The Perfect Match (Blue Heron #2)(96)

Tom laughed. “Ah. How uncomfortable for all of us.”

Her laugh was big and hearty. “We’re just friends, as the saying goes. So, Tom, there are no secrets in small towns, as you probably know by now. I heard you saved Honor from drowning. I won’t lie. That’s hot, Tommy boy.”

“What?” Brogan barked. Dana’s eyes narrowed.

“I wasn’t drowning,” she said. Tom raised an eyebrow. “But yes, he was very brave and heroic.”

“Le sigh,” Colleen murmured.

“Stop flirting,” Connor said, joining their little knot. “He’s taken.”

“I know!” Colleen said. “I told you they’d be great together.”

“Did you?” Connor said.

“Yes. I totally called that one. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” Connor gave Tom a long-suffering look. “I tend to ignore most of what she says.”

“To your own detriment,” Colleen said. “I know everything.”

“What’s eight times seven?” her brother asked.

“Everything except math.” She grinned at Honor.

“What about us?” Dana said. “Did you call Brogan and me?”

An awkward silence fell like an undercooked cake. “No, Dana,” Colleen said frostily. “Can’t say that I did.”

“I know. It took us totally by surprise, too.” She smiled—too hard, Honor thought, and for a second, she felt a flash of pity. Dana was an outsider; here with Brogan, but without a...a gang, as it were. Drawing attention to herself, well, that was Dana’s way of making sure she wasn’t forgotten.

She was insecure. Funny. Honor had never noticed that before.

“I hope you guys will be really happy,” she said, and Colleen sighed.

“Thank you,” Brogan said gently.

“Yeah, thanks!” Dana chirped. “Babe, let’s dance, what do you say?” With that, she pulled Brogan onto the dance floor and slid her arms around him.

“I hate her,” Colleen said. “I need a drink. Conn, come with me. I’m going to find you a date who’s not your twin sister. See you later, guys.”

Which left her standing alone with Tom. “Hi,” she said.

“Hallo.” He glanced around. “Shall we sit?” he asked, and her feet practically cried with gratitude.

He cared about her. She knew that. He may have even liked her.

But he didn’t love her. All that shone from Brogan’s eyes when he looked at Dana did not shine from Tom’s. He was a tangled ball of emotions, Tom Barlow was, and whatever affection or attraction he felt for her was snarled in with disappointment and past heartbreak and possibly even some fear, then walled behind a six-foot cement barricade. The gentler, sweeter emotions were buried deep, flashing through only in times of duress, or loneliness.

Because Tom was a lonely man, and this acknowledgment made her feel a bit like crying.

“So,” she began, but then Charlie was there, bounding up to Tom’s side, his black hair flopping in his eyes.

“Tom, Abby said she might be interested in the boxing tournament,” he said, and then those gray eyes did light up, and Honor’s heart ached with the hope that flashed there, the helpless, hapless love he so obviously carried for this boy who was never his stepson.

Dang it.

She was in love.

“Listen,” Abby said. “I might be interested, but probably not. I’m enough of a pariah with boys, okay?” She flopped down in the chair next to Honor.

“Yeah, right,” Charlie said, blushing furiously.

“Charlie, you have no idea, because you’re so nice,” Abby said easily. “But seriously. My uncle is the police chief. My idiot brother shows my fat na**d baby pictures to anyone who comes through the door. Dad glares at every boy in town, and no one can forget the fact that my mother came to a school concert dressed as a Hobbit.”

“Then being a kick-ass boxer can only help,” Tom said, glancing at Charlie. “Right, mate?”

“Yeah! Totally!” Charlie said. He sat down next to Tom, and Tom’s eyes met Honor’s.

This was why he was with her, Honor Holland, perpetual wallflower and old baseball glove. Because of Charlie.

Here she was again, in love with a man who didn’t love her back.

“Another dedication, folks,” said the DJ. “To Dana from the man who can’t wait to be your husband, ‘You’re Having My Baby’ by Paul Anka.”

“Oh, my God,” Abby said. “Honor, aren’t you friends with that guy? Make him stop.”

“Yes, darling, please do,” Tom said.

It was tacky, sure. Or maybe it wasn’t, Honor thought, watching Dana and Brogan dance, looking very much like a bride and groom. Maybe it was sweet. Dana’s face was red, and she was smiling...nervously, maybe aware of how icky it was, having a guy announce your pregnancy via an incredibly sappy song.

Brogan, though, looked as if they were the only two people there.

Suddenly, the idea that Honor would be pregnant one of these days, that she and Tom would be a happy or even just contented couple seemed as far-fetched as winning the Nobel Prize in physics. That being a mother, a wife, having a family of her own, was just not going to happen. Her throat tightened.