Milo pulled at his leash and Tyce looked up to see Whitney sitting in the sun at one of the coffee shop’s outdoor tables. She was dressed for work in another suit, this one a dark navy that set off her coloring beautifully.
When Whitney spotted him, she looked uncertain as to whether she should smile at him or not. Fortunately, when the dog ran over to her with an excited bark, she no longer bothered to hold back her grin.
“Oh sure,” Tyce said softly. “Steal the show completely.”
Whitney stroked Milo’s fur while the dog licked her hand excitedly. “It’s been a long time since I last saw you, hasn’t it Milo?”
The dog barked.
“You obviously remember me, though.”
Tyce smiled at that. “You aren’t exactly easy to forget.”
“How has he been?” she asked. “I still wish I could have taken him home with me.”
“Milo has been great. I always loved knowing that he was my link to you,” Tyce said honestly. He sat down opposite Whitney. “Though from the looks of it, he could have done with seeing more of you.” He paused, just for a moment. “He isn’t the only one.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Tyce raised an eyebrow. “Milo heard that this place had great water bowls. I couldn’t keep him away, could I?”
That got a laugh from her. Too soon, she grew serious again. “Tyce,” she began, “I’m not going to deny that there is definitely something between us. But you can’t expect to fit into my life like nothing has happened in between. I’ve got a family I love that I need to support and a business to run. I like you,” she said softly, “but—”
He couldn’t let her get to the “but.” Not if it meant she’d be walking away again.
“I won’t push you, Whitney. Not today, I promise. But I’d love it if we could talk. Just talk, that’s all we’ll do.”
Whitney looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Actually, I’m meeting someone here.”
“Did Kenneth come back early?” Tyce asked, feeling like he’d just been kicked in the gut.
Before she could reply, a kid in his early teens, with the same dark hair and green eyes as Whitney, headed over to the table. He had the gawky, unfinished look most kids had around that age, but Tyce guessed that he was probably one of the kids who got plenty of attention from the girls at his school. He was carrying a guitar case.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“Sebastian, I’d like you to meet Tyce. Tyce, this is my brother.”
Tyce hadn’t known she had a brother. Had he been at Marge’s wedding? Then again, once he’d spotted Whitney, he really hadn’t paid attention to anybody else.
Part of him wanted the opportunity to spend more time alone with Whitney, but part of him recognized this as a chance to show Whitney he wasn’t a threat to the life she’d built up, and that he could fit in with her family.
“Hi, Sebastian. It’s good to meet you.”
“You too. Is that your dog?”
“His name is Milo.” The dog quivered with happiness while Sebastian stroked his ears.
“What are you playing?” Tyce asked with a nod to the guitar case.
Sebastian opened the case and the guitar within wasn’t bad. In fact, there had been times in his life when Tyce would have happily traded most of what he owned to be able to play an instrument that good on stage.
“Whitney bought it for me.”
“I figured if you were going to play, it should be on a decent guitar.”
“You made a good choice,” Tyce said. “That’s a serious instrument.” Sebastian seemed pleased by that. “Are you planning on becoming a musician professionally?”
The teenager shook his head. “No way. This is just a hobby for me. Kind of the way Whitney is with animals.”
Tyce couldn't let that
hobby
comment go. “Do you know how I got Milo?”
“Tyce—” Whitney began.
Sebastian looked between the two of them. “How?”
“I found Whitney tending to a stray, hurt dog outside a gig I was playing. It was Milo and she bandaged him up and got him to trust her. How many people would have done that?”
“Not many, I guess,” Sebastian admitted.
“Your sister knew exactly what to do. And last week, a swan at the venue I play at got caught in garden netting. I would have just waited for the vet, or hurt the bird by approaching it wrong. But thanks to Whitney, we managed to get the swan out of the netting in one piece. She has a real talent with animals and would be an amazing veterinarian.”
Sebastian looked over to where Whitney was petting Milo, her head lowered so no one could see her face. “I guess you’re right. I never really saw it that way.”
