jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Got some coffee back there?”
“Help yourself!” She moved to close tabs for waiting customers.
Dani kept drying glasses, and Jake returned, holding a white Styrofoam cup. “You seem to be getting along pretty well with some folks.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “I don’t want to talk about Julia.”
“Noted.” He glanced around, frowning. “Is that Jonah wiping tables?”
“Yeah.” Dani grabbed another washcloth and tray. “You can help him.” Then she headed to the back, and she stayed there washing dishes the rest of the night. Jonah came to help at one point. She loaded up the trays of dirty dishes, put them through the cleaning machine, and he’d pull them out. She tried to tell him he didn’t need to help, but Jonah just ignored her as he began putting the dried dishes where they belonged.
Dani said, “I’m okay, you know. If that’s what this is all about, about the storm. I’ll probably join my aunt for a nightcap and crash at her place.”
Jonah just laughed as the machine beeped it was done. He lifted up the doors and pulled out another rack of clean dishes. “You think this is all about you? Maybe this has nothing to do with you. Ever thought about that, Miss Natural Disaster?” He winked. “Maybe I’m the one using you. Maybe it has nothing to do with making sure you’re okay.”
“You’re using me?”
“It can happen. People use people all the time. Why do you think I’m any different? Like,” he paused. His eyes rolled upwards, thinking. “Ah!” He snapped his fingers at her. “Take this one: why do you think I rode with you? Huh? Hung out at the bar with you, and why I’m here right now? Maybe I’m avoiding my sister. You know, she’s always after me, wanting to set me up with a good girl. But if I’m hanging out with you, someone who probably doesn’t want to deal with any of that love stuff, then what can she say?” He whispered behind his hand. “She can’t say shit because she doesn’t know the truth about us.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah.” He went back to piling up plates before carrying them to their spot. He said, coming back, “We’re friends. No one needs to know the specifics.”
Dani didn’t feel a flutter in her chest when he winked at her.
She wasn’t noticing how sexy he looked when he was waiting for the machine to finish. He didn’t look lean or gorgeous when he crossed his arms over his chest, or when his dimple only half-showed she found herself wanting to make him laugh so she could see the whole dimple.
No.
Nothing like that was happening.
And she certainly didn’t drop a few glasses when she was trying to put them in the tray. Nothing like that at all, but Dani heaved a silent sigh of relief when Kate came to the doorway and hollered they were all leaving. Her gaze lingered on the two of them. Dani ignored Kate, and her relief was short-lived. Jonah waved Kate off, and ten minutes later the two of them walked out to find the entire bar empty except for Mae.
“Is my sister here?”
“They all took off, said you had a ride.” Mae jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Do me a favor? Shut the door tight after you go? Everything’s locked up.” She nodded toward the back. “I got some things to take care of, so I’m heading to the office. Have a good night, you two.” She kissed Dani on the cheek before repeating her good nights and disappearing to the back.
Jonah groaned as the two walked outside. “I thought Aid would come and ask me. Hell, my sister probably did this on purpose. She probably thinks that I’ll go home with you…” His eyes lit up, and he flashed her a smile. “What do you think?”
“No. I’ll just give you a ride home.”
“It’s not worth it. It’s 3:30 in the morning. I have to be on the river early. I live thirty minutes away. Come on,” he persuaded. “Loon Lake has a channel to the river. I can crash on your couch. You won’t even know I’m there. I’ll just have one of the guys shoot a boat down to pick me up in the morning. I’ve got a change of clothes at the station in my locker.”
“Falls River runs into Loon Lake?”
“Yeah. The channel is gorgeous. I’ll take you on a boat ride sometime. Better yet, you should just canoe through it.”
Why was she entertaining this? No, she knew why. Someone else would be there. That meant no nightmare. Maybe. They weren’t as bad when Boone was with her. Then again, he was in bed with her. Still…maybe it was worth it?
She heard herself saying, “Fine.”
Jonah grinned and nudged her hip with his. “Thanks, Dani. Who knew we’d have such a great friendship?”
Friendship. She fought against rolling her eyes, but couldn’t stop her own grin.
When they got to the cabin, Dani crossed to the patio and flipped on the lamp in the corner. She didn’t want all the lights on. If the whole place was lit up like a Christmas tree, that wouldn’t help her fall asleep. One light cast a nice relaxing glow through the room.
“Drink?”
“What do you have?”
“Knowing Aunt Mae—probably everything.”
“Beer then. Nothing fancy.”
Dani pulled out two bottles and walked outside to the screened-in patio.
