“I hope you’re looking forward to chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes.” Jake handmade and froze the nuggets in large batches to ensure they’d be healthy, and oven-cooked them instead of frying, but the girls considered it a treat nonetheless. “I’ll throw in coleslaw if you chop it.”
“Sold!”
Jake grinned; they both knew they’d be eating following the squad’s personalized nutrition guidelines for each of them. However, that wasn’t as difficult or as complicated as it sounded—he’d put in a chicken to roast, they’d do a ton of steamed or roasted vegetables, and that’d suit them.
Breakfast would’ve been a different story. Jake liked his peanut-butter-infused fruit smoothies, along with oatmeal, while Danny was more into egg-white omelets and avocado, maybe a couple of pieces of fresh fruit. The squad’s nutritionist worked with each member of the team separately to give them advice while keeping in mind their likes and dislikes—because life would suck if they were on a weird-ass strict diet where they had to eat things they didn’t enjoy.
The control was in their hands, but, in turn, they took the advice seriously.
Danny hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I know you and short stuff usually walk home, but I have my Jeep—I was thinking if you were free, we could do a post-school drive to the bay. I bought a huge bag of those tiny carrots that she likes for a snack.”
“Yeah, sounds good.” Jake could do with the fresh air. “Emmaline’s coming with us too.”
The bell rang at that instant, and the school disgorged children big and small. Yet Jake picked out his daughter among the crowd without a problem, her spectacles catching the light and her pigtails messy.
Spotting him, she ran. “Daddy!”
He grabbed her, squeezed her tight. He needed the hug today, needed her warmth and innocence. When she wriggled, he let her go so she could bump fists with Danny.
“Where’s your partner in crime?” Danny asked even as Jake scanned the drive for Emmaline’s dark-haired head.
“There she is.” Jake waved when he saw Emmaline’s searching gaze.
Smile wide, she skipped over to him and he enfolded her in the same kind of hug he’d given Esme. As the girls were well used to being picked up by each other’s parents, their uncles, or grandparents, Emmaline had no hesitation in falling in with them—especially when Danny mentioned the beach and chicken nuggets.
A short fifteen minutes later, the girls giggled as they ran around the neighborhood bay that had a patch of sand, some open grassy land, and a playground. Around it all was native bush. Come summer, Esme and Emmaline could swim in the bay, the water was so calm and clear.
Jake and Danny played with them for a while, then sat on the stone wall facing the sand, from where they could keep an eye on the girls.
“So, you ask Juliet out yet?”
Jake didn’t groan; he’d long ago gotten used to having a little brother whose eyes were a touch too sharp. “How’d you figure it out?”
“Saw you two walk back into the wedding reception together—way you were looking at her, bro…” A whistle. “Let’s say I never saw you look at Rachel that way. Also, you were totally scoping out her ass.”
“Don’t talk about Jules’s ass,” Jake snapped back without thought.
Danny’s laugh was loud and delighted. Hearing it, the girls looked over and waved before returning to their examination of the shells lying on the sand.
“Like that, is it?” Danny leaned forward, the afternoon sunlight making the black strands of his hair gleam like jet. He had a bit of curl in it, as did Jake. But where Jake kept his cropped short and neat, Danny let his grow a little wilder. Just enough to touch the nape of his neck.
“I know who she is, by the way.” Danny glanced back. “I was only two years behind you in school. It took me a while, but it finally clicked.” Dark eyes on Jake before Danny turned back to watch the girls. “Is that the problem? That she was Calypso’s friend?”
“No.” Jake leaned forward to mirror Danny’s position… and then he talked. Because while Danny could be a wiseass, he was also Jake’s brother. And the Bishop-Esera brothers always had one another’s backs. “I sent her roses.”
“That’s my man.” Grin back, Danny clapped him on the shoulder.
Shoving a hand through his hair, Jake said, “I’m fucking scared, Danny.”
“Scared?”
“Knots in my gut, and half the time I feel as if I’m having a heart attack.” His chest would go all taut, his breathing shallow.
Danny’s response was quiet. “You really like Juliet, don’t you? It’s not an easy, light thing like with Rachel?”
Jake’s shoulders shook despite his tension. “Juliet is many things, but the words easy and light do not apply.”
“I love her already.” Danny nudged him with his shoulder. “I want for you what Sailor has, what Gabe has—that deep-down forever kind of love. I mean, don’t you want your woman’s face to light up when you walk into a room? Our big bros have that.”
The idea of Juliet’s face lighting up when she saw him, it punched all the air out of his lungs, he wanted it so much. “I’m not about to back off,” he told his brother. “I just wish I could figure out this fear.”
Danny gave him a strange look. “Jake, you haven’t had a proper, serious relationship since your first girlfriend died almost overnight after being brought down by a sickness no one saw coming.” He waved off Jake’s attempt to interrupt. “Yeah, you went out with women, but you never took a risk again, never opened yourself up. Sounds to me like your Jules won’t stand for that kind of bullshit and you know it.”
Jake stared at his kid brother. “Jesus, Danny, are you a reincarnated priest or something? Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“I’m right though.” Getting up, Danny brushed off the seat of his jeans. “I’m gonna take the girls to play on the swings. Sit here and ponder the knowledge that Monsignor Daniel Esera has bestowed upon you, my son.”
Stunned by his brother’s casual and devastatingly accurate analysis, Jake didn’t move as Danny led the girls to the playground. Instead, he looked at the fear inside him… and he saw Calypso looking back. The first girl he’d ever loved, his heart all puppyish and excited and adoring. Her coffin had been so light against his shoulder as he led the pallbearers to her burial plot.
Her death had nearly broken him.
And now he was starting to fall in love again.
Juliet stared at the two bunches of roses on either side of her desk. The second had arrived in a crystal vase. Just as well, because she only had the one retro milk-bottle style vase that she kept in a drawer for the days when she felt like picking up a bunch of cheerful blooms from the local shop.
Iris had pushed her cat’s-eye spectacles down her nose when she saw the roses. “Since you haven’t thrown them in the trash,” she’d asked, tone arch, “I assume they’re not from Reid?”
“No,” she’d muttered. “They’re from my personal pain in the rear.”
“I do like his style.”