Finally, Whitney looked up at Tyce, giving Milo the opportunity to finally visit the water bowl. Tyce couldn’t quite decipher the look, but there was definitely gratitude in there along with something that looked like affection she wasn’t trying to hide anymore.
“Tyce was in a band,” Whitney suddenly told her brother. “That’s why he knows about guitars.”
Sebastian’s eyes went wide. “Were you guys famous?”
Tyce shook his head. “We got close, but never quite made the big time.”
Still, he had plenty of stories from the old days to impress a young would-be guitarist. He started with the time his
guitarist and his keyboard player had made a bet over who could talk the venue owners into doing the craziest things, segued straight into the story about having to pretend that an entire rock set was meant to be acoustic after all his amps failed, and went on from there to mention a few of the bands they’d shared stages with at festivals.
“No way,” Sebastian said after a while. “You didn’t really end up jamming with
those
guys when they were in town. I mean, that would have been right before…”
“Right before the bass player made a run for the border. Trust me, if I’d known then what I know now about the hundred mile-an-hour chase, I would never have accepted a ride home from the guy. They sure could play, though.”
Whitney gave her watch a brief glance. “I’m about to be late for work. You’re due in class, too, Sebastian.”
She stood up, ruffling Milo’s fur once more. “It was good seeing you again, Milo.” She looked at Tyce, her eyes warmer than they'd been in a long time. “You too, Tyce.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said, “it was good meeting you.”
Brother and sister walked out together, leaving Tyce with too many things left unsaid.
Beside him, Milo whined and lay down. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. At least she touched you.” Maybe, Tyce thought as he went back over the past few minutes in his head, he should have pressed Whitney harder before her brother showed up by telling her flat out how he felt.
At the very least, he definitely should just have kissed her.
Chapter Seven
Whitney’s office was at the top of the Banning Building, giving her both plenty of space to work in and an excellent view out over the city. Annette was there, having come into the office for once. Her cousin was on the board, but rarely spent much time on site.
“I heard you needed someone to pose for the new catalogues,” Annette said.
Whitney made a noncommittal sound, but she wasn’t thinking about her cousin; she was looking out of the window at the city wondering where Tyce was.
Was he starting his day at the Rose Chalet?
And was he thinking of her too?
“What if I did it?” Annette asked.
Until this morning, Whitney had been able to pretend that she could keep a lid on things, but it
so
wasn’t true. Right then, it was all she could do to keep from remembering the moment after they’d helped the swan together, when they’d been so close. When they’d nearly…
“Are you listening to me?” Annette demanded.
“Of course I am,” Whitney replied as she turned away from the window. “It would be good to have you doing more in the business.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Annette said. “Most of it’s pretty boring.”
“Sometimes we have to do the boring stuff, too.”
Annette made a face as Whitney went back to her desk. “No thanks. I’ll leave those parts to you.”
“I get the feeling that posing for the catalogue will be plenty of work,” Whitney pointed out. “Especially since the first thing you’ll need to do is convince our art department that you’re the right person for it.”
“You could—”
Whitney held up a hand. “Go convince them yourself. That is, if you really want it bad enough.”
Annette looked at her for a few seconds. “You’re in a really bad mood today. What is it? Missing Kenneth?”
Whitney sighed. “Just go talk to the art department.” When Annette left a few seconds later, Whitney turned back to the window.
Missing Kenneth?
Her cousin couldn’t have been more wrong if she’d tried.
Instead of thinking about Kenneth at all, Whitney’s mind drifted back to that moment at the Rose Chalet, conflating it with memories from five years back, so that instead of having to pull apart, she could see herself and Tyce kissing. She could feel every movement of his mouth against hers…
“Stop it,” she ordered herself, and opened a file at random, hoping that work, any work, would be enough to distract her from the images going round and round in her head. Ten minutes later, when she’d read the first page half a dozen times, Whitney knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Every thought lead back to Tyce, from the observation that he probably didn’t have to deal with this kind of paperwork to the memory of how good he’d been with her brother down in the coffee shop.