Jonah glanced around the place as he sat down. “This is nice.”
“It’s Aunt Mae’s, but if you ask her, she’ll say it’s mine.” Dani uncapped both bottles and slid one over to him. It ended right in front of him.
“Nice.”
Dani grinned and took a sip. “Bartending is like breathing to me. I helped out in Mae’s bar for years.” Then she heard herself saying, “Boone never knew that about me.” As soon as the words were out, she faltered. She wished she could take them back, but she couldn’t.
No, that wasn’t true either.
She didn’t want to take them back. In fact, she wanted to say more.
“Boone? That’s his name?”
“That’s his nickname.” She frowned. “And I have no idea why he was called that. He never told me.”
Jonah stretched his legs out, getting comfortable. But he was looking at her, and she was feeling him, and she knew she shouldn’t have been. Then he murmured, almost too quietly for her to hear, “I’m guessing he didn’t know where you’re from.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He’s not here,” Jonah stated. “If you were my girl and I proposed to you, nothing would keep me from you. I’d follow you, and I would take you back. Nothing.”
She looked away, and ignored how her heart picked up again, or how she felt a little breathless in the chest. She hadn’t felt something like this in a long time. It was alien to her, but it probably wasn’t what she thought. She wasn’t attracted to Jonah Bannon. They were friends, weird friends, but friends.
Putting her thoughts away, she focused on what he said. It was true. There was so much Boone didn’t know about her. So much that she had chosen not to tell him. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just…that was how it was. She just hadn’t told him all those details about herself.
“The gang liked you tonight.” Jonah tipped his head back and took a large swallow. He was watching her over the tip of his beer.
She averted her gaze. “I liked them, too. Lori was a bit iffy, though I didn’t talk to her.”
“Lori is a bit iffy.”
“Robbie asked me if I thought Lori would be a good mother.”
“What?” Jonah laughed. “He must’ve been drunk. What’d you say?”
“I told him that if he was asking a stranger, he probably knew the answer.”
“Robbie knows the answer. He’s just comfortable with those girls. Kate’s so far-off on that guy, but he’s clueless.”
“Most guys are,” Dani noted. She set her bottle on the table. “What else do you know?” She returned his gaze, almost like a challenge. She lifted her chin up, just half an inch. “I feel like there’s a lot more you know than you let on.”
Jonah let out a small grin. ??
?I know that my sister worries about Kate. I know that my sister feels guilty because she’s always been accepted, and Kate has to fight for it. I think Robbie might develop a little crush on you if you give him attention.”
She held up a finger. “Noted. No nice attention to Robbie.”
Jonah’s grin deepened and he kept going, “I know that Bubba secretly loves it when Aiden and Kate drag him onto the dance floor. I know that Stilts has a thing for Lori—you can’t say anything about that, by the way—and I know that Aiden and Kate both really like you.”
Dani held her breath, but Jonah continued, a slow drawl, “Kate feels a camaraderie with you because you weren’t accepted by your family like she wasn’t accepted by everyone in town. And she idolizes you because you stood up to your sister.”
“I did?”
“You’re not hiding from your sister. In Kate’s mind, that means you’re standing up to her, and you are.”
Dani was starting to feel warm. She glanced to the beer. Maybe it was the two sips she took.
Jonah’s voice was beginning to feel like a soothing caress. “Kate was scared of Erica and she’s scared of Julia. And I think Kate and Aiden are both relieved they don’t have to talk with Lori or Brooke anymore. There’s another female around, so it’s not as obvious when they want to snub Robbie’s girlfriends.” He pulled his legs in, set his beer down, and turned to face her more squarely. His baritone softened again. “I know that Kate has a little crush on me, but she’ll never act on it. And I know that you let me come here tonight because of a reason. I’m just trying to figure out what it is.”
They didn’t know her. Kate. Aiden. That group, but they wanted to and Jonah knew things she hadn’t even told him.
She looked down to where he was holding his beer, still sitting on the little table between them. “It’s a little alarming how intelligent you are.”
Jonah chuckled. “So, Dani, what’s the reason you let me come back here with you?”
She held her breath. Her hands tightened around her beer. She looked back up, saw that he was even closer. His eyes held hers captive.
He asked again, “What’s the reason you brought me here tonight? Do you want me to hold you and keep the nightmares at bay? Is that it?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t dare. Her body was already heated, and her lips became parched.
He leaned forward, and his eyes were downright smoldering in the soft lamp glow. “Or maybe you want me to screw you? Do you want me to make you forget that other guy?”
