you,” he said. If she’d surprised him, he didn’t show it. But then again, he didn’t show much of anything. With the exception of that one time in his apartment, he played all of his emotional cards extremely close to his chest.
“I’m going to need your help,” Nell started toward the second-floor office she’d shared with Daisy. “What do you know about swing bands and health-food caterers? Or how about where I can find a florist specializing in poinsettias and holly?”
“Any florist should be able to handle a Christmas-style arrangement,” Crash said, keeping pace. “Health-food caterers—I’m not the one to ask about that. As for swing bands, I’ve always preferred Benny Goodman.”
“Benny Goodman’s great, but unfortunately he’s dead.” Nell turned on the office lights and sat down at the desk with the computer, using the mouse and the keyboard to sign on to the Internet. “I need to find someone good who’s alive, and ready to be booked for the evening before Christmas eve.” She looked back at Crash. “Any idea where we can get a half dozen twelve-foot Christmas trees with root balls attached—delivered? And then there’s lights and decorations…But we can’t hire a decorator, because they do that ‘monochromatic garbage’—that’s a direct quote—all silver or all red, and that’s not any good. We need real ornaments, all different colors and sizes.”
Crash sat down on the other side of the desk. “Are we having a Christmas party?”
Nell laughed. And then, to her horror, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, but she knew he saw them, because for a fraction of a second, a very peculiar mix of trepidation and an answering flash of pain crossed his face.
“I’m not going to cry,” she told him, fiercely willing herself to do just that. “I’m just…” She forced a smile. “I feel so bad for Jake, you know? In a way, Daisy’s got it easier, because Jake’s the one who’s going to have to go on living. And sometimes, when Daisy’s not around, I see him, and he has this look in his eyes that just breaks my heart.”
Nell sank down, resting her head on top of her desk.
Crash knew she was fighting tears again, and she didn’t want him to see. Nell’s loyalty impressed him. He understood loyalty. It was the one strong emotion he could relate to—and could allow himself to feel.
“You don’t have to be here,” he said.
She lifted her head and looked at him through a curtain of rumpled hair, her expression aghast. “Yes, I most certainly do. Daisy needs me now more than ever.”
“This wasn’t what you were hired to do.”
“I was hired as her personal assistant.”
“You were hired to take care of all the business aspects of Daisy’s career,” Crash pointed out, “so that she would have more time to paint.”
“A good personal assistant does whatever’s needed,” Nell argued. “If the dishes need washing, I’ll do the dishes. Or I’ll clean the fish tank, or—”
“Most people would’ve given their notice weeks ago. Instead of that, you moved in.”
“Yeah, well, the idea of Daisy having to go into a hospice was unacceptable.” Nell swept her hair out of her face as she reached for a tissue and briskly blew her nose. “And she hated the thought of hiring some stranger to provide round-the-clock personal care. But she didn’t want to dump all that responsibility on Jake, so…” She shrugged.
“So you volunteered.”
“I haven’t had any medical training, so when the time comes that she needs a nurse, someone’s still going to have to come in, but at least she’ll know I’ll be there, too.” Nell tossed the crumpled tissue across the room, sinking it expertly into the wastebasket. “It’s no big deal.” She took a deep breath and pretended to look at the computer screen.
“That’s not true and you know it.”
She looked up at him, gazing directly into his eyes. “Are you going to help me, Hawken, or what?”
Crash had to smile. He liked her direct approach. He liked her. He was definitely going to help with whatever it was that she was doing, but first he had to make something clear to her.
“I know we’re all trying to be as upbeat as Daisy is,” he said quietly, “but that gets hard sometimes. I don’t want you to have to worry about what I’ll say or do if you need to cry. You don’t need that weighing you down, too. We’re living with a lot of emotional upheaval here. There’s nothing normal about this, and we can’t expect each other to behave normally. So, let’s make a deal, okay? You can cry whenever you want, but you can’t hold it against me if I stand up and walk away when you do, because…everything that you’re feeling…I’m fighting it, too.”
Nell just sat there, looking at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, she wore no makeup, and she looked as if she’d slept about as much as he had in the past few days—which wasn’t much at all.
Maybe they’d both sleep better if they shared a bed.
Crash gently pushed that thought away. He knew it would be true, but he also knew that the absolute, absolute last thing Nell needed in her life right now was to become intimately entangled with him.
She was the kind of woman he avoided like the plague when he walked into a bar. He’d recognized her on sight that first time they’d met. She was too sweet, too smart, too innocently full of life and hope and promise.
She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t looking for long-term or permanent. She was the kind of woman who would think that she could change him.
She was the kind of woman who would cry great big, silent tears as he packed his bag—the kind of woman who would beg him to come back.
No, under completely normal conditions, Crash wouldn’t allow himself to get close to Nell. And right now she was a bubbling caldron of high-octane emotions. He knew—not with any sense of ego, but from that same flatly factual voice of experience—that it wouldn’t take very much for her to fancy herself in love with him. He knew because he was experiencing the very same highs and lows himself.
But, like he’d told Daisy, he didn’t do “in love” and he knew himself well enough to recognize that the rush of emotions he was feeling wasn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be real. And giving in to this powerful physical temptation would be the worst thing he could do to this woman, no matter how badly he longed for something—for someone—to hold on to. No matter how badly he longed for the distraction of sexual release.
He liked Nell too much to use her that way. And knowing what he knew about her, he would be using her.
Crash forced himself to take a step back, to separate a little bit more from his emotions. He’d file his red-hot attraction for Nell in that mental holding area he’d created, right next to all the anger and grief and pain he felt over Daisy’s impending death. All he needed was just a little more distance, a little more detachment.
But Nell finally moved, holding out her hand to him, stretching her arm across her desk. “I’ll accept your deal,” she said. “I want to state for the record, though, that I don’t usually cry at the drop of a hat.”
He
