NICE GIRL TO LOVE (THE COMPLETE THREE-BOOK COLLECTION)(12)

Oh it was no use, she smiled a little over that.

“Have you been hiding from me?” he asked abruptly, visibly upset. “I called you twice today. Both times, it went straight to voicemail.”

“I was doing research. My cell phone doesn’t get good reception in certain parts of the library.”

“Oh.”

Seeing him look noticeably eased by that information stuck her with a needle of guilt. What she said was all true, but not the whole truth. She’d spent the majority of her time on the special collections floor and the rest reading on the third floor where she could also eat—two areas of the library where, incidentally, her phone caught just fine. At least, when it was switched on.

“…And maybe I was avoiding you a tiny bit.”

“I knew it.” His eyebrows snapped together. “Are you afraid of me? Do I make you uncomfortable or something?”

“I think it’s more a case of my being too comfortable with you.” She blew out a weary breath, knowing that only made sense to her. “Look, I’m not afraid of you. In fact, why don’t you come in and hang out? I can whip up some food and we can watch a DVD or some TV.”

The look on his face was how she imagined an alien would look upon arriving on a new planet. It would have been funny if it weren’t a bit sad. She unlocked her door and went in, leaving him free to enter or leave. “You said we could be friends for another hour, right? So come on. I can tell you all about my day hiding out from my stalker.”

Finally, he broke out into a grin and followed her inside, making the temperature in the tiny foyer they were standing in even balmier when he removed his suit jacket. Lord, the man had a broad chest. Great arms, too.

“Sorry, I’ll get the AC going. You can grab a beer from the fridge if you want. I was thinking of making some steak fajitas and a salad,” she called out as she made her way to the bedroom to change. “That okay with you?”

“Sounds great.”

She came back out in an old t-shirt and sweats, purposely choosing not to pretty up for Connor.

Oddly, he seemed to appreciate that fact, judging by the pleased smile he gave her when she returned. “Do you need help cooking? I want to earn my meal.”

“Sure. Can you fry up the flank steak for me? The meat is marinating in a ziploc in the fridge.” She was surprised at how normal she sounded, what with his presence seemingly sucking up all her usual oxygen supply in the kitchen. Her whole house, really, if she was being honest with herself.

Damn, when was that AC going to kick in?

“Hey, are you going to have enough food for me too?” asked Connor as he poked around in her fridge. “Because I can always just eat a ham and cheese or PB&J.”

The thought of this high-powered attorney with his head-to-toe dry clean only ensemble eating a brown bag sandwich served to finally calm her nerves down. “I always make extra for leftovers the next day so it’ll be fine.” She started cutting up a few avocados to make some fresh guacamole. “Cilantro, onions, and tomatoes okay in the guac? I make mine chunky.”

“Perfect. Brian makes it the same way.”

“He would. I’m the one who got him hooked on it.”

Connor tilted his head at that tidbit as he threw the meat on the skillet. “I still find it so hard to believe I don’t have any recollection of seeing you after that first day at the hospital.”

She went with a breezy, unoffended shrug. “Guess I just have one of those forgettable faces.”

He gave her a quiet look. “No, you don’t. My point, exactly.”

Good lord, so that’s what a ‘smoldering glance’ looked like? With Connor’s ice blue eyes, the effect was lethal to her lady parts. “Well, it’s not as if the times we saw each other in passing were momentous events,” she recovered, just barely stopping herself from telling him how unforgettable she’d always found him. “Plus, family gatherings for siblings and friends to meet and hang out weren’t really your parents’ sort of thing.”

“No,” he snorted, “unless you count the occasional $500 a plate fundraising dinners. Which I don’t.”

“Honestly, I think we only actually ‘saw’ each other the couple of times there was some emergency which required us to do a Skylar hand-off at Brian’s house.”

“That explains it,” he said quietly.

Abby knew what he meant. Each time she’d run into him, the fact that he’d looked criminally handsome had hardly even had a chance to register. Not with everything Beth was going through hanging on them like a dark cloud—the heftiness of why they’d been on opposite sides of a lonely two-way road to and from Brian’s house so often to begin with. “Was it as hard for you to go there as it was for me?”

“Yes.” He looked up from the stove. “My mother never went over enough to get it, and as cold as it sounds, I don’t know if my father really cared enough to either.” With a heavy sigh, he turned the steak over and said softly, “Skylar called me ‘dad’ once.”

Stark, bleak sympathy kicked her in the gut. “She called me mommy a few times by accident, too. Twice, Beth heard it.”

The curse under his breath was an all too familiar one for her as well. The only f-bombs she ever dropped almost exclusively had the word Huntington’s strapped to it. It was a sad comfort to have someone else around that knew exactly what the last decade had been like for her as Brian’s best friend.