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Egan hadn’t considered what he’d wear. Too bad cloaking devices for clothes wasn’t a real thing since he intended to attend but didn’t want to stand out. Something that Tilly would want as well.
“Tell Reba thanks,” he said, “but I’ll probably just wear what I have on.” Which was jeans, a blue button-up shirt and his cowboy boots. That meant he’d look like at least half the other attendees.
Maybell made a “suit yourself” shrug that she’d probably meant to look casual, but she was still examining him to make sure he was okay. Ditto for Effie, so he tried to diffuse their concerns by kissing them both on the cheek and grabbing a huge chocolate chip cookie from the “get well soon” stash. He was hoping it’d be hard to worry over someone who could chow down on what appeared to be a kilo of chocolate for breakfast.
“You want to take a cookie out to the woman waiting in the car?” Effie asked him, stopping Egan in his tracks.
“What woman?” he wanted to know.
“Don’t know,” Maybell piped in. “She was parked out there when I came in for work about an hour ago. A pretty brunette. I figure she’s one of Blue’s conquests. And yes, I know what your brother gets up to,” she added. “But I’ve never seen her before.”
Egan frowned. “Did you talk to her and ask her what she wanted?”
“I said hello and asked if I could help her, and she said she was here to see you. It could still be about Blue,” Maybell tacked on to that.
Yeah, it could be, but if so, it’d likely be bad news. Like maybe she was pregnant or something. Still, if that were the case, then Egan couldn’t figure out why she’d wanted to see him instead of Blue.
He didn’t grab the second cookie that Effie was offering but instead made his way out of the kitchen and around to the front of the house where he saw the vintage cherry red Mustang parked in the circular drive. He also saw the attractive brunette who stepped from it.
One look at the woman and Egan understood Maybell’s initial impressions. She was exactly Blue’s type. Long hair tumbling over her shoulders, snug jeans and an equally snug top. Before he’d joined the military, Blue had had some success in the rodeo as a bronc rider and had had his share of what some referred to with the unflattering termbuckle bunnies. Egan thought this might be one of them.
“Lieutenant Colonel Donnelly,” she greeted, causing him to rethink that unflattering label. The rank had just rolled off her tongue as if she were accustomed to saying it. And Blue was a major, not a lieutenant colonel.
He nodded and went closer, trying to pick through her features to see if there was anything he recognized about her. He didn’t. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?” he came out and asked.
She hesitated. “I thought you might.”
Egan sighed. Blue didn’t make a habit of spilling any details about the women in his life, but perhaps this visitor believed he had. “Look, if this is about my brother Blue, he’s at the hospital with our dad.”
“It’s not about your brother,” she insisted and then paused again. “I’m Melinda Gorman.”
As Effie and Maybell had just done, this woman studied him, and he was pretty sure she was looking for some reaction. And Egan had one, all right. But probably not the reaction of recognition that she wanted.
He shook his head.
“Major Melinda Gorman,” she supplied.
Still nothing. Well, nothing other than it told him she was military, army, Marines or Air Force since major wasn’t a Navy rank.
He suddenly got a bad thought. “Are you here about one of the pilots in the squadron I command?” he asked.
“No. I’m here about Jack,” she muttered, her voice barely a whisper.
Of all the things Egan had thought she might say, that wasn’t one of them. Nor was it something he wanted to hear because his mind had no trouble filling in the blanks.
“Jack,” he repeated.
She nodded. “I was the woman he was, uh, seeing.”
Yeah, Egan had already gone there, and he automatically took a step back. It’d been a little less than a month since he’d learned that his best friend had been cheating.
Cheating on Alana.
During that month, he’d built up a lot of resentment for this other woman. He’d built up some resentment for Jack, too, and he was certain that was coming through loud and clear because Melinda moved back as well.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But would it be possible for us to talk?”
He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to see her because it made Jack’s affair even more real. It brought the past back, and it slammed the hell right into him. Again.
