NICE GIRL TO LOVE (THE COMPLETE THREE-BOOK COLLECTION)(7)

Okay, so a part of him felt like a jerk for what he’d said to her. But just picturing how bummed Brian would be about all this was enough to send those guilty feelings packing. Running off with her tail between her legs was the very least she deserved for screwing with Brian. Connor just hoped his brother wasn’t too serious about her yet. The fact that the two had been best friends for so long surely complicated things. Regardless, he’d be brutally honest and help Brian nip the doomed relationship in the bud before she broke his heart down the line.

There would be no backseat-brothering on this one.

Standing idly by while Brian had limited his life to just plain existing for the past year had been torture. But it had been a cakewalk compared to seeing him spend a decade waiting for a horrible illness to slowly kill the love of his life.

Connor wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.

Day after day, he’d watched Brian go to that hospital room and whisper reminders to Beth of how much she was loved, long after the dementia from her disease had stolen everything that was sweet and good in her...along with all her memories of her husband and child. It had been heartbreaking to witness. Honestly, Connor wasn’t sure he’d have been able to survive it had the roles been reversed, and God knew the years before the hospitalization had been just as bad, in an entirely different way. He still got chills thinking of the day he’d heard Beth’s slurred voice screaming for Brian to take Skylar and leave, let her kill herself to end it all.

Damn that disease.

And damn the universe for this Abby fiasco on top of it all. Couldn’t it give his little brother a break for a change?

“Uncle Connor? What are you doing home?”

Connor almost jumped out of his skin.

Shit, Skylar.

His inner diatribe temporarily forgotten, Connor immediately shifted to damage control assessment. What were the chances that Skylar had caught the full frontal of Abby all slutted-up just now? With Abby being the closest thing Skylar had for an aunt, how the hell was he supposed to explain this without traumatizing the poor girl? Damn that woman for putting me in this situation.

“Why hello to you too, princess,” he tossed out casually. “I had a few hours free so I thought I’d hang out with you on your first day here.”

“Oh, cool.” She looked around. “Hey, where’d Abby go?”

Fan-frickin-tastic. “So you saw her here, huh? She wasn’t here long…she just stopped by to, uh—”

“She left?” A too-mature frown marred Skylar’s little pixie face. “I told her to wait ‘til I brought back an umbrella for her.” Shaking out a butt-ugly yellow rain slicker, she pouted some more. “And she didn’t even take back her poncho!”

He did a double take. “What do you mean?”

“Abby lent it to me before we ran over here.”

Gulping, Connor felt cold hard shame start to prickle over his skin. “Abby ran all the way here in the rain with you?”

“Yeah, it started coming down right when I left school. She found me under a tree trying to stay dry.”

Worried, Skylar surveyed the rapidly worsening weather. “Dad will totally kill me if she catches a cold this week with all her…wait a sec—” She swung a suspicious look back his way. “Abby never leaves without saying bye. Did you say something to her?”

Smart girl.

Choosing to sidestep her question for the time being, he pulled out his smartphone and asked instead, “Do you spell Abby’s last name with two T’s or one at the end?”

“Two.” She raised a brow. “Why? Are you looking her up to apologize for something? If so, I have her cell number.”

He sighed. “I don’t think that’ll cut it. I think I need to send her a whole bunch of sorry-I-was-such-an-idiot flowers.”

“Holy moly, what did you say to her?”

Quickly texting a request for his assistant to order him the most extravagant floral arrangement she could find, he ignored his niece’s interrogation once again. “You wouldn’t happen to know Abby’s address would you?”

“Nope.” A slow, serves-you-right smile hooked her lips. “But dad does.”

Silently, he unleashed a string of expletives and began estimating what the going rate was for bribing a kid nowadays.

It’d be worth it for the stay of execution by Brian’s hand.



“How the hell did you find out where I live?”

Connor winced, but stood his ground atop Abby’s doorstep. Thankfully, the gigantic doorway-filling flower arrangement his assistant had purchased for him was allowing him to hide for a few precious seconds longer. Blindly shoving the flowers forward, he waited for Abby to take them.

When she didn’t, he took a peek around the massive bouquet to see if she was even still there. She was.

And she was trying her damndest not to laugh.

“Is this monstrosity for a funeral?”

Grateful for the buried humor he heard in her voice, he let out the breath he’d been holding and ventured with caution, “Depends. Are you going to kill me for what I said earlier?”

“Right after I maim your brother for giving you my address,” she promised sweetly, with just the hint of a smile.

He dropped the ridiculously heavy flowers onto the ground. “He didn’t. I asked one of my investigators at the firm to dig up your info. Brian doesn’t even know I’m here.”