Desires, Sweets, Secrets (Men of NatEx #2): A Package Handlers Novel Page 16

  Again, Danielle shakes her head. “I know I’m not going to be able to hide it much longer,” she says through sniffles. “But I’m here for the summer because I needed time away so I can figure things out, make a plan…” She wads her napkin up and drops her hands into her lap. “Something.”

  “Okay,” I say, because it’s all I can think of. “It’ll be okay. I’m here for you. We’re here for you.”

  She nods, but she dissolves into sobs again. So I come around the table to put an arm around her shoulders. Cass does the same, and we group-hug it out until Danielle starts giggling through her tears. When Cass gives her a kiss on her cheek, she takes a deep breath and actually smiles.

  “Thank you,” she says, wiping her eyes again. “I think I needed to just tell someone and get it off my chest.”

  Cass stays the voice of reason. “You do need to tell your family though. So you can get to doctor appointments, make sure you and the baby are healthy…” She gives Danielle a sad smile. “I don’t know Jeremy very well yet, but I think he’ll understand. Maybe not at first, but he’d be good to have in your corner.”

  “I know. I will.”

  I give her another squeeze before grabbing my purse from behind the counter so we can lock up and leave. When I open it, my phone is flashing with a notification. I have one text from Jeremy. And, now that I’m feeling even closer to his family, like I could actually become a part of it, I know just how I’ll answer it.

  Jeremy: Matt and Cadence want to have a family dinner tomorrow night. Will you be my date?

  Then, on our way out the door, I tell Danielle, “Your brother let me know about dinner tomorrow, so if you want, you can tell him then. I’ll be there to hold your hand.” I reach my hand out to show her.

  As she takes it, Cass chimes in. “Me too,” she says, extending her hand to Danielle’s free one.

  Danielle takes hers as well, and we share one more group hug before we all start crying. Then Cass goes off to her car while Danielle and I go to mine. Inside, she dabs her eyes, but her cheeks dry on the way home. By the time we’re in front of my house, she’s back to her normal self, on her phone and ready to face her brother.

  “Seriously, thank you,” she tells me. “I’m sorry you have to keep it a secret for a bit, but I’ll feel much better telling him with you by my side.”

  “Any time, Danielle.” I give her a warm, kind smile before getting out of the car.

  Then I walk to my car, feeling more hopeful than before. Maybe, just maybe, all of this will be okay. We all have secrets, it seems. And hopefully mine aren’t too terrible to be forgiven.

  ∞∞∞

  Jeremy

  “So you went to an interview and it went well, but you’re not sure what company it was for?” Cadence asks as she pulls containers of Mexican food out of bags on the table.

  Tonight’s our family dinner, and she and Matt were kind enough to bring food so no one had to cook anything. It’s just easier that way.

  “I know,” I tell her, leaning against the counter in the kitchen. “It sounds crazy, but we got to talking about life and what we want to do with it… The company part wasn’t important. I knew instantly that I wanted to work for a company so passionate about working with good people.”

  “Did you get the job, then?” my brother asks while setting the table.

  Dani enters the kitchen and asks, “What job?”

  When I look at her, I expect to find her phone attached to her palm, but that’s not what I find. Instead, she’s digging through the fridge, looking for something to eat. Then she closes the fridge, an apple in hand even though dinner’s on the table, and avoiding my gaze.

  “A job working for a mysterious company Jeremy didn’t even ask about,” Matt answers for me as I stare at my sister, wondering what’s up.

  “What does that even mean?” she asks before biting into her apple.

  “It means,” I start, still keeping my gaze on her, “that I went to an interview for an open position and liked what I was hearing.” Then I face the rest of the room. “Why does the company even matter? They didn’t have a position open, just had the ad up still. But I can ask if they offer me a job before I decide to say yes.”

  Cadence chimes in from the table. “What if the company is evil or something? Like, what if they support the KKK?”

  I laugh at the insinuation. “I highly doubt it. They’re in the food industry. I’m trusting my gut on that and saying they don’t.” Then I push off the counter and grab my phone from the other side of the kitchen.

