“I’m sorry.” I still didn’t like the idea that I would be another thing for them to disagree over. The Whitmans were such a beautiful family, and they deserved to be happy.

  “You’re not the one who needs to be sorry.”

  My skin flushed in remembrance of what had happened less than an hour ago in his brother and sister-in-law’s bathroom. “I think you’ve already apologized, and very thoroughly.”

  Rafe’s gaze was hot as he dragged it down my body and back up again. “You have no idea how much I want to be inside you right now.”

  Arousal flooded deep in my belly so abruptly at his words that I sucked in a surprised breath.

  His nostrils flared at my reaction.

  “We could go back to your place,” I whispered.

  Rafe squeezed his eyes closed as if he were in pain, and he dropped his head with a groan.

  “What?”

  When he raised his eyes, he let out a slow exhalation. “I can’t. Not until I know where we stand.”

  Oh boy, he really was Mr. Commitment.

  I had never met a guy quite like Rafe Whitman.

  Weeks ago, he’d told me he’d had one-night stands but he was over that phase, and obviously he’d spoken the truth. I commented as much.

  Rafe shook his head. “If it were just a blinding attraction, I’d fuck you right here in this elevator.”

  And now my nipples were hard.

  “But it isn’t. I have real feelings for you. So I can’t do the casual thing. I’d just be asking to get hurt.”

  I couldn’t believe as I stood there gaping at this intensely deep man who was being open and vulnerable with me that he was the same guy who’d been so closed off when we met. Unfortunately, despite all the good things his words said about him and his intentions toward me, I felt that crushing pressure on my chest increase in intensity. It almost killed my arousal.

  Before I could find the words to respond to him, my cell rang in my purse and I fumbled to shut it off, only to see Arlo’s name flashing on the screen. “It’s my father,” I told Rafe, giving him an apologetic look. “He never calls.”

  If the interruption frustrated him, he hid it well. “You better answer, then.”

  The elevator doors opened just as I picked up the call. “Arlo?”

  “Hey, Star Shine.” Arlo’s lazy drawl filled me with a flood of emotions because apparently Rafe had opened a floodgate tonight. “Need a big-ass favor.”

  Great.

  “Oh, yeah?” I gritted my teeth. Four months had passed since I had an actual conversation with my parents. I hadn’t seen either of them in two years, and the first call I get was for a favor? Of course it was!

  “Yeah. Kinda last minute, but I’m going in for a coronary bypass thing in two days and the doc says I need someone to be there to take me home and look after me for a couple of weeks. You know I hate asking anyone for shit, but Dawn just took off on some girls’ road trip. Shoulda seen it coming since you know she can’t deal with hospitals and sick people. So yeah, I kinda need you to come take care of me, Star Shine.”

  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and I must have had a look of horror on my face, because Rafe bent his head to mine in concern. “Coronary bypass surgery?”

  Rafe’s brows knitted together.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Arlo was dismissive, as if it were no big deal that he was going in for major heart surgery. If he was having major heart surgery, then they must have known for a while that he had heart issues and neither he nor Dawn had told me. “I’ve got, like, some choked-up arteries in there or something. You know, heart disease.” Again, he said it as if it were nothing.

  Shaking my head in bewilderment, I snapped, “You’re just calling me about this now?”

  “Oh, look, I can’t deal with stress right now, so don’t give me shit. Just tell me if you can come or not.”

  Again, I gritted my teeth against my irritation. “Of course I’ll be there. I’ll fly out tomorrow. You’re still in Boulder, right?”

  “ ’Course. We wouldn’t go somewhere else without telling you that.”

  I barely contained my snort. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Star Shine. You’re with it.” Arlo hung up.

  Pulling my phone away from my ear, I couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  “Everything okay?” Rafe smoothed a hand down my back.

