Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (23 page)

She laughed at that. “Honored? Is that how you’ve felt about my silly crush all these years?”

He knew he should correct the silly part but he also knew she wouldn’t believe him. “Yes,” he said honestly.

She winced so he went on. “Tess, you are the most generous, kind, caring person I know. For you to give me the attention you’ve always given me has been an honor, yes.”

“Oh, I humble you?” she asked sarcastically.

“Uh, no. The opposite of humble,” he said with a grin. “You made me feel like a million dollars. And now I’m amazed. This is what it’s always been about with coaching.”

She braced her hands on the counter behind her. The center island and a couple feet of floor were between them but Bryan saw every one of her emotions. She was embarrassed. But she also liked knowing that she was building
him
up with this truth. And that was just like her. It was about everyone else first.

“I’m not running because of you,” she said. “I ran the first time because of you. But then I loved it and I couldn’t stop.”

“How did I get you out running that first time?” he asked.

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I missed you and was worried about you after the accident. Your mom said something about you in yoga one night when I was filling in and—”

“My mom takes yoga?” Bryan interrupted.

Tess nodded.

“And you teach yoga?”

“I fill in when Hope needs help and took over a couple of classes when she got too busy.”

Of course she had. “Filling in” and “help” were big words in Tessa’s world.

“Okay, go on.” The yoga thing with his mom was interesting. Turned out there were more than a few things about Sapphire Falls and the people here, even other than Tess, that he didn’t know.

He needed to go see his mom. She had had a tough time accepting his injury and disability after the accident. She’d been in a deep denial that had strained their entire family, especially his sister. But they’d worked through it, and now his mom was his biggest supporter. He saw her at least twice a week. But suddenly, he wanted to take her out to dinner. And hear about yoga. And anything else he didn’t already know about.

He did not like having the women he loved keeping stuff from him.

Now that his shit had stabilized, there was a lot he needed to pay more attention to.

“Anyway, hearing her talk about you made me—” she blushed and looked at the floor, “—miss you.”

Bryan’s heart clenched hard in his chest. “Tess.” He waited until she looked up. “Don’t ever be embarrassed about thinking about me or missing me.”

“It’s pathetic how much I thought of and missed you.”

He really hated the word pathetic.

“Well, I was pretty pathetic then too, because I missed you all the time.”

She took a deep breath. “Your mom had said how much she liked reading about your recovery and rehab on your blog. I went home and googled it, because I wanted to know about your recovery and rehab too. And then I got into the archives—the running stuff. And the travel stuff. And
pathetically
,” she said, as if trying to prove that of the two of them, she would easily win a pathetic contest. “I read every word of every post.”

“So you started and loved it,” he said, feeling…cocky. More so than he ever had. He’d been important to Tess. This was real stuff. This wasn’t shy, sweet, awkward Tess. This wasn’t his smile or his flirting or his abs impressing her. This was big stuff. His passion, his words, things that gave him a lot of pride.

She nodded. “I loved it. And after about a few weeks, I couldn’t stop.”

A streak of what Bryan could only call satisfaction went through him. She’d done it on her own—he was still impressed by that—but she hadn’t been totally alone. She’d had him. He’d helped her discover this love and work through it and improve. He’d coached her. Without knowing it, and from a distance, but he’d still been a part of this.

And if eggs had felt intimate and important, this felt a million times more so.

He got off the stool and went to stand directly in front of her.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes widened. “For what?”

“For making me a part of
this
passion. I want to be a part of
all
of your passions, Tess.”

* * *

Tess had no idea what to say to that. He was thrilled. She could tell.

How could she tell him that he
wasn’t
a part of this?

This was the stuff Bryan lived for. She couldn’t tell him anything but how great he was. Dammit.

“I guess—” Her phone rang before she could complete that thought. Which was for the best. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to say anyway. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “Lots of people need you.”

She crossed to her purse to find her cell and pulled it out. TJ was calling. “Hello?”

“Tess? Need you down here. The racing guys are here, and I can’t find any of the forms they need. The guys who are doing the pig roast called, and they need to know where to bring all the ice. Hailey says we need more chairs in the square, and I need you to let everyone know that I am not going to be able to pre-sample all the pies for the bake-off.”

Tess listened to it all, feeling a familiar urge to roll her eyes and laugh. She did love her hometown, and she loved watching TJ Bennett be the mayor of it. He wanted to be short and to the point, effective and efficient. That wasn’t really how Sapphire Falls did things.

“I’m on my way,” she told him. “Give me twenty minutes.”

“I’ll give you ten and four pieces of pie.”

She did laugh then. “I’ll settle for twelve minutes and two pieces of pie.”

“Deal.” And he hung up.

“I need to go,” she told Bryan. But simply looking at his mouth made her long to take her clothes off, crawl into bed with him and not come out for about…forever.

Wow. She never would have guessed spilling her guts to him would be a turn-on. But she felt closer to him. And she also realized she was for
sure
running the half marathon in two weeks. She was tempted to stay. But she’d hate herself if she didn’t do this.

Talk about a roller coaster—she’d wanted him home, he’d come home and she wanted to leave, he wanted her to stay, now he knew everything and wanted her to go.

