Jamie let the drapes fall back in place as soon as the little, dark-gray four-door pulled into his driveway. The last four days, though busy with travel and the book fair, had been the longest of his life—stretching for an eternity before he could see Flannery again. He dashed upstairs, not wanting Flannery to know he’d been standing in the front window for the past twenty minutes waiting for her to arrive.
But when the doorbell didn’t ring after several long moments, he jogged back downstairs and peeked out the window again.
Flannery stood near the tail end of her car, looking up toward the back part of the complex, hand shading her eyes.
He opened the door and stepped out onto the stoop. “Something interesting?”
“I was just looking at the grade of the road.” She turned and pointed toward the hill. “You run that every day?”
“Yeah—sometimes up to eighteen or twenty laps a day.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black pants and stepped down onto the narrow sidewalk that connected the stoop to the driveway. “You should come run with me sometime. Get you off that treadmill and let your feet pound the pavement. Then we’ll see about you and your ten or twelve miles a day.”
She rolled her eyes and met him on the sidewalk.
He stood still, trying to look relaxed but wanting to grab her and kiss her.
Her gaze stroked his face—and then her hands followed, her warm palms and fingers running along his cheeks and jaw. “You shaved. So I guess that means you’ve come to a decision.”
He hadn’t realized how sensitive the skin would be to even the lightest variations in temperature or physical contact after weeks covered with a beard. He shuddered and grabbed her wrists, unable to bear the intensity of her touch. He kissed her palms even as he drew her hands away. “I not only made a decision, but I’ve already taken some steps toward it.”
Taking one of her hands in his, he led her up the steps into the house.
“Are you going to tell me?”
In the middle of the living room, he turned to face her. “I’ve decided to move to Utah and work for Don.”
The expression on her face was priceless—and just what he’d hoped for. Dismay mixed with a slight tinge of devastation. “O–oh. That’s not…I thought you were leaning in another direction.”
He couldn’t torture her any longer. “Kidding. I’m staying here. I was accepted to Aquinas College’s nursing program. Last week I registered for my first semester and made my first tuition payment.”
Flannery yanked her hand from his and started slapping—none too softly—at his arms. “That’s not funny!”
“You should have seen the look on your face.” He grabbed her in a hug—effectively trapping her arms—lifted her from the floor, and spun in a circle. “I’m going back to school.”
Flannery finally joined him in his laughter. “You are such a pain.”
He set her down on the floor and loosened his embrace. She maneuvered so that she could put her arms around his waist.
“You’re just like a little boy on the playground who picks unmercifully on the little girl he secretly likes.” She shook her head, and her thick curls bounced and swung, tickling his arms.
“Except it’s no secret that I like you.” Seizing the moment, he pulled her close and kissed her. But she didn’t respond the way he expected. He backed up enough to focus on her expression.
She frowned.
Frowned? When he’d kissed her? “What’s wrong?”
She grimaced. “I don’t know. I’ve gotten so used to kissing you with the beard that it’s weird kissing you without it. I don’t know if I like it or not.” She looked away and then looked back at him, concern filling her eyes. “This could be problematic.”
“Why?”
Contorting in his arms so she could raise her hand between them, she lightly pressed her finger to the dimple in his chin. “Because I like being able to see your whole face like this. But when I’m kissing you, I have my eyes closed. It’s such a dilemma. I don’t know how I’ll ever get used to kissing you like this.”
Words of protest jumbled in the back of his throat—until she looked at him again with a twinkle in her hazel eyes. Oh, so that’s how she wanted to play this?
Instead of giving in to her subtle goading to kiss her again, he released her and shrugged. “You’re right. It is a dilemma. But since I’m never going to grow another beard, I guess if you ever want to kiss me again, you’ll have to figure something out.”
She gasped and planted her fists on her hips. He turned and headed back toward the kitchen so she wouldn’t see his smile.
“Did you remember to pick up the basket for me?”
“After three text messages and four e-mails?” He returned to the living room with the gift basket she’d ordered from a small boutique in Brentwood.