  I looked up at him. Felt his strong, comforting presence. It was as if my body were being pulled in two different directions. Part of me wanted to rest my head on his chest and tell him how much I thought my parents really sucked. The other part of me wanted to run as far away from him as I could get so I could go back to pretending like Dawn and Arlo weren’t so bad. Instead, I told him everything Arlo had relayed.

  “Jesus, okay, well, we need to get you a flight.” Rafe pulled out his phone.

  “I can do that.” I touched his arm to stop him. “Seriously, I can take care of this.”

  He searched my face. “You sure? You look like you just got punched a dozen times in the gut.”

  I did feel that way, so . . . “It’s just Dawn.” I threw my hands up in disbelief. “Who goes on a freaking girls’ road trip when their partner of thirty-three years is scheduled for major surgery?” No. No decent person did that!

  I was calling her!

  I scrolled angrily through my contacts and hit her number.

  And got her voice mail.

  “Fuck!”

  “Hey, hey.” Rafe took me by my shoulders, forcing me to meet his calm gaze. “It’s okay. You got this. You are capable and strong and you can do this. Just tell me what I can do to help.”

  I wanted to tell him he could give me some space and time . . . but I was terrified I’d hurt him. He was the last person I wanted to hurt. “A cab. I need a cab so I can go home and get everything organized.”

  Rafe frowned. “Can I do anything else?”

  Reaching up onto my tiptoes, I pressed a brief kiss to his warm mouth. “I’m good.”

  Deciding to let me have that, Rafe, like a magician, waved down a cab in a few seconds. As it pulled up to the sidewalk, he kissed me a little longer, a little harder than I’d kissed him. “Call me if you need me. And can you text me your parents’ address?”

  “Why?”

  “Just so I have it. In case of an emergency.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” I opened the cab door and then turned back to him because he deserved . . . more. “About us . . . I . . .”

  “Don’t.” Rafe shook his head. “No pressure. Not while you have this on your mind.”

  Did he have to be so freaking perfect? There was a small piece of me that desperately needed him to act like the cold asshole I’d met at his niece’s party, so I could just forget about him.

  “Let me know when you get home,” he demanded as I got into the cab.

  I nodded, my mind reeling.

  What a strange damn night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Roger was worried about me. He’d called a bunch of times since I’d told him about Arlo and when he couldn’t get out of a studio session to take me to the airport, he insisted that Jude escort me. Because Roger was worried, Jude was too.

  “I want you to tell us if your asshole father is making your life miserable, because I’m not afraid to come down there and break a heart patient’s nose,” Jude had demanded as we pulled up to Newark Airport.

  No amount of reassurance seemed to help appease my friends, and they weren’t the only ones. Rafe had texted me last night and called me first thing this morning. He’d asked for my flight numbers and my parents’ address and so I’d texted them over without thinking about it because I had a million things to do in a brief span of time.

  I’d promised to let everyone know once I landed, so I did that in the cab as we drove from Denver International Airport.

  I hadn’t known what I was expecting to find in Arlo, but he answered the door to the small ranch house, seeming in good spirits. My parents’ small home was on the outskirts of the city in a neighborhood where the properties all sat on generous plots of land surrounded by mountains and trees. The extra land made room for Dawn’s workshop and Arlo’s studio to the back of the property. For two people who said they didn’t hold on to material things, they both made decent money with their art, and making money from art was just about the hardest thing a person could do careerwise.

  Arlo greeted me with a hug and gestured me into the house.

  It was a mess.

  And it smelled.

  I wrinkled my nose in distaste. There were half-empty take-out containers littered on the coffee table, dirty dishes covering every inch of the kitchen counters. A sewage smell suggested something was growing mold somewhere.

  When I lived with them, I took care of housekeeping. Neither of my parents were neat freaks, but Dawn liked things clean at least. Arlo, apparently, did not.

  “When did you say Dawn left?”

  Arlo rubbed the nape of his neck, appearing sheepish. “Uh . . . well, yeah, she actually took off about two weeks ago, but I thought she would be back in time for the surgery.”

