Just Say When Read online

  Just Say When

  A Heartbreaker Bay Short

  Jill Shalvis

  Julia stood in line at the coffee shop in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco, nerves jangling through her stomach like a swarm of butterflies gone wild. “What are you doing?” she murmured to herself.

  “I don’t know, honey,” said the old man behind her who looked like Einstein, if Einstein had gone to Woodstock. “But if you can’t figure it out, some of us are jonesing for a muffin, so do you mind? It’s not like I’ve got a lot of time left.”

  The woman with him smacked him on the arm. “Stop scaring perfect strangers into thinking you’re on your deathbed. They might call you Old Man Eddie, but you could keep up with the best of them. You proved that last night on our anniversary date. And I hope you’re going to prove it again tonight.”

  Old Man Eddie leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you want, Cute Stuff. Always…”

  The woman snorted and moved out of line to study the display case filled with delicious looking muffins.

  “Happy Anniversary,” Julia said. “How long have you two been together?”

  Old Man Eddie grinned. “A week. But I’m going to marry her if she’ll have me.”

  Julia’s heart warmed, but it didn’t stay that way. She’d blown her marriage with James, while they’d still been engaged. I can’t do this, she’d told him.

  She could still remember the look on his face, it haunted her. He’d just recently taken on his dream job, hand crafting wood furniture for Reclaimed Woods, an upscale furniture shop in this very building. Amazing furniture, if she said so herself. He’d made a name for himself and was one of the city’s Artists on the Rise this year. She was proud of him, so proud. And she loved him. No matter that she’d let her fears get a hold of her, loving him hadn’t gone away. “What’s your secret to your week-old relationship?” she asked Eddie.

  “Easy.” He winked at her. “She’s always right.”

  Julia stared down at the tan line on her left ring finger, where her engagement ring had sat for one month before she’d let old insecurities sabotage the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  “I’ve got Molly’s to go order ready!” the woman behind the counter called out. Her name was Tina, and she owned the shop. She made the best muffins in the city.

  A woman, Molly apparently, stepped up and grabbed the tray of four coffees. A man snagged it from her hands. “Got it, babe,” he said, and kissed the very lucky woman on the lips before they walked out of the shop hand in hand.

  Julia’s heart squeezed. James had looked at her like that man had looked at Molly, like no one else in the room existed. She sighed and moved to the counter. Still in her nurse scrubs, she was fresh off a twelve-hour shift in the ER. She pointed to the muffins. “A dozen, please.” Her mom, a maternity nurse at the same hospital, always said she wanted Tina’s muffins more than air. And her mom, who’d raised Julia on her own after being dumped by man after man, all while working her ass off to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, rarely spent a penny on herself.

  So now that Julia was actually keeping her head above water, she tried to spoil her mom whenever possible.

  James had often done the same for Julia. He loved Tina’s fudge, which she didn’t make often. But thankfully there was some in the display today, and as she stared at it, she couldn’t help but remember some of the ways she and James had shared it, a few of them extremely, erotically naughty.

  She’d met him when he’d come into the ER two years ago after nearly slicing his thumb off at work. She’d assisted in getting him stitched up and he’d asked her out. And unlike any other man in her life, he’d stuck.

  Through thick and thin, and thick again. Through anything she threw at him, like trying to push him away just to prove she wasn’t meant for love.

  He’d called bullshit on that. It hadn’t been until she’d actually left him, returned the ring and walked away, that he’d let her go. His last words as he’d cupped her face and looked deeply into her eyes had been, “You’re not ready, I get that. You’ll let me know when.”

  That had been three weeks ago. Three long, heartbreaking weeks during which she’d done nothing but think about him; his smile, his laugh, his callused hands, so strong yet so tender on her skin.

  “Anything else?” Tina asked, making her jump.

  She pointed to the fudge. “A pound of that, please,” she said, voice a little trembly. “Thanks.” And while Tina rang her up, Julia sent a text to James.

  When.

  Outside, she put on her shades against the bright and gorgeous San Francisco sun and walked across the cobblestone courtyard. She took in the sight of O’Riley’s Pub, where she and James had gone on their first date. Her sneakers were silent on the cobblestones as she walked, stopping way before the end of the courtyard, where Reclaimed Woods had their shop. Instead, she sat on the bench in front of the hundred-year-old fountain where James had once asked her to marry him.

  Old Man Eddie’s words reverberated in her head. She’s always right.

  James had been the right one this time. The two of them belonged together. She’d fought it, but she wasn’t happier on her own. She missed him so much that she ached at night alone in her big bed where they’d spent so many nights laughing, making love…

  The bench rocked a little as an unbearably familiar built body dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, both covered in sawdust, sat next to her.

  She turned her head and met James’s dark blue eyes. “Hey,” she whispered.

  “Hey.” He leaned forward and worked at brushing himself off, running his fingers through his sun-kissed brown hair so that sawdust rained down over the both of them. When he finished he looked at her, “So, what are we doing today? Fighting or …”

  “Or,” she said quietly, throat tight. We. She’d taken his heart and stomped all over it and he still said ‘we’. This is what she got from James. Total support. Total acceptance and understanding.

  She hadn’t done a very good job of returning the favor, but she intended to change that. Without a word, she handed him the fudge. He opened the box and his lips quirked.

  God, she’d missed his smile. “No more fighting. It’s so good to see you.” An understatement, of course. He was gorgeous and sexy, and just looking at him tugged at her poor, beleaguered heart.

  He laughed, the sound as always causing a smile to curve her mouth. “I’m covered in sawdust,” he said and met her gaze. “I missed you, Julia.”

  There was a pause as his words danced in the air around them, brushing her skin, filling her heart. “I missed you too,” she said. “So much.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  She took the fudge from his hands and set it aside before leaning into him, touching his jaw. Meeting her halfway, his fingers sank into her hair as he pulled her even closer, and then onto his lap.

  “I hope I’m reading you right,” he said softly, “or it’s about to get awkward.”

  “What is?”

  “This.” Using the fist he had in her hair, he tugged her face to his. He started with a light, questioning kiss, but it wasn’t enough for her and she opened her mouth, touching her tongue to his, letting herself fall into the sensations of his taste, his scent, and the heat radiating off his body. She’d always loved the way he held her, like she was the very best thing that had ever happened to him.

  He was certainly the very best thing that had ever happened to her.

  She slid her hand from the nape of his neck to his chest, where she could feel his heart pounding beneath her hand. It wasn’t the first time she’d realized just how important she was to him, but it was the first time it sank in.