Breaking Hearts (6 page)

I rolled my eyes and nodded.

“I didn’t break up with you because you’d done anything wrong. I let you go because I knew you two belonged together. You did then and you do now.”

“Whatever. You broke up with me because you had a thing for Jocelyn. And I don’t care what you say about me and Simon.” I turned to face him, whatever I’d been pretending to see out the window as forgotten as my life before Simon. “I’m not going home, and even if I decided I wanted to be in Storybook Lake, it wouldn’t be to try my luck with him again. We didn’t work out, and that’s the way it is. Unlike you, my friend, I don’t live in the past or rely on it to make my future a happy one.”

He shook his head and smiled his I’ll-convince-you-one-way-or-another smile. “When Simon walked into a room, you were all over me like icing on cupcakes.” He wrapped an arm around me, and I rolled my eyes at his bakery reference.
She
owned the bakery in town. “But when he wasn’t around, we could have parked an airplane in the space between us. I see your face when I talk to him on the phone.”

“It’s lust. I haven’t exactly been getting any since I got here.”

He let that pass. “It doesn’t have a thing to do with your lack of sex, and you know it. You are all Simon, all the time. Don’t let him get away again.”

“He has someone else.” That was not the most fun thing I’d ever had to say. “He moved on. And so have I.”

Keaton chuckled. Chuckled! “He might be dating someone else, but I guarantee if you go back, you’ll end up with Simon.” He put a hand on each of my cheeks to stop my headshaking. “Come on, Dani. You both deserve to be happy.” His lips brushed the top of my scalp, and he rested his cheek against my hair. “Together.”

“No.” I didn’t deserve to be happy. I’d lied my ass off for the last three years, and I stumbled through every single day with my deception staring me in the face. No. Happiness was more than I could ever hope for, more than karma or God would ever allow me.

The next day, we sat together on a flight to Storybook Lake.

Coming home was a far different experience than I expected. I hadn’t told them about Kieran, just strolled up the porch steps with him. Their surprise quickly morphed into a crazy kind of joy I’d never really seen out of either of them. Then the shopping began, and without much warning or expectation of repayment, Kieran and I had more stuff than would fit in my bedroom. Toys, books, clothes… If they sold it in town, or one nearby, Kieran and I received it as a gift.

My mom cleaned out her upstairs office to decorate a bedroom for Kieran. A dinosaur mural decorated one wall, and she’d ordered a bed designed to look like a rock cave. The carpet mimicked a stone path in the center of a grassy knoll. It took all of one minute for Kieran to fall in love with his new room and his new family.

For me, the fact they’d taken us in meant more than I could ever find a way to show. I tried to help out, to prove I’d reformed and changed my wicked ways, but my mean girl peeked out every once in a while. When she did, I hopped in the car for whatever reason I could formulate to make an escape. That was how I ran into Simon. Literally.

I didn’t bump into him at the grocery store, the strip mall, or at the library where I’d spent a good many hours hiding from my parents’ enthusiasm. No. Running into my ex-boyfriend took on a whole new meaning, or more precisely, the
Webster’s Dictionary
meaning, and I did it with a fully licensed motor vehicle, plowing my mom’s front end into the rear of Simon’s patrol car as he waited for a stop light to turn green.

I couldn’t claim distraction, since I hadn’t taken my eyes off the light bar on top of his fully decaled police cruiser from the minute it turned out in front of me. I’d continued to stare at the roof rather than his taillights, then smacked into the trunk as he’d stopped and Mom’s car kept rolling. He stepped out onto the pavement in a slow motion-unfolding of his long limbs. I blinked and swallowed hard as he strolled to where I white-knuckle gripped the steering wheel.

“Mrs. Ranier?” I wanted to crawl into the trunk before he had a chance to reach the window. When he got closer, a smile lit up his face. “Dani?”

Jeepers.
His uniform inspired a quick bout of hot bonus fantasy--black cargo pants emphasizing every toned muscle, front and back, a T-shirt with the word POLICE between his shoulder blades and boots that could have belonged to a Hell’s Angel. He had a gun on one side of his belt and a badge on the other. If I ever had to be arrested, I wanted this guy to pat me down.

