Midnight Betrayal (Midnight #3)(31)

Had she purposefully waited to come out until she thought he was gone? Had he overstayed his welcome? Sleeping over, even innocently, was a huge step considering that before yesterday, they hadn’t seen each other for six months. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

“Good.” Because no matter how many reasons his brain came up with to walk out the door, he didn’t want to. He crossed the tiles and handed her a coffee. “I walked the dog. We went for coffee.”

“Thank you.” She stared at the cardboard cup in her hand. Her gaze fell to the fuzzy slippers on her feet. “I should change.”

A worried hand touched her neck, but her throat was bare. No pearls to play with this morning. She wrapped the other hand around her middle, and the vulnerability in her posture cracked his resolve to keep his distance.

“Don’t.” He let a hint of desire heat his eyes. “I like the casual you.”

Her hand fell. She stood in the middle of her kitchen, lost. Allowing Louisa a few minutes to compose herself, he filled Kirra’s bowl with fresh water. The dog hadn’t eaten much of her breakfast. The vet had said to give her appetite a week. But if she wasn’t eating by Monday, she was going back.

“Sit down.” His hand brushed her arm as he passed her in the narrow space between the counter and the island. “Where are your plates?”

She pointed toward an upper cabinet.

“Blueberry or cranberry?”

“I don’t usually eat breakfast.” She slid onto a stool.

“I’m not usually awake for breakfast.” He put the muffins on plates and set them on the shiny, black granite. “I close the bar most nights. I don’t usually get to bed before three.”

She selected the cranberry nut muffin and picked at it. “Your siblings don’t take turns?”

“Pat takes a couple nights, but Danny moved to Maine, and we don’t let Jaynie close the place alone.”

“So you assume the bulk of the responsibility.”

“I live alone. It’s easier for me.” Conor shifted on his stool. “You’ve met most of my family. Tell me about yours.”

Sadness filled her eyes. She abandoned the muffin. “There isn’t much to say. I’m an only child.”

“Are you close to your parents? Do you miss them?” he prodded. Her reluctance to talk about her family was a red flag. After Barbara, the fact that Louisa wasn’t being totally up front with him should be a deal breaker.

“My mother died when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry. I lost my parents when I was twenty. Jayne and Danny were younger. It was much harder on them.”

“You and Pat raised them, right?” She neatly turned the conversation back to him. No surprise.

“Pat did most of the work. I was in college at the time. Pat had been running the bar with my dad, but he couldn’t raise Danny and Jayne and take care of the business solo.”

“You left school.”

“That wasn’t a big deal.” He shrugged it off. At the time, he didn’t have the time or the desire to return to college.

“What was your major?”

“I was doubling in education and history.”

“You were going to be a teacher.” Louisa set down her coffee.

“I was.”

“Weren’t you disappointed?” she asked.

“Not at all.” That level of grief was all-consuming and didn’t leave room for much else. “My parents’ deaths changed my whole perception of the world. It was like someone took a Technicolor film and made it black-and-white. All that mattered was getting Danny and Jayne through it. They were just kids.”

Like Louisa. So maybe he could cut her a break for holding back on him.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “It wasn’t my original plan, and there were some lean years, but I’m a successful businessman. I like the way my life turned out. After being my own boss for all these years, working for someone else isn’t that appealing.” He got up, put his plate in the dishwasher, and tossed his cup in the trash. “What’s the plan for today?”

“I’m due at work at nine. I’d like to stop by Zoe’s apartment to speak with her roommate, then swing by the boyfriend’s before they both head off to classes or work. If you’re available . . .”

“Kind of early for visiting.”

“Yes, it is.” Determination flattened her close-lipped smile. “But there’s no time to waste with social niceties.” Her eyes strayed to the clock on the microwave. “Zoe has been missing for thirty-two hours.”

“In that case, I’m available.” Ugh. He hadn’t meant for that to sound like a double entendre.

“I’m glad,” she said. “Then I’ll go get dressed.”

I’m glad? What did that mean? “Could I use your shower?”

She pointed to the other end of the apartment. “There’s a guest suite through that doorway.”

Her guest room was stocked with toiletry essentials. Conor liberated a toothbrush from its packaging. He scratched his jaw. He should find a razor, but the small cut on his cheek was nearly gone. Shaving would just irritate it.

As he stripped down and stepped naked under the hot spray, he quelled a mental image of Louisa doing the same, but the vision of her willowy figure, slick and wet, wouldn’t stay gone. He turned the spigot to cold. In his head he ticked off the reasons this undefined thing, whatever it was, between them wouldn’t work. They had nothing in common. Their entire relationship was based on time shared during bizarre and terrible circumstances and his inexplicable compulsion to peel away the layers of Louisa’s personal defenses. They hadn’t spent a normal five minutes together. They hardly knew anything about each other, and every time he tried to get a glimpse of what lay beneath her perfect exterior, she put up a wall.