Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(5)

“Bryce Campbell. Looks aren’t everything, you know.” And if he had a problem with Faith—who was built like a 1940s pinup girl—she was going to have to tread carefully with Paulie. “How about personality?”

“Really outgoing. Like me, kind of. You know anyone?”

“Hmm. No one leaps to mind.” Actually, four women leaped to mind, but Bryce was a typical man—he didn’t know what he needed; he just knew what he liked. “But I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Thanks, Coll! You’re the best!”

“It’s true. Now get out, we’re closing.”

Half an hour later, Colleen walked to the yellow-and-red Victorian she shared with her brother. A duplex, so it wasn’t quite as dysfunctional as it sounded. Connor had left a little earlier, and the first-floor lights were out. Colleen’s apartment was on the second floor—a staircase in the back led to a small deck and her door.

She wondered if this mystery woman of his had visited the house yet.

“It’s all good,” she murmured to herself as she opened her door. “After all, we have somebody to love, too. Right, Rufus?”

One hundred and sixty pounds of scruffy gray canine agreed. She allowed him to maul her, scratched his rough gray fur, gazed meaningfully into his eyes, and then extricated herself. “Who wants a cookie? Is it us? I want an Oreo, and you, my beautiful countryman, can have a Milk-Bone.”

Some bozo had bought Rufus as a puppy, then, shocker, learned that the breed tended to get a wee bit large. But the idiot’s loss was her gain, because, as Bryce Campbell had suspected, Rufus and Colleen were kindred spirits.

She called Rushing Creek and talked to Joanie, the night nurse in her grandfather’s wing, and ascertained that Gramp was having a good night. Then, with a sigh, she got the snacks, made Rufus balance his cookie on his nose before allowing him to inhale it, then flopped down on the couch with the box of Oreos. Because really, no one had just one Oreo.

Love was in the air. It was all around her, as a matter of fact—Faith and Levi maybe percolating a baby; Honor and Tom getting married; Brandy and Ted now engaged. Paulie and Bryce (complicated on several levels...but maybe a chance for Colleen to do something good).

Connor and someone.

That one gave her the biggest pang. Granted, there’d been many times over the years when Colleen would’ve cheerfully sold Connor to the gypsies (and had, in fact, put him up for adoption when they were twelve and he announced the fact of her period in the cafeteria). When their parents went through their ugly, horrible, terrible divorce, she and Connor had become closer than ever. They often called or texted each other simultaneously. Saw each other every day.

It was strange, thinking of her twin married, a dad. She certainly wanted him happy, of course she did. It was just that she always pictured it in the happy, sunny future, in which she would have a great spouse and adorable tots.

But that picture always held a dreamlike quality, the image overexposed, as if the sun shone too brightly, and her husband’s face was blurred.

Once, she’d known exactly who the face belonged to, and it hadn’t been blurry at all.

CHAPTER TWO

“MOMMY SAYS YOU’RE emotionally shut down.” The voice came from the child standing in the doorway of Lucas Campbell’s office at Forbes Properties. A female child of the smallish variety. One of his four nieces, specifically.

“That’s adorable. I thought I banned you from visiting me,” Lucas said. He pressed the intercom to his assistant. “Susan, please call Security and have my niece escorted from the building.”

“She’s five years old,” Susan said.

“Have them send a team.”

Chloe grinned, flashing the gaping hole in her teeth. Too soon for dentures, probably. “Mommy says you’re constibladed.”

“I’d have to agree,” Susan said, then clicked off.

He leveled a stare at his niece. “The word is constipated. If you’re going to talk about me, you need to up your game. Why are you here? Didn’t I pay you not to bother me?”

“I spent your money.”

“So?”

“So give me more.” The kid had the soul of a Beverly Hills trophy wife. She skipped over to him and climbed onto his lap.

“Don’t think this show of affection will win you any points,” he grumbled.

“What are you looking at?” Chloe said, settling back against him.

“Mr. Forbes is building a new skyscraper,” he said.

“I want to live in the penthouse.”

“You’re broke. And you have no earning potential, I might point out. You can’t even drive. Not very well, anyway.” This earned a giggle, and Lucas smiled into his niece’s hair.

“Is that a princess you have there?” came a voice.

“Hi, Frank!” Chloe scrambled off Lucas’s lap and charged into Frank Forbes’s legs. “Uncle Lucas showed me your new skyscraper, and I want to live in the penthouse!”

Frank picked up Chloe and laughed. “Well, you can stay overnight before we sell it, how’s that? You and your sisters?”

“Hooray!”

“Little girl, whatever your name is, go see Susan and tell her to let you answer the phones,” Lucas said. “You can be her boss until your mom comes to get you.” Steph, Lucas’s older sister, worked in Accounting seven floors down, and often sent her youngest up to bother him. Chloe was in the after-care program that Forbes offered its employees. Cara, Tiffany and Mercedes—Chloe’s sisters—had all been in the same program, though they were now extremely mature at ages fourteen for the twins, and sixteen for Mercedes.