When the first rays of sunshine filtered in through the window, Anna sighed and snuggled tightly into Jake’s arms. Despite the fact that she’d only gotten—what, four hours of sleep?—she had time. Her mother wasn’t due in till midday, and since Rick was driving her, Anna didn’t have to worry about picking anyone up at the airport or the train station.
And it just felt so right to be in Jake’s arms. She could just relax into his embrace, his heavy arms caging her, making her feel safe, wanted. He’d looked at her so earnestly last night, telling her he would wait for her. But she knew the truth about that. No matter what he wanted—and what she wanted, too, at least in the hazy light of an early dawn, with all the world at bay—there was no way for her to predict when she’d be back from Japan. Two months could easily turn into three, then four, then another assignment could crop up just that fast, and her plans would change again. There was a reason so many young consultants burned out. She wasn’t burned out though—she liked the travel, she really did.
Except she’d never had a reason to stay in one place before, or a person who wanted her to stay.
She smiled to herself, listening to Jake’s steady breathing. He was a rolling stone as well, and yet he had offered to change his plans for her. Granted, they’d been having sex at the time, so maybe he hadn’t been thinking straight. That had to be the case, because really, it was sort of insane to even imagine—
“Hey,” Jake’s sleep-roughened voice rasped in the early-morning stillness. “I don’t suppose you’re thinking too much again, are you?”
Something hard pinged in Anna’s heart. Had it really been just one week ago that they’d boarded the plane for Charleston? It didn’t seem possible. “Never that,” she said, coming up on one elbow. “You want me to get coffee? Or are you the only one who can figure out how to work that machine down there?”
“We’ll both get it,” he rumbled, and her smile deepened. He was barely coherent, his hair everywhere, and he stumbled to the bathroom as she pulled on her suit trousers again. She opted for one of his T-shirts instead of the suit jacket and cami top, though. She looked like a lunatic, but Jake’s eyes roamed over her appreciatively when he returned, and he kissed her lightly even as she slid by him to make her own bathroom run. Her hair was a disaster, but she finger-combed it out as best she could, then grabbed the rest of her clothes and met him on the landing. In the early light, the brownstone looked like a lost jewel. It desperately needed to be updated, but there was something so … homey about it. It would be a shame to see it all go.
“Coffee,” Jake said. He kissed her again, still groggy, then moved ahead of her, leaving her to watch him lumber down the stairs like a great bear stumbling toward spring. She’d never seen him this relaxed, but then again, she’d only been seeing him a week.
And after this weekend, she probably wouldn’t be seeing him again.
She had ordered herself to just stop thinking entirely by the time they reached the kitchen. Jake got to work on the coffee, and Anna wandered over to the large window overlooking the alley, where Jake had situated his kitchen table.
Jake looked up, then padded over. “Oh, that’s right—you forgot something in the saddlebags. I kept it for you.”
He fished around in a dish on the table and came up with a tiny pearl earring. Anna’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she said. “Thank you. I didn’t even realize it was gone.”
“You’ve had a busy week,” he said, smiling. He kissed her on the forehead and moved back to the coffee, his yawn so loud it could have rattled pans in the next county.
“You’re just not a morning person, are you?”
Jake just grunted. She swung her gaze out the window, her mind already on the day’s plans, and frowned. A large suburban-style SUV was rolling down the narrow alleyway, barely missing the cars parked along the small lane. A car that size in their back alley was odd enough, and Anna had never seen it before. But what was even worse, was …
“Um, Jake?”
It was pulling into Jake’s driveway.
“Jake, do you know anyone who owns an SUV?”
The clatter of coffee cups behind her jolted her, right along with Jake’s heartfelt groan. “Aww, shit,” he said. “They weren’t supposed to be here till—”
The doors on the vehicle sprung open as if of one accord, and Anna’s eyes popped as people poured out of the car—easily a half-dozen kids in this one, plus two adults—just as another SUV turned onto the lane. It was smaller, but not by much.
She watched as a tiny woman with a shock of black hair hustled around to the right side of the SUV, helping a frail older woman out of the vehicle, who proceeded to shush her and bat her hands away. Anna felt her eyes go wide. “Jake!” she said. “Please tell me that’s not your grandmother! I’m barely dressed!”
Jake gave her a helpless smile even as the children became a small battering ram at his back door, ringing the doorbell over and over again. “Um,” he said. “Guess who’s just become my long-term girlfriend for the next twenty minutes or so. And we just went to a wedding together, so …”
“So what?” Anna demanded. “What does that mean?”
The unmistakable sound of the garage door opening sounded beneath them, and the patter of feet dashing up the stairs rang through the house. “Great-gran’s house!” was all Anna could make out, until a roil of children burst through the kitchen door and raced around and practically through Jake, nearly taking him down in their rush to see the rest of the brownstone. She barely had time to turn around and smile bravely before Jake’s grandmother bustled in, the dark-haired woman right behind her. Neither of them appeared surprised to see her, and the younger woman’s face broke into a broad smile. “You must be Anna!” she said. She opened her arms wide, and Anna found herself in the surreal situation of hugging a woman she didn’t even know, even as the tiny old woman looked around as if seeing the house with new eyes.
“Why hasn’t this thing sold yet?” she demanded.
Jake leaned against the kitchen doorway, half-listening to the sounds of his running nieces and nephews as they explored their great-grandma’s brownstone, more or less under the supervision of his older sister and her husband, who’d been gracious enough to bring everyone into the city after his text asking for help. He didn’t even know the kids, other than by name. They only knew him from the Christmas and birthday presents he sent. Not surprisingly, they’d been the smallest bit hesitant with him—until he’d shown them the motorcycles. Then it was all over.
