Waiting for Forever (Hope Valley Book 8)

by Jessica Prince

  Before I could finish the question, my mom came around the corner, dressed in her Sunday best—not her typical attire for a family dinner—with a man I’d never seen before walking closely behind.

  Oh no.

  I whipped back around to my father, eyes frantic. “How in the world—”

  “She had him park down the block,” he whispered quickly. “She was afraid you’d tear off if you saw his car in the driveway.”

  “There’s my girl!” Mom cooed, getting close and pulling me in to touch her lips to my cheek. “Be nice,” she whispered in that scolding motherly tone.

  I wrapped her in my arms so it would appear I was hugging her as I threatened quietly, “I’m so totally putting you in a home if dad passes before you.”

  We broke apart, a guilt-free, somewhat evil smile on her face. “Darlin’, this is Levi, he works for your father. Levi, dear, this is my beautiful, smart, single daughter, Dani.”

  “Jeez, Mom,” I grumbled under my breath. “Think you can lay it on any thicker?”

  In response to that, Levi chuckled, extending his hand toward me. “Nice to meet you, Dani. I’m sorry if this is a surprise. Until I got here and was asked to move my car, I was under the impression you knew I was coming.” He turned to my mother and gave her a look of reproach, but it was obvious in his kind eyes that he didn’t really mean it.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make this awkward.” I took his hand and gave it a shake. “It’s nice to meet you too, Levi.”

  “Wonderful!” Mom clapped her hands gleefully. “Now that that’s outta the way, dinner’s ready. Let’s all go sit, shall we?”

  I turned to look at my dad over my shoulder as Mom began leading Levi into the dining room, shooting him a glare that expressed, very clearly, how unhappy I was with him for not trying harder to stop this. He gave me a contrite look that didn’t let him off in the slightest.

  With a beleaguered sigh, I turned and started for the dining room, resigned to suffer through whatever came next.

  I had been more than just pleasantly surprised that dinner hadn’t been a total clusterfuck. Levi was nice, charming, and funny. He was easy to talk to, and I had a feeling he was about as thrilled with the setup as I was. The poor guy worked for my dad, so how was he supposed to say no to the boss inviting him over to dinner—even if that invitation was being forced by said boss’s pushy, meddlesome wife?

  Once it became clear to both of us that there wasn’t going to be a love connection, therefore no need for pretending, the tension in the room seemed to lighten and we were able to enjoy the meal and the company with no added pressure.

  Mom’s dinner had been consumed and we were sitting around the table eating my dessert. I was almost home free, trying to think up the politest way to bail when a knock sounded on the front door.

  Our heads all turned in that direction, with my mother murmuring, “I wonder who that could be,” under her breath.

  “I don’t know,” I replied a little snottily. “Did you have another blind date you planned to spring on me and got the times mixed up?”

  Dad covered his laugh with a cough while Levi lowered his head in an attempt to hide his grin. Mom’s response was to smack me in the back of the head with her napkin as she passed by to get the door.

  She spoke up a second later, and what she said nearly sent my heart into arrhythmia. “Oh, Leo! This is an unexpected surprise, sweetheart.”

  Oh shit!

  My eyes went big as I whipped around in my seat.

  “Hey, Mrs. Parrish. I was just visitin’ with my dad. He remembered he still had one of Danika’s Tupperware containers, and I saw her car was over here so I thought I’d just drop it by.”

  “Oh, well isn’t that sweet of you! Come on in.” Mom’s voice grew louder as they headed in our direction. “We were just finishing up with dessert, but there’s plenty left over if you’re hungry.”

  “Thanks, that sounds great.”

  They appeared a second later, and all I could do was sit there like a deer caught in the headlights as Leo’s gaze traveled from me to my father, then landed on Levi. His expression went from pleasant to downright curious when it returned to me, one brow arching up, asking a question I couldn’t possibly answer just then.

  The corner of his mouth hooked up at the panic that was clearly written all over my face. “Danika,” he greeted casually, then turned to my father and tipped his chin. “Mr. Parrish.”

