Just Pretending

“You missed this. At least a little, didn’t you? Admit it, David,” his sister Frannie said, leaning back in her husband Austin’s arms and gesturing to the crowded porch where all the people he loved best were now gathered.

David drank in the scene and noted how relaxed his sister seemed. At last. She clearly loved her husband. Marriage suited her. “I missed you, squirt,” he told her. “Missed all the torment of having you chase after me.”

“Humph,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “You and Cleo and Summer used to torment and tease Jasmine and me. Wasn’t it true, Cleo?”

“Mmm, absolutely,” her cousin said, linking her hand in her husband Ethan’s as she nodded her agreement at Frannie. “And wasn’t it tons of fun?”

Her chuckle floated out on the night and his cousin Jasmine joined in. “It was great fun.”

“The best,” Summer agreed. “Remember when David wrote a play for us and we insisted he play all the male parts?” she asked. She smiled up at her husband, Gavin. “David spent his life practically surrounded by women,” she told him. “Must have been a bit harrowing at times.”

“Or…maybe not,” Gavin said, staring around at the quartet of beauties gracing the porch.

“It did have its moments,” David admitted. “I got to meet any number of young ladies I might otherwise not have had access to. And you were all very understanding about being forced to share your space with a mere male.”

“Was it a pain having to deal with all our feminine foibles?” Jasmine asked, prodding her cousin. “Be honest, David, now that we’re all grown up.”

He turned and smiled at her and marveled at what a lucky man he had been. “The truth, Jasmine? It was pretty great. We were all very close, and no, I didn’t mind at all being the only guy other than Dad most of the time. You all spoiled me shamefully, you know.”

“Like you didn’t spoil us,” Cleo drawled. “You did. You and Uncle Edward.” She sat silent for a full five seconds. Then she raised her brows speculatively. “So which of our friends did you want to meet that you didn’t tell us about?”

David ran one hand over his jaw, not bothering to hide his grin. “Well, let’s see. I would have killed to have Edith Darrowby run her fingers through my hair when I was twelve.”

Cleo crowed. “I seem to recall her doing that very thing on this front porch one summer when you were home on spring break.”

David raised one brow and smiled. “My, what a good memory you have, Cleo, love.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Considering how many women you’ve kissed, it’s amazing I remember one specific lady. We’ve missed you, David. You kept us from getting too serious.”

“And you were always ready to defend any of us even when we didn’t deserve it,” Frannie added. “We’ve all missed you, big brother. Don’t stay away this long again,” she said, rising to give David a hug.

He gently kissed her cheek, then took a quick step to open the door that his aunt was struggling through with cups and saucers. “Aunt Celeste, why didn’t you tell me you were carrying that? I would have done it for you. Now come on, turn those things over to me.”

Celeste gave him a long, patient look. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted you to have time to visit with the children. Besides, you know I’m as strong as they come, and your parents are helping me out in the kitchen. Edward is carting out the coffee and Yvette has the cookies. Now you just settle back this one night and let us all look at you and talk to you. Don’t fuss over us, David,” she said, gently slapping his hands away as she set down her burden.

“Yes, dear, don’t fuss. Indulge tonight. You and Edward can go back to being the big, predatory protective males in the morning. You know we eat that stuff up,” his mother said, offering her cheek for his kiss as she followed Celeste through the door.

“What’s a guy to do?” David asked his father as Edward moved out into the night.

“Simple enough, son. Just enjoy being surrounded by the women who love him,” Edward advised, setting down the urn he was carrying and wrapping his arms around his wife. “Just enjoy.”

And he did, David thought later that night as he lay in bed. Now, as an adult, he could take pleasure in his family so much more than he’d been able to as a boy. Growing up, he’d been loved, he’d appreciated, but his illness had set him apart from the world in many ways. He’d wanted to be accepted the way other boys his age were, but he hadn’t been able to do the things other boys had done. And so he’d retreated into solitude in public. He’d made himself a world within walls and only come out within the heart of his family. He’d even come to enjoy being a loner; he’d thrived on the solitude and the barriers he’d erected. But now?

“That’s gone, that’s done,” he whispered. He didn’t ever want to build those kinds of immovable walls again. He loved the world and being a part of it. He wanted all the joys of companionship and joining and belonging. Still, he knew there were flaws to parts of the plan. Years of holding himself aloof had taken their toll. He never dated a woman for long; he always had the urge to move on soon after the start of a relationship.

Secretly he might want to try for the kind of closeness and marriage his parents had, but he knew it was just the kid inside him still wanting something he couldn’t have. The truth was that he would never allow himself to offer love or marriage to a woman. Not when he couldn’t sustain the feelings a relationship needed to survive. Promising a woman his heart and then asking for it back just wouldn’t be fair or right.

So, no, he didn’t want to be a loner anymore, and yet in some ways he still was one and probably always would be. Maybe—just maybe—he and Gretchen Neal had something in common, after all.