In the meantime, after hugging and fussing over him for far too long, his mother had cornered Anna with homemade pastries and Jake’s coffee, and the two of them were talking about recipes and baking techniques. Anna hadn’t even been able to get home to change, and she was still wearing his old Husqvarna T-shirt as if she always entertained in his cast-off clothing. She hadn’t even gotten her sandals back on yet. But Anna hadn’t gotten through life as well as she had by hiding when calamity struck. Putting up a good appearance was what she did best.
Now she glanced up at him as if she’d felt his eyes on her. She smiled, and his heart rolled over hard. She looked just right. Sitting here in this kitchen, talking to his mom. Her phone chose that moment to beep, and she glanced down at it.
“Uh-oh,” she said apologetically. “It’s work calling.”
“I thought you had the day off?” Jake asked, too happy in that moment to care too much. This was Anna. It’s what she did.
“I do. I’ll call them back later, but I need to get going anyway. My own, um, family are coming up today.” He didn’t miss the hesitation in her words, and he wondered about it.
“Then we will all have lunch.” The grandmother was over at the stove, peering into cabinets. “Of course, I have nothing left to cook with, so I don’t know what we will have.”
“We’ll handle it, Mom,” Jake’s mother said, and gave him a smile. “Jake, honey, why don’t you walk Anna—”
“Come back for lunch with your family, with our family. We’ll all be family together.” The grandmother turned around and speared Anna with a glance. “You cook, you bake. That’s good. He doesn’t know how to cook anything but coffee.”
“Oh. Well, thank you,” Anna said, but she faltered just a little. It was impossible for her to think of herself as part of anyone’s family, Jake realized. Not even as fake family. “And Jake, you don’t need to walk me.” She darted a glance at his mother, who was watching them both shrewdly. “It’s just a few houses down,” Anna said. She was already standing, edging away, the first signs of embarrassment reddening her cheeks. Her phone rang again, and she frowned more deeply this time.
“Unless somebody died,” she muttered. She still ignored it, choosing instead to be gracious as she said her good-byes to everyone. Despite her protests, he walked outside with her. She slipped on her sandals when they reached the bottom of the stairs and smiled up at him.
“Well, that was unexpected,” she said.
“My mom said she’d be bringing Gran, but I texted her a few days ago, asking them to all come down,” he said, surprising himself with his own honesty. “I guess I wanted you to meet more of my family. I didn’t realize you were leaving so soon, though. I’m sorry if I overstepped. And they weren’t supposed to come in until tomorrow. It’s just that I haven’t seen them myself in a long time and I thought maybe …” He rubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I thought.”
“No, they’re nice,” Anna said. “It must be amazing to have a family that large.”
A crash sounded somewhere in the big house just as they stepped out into the bright sunlight. “Large and destructive, you mean.” Still, he reached for her hand, because it seemed the right thing to do. “They like you.”
She smiled faintly. “Well, c’mon. I’m an unknown woman caught sleeping with their son and brother in his grandmother’s brownstone. What’s not to like?”
“I certainly liked that part,” he said. They walked in awkward silence until they reached the back of her brownstone, and they’d barely turned into the back drive when she stopped.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You have to be kidding.”
Jake squinted up to see a tidy sedan squeezed into the back parking space of Erin’s brownstone. The car door was open, and Anna looked around wildly. “My mom is already here?” she said. “I’m in a T-shirt and business trousers, clearly walking back from spending the night somewhere, and my mom is already here? You have got to be kidding me!”
“You want to give me my T-shirt back?” Jake asked, and she looked up at him, wildly.
“You don’t understand! My mom—”
“Anna!” A pretty, older blonde woman emerged from behind the door, her face wreathed in smiles. She came quickly up to them both and hugged Anna, leaning back to look up at her daughter. “I always forget how tall you are,” she said.
“Mom.” Anna smiled, but this wasn’t the cool composure she’d shown with his own family. “Um … this is Jake Flynn, my—”
“Her neighbor,” Jake said, grinning as he held out his hand. He had no idea how he looked to Mrs. Richardson, or whatever her name was now, but mothers typically liked him better as a neighbor than a “good friend.”
“Your neighbor, yes. Erin’s told me all about you. I wish I had such friendly neighbors when I lived in the city.” She smiled, and Jake saw where Anna got her dimples. “Rick’s inside with the baby, but I didn’t want to spring all of that on you at once, Anna. We got an early start, and once we were rolling, the baby was napping and stopping the car seemed like a bad idea. She’s two,” she went on, as if that explained everything. “Erin said you would be back soon but I didn’t want to call you. I know we’re not due in until noon.”
“A lot of that going around,” Jake put in, giving Anna more time to recover. “My family just arrived a few hours ago as well, ahead of schedule.”
“Yes, Erin has been telling us about your family, too, Jake. They sound absolutely wonderful. How nice for your grandmother to have you to help her prepare the home for sale.” She cast a look at Anna. “And she’s also been regaling me with stories about the trip you two are planning. Anna, I’m amazed you’re able to get the time off, but I’m so happy that you’re able to get away. You work too hard, sweetheart. It’s the people you need to hold on to.”
“The trip?” Anna said weakly, swiveling her stare between Jake and her mother. “What trip?”
Then her phone rang again.