Come On Closer (18 page)

“Now, that, I
do
know,” Shane said. He wasn't sure about the whole nice-guy thing. It wasn't a role he was used to playing . . . and it didn't really feel like playing this time with Larkin and Mrs. Valeri. He hoped it wasn't. He hoped it lasted. Shane frowned, then brushed the thoughts aside as he turned and walked to where Larkin was waiting for him, all huddled up and coughing at the edge of the road.

“Why didn't you tell me you were getting sick?” he asked. “I could have come over last night. I could have done . . . well, something, anyway.” It bothered him that she hadn't reached out. Maybe it shouldn't have. But feeling this way—all these weird feelings he'd been grappling with—made him want reassurance that he wasn't feeling them alone.

Larkin sniffled and looked up at him with rheumy eyes. “I decided I wasn't getting sick. Because I am a stubborn butthead.”

His smile was half relief, half amusement at her honesty. “Oh yeah? How'd that work out for you?”

“
Awesome
, obviously. I feel gross,” she said. “There are a lot of cooties going on here. Sorry.”

“I fear no cootie,” he said. “Come on. I'll take care of you.”

The words were unfamiliar on his tongue, and he couldn't remember if he'd ever said them before. All he knew was, this time, he meant
it.

“I
want to go back to work.”

“You have bronchitis.”

“Screw bronchitis. I want to go back to work.”

She knew she was being unreasonable, and she didn't care. After being cooped up for three days at home, with a worsening cough that perfectly matched her attitude, Shane had pushed her into going to the doctor. Now she not only had a mile-high stack of boxes and bottles of over-the-counter cold meds, she also had antibiotics. She felt like crap, she was well aware that she looked like crap, and having to sit still was making her homicidal. The only person unwise enough to plant himself in her path was Shane, and he'd proven himself to be just as big an obstacle as he looked. Bigger, even.

Nurse Ratched had nothing on him.

“You have bad bronchitis,” Shane said, looming
over her. “Did you not listen to the doctor? He wants you to rest. Otherwise you could get pneumonia, and I don't want to have to argue you into the hospital.”

“I didn't argue about going to the doctor,” she grumbled, and proceeded to have a coughing fit into the tissue she was holding. Her eyes watered. She hated everything.

“Maybe it was more like complaining, then. Loud complaining. You know Jo and Aimee have this covered, and whoever the new girl is . . .”

“Maisie,” Larkin said. “She's still in training because the last girl moved. I should be there to make sure it's going all right.” Every time she thought about work, she got panicky. The panic made her bitchier. She knew it, but her normal firewalls against extreme bitchiness had been overcome by a wave of mucus that had destroyed every good intention in its path.

“It's going all right,” Shane said, a stubborn crease appearing between his eyes. “If you call them again they're going to drive by late tonight and pelt your house with leftover baked goods.”

“If they do I'll kill them. We donate the leftover food to a couple of different soup kitchens.”

That seemed to give him pause. “I didn't know that.”

“Yeah, well, I've had to eat at those places before. The people really appreciate the food, and it's a nice treat. Besides, it's awful to just toss perfectly good food.” She glared at his surprised expression and added, “I know, I'm such a hippie, caring about the poors. Whatever.”

He frowned. “I didn't say that, and you're grouchy.”

“Maybe.” She coughed, blew her nose, and then threw herself onto her back. “This sucks. I can't
do
anything!” The phone rang, and she had to dig through layers of blankets to find it. Shane headed back into the kitchen, probably to pace where she couldn't see him. She knew he didn't like being cooped up any better than she did, just as she knew she was terrible company right now.

The number was unfamiliar, but the area code wasn't. Telemarketer, probably, she thought, and took the call just for the satisfaction she'd get in hanging up on someone.

“Hello?” she asked. Her voice was deep and scratchy, another point of frustration.

“Larkin?”

She didn't say anything. She stopped breathing. Some part of her insisted that being very still and quiet would make the phone call disappear. But it didn't, and neither did the person on the other end of the line.

“Larkin, is that you? It's Amber.”

She scrambled to find words, but she had none. She had a different phone number, an
unlisted
phone number. Not that it stopped people who were really determined, but why? It had been years, and it still hadn't been long enough. Finally, she spoke.

“Sorry, you've got the wrong number.”