“Thank you. I never even got a lunch break today, so there’s no way I’d have been able to get it before they closed at five.” Plucking her keys from her purse, she turned toward the door but then stopped and looked at him again. “Are we taking my car or yours?”
“I know where we’re going, but I can guide you there just as well as drive. And you are parked behind me.”
She flung the strap of the large, square, black leather bag over her shoulder. “I guess I’ll drive, then.”
He shrugged into his blazer and then followed her out to the car and around to her side to put the basket on the backseat, right where she wanted it.
With one hand on the car roof for balance, she bent over and pulled one of her pumps off, replacing it with a plain, flat, black shoe. The hem of her wide-leg, gray pinstripe pants pooled on the pavement.
“What are you doing?” He’d been around professional women long enough to know that there were very few things that would make them take off their high heels before going somewhere people would see them, especially people they didn’t know.
“Changing shoes.” She didn’t look up at him as she exchanged the shoe on her other foot.
“Why?”
“Because …” She pushed her hair back over her shoulders.
“If it’s for any reason other than your feet are killing you and you can’t stand the idea of staying in those shoes for the rest of the night, we’re not going.” Closing the car’s back door, he crossed his arms.
“My feet hurt.” She still couldn’t look at him.
“Liar. Those are your favorite shoes.” Wild guess, but he’d seen her wear this pair of shiny black shoes, with a good three-inch heel and an extra-thick sole in the front, several times.
“Not my favorites, but …” She tossed her hands up in a frustrated gesture. “Ugh. You make me so mad. I’m changing shoes so that I won’t be taller than you in front of your friends. Is that what you want to hear?” Finally, she made eye contact with him.
“If that’s the truth, then yes, that’s what I want to hear. Are you embarrassed to be seen with someone who’s shorter than you?”
“You’re not shorter than me—only when I wear heels.”
“Are you embarrassed by that?”
“No!”
“Then why are you changing your shoes?”
“Because I don’t want you to be embarrassed because I’m taller than you when I wear heels.” She blushed so intensely, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair had turned red, too.
Jamie reached out and settled his hands on her waist, looking her directly in the eye. “Put the heels back on, please. You like wearing them, and they look good on you. Besides, I kinda like the idea of being seen with a gorgeous, statuesque woman on my arm. Every man looks at me and has to wonder what I did to deserve you.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
Wonder filled her eyes. “And what did you do to deserve me?”
The moment of wonder was nice while it lasted.
“Well …” He waited to go around to the passenger side of the car until she changed shoes again. “I called you Fanny, twice. I suggested Dracula would want to bite you. I freaked you out by telling you I read fantasy fan fiction. I forced you to tell me your biggest secret….”
Flannery rolled her eyes and got into the car.
He climbed in beside her and leaned over the console. “And I’m so charming and handsome, you couldn’t resist me.”
Speculative scorn filled Flannery’s expression. “It’s because you’re handsome and charming that I didn’t want to have anything to do with you.”
Stunned, he straightened. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” She put her seat belt on and started the engine.
He took his time buckling his own seat belt. “You treated me like I was pond scum for months because I’m handsome and charming?”
“Yep.” Flannery slid on a pair of sunglasses and backed out of the driveway. “I learned a long time ago not to trust good-looking guys. Remember the dirtbag boyfriend from high school? Handsome and charming.”
“So…what was it that did make you fall for me?”
The car rolled to a stop at the gate, and she turned to look at him, leaning on the console. “Because when I sat down to talk to you at the airport, you were hurting. You were vulnerable. You stuttered. And you were a complete dork. And I told God a long time ago that I didn’t want to marry a good-looking guy; I wanted to marry a nerd, geek, or dork.”
Jamie wouldn’t need to lean far to be nose to nose with her. His heart pounded at her use of the M-word, not once but twice. Could she really be there mentally and emotionally? Ready to make a lifelong commitment to him? “And God did you one better and sent you a handsome dork.”
They both jumped at the sound of a car horn behind them. Flannery straightened and pulled out onto the road.
