It Takes Two

Dedication

To Nikoel—my favorite plotting partner. Thanks for the magical dragon pendant and all the other magical things you bring to my life.

Chapter One

Being in love with Shane Kelley was a lot of work.

Isabelle Dixon groaned as she stepped through the door to Trudy’s Tavern and looked around. Trudy’s was the usual hangout for everyone who worked across the street at St. Anthony’s Hospital. Isabelle and Emma had started hanging out here with their brother’s football team after games. All of the guys on the team worked at St. A’s or were buddies with the guys from St. A’s.

Shane was one of the buddies. He was a cop, so had plenty of opportunity to work with and get to know the paramedics, ER docs, firemen and others that made Trudy’s a regular spot.

Though tonight it was a little hard to recognize it as the bar they all knew and loved.

Shane had the place looking like a carnival to remind her of one of their first dates. He always went all out—with everything—so the place was decorated extravagantly, including balloons, a cotton candy machine and six tabletop games that the patrons thought were a hoot. Probably even more so as the alcohol flowed.

Last week he’d decorated Trudy’s to look like a casino.

She’d hate to see how he was going to make the place look like the demo derby they’d gone to.

“Shane Kelley has balls. Huge balls. Balls to be envied by all men and admired by women everywhere.” Isabelle’s sister, Emma, appeared at her side and tugged her through the crowd to an empty booth.

Isabelle tossed back the shot of schnapps that Emma handed her and took a moment to be grateful that her sister knew her so well before saying, “You need to shut up about Shane’s balls.”

“Shane’s attempts to get you to move in with him have turned into the topic of
all
conversation at the hospital, I guess,” Emma went on anyway. “There are betting pools all over the place about if you’ll say yes or no this time, how he’s decorated, how many times he’s going to say ‘never-ending love and devotion’, even what you’ll both be wearing tonight.”

Oh, god. Isabelle signaled the waitress for another shot. Tonight would be the fifth time Shane had gotten up on that stage and declared his never-ending love and devotion to her and asked her to move in with him. She’d said no four times now.

“Next week he said he’s making this place up to look like a rodeo.”

Actually, being in love with him was easy, Isabelle conceded. Too easy.

It was the breaking up with him that was proving to be difficult. Impossible even.

“I’d say yes to anything if a guy got me a cotton candy machine.” Their younger sister, Olivia, slid into the booth.

“He rented the machine,” Isabelle said, grumpily. “It’s not like he bought it for me or anything.”

Olivia smiled. “I’ll go tell him that you’ll move in with him if he
buys
you the machine. I’ll bet you have it in your kitchen by midnight.”

“He’d put it in the bedroom.”

Too late she realized that she’d said it out loud. Both of her sisters turned to look at her.

“What’s that?” Emma said. “Cotton candy in the bedroom?”

Isabelle felt her cheeks get hot. It was so stupid. These women knew her better than anyone. Emma not only knew her, but had been present for most if not all of her most embarrassing moments. In fact, Emma was very often the
cause
of those embarrassing moments. Blushing around Emma was silly. Especially when Emma had twice the number of risqué experiences in her past.

But when it came to talking about Shane, Isabelle often blushed. There was no doubt that Shane had pushed her boundaries and made her do—and importantly,
want
to do—a number of things that were blush-worthy.

“That’s why he got the stupid machine tonight,” she said. “When we went to the carnival we took cotton candy home and…”

“Used it in ways it was never intended?” Emma filled in with a huge grin.

“Something like that.”

“Was it Shane’s idea?” Olivia asked.

Isabelle shook her head. “It was all me.” Shane also had a strange way of making her very creative. And daring. And completely wanton.

“How many times are you going to make the poor guy ask you to move in with him?” Olivia asked.

“I’m not
making
him get up on that stage,” Isabelle said. “I’d love if he’d stop.” What more could she do than say no?

Shane had started all of this the first Friday night Isabelle and her sisters were back at Trudy’s after their car accident. She had only been a little bruised, but Emma had sustained a bad pelvic fracture that required surgery and rehab, and Olivia had been in a coma for several hours. They’d both bounced back, but it had been a few weeks before they’d felt like partying at Trudy’s again. Their first night back, Shane had gotten up in front of the crowd on the stage they used for live bands and karaoke and told her that he loved her and asked her to move in with him. He’d made her get up on stage—and use the mic—to give him her answer.

Because Shane didn’t do things small or quiet or conventionally.

There was always a twist. Or two.

He’d proceeded to repeat the declaration and question each Friday night with elaborate decorations and a crowd that grew every week.

The second time he’d done a medley of love songs with the help of Ryan Kaye, who was dating Isabelle’s sister Amanda, and Cody Madsen, the fire chief. They’d strategically changed some of the lyrics to fit Isabelle and Shane’s relationship and he’d ended by presenting her with a set of keys on a sparkly pink keychain.

When she’d said no
again
he’d simply grinned, tipped her back, kissed her soundly, then whispered in her ear, “This ain’t over, honey”, before letting her go, buying a round for the bar and going on to enjoy a Friday night with his friends as usual.

