A Way to a Dragon’s Heart (4 page)

Kathleen hugged him. “Panic is appropriate; we’re talking two major game changers after already trying to deal with a game changer. Panic I understand and support. Guilt needs to go. Xander fell in love with her first. That kinda opened the door for thoughts on a lot of things, and now…” She hugged him tighter. “Your own Sect, Caleb.” She pulled back from him. “Why are we waiting? You need to get on this now.”

“I should wash my hands and get back to work.”

“Caleb,” Kathleen began.

“He thinks I only got back from Europe yesterday and have meetings until Monday.” Caleb sighed. “He was upset I suddenly left for Greece without explanation. I exaggerated how much I had to do so he wouldn’t rush over the minute he got here. I thought if he had a few days to relax before we talked things would go better.”

She paused and nodded. “That actually sounds like patience from my little brother. Nice call. I guess you’re growing up after all.”

Chapter Three

“Okay, I take it back.” Kryssa stretched her arms above her head and smiled at Xander. “Nicky totally nailed it. Not only is this the most relaxed I’ve been while working in forever, but at our current pace, we’ll be done before the end of the week with the bulk of things. After that I’m down to maybe an hour a day returning phone calls and sitting in on conferences with the trainees.” She popped a strawberry in her mouth and gave a satisfied smile.

“So after this, what’s left?” Xander asked.

“The Sydney office sends back my interns with additional skills and experience, and I stand over their shoulder for
six
weeks until I know they have it down and can carry my replacements.” She laughed.

Xander smiled. “Do you feel the twins are ready?”

She pressed another strawberry into the saucer of granulated sugar. “Nicky’s boys are more than ready. Their decision to shadow me after I announced my sabbatical changed everything. They’ve been helpful, hysterical, handsome little sponges who made all of this easier than I could have imagined. I’m so proud they felt up to dealing with the Tokyo offices on their own.” She smiled around a mouthful of strawberry. “They make me look good. I mean of course I did it in half the time; I had twice the help. Once I get the interns settled into Caitlin’s routine, the boys will have it made with all the support they could want. I’ll spend six months
on call
for emergencies, then Caitlin’s back part-time to keep the place standing, so there’ll be nothing but going forward for me.”

She reached across the table and took Xander’s hand. “Thank you for this. I was resistant, but I’m not ungrateful. I really appreciate you ruining your vacation for me and doing it with a smile.”

Xander flashed her more of that wonderful smile, and she felt her heart speed up. Sunlight spilled through the large windows and double doors leading to the patio. His eyes sparkled, and beneath the heat of the sun, his skin gave off a delectable scent that was part food and part sex, or perhaps all sex with edible overtones. He both helped her focus and served as a hopeless distraction in turn, but they’d gotten more done in a few days than a week in her office with everyone unloading their extra responsibilities on her. If Nicky had been right about that, what about the rest of his advice?

“I keep telling you none of this ruined my vacation. My brothers aren’t here, which is all the vacation I need.” He looked down at the tablet PC in his hands. “Besides, Caitlin did an amazingly thorough job. Even putting the files together for you was little more than glorified collating. Once everyone figured out I wasn’t going to pass you the phone unless they were calling from the hospital, this became the easiest job I’ve had since I turned twelve.”

Caitlin
had
been thorough. With another set of hands, an extra ear, and the ability to say no, Kryssa could have done it all herself. Lacking all of them made Xander a blessing.

“I like your brothers. Should I be defending them?” she asked.

“Nope, trust me, another week and I would have become the only boy. I swear. I love my brothers, but I needed the chance to miss them so I could stop entertaining thoughts of fratricide.”

She often wanted a benign way to render Nicky mute, but being with him always beat being without him. Except for maybe right this minute. “What about Andrew?”

He groaned. “Drew would be first. He started the whole thing; the others just ganged up.” She gave him a look, and Xander sighed. “Fine, Drew would be last but only because Caitlin would kill me. He’s still on the list though. Sharing a womb gives him no right to read my email and proceed on a six-month campaign to micro-manage my love life.” She arched a brow, and he rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay then, he doesn’t have the right to be annoying about it and enlist the others, who are even more annoying, to help him.”

She nodded. “True, he should at least micro-manage with grace. So is he still anti-Caleb?”

