She tossed the backpack into her back seat and closed her back door, peering up with a plea in her baby blues. “My family knows I freelance as an editor for a publisher friend of mine. But they don’t know I’m actually writing a romance novel for one of my publisher’s most important authors who has run into some health issues. So you have to promise not to say a word.”
He gave a lazy shrug, butting a hip to her car. “No prob, Shan. After all—what are friends for?”
Her pretty pink biker tank rose and fell in relief before she slid into her car, the tension in her face easing into a weary smile. “Thanks, Sam, I really appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, kiddo, mum’s the word.” He closed her door and leaned in, arms folded on the open window. “Glad we sealed the deal.”
Her hand froze on the gear shift. “What deal? We don’t have a deal.”
He traced a finger down her arm to rile a little fire in her. “Sure we do, Angel Eyes—my silence for your coaching.”
She slapped his hand away as her eyes narrowed. “Blackmailer on top of a stalker and player? Gee, Doc, you get better by the moment.”
“I know.” He tapped on her door with a waggle of brows. “Just imagine how good I’ll be after you’re done?”
She groaned and dropped her head on the wheel.
“Cutter’s Point, Wednesday at four.” He pushed away from the car and gave her a dazzling smile. “I need you, Shan,” he said, hands over his chest in true drama, befitting his nickname. “My heart’s sick over Jazz, so I’m in a really bad way.”
“I know, me too.” She jerked the car into gear, and he jumped back for safety while she glanced in the rearview mirror. Broiling him with a look, she gunned the accelerator and tore out of the lot, her final words making him grin. “Only mine’s indigestion.”
Chapter Twelve
“Uh-oh, Jack’s gonna toss somebody in the drink …” Sprawled across Shannon’s bed with a bowl of nuts, Cat popped a peanut in her mouth as she laid on her side, elbow cocked and head in her hand. “But it’s definitely worth the swim, Shan. I’m jealous.”
“It’s not a date,” Shannon emphasized, her clenched response sounding far more like Cat than herself. “It’s coffee at Cutter’s, for pity’s sake, just to talk.”
Cat wiggled her brows. “You mean he actually uses those luscious lips for other things?” she teased, her comment warming the blood in Shannon’s cheeks.
Lacey snatched a handful of peanuts from Cat’s bowl and scooted against the headboard, knees to her chest. “I don’t care, Shan,” she said while Shannon pinned her hair in a haphazard messy bun designed to discourage male attention. “Jack’s gonna blow when he finds out. If he’s told me once, he’s told me a dozen times he doesn’t want Sam anywhere near you or Cat.”
“Which kind of ticks me off,” Cat groused, “because I’m twenty-six, and the last thing I need is two mothers.”
“Jack won’t find out if you don’t tell him, Lace.” Shannon glanced at her sister-in-law in the mirror, grateful she could trust Lacey to keep her secret. “Believe me, Jack has nothing to worry about because the last thing I need—or want—right now is to spend time with Sam Cunningham. I’m up to my eyeballs in edits on several books my publisher’s been waiting for, so all I really want to do is cozy up with my manuscript, not some pushy player looking for advice.”
Lacey zipped her mouth. “My lips are sealed, Shan—you have my word.”
Cat’s husky chuckle drifted from the bed. “But I’ll bet Sam’s won’t be …”
“And trust me,” Shannon continued, not even validating Cat’s remark with a response, “I don’t want Dr. Love anywhere near me either, but it’s just one time so he can pick my brain on how to win his girlfriend back.”
“Your brain?” Lacey pursed her lips in a sweet smile. “You mean you actually have one? After all, you did say ‘yes’ to Sam Cunningham.”
“For heaven’s sake, it’s a cappuccino in a public place for maybe an hour,” Shannon stressed with a stronger tone than usual, more to convince herself than her sister and sister-in-law. “Then I never have to talk to the man again.”
Cat sighed. “That’s okay—that’s one guy where talking is overrated. I’d just want to look at him.” A dangerous grin slid across her face. “Well, maybe not just look.”
“I’ll take a picture for you,” Shannon muttered, slipping a tank top over her head.