She ended the call, but not before she heard the angry “Larkin!” on the other end. Seconds after she hung up, the phone started ringing again. This time, she let it go to voice mail. Which, she remembered, began with
Hi, this is Larkin!
She closed her eyes.

They're all the way across the country, and they're too broke to get out here. It's probably nothing. Let it go.

“Telemarketer?” Shane poked his head around the corner, looking wary. She didn't blame him. He'd been
here every day after work to fuss over her—Shane's version of fussing, anyway, which was mostly to try to continuously feed her while picking terrible movies for them to watch on Netflix—and she'd been about as pleasant as a wounded bear, especially today. She knew it. At least, the bigger, better part of her did. But that wasn't the part that was in control today. Not when she'd been sick and unable to do so much as glance at a baking pan for days.

She never got sick. Getting sick meant losing your job, or at the very least, losing a needed paycheck. Yes, things were better right now, but the fear wasn't so easily shaken. Things had been hard for a long time. The business was important, was hard won, was everything. She had
bills
, damn it! What if something terrible happened and she had to shut down? What would she do?

The list of what-ifs played over and over in her head, each round adding something new and horrible to think about. Meanwhile, Shane waited for an answer she'd forgotten the question to. Finally, he prodded her.

“Larkin? Who was it?”

“No one.” She wasn't sure she wanted to talk about it. Her mind was already reeling from the possibilities. If her sister had tracked her number down, then they'd know where she was. That was the last thing she wanted, even if they couldn't afford to physically darken her doorstep.

“Is something wrong?” Shane was frowning now.

Her phone vibrated, and her voice mail notification popped up.
Great.
“No.”

“Larkin.”

“What?”

When he just stared at her, she sighed loudly. She wasn't a good liar. And he wasn't the problem. It would be cool if she could push past her present state of feeling like human garbage and remember that. Grudgingly, she admitted the truth. “It was my sister.”

“You have a sister?” Shane looked mystified by this. She guessed she hadn't mentioned it. Why would she? She and Amber were like oil and water. Probably because Amber was just like their mother. Larkin sometimes wondered who she took after. Not her mother. Her father? Hard to know. She wasn't an emotionally unavailable laborer, so probably not. And her stepsiblings from that side had scattered to the four winds, so finding out what he was like from them would take more energy than she was interested in expending.

“She's my half sister. Yeah.”

“Do you get along?”

“Nope.”

Shane emerged fully from the hall and leaned against the wall, crossing one foot over the other. Even when he wasn't thinking about it he looked like a
GQ
spread. She wanted to be mad about it. Currently, she wanted to be mad about everything. Shane seemed willing to oblige her.

“That's it? Nope? You've met my family, but yours gets to stay a secret?”

“It's not a secret,” she snapped. “I was very clear that they suck.”

“They suck. That's all you're going to tell me.”

“They suck in a trashier way than your family
sucks? I'm not sure what you're looking for. I don't have to talk about it. It's not important.” She knew, on some level, that she sounded like a petulant child. She was also scared to death. She needed to have a handle on things, and being stuck here was the opposite of that. Now she had Amber calling, and probably Journey herself would be next. Whining. Accusing her of being a bad daughter. Looking for money.

They would ruin everything. And there was nothing she could do.

Shane glared at her for a long moment, then said, “Okay.” He went to the mat beside the door and began tugging on his boots. Larkin watched him, aghast. Her temper flashed, but so did her fear.
He's leaving. . . . Why is he leaving? Fine, go, then. . . . No, God, wait
—
please stay. . . .

“Where are you going?” She tried to sound pathetic. It wasn't a stretch. Shane didn't seem affected, though.

“Home. I need air, and you need to do . . . whatever it is you're doing.”

“I'm just sitting here,” she snapped. “It's not my fault I feel awful!” Part of it
was
her fault, though. She'd let herself depend on him, to the point where watching him leave angry actually made her nauseous. When was the last time she'd let such a thing happen? It had been years. And it had never been quite like this.

“This isn't just about you feeling awful. We decided to try being a couple, right? That implies some give-and-take. You know all about my situation.”

“Only because it's right in front of my face,” Larkin grumbled, barely resisting the urge to shove a wad of
tissue up her nose to stop the dripping. “You wouldn't talk about them if they weren't right here. You wouldn't
want
to.”

“That's irrelevant, and in that case I would talk about them if you asked. It's not some big dirty secret.”