“Of course you know what this means,” he said after directing her to turn right onto Old Hickory Boulevard and head east.
“What?”
“That you think I’m handsome and charming.”
The car jerked a little as she shifted from second to third. “Whatever.”
“I’ve already told you tonight that you’re gorgeous and statuesque. Would it help you admit my assets if I told you I also think you’re talented and gifted?”
Pink crawled up into her cheeks in a very becoming way. He hated that the thick arm of her sunglasses kept him from seeing her eyes.
“It might…if I didn’t worry that any compliment I give you would be the pin that explodes your already-overinflated ego.”
With a laugh, he settled in for the forty-five-minute drive—or longer, depending on how bad traffic on the interstate would be this evening—and continued picking on the girl he not-so-secretly liked.
By the time Flannery pulled up to the refurbished bungalow on Cherry Lane in Murfreesboro, she’d pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head due to the growing shadows—and she’d heard the entire story of Jamie’s heart surgery.
“Mom came out to be with me, but I was so horrible to her she went home after only two days. That’s why Don and Cookie devised their plan to intervene and force us to talk to each other a couple of years later, because I’d pretty much decided to cut off all contact.” He bounced his head back against the headrest. “I was such an idiot.”
Flannery ran her knuckles along his smooth jaw—and electricity coursed all the way up her arm. “You were just young and hurting. And you’re trying to make up for lost time now, which is all you can do.”
“I guess.” He looked at the front of the gabled craftsman. “Ready to go in?”
She opened her door. “Ready.”
The red, paned-glass front door provided the only pop of color in an exterior done all in shades of gray. She liked the effect.
The door opened before Jamie could ring the bell.
A young couple met them at the door. The man stepped out and gave Jamie a backslapping hug. “Good to see you, man.”
“You, too.” Jamie inclined his head to the delicately beautiful woman. “Chae.”
“Jamie.”
Flannery looked between the two of them, concerned by the frostiness in Chae’s voice.
But Jamie’s smile didn’t falter. He put his arm around Flannery’s waist. “Danny and Chae Seung, this is Flannery McNeill.”
Having read up on Korean etiquette online last night, after seeing Danny’s greeting of Jamie, she wasn’t certain how to greet them—bow, handshake, nod of the head?
Danny solved it for her when he extended his hand toward her. She shifted the gift basket to her left hand and shook Danny’s. Chae stepped out onto the porch and extended her hand to Flannery as well. For as fine and delicate and petite as she looked, she was almost the same height as Jamie—and Flannery herself when she didn’t have her shoes on.
Oh—she should have changed shoes before she left the office! Then Jamie never would have known, and she wouldn’t be standing here, towering over him and Chae.
Flannery extended the basket toward Chae and Danny with both hands—as she’d read was proper. “Thank you so much for inviting us to dinner. I’ve been very curious to meet Jamie’s friends.”
Chae took the basket, giving Flannery a warm smile. “Thank you.”
Danny’s eyes almost disappeared when he smiled like that. “And Jamie’s friends have been very curious to meet you. Please, come in.”
But instead of immediately following his friends inside, Jamie braced one hand against the wall and started kicking off his shoes.
Flannery looked down, dismayed to see several pairs of shoes lining the wall of the house near the door. No wonder Jamie hadn’t cared if she’d worn heels or flats—she’d be barefoot anyway.
When she’d read online that, as in most Asian cultures, it was tradition to take one’s shoes off before entering the house, she’d assumed that since Danny and Chae had been born and raised in America, this would be one of those old traditions they’d let fall by the wayside.
No such luck. And it had been more than a month since her last pedicure. She grabbed Jamie’s shoulder for stability and glared at him as she stepped out of her shoes and pushed them into line beside his.
Jamie grinned at her. “Don’t look so concerned. If you haven’t noticed, your pants completely hide your feet.”
And if she’d realized she’d be barefoot tonight—which, yes, was her fault for assuming Danny and Chae wouldn’t follow this tradition—she would have worn something else, not pants cut to be worn with three-inch heels.