A peanut halfway to her mouth, Cat paused with a serious look as if she couldn’t believe her luck. “Gosh, Shan—would you?”
“Please tell me you’re wearing a blouse over that,” Lacey said, nodding at Shannon’s form-fitting tank—the loosest one she owned with the least amount of cleavage.
Shannon shimmied on an old pair of jean shorts. “Oh, for crying out loud, Lace, it’s almost 90 degrees, and I’m wearing my grungiest shorts, beat-up athletic shoes, and not a stitch of makeup, so doesn’t that convince you I have no interest at all?”
“No, because you’re one of the few girls who can pull it off, Shan—a natural beauty.”
“Why, thank you,” Cat said, preening with a pose in the mirror.
Rolling her eyes, Lacey refocused on Shannon, mouth swerving sideways as she popped a peanut. “And trust me, Shan, when it comes to Sam Cunningham and women, nothing is for ‘heaven’s sake.’”
“I don’t know,” Cat said with a sigh, rolling over on her back to stare at the ceiling with a dreamy smile. “Sounds like heaven to me …”
“Oh my gosh, when on earth did you get so guy crazy, Catfish?” Lacey launched a peanut, bouncing it on Cat’s head. “Are we going to have to lock you up after dark?”
Cat picked the nut out of her hair and aimed it right back. She heaved a heavy sigh, lips in a pout. “Don’t have to, ‘Mother.’ Between Mom’s eagle eye and Jack’s Rapunzel mindset in keeping me away from his friends, I’m trussed up tighter than Fort Knox.”
“That’s because to Jack, you and Shan are pure gold and always have been. He loves you and wants to keep the wrong guys away, so sue him.”
Cat halted to squint at Lacey, peanut in hand. “You think I can?”
Lacey grinned and fired another peanut.
Blasting out a heavy sigh, Cat stared at the ceiling, melancholy tingeing her tone. “Shan and I will probably die lonely old maids because there sure aren’t many guys around here.”
“Not lonely,” Shan affirmed, rifling through her wallet to make sure she had money. The last thing she wanted was for Player-Boy to buy her anything. “Happily accomplished and content—at least me.” She slipped her purse over her shoulder and sat down on the edge of the bed next to Cat, grabbing a few nuts. “You? You could be settled with babies and a white picket fence in the next three years if you’d just give the guys at Hope Church a chance.”
“Yeah,” Lacey piped up, “both Luke Calloway and Jordan Murphy have asked you out, but you just blow ’em off, Cat. So why is that?”
Cat scrunched her nose. “Don’t be ticked, Lace, but I’m looking for a little more excitement in my life right now, and somehow, I don’t see it at Hope Church.” She tossed a peanut in the air, snapping it with her mouth. “I guess I have this thing for bad boys, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Lacey said with a wry twist of lips. “That’s what worries me.”
Cat rolled on her side like before, head propped. “Yeah? Well, welcome to the club, Carmichael, because you sure put us through the wringer before you got religion.”
“What about Chase?” Shannon asked as she slipped a sock on her foot, thinking the good-looking associate pastor at Hope Church was just what her sister needed. “He’s the best of both worlds, Cat—a bad boy who found religion, just like Jack.”
“Yeah, he’s hot, no doubt about that.” Her face screwed in a frown as if she were contemplating the option. “But pastor types like Chase have such strict policies, not to mention preaching at you all the time, and I want to have some fun for a while. Call me crazy, but right now I’
d trust a bad boy way before a preacher because at least he’s looking for fun, too.”
“Call you crazy?” Lacey grunted. “You are crazy, O’Bryen. I should have Jack fix you up with a psych major.”
Cat glanced up, a sparkle of excitement in her eyes. “Ooooo … you think he would?”
Shannon chuckled to deflect her worry over a sister whose interest in spiritual things was on the wane. “Then you’d be locked up for good, sis, once he finds out how crazy you are.”
“Yeah, crazy fun,” Cat said with a gleam of trouble in her eyes.
Shannon pinched her sister’s waist, Cat’s slow spiritual decline at the top of her prayer list these days. “Uh, you do remember the pact we made with Jack way back when, right? Where we promised to wait until marriage for certain kinds of ‘fun’?”