  I shook my head at my selfish mother and my helpless father.

  Dropping my bags, I put my hands to my hips. “First things first. This place needs cleaning.”

  “Oh, I’m not allowed to do anything strenuous. I’ve barely even lifted a paintbrush,” Arlo drawled.

  I studied him, noting the dark circles under his eyes. I’d gotten my strawberry-blond hair and my nose from Arlo, but that was it. He was tall and loose-limbed, his hair long and tied back in a ponytail, and his goatee needed a trim. Arlo was a very good-looking guy and laid-back (most of the time), so I got what Dawn had seen in him. But I was all Dawn except for the hair and nose. My mom and I almost shared the same face except for that button nose I’d inherited from Arlo.

  As if he’d read my mind, he smiled at me with fondness. “You look more and more like Dawn every time I see you.”

  “Great,” I murmured dryly, looking around at the pit I had to clean. “So . . . she’s not coming back?”

  “Not for a few weeks. You know Dawn. I can’t tie that woman’s free spirit down.”

  This wasn’t free spirit. Her actions were downright selfish and unkind. “So . . .” I studied Arlo and noted that beyond the dark circles, he looked a little thin. “Why do you need coronary bypass surgery?”

  “I had a heart thing a few weeks back, just before Dawn left.”

  My own heart thumped hard in my chest. “A heart attack?”

  “Yeah, one of those.” He shrugged like it was no big deal and wandered into the kitchen. “You need a drink? I usually have beer to offer, but Doc said I can’t have any before the surgery.”

  “Arlo.” I sighed impatiently. “Why did you have a heart attack? You generally eat well and you do yoga with Dawn nearly every day.”

  He shrugged again. “It’s some kinda blockage in one of my arteries. They don’t think it was a lifestyle thing that caused it. They think it’s some kinda scarring of the heart tissue that’s happened over years, so they gotta do this to divert the blood flow or something.”

  An awful realization hit me. “Is this for life? You mentioned heart disease.”

  “Yeah, but they think I got a good chance of living life normally because of my lifestyle. Usually folks need to change their diet, up their exercise, but they said with a few exceptions, like cutting out the beer and pot, I’m doing all right as I am. I’ll miss the fucking pot but I like life more, so I’ll do it, I s’pose.”

  I needed to talk to his doctor because I couldn’t trust Arlo’s lackadaisical response to absolutely everything in life. “Okay. What time do we need to be at the hospital tomorrow?”

  “We gotta be in Denver at two o’clock. I’m just in there for prepping, you know. Surgery isn’t until the day after. Luckily, Dawn talked me into health insurance a while back or I’d be fucked. You got health insurance, kid? I know it’s copping to the man to hand over cash for that shit, but turns out anything could happen and it’s saving me a shit ton of dough.”

  “I’ve got health insurance.” It wasn’t the greatest health insurance in the world, but it was something.

  Arlo picked up dirty socks off the couch, threw them across the room, and sat down with a grin. “That’s cool. So tell me what you’ve been up to, Star Shine. You still waitressing at that drag show?”

  I closed my eyes, asking every deity in our universe for patience. “That was six years ago, Arlo.”

  “It was? Well, you know me and time don’t get along great. What you up to these days? Oh, wait.” He suddenly got up again. “I got to show you the commission I just did. It’ll blow your fucking mind. This guy right here”—he pointed his thumbs toward himself—“is like a fine wine. I get better with age.” He chortled as I reluctantly followed him through the house and out back toward his studio.

  Patience.

  I just needed a little patience.

  * * *

  • • •

  As hard as I tried to get in contact with Dawn, I could not get hold of the woman. Arlo was in surgery for four hours, and they were some of the most nerve-racking hours of my life. He was a further four days in the hospital and then on Friday I took him home.

