The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

I nodded again as he made his way up the stairs.

Hours later, I was pretty sure I was picking up a little Spanish. Dayana had insisted I join her for the rest of her Telemundo marathon. Dean would poke his head in occasionally to check on us both, and I would insist we were fine. I nosed around and browsed through old photo albums that I saw laying underneath the coffee table as his mother yelled at the TV in either animation or outrage, depending on which show was on. I studied a picture of Dean when he couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. He was an insanely beautiful boy, his black hair a mess of wavy curls on top of his head, and he was missing several teeth. He was holding up a fish proudly at his father’s prompting. You could tell by the awkward way he held it up. I chuckled as I flipped through the pages, my heart beating harder with each picture, each beautiful memory of his family, of him.

I turned the next page and stopped flipping, gripping the book tightly and leaning in to get a good look. It was a picture of me the day I got my first car. I had my keys held up as I smiled at the camera and Dean looked on at me, a proud smile on his face. I choked back the emotion welling up inside me. It seemed so long ago and yet I remembered that day like yesterday. Dean had been the one to teach me how to drive. After several screaming sessions and a one hour discussion on what a blind spot was, we finally got into a g

roove. I remembered it was the day he’d almost kissed me. I’d been furious over his insistence I drive down I-75 and then 635—the scariest damn highways in Texas—and was reading him the riot act when I caught the amusement in his face. He was inching toward me as I ranted on about what an ass he was, and that I would never forgive him. He was seconds away from making the connection when I stopped mid-sentence and instantly opened up to the possibility. He had pulled away at the last second, insisting I drive us home. I was a licensed driver a couple of weeks later, and the day I’d gotten my car, his house was the first place I drove. I breathed in deep as I studied the picture. He was absolutely stunning, even though his eyes weren’t on the camera. They remained on me. I could see what he felt for me in that picture, and been blind to it. I looked up to see his mother studying me.

“Dini no forget you,” she scolded, as if I had anything to do with the reason we’d been separated for so long. I looked at her with all seriousness. “I’ve never forgotten him. Not once. Not for one minute,” I reassured her. She looked pleased with my response and let her eyes shift back to the TV. I looked up then to see Dean at the foot of the stairs, silently watching us, his expression unreadable as he quickly turned away from me then walked out the front door.

A few hours later, Dean was covered in Texas heat, his black t-shirt soaked as he panted heavily. He took a long pull at the water I’d brought him. I scanned the front porch, noting the progress he was making. It would take him years to repair the house.

“Thanks for this, Dallas, really,” he said, avoiding my eyes on him. His looked to be in better shape than he was when he was twenty-two. My mouth went dry as my eyes trailed the t-shirt that gave a clear definition of every single muscle in his chest. I paused when he finished the glass, no longer wanting to rejoin his mother. “I’ve spent a fortune on around the clock care. I just kind of want to take care of this stuff myself,” he added completely clueless that my tongue was anxiously waiting to capture the drops of sweat sliding down his neck.

My vagina stood at attention, saluting me as I watched the moisture slide slowly down and disappear beneath his t-shirt collar. “No problem,” I pushed out hoarsely. I had to rip my eyes away from him to concentrate on my next question. “So I take it your mother wasn’t a fan of your fiancée?”

“No,” he answered curtly.

“Why are you so hesitant to talk about her?”

“It’s over. There’s no big mystery there, Dallas. I just don’t want to rehash it,” he said dryly.

“What happened?” I insisted as he looked up at me from the step he had just finished repairing and threw his hammer noisily into his toolbox. I jumped at the noise and his face softened in apology as he finally spoke up.