A heavy sigh blustered from Cat’s lips. “Yeah, yeah, just another example of Jack’s lock and key, Shan, but don’t worry. I’ll do my best to honor it because I love you both.”
“And God?” Lacey asked, a sobriety in her eyes despite the smile on her face.
“Yes, Mother, I love God, so you can tuck your sermon back in your pocket.” Cat sat up, as is she were ready to flee any conversation that included spirituality. “I just don’t have to like Him a lot right now, that’s all.”
Shannon’s heart constricted. A ‘dislike’ that had clearly been deepening over the last few months.
Since Daddy died.
“So don’t go all gloomy on me, guys,” Cat said quickly, all humor suddenly depleted in both her tone and her voice. “God and I are just taking a break from each other for a while till I can hash out a few things in my mind, that’s all.”
“He’s real good at hashing things out, Cat,” Lacey said quietly, “but not if you don’t talk to Him.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still a little ticked over Daddy, Lace, so maybe it’s better I wait.” She hooked an arm around Shannon’s shoulders. “Besides, you have bigger problems right now since the sweet and spiritual twin has a date with the dangerous Dr. Love.”
“I keep telling you—it’s not a date!” Shannon insisted, unlatching Cat’s arm when she bent to put on her shoe. “You guys already know I have a strict no-dating policy, so I guarantee it won’t be this twin giving anyone any problems.”
Lacey nudged Shannon’s hip with her foot, her tease laced with warning in spite of the grin on her face. “It better not be, Shan, now or ever, because Jack and I have enough trouble on our hands keeping your evil twin in line.”
“Ha!” Cat said, rising from the bed with a lazy stretch. “I’d say Shan’s the one with trouble on her hands because according to half the nurses at Memorial, Sam Cunningham is an addiction without any cure.” She bent to press a kiss to her sister’s head before tweaking her neck. “So stay on your guard, sis, because I’d sure hate to see the good twin go through a nasty withdrawal.”
Shannon huffed out a sigh, bending to tie her other shoe.
Join the club.
Chapter Thirteen
One leg jiggling over his knee, Sam drummed his fingers on the patio café table at Cutter’s, glancing at his watch for the umpteenth time. “Where the heck is she?” he muttered, well aware it was two minutes to four, so Shannon wasn’t technically late. But it felt like he’d been waiting for days, the Pepcid AC he took a while ago doing nothing for the churning in his stomach. He could blame it on the four cappuccinos he’d had since he’d arrived an hour ago, he supposed. Or the ten-mile jog this morning before he went home and changed, which had been more of a run for his life than a jog. Or even the stupid bees that buzzed around the pot of petunias hanging next to his table. He swatted at one who zipped too close. Bees made him downright nervous since they liked to sting him too much.
Just like Jasmine was about to do.
He upended his cup, then scowled when sludge trickled down his throat. Nope, it didn’t take a medical degree to diagnose the awful pains in his stomach because he knew exactly why they were there. Jazz was coming over tomorrow to pick up the rest of her things.
Including her favorite swimsuit.
For a trip to the Bahamas.
With the intern.
“Where are you, Shannon, I need you,” he muttered under his breath, switching legs to twitch the other over his knee while the leather tie on his tan Topsiders flopped in the air, as goosey as him. He looked at his watch again before scanning the parking lot, the sight of her car pulling in both expanding his rib cage in relief and racing his pulse more than the stupid coffee. She got out of her car and he exhaled slowly, thinking she had to be one of the purest, most natural women he’d ever seen, sun glinting off strawberry blonde hair thrown into an adorable messy bun as unpretentious as she.
A slow smile slid across his face as he watched her, always amazed how unspoiled she looked with her clean peaches-and-cream complexion and smattering of near-invisible freckles. Like a Georgia peach, just beginning to turn lush and ripe. Even from across the parking lot, he could see a spark of fire in those blue eyes, and his smile blossomed into a grin at the tight press of her lips. Generous lips usually full in repose, the color of pale raspberries and just as sweet.
