The Hero's Redemption
They had ended up at the same pizza parlor where he and Erin had eaten the one night, and from which they’d ordered takeout several other times. There were more upscale restaurants in West Fork, but Dani had readily agreed that pizza sounded good. If she’d guessed he was happier going somewhere he knew so he could feel reasonably comfortable, she didn’t say so.
“It’s been a while since you and I have seen each other,” he said.
“I feel bad we didn’t include Erin. Maybe next time?”
“I probably won’t still be living at her place by the time we get together again.” Saying that casually was hard.
His sister’s surprise didn’t help. “That apartment’s great. Why would you want to move?” She frowned. “Or is your landlady a problem?”
Erin was a problem, all right, but not in the way Dani meant.
He shook his head. “Not like that.”
“Like what?”
“My needing to leave doesn’t have anything to do with Erin. I…like her.” Long practice let him sound unemotional, kept him from any physical tells. “I was lucky to meet up with her. But I don’t like having to feel grateful.”
“She wants you to?”
He smiled a little at his sister’s indignation. She and Erin had a few things in common, it occurred to him. “No. It’s not her. It’s me. I want to know I can make it without charity.”
“You did some amazing work on her house.”
After introducing her to Erin, he’d given Dani a tour of the exterior as well as his apartment before they left for lunch.
“Yeah, it looks good, doesn’t it?”
Hearing their number, he went to get the pizza.
He should’ve known that Dani would be in pit bull mode. He’d barely slid into the booth when she demanded, “What was charitable about her hiring you? With everything you’re doing in the apartment, she has to be gaining as much as you are.”
Cole put a slice of pizza on his plate, giving himself an instant to think. He wished the subject hadn’t arisen. The truth was, if he and Erin hadn’t become friends, he might not feel the way he did. Objectively, they’d made an even trade. He’d worked his butt off for her, refusing every time she tried to up his pay.
“It’s the extras,” he tried to explain, without quite telling his sister the truth. “Her helping me get my driver’s license, letting me borrow her SUV.” She baked him goodies. No, he wasn’t going to tell his sister that. “I think she’s waging a campaign in the neighborhood to get me jobs. She’s suddenly visiting everyone up and down the block, taking cookies and scones.”
Dani could read him better than anyone else. Nothing new about that. In this case, it wasn’t a bad thing, because after some serious scrutiny, she stopped pressing him. Instead, as they started eating, she asked if he had any plans, and he told her some of what he’d said to Ramirez.
She suggested he move to Bellingham. “Housing isn’t expensive, especially during the summer when most students go home. And we have both a community college and Western.”
The thought had occurred to him, but if he left West Fork, he knew he’d never see Erin again. Even thinking about that made him feel as if his chest had been split open. But if he stayed in town, seeing her in passing might be painful, too. At least he could be sure she was okay, though. Another thing he couldn’t say to his sister.
And it wasn’t as if he’d see that much of Dani, given her husband’s attitude.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, but could tell she knew he didn’t mean it.
She whipped out pictures of her kids to show him, which hurt in a different way. A niece and nephew he’d never met. Might not meet for years, if ever. Cole knew that, if he asked, Dani would bring the kids with her next time, but he didn’t want to be the cause of a blowup with Jerry.
So he said admiring things, and only grinned as she talked about their excellence. Her kids were ahead of most of their peers in every way, from schoolwork to dance and baseball.
“Both brilliant and talented,” he teased. “With you as a mother, how could they help it?”