“Hi, Simon.” Heat flooded my pores. I tried to open the door and get out, but the hood and front fenders of the car crinkled accordion style, against the door.

“Are you okay?” He leaned closer, taking in the windshield, webbed where my head hit on impact.

“Yeah, but I think I’m stuck.” I pulled the handle twice more to prove my problem.

With most of his top half bent inside the window, he held on to my shoulder for a second until I wriggled from beneath his electric touch. “Can you climb out?” His radio crackled as he called for a tow truck and an ambulance.

“I think so.” Holding my dress with one hand and grasping the passenger headrest with the other, I twisted my body and shimmied over the window ledge. His bulging eyes said my attempt at modesty had been much more attempt than success. I tugged at the skirt.

He licked his lips, then brought his gaze to my face. “Oh, shit, Dani. You’re bleeding.” He dashed to his car, then jogged back to me. My eyelids fluttered shut as I inhaled the citrus-y scent of his cologne. I opened my eyes to find his face inches from mine while he investigated the gash on my head. “You’re probably gonna need a couple stitches.” With a gentle touch, he pressed a patch of fabric over the cut. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” The tingling in the lower half of my body overpowered any northerly pain.

I didn’t care that we were standing in the middle of the street or that he belonged to someone else. His soul-melting gaze held mine, and one hand cradled the nape of my neck as he used the other to stop the blood trickling in a thin stream from my hairline.

Another police cruiser pulled up, and Simon dropped his hands and stepped away. He sprung into action, giving orders to divert traffic to make way for the ambulance he’d called. All-business Simon stirred my pulse with his in-my-face hotness. After about an hour, the cars had been towed off, a deputy retrieved and delivered Simon’s personal Jeep, and I sent the ambulance on its way. I could live with a scar if it meant leaving this whole humiliating experience behind me.

We stood on the sidewalk facing each other, grinning like a couple of goofy teenagers waiting for our first big kiss. He reached out a hand to once again touch my face, and I closed my eyes, savoring the whisper of his hands on my skin. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded, still under the power of his special brand of magic. Any words I might have spoken stuck in my throat. Breaking the spell, he cleared his throat and pulled away.

I swallowed hard and stepped back from his car. “Well, thanks for not writing me a ticket.” I shuffled from one foot to the other, waiting for something. “I sh-I should go.” I turned and hurried away, past the jewelry store and the wedding shop. As I neared the beauty parlor his mother once owned, I slowed. Through the window reflection, I watched Simon’s gaze follow me.

Probably thinking I’d turned into some sort of beauty parlor stalker, Gatlin waved from inside. The sight of someone friendly brought a small smile to my lips. Aside from Keaton, he’d been the one member of their little group I’d always gotten along with.

“Hey, Dani, wait a second.”

I couldn’t have walked another step if I tried. My legs went weak at the curiosity and the slight trace of urgency in his voice as he
Dukes of Hazard
slid over the hood of his car toward me.

“Wanna get together? Have some lunch? Maybe catch up?”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” My heart pounded at the idea of
catching up
with Simon, but I’d turned over a new leaf, and boyfriend stealing had a big red line through the list of acceptable behaviors I kept on the keep-Kieran-proud Post-it in my mind.

“I asked if you wanted to catch up.” A smile tipped the corner of his lips heavenward. “Not have an orgy.”

Orgy? Hardly. If I ever got my hands on him again…one on one…for hours. Instead of voicing my thoughts, I cleared my throat and shrugged at him. “Well, you gotta clarify. Catching up with you could mean a lot of things, and it puts pictures in a girl’s mind.”

He chuckled as I tapped my forehead with my finger.

“Pretty pictures.” I over-exaggerated my sigh. Okay. So, my reformation had a ways to go.

He ducked his head and color brightened his cheeks while I chewed my lip for a split second.

“Catching up sounds good.”

With the gentle pressure of his hand at the middle of my lower back, he guided me to the passenger side of his SUV. After his chauffeur’s flourish and bow, I climbed in and breathed deep. The car smelled like him, had little touches of Simon all over it--including a picture of Jocelyn with Keaton attached to his dashboard.

