For Better or Worse (16 page)

A dorky smile on her face, Heather crept up ­behind Josh and bonked him on the head with the bouquet she'd assembled, effectively severing whatever he'd had going on with the jailbait.

“Come on, moron. Let's go.”

•   •   •

“Oh, Heather, honey. They're beautiful!” Sue gushed, holding out her arms and making grabby fingers for the flowers. An hour and change later Heather and Josh were standing in his family's foyer in New Jersey, putting the artfully designed bouquet into Sue's arms.

“How do you know I'm not the one that picked them out?” Josh grumbled as he handed them over.

“Yellow carnations, dear. You remember,” Sue said as she turned her cheek up so Josh could kiss it.

“It's a wonder you still call me your son,” he said. Then he wrapped both arms around his mother, flowers and all. “Hi, Ma. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Heather's heart melted just a little. Or a lot. A man who was good to his mother. Was there any better kind?

“Hi, dear,” Sue said as she patted Josh's cheek and gave him a smile.

Heather could have sworn Josh's mom's eyes were watering just a little, and she looked away, suddenly very aware that she was a stranger intruding on a family holiday.

But then Sue shifted her attention back to Heather, reaching out her free hand as she shifted the flowers to her other side. “Heather, honey, it's so good to see you again. Josh was so excited you could join us, and trust me when I say we share his enthusiasm.”

“Yup. I wrote all about it in my diary,” Josh said sarcastically.

Sue rolled her eyes. “Josh, go help your father.”

“Help him what, find the remote?”

“Oh, I didn't tell you. We're deep-frying the turkey this year. You can guess whose idea that was.”

“So the diet's going well, then?” Josh said.

“Shoo,” Sue said, waving her hand. “He's out back. Your grandparents aren't here yet, thank God. I'll need a mimosa or five before that happens. How about it, Heather?” Sue turned to Heather and winked conspiratorially.

Heather nodded gratefully. “A mimosa would be great.”

“Josh, honey, make us a couple mimosas, would you? There's stuff set up on the sideboard in the dining room.”

“I thought I was supposed to help with the turkey.”

“Champagne first, always,” Sue said, linking her arm in Heather's as Josh rolled his eyes but dutifully headed toward what Heather supposed was the dining room.

“I'm so glad you're here,” Sue said, giving Heather's arm a little squeeze.

“I really appreciate you inviting me.”

“Josh said you don't have any family in the area?”

Heather shook her head. “My mom's from Michigan, and she doesn't love New York.”

Not that she'd ever been here to know.

“It took us a while to get used to it as well. Not that Jersey is quite Manhattan, but it's an adjustment from Bozeman, Montana.”

“That's where you're from?” Heather asked in surprise.

She and Josh had never talked about where he was from, but somehow she'd assumed that he was local. He seemed so very at home in New York.

“How long have you lived here?” Heather asked, as she paused to peek at the numerous photos on the wall.

“We moved out here a few years ago,” Sue said, stopping with Heather as her eyes roved over the pictures. “To be closer to Josh.”

There was something in the older woman's tone then. A sadness, and Heather glanced at her out of the corner of her eye and wondered why the sadness on Sue's face matched her tone. This must be one tight-knit family, if the parents had missed their son enough to move to an entirely new state to be closer to him. She felt a sting of bitterness, thinking of her
own mother, who couldn't even be bothered to hop on a plane to come visit.

Heather glanced back at the wall, leaning forward to look at a picture of Josh and a pretty, plump blonde with a happy smile. “Is this Jamie?”

Sue smiled. “Yes. She lives in Nashville with her husband. Usually she comes up for Thanksgiving, but she's due with my first grandbaby in just a couple weeks.”

“Yeah, Josh mentioned that he went down to visit her.”

“He's a good boy.”

“They're close?” Heather asked.

Sue hesitated before answering. “They're working on it. They used to be inseparable, but after . . . Jamie pulled back a little bit. Josh is working on her though, and I'd like to think they're close to being back to ­normal.”

After
what
? It was the second strange reference Sue had made in as many minutes, and Heather felt her curiosity getting the better of her. But before she could ask more, Josh reappeared with two mimosas. “My ladies,” he said, handing them each a crystal champagne flute.

His eyes flicked to the pictures on the wall before narrowing slightly on his mother, but Sue had banished all traces of sadness and had another of those big smiles pasted on her face.

“Where are my manners? Heather, honey, come out of our hallway. You'll have to help me arrange these lovely flowers while the boys add a zillion calories to our turkey. Off with you, Josh, honey.”

“And miss the girl talk?” he said.

His voice was casual, but Heather could have sworn there was a note of warning in his voice as he looked at his mother. Sue reached out and squeezed his forearm before moving into the kitchen.

Josh's shoulders relaxed slightly at whatever silent communication had just passed between mother and son, and he shifted his attention back to Heather. “You good?”

She smiled. “Yeah. I really am.”

“Good.”

He started to leave, but Heather said his name, and he turned back around.

“What's up?”

“Thanks,” she said, holding his gaze.

“For?” His eyebrows lifted.