  Dad stood partway up, waving his hand to the empty chair across from me, the chair Levi would have taken had my mom not insisted he sit right beside me. “Leo, my boy, come in. Have a seat. Dani really knocked dessert out of the park tonight. You’re in for a treat.”

  Someone kill me now.

  He moved around the table, but before he sat, he leaned forward, extending his hand over the middle to Levi. “I’m Leo, a friend of Danika’s. And you are?”

  Levi—poor, sweet, clueless Levi—shook Leo’s hand. “Levi.” He nudged my elbow conspiratorially and laughed, finishing with, “I guess you could say I’m Dani’s date for the evening.”

  Both Leo’s brows lifted on his forehead as he turned his attention to me. “Really? That’s interesting.”

  Before I could say anything, Levi continued speaking conversationally. “So, Leo, how well do you know Dani?”

  “Oh, I’d say I know her really well.” He looked back to me, a salacious glint in his eye. “Wouldn’t you say so, Danika?”

  Everyone around the table but me was oblivious to the innuendo in his tone.

  I lifted my glass of water and took a huge gulp, trying to quench my suddenly dry throat. “Mmm,” I hummed, my cheeks feeling like they were only seconds from catching fire.

  “Leo and his family moved in across the street when Dani was only seven,” my mom said. “But I’ll admit,” she directed at me, “I didn’t realize you two were so close.”

  “It’s a recent development,” Leo answered, the very picture of calm, cool, and collected. “I’d say we’ve gotten pretty damn close very recently.”

  I was going to kill him. “I’m teaching his daughter to bake,” I blurted.

  “Oh, that’s so great,” Mom said enthusiastically.

  I smiled and opened my mouth to tell her more about it, hoping to permanently shift the conversation. But Leo wasn’t having any of that.

  “How do you know Danika, Lenny?”

  “Uh . . . It’s Levi. And we met tonight.”

  “I set it up,” Mom announced proudly as Dad rolled his eyes and went back to scarfing down more petits fours. “It was a blind date.”

  “Oh, really?” He seemed way too intrigued by that. “How’s it goin’ so far?”

  I jumped in then, trying to end this shit show. “Leo, shouldn’t you be getting back to your dad?”

  He waved me off. “Nah, he’s good.” Damn it. He leaned in and lowered his voice like he was divulging a secret. “I only ask because Danika’s not the best on blind dates. Gets all flustered and nervous, you know?”

  That son of a . . . “Leo!” I shot to my feet so fast I hadn’t thought of what I was going to say. Everyone at the table was staring at me like I’d just lost my mind. Except Leo, he was grinning like the cat who just got the cream. I finally landed on a good excuse for my sudden outburst. “I almost forgot, I have some extra desserts in my car for your dad. Come on. I’ll get them for you. Wouldn’t want them melting,” I added with a semi-manic laugh.

  Before anyone could get a word in, I stomped out of the dining room to the front door, waiting the ten seconds—I counted—that it took for him to appear.

  Slinging the door open, I stormed out and resumed the whole waiting thing, only this time, I did it beside my Explorer.

  “What the hell was that?” I hissed as soon as he reached me.

  He still seemed calm as could be, and I might have bought it had it not been for the muscle ticking wildly in his jaw. “What the hell was what?”

  “Don’t play
dumb, you know exactly what. It would’ve been subtler if you’d just whipped your dick out and peed a circle around me in there.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “How the hell would you expect me to react when I make up some bullshit excuse to see you and walk in to find my woman on a date?”

  “I had absolutely no idea he was here, Leo, hence the phrase blind date. I was completely blindsided when I walked in.”

  Some of the agitation moved out of his features, but not all of it. “I’m sorry,” he said, still sounding somewhat surly. “I overreacted, I admit that. But in my defense that makes your girls plus your mom tryin’ to hook you up with someone else. I got pissed.”

