Page 22 of Love Everlasting

“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.”