“For this,” she said, gesturing to his parents' home. “For including me. I would have . . . I would have been alone today. And I was pretending that's what I wanted. But this is nice. It's better.”

He smiled. “Nobody wants to be alone, 4C.”

He walked away, whistling a premature Christmas song, and Heather stared after him.

Nobody wants to be alone
, he'd said.

Strange words from a man who she suspected was more
alone
than any of them.

Chapter Seventeen

I
LIKE HER.
”

Josh accepted the dripping platter his mother held out and dried it. “Yes, so you've said about a hundred times.”

“You like her, too. Otherwise you wouldn't have brought her here,” his mom said pointedly, giving him a knowing look as she added another dirty plate to the soapy sink.

“We're friends, Mom.”

“Mmm-hmm. You've never brought a friend around for a holiday dinner before.”

“That's because the rest of my friends have family,” he said, glancing toward the living room, where Heather sat next to the fire with his father, laughing as they looked through an old photo album that probably had no shortage of pictures of his bare ­toddler butt.

“She mentioned her mom's from Michigan?” Sue asked.

“Yeah,” Josh said, accepting another plate to dry.

“But they're not close.”

“No, I think they are,” Josh said, setting the plate on the clean stack. “They talk every Sunday. But her mom didn't want to come to New York, and I get the impression it bothers Heather.”

“Of course it does. This is her home. I'm sure she wants to share that with her. A pity her mom can't understand that.”

“Not everyone's so lucky,” he said, bending down to kiss his mother's cheek.

Sue rolled her eyes. “You're buttering me up so that I'll quit prying into your and Heather's relationship.”

“Friendship. It's a friendship,” he corrected, thinking of his sister's advice.

And the more Josh had thought about it, the more he wondered if friendship is exactly where he should leave it with Heather. He still wanted her—rather desperately. But he also liked her too damn much to leave her. And if he slept with her, there's no way he could
not
leave her.

But that didn't solve the not-so-small problem of him not being able to get the visual of her ass out of his mind. He'd been playing around when he'd barged into her bedroom this morning, wanting to get under her skin because it was fun and it was what they did. And wanting to make nice and apologize for being an ass the other day at the restaurant.

But then she'd been standing there, all messy hair and tiny tank top with only a small red thong, and he'd felt a shot of lust so intense he'd thought he was going to pass out.

It needed to stop. Now. Especially since Trevor seemed to be hung up on the woman, and he didn't want to cock-block his best friend. For the hundredth time in the past week, he wondered if anything had happened between them that night when Trevor had gone into her apartment.

He hadn't asked Trevor, knowing that his friend would see right through him and not wanting to give his lead singer the wrong idea. He didn't want Heather for himself, he just wanted . . .

Hell if he knew.

He had no idea what he wanted.

“She doesn't know about what happened with you,” his mom said casually, handing him another dish. Good Lord, did the pile never end?

“What do you mean?”

His mom turned and gave him a steady look. “You know what I mean.”

He swallowed and glanced again in the direction of Heather. She'd shifted her attention to his grandmother, nodding and smiling politely at what was likely a lecture on her posture. Josh was lucky enough to have all four grandparents alive, but his father's parents were from the South and could be a bit formal.

“I don't see a reason to mention it,” he said. “I'm not that guy anymore.”

“No, you're not that guy in the sense that you're no longer a Wall Street hotshot. And in the sense that you're no longer sick.”

He gave her a sharp look.

“But, Josh, honey, that past . . . it's a part of you.
If she's really your friend, she'd want to know. How is it that it's never come up?”

“It has,” he grumbled.

“And?”

“I shut her down,” he said quietly.

Sue looked at him sadly and sighed. “Oh, Josh.”

“Look, I'm not proud of it,” he said. “I only sulked for a couple days before I came to my senses and realized I was being an ass.”

“And you apologized.”

“Of sorts.”

His mom snorted. “Said like a man. What time is it? I wanted to Skype with your sister before it gets too late.”

He glanced at his watch. “Half past six.”

“How is she?”

“Huge,” Josh replied. “But good. Really good.”

“I'm glad things are . . . mended between you.”

“I just hate that they were ever broken in the first place,” he said quietly. Though he'd never admit it to her now, he'd been devastated when Jamie had pulled away from him back when things were really rough, and even though they were better now, up until his most recent visit, a part of him was still holding her at arm's length so she couldn't come quite close enough to hurt him again.

“It was hard for her. Seeing her twin, thinking she should have been the one to help and not being able to.”

“Absurd,” he muttered, setting a plate on the growing pile of clean dishes.

“I know you think so. But put yourself in her
shoes. If she was the one who'd needed a bone marrow transplant, and you'd been told that you weren't a match . . .”

Josh was silent for several moments. “I'd have been destroyed.”

“As was Jamie.”

Josh blew out a long breath. He hated that his family had had to see him be sick, but he knew it had been especially hard on his sister. Siblings were the most likely match for bone marrow, and Jamie had gotten it into her head that as a twin, she'd be a sure thing.

Alas, that was only true of identical twins.

