Coming Home(42)

That is, if this were even about a dry spell.

There was also the distinct possibility that he was currently sleeping with someone, or a few someones, and didn’t want her to know that. And unfortunately, of the two options, taking into consideration his personality and his looks, the latter was the more likely scenario.

“Okay, my turn,” he said. “Do you have any piercings or tattoos?”

“I have a tattoo,” Leah said, still trying to shake off her disappointment.

“Seriously? I never would have thought that. Where?”

“On the back of my neck.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“A spiral triskele. Long story,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t push it further than that.

“Wow. I gotta say though, I love that.”

“What, the triskele?”

“No, I have no idea what that is,” he said with a laugh. “I mean when a girl has a tattoo in a secret place.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, it’s not really a secret place.”

“I think it is. Unless you wear your hair up all the time, only people close to you would ever get to see it. I feel like the back of a woman’s neck is an extremely intimate place.”

Seriously, goddamn him.

Why, why, why did he have to refuse to answer her last question and then follow it up with that? Almost like he knew how to suck her right back in. Leah started to consider the possibility that he was reading from some type of handbook.

And the title of it might as well have been How to Reduce Leah to a Besotted, Quivering Pile of Easy.

“Your turn,” he prompted when several seconds had passed and she hadn’t said anything.

Leah inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. No more silly questions. She needed to start figuring him out.

“What’s the one thing you’ve done in your life that you regret the most?” she asked.

“Pass.”

Her eyes flipped open as the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. “You can’t pass. You don’t have any more.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said curtly, and Leah’s stomach dropped for the second time.

She recognized this tone.

“Look, I gotta go,” he said. “I just pulled onto my street and I have to find a spot.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Thanks for keeping me awake, though. I appreciate it. Good night, Leah.”

He hung up before she could even respond.

Leah took the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a second before she threw her head back and groaned loudly.

Being with him, talking to him, was the emotional equivalent of bungee jumping. There was the freedom, the adrenaline, the exhilaration of the fall, only to have it come to an abrupt halt, roughly yanking her back in the direction from which she came.

Leah reached up and rubbed her eyes roughly with the heels of her hands.

He could be really sweet sometimes, but he was so goddamn capricious. And he was funny, but his moods were completely unreliable. He did have a genuine kindness about him, but he could also be closed off and abrupt, and there was no guarantee as to which version of him she’d be getting.

But far more frustrating to her than any of those things was the fact that even though he’d thrown her for a loop yet again, she was completely captivated by him.





Danny had just finished reinstalling the drain plug on the Cadillac’s transmission when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he slid the creeper out from under the car, wiping his hand down the side of his coveralls before he pulled it out.