  “You’d be surprised,” Matt says. “Maybe they’re putting sinister, mind-altering ingredients in their recipes to make people want to join a cult.”

  Cadence swats him on the shoulder as they pass each other. “Oh please.”

  “It was your idea first!” he insists, laughing.

  “Not quite.” She wags a finger at him.

  Then he puts his arms around her waist to haul her back to him, and as she giggles, he presses his lips to her neck, smiling the whole time. The scene makes me think of Meli, how I’m honestly not sure where we stand. We haven’t spoken since that scene with Dani, the one where I told her I love her like an idiot. Though we saw each other when she took me up to my bed to sleep two days ago. But she did agree to come to dinner, so that’s a good thing, right? Except it’s time and she’s not here.

  I go to check outside to see if her car is in her driveway, but on my way there, I catch Dani staring at our brother and his fiancée. The expression on her face—I can hardly figure it out. Longing? Is she upset? Annoyed? It’s not clear. So I stop in front of her and wave my fingers near her face.

  “You okay?” I ask when she snaps out of her daze.

  “Oh, yeah.” She shakes her head as if she’s clearing out cobwebs. “Where’s Amelia?” she asks, not really answering my question.

  I raise my phone. “I don’t know, but she hasn’t texted me or anything. You?”

  “No,” she replies without checking her phone.

  My brow furrows. “Okay,” I say, stretching the word out. “Well, I’m going to go see if she’s home. If she’s not, I think I’ll head to the bakery to find out what’s going on.”

  “Can I come with?” Dani asks in a rush. Then she sneaks a peek over my shoulder to our brother and Cadence.

  I turn toward them too, but they’re in their own little world. So I tell Dani, “Sure,” and snatch my keys from the table by the door. One check of Meli’s driveway tells me she’s not home, so Dani and I head to the car and get in.

  We get halfway to the bakery without speaking. My sister has spent most of the time fidgeting with her hands and staring out the window. Her phone didn’t even make it with her for this trip, so something is clearly wrong. But everything is so out of balance that I don’t even know what to ask her.

  Then Dani cracks and fills the silence. “Look,” she says quietly, gazing at her hands, which are in her lap, “there’s something I have to tell you. I was going to wait until Amelia was at the house, but it’s probably better if I just tell you first.”

  “Tell me what?” I ask, my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. This can’t be good.

  “Well…” She trails off, flicking her gaze out the windshield. Pretty much looking anywhere but at me.

  I wait for her to fill in the blanks, but she doesn’t. And I have no idea if I actually want to know what she’s about to say, so silence fills the car again until we pull into the bakery’s parking lot. Once I’ve put the car in park, I face her, showing no sign of getting out of the car so she knows I’ll listen—even though I’m nervous as hell.

  “Whatever it is, Dani, you can tell me,” I let her know, hoping that’ll help.

  When she finally looks at me though, with tears shining in her eyes, I wonder if she can tell me. Not because she isn’t physically capable, but because I probably don’t want to know. We’ve been through a lot these past few weeks. And she’s probably still pissed off
at me for going behind her back with Meli. With not knowing where I stand with Meli, I don’t want my sister upset over something that might not even be an issue.

  Maybe Meli doesn’t feel that way about me. Maybe this whole thing has been just sex for her. I haven’t exactly been open and honest about my past, and perhaps that would have helped my case. She’d understand how much she means if me if I’d told her everything. But a huge part of me is scared that she won’t understand and she’ll leave. That she won’t give me a chance to put the past behind me and be who I am now.

  Dani pulls me out of my thoughts with a deep breath and an admission that rocks me. “I’m pregnant.” Then she releases that breath in a rush, tears spilling over her cheeks.

  Well, maybe just one cheek. I can only see the left side of her face because she’s staring at her lap again. Until the silence becomes too much and she peeks over at me, fear filling her gaze.