A normal girl would’ve gotten pissed. But, Dani wasn’t like other females and pushing the lust at bay, she saw right back into him. She said, “You’re either a dick who pretends to be a good guy, or you’re a good guy who can be a dick. Because right now you’re being a dick no matter what.”
“You haven’t picked.”
God. Those three words.
Her heart was racing.
“No.” She shook her head, trying to calm her body’s reaction. “Maybe you’re pushing on me because you want to know more truth from me. Is that it?”
He remained cool. He lifted up an eyebrow, and smirked. “What do you think?”
He was an asshole. His words struck deep. Then again, maybe that was his intention in the first place. To go deep, make her feel something. Well, she was. She was feeling all sorts of things, and she didn’t know if she should ask him to screw her or—she went with the other choice.
“Nightmares.” The words tumbled from her. “I get them, and I hate them. I honestly hate them. If I could murder and destroy them, I would, but they’re in my mind. I can’t destroy that. I’m tired of hearing water rushing down on us and screams as everyone is running for cover. I’m really goddamn tired of hearing the sound when someone gets trampled. Have you ever heard someone get stampeded? You can hear the bones cracking under the weight, and then it’s nothing. It’s a dull sound after that, like they’re a sack of potatoes. But that’s not even the worst. The breathing stops. They’re gasping for breath. They start to wheeze. It turns into a gasping sound until they choke on their last breath. Then nothing.”
She didn’t talk about the other type of breathing, the kind where it’s quiet. Like when someone is sleeping. You know they’re going to die. They haven’t eaten, or drank anything in days. When they stopped emptying their stomachs. When they just lay there, and you can’t help them. You can’t make it go away. You can just lay there with them, and listen for the next soft breath because when they stop breathing, that’s when you know you’re lying next to a dead child.
She didn’t talk about that sound because it was the worst of all.
Jonah murmured, so damned gently, “A buddy of mine told me once that he could handle the nightmares. He always knew to just expect them, but it was the flashbacks that got him. He said they’d rip through him like a scorned tornado.”
Scorned tornado. She felt her mouth curve up at that. “What happened to him?”
“A kid went under. He tried to save him, but the undercurrent swept the kid out of his grasp. The body had moved farther down the river by the time he got to him, it was too late. He said when they found the body he couldn’t get the eyes out of his head. They were glossed over.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but staring out the screen to the water. The moonlight shone down on it, and the wind was making small ripples over the surface. Was he thinking of that kid right now? Imagining him? Or was his buddy actually himself? Jonah must’ve seen more than his fair share of dead bodies, but it was true. One minute, life was there and the next there was nothing. No life. No soul. Nothing. A person would keep looking, expecting them to suddenly become alert, life would come back to them, but it didn’t happen.
Once they were gone, they were gone.
Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. She was holding onto her beer like it was a life preserver. “They stopped breathing. They stopped moving, even the slightest twitches. Sometimes the fingers were the only things that moved, and I just knew when the little pinkie stopped moving. I couldn’t bring myself to look in the eyes after a while.”
She’d never admitted that before, not even to herself.
“Can we not…” Her voice was hoarse. “Can we not talk about this anymore?”
“Want to get piss drunk instead?”
“Yes.”
That was what they did. She remembered asking him to hold her when she got sleepy. She remembered holding his hand, and saying, “Boone would hold my hand sometimes in the hospital.”
She remembered him asking, “Did that help?”
She didn’t remember what she said after that, except he stood up and held out his hand. “Come on.”
He pulled the bedcovers back. Dani crawled under the covers, and she remembered him holding her. He was wrapped all around her.
She remembered asking, “Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t really know.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Go to sleep.”
And she remembered curling her fingers around his.
Dani slipped out from underneath Jonah’s arm. Six in the morning. They’d slept for a few hours. Not long, but enough for her. After the bathroom, she went to the kitchen for coffee, and rested against the counter.
She hadn’t had the nightmares, but she dreamt of Erica instead. Her little sister had been at the end of her bed. She smiled, beautifully, and Dani remembered feeling the love from her sister. It was warming, and it felt pure. When Erica turned and left, that was when Dani woke up. And the weird part was next—she wanted her sister to be there.
It felt so real.
“Hey.”
Dani started, seeing Jonah in the doorway. He asked, “Did you have a nightmare?”
“No, I woke up a few minutes ago.”
“It’s a little after six.” Jonah yawned as he raked a hand through his hair. “I’ll need to go in, but that’s not for a bit. Come back to bed. We can sleep a little longer.”
It sounded wonderf
ul, but her hands curled tighter around her coffee cup. “Jonah, I…”