Finding Perfect (Fool's Gold #3)(25)

There were things that couldn’t be fixed, he reminded himself. Actions that couldn’t be undone. Like throwing a rock in a pond. There was nothing to be done but to wait out the ripples and hope no one got hurt.

He and Josh walked to the locker room. After showering and dressing, they agreed to work out together the following week. One of the things Raoul missed most about playing football was working out with his teammates. Josh could be counted on to push him. Sometimes Ethan Hendrix, a friend of Josh’s, joined them.

Raoul knew it took time to fit in a place, but he was willing to take things slow. He liked Fool’s Gold, so he was being careful not to make any missteps.

He left the gym, intending to go back to the office, but instead found himself walking home. He couldn’t get Pia off his mind. Kissing her had probably been a mistake but was worth it, he thought with a grin. Not only because he’d enjoyed the feel of her mouth against his, but because of the look on her face when he’d done it. Surprised didn’t come close.

He reached the small two-bedroom he’d rented and went into the study and booted his computer. When it was ready, he sat down and logged on to the Internet, then typed IVF into the search engine.

An hour later he had a clearer understanding of what Pia was going to go through. Two hours later, he knew there was no way he would ever agree to something like that. Not that it was physically possible, but still. Not only was Pia going to have to chemically prepare her body for pregnancy, she would be carrying triplets. Assuming all the embryos took. If they didn’t, she would have to deal with the loss and, he assumed, the guilt that went along with it.

Hard enough to be pregnant, but how much worse was it to be pregnant and alone, with no one to depend on? It wasn’t like there was a dad she could go after for help or financial support.

Crystal had asked a lot from her friend. He was still convinced Pia would go through with having the babies, even if she hadn’t figured that out yet. But he wondered if she really knew what she was getting into.

THE FUNDRAISER FOR THE SCHOOL might have technically lasted only a day, but it had put Pia behind by an entire week. An amount that probably didn’t sound like much, she thought as she stared at her scheduling board. But Fool’s Gold had a festival every single month. Some were smaller than others, but work was always involved. With success came hours of behind-the-scenes planning.

Summer was the busiest time, but fall was a close second. The city Halloween Party was barely six weeks away, and before that was the Fall Festival. The Thanksgiving Parade was after the Halloween Party but before the Christmas Gift Bazaar. The Saturday Day of Giving led into the Live Nativity outdoor service, which was the Sunday before Christmas. Then there was New Year’s and so on.

One project at a time, she reminded herself, making notes on her dry-erase calendar. That’s how she got through. It’s not as if any of the events were new. The plans pretty much stayed the same. She had master lists that were cross-referenced, decorations stored all over town. If this ever got old, she could probably apply to run the world. There were—

She paused and stared at the calendar square. Instead of noting when she needed to arrange to have chairs and booths pulled out of storage, she’d drawn a string of little hearts. Although sweet, it wasn’t exactly helpful. Worse—she knew the cause.

Raoul’s kiss.

No matter how many times she told herself he hadn’t meant anything by it, she couldn’t get her gut, or her heart, to believe it. That one little second of contact had changed everything. Suddenly he wasn’t just Raoul, someone she knew, he was a guy. And because he was a guy, she had to be careful around him, which she didn’t like.

Awareness was everything, she thought grimly. Two days ago, he’d been everyone’s definition of tall, dark and handsome, but she hadn’t really cared. He’d witnessed her at her hysterical best, had dealt with it winningly and she’d thought of him as a friend.

Now she found herself thinking about that stupid kiss two or three hundred times a day. She’d wondered why he’d done it, wished he would do it again, imagined him doing more than kissing her. It was pathetic, not to mention a waste of time.

She didn’t have a type, but if she did, it wasn’t him. He was too perfect. In all her “happily ever after” fantasies, the guy in question had been normal. Maybe even boring. Boring was dependable. With boring, a girl had a shot at the guy not leaving. But Raoul? He was heartbreaker material even when he wasn’t trying.

“It was just a kiss,” she whispered to herself. “Let it go.”

Good advice. And someone, somewhere, would probably take it. Just not her. Not when she could feel the light brush of skin on skin, feel the heat of him and wish…

She lightly bumped her head against the wall, hoping to gently pound some sense into herself. Maybe the problem wasn’t that Raoul was not her type, maybe the problem was more generic than that. Maybe if she’d had more kissing in her life, she wouldn’t feel like she had to read too much into what had happened. Maybe she should date.

Pia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Like that’s going to happen.”

If she went ahead with the embryos implantation, her dating days were long over. Besides, she’d never exactly excelled in the man department. They always left, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what she was doing to drive them away.