  It had been an emotional and stressful week at my parents’ house. I dreamed of memories from my childhood, things I hadn’t thought about in years. The sight of Dawn’s clothing reminded me of her perpetual absence. Even when she was present, she was never really there. My bosses at All on the Line and We Bring Them to Life called asking if I knew when I’d have availability again and had warned me subtly that I’d start losing the best jobs or my spot completely on their roster if I couldn’t give them a return date. I’d told them I’d be back in two weeks and hoped that was true. Mostly because I didn’t think I could take Arlo for any longer than that. I’d scrubbed the house from top to bottom, done all the laundry that had piled up, and restocked the groceries. Arlo didn’t even notice, which was fine because, hello, heart surgery. However, Arlo the Patient was the worst version of my father anyone could encounter, and my desperation to get hold of Dawn grew by the second. Guilt filled me every time I wished I were anywhere but there because Arlo had just had major surgery and I should want to be there to look after him.

  “You didn’t season this,” Arlo grumbled that Saturday morning as he ate the scrambled eggs I’d cooked.

  “I just followed doctor’s orders. Want more?”

  He shot me a disgusted look. “Why the fuck would I want more of this shit?” Trying not to flinch, I reached for his plate and he slapped my arm away. “What the hell are you doing?”

  My skin stung right along with my feelings. “I thought you didn’t want it.”

  “I’m eating it, aren’t I? Stupid girl.”

  “Hey.” I said it with a gentle sharpness. “Hit me again and I walk, okay?”

  Arlo scowled. “Mellow out, kid, and stop being such a downer. You can’t stress me out. Doc said so.”

  I walked out of the bedroom before I gave in to the urge to strangle him.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Even though I knew if it was Dawn, she’d have walked right in, I couldn’t help but wish it were her, anyway.

  To my shock, the person standing on the doorstep was someone unexpected.

  It was Rafe.

  He’d called me and texted throughout the week, just enough to let me know he was thinking about me, but not too much to put pressure on me.

  Yet there he was.

  Considerate, caring, sexy Rafe Whitman. In Boulder, Colorado. For me.

  “Rafe?”

  He gave me a small smile and I felt instantly calm. “Hey.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “I’m not here for anything,” Rafe assured me that night as he lay stretched out on the guest bed I slept in. “I’m just here for you.”

  Deciding to put my confusion about us aside for now, I wearily climbed into the bed and accepted his invitation to snuggle into him. Resting my head over Rafe’s heart, I sighed heavily.

  It had been a day.

  While Arlo was happy to meet Rafe, to have someone new for company, his good mood didn’t last. Rafe chatted with him for a while and Arlo, who pretended to be a lover of animals our whole life even though he’d never taken care of an animal ever, thought Rafe being a vet was the shit. But as soon as he found out who Rafe’s family was, he started lecturing him on the evil of big business and corporations.

  To his credit, Rafe calmly listened and didn’t react.

  He did react, however, every time Arlo snapped impatiently at me. I could see Rafe’s expression growing darker as the day wore on, and I shook my head at him in a silent request to let it go.

  He did.

  Until I’d reached out to take Arlo’s dinner tray and he curled his hand around my wrist and shoved me away with enough force that I had to correct my balance.

  Rafe had shot out of his chair, and Arlo’s gaze flew up and widened as if he had suddenly realized Rafe was a big guy. But Rafe didn’t yell. He just stared stonily at Arlo and warned, “Never do that again.”

  Arlo actually gulped and looked at me like a little boy who’d done wrong. “Sorry, Star Shine,” he’d murmured, and pushed the tray toward me.

  “Your dad is a piece of work,” Rafe opined tightly as we lay on the bed hours later. He trailed his fingertips down my bare arm and my eyelids drooped tiredly. “Has he always treated you like that? The physical stuff too?”

  I tensed at the fury I heard buried beneath his words. “No. I promise. He’s never been the greatest at remembering I exist, but when he does, he’s usually casually affectionate and kind. You’re witnessing the worst version of him. I’m sorry.”