Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(34)

She’d talk. It was safer that way. “Lucas, here’s the deal. You’re back for a while, and of course we’ll see each other, and no hard feelings, okay? I mean, we were young and foolish and all that fun stuff. I’m glad you’re doing well, and it’s nice for Joe that you’re around.”

He turned to look at her, and she forced herself to return his gaze, even if her knees were trembling.

“Anything else?” he said.

Why? Why her and not me?

“Nope. Anything else for you?”

“No. Except I’d really like you to leave Bryce alone. Now isn’t the time for him to be involved with anyone.”

“Whatever you say, God. I mean, Lucas. Sorry. I get you two confused sometimes.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I take that as a ‘piss off.’”

“Perceptive of you.”

He sighed. “All right, Colleen. Do what you want. You always have.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “After all, you haven’t been around for roughly a third of my life. Not one letter, not one email, not one phone call. You have no clue about what I always do.”

“Did you want me to call you?”

“No. I’m just saying maybe you don’t know everything, Lucas.”

“I think I know what’s best for my cousin. He needs to grow up. He needs to stand on his own two feet and be a man.”

“Oh, I love when you talk all Latin machismo.”

He leaned forward so she had to look at him now. “His father is dying, Colleen. His mother still hasn’t cut the cord, and Bryce hasn’t ever had a job for more than two consecutive months. I’m here to honor Joe’s dying wish that his son grows up a little, and the last thing he needs is another meddling woman trying to run his life.”

“Are you talking about me or Paulie?”

“Definitely you.”

“How nice. Well, I spend a lot of time with Bryce, unlike yourself. I might know him better than you think. Paulie is a very nice person. She’d be good for him.”

“I’m not debating that. I’m sure she’s nice. But distracting Bryce and trying to force some kind of romance—”

“Okay, Lucas. I understand your opinion. I just don’t happen to share it.” She twisted the silver ring on her right hand. “Is this what you wanted to talk about? Bryce?”

“Yes. Why? Did you want to talk about something else?”

Men. “Nope.”

“I get the impression that you want very much to talk about something else. So do it.”

“I’m fine.” Rufus licked her ankle.

“Colleen.”

“I’m good, Lucas. Is there something on your mind?”

“I just told you what’s on my mind. Can you not be so female and please just address what you want to talk about?”

“I can’t not be female, Lucas. I mean, not without the big operation, which I really don’t want to have and can’t afford anyway.”

He threw up his hands. “I don’t know whether to strangle you or kiss you.”

“Don’t you dare kiss me.”

He kissed her.

God.

God. It was a prayer, as in God help me, because Colleen’s whole body lit up with flares of light and heat and tiny pinpricks of shock. Lucas was hot and hard and strong, and she wrapped her arms around him and held him just as hard, her mouth opening under his, and yes, yes, this was what they were meant to do, this elemental, hard, thought-stealing kiss.

How dare he.

She yanked back. “Hell’s to the no, Lucas,” she hissed. “You’re not here for me. You’re back to help your uncle, and then it’s bye-bye, Manningsport, back to Chicago and your swanky life there. So don’t you dare kiss me. Don’t you dare, Lucas. I’m not about to become some little fling you have in between the important chapters of your real life. Been there, done that.”

He ran a hand through his ridiculously gorgeous hair. “You’re right.”

Damn.

Strike that. Good, she meant. “Yeah. So just...you know. Remember that. Whatever.” She stood up. “Come on, Rufus, let’s go.”

Her dog, who was lying splayed on the grass like a giant dog-slut, leaped to his feet and trotted up the street.

Colleen followed, furious with herself, furious with him, her whole body throbbing with need and lust and heat and...and...

Don’t go there again, Connor’s voice said. We know how this ends. We’ve been through this before.

You’d be stupid to do it again.

CHAPTER NINE

BY THE TIME his senior year of high school rolled around, Lucas Campbell was well aware that girls found him very appealing. He didn’t mind. Had the typical fun with the occasional girl, making out in a car or stairwell at school, getting fifteen texts a day from some infatuated sophomore. His school had almost two thousand kids in it, and he was out from the shadow of being Bryce’s impoverished orphaned cousin, since Bryce went to a private college prep school (days, of course; Didi would never let him board).

But then they moved from Illinois to the tiny town of Manningsport, New York, a postcard type of place with vineyards and a lake that was a far cry from the mighty Michigan. Bryce had gotten into Hobart (thanks to Lucas dragging his GPA into a respectable range), and Didi took a transfer to her company’s branch in Corning so she could be closer to her son.