And, of course, every thought about Tyce lead back to that moment at the chalet when he had nearly kissed her.
And when she had nearly kissed him right back.
“Stop it,” she ordered her imagination. “You’re getting married to Kenneth. This isn’t fair to him.”
Kenneth didn’t deserve this. She should be fantasizing about him, not about Tyce. She should be thinking about Kenneth every minute he was away, and looking forward to the moment he got back, not dreaming of someone else who made her heart race every time she thought about him.
Kenneth didn’t make her heart race like that, but so what? This…this thing with Tyce, it wasn’t real.
It
couldn’t
be real.
Whitney closed the file and sighed.
Kenneth was a great guy. He was handsome, kind, hardworking. He’d make a good husband. But had he ever actually made her feel the way Tyce did every time he looked at her? Like there were goose bumps rising on her skin with every glance, every touch?
And had she ever imagined forever with him the way she couldn’t help doing with Tyce?
Whitney knew the answers to each of the questions, had known them for most of the last week, actually. It was why she’d kept away from the Rose Chalet. Not only because she was far too tempted to fall into Tyce’s arms, but because just looking at him made the truth of her feelings for Kenneth far too obvious.
Whitney took a deep breath, and forced herself to say it aloud. “I don’t love Kenneth.”
There, she’d said it. It hadn’t been nearly as hard as she’d worried it would be. She said it again, with more certainty this time.
“I
don’t
love Kenneth.”
He would, as she’d just pointed out to herself, make someone a great husband.
Just not her.
Oh God, was she actually saying that she couldn’t marry him?
She immediately imagined the reactions of everyone around her. Her parents would think she was insane for breaking up with such a great guy. Aunt Marge would be upset at the Rose Chalet wedding collapsing. Her family and friends all loved Kenneth and thought he was perfect for her. They’d said it so many times. It was, she was starting to suspect, the reason that she’d agreed to wear his engagement ring. With everyone around her commenting on what a great couple they were, it had seemed so natural to become one without giving it much thought.
It was, she suddenly understood, a terrible reason to marry someone.
“Don’t just sit there,” she said aloud. No matter how difficult it would be to see things through to where they needed to be, it was time to finally be brave. “Do it.”
Dialing Kenneth’s number by heart, she was glad when he picked up after three rings.
“Hello?” The voice on the end of the line sounded sleepy and she belatedly realized she must have woken him up just after he’d gone to bed. “Whitney, is that you?”
“Hi, Kenneth.”
She realized they sounded like two old friends, rather than two people desperately in love who were planning on spending the rest of their lives together.
Just as Tyce had said.
“What’s wrong?” Kenneth asked.
Stalling for a moment to try to get her equilibrium back, she asked, “How do you know that something’s wrong?”
“You wouldn’t have phoned me at this time of night otherwise.”
He didn’t point out that Whitney hadn’t exactly been calling every day to say how much she missed him or to catch up on their time apart. An entire week could go by between their conversations. Or more.
“Is there a problem with the contracts I sent over?” he asked, sounding much more awake now.
“No, it’s not that.” She hated stalling, but Kenneth was a good guy. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she needed to. “It’s about the wedding.”
“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the wedding, too. I’ve just been…putting it off, I guess.” She heard him take a deep breath before saying, “You’re a wonderful person, Whitney. You’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re funny, and you’ve been one of my closest friends as long as I can remember. But—”
“—I don’t want to get married to you,” Whitney said.
There was a pause, and then Whitney could hear Kenneth’s sigh of relief down the phone line.
“You have no idea how relieved that makes me feel.”
“Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea,” Whitney pointed out, shocked that they were actually laughing together over this strange conversation.
After a few minutes of reassuring each other that they were still going to be good friends, he asked, “Would you like me to take care of telling people that the engagement is off?”