Almost before I knew it, we arrived at Hood’s Hideaway, a new restaurant on the outskirts of Storybook that my mother raved about for an hour the previous evening. The glorified tree house bordered on the resort property where Keaton worked. It had a thatched roof over top of steel beams. Fake vines and plants “grew” inside. A trunk reached up through the middle of the floor, dividing the room into fours.

After our waitress served frothy coffee concoctions with whipped cream and sprinkles in primitive designed grog cups, she strolled away, leaving us alone, shielded by artfully placed foliage. I took a sip of the hot brew and swallowed quickly. My chest burned as the scalding liquid made its way down to my stomach. I sucked in a breath and blew it out. “Wooh. Wow.” I cleared my blistered throat. “So, what happened with you and Hollywood?” I wasn’t after the down and dirty details, but a bit of clarification would lighten the weight on my chest when I thought of them.

He smiled a little, and an old familiar longing bounced around in my chest. “She decided to stay in California and I decided to stay here.”

What kind of girl chose a crappy magazine job over Simon?
The fool
. Blind fool. While Keaton might have been beautiful, Simon was more. More handsome, more sociable, more affectionate, more…everything I wanted in one finely muscled package.

He took a big drink of coffee, pulled his lower lip between his teeth, and smiled. “That’s hot.”

I nodded. “I could have told you to drink slow.” I dialed the conversation back to his relationship status--the only information I cared about, anyway. “And now you’re consoling yourself with a sweet from the bakery?” I gave myself a mental thumbs-up for the confidence with which I’d said it, for the wit, without a single hint of jealousy or malice for the friend of Jocelyn’s he’d started dating.

“Such a way with words.” He grinned. “And I’m not consoling myself with Lizette. I really like her.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at me for a moment before his face relaxed.

I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay. You made a love connection. I’m happy for you.” But my stomach turned at the thought of Simon--
my
Simon--with any other woman.

“And what about you? Anybody lighting your fire these days?”

I shook my head and ran my thumb around the rim of my cup. Keaton and I never discussed how or the amount of details we would give Simon about our time together. They’d been best friends for years. I didn’t want to be the one to destroy such a lasting bond.

“So, you and Keats are finished?”

“What? I, um, I, what?” I knocked my coffee over in surprise, then quickly snatched my white linen napkin off the table and began sopping up the cooling brown liquid.

“
Simon says
you can’t keep secrets from a guy like me, Dani.” He chuckled and took another drink. Smaller this time. “I’m his go-to guy for everything. Plus, Joss is my sister and I don’t want to see her get hurt, so I asked him.”

“Oh.” My hands stilled as the waitress wiped our table clean, then left to get me another drink. She’d probably put it in a sippy cup. “I should have figured Keaton already told you.” These weren’t guys who kept things from each other. “But yeah, we’re over. To be honest, we never really began. He loves her too much to be with anybody else.”

“Is your little boy his?”

I’d been keeping this secret for so long I almost spilled it right there behind the fake vines hiding us from the other customers. Since he had a vested interest in knowing what I knew, I should have told, but I didn’t. I couldn’t tell him now. He was happy with someone else, and Kieran and I had almost ruined one relationship already. “I don’t want to talk about Kieran’s daddy.”

“Why?”

“Because you have your life and I have mine, and we don’t share our secrets anymore.” I looked down at the table. “So, sheriff, huh?”

He chuckled. All serious points of conversation came to a screeching halt. Instead, we chatted about Arizona’s dry air, his mom’s rekindling of her marriage to Alex Rogers, his move into Gatlin’s apartment, my dad’s new horses--everything except the one thing I wanted to discuss--us. Three hours and a couple pots of coffee later, he drove me back to my mom’s and pulled up in front of the house. “This reminds me of the old days.”

Me too
. How many nights had we sat out in front of the house, steaming up the windows to his car? Just the thought of air-fogging activities with Simon had my blood pressure climbing. “Yeah.”

My body without any encouragement from my brain, maybe responding to the nostalgia, or maybe responding to Simon, leaned closer and our lips touched. Every pent-up feeling and emotion I’d ever suppressed washed over me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, losing myself in him.

The kiss lasted forever and ended too quickly as he jerked away from me. “Dani, I can’t do this.”

An ache throbbed in my chest.

“I have a girlfriend.”

I nodded. “I know.” My eyelids fluttered shut, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.