Why Now? (19 page)

Flipping the blinker on, I pull off on the next street we come to and park.

Turning to face her I ask, “You tell me that’s what you want and I’ll do that for you, Kace.”

She gulps, “God, I’m sorry.” She covers her face and shakes her head. “I was trying to be funny and failed so badly.”

From behind her hands, I can tell her cheeks are red.

Reaching over, I tug her arm closest to me down. “Baby, don’t be embarrassed. I only stopped the car because I wanted you to get that this is important to me. I will not rush you, Kace. Forget what I said about sleeping in your bed. You want me in your bed but you’re not ready. I would never force myself on you. I want this, I want you, but we have all the time you need.”

She lowers her other hand from her face and looks at me. “I know that you would never force me. I am such an idiot. I don’t even know why I would joke about that.”

Reaching up I tuck her hair behind her ear. “I promise to laugh if you ever say it again.”

Moving my hand from her hair, I brush my thumb over her jaw and smile when she leans her cheek into my palm.

“I’d never hurt you,” I murmur.

She swallows, her throat moving against my hand. “I trust you, Jake.”

Pressing my chest against the center console, I move forward and brush my lips over hers.

“Later, we’re going to talk more about us,” I say, moving the Jeep back into drive.

“Why can’t we talk now?” She asks.

Pulling back onto the main road I reply, “I want to be concentrating on you when we talk, not the road.”

She makes no argument. It takes us less time to get back to Ferncliff than it had to drive to the beach. After I park, I walk her to her door.

“You sure you’re cool with me sleeping at the house until after you settle things with Heath?”

She nods, popping up on her toes to press her lips to mine. I snake my arms around her waist and deepen the kiss. Reilly interrupts us by opening the door.

“I see things went well at the beach.”

Kacey tucks her face into my neck. Christ, it’s going to be hard to walk away from her in a minute and I’m only going across town.

“It did,” I reply, giving Kace a squeeze.

“Are you two done making out? I have crap to do and need my wheels.”

Kacey sighs and I grin. “For now.”

Even though it sucks, I let Kacey go. She stands at the door and watches Reilly and me drive away.

“You’re family and all,” Reilly starts, “but you break her heart, and I’ll kill you dead.”

“I’m not going to hurt her,” I insist.

“Just saying,” she replies.

“You’d really pick Kacey over your own flesh and blood?” I tease.

“Yep, you don’t get to pick your family and I was lucky with the one I got, but Kacey is the sister I picked with my heart. Besides, you’re tough.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” I reply, picturing my little Killer taking on those boys.

On the way to the house, we stop by a gas station so I can fill her tank and grab some food to get me through the night.

“What are you doing tonight?” I ask.

She sips the slushy drink I got her. “I need to go to the station and edit some segments for next week and I’m covering the intros on the late news tonight for someone who is on vacation.”

Leaning my shoulder against the door, I take a moment to observe my little sister. It’s weird, seeing her with her shit together. Right now, her shit is more together than mine is.

“Why are you looking at me?” She asks.

Shifting to face forward again I reply, “I’m proud of you. You’re doing good stuff, kiddo.”

She surprises me by placing her drink in the cup holder and then hitting me.

“What the hell, psycho,” I laugh. “I was complimenting you.”

She keeps her eyes on the road but stabs her finger in my direction. “Don’t make me cry.”

All I can do is laugh, which only pisses her off.

She drops me off after making me promise I’ll keep her posted on the work Jimmy and I’ll be doing on the house. She even hinted at stopping by to help out.

Pulling out my phone, I call the rig. Luck is on my side when Erik answers. “Hello?”

“She’s breaking off her engagement,” I breathe.

He chuckles. “I had a feeling.”

“Am I insane?” I ask.

“You would be if you let her marry someone else,” he replies.

We aren’t able to talk long; there’s always someone wanting to use the phone, wanting to make a connection with home. It’s not the first time I wonder how Erik does it being so far away from his family.

“Goodbye, my friend,” he says before hanging up.

This is my third night off the rig. All claims of comfort on the box of the air mattress I got were gross exaggerations. Even if I had been comfortable, sleep still would have eluded me for more than one reason.

It was too quiet. The house was too big and empty. There were too many thoughts running through my mind to allow it to rest. Any sleep I got was crap.

Around five, I gave up. Jimmy was showing up in an hour so I got up and ready, or as ready as I could without a shower.

Time crawled so slowly that it was a relief when I heard his truck pull into the drive. Not waiting for him to come to the door, I go out and meet him in the drive.

“What’s the game plan, boss?” He asks, looking annoyingly well rested.

“Hot water heater,” I reply, moving toward his truck.

He doesn’t move so I look back at him and he answers, “I figured that would be a priority once I heard you were crashing here. I got a used one in the back of the truck.”

Cocking a brow I ask, “How used?”

“Not very. Mrs. Lindle upgraded to a tank-less one a month back even though the one she had wasn’t that old. It’s in great shape and cheap.”

“Sold,” I reply and he grins.

We work well together. The installation of the hot water heater takes less time than I expected.

“You a handyman on the side?” Jimmy asks once we’re done.

“If something broke on the rig, it’s not like we flew a repairman in from the mainland. We had to fix it ourselves.”

He scratches his neck, his eyes still on the heater. “There are guys I know who’ve been doing this for years who couldn’t have done a better job putting that in. Makes me wonder what you need my help for.”

“More hands. The thing that’s killing me now is time. You know what you’re doing, so by being here I’ll have this shit done in half the time.”

He nods and follows me to the kitchen. There I have a list of everything that needs replacing.

