Naughty in November (Spring River Valley Book 11) (8 page)

“What’s that?” It certainly couldn’t be any worse than the advice Tanner had already given him.

“There’s not much that pink champagne and raspberry cheesecake can’t fix. Bring her by, and I guarantee a sincere apology over a romantic dinner will convince her to forgive you.”

“All right, who are you and where’re the
real
Taylor and Dani?” Owen slapped his hand against the strings of his guitar and glared at this bandmates.

Taylor leaned back on his stool and shifted his gaze to Dani, who seemed to be studying the floor.

“Seriously, guys, that last number sounded like a high school garage band. What happened to the two people who brought the house down at Colette’s Friday night?”

Taylor shrugged. He knew. Those two people hadn’t spoken to each other all weekend. He’d told Dani he was going to call her, and he’d made a dozen attempts, but each time he’d changed his mind. He wasn’t sure she wanted to just hang out, and he didn’t want her to think she was just a booty call for him, even if that was ultimately how she preferred things.

Now, on Tuesday night, the awkward silence between them had leached into their rehearsal performance. She sang without looking at him. He played without feeling the music or even really hearing it. And he blamed Claudia for cautioning him that Dani wasn’t as into their hook-up as he was. He felt like a fool for letting any of this bother him.

“Maybe we’re burned out,” Dani offered. “Too many love songs.”

“The name of the band is
Love
Notes,” Owen reminded her. “That’s our signature.”

“How about some jazz…or blues?” she countered hopefully.

“The audience at Colette’s likes love songs.”

Dani sighed.

Taylor switched off his keyboard. “Let’s call it a night and start fresh on Thursday.”

“Seriously?” Owen asked, sighing loudly. “We’ve only been here an hour. We can’t have a professional gig if we never rehearse.”

“Maybe Taylor’s right,” Claudia said. “We could all use a break.”

Owen shrugged and cast a questioning glance at the ceiling. “We’ve got a dozen songs to go over for James’s party.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that.” Claudia began dismantling her microphone stand. “A little downtime will do us all some good.”

“Right. I’ll see you all on Thursday,” Dani said.  Leaving her own handheld mic on a stand, she scooped up her coat and headed for the door. Owen and Claudia stared after her.

Taylor waited a beat. He needed to pack up his equipment, but he suspected if he let Dani go now, there would never be a chance to clear the air he’d fouled up the other night with his aloof attitude.

Abandoning his own jacket, he raced out of the store after her and caught up to her at the corner of the snowy street. “Hey,” he said, tapping her shoulder.

She paused as if contemplating acknowledging him. Then she turned. “Hey, yourself. Aren’t you freezing?”

“I am. But that’s not important. We need to talk.”

“Nothing good ever comes from a conversation that starts with those words.”

“So you don’t want to talk?”

“You said you’d call me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was…not sure what to say.”

She regarded him for a minute, eyes clear and so intense he felt the burn in his soul. Only the snowflakes gathering on her lashes softened her sudden ire and reminded him how gorgeous she was. “Look, whatever I did to offend you…”

“You didn’t.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t at all.”

“So what was the problem, then? I thought things were going great.”

“They were, really great, but I’m just not sure exactly what we both want out of this.”

She faced him, her features illuminated by the nearby street lamp. “What do
you
want out of it?”

He shook his head. He’d spent too much time thinking about it to cop out now and tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. “I wasn’t completely honest with you. I’m looking for something with potential, something permanent. I’ve always wanted that. I know you were honest about not wanting anything complicated, and I shouldn’t have pretended I was okay with that.”

She nodded slowly. “Even if I did want something…complicated, it’s way too soon to tell if this could be it.”

“I know. That’s my bad. I should get over that. Problem is, by the time we figure it out, it might be too late for one of us.”

Now her eyes clouded. Her beautiful, melodic voice choked up. “Well, it’s not too late to cut our losses. That may be the best thing to do to avoid either of us getting seriously hurt in the long run.”

Taylor dropped his gaze. That was exactly what he’d hoped she wouldn’t say, but she was right. There was no point in torturing each other. “Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want. I just know what I don’t want. I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want anything complicated. I’m not ready for it.”

“I guess standing on a street corner in the snow trying to decide what’s complicated is already too complicated,” he said.

“Damn straight.”

He nodded and stepped back, dropping his hands. “And walking away is simple.”

“Very.”

“So this is done?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay.”

Taylor turned and headed back toward the music store. It was all so civilized, so easy. So how come walking away from Dani felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done?

* * * *

“I should just call him. I don’t know why I can’t,” Dani complained to Brenda as they made their way through the revolving door leading into EBD’s expansive, glass-enclosed lobby. They’d decided to skip the cafeteria and do lunch at the local diner on Monday afternoon to take advantage of what would probably be one of the last unseasonably warm days of late autumn.

Ahead of her in one wedge of the slowly revolving door, Brenda shrugged. “The more I think about it, the more I think maybe you did the right thing.”

“What? You’re the hopeless romantic here. How can you say that after you just spent the last hour trying to convince me he I should give it another chance?” Besides Brenda’s uncharacteristic change of heart, it just sounded so wrong to suggest she shouldn’t be with Taylor when she’d thought about him nonstop for the past forty-eight hours.

Once through the door, Brenda rounded on her. “And you just spent the last hour telling me that he’s looking for the happy homemaker which you’re convinced you’re never going to be. So maybe you should stop torturing yourself and
let it go before you go completely bonkers.”             

