Still the One Read online

  Zoe loved buddy-cop flicks, thought of them as love stories. “How about something real-life-based?” Darcy asked.

  “Fine,” Zoe said. “For all the damage our parents did, they’re still together. And Wyatt’s in love with Emily and planning on marrying her. It could happen to us, too.”

  “Yeah, well, you first,” Darcy said and finished off her tea. “And if it works out for you, then we’ll talk.”

  “I think you’re afraid of rejection, not love. You’re afraid you’re going to put yourself out there and you’ll be the only one.”

  Hard to argue with the truth. Especially when it had already happened.

  Twenty-one

  When AJ got to the gym and saw Wyatt already there working out, he nearly turned around again. But it was too late; Wyatt nodded at him.

  “You get the money guy on the hook?” Wyatt asked.

  “He’s thinking it over, said he’d get back to me soon.”

  “So it was good?”

  “Great,” AJ said.

  “Getting snowed in with a cranky Darcy was great?” Wyatt asked in disbelief.

  “Well, not that part.” Just the part where he’d been buried deep inside her with her legs wrapped around him, his name on her lips …

  “What part, then?” Wyatt wanted to know. “Where you got stuck spending two nights together?”

  AJ nearly dropped the weights on his own face. When he righted himself, Wyatt was watching him with narrowed eyes.

  Definitely not the time to be thinking how his sister’s curly hair looked streaming out across his pillow, her naked curves sprawled across the sheets. Shit. Redirect, soldier. “What?”

  “You tell me what,” Wyatt said.

  AJ opened his mouth just as Wyatt’s phone went off. “Emily,” Wyatt said, and answered with a goofy smile. “Hey, sweetness— Yeah?” Wyatt’s voice lowered to a deep timbre. “Tell me more …” His eyes glazed over. “I’ll be right there.”

  Saved by the sexy, horny fiancée …

  Since it was Darcy’s turn to cook dinner, she did as she always did. She went and grabbed takeout. Tonight was Thai, and after she paid, she walked back to her car, head down while she texted with a new S&R dog breeder who’d been referred to her by Adam. He had a five-year-old Siberian husky with a bad knee. The dog needed to retire from the physical demands of S&R work but would make a great therapy dog due to his sweet, patient temperament.

  Darcy texted that she’d buy him and find him a great home. She hit send and looked up, stopping short.

  The sight of AJ leaning casually against her driver’sside door made her heart skip a beat. When she got closer, he pulled something out of his pocket.

  Cash.

  And all the warm fuzzies along with the heat she’d started to feel went ice-cold. She was way too tired to be on her game enough to deal with him. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Paying you for the trip.”

  “No, you’re not. And move,” she said. “You’re in my way.”

  He didn’t move. “Take the money, Darcy.”

  “No. I told you I wouldn’t take payment after you did all that physical therapy pro bono. Now go away. I need to sit down.”

  He moved instantly and opened the door for her. She slid in behind the wheel, grateful to sit since her legs had started to tremble.

  AJ crouched in the space between the opened door and the driver’s seat, one hand on her steering wheel, the other on the back of her seat. It was a possessive stance and also a protective one, and her brain didn’t know how to process it.

  “What’s wrong with taking the money?” he asked.

  “Oh, please. I owed you a favor and we both know it. Just as we both know that me talking to Trent and Summer doesn’t come close to settling the score between us. Especially after—” Nope, she couldn’t say it, couldn’t go there.

  AJ leaned in and gave a quick twist of her keys, turning off her car. Then he turned her face to him and she was surprised to find that his rare, almost nonexistent temper had kicked in.

  “A deal is a deal,” he said. “I never go back on my word. And as for you owing me for your treatment, listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once. What we give each other? There’s no tab.”

  “Exactly. So forget paying me. I’m not taking your money, not after we—” He arched a brow and she broke off. “You know,” she said.

  “I do,” he agreed. “Do you?”

  She put her hands to his chest and gave a little shove. He didn’t budge. “Dammit, AJ, I need to go.”

  “I see what you’re doing with the dogs, helping people.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So you’re getting involved, Darcy. Invested in Sunshine. You want all of us to think you’re just blowing through, that you’re stuck here only until you’re good enough to fly the coup. But you know what I think?”

  “Way too much of yourself, for one …”

  “I think you’re enjoying having a home base for once,” he said, eyes serious. And still pissed. “I think you like having family, friends, people to care about—and in return, people who care about you. Yeah, I think you’re getting into it, feeling good. And maybe even happy. And since that probably scares the shit out of you, you’re one inch from destroying it all.”

  Oh how she hated that he was right. About all of it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” he asked softly. “Are you telling me you aren’t chomping at the bit to get the hell out of here?”

  “I never intended to stay in Sunshine and make roots.”

  “But you did,” he said. “Can you really just uproot now and go?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Worst. Liar. Ever,” he said. He slid a hand to the nape of her neck, pulled her in, and kissed her.

  And that was the thing about AJ. He could make her feel so many things. Angry. Frustrated. And in the case of right now, like the most incredibly sexy, fascinating woman on the entire planet. With words, a look, or even a single touch he could erase all the doubt in her mind and reinstate any confidence she’d ever lost. She’d never imagined a man being able to make her feel that way, but here he was. Ready, willing, and able.

  The question was—was she ready, willing, and able?

  She was trembling when he pulled back, and this time it had nothing to do with exhaustion. He stared at her and then gave her one last kiss and walked away.

  When she turned forward to turn her car on again, she found the cash was in her lap.

  She couldn’t sleep that night. At all. She was dead tired and achy, too, but her brain wouldn’t stop racing.

  She was going to have no trouble finding a home for the husky, she had a lot of people on her waiting list. She thought about Ronan, AJ’s PTSD patient, who she knew desperately needed a dog’s help out in public, navigating crowds and social situations. She’d call him tomorrow.

  Just before dawn Darcy gave up. She could take something to knock her out, but it wasn’t a foggy oblivion she wanted. No, she wanted a different type of oblivion altogether, one that involved a hard body and talented hands, both of which belonged to the one man who’d ever made her want to go back for seconds.

  And thirds.

  She took a shower, dressed, and then tiptoed past Zoe’s bedroom door, stilling with a grimace when Zoe called out to her.

  “You okay?”

  Darcy rolled her eyes and took a step back to the doorway. “Great.”

  Zoe’s nightstand lamp went on and she sat up in bed looking sleepy.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you,” Darcy said. “I’m just going out for some Gummy Bears.”

  “At …” Zoe squinted at the clock. “Four thirty in the morning?”

  “Hey, I don’t have control over my cravings.”

  “Uh-huh. You do know that Gummy Bears aren’t what you really want, right?”

  Darcy did her best to look innocent. She wasn’t ready to discuss what she wa