We take it and head to the hardware store. Since Jimmy has a work truck, we are able to pick up almost everything we’ll need to get the work done at the house.

When we get back to the house, our next project is to patch all the holes in the walls. There are so many, Jimmy calls it a day before we’ve done even half of them.

Reilly walks in looking like a Mario Brother as he’s leaving.

“What are you wearing?” I laugh.

She flexes. “I’m finished at the station for the day so I’m here to help.”

Jimmy leans against his truck and looks her up and down. “You should have gotten here earlier.”

She rolls her eyes. “Hush Hacket, the grown-ups are talking here.”

He straightens and shakes his head. “Whatever you say.” Then turning to look at me he says, “I’ll be here early.”

“Sounds good, Jim,”

Reilly and I watch him climb into his truck and drive away.

“Why’d you give him a hard time?”

She shrugs. “Force of habit. We fought about something in middle school and I’ve given him shit ever since.”

“You’re crazy picking fights with men twice your size.”

She smirks. “Please, I think it would freak him out if I was ever nice to him.” Then she tugs me toward the house. “Is there anything I can demo? I want to karate chop a wall down like they do on TV.”

“We aren’t knocking any walls down, dork.”

I start to sling my arm around her shoulder but she ducks away, covering her nose. “Don’t lift your arms near me. Your pits reek.”

She runs into the house with a shriek when I act like I’m going to bear hug her. With that, I follow her inside. Since she wants to break stuff, I take her to the upstairs bathroom. All of the tiles in the shower need to come down there and in the master bathroom as well.

Her eyes light up when I hand her a crow bar and a hammer.

“Easy,” I warn. “I need to turn off the water and remove the showerhead first, and you need to put on goggles and gloves before you get started.”

She pouts but steps back to give me room to work.

“Did you see Kacey before you left?” I ask.

She chuckles behind me and I glance over my shoulder at her.

“I was curious how long it would take for you to bring her up,” she replies.

Glaring back at the showerhead, I snap, “Obviously, not long. Now that we’ve established that, did you see her?”

“Touchy are we? I just think it’s funny that she loved you forever and now you’re the one up her ass.”

“Riley.”

“Ugh, fine. I saw her, and before you ask, she looked stressed but as you probably already know, she’s supposed to be meeting with Heath tonight.”

“If she was stressed, why’d you leave her?” I ask, turning with the showerhead in my hand.

Reilly places her now gloved hands on her hips. “My location is not going to change how stressed out she is. Only giving back the ring will do that. Besides, it stresses me out when she’s stressed. I thought it’d be healthier to come here and break stuff.”

I give her a look.

“I mean help my big brother,” she amends.

As much as it sucks, she’s right. Not that I’ll ever tell her that. Stepping out of the shower, I put my goggles on her and walk her through removing the ceramic tiles.

The space is too small for the two of us to work, so I grab a sport’s drink and sit on the vanity to watch her work.

“What are you going to do for a shower while we’re fixing these?” She asks.

Grimacing, I reply, “I’m stuck taking baths until they’re done.”

She pauses, pressing one hand to the shower wall and turning her face to laugh at me.

“It’s not that funny,” I grumble.

She shakes her head and continues to laugh, pausing long enough to say, “I barely fit in the bathtubs of this house. You’re like twice my size.”

Fuck. She has a point. For about the hundredth time in the past four days, I wish I could find the fuckers that trashed this place so I could beat the shit out of them.

“Shut up and get back to work.”

She keeps laughing but does it working. It hits me then why she’s here. Sure, she wants to help fix up the place. But I think the real reason she’s here is to keep me company so I won’t worry about Kacey meeting Heath.

“Hey Reils,” I call and she turns her head to look at me. “Thank you.”

Her face softens and one side of her mouth tips up. “Anytime, Jake.”

Reilly gave me a jewelry box to put Heath’s ring in. Right now, it’s burning a hole in the pocket of my cardigan. Heath had dinner at his parent’s house last night.

When I called him to see if it’d be cool if I came over, he didn’t act surprised. In fact, he didn’t act like anything and I don’t like that I couldn’t get a read on him.

He opens the door to his apartment before I knock, my hand still raised to do so. His eyes skim my face and then travel down my body, to my left hand.

My arm twitches at my side as I consider hiding my hand behind my back. It’s too late for that, though. His subdued expression shifts into one of resignation. He knows what I’m here to do.

Why is breaking up with someone I haven’t truly dated so hard. The answer to that is simple; I care about him and I care about his family and what they’re going through. What I’m doing causes him pain.

It’s impossible to stay engaged to him, not when there’s a chance that Jake and I can be happy together.

“Come in,” he says, stepping back to give me room to move past him.

Similar to ours, he doesn’t have much of an entryway, the living room being right off the doorway. Deciding this would be best if we were sitting, I make my way over to his couch.

He follows me closely, so close that his breath is hot against the skin of my neck. Tugging my cardigan snugly, I turn to sit. He takes the spot right next to mine.

“I can guess what you’re here for,” he states.

Taking a deep breath, I slide my hand into my pocket containing the jewelry box. He surprises me by placing his hand over mine, stopping my movement, the fabric of my sweater separating our hands.

“Don’t do this, Kace.”

We lock eyes, his so close to mine.

“I don’t understand,” I admit. “Why do you want to marry me so much?”

His hand squeezes mine through my sweater. “We’d be perfect together. Happy.”

“Heath,” I quietly argue. “You can’t know that for sure, you can’t.”

His hand moves from covering mine to rest on his leg. He looks away, his gaze toward the living room window. It’s unfocused though as if he was staring at nothing.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say.

“Don’t worry about me.”