  “Okay, first of all,” I started, lifting my index finger in the air, “tacking the words ‘but in my defense’ to the end of an apology isn’t actually apologizing. Second, it doesn’t matter what any of them do because I like you. I’m with you. I’ve asked them not to do stuff like this, but aside from telling them you and I are together, I’m out of options.”

  His eyes suddenly flared and he clipped, “Are you not okay with keeping this just between us anymore?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just following your lead here, Leo. This is what you need for your kids, and I totally understand that. But that doesn’t mean you have the right to get all pissy and act like a jerk when our unique situation comes back and bites you in the ass.” My eyelids narrowed into angry slits when I noticed the corners of his mouth begin to tremble. “Are you . . . are you trying not to laugh right now?”

  He lost his battle and let out a loud guffaw. “Jesus, you get even cuter when you’re pissed off. I didn’t think that was possible.”

  Gah! How was it that, even when he was annoying the hell out of me, I still found Leo completely irresistible?

  Pushing away the thoughts of how much I loved his laugh, I turned to my car, beeped the locks, and whipped the door open, grabbing his dad’s box of pastries from the passenger seat.

  I kicked the door closed with my foot and spun back to face him, shoving the box against his stomach so he had no choice but to take it.

  “Give those to your dad and tell him I said hi. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I shifted on my heel and took a step toward the house, only to have his hand shoot out and catch my elbow. “Aw, baby. Come on. I’m sorry.” I looked back over my shoulder, waiting for more. “That’s it. Just ‘I’m sorry’. No but anything tacked onto the end of it.”

  “I forgive you. Now have a nice night.”

  He tightened his grip when I pulled at my arm. “Saying you forgive someone, but still being mad is the same as saying ‘but in my defense’ after an apology.”

  I looked back to see that one damn, sexy brow arched up as humor danced in his eyes. “I did forgive you. For being a raging jackass,” I added. “But I’m gonna stay mad at you for using my admission about being bad at blind dates against me.”

  “How long do you think this mad will last exactly?”

  I shrugged, finally extracting my arm from his grip and scrunched my lips to the side. “Hmm. I don’t know. Why don’t you text me later on and we’ll see what happens?”

  With a wink in his direction, I flipped my hair over my shoulder and headed for the house, secretly smiling as his warm chuckle followed after me until I closed the door on it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leo

  It might have made me a bit twisted to get off on Danika’s snark, but God help me, I did. It wasn’t that I was a fan of attitude, because I certainly wasn’t. I’d been with Whitney enough years to know I fucking hated that kind of headache. But Danika wasn’t like that.

  She didn’t have it in her to go full-on bitchy, even though I might have—definitely had—deserved it. Even her brand of snark had been liberally sprinkled with sweet. She didn’t get pissed and just go off half-cocked. She’d made her point clearly and calmly, laying me out so well that, for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t have a single defense. I’d been wrong, straight up. End of sentence.

  However, even then, she didn’t hold a grudge. It had taken exactly two text messages for her to get over her snit. My first one asking if she was still mad at me hours after she rightfully laid into me in her parents’ driveway was met with a response of New phone. Who dis?

  I’d waited a while longer before sending the next one telling her goodnight. I knew when I got Sleep well, honey back, she was over it.

  It had only been about a month, and already, I was feeling things for this woman that I’d never felt before. Not even when Whitney and I had been at our best, which wasn’t saying much. None of the women that came after Whitney made me feel even a quarter of what Danika did in such a short amount of time.

  Not once in our time together had she made me think she wasn’t happy with our arrangement or that she resented me for wanting to keep our relationship private. But as more time passed, I started to feel like I was making a mistake by keeping us a secret. She showed me every day in countless ways how amazing she was.

  Because I had the kids I hadn’t been able to see her over the weekend after the scene at her parents’. My plan was to go to the coffee shop to see her on Monday morning, but Micah and I caught another drug case almost as soon as we got to work that had taken up the whole day and bled into the following one.

