Just like that, p.17
Just Like That, page 17
She frowned right back. “It’s a group where women learn to do things for themselves so that if they are in a relationship, it’s purely about the relationship instead of because the man has something the woman thinks she needs. We talk about finances, parenting, health and wellness, along with all of this stuff I teach them. A lot of the women had been in abusive relationships. Two of them are widows. A couple others simply have always felt that they needed a man around and are trying to escape that. I’m going to give them every chance to do that.”
He didn’t say anything in answer to that. Instead he went back to pulling up linoleum with renewed vigor. Danika taught a group of women not to need men. Wasn’t that just…something. He should probably like it. The more independent she was, the less she’d be looking for him to move in and open her pickle jars. Hell, he should sign Sara up for one of her classes.
But he didn’t like it. At all.
“Why are you so against men?” he asked. Hey, he was doing manual labor here. She could answer a few questions from her lawn chair.
“I’m not against men. I just think that it’s good for women to be able to take care of themselves.”
“Was your mom one of those liberated types or something?” he asked, prying up hard on a particularly stubborn spot.
“No.” Danika’s voice was quiet. “Not exactly. She wanted to be, but…”
He looked up at her. She was slumped back in her chair, the magazine tossed on the floor next to her, staring down at her hands.
“But, what?” he asked. He wanted to know about her mom. Weird. He assumed most of the women he dated had mothers, but he’d certainly never thought about any of them, not to mention asking about them.
Danika raised her eyes and swallowed. “She was in a wheelchair. Which she hated every single day. She had been this amazing, active, self-sufficient woman. But the…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Sometimes I think if it had been sudden, like a car accident or an injury when she was skiing or something, it would have been easier. She could have looked at it as something she risked to do the things she loved. But it was slow. Progressive. Things just got harder and harder, and more and more frustrating. Things changed in little increments. Like it was teasing her.”
Danika gripped her hands tightly together, her knuckles white.
“If she’d had an accident and ended up in a wheelchair, she would have still hated it but she would have known that there were things she could no longer do and she would have dealt with it all at once. Instead, she never knew until she tried something if it would work. So she would go for a bike ride, and then not be able to go as far or fast. Or she’d want to go swimming, and find herself unable to breathe after just a few laps. Then afterward she’d be stiff, the muscle spasms would be terrible. It was always a gamble. And most times she lost.” Danika put a hand to her head and rubbed her middle finger up and down the center of her forehead as if it was aching.
A moment passed before she continued. “She saw it getting worse and worse and there was nothing she could do. But she was determined to do as much as she could as long as she could. So it was a constant struggle. A constant contest between her and the disease to see how far she could go, or how long she could go, or how well she could do something. She’d push until she was just exhausted and depressed.”
“What was it?” he asked.
“Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy.”
Sam flinched. He’d certainly heard of muscular dystrophy. He knew it was a progressive disease where the muscles wasted away and caused a lot of disability in some cases. But he didn’t know many details. He had no idea what do say.
“She was diagnosed when I was nine and had a pretty aggressive form. Things got worse steadily, but she wasn’t wheelchair-confined full-time until I was twelve.” Danika drew a deep, shaky breath. “And I had to watch my dad deteriorate too, in a way. He wasn’t the same guy after a while. He used to laugh and joke and always wanted to have people over. That changed pretty quickly. Mom hated needing someone, but she did. It just became a fact. So he ended up having to fight with her about everything—letting him help her, letting him do things she used to do. It was awful for him.”
Danika swiped at the one tear that finally escaped. “She died when I was nineteen. Respiratory and cardiac complications.”
This was new territory for Sam. He had nothing. No previous experience, no words of wisdom, no fricking idea what to do. So he sat there like a dumbass, holding a crowbar and thinking that he could sit and listen to and talk to Danika Steffen for days and not want it to end. Even the stuff like this.
And if that wasn’t a sign he was getting in too deep, he didn’t know what was.
She suddenly stood up as if she’d been poked in the butt with a needle.
“You want some breakfast?” She was already heading for the kitchen with her half-empty glass.
“Sure.” She needed a break. Fine. He’d let her cook for him…
No he wouldn’t. She only had one hand.
“I’ll do it,” he called, pushing to his feet. “You can’t…”
“I’ve got granola bars,” she called back. “Just stay there.”
Sam stayed. Mostly because he still didn’t know what to do or say. This was why he couldn’t have a lasting relationship. He sucked at it. Should he try to comfort her? Hug her? Smooth her hair? Or make her laugh? Or pretend they hadn’t talked about her mom at all?
Hell if he knew. The last female he’d comforted had been Sara and she’d been comforted by Velveeta pasta shells and playing cards. If either of those would have worked for Danika he would have gladly done them.
Instead, he finished pulling up her linoleum.
By the time she came back with a glass of milk and three granola bars for him, he had tossed the six-by-six-foot piece of linoleum into the hallway and stood surveying his work.
It felt good to have done that. With his own bare hands.
He was feeling very manly.
“Nice work. For a paramedic,” she said, standing on the other side of the now linoleum-less floor.