Not that he was ever going to taste them again. His mouth quirked as he snatched his cell off the table and slipped it into the pocket of his creased Brooks Brothers shorts. Because Shannon couldn’t abide him as a man, which made her the perfect choice as a female friend. As much as Shannon’s sweet and pure appearance inspired nibbling, he’d discovered since that night in his kitchen that he liked having a woman as a good friend, so he wasn’t about to botch it up again. This friendship was too important.
Because Jazz is too important.
“Hey, you didn’t have to bother dressing up on my account,” he teased as he rose, her bare-bones getup only reinforcing her wholesome appearance. His grin ramped up to double dimples when those porcelain cheeks ripened with a blush, wondering why on earth he got a kick out of tweaking such a sweet and shy kid. Maybe because that sweet mouth pinched in restraint and those searing blue eyes challenged him to trip that glorious temper no one else ever saw, unleashing words no one else ever had the guts to say.
The truth.
“So … what’s your pleasure, Angel Eyes?” he said, pushing in his chair.
The edge of her mouth ticked up. “A tall, frosty glass of peach iced tea.” She batted his hand away from the small of her back when he tried to usher her inside. “At home.”
“Your wish is my command,” he said, looping her waist to whirl her back toward the parking lot. “Just lead the way, kiddo.”
“Not a chance, Doc.” Slapping his arm away, she ricocheted back to the entrance like a paddleball on a string, ducking inside before he could even open the door. “Jack would blow a gasket if he saw me out with you, which come to think of it, might be a good thing.” She lobbed a one-sided smile over her shoulder. “Way cheaper than a restraining order.”
She marched right up to the counter and ordered a peach iced tea, then tussled with him about paying for her own, losing the battle when the young woman deferred to him with a dazzling smile.
“You know, it’s downright criminal how you get your way with women.” Shaking her head, Shannon made a beeline for the outside patio.
“Not all of them,” Sam said with a wry smile, racing to open the door for her, “which is why you’re here, remember?”
“Really?” Shannon seated herself at the table, offering a flutter of lashes that tickled him because it seemed so out of character. “I thought it was because of extortion.”
He grinned and slid in his chair, questioning his sanity in purchasing a fifth cappuccino. “Come on, Shannon, ‘extortion’ sounds so crass. Let’s just think of it as two friends helping each other out.”
Cracking a skewed smile, she perched on the edge of her chair with hands neatly folded on the table. “Like I said—extortion. But since we’re both here and I’m not wearing heels, why don’t we get down to
business?”
“See? That’s what I like about you,” he said with a chuckle, “you don’t mince words; you get right to the point.” He took a healthy swig of his coffee, eyeing her over the rim with a teasing look. “With or without stilettos.” Setting his cup down, he sucked in a deep breath and propped his arms on the table, all of his good humor bleeding out along with a long, bumpy sigh.
“She’s going to the Bahamas with him,” he said quietly, just saying the words out loud a reality crash that sent his stomach into a free fall. Head bowed, he gouged his eye socket with the pad of his thumb. The happy-go-lucky persona he worked so hard to maintain with an upbeat manner and maniacal regimen suddenly stripped away to reveal the wounded man inside. For some reason he couldn’t ascertain, Shannon’s presence allowed him the luxury of brutal honesty, exposing deeply buried feelings no one ever saw—sometimes not even him.
“Oh, Sam …” Shannon’s whisper carried all the tender compassion he’d known it would, the barest touch of her fingers to his a balm he’d seldom experienced before. Certainly not from a mother who’d deserted him at the age of five nor from a long line of foster parents more interested in the subsidy than in him. And one sure didn’t unload true feelings and failures with other guys, not even good friends like Jack, and never ever with women. Especially a woman like Jazz. No, he’d learned long ago that image was all he really had to ward off the pain, all he could really count on to keep him afloat when others deserted him. And they always did.
Eventually.
His dad. His mom. His foster parents. His fiancée in college.
Even Jazz.
Shannon gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“Yeah, me too,” he muttered, voice barely audible as his gaze lagged into a vacant stare, memories of past relationships tainting his mind. Far as Sam could tell, love was little more than a commodity, as fleeting as the people who stole in and out of his life, a revolving door of rejection that always hit him hard. Which is why image was everything. A message to the world that he had it all, no matter how many people screwed around with his heart.