  By the time seven thirty rolled around Tuesday evening, I was exhausted and bone weary. I’d texted Danika to see if she was home, but she was still at the shop, using the kitchen after hours to work on a new recipe. It had been days, and I was craving the sight of her, so instead of heading home, I left the station and drove straight to Muffin Top. The front door was still unlocked, and even though the Closed sign was lit up, a few of the interior lights were on, so I headed inside, following the sounds coming from the back.

  I pushed through one of the swinging doors to the kitchen and instantly stopped. “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple was playing softly from her iPhone sitting on the metal countertop close to her, and she was singing along softly. Her long, thick hair was pulled up into a sloppy knot at the top of her head with several tendrils having fallen out to frame her face. She had streaks of flour on her cheeks, forehead and neck, and cocoa powder on her nose. Watching her then, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen her look more beautiful.

  “Pomegranate. Pomegranate,” she muttered to herself, looking all around her station. “Where the hell did I put it?”

  “Sweetness.”

  She let out a little shriek and spun around, making her bun wobble precariously. “Oh God, Leo,” she said with a startled laugh, placing her hand on her chest. “You scared me. What are you doing here?”

  I pushed off the doorframe, a smile tugging at my lips as I started toward her. “I missed you.” Her big gray eyes warmed and her lids grew heavy. She loved that answer, and I loved that I was the one to put that look on her face.

  “Now who’s being sweet?” As soon as I was close enough, I grabbed her hips and pulled her against me. “Leo, I’m a mess. You’re gonna get flour all over your shirt.”

  “I really don’t care,” I said, lowering my head and brushing the tip of her nose with mine. “What I care about is that I’ve been here for ten whole seconds and haven’t gotten a kiss from my girlfriend yet.”

  She sucked in an exaggerated gasp and bugged her eyes. “How inconsiderate of me. I’m so sorry.”

  “Mmm. I’m hurt, but I think I’d be willing to forgive if you make it a good one,” I teased as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “That’s only fair,” she said softly as she lifted up on her toes. She pressed her lips against mine briefly and pulled back. “Am I forgiven now?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. You can do better than that.”

  She lifted up again, pressing longer. “Now?”

  “Hmm. Nope. I’m still not feelin’ it.”

  She giggled and moved back in. This time it was more than just a press. This t
ime, her tongue peeked out and slid across my bottom lip. I parted to give her access, and she didn’t hesitate, slipping her tongue inside and sliding it against mine.

  I let out a groan, squeezing her hips harder before wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. I took over, using my head to tip hers to the side so I could get deeper, tasting chocolate and sugar and something pleasantly tart.

  When we finally broke apart, her breathing was erratic, her eyes were glazed, and her fingers were tangled in my hair.

  “Am I forgiven now?” she asked breathily.

  “Yeah, baby. You’re definitely forgiven.”

  Her fingers began toying with the strands of hair at my neck as she graced me with that smile I loved so damn much. “Hi.”

  “Hi, back.”

  “You called me your girlfriend,” she said on a whisper, her voice sounding giddy.

  I held her tighter, my chest shaking on a chuckle. “I take it from your reaction, you liked that.”

  She didn’t hesitate to confirm, “I did. Very much.” Just like that, she gave more. There were no games or manipulations with her. No jumping through hoops or trying to guess what she was thinking or feeling. If it wasn’t written on her face, she shared almost immediately.

  “So, what are you in here experimenting on?”

  She pulled away, blowing the hair from her forehead as she looked around her crowded, messy workstation.

  “I thought up a new recipe for a chocolate pomegranate soufflé that I wanted to try out.”

  My head jerked back in surprise. “Those are really complicated, aren’t they? Are you gonna be able to make somethin’ like that in bulk for customers?”

  “Oh, I’m not making it for the shop. This is for Macie. I think she’ll get a real kick out of baking this, so I need to get the recipe just right before she gives it a go.”

  My body locked up as something hot and not the slightest bit unpleasant moved through my chest.

  Catching the look on my face, her brows arched down and her head cocked to the side. “You okay?”