  That wasn’t what I was expecting. At all. As my pulse skyrockets and thoughts of killing the motherfucker who did this to my teenage sister take my brain over, she reaches over the center console of my car and grabs my hand.

  “Don’t do that,” she insists, her tone wobbly. “Please. I don’t think I can take your anger. This isn’t something to be mad about.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” I practically growl, seeing red.

  “It’s not!” she shouts, sounding stronger now, her voice echoing throughout the car. “I wasn’t…you know. I went into it knowing what I was doing, Jeremy. Not that I expected…this.” Her free hand goes to her stomach and protectively cradles it. “But still.”

  Something about her words strikes me as wrong. She went into this knowing what she was doing. Does she think that I think someone took advantage of her? Well, fuck—did they?!

  But then I understand what she’s saying. She had sex with someone at sixteen knowing what she was doing, got pregnant, and doesn’t want me to be mad. But she didn’t extend the same courtesy to me when I was almost her age and making similar mistakes with my life. Those affected her, and I’m sorry for that, but I’m about to have a niece or a nephew, so this affects me too.

  God dammit.

  I want to be mad. I want scream with rage. Dr. Setts would have a field day while analyzing this. And I’d have a hell of a time trying to “express” how I feel while on his couch. Because this takes me right back to being that stupid kid nearly ruining his life, and I don’t want that for my sister. It may not be fair that she’s doing something similar to what I did when I was her age and she wants me to keep my mouth shut, but Dr. Setts would remind me that things don’t need to be fair. I can choose for myself, not base my choices on the past. I don’t have to live there if I don’t want to, and if I want to move forward, I need to choose differently.

  So I take a deep breath, clear the red from my vision, and go to respond, but then she speaks before I can.

  “It’s going to be okay. Even Amelia thinks so, so it’ll—”

  “What?” I spit out at Meli’s name, ripping my hand from my sister’s grip. “You told her first?”

  “W-well,” she sputters, “she’s practically a sister to me, you know? It was girl talk, and—”

  I scoff at her. “Telling someone you’re having a baby at sixteen is not ‘girl talk,’ Dani. This is a family matter.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “And you love her. So I thought it was okay.”

  When I open my mouth to say…something—I’m not sure what, exactly, because I don’t have a rebuttal for that—my phone buzzes in my pocket. My hope is that Meli is saying that she’s about to leave the bakery, but when I check it, Matt’s name is on the screen.

  Matt: Amelia’s sister is here with her family. Did you know they were coming?

  I show Dani the text, though I’m still fuming.

  She nods. “I guess we both forgot to tell you, but yesterday, when I was talking to Amelia about, well…” Her gaze falls to her stomach. “Anyway, Cass was here too, so I told her to come to dinner as well.” Then she scratches her head. “Actually, she invited herself, which is something she’s good at doing—”

  “Wait.” I put a hand up between us. “So she knows too?”

  Dani turns pink as she looks out the windshield. “She was talking about her daughter and I just couldn’t… It came out. I had to say something to someone, Jeremy. A woman who doesn’t have the power to ground me or take everything away from me.” Then she pins me with her gaze. “You have to understand. I need this job with Amelia to save up money. And I need to be away from my friends and Mom and Dad when I can’t hide this anymore.”

  “You can’t just pretend like it’s not happening,” I remind her.

  “I know,” she exhales. “But I needed to breathe for a sec and save up some money so I don’t look like I’m totally unprepared and helpless.”

  I huff a breath out, completely unsure of what to do. If I were to put myself in her shoes, I’d be way more clueless. She’s handling this like a pro, trying to come up with a plan to make the right choices. Whereas I took no responsibility until it was too late. And, even now, I still don’t know what I’m doing. The woman of my dreams is within reach and I haven’t quite pulled the trigger. I’ve asked her to give us a shot, and I’ve told her that I’ll wait until she’s ready. But what if she’s never ready to give us a shot because I don’t show her what a shot with me would be like?

  Without realizing I started doing it, I’m staring at the bakery, and my sister again tears me from my trance by taking my hand again.