“About a year ago, I came out here to visit my mother.” He spoke in a low voice, as if it pained him. “I found my mother here walking around aimlessly, lost in her own house. She…she had been hoarding, Dallas.” He closed his eyes, his voice shaking heavily. “I hadn’t been home since my father died, though I called her constantly. There’s no excuse. When I was able to reach her, she acted like everything was fine. But she was living in filth…I can’t even explain the scene I walked into. The house was filled to the brim with everything you can imagine. She was completely malnourished and disoriented. I had to move my mother out of her home for several months to get it clean. They said it was damn near toxic. I was afraid we were going to have to condemn it!” He knelt on the step, his head in his hands. He scrubbed them down his face painfully. I waited patiently for him to finish.

“I stayed with her, got her evaluated, and started making plans to move home. Helena shot down the idea of coming here immediately, and to be honest, she wasn’t interested in her wellbeing or the fact that I’d almost lost her. I knew then I didn’t care if she came and even before that I wouldn’t marry her. She only seemed interested in being a doctor and a doctor’s wife.”

“You two were together a very long time,” I stated.

“Not exactly. More off then on,” he said as he looked up at me. “After my father died, I kind of took a step back and noticed she was impossible to please and I stopped trying.” He finished his sentence as he wiped his hands on his pants. He pushed past me through the front door, his irritation apparent. “She wasn’t that way when I met her. Somewhere along the way, she became a different person and I was too busy to notice and kind of just went through the motions.”

“And you were going to marry this woman? She sounds like a cold, callous bitch with an agenda,” I said in observation.

“She wasn’t always like that,” he defended. “I just told you that.”

“Wow,” I said, recovering from yet another change in his demeanor. “You sure are a moody older man,” I joked as he put the toolbox up in the hall closet.

He closed the door slowly, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I seem to be saying that a lot today.”

“It’s fine, Dean. You are going through a lot here, and I have no right to judge.” He simply nodded our truce as I made my way back to his mother in the living room.

“I’m glad you’re here.” It was a whisper, and I wasn’t sure if he intended for me to hear it.

I led Dayana into the kitchen with me so I could cook dinner. She sat at her table, listening to the Spanish station I had programmed on my iPod. She tilted her head back and forth to the music, swaying her body slightly. I smiled at her reaction, seeing a hint of the woman I used to know. She would spend hours dancing in her kitchen while making some of the best food I’d ever eaten.

“Is this okay?” I asked, gathering ingredients from her pantry, afraid I was intruding.

“Si, sweetheart, ju are fine,” she cooed as she watched me. I hadn’t cooked a meal in years and was dangerously close to ordering out then decided to make a chicken casserole and salad. She looked like she wanted to critique my cooking a time or two, but kept quiet and politely smiled. I felt oddly comfortable with her. Feeling confident she would be okay for a few minutes on her own, I went upstairs to thoroughly wash up, pushing through the door I knew to be Dean’s room then froze.

Dean was standing naked in his bathroom with the shower running, as if he were about to get in. I surveyed his incredible body with my gaze, quickly taking in his gorgeous skin, taut and toned in all the right places. He was long and lean with just the right amount of drool worthy upper body that any woman would be happy to cling to. His torso was rigid with solid muscle and I once again envied the sweat trickling down his body. His olive skin was darker due to his day out in the sun. I exhaled as my burning eyes lingered on the beautiful muscle that hung between his thighs.

My vagina did a small breakdance ending with jazz fingers.

I stood there for as long as it took to drink my fill and flinched when my eyes drifted back up to meet his. He was staring dead at me and the look on his face was unmistakable.

“Jesus, I’m sorry!” I shrieked as I did an about face and ran right smack into the open door, catching my nose and mouth on the end full force. I screamed out in pain and saw black briefly. I felt his arms around me instantly and let out a whimper as the pain shot through me. I was on his bed cradled in his arms as he wiped my hair away from my nose. My top lip throbbed painfully as he looked down to survey the damage.

“You’re bleeding,” he said as he let go of me. “Keep your head tilted up, Dallas.” I did what I was told as the pain continued, accompanied by embarrassment. My face burned as the heat drifted up to my cheeks.