Danny closed the door behind them once they’d stepped onto the plush, oriental-style rug in the entryway. “Sorry about the shoe thing, but we have to revert back to the old ways when the grandparents are here.
Chae gave her an apologetic grin over her shoulder. “I hate going barefoot,” she whispered. “But when Hamo and Habo are here, it’s a mortal sin to wear shoes even in our own house.”
Hamo and Habo turned out to be Chae’s maternal grandparents. Though Flannery prided herself on immediate retention of names, keeping track of six grandparents and four parents with names unfamiliar to her brain and tongue proved difficult. She did get to practice her bow, much to the giggling of the grandmothers, who gave her an impromptu lesson on posture and angle and where her eyes should point.
They sat down to dinner almost immediately. Dish after dish of food appeared on the table, each person having multiple individual bowls and plates to eat from. Flannery wasn’t sure what most of it was—even with Chae’s and Danny’s explanations, but she tasted everything, including the vegetables.
Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to eat anything else, two of the grandmothers came out of the kitchen with a sticky-rice dessert. Unusual and complex in its flavors, the dessert grew on Flannery enough so that she finished her whole serving. While she would have loved a good hazelnut coffee to go with it, she settled for hot tea to wash it down.
Flannery volunteered to help in the kitchen, but the mothers and grandmothers shooed her and Chae out. The fathers and grandfathers retired to the living room, but Danny suggested they go sit out on the deck where they could talk.
The scorching heat of day hadn’t dissipated much. But the deck caught a nice cross breeze, and so long as Flannery sat still, she stayed pretty comfortable, since she’d been instructed to remove her blazer as soon as she entered, leaving her in a sleeveless blouse.
Jamie rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows and sat on the rattan love seat with Danny. Chae led Flannery a little farther down the expansive deck to two armchairs with deep cushions.
“I thought maybe you and I could have some time to talk.” Chae motioned for Flannery to sit before she did.
“I’d enjoy that.”
“How did you and Jamie meet?” Chae crossed her legs and braced her elbow on the arm of the chair, leaning toward Flannery.
She told her the story of the cookout last fall, Zarah’s wedding, the work project that didn’t happen—at least for Jamie—and running into him at the airport.
“So, when you first knew him, you thought he was…conceited and disdainful of others’ feelings?” Chae narrowed her eyes and glanced down the deck at her husband and Jamie.
Flannery followed her gaze. Jamie and Danny sat side by side talking, legs crossed the same direction—even their arms draped across their laps the same way. In their white shirts and dark trousers, they looked like the most bizarre pair of twins she’d ever seen.
“Condescending and arrogant were the words I used—irritating, too.” She turned her attention back to Chae.
“But now you’re dating him. What changed?”
“He did…and I did.” She shook her head. “Even though I vowed to myself I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t…change?”
“At my friend’s wedding. I’ve seen so many women become unrecognizable when they fall in love and get married. And I vowed I would never do that—I would never let falling in love change me. But I guess that’s because I’d never actually been in love before.”
Flannery leaned toward Chae, lowering her voice to ensure Jamie couldn’t hear her, though it was probably an unnecessary precaution. “Over the last week or so, I’ve struggled with the idea that falling in love with Jamie has changed me, until I realized something very important.”
“What’s that?” Interest sparkled in Chae’s dark eyes in the twilight.
“That the change is for the better. I’m not a different person than I was before. I know so many women who talk about how they weren’t ‘complete’ before they fell in love. But for me, falling in love didn’t ‘complete’ me—it’s enabled me to be more completely myself than I’ve ever been in my life. And I think that’s a pretty positive change.” She looked back down the deck toward Jamie.
He caught her looking, ducked his chin, and gave her a secretive, smoldering grin.
Her toes curled against the deck—hidden by the long hems of her pants. Yes—she’d never felt so alive, so free to be herself, to say whatever came to mind without having to worry how Jamie would take it.
She vowed to herself she’d never make another vow like that again.