“Thanks.” He grinned and tore open the wrapper to one of the granola bars.
He was going to take her out for dinner, he decided, watching her as he chewed. She couldn’t cook and he didn’t want to. But he definitely wanted to be with her. He could go get takeout, he supposed, but going out to a restaurant sounded nice. It would be like a…date.
He almost couldn’t swallow the chocolate-covered granola.
Great. Now he was planning to date her.
He was in so much trouble.
“Special delivery for a Danika Steffen,” a loud voice boomed from the stairwell.
Sam pivoted to find Mac coming down the hall toward him. “What are you doing here?” He had never been so glad to see his friend in his life. With Mac here, Sam wouldn’t drop to his knees and propose to Danika as he was, evidently, subconsciously thinking about doing.
Dinner. In a restaurant. Holding her hand, touching her hair, kissing her every chance he got.
Nothing but trouble.
He’d probably go into the first jewelry store he saw and buy the biggest engagement ring he could find if he kept on this track.
“I’m bringing over Danika’s care package,” Mac said, stopping outside the door. “What the hell happened here?”
“I pulled up the linoleum,” Sam said with some pride.
Mac looked at him like he’d just announced he was going to be the next inhabitant of the International Space Station. “You did it?” he asked simply.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Danika wanted it done. She can’t do it with one hand. So I did it.”
“And now what?”
“I’m putting a new floor in.”
“You are?” Now Mac looked like Sam had asked him to accompany him to the Space Station.
Sam frowned at his friend’s obvious disbelief. “Why not?”
“You’ll probably have to use tools,” Mac said, looking at the floor.
“No shit.”
“Not like a screwdriver or something, but real tools.”
“Shut up.”
Okay, so Sam did a lot more heavy-lifting and cleaning types of things when he and the guys checked on Natalia and the other ladies. The other guys had more experience with tools. But what did they expect? He was the middle sibling between two girls, the son of a man who used his free time to start a youth center and raise money and awareness for underprivileged kids. David Bradford hadn’t been building go-carts in the garage with his son on the weekends, that was for sure.
Jessica had been a rebel and a partier, usually in conflict with their father and almost never home when Sam was growing up. Then after their dad died she’d stormed in like the little general she was in the ER and took over the parental role as best she could. Sara was the princess, spoiled and protected by everyone. She hadn’t ever picked up a hammer and Sam bet that she never would. If for no other reason than the fact that she’d always have some smitten guy nearby to do it for her.
So power tools weren’t Sam’s thing.
“Did you say you had something for Danika?” Sam asked, changing the subject of his less-than-testosterone-filled experiences with flooring.
“Yeah.” Mac had a big green box in his hands tied with a huge white bow. “A get-well present.”
“From you?” Sam didn’t like the idea of other men giving Danika gifts.
“And everyone else.” Mac turned sideways to fit through the doorway past Sam.
“Everyone else?”
“Dooley, Kevin, Sara, Ben and Jessica.”
He followed Mac in, wondering where Danika had disappeared to. Hopefully to find a bra. “What’s in it?”
“It’s not for you.” Mac set the box on the kitchen table and turned toward the fridge. “You’ll have to wait until she opens it.”
Sam heard the bedroom door open and then the bathroom door—which squeaked slightly—shut. She’d better just be brushing her hair and teeth and not trying to shower or he’d be in there in a heartbeat.
Mac found a bottle of Pepsi and swung the fridge door shut, leaning back against the counter. “You did good, Sam.”
“I just tore it up. Let’s see how it goes back in.”
Mac chuckled. “Not with the floor, with the girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“We all like her. We’re glad you waited to introduce us to a girlfriend until it was Danika.” Mac took a long swig of cola.
“I didn’t introduce you…it wasn’t like that,” Sam protested. “I had to go to Jessica’s party and I had to keep an eye on Danika. It just happened like that.”
“It’s not like she’s hooked up to a ventilator,” Mac said, looking at him strangely. “What do you mean you had to keep an eye on her?”
“If I left her here alone she might have…” He almost said, tried to use her curling iron, but he knew that sounded stupid. Because it was. Danika wouldn’t have done that. She was smarter than that. Besides, it was ridiculous that he was policing a woman’s use of her beauty implements.
Mac didn’t call him on the unfinished sentence, just took another drink and looked around the kitchen.
“Maybe you didn’t mean to introduce us, but you’re breaking other rules for her. And I think it’s about damned time.”
Sam didn’t need this. He hadn’t invited Mac over. “I’m not breaking rules for her.” In fact, he’d had a pretty uncomfortable night because he wasn’t breaking rules for her.
“Oh? How many nights have you spent here?” Mac asked.
Sam scowled. “Two. But nothing’s happened.”
“Nothing?” It was quite clear that Mac wasn’t buying that for a second. “If that’s true, then you are an idiot.”
“She broke her wrist.”
“And she feels great. She told me so last night. Matt said it should heal clean.”
“So?”
“What’s with the big ‘she needs my help’ story if not a good reason to stay here with her?”
“I’m helping her out. Period.”
