners games in the future. Did he have to have her checking him out every bit as blatantly as he had her and getting all sorts of ideas on top of it?

  Dammit, this was all Tasha’s fault. Why, out of a billion and one subjects they could have discussed tonight, had her friend had to focus on the potential of Jenny having sex with Jake? She wouldn’t have all these inappropriate thoughts agitating for her attention if not for her so-called BFF.

  She twitched her posture a fraction more erect. Just because she had them didn’t mean she was obligated to act on them. She gave Jake a repressive look. “That’s very big of you.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he muttered and, oh, God, she couldn’t help it, her eyes went straight to his crotch.

  Where she saw that, while he might not have been sporting a full-fledged erection, he certainly wasn’t disinterested. Heat crawled up her cheeks.

  But she didn’t look away.

  “Shit,” he whispered as his sex continued to enlarge beneath her fascinated gaze. “You wanna quit looking at my dick?”

  Guiltily, she pulled her gaze away.

  “Thanks,” he said, and Jenny watched from the corner of her eye as he reached down and adjusted himself. “If I’d seen you wearing that the first time we met, no way I would have mistaken you for a kid,” he said drily.

  Then he shook his head. “Look, I need to get my head in a place that doesn’t involve coming over there and nailing you against the wall. So if you’ve got any suggestions, now would be a good time to throw them out there.”

  “A nice predawn swim in the canal maybe?”

  “It’s definitely cold enough, but I’d probably generate so much steam I’d end up destroying the ecosystem.”

  Oooh. She kind of liked that. “How about a long jog?”

  Jake snorted. “With a third leg? That ain’t likely to happen.”

  “Hey, I’m trying here. I don’t hear you coming up with any brilliant ideas.”