Cuff Me(6)

And then several more seconds to register that he was talking to her.

It’s not that Jill thought of herself as unappealing. She knew she was cute, because people told her so. Note, never beautiful, or even pretty. Never gorgeous. Certainly never sexy. But cute. Sometimes adorable. Because that’s just what every thirty-three-year-old woman wanted to hear.

And she got it; she was average height, flat as a board, with a too-pointy chin and jaw, eyes too big for her face, and blond hair that she wore in a pony more often than not in an attempt to disguise how flat it could be.

But Tom?

Tom made her feel beautiful. He made her feel like a woman rather than a girl who seemed to inspire pats on the head from those around her.

Tom had picked her up at a bar. Cliché, yes, but made less skeevy by the fact that neither of them had walked into that swanky hotel bar with the intention of going home with a member of the opposite sex. And they hadn’t.

Gone home with each other, that is. Not that first night at least.

It had been the end of Jill’s first week in Florida. Her mom had just started coming to grips with the immobile reality of her near future and understandably had turned ornery, even toward Jill.

Not that Jill could blame her.

The prospect of months of not being able to walk or use an arm would have made Jill a bit stabby too. Still, by the end of that first week, both mother and daughter had needed a break.

Jill had waited until her mom’s friend came over for a marathon viewing of some show Jill had never heard of, and Jill had gone straight for her favorite therapy of choice: wine.

She was halfway through her first glass of a rather bright and delicious sauvignon blanc at a swanky beachside resort when he’d walked in.

It had been impossible to miss him. The bar was practically deserted, being early on a Monday evening, but even if the bar had been packed with wall-to-wall people, she would have noticed him.

For starters, he was tall.

Like, six-foot-plus, definitely.

Broad shouldered in that football quarterback kind of way. His hair was dark blond and styled to look like a freaking Kennedy, all thick and rich-person like. Skin… perfect golden tan. Not the type of tan of a sun worshipper, or worse, a fake sun worshipper, just a guy who spent enough time outdoors to not look like a zombie.

Perfectly tailored suit? Check. White, friendly smile? Yup.

Politeness toward the bartender as he ordered his rye Manhattan? Be still her heart.

Later, he would tell Jill that she’d been staring, and she didn’t bother to deny it.

In that moment when he’d picked up his drink and slid off his bar stool at the other end of the bar, it had never, not once, occurred to Jill that he’d be coming toward her.

Not until the bartender fluttered a cocktail napkin down onto the bar beside her own, just seconds before a large male hand placed his drink on it, did she realize what was happening.

This gorgeous, untouchable man was coming over to talk to her.

Luckily, there was one thing Jill did very well, and that was talk to strangers. It came with the job, what with questioning suspects and witnesses and family members all day long. Because God knew her partner was no good at that part.

But anyway, the gorgeous man in the navy suit later told her it was her unabashed staring that had amused him enough to make his way to her.

It was her unabashed friendliness that had made him stick around.

Everything after that… well, it had happened fast. Only a week after, he’d stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Tom, Tom Porter, in a sort of James Bondian way that made her giggle. They had been eating dinner at that very same hotel restaurant.

Only a week after that, dinner with Tom had become the norm rather than the exception.

The week after that?

They occasionally threw lunch into the mix, either her coming to meet him at some fancy place while her mom was in physical therapy, or him bringing fabulous picnic-style lunches to her mother’s house, where he’d proceed to charm Jill’s mom almost as thoroughly as he charmed Jill.

Five weeks into Jill’s stay in Florida, Jill had stuck around for breakfast.

In his hotel room.

And then there’d been last night.

“Okay, okay, so he’s a dreamboat,” Elena said as the car crept slowly through rush hour traffic toward Manhattan. “How’d he pop the question? Champagne? Roses? Fancy restaurant with a water view?”

“Holy crap,” Jill said with a laugh. “Were you there?”

“I know all,” Elena said, extending her hands to the side as though she were some wise sage. “Did you see it coming at all?”

“Not even a little bit,” Jill admitted.

Not even with the expensive champagne, or the two dozen roses, or the fact that the restaurant staff seemed to be going out of their way to give Jill and Tom privacy at the terrace table overlooking the ocean.

She’d simply thought it had just been a really fantastic good-bye.

Instead it had been a bit more of a be mine forever and ever.

And Jill had said yes.

She’d said yes almost the second he’d gone down on his knee, not because she’d been that sure—she’d been pretty sure… sort of sure—she’d said yes because in that moment, Jill had wanted what Tom Porter was offering her.

A companion. A partner. Love.

And that’s what it came down to. Jill wanted to be loved. She wanted to love.