Xander laughed. “Oh no, didn’t I tell you? Now that Eternal Delights is open and doing well he’s flipped to the pro-Caleb camp with my sisters and brought everyone else on board. So now all six of them are on the same side, more or less, but only Abby and Angel are being supportive of whatever I end up doing, while our beloved brothers are dictating and refusing to take
I don’t know
for an answer.” He rested his head on his hand and smiled. “You’re so lucky only having Dominic to deal with.”

Kryssa laughed and then laughed again, stopping when tears came to her eyes. “I’ll let him know you said that. He’ll be delighted.”

“Which just proves my point,” Xander insisted. “You’re actually going to tell him that. You two are over thirty years apart, but you’re as close, or closer, than me and Drew. That’s just amazing.”

Kryssa laughed again. “True, but imagine Drew with thirty years of life experience behind his meddling instinct. Nicky dictates and interferes as a matter of being in the same room. A bonded-sibling that much older is part parent, part personal cheering squad. Even when I mess up, I’m awesome, but it never occurs to him he doesn’t have a say-so in my life. Our parents, all six of our brothers, and all of our sisters, except Kyla, go to Nicky first because his interference trumps theirs. Andrew at least has to enlist the others. Nicky is considered right just by virtue of having spoken.”

Xander ran his fingers along her hand and smiled. “But your face goes all soft and glow-y with hero worship every time you talk about him. I like him on principle of that alone.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell him that too.” And smiled. “And the hero worship is unavoidable. As my clutch-mate, Nicky’s always been there. He moved home so we could bond and never looked back. I knew his scent before I knew my own. One of the first memories I have is of Nicky holding me and dancing around the nursery to get me to sleep. It’s the only thing that worked when I was teething.”

She looked down at her watch. In her mind’s eye she could see the inscription on the back inlaid in Nicky’s handwriting.
There’s no time like the present. Happy Sabbatical
. “If he hadn’t agreed to moving up my sabbatical when I jumped ahead of schedule, I don’t know what I would have done. I’ve been going to work with him since he found an infant sling that complemented his suits. His opinion means everything.”

“So the fact that he sent you here with me is an even bigger deal than I thought,” Xander whispered.

Kryssa looked up. “That depends on how big a deal you thought it was. If you were aiming for anyone else on the planet meeting with epic fail with such a plan, you were right in the ballpark.”

Xander took a deep breath, and Kryssa could smell the first hint of a blush as he spoke. “So then, everything he said is open for consideration?”

Wow, four whole days before they got back to the sex question. She had to give Xander credit. It was three days longer than she had anticipated. She only wished she had an answer. Nicky had been right. She’d decided not to date for the five years it took to reach her career evaluation and mandatory sabbatical, making work first and foremost in her life. But her sabbatical had rounded the corner into line of sight early, and Xander was right there and Nicky approved. Her mind clung to the five year marker, but in truth, Kryssa had run out of excuses.

All she needed to do was make a move. “Before we get that far, as part of Team Caleb, I think you have a few things to work out first.” Or she could deflect for as long as possible.

“Drew got to you too?” Xander groaned.

“No
Caleb
got to me,” she corrected. “You know I’ve wanted the two of you to get together permanently, forever. As the unbiased, outside observer, I completely believe you two were meant for each other. That’s my take, and I’m sticking with it.”

“It helps that he kissed you, right?” Xander asked.

“Of course it does. I know he didn’t spend all that time just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear and would pass on to you. Caleb and I are real friends with a real connection just like you hoped we’d be when you introduced us. So I’m saying this both as your best friend and as someone who truly cares about Caleb.”

“I think I preferred it when I thought you were pro-Caleb just to avoid my advances,” Xander complained.

“Wait, you still
want
to be with Caleb, don’t you?”

Xander shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean I wouldn’t be up here if I didn’t. But it’s Caleb. Settling down, truly making an effort and committing to something—to
someone—
isn’t his thing. He is who he is, and I can’t change that.”

Kryssa stood up. “It’s not about you changing him.” She walked around the table and sat on its edge beside Xander. “It’s about him changing and wanting you to be a part of it. I don’t know if he’ll succeed, but he’s trying, Xander.”

“Trying? Really? We’re calling this whole thing with the bakery—”

“Pastry café,” she said. “He was very clear in the emails.”