News of those two spectacles had quickly spread at St. Anthony’s and the third Friday night had seen double the usual crowd at Trudy’s. Never one to shy away from an audience, Shane had covered one wall of the bar with a huge piece of paper and had passed out markers, asking everyone to add their names and messages to Isabelle to the paper. It had ended up covered with things like
Do it!
and
Take him back!
and
If you don’t say yes, I WILL!

He’d pointed to it as a kind of petition when he’d asked her to move in again. When she’d said no, he laughed and said to the crowd, “I guess we’re gonna have to go even bigger, folks.”

He’d gotten a rousing cheer at that. Which only encouraged a guy like Shane. There was no such thing as a spectacle too big.

She hadn’t known
exactly
what to expect the next Friday night, but she hadn’t been surprised to walk into Trudy’s to find the place done up like a casino, a nod to the date where Shane had won almost two grand at craps with her by his side.

And now tonight’s carnival had drawn the biggest crowd yet.

He hadn’t gotten up on stage tonight. Yet. She knew he was waiting, letting the anticipation build. For her…and for the crowd.

“You really want him to stop?” Emma asked. “I mean
really
? You want him to leave you alone?”

Isabelle shifted on the seat. “It’s for the best.” She’d actually tried to break up with him before the accident. He’d first asked her to move in with him a week before that. That was when reality smacked her in the face—the hot little fling she’d intended to have had blown up into much, much more.

She’d fallen for him. And vice versa. But there was a tiny problem—if she lived with him, shared a space and her life twenty-four-seven, she couldn’t keep her secret from him any longer.

So she’d told him they were over.

She’d even had a very convenient excuse. He’d jetted off to Vegas to help an ex-girlfriend out with a not-quite-ex-boyfriend issue. Isabelle didn’t think for a second that Shane would cheat. He did everything one hundred and ten percent and that included relationships. If Shane was with someone, there was no room for anyone else. But she’d made a good show of being upset and wanting to end things. Or she thought she had.

Shane, however, was having nothing to do with any of that.

And here she was, more than two months later, still telling him no. It was going to drive her insane.

People who gave up smoking, addicts who kicked their habits, and food lovers who lost a hundred pounds all had her sympathy and admiration.

Repeatedly saying no to something she wanted so much was killing her.

She totally understood falling off the wagon. In fact, she’d done it a week ago. For the fourth time. She’d shown up at his place at two a.m. for a booty call—complete with chocolate body pens.

But now she was firmly back on the wagon, or the horse, or however the sayings went. It was going to stick this time. It had to.

Emma leaned in, pinning her with a serious, direct look. “You’re in love with him.”

Isabelle focused on Emma’s left earring instead of her eyes. The left earring that was actually Isabelle’s. “Yeah. In case you haven’t noticed, I have an unhealthy attraction to big, loud, enthusiastically fun people who instigate trouble.”

Of course Emma had noticed that. Emma was one of those loud, enthusiastically fun people who instigated trouble and who always talked Isabelle into going along with her.

In fact, it didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out that Shane reminded Isabelle a lot of her favorite sister. Emma and Shane were, plain and simple, a hell of a lot of fun. Everyone thought so. It was impossible not to like them and Isabelle had a special weakness for getting caught up in the waves people like Emma and Shane created.

She was hooked on it, in fact.

Ever since Emma had shown her how to unlock their back patio door when Isabelle was four so they could look up at the moon while they swung on their swing set in the middle of the night, Isabelle had been addicted to the rush of breaking the rules.

But she wanted to be in cahoots with someone while doing it.

She’d snuck out once by herself to swing on the swing set in the night. It had been scary in the dark, there had been creepy noises in the bushes and she’d accidentally locked herself out.

From that moment on, she’d vowed not to venture out on her own. She was firmly and forever Emma’s shadow. Emma’s daring and confidence gave Isabelle the ability to be daring too. Isabelle wasn’t the wild, daring, fun type on her own. But she was a fantastic sidekick.

Being with Shane gave her that same rush—times a hundred—with the same built-in sense of security.

That was why she’d finally said yes to dating him. He’d asked her repeatedly—and she’d turned him down repeatedly—for three days. He was loud and boisterous and loved crowds and going out and did everything with passion and gusto.

He was the epitome of everything that she should be trying to avoid.

He’d shown up right when she was trying to make some positive, healthy changes that did
not
involve staying out all night, Jell-O shots and a punch card at Tease, the lingerie and sex-toy shop downtown.

He was…too much.

But even as she’d tried to stay away from him, she was drawn to his larger-than-life style and the way he pursued her with such energy. He was the life of the party and she wanted to be beside him at the party in spite of herself.

And then there was the sex. There was definite chemistry between them from the very beginning, but when she’d finally agreed to go out with him,
she
ended up being the one to initiate things physically. The first night.

Not that he’d fought her on it.

He’d tempted her to do things she’d only read about, and he enthusiastically supported her trying new things. And, with him, she loved every crazy minute of it.

But those minutes were supposed to have literally been
minutes
. Okay, maybe days. A few weeks at most. It was not supposed to be six months’ worth of crazy minutes.

It was supposed to have been a fling. One last hit, one final binge, before changing her life.

“First of all,” Emma said. “The word
trouble
all depends on your perspective. And second, what’s wrong with being attracted to enthusiastically fun people? We’re awesome.”