Dakota Cassidy - Talking After Midnight

“Do what?”

Make me feel something for you. Make me fight a dreamy sigh. Make me want to twirl my Mohawk in centuries-old, ritualistic gestures of flirtation. “Here—this—under my office window.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Because I had a funny feeling you’d try to skip out on our nondate. I figured this was the best way to catch you skipping.”

“I’m not dating.”

“Anyone, or just me?”

“Anyone.”

“Where do you come from, Marybell Lyman?”

“Did you just hear me?”

“Just because you’re not dating doesn’t mean you can’t have polite conversation.”

Everywhere and nowhere. “Atlanta.” Atlanta was big. That seemed safe enough.

“Me, too. The last name Lyman isn’t familiar, though.”

That’s because it’s not really mine. “I get the feeling we didn’t travel in the same social circles.” No truer words.

“Did you go to college?”

She stiffened. He couldn’t possibly know—could he? Why was he asking so many questions? That’s what people do when they want to get to know you, Marybell. They make conversation. “Did you?”

“Yep. Got a degree in architecture.”

“Which led you here to Plum Orchard where big buildings are just linin’ the streets.” She was doing her best to be surly, but Tag wasn’t having it, and she was having trouble sustaining it because he was blatantly ignoring her efforts.

“Nope. My sister’s death led me here.”

Damn. Now she was just being a jerk. She knew from Em that his sister, Harper, had died, but she didn’t know that was why he was in Plum Orchard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.”

“Sure you did. You want our nondate to be over. But you know what, Marybell Lyman, that’s all right. To be rude, I mean—because we’re on a nondate. If this were a real date, I’d make you pay the tab for being so rude.”

“I think I can rustle up some spare change for the bologna sandwich.” She stopped then. He wasn’t attacking her safe place knowingly. He wasn’t threatening everything she loved and held dear to be a malicious jackass.

Lighten up. At least enough to appear civil.

Marybell reached out and put her hand on his arm, softening her words. “And I really didn’t mean to be rude about your sister. I just didn’t know your reasons for comin’ to the PO. I’m sorry for your loss.” No one understood loss better than she did.

Tag grabbed her hand and used it to slide her closer. “I’m sorry, too. She was a great sister.”

The brief flicker of pain in his eyes made her wonder what had happened beyond what Em had told them. It was deep and it was personal, if Tag’s face lined with some raw emotion she couldn’t pinpoint was any indication. But then he smiled without letting go of her hand. “Why phone sex?”

Her hand in his felt so good, so warm against her icy fingers, Marybell forgot to pull away. “Why not?” she said on a smile.

“Hey, no judgment here. Just curious. I mean, if we’re honest, not many little girls dream they’ll grow up and be phone sex operators.”

Not this one, either. This one had wanted to grow up and be a ballerina and wear a pink tutu. “The economy stinks.”

“And that’s what led you to phone sex? Even in a bad economy, most people don’t consider phone sex. McDonald’s? Sure.”

“Most people aren’t me.”

“Fair enough. How’d you know you’d be good at it?”

Desperation made me good at it. Desperation and the kindest man in the world who’d offered her an opportunity to live in a warm house free of vermin and filth. “I don’t know. I just made it work because financially, I needed to.”

“Desperate times, huh?”

And so many desperate measures. “That about sizes it up.”

“Landon Wells, right? He’s the man who owned Call Girls before Dixie and Caine?”

Her heart twisted in her chest at the mention of Landon’s name. She’d loved him so much. He was the only person on earth who knew who she really was. The only person on earth who’d cared little about her past—who’d been willing to help her when the entire world wanted to spit in her face—and some had—literally.

“Yes.” She damned her throat for closing up. Clearing it, she sat up straighter, acutely aware of Tag’s thumb caressing her finger. “He was an amazing human being, and if not for him, I’d be livin’ on the streets.” She didn’t care that she was revealing something so personal, so painful. Landon would always have her undying gratitude, and she’d never hesitate to say it out loud.

“No family to turn to?”

“Nope.” Not a single soul.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” Please. “There are plenty of others who have it so much worse. For instance, just today I read one of the Kardashians broke a nail and Taylor Swift is never, ever getting back together with her boyfriend.”

Tag chuckled. “I didn’t mean it in a pity kind of way. I meant it in the ‘Wow, it sucks that you don’t have people nosing into your business twenty-four-seven’ kind of way. So, where’s your family?”

Marybell stared at him. This was getting too close for comfort. Yet she found herself repeating the words she repeated to everyone when they asked. “I was in the foster care system all my life. No family.”

His grip on her hand tightened, and she knew she should yank hers back to safety, but it was so warm and...safe. Something about the calloused surface was safe. “Damn. This time I am sorry.”

“Damn. I’d hoped you’d be more original.”

“Original?”

“Everyone says they’re sorry. I guess you’re not the exception I’d hoped for,” she teased, and smiled. She was used to the eyes full of sympathy, sad smiles, but it was all she’d ever known. She’d never truly realized what she’d missed until Landon came along.

Tag’s eyes searched hers. “Not laughing. My family drives me crazy, but I couldn’t live without them.”

Marybell shrugged to hide all her childhood hopes dashed—all her Christmas wishes ignored. “You could if you didn’t know what it was like to have one.”

“So I gather the Call Girls are your family now? You all seem pretty tight.”

There were times when she was almost afraid to acknowledge how she felt about them out loud. To say it was to throw it out into the universe and take the chance the universe would strike back.

If you didn’t tell anyone you cared about something almost more than you cared about breathing, it wouldn’t tempt the Fates to snatch it away. She kept her feelings about Em and the girls on the inside. “They’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever had.”

For all the years spent wondering what it was like to belong—really belong somewhere—she’d found that in the least likely place of all, and whether they knew it or not, she clung to their friendships. In silence, while she treasured them in ways she hoped they felt rather than heard.

She didn’t want these friendships taken away when it had taken thirty years to find them. Tag had the ability to obliterate the only real thing she had, and he didn’t even know it.

She faked looking at a watch that didn’t exist on her wrist, pulling her other hand from his. Without looking at him, she rose to her feet, brushing the dead leaves from her torn jeans. “My break’s almost over. I have to go.”

Tag was up and on his feet, his large frame looming above her. “So I bet you don’t want to do this again, huh?”

Yes, she did. No. She wouldn’t. “I’m not dating.”

Tag tipped her chin up and smiled, his white teeth gleaming against his sun-weathered skin. “But you are eating. You need your energy for all that oohing and aahing.”