“Whoa, hang on there. Gretchen, you’re not going to tell me that this little scrap of fluff is actually your dog?” David asked the next day. He lifted his lips in a half smile as he followed Gretchen into the door of the small white cottage and was immediately assailed by a bit of white fur, big brown eyes and frantically wagging tail dancing around his feet. “I’m surprised. A tough lady like you. This little guy is not exactly standard-issue watchdog,” he said, raising one brow.

Gretchen rolled her eyes. “I told you that you didn’t have to come with me. I explained that I was perfectly capable of carrying in a bag of groceries on my own.”

“In other words, uninvited guests have no right to insult your pet?” David asked with a grin, depositing the bag on the kitchen table and bending to scratch beneath the little dog’s upturned chin.

“Exactly,” Gretchen agreed, watching his easy way with her pet. “Goliath is a very intelligent creature. He knows when he’s been insulted.”

David looked down at the obviously eager wriggling of the pink-tongued little animal.

“Of course. I can see that. Looks really put out to me,” he said with a wink at his new canine pal. David rose to his feet and looked at Gretchen, whose mouth was twitching in an obvious bid to hold back a smile.

“Well, he usually gets offended very easily,” she insisted. “He doesn’t ordinarily get this exuberant over some mere man walking through my door,” she said, as if men were swinging through her door every darn hour of the day. The thought sent a small arrow of irritation spiraling through David. He thrust it aside. Gretchen was, after all, a splendidly lovely lady, and she was a woman working in a world filled with testosterone-laced males. It only stood to reason that she’d slayed her share of his own sex, and anyway, he had no business butting into that part of her life. He’d told her that he wouldn’t.

“I’m sure you’re right about your little friend here,” David said with a nod. “I can see he’s probably chewed up his share of male ankles. Probably only spared me because of the groceries I was carrying,” he said. “But, Gretchen?”

“Hmm?”

“’Goliath’? You really call this little pretend puppy Goliath?” He looked pointedly downward and down farther still to the floor far below where the tiny white tail swished against his shoestrings.

She shrugged. “I thought he needed a little help. Everyone can’t have the advantage of being tall and strong,” she reasoned, looking pointedly at David.

“You thought he needed a little assist,” he said, wondering if the lady knew just how much her words revealed about her. “Where’d you find him?”

Gretchen blew out a breath as she reached into the first bag of groceries and pulled out a head of radicchio. “The humane society. I was looking for a Lab,” she explained. “Or a Shepherd. Maybe a St. Bernard.”

“Tough-guy dogs,” he surmised.

“Well, yes. Why not?”

“Absolutely. Smart dogs to keep around.”

“I know, but then—”

“Goliath looked at you with those big caramel-brown puppy-dog eyes that said ‘I need help.’”

Gretchen glanced back over her shoulder and leveled a long cool green-eyed stare at him. “Believe me, I’m not such a pushover as that, Hannon. You don’t work the streets of Miami and survive if you fall for every pair of big beautiful eyes that look at you beseechingly.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” he said, moving up behind her. He wondered just what all she’d seen in those years in the city. He was pretty sure much of it had been ugly. There was a telling tiny scar on her wrist and one just beneath that firm little chin of hers. Maybe from falling off a bike as a kid—or maybe from having a knife held a bit too close for comfort. Any way he looked at it, he was positive that she’d learned the survival skills every cop in that sort of situation had to learn. Emotional retreat. Develop a tough patina. Never get too involved. She had those eyes that looked right through a man to read secrets he didn’t want read. She had that closed-off look she could turn on whenever she needed to. And yet… He looked back down to the tiny dog worrying a rubber bone as if the chew toy were a criminal Goliath was trying to cuff.

“They were going to put him down. He was too frantic, too untrainable for most people,” she explained apologetically. “It was probably foolish for me to take him, but—” She lifted a shoulder in a helpless gesture.

“You did what you felt you had to do,” David said, holding out a box of rice to Gretchen, trying to ease her out of her discomfort by returning to the mundane task at hand. She took the box from him, her fingers brushing against his. Cool satin licking against his skin. At the stroke of her bare flesh against his, he felt a slight tremble go through her—and felt his own answering tremors deep inside. Unusual for him, he thought for about the fiftieth time since he’d met the woman. He always kept things light, easy. It was the way he liked things, the way things suited him, but he was relatively sure that nothing was going to be easy with Gretchen—on any level. She had too much to prove where he was concerned, too many barriers. One of those sprang up now. He knew when she made the effort to control that trembling his unexpected touch had brought on. She was right. It wouldn’t do for the two of them to mix up the personal and the professional. They’d already discussed that issue.

And so he withdrew his hand, ended the contact that sent sensation in a warm arc through his body. He resisted the impulse to move closer, to step right into her space and drag her body up against his in a long, slow slide. He turned away and helped her finish shelving the groceries.

For long, languid seconds there was only the sound of cans clicking against cans, the whoosh of boxes being slid into place on the wooden shelves.

“David?” she finally asked.