“Right. Another rule down the drain. You never go out of your way for women, in case they get the wrong idea.”
“Did you bring liquor in that care package?” Sam asked, hating that his friend was not only right, but knew him so well.
Mac chuckled. “It’s not a care package for you.”
“Maybe I need one.”
“It’s sure sounding like it,” Mac agreed, tipping his bottle back again. “Why haven’t you slept with her?” he asked after swallowing.
Sam sighed. “It’s complicated.
“Uh-huh.”
“What?”
“You’re allergic to complicated.”
“I know.” Sam scratched an itchy spot on his shoulder.
“You know, maybe you should let it be complicated,” Mac said.
“Not with her.”
“Why not her? She’s great. She’s beautiful, sexy, smart, funny. What else do you want?”
Danika. Nothing else. But he could barely admit that to himself.
“Not her,” he repeated.
“No attraction?” Mac said it with thick sarcasm.
“Insane attraction,” Sam admitted.
“Then what’s the problem?”
Sam regarded his friend. He’d known Mac for a long time. There was very little humiliation that Sam had suffered without Mac’s witness. “I like her.” He said it as if confessing a gruesome crime.
Mac looked intrigued. “As in you could see yourself spending time with her during which she remained completely clothed? Doing things like picking out furniture and actually caring? Looking forward to seeing her even if it’s to go to a retirement party for her boss?”
“Yeah.”
Mac chuckled. “Oh, man, you are totally screwed.”
“Yeah.” Sam knew it. Hearing his friend confirm it did nothing to make him feel better about it.
They stood in silence, thinking about this new development.
Finally, Mac straightened. “Listen, man, just for the record, you’ve never let me down.”
Sam scoffed.
“Seriously. Sure you’re late sometimes and you blow things off once in a while, but you never miss anything important.”
“What about your big Labor Day bash?”
Mac had thrown the party to celebrate finishing his deck off the back of his house.
“Important things,” Mac said. “To some people that would have been important, but to me it was just fun. And you knew it. Or you would have been there. You were at your sister’s birthday party because you knew it mattered to her.”
Sam had been psychoanalyzed more in the past couple of days than ever in his life and he was growing impatient with it—and with realizing that the people around him had rarely, if ever, been fooled by his plot to seem the carefree, fun guy in the group, not to be depended on, but liked and included anyway.
That was the bottom line—he wanted to be part of the group, just not the heart, without whom the entire thing would fall apart. He couldn’t carry that burden.
“That doesn’t mean I’m ready for a grown-up relationship with a grown-up woman like Danika.”
Mac tipped his soda bottle in acknowledgement. “You might be right. Then again, you’re the first person I’d call if I ever needed anything. Whether you like it or not.”
Sam didn’t know if he did like it or not. So he changed the subject—kind of.
“Listen,” Sam said, abandoning all hope of salvaging his pride with Mac. “You have to stay and help me with the floor.”
Mac coughed. “What?”
“Call the guys. Get them over here. Ben too.” Sam shoved away from the counter he was leaning on. “I’ll do steaks on the grill and buy the beer after.”
“Why?” Mac asked. “It’s what? Ten by ten?”
“Six by six.”
“We won’t even all fit in there.”
“You have to help me.”
“With what exactly?” Mac asked. “Because it’s just a floor. Even you’ll be able to figure that out.”
Sam had never seen Mac crazy for a woman. But he had to hope that at some point in Mac’s thirty-five years, it had happened.
“I need a buffer and some distraction, okay?” he admitted, his voice low. He hadn’t heard Danika come out of the bathroom yet, but he wasn’t taking chances. The fewer people who heard this confession, the better.
“You want me to spend the night? Take a shift for you?” Mac asked, one corner of his mouth trying to pull upward.
“No.” Sam frowned, even though he knew his friend was joking.
“Hey, we’re all paramedics, as qualified as you are to take care of her. We could take turns.”
“No.” The biggest problem with Mac’s suggestion was that it was true that his friends were as qualified as he was to take care of Danika. Mac and Dooley didn’t have the reputation that Sam did, but they were no slouches in the woman-pleasing department. In fact, while Mac couldn’t compete for volume, he made up for it with a wildness that made Sam’s eyes go wide at times. Even Kevin, before he’d found the Lord, had been with his share of satisfied women.
Mac chuckled but said, “You think having us help with the floor will help avoid complications with Danika?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Very, very likely.”
“I’ll call the guys.” He pulled out his cell phone.
* * *
Danika wasn’t sure how or why, but within twenty minutes of emerging dressed more appropriately and with her hair untangled, her house was full of men. They’d started filling her front entryway, but the space was simply too small for the five guys who all had an opinion about her new floor, so they were spilling into her living room and even the doorway of her bedroom.
Goodness, her bedroom hadn’t seen that much testosterone in…ever.
Her kitchen had also been taken over. Her fridge was full of steak and brats, her countertop was covered with potatoes and ears of corn and her kitchen table held a huge cooler of soda and beer.
Now she’d just overheard Ben say that Jessica and Sara were on their way over with dessert.