Jamie hadn't been a match, and she'd just . . . retreated. Not physically. She'd still been there, and held his hand, and brought him brownies, the
good
kind, while he was on chemo. But she'd held herself back from him, and when her husband had gotten a job offer in Nashville, she'd gone with him the second Josh was in remission.

“We talked about it,” he told his mom. “During this trip.”

“That's good,” his mother said in delight. “I'm so glad. Any breakthroughs?”

Josh shrugged. “Not really. It was about what we expected. The guilt nearly ate her alive, but I think she's finally coming around. Realizing there's nothing she could have done. That it wasn't her fault, all that good stuff.”

“I knew it would just take some time. It was her own battle. Nothing you or any of us could have done but give her a bit of space.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

He'd never blamed his sister. Obviously. Yes, he along with the rest of them had hoped that she might be a match. And yes, his own heart had sunk a full foot when news came back that she wasn't.

But he'd gone on a donor list. And he'd gotten lucky. Jamie hadn't been a match, but someone else had.

Josh's new reality was remission, and as far as his family knew, a relapse was near impossible. The truth was between Josh and his doctors.

His own private reality, and one he wouldn't wish on any other person he cared about.

“Can I recruit Dad to take over on drying duty?” Josh asked. “I'm thinking maybe I should rescue Heather. Grandma just started a sentence with, ‘in my day.' I think maybe we've subjected her to plenty of Tanner time for her first visit.”

“Her first visit, huh? So there will be others?” his mom asked slyly.

“Yup, it's official,” he said, tossing the towel on the counter. “I'm off dish duty.”

She laughed. “Okay, fine. Let me at least send some pie home with you two.”

By the time he and Heather were saying their good-byes at the front door, they had a hell of a lot more than pie. Turkey, white for him, dark meat for Heather. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, extra gravy, and his grandmother's reminder that they should both learn to take smaller bites while they ate to ease their digestion.

Josh hugged his family, and Heather did the same.
He noted it was a genuine, full-body hug, rather than the stilted, formal hug of a stranger. She'd gotten comfortable with his family rather quickly, and it made him . . . glad.

He liked seeing her like this. Easy. Relaxed. Happy.

“You want me to carry something?” Heather asked as they finally managed to escape his family and were walking down the quiet street toward the train station.

“I didn't hear that offer when I was hauling your mountain of flowers on the way over.”

“If you think flowers and pie are the same thing, you're nuts. Hand it over.”

“But you're a wedding planner,” he said, keeping both stuffed paper bags out of her reach. “You're supposed to love flowers.”

“And I do. But I love pie more. I'm a woman first, wedding planner second, after all.”

Josh grunted as he begrudgingly handed over one of the bags.

“I love your family,” she said, tilting her head back and looking up at the clear night sky. “You're lucky.”

“I am,” he said in agreement. He was no fool. He knew he had it good. Yes, his mom was ­meddling and his dad's deep-fried turkey had been a semi-­disaster, and his grandparents could be a little uptight, and his sister had sort of lost her shit when he'd gotten sick.

But they loved each other. Were there for each other, messy drama and all.

“You want to call your mom?” he asked as they climbed the stairs to the train platform.

She looked at him in surprise. “How'd you know that's what I was thinking?”

“It's a holiday. She's your only family member. Not a stretch.”

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Not at all. We've got a few minutes until the train gets here.”

Josh set the bags on a bench and sat down as Heather wandered away. Her mom must have picked up on the first ring. He noted Heather's voice went up a full octave when she talked to her mom, full of enthusiasm that was . . . not false, exactly. The smile on her face was genuine as she chatted.

But there as a purposefulness about her happy tone, as though she didn't want to let her mom know how much it stung that they hadn't spent the holiday together.

Josh was willing to bet that Heather's mother was a nice enough lady, but that maybe the older woman didn't quite realize how important her recognition of Heather's success was to Heather.

As he watched her roam around the platform, laughing at something her mom said, he itched to hug her and tell her that she was enough, just as she was.

No, not enough.

That she was exceptional. Successful and driven and funny and bright.

And hot.

The thought of keeping his hands to himself where she was concerned was growing less and less
appealing than it had been yesterday when he'd come up with the dumb plan.

The train approached, and Heather dropped her phone in her purse and came to join him as he picked up the bags.

“Everything good?” he asked.

Heather shrugged. “Yeah. I thought she had to work today, but I guess she opted to take it off after all, so that's good. She and a friend hung out, watched Julia Roberts movies.”

Josh nodded in silent acknowledgment, wondering if it stung to know that her mom had used work as an excuse for why she couldn't come to New York, and then hadn't even ended up working.

But she seemed in a happy enough mood as they found two seats together on the train, both content to wallow in the silent joy of full bellies and a long weekend ahead.

It was enough, he thought as he settled more comfortably in his seat. Enough to be her friend.

And then he felt something nudge his shoulder.

It was Heather's head. She'd fallen asleep.

He smiled, shifting slightly to be at a better height for her, carefully cupping her cheek and positioning her head more firmly against his shoulder so it didn't do that awkward lolling around thing.

She let out a happy little sigh, and Josh let his hand linger on her face, just for a second.

It was enough, he thought again.

It had to be.