Xander snorted and went on. “We’re calling this whole thing with the
pastry
café
trying? He couldn’t even stay still long enough to get it off the ground. He’d no sooner launched it and had a bit of success when he put his sister, Kathleen, in charge and disappeared to Europe for three months. That’s why I’m only now seeing it.”

She paused and shook her head. “I’m positive you said you couldn’t take the time off before he left for Europe.”

Xander waved her words away and pushed back from the table. “He’s going to offer me this partnership in this big, grand gesture. He’ll be charming and alluring and sexy, and everything will seem in flow and sync up, and then he’ll get restless and wander off again.”

Kryssa slid across the table until she was in front of him. When he wouldn’t look up, she put her feet behind the font legs of his chair and pulled him to her. “You don’t know that, Xan.”

“I don’t know the opposite either.” He refused to look up. “I won’t be surprised if his time in Europe has already made him change his mind about being tied to one location. I love him, but the word mate would send him running screaming into the night.”

His voice resonated with a longing that made Kryssa ache in places she tried not to think about too often. Xander came from a big, boisterous, loving family like her own. The need to build a home and make a life replicating his version of a family was a hunger that ran deep.

Kryssa empathized; she’d wanted the same thing with Landon. Three years ago she’d sat in Xander’s place of longing and loss. Since the breakup, she’d been in Caleb’s shoes, forever dodging the long term. Great. She hated when life lessons stared her in the face without making an appointment to be sure she was ready.

“Caleb comes from a business family like both of us. He wouldn’t go into this without at least a commitment to the café. Maybe this is just the on-again phase of your personal relationship, but the business is long haul, and you know it. That’s why you’re going back and forth.” She took Xander’s face in her hands. “Maybe he only wants to work with you because you’re reliable and brilliant. But maybe he started the business and offered you a partnership because he wants someone to come home to. He wants to come home to you. Either way, this isn’t something over at the end of summer, and we all know that.”

Two years of talking every day, of countless emails, texts, phone calls, and more communication than she’d had with almost anyone else, and she still couldn’t read Xander’s expression. That alone said more than anything about how much he felt.

“And what if he only
thinks
it’s what he wants? What if he tried but he simply can’t commit? What if he doesn’t know how, even for me?”

Kryssa shook her head. “He’s never cheated or lied while the two of you were together. He’s been open about his nature from your very first date, which has nothing to do with non-commitment and everything to do with innate wanderlust. He’s never tried to hurt you, and every time he leaves, he asks you to go with him. Does any of this sound familiar? These are all the words you’ve used to combat Andrew and the others during the anti-Caleb moments. You’ve even used them on me back when I offered to bounce him out of a window for you early on in our friendship. An offer both sincere and literal I might remind you.”

Xander smiled and lowered his head to her knee. “I know none of this is about screwing with my head or my heart. I do, but I can’t help wanting to step lightly.” He snorted and sat up. “Precisely because everything about me doesn’t want to step lightly. I want to jump in because what if, you know? But then I think about what it will feel like if I jump and he’s not there to catch me.”

He took her hands in his. “Do you know why I haven’t pushed about Landon? Because what I heard in your voice the first time you mentioned him is exactly what I fear hearing in my own because of Caleb. I know how much it hurt when I had to accept we’d probably always be coming together and drifting apart. Whatever you went through with Landon sounded so much worse, all the more so because he didn’t even understand what he was doing when he hurt you. I didn’t want to make you go back to that before you were ready, and I sure as hell didn’t want to hurt you because I didn’t understand what I was asking from you.”

Kryssa nodded. “Thank you for that. It…” She shook her head. “Never mind, this isn’t about my past but your future. Caleb isn’t commitment phobic. Whatever keeps him moving is part nature, but the rest is fear. I’m just saying don’t judge him on his fear before he’s had a chance to conquer it. Don’t give up on all of this before he’s had a chance.”

Xander moved back and stood up. He brushed a handful of curls behind her shoulder. “This is where we hug right? Maybe even one of those Therian-just-friends-nothing-to-see-here-all-about-comfort kisses you’re so good at?”

Kryssa took his face in her hands again and kissed him softly, filling it with everything she felt in the moment, even the conflict and confusion because they were real. “Comforting enough?”

He nodded and hugged her. “It’s all good advice. Don’t judge the fear and don’t give up before it’s all had a chance. I can agree to that.” His arms tightened around her. “I just have one question, Krys. Are you just talking about Caleb or about you and me too?”