  “Why don’t you go in there and tell her how you feel?” she asks.

  I laugh, but there’s no humor behind the sound. “Didn’t I already do that?”

  Then she makes the same sound. “I mean, kinda. But then you ran after me.”

  Good lord. Yet another thing Dr. Setts would love to untangle. He always was worried that my past—and then my lack of dating afterward—would lead to a life of no commitment. That it would have made me scared to ever be a part of something more serious than casual sex. But it did the opposite.

  And, right now, I have to go make it right. So I grab my car door handle to leave, but then I look at my sister.

  “You know I love you no matter what, right?” I tell her.

  She leans across the car and pulls me into a tight hug. “I know. Thank you. And I’m sorry for being so mad at you this summer. It’s just…” She pushes away from me and points to her belly. “Well…this brought it all back. I was mad at myself more than anything, but”—she takes a deep breath and wipes under her eyes—“I’m okay with it now.” Then a tiny smile teases her lips. “Maybe even a little excited.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “We have a lot to talk about, you know.”

  She nods, but then that tiny smile morphs into a full-blown grin. “Later though. Go get Amelia.”

  “Tell Matt we’ll be on our way soon?” I match her expression as she nods again, and I leave the car, my heart pounding in my chest.

  This could be it. This could be the moment I get the girl.

  So why does it feel like so much more than that?

  Chapter 14

  Amelia

  “Take care!” I tell the last customer in the bakery as she leaves. Then I lock the door behind her and head to the back to put the finishing touches on a custom order due tomorrow.

  I’ve secured the last piece of fondant to the cake when the door to the kitchen swings open and my heart nearly bursts in my chest. The figure in the doorway scared the shit out of me. It’s the last person I expected—because only four of us have keys to the place and one of us is never in town—but part of me is disappointed that it’s not the one person I want it to be. Even though it couldn’t have been.

  “That’s a damn beautiful cake,” my grandma says in her usual direct manner. “I always knew you’d do me proud.”

  “Aww, Grandma,” I say, wiping my hands on my apron as I approach her. In her embrace, I inhale deeply and
find the same scent I always loved when I was growing up: mint and sugar. “I knew you were going to be back in town, but I didn’t realize you were going to stop here. We could have met for dinner or something.”

  “Nonsense.” She waves that thought off. “There’s no other place I’d rather see your beautiful face.” Then she walks over to the cake I just finished. “This, my dear, is gorgeous. Looks like you’ve grown a lot since I was here last.”

  My heart swells at the sound of her pride. “I’ve been watching videos, learning new techniques. We’ve been super busy here, so I’ve had lots of time to practice.”

  “That’s what Cass told me.” Her lips turn down in a slight frown. “Before we get to what I really came here to say, I want to make sure everything’s going smoothly.”

  I nod. “Yep. Everything’s good.”

  “Cass also said something about you hiring an employee?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I lean against the counter behind me. “Her name is Danielle, and she’s really great. Young but a fast learner. She runs the front of the bakery in the mornings.”

  Her frown relaxes a bit. “That’s good. And how are things with Gerald and the new guy. Jake?”

  “Jacob,” I say. Then I put it in the fridge. “Everything’s great. Gerald is teaching him the ropes, so there isn’t much I need to do but hope that it all turns out okay.”

  “Says the boss,” my grandma chuckles.

  I shut the fridge and then gesture for her to follow me into the front of the bakery.

  She takes a seat at the counter while I remove the last cupcake from the display and set it in front of her. Then she takes a bite of the cupcake. “Mmm,” she hums.

  “I’m glad you like it,” I say around a beaming smile. Impressing my role model is a big deal.

  I box up the chocolate chip muffins I made this morning just because. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Not that they have anything to do with the family I’m having dinner with tonight.

  But nothing gets past my grandma. She may be in her seventies, but she can’t be stopped. “Those are new.” She eyes the muffins before reaching over the counter and taking one out of the box. After one taste, she flicks her knowing gaze to me. “Amelia.”