Dani studied Brenda’s pretty blue-green eyes, looking for a hint of deception there, but she saw none. Her friend wasn’t trying to use rever
se psychology on her. Had she actually won the argument and convinced Brenda that she and Taylor would never work out? “You’re serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. Anyone who spends this much time thinking up reasons why something won’t work has already decided it’s not going to work.
Why keep trying?”

Digesting Brenda’s words,
Dani slowed her pace through the lobby. It made sense. She’d always been the type of person who believed in plunging ahead and letting the chips fall where they may. So why was she so certain now that the chips could never land in the right spot for her and Taylor?

She joined Brenda in front of the elevator just as the door slid open. A pretty blonde rushed out, nearly colliding with Dani in her haste.

“Cassie?” Dani recognized the woman who provided home-baked snacks for the company’s break room, though today she was dressed in a smart business suit rather than her usual “uniform” of jeans and a pink apron bearing the name of her dessert catering business.

“Hi
, Dani, Brenda. How are you? Sorry I almost plowed you over. My mind is six steps ahead of my body these days.”

“We’re fine,” Brenda said. “How about you? I hope you brought more red velvet cupcakes. I live for your cream cheese icing.”

Cassie grinned. “Not today, but I will when I make my regular delivery. I’m here on more business-y business today.”

“Oh? No legal problems, I hope,” Dani said.

“No, no. I’m having someone look over a lease for me. I’m going to be moving into one of the vacant shops on Commerce Street and expanding my business.”

“That’s great
. Congratulations!” Dani drew Cassie into a quick hug. She’d known the “cupcake lady,” as most of her coworkers called Cassie, for a number of years and knew how hard she’d worked to build her business. She deserved all the success in the world.

Brenda echoed her enthusiasm and added, “That news just went right to my hips. If I can get your cupcakes any time I want, what motivation will I have to come to work?”

“To earn money to buy cupcakes?” Dani asked. “I might need to demand a raise.”

Cassie laughed. “Spread the word around. I want to open by the end of the year in time for the holiday rush. Maybe
everyone
will need a raise so they can buy more cupcakes.”

“Well
, this is a big step. I’m so happy for you,” Dani said.

“Thanks. I thought it was about time I got settled. I’ve been working out of the back of my van for too long. I need to have some real roots.”

Brenda hugged Cassie who waved and headed off across the lobby, and Dani joined Brenda in the elevator, her mind whirling.

Despite everything she’d just told Brenda, something deep down inside her wanted to be settled too. She wanted to be the woman Taylor was looking for, and she realized maybe it was just her fear of discovering she wasn’t that was making her so unsure of herself.

“Okay,” she said, turning to Brenda. “Maybe you are right, but I don’t want you to be.”

“So you’re going to give it another shot with Taylor?”

Dani nodded. “I’d be crazy not to.”

“I’m sorry. I feel completely responsible for this.” Claudia put her hands on Taylor’s shoulders. He shrugged off the touch, not so much because he was still angry at Claudia, but because he
was angry at himself. That distinction, however, didn’t stop him from lashing out.

“Well, you’re not
completely
responsible, but I’ll give you eighty percent.”

She sighed and reached down to help him collect the wires from his keyboard. Thursday’s rehearsal had gone better than
Tuesday’s except for Dani’s absence. She’d called and told Owen she had to work late, but Taylor feared she might be just gearing up to quit the band in order to avoid him.

If music hadn’t been the thing that kept him grounded, Taylor might have done the same. He certainly had no remaining desire to play love songs while Claudia and Owen made moon eyes at each other. At least they’d stopped making out in the
storeroom.

“I’ll accept that,” Claudia said.
“I butted in, and I’m sorry. Do you want me to talk to Dani?”

“And say what? She’s a smart woman. She knows what she doesn’t want. You can’t convince her any differently. I may not be that smart when it comes to relationships, because if I was
, I might have noticed Joyce was unhappy long before she ran away, but at least I know what I do want, and Dani’s not it.”

Claudia shook her head. “Even I know that’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. She wants uncomplicated, and I want the messy, sticky, can’t-just-walk-away-from-it, cemented-in-stone kind of love I thought I was going to have with Joyce. Maybe that makes me naïve and old-fashioned or just some kind of masochistic psycho, but when I date someone, I want there to be a chance—even a small one—that they’re hoping as much as I am that it will turn into something permanent. Dani was honest with me, at least. She’s not into that.”

“I’m sorry.” Claudia’s shoulders slumped. “I really hoped…”

“Don’t be. Technically you saved me from falling in love with someone who was going to break my heart.” His equipment packed, Taylor rose from the floor and collected his coat. With a twinge it occurred to him that Dani still had the clothes she’d borrowed from him when she’d spent the night. He dismissed the thought and turned to head for the door. “I know you were trying to help.”

“I wish there was something I could do.”

“There is. Don’t try to help anymore.”

The look in her eyes told him his harsh remark stung. Now he felt worse, as if that were possible. “I’m sorry. Claudia, I love you
. You’re one of my best friends. I can’t be mad at you for trying to protect me, but you really don’t have to.”

Damn. Now she was tearing up. Taylor sighed and set his equipment down. He drew
her into a hug. “Really, I’m not mad.”

“You should be.” She sniffled. “I’m terrible. I ruined everything.”

“No, you didn’t.”
He’d
ruined it. He’d allowed it to become ruined by thinking falling in love again might be as simple as finding someone who turned him on. He couldn’t blame Claudia for it. He patted her shoulder then let her go. “I’ll see you at Colette’s tomorrow night.”