It was so ironic that
he
had been everything she’d thought she wanted for so long—until
he’d
intervened in her life. Even if the intervening had been unintentional.

And by ironic, of course she meant a big fucking mess.

“Okay. What do you have after TJ’s issue?”

“The kids’ fun run.”

“Fun run?”

“Yeah, it’s an obstacle course with various stations set up where they can get healthy snacks and learn about their hearts and—”

Bryan cut her off by pulling her close and covering her mouth with his.

When he finally let her up, she felt a little dazed. “What was that for?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot.”

“The kids’ fun run reminded you of that?” she asked, giving him a small grin.

But he didn’t smile back. “Yeah.”

“How?”

“It just proves, again, that you’re amazing. But you’ve always been amazing. And I’ve always known it. But I’m not sure
you
have, and I wasn’t doing a damned thing to help you know it.”

“You don’t have to say that,” she told him, stepping back. But she wasn’t saying it to be self-deprecating or coy. She meant it.

“Te—”

“I know you’ve always
liked
me, Bryan,” she said, stopping whatever apologetic or reassuring thing he’d been about to say. “Not in the wild, passionate way I’d wanted you to, but I knew you liked me. But you haven’t really
known
me. You haven’t really always known I’m amazing. In fact, I haven’t always
been
amazing. I’ve been nice, sweet, likeable. I’ve been helpful and organized and generous and willing—those things are what have made people like and appreciate me. But I haven’t been
amazing
. Yet.”

He stood staring at her for several long seconds.

“What?” she finally asked.

“I think you hit amazing a long time ago. It’s too bad that you haven’t had anyone here telling you that.”

She took a deep breath.

Then he gave her a grin and let her go. “It’s all about making others better. Love the fun run. I want in. I’ll meet you wherever you’re setting it up,” he said.

“The park. Between the ball diamond and the pool.”

“Got it. I’ll be there.” He tipped her chin up. “Do me a favor, okay?”

She nodded.

“Don’t let anyone tell you when you’re amazing.
You
tell you when you’re amazing.”

She felt tears welling up and blinked quickly. “Even you?”

“Hell, Tess, especially me.” He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. “Look how long I missed it. I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about.”

She swallowed hard as she watched him make his way to her front door.

And she felt a little less pathetic about how she felt about him. Not because it had dimmed, but because how could a girl
not
feel that way about him?

Chapter Ten

“You are a sadistic bastard.”

“Then I must be doing my job.”

Tess looked up from where she’d collapsed on the grass next to her front porch steps.

Bryan was sitting there, totally casual, sipping lemonade, for God’s sake, and grinning at her.

He turned the stopwatch to face her even though she couldn’t see it from where she was working on not dying.

“You’re two minutes faster than last time.”

She fell back in the grass. Two minutes. That was less time than it took to listen to the new Chase Rice song. It was less time than a commercial break on TV. It was less than the time it took her to make a sandwich. And yet…she grinned.

It was a nice improvement in a week.

“You need to stretch,” Bryan said a moment later. “And you need to get some water in.”

“Yeah, yeah, hang on. I’m trying to decide if life is still worth living if this is how I’m going to spend my time.”

He chuckled at that. “Wow, I
really
did my job today then.”

Tess knew it was a weird thing to feel happy about, but truly, running had changed for her in the past week since Bryan had made it his mission to get her ready for the half marathon.

Running had always been a solitary thing for her. Other than Bryan’s blogs and vlogs, Tess had been self-disciplined and motivated. She’d had no one cheering her on. Or to complain to. Or about.

Now, not only was Bryan waiting for her at the end of her run, but she had him in her ear via Bluetooth on her phone through the workout.

He shared his playlists and he talked to her. Sometimes it was inspirational-pep-talk stuff, sometimes he talked about his trips, sometimes he just talked. He told her stories she hadn’t heard before about other athletes he’d worked with, his favorite farmers’ market in Denver, stories about his family, and even current events like the giant beer pong game practice in the park.

And there was more. He was cooking for her, keeping her on a specific eating plan. He had her working weights and had put her through a combo of core training and yoga that he’d put together himself.

All of that was making her feel stronger and more confident about the running. She’d already been able to complete the thirteen miles, but now her time was improving and she just felt better in general.

She also knew it was not about her electrolytes or her carb-protein ration or improved core stability.

It was Bryan.

But instead of pathetic, she felt good about that too. Because this wasn’t just making her better—it was making him happy. He was truly enjoying coaching her, and Tess had finally accepted the truth that it wasn’t the coaching as much as it was coaching
her
. She could tell it mattered to Bryan that
she
meet her potential. So, of course, her time had improved.

She lifted up on her elbows to look at him, the threat of death having passed for the day.

“You know, you’re pretty good at this,” she said.

He didn’t say anything. His gaze was locked on her face though.

“The coaching thing,” she said, in case he didn’t know what she was talking about. “This is really your thing. Why the bartending?”

He swallowed but still said nothing.

“Bryan?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“You need to stretch and eat.”

“Okay. In a second. I want to know why you’re bartending instead of coaching now.”

“The Come Again is the main place people here go to laugh and let go and celebrate,” he said. “I love being a part of that.”

She frowned. She’d never thought of it that way. But it fit Bryan. He liked to make people happy, to make things work.