She glared at him. She really wasn't in the mood for this. “It's not a secret. And you don't get to decide what's relevant and irrelevant when it comes to my family, lawyer man. I'm not hiding the fact that they're awful. I just don't want to talk about it.”

“What is this? You think I'll judge you? After what you know about
my
family? Do you know how insulting that is?”

“I didn't even
say
that!” Larkin knew a losing argument when she saw one, and neither of them was going to come out of this happy. She coughed and made an unhappy sound. “Why are we fighting? Why do you want to fight with me when I'm sick?”

Shane rubbed at the back of his neck and heaved a sigh that was more like a growl. “Because you're grouchy and it's finally made me grouchy. Congratulations. How can somebody so sweet be such an awful patient?”

“Because I don't like being sick, that's why. And I don't like having to sit still when it wasn't my idea.”

He seemed torn between amusement and exasperation, both of which were better than the anger that had flashed moments before. “You've got a hell of a long list of things you don't like.”

“See, you learned something new,” she said, then blew her nose.

Shane shook his head, then pulled on his coat,
apparently undeterred from leaving after all. Larkin watched him with dismay. “Don't go.”

His frustration was clear when his eyes met hers, even if much of the actual anger had dissipated. “You want to tell me what was up with the phone call?”

No.
“It's complicated.”

“So is everything,” he replied. “So's my entire life. I want you in it, but this can't be all on your terms.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “I didn't go looking for this! If I have terms, it's because I'm trying to keep from, from . . .” Her voice caught in her throat.
From letting you rip my still-beating heart out of my chest and stomp on it
wasn't something he probably wanted to hear, even if it was true. “From making a huge mistake,” she finally finished. “What's bad about wanting to do things the right way?”

“I don't even think there is a right way, that's what!” he said, his voice growing heated again. “I don't know what you're worried about doing wrong because you won't tell me! You told my parents more than you told me!”

“Because your father was being mean!” She was frustrated, too, but it just made her sound more nasal, which increased her frustration. It was hard to fight effectively when she sounded like a sick goose.

“So I'm supposed to be mean to you if I want to get anywhere?”

“No.”

He shoved a hand through his hair and growled. “Larkin, I don't know what you want. I sure as hell don't know what you want from
me
. And honestly, I've got enough other stuff to figure out right now without trying to be some kind of white knight I'm just . . .
not
.”

She stared at him for a moment, taken aback by his words, and the anger behind them. It suddenly occurred to her that they weren't just fighting about her phone call anymore.

“I'm not telling you to be a white knight,” she said. “Where are you getting that? If you didn't want to be here while I was sick, then you should have just said so.” With her surprise came hurt. Her years-long attempts to just pretend her family didn't exist were one thing. Shane playing nurse when he didn't want to out of some misguided idea of what she wanted was quite another. “Go, then. I wish you'd said something. I can take care of myself.”

“Damn it, that's not what I meant.”

“Well, then you're not the only one who needs some work on communicating, because that's what it sounded like. I don't expect you to be anybody but yourself. I thought . . .” Her lip quivered, and she fought it, because she knew she was too run-down to be thinking about this rationally right now and he did not need to see her cry. “I thought you just wanted to be here.”

“I
do
. I just want you to be honest with me!”

“Well, same goes!”

He swore softly, and she knew he was leaving. It was probably better for both of them. She hadn't expected the fight, but it seemed like the air had needed clearing. She'd thought they were having fun—well, that he was having fun while she privately worried about where the relationship was heading. She was too scared to have fun.

Maybe he was, too. Shane being scared of anything was a foreign concept, but then again, she'd met his
parents. She knew enough to surmise that shaking up the status quo for him was a bigger jump than it would be for a lot of people. Maybe she was part of shaking things up for him.

That's stupid. I'm not hard to figure out. Except for the family issues. And the commitment issues. And the—well, shit.

“Look, you let me know when you feel better and maybe we can have a rational discussion about all of this,” Shane said. “I need some time.” His voice was steady, but it held an edge of anger that likely burned far hotter than he let on. “I know you think I'm some kind of nice guy, Larkin, and I'm trying, but I'm not the only one who needs work. Besides, I'm never going to be
that
nice.” Still, despite what he said, he looked genuinely pained before he turned to go. “I'll see you later. Feel better. And if you let yourself get pneumonia I really will kick your ass.”