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She’d come back to us finally. She’d let me kiss her.
Could she be convinced to make this her home, even if it were only between gigs?
“Atticus, what’s up?” Rafferty had his long legs resting on the side of the stone firepit with a tumbler of whiskey balanced on his thighs. A cap covered his dark hair, and he wore fingerless gloves that one of his elderly patients had knit for him. He never said, but I was fairly certain that had been his payment instead of actual cash. Yes, Rafferty was driven, but he also had a hugeheart for anyone who needed a boost in life. In the end, his desire to serve the community that raised him had brought him home. He could run the small practice as he wished, unlike a hospital network in a city.
“I’m checking to make sure you’re all behaving yourselves.” I plopped down next to him. “But first I want a dram of whiskey.”
“I’m on it.” Soren popped the stopper from the crystal decanter and poured me a small glass. He wore a cowboy hat, which cast a shadow over his eyes, but it did nothing to hide the fact that he was paying more attention to the football game than anything else.
Caspian sat in one of the chairs puffing a cigar, the smoke hovering above his head, his hair disheveled and his eyes possessing a dreamy, sleepy quality.
“Feeling any pain?” I asked, poking Caspian with my foot.
He swiveled his head to look at me and grinned. “Not a bit.”
“What’s it like to have Annie here?” Rafferty asked. “Has your crush continued into adulthood?”
“It wasn’t a crush,” I said. “We were best friends.”
“Right, best friends,” Rafferty said. “Who vowed to marry someday.”
I chuckled and sipped my drink, the alcohol warming the back of my throat. “We were such dummies back then, believing that childhood sweethearts would ever last.”
“Not dumb,” Caspian said. “Innocent.”
“Seriously though, any of the old feelings come back?” Rafferty asked, clearly curious to know where my thoughts were in terms of our favorite redhead.
“They may have arisen again,” I said. “We might have kissed last night.”
“Dude, really?” Soren actually tore his gaze from the game to look at me. “That was fast.”
“I know. It just kind of happened. We were in my truck in the tavern’s parking lot, and she just looked so good.” I spokelightly, as if it didn’t really make much difference to me one way or the other. I should have known none of them would have seen the photos. They were not the target audience for celebrity gossip.
“Your truck? That doesn’t sound romantic at all,” Caspian said.
“Don’t you guys ever get on your computer?” I explained about the tabloid photographs and that they were now all over the internet.
“What a world we live in,” Soren said, sounding disgusted. “A guy can’t kiss his girl in a truck without some invasive species ruining the moment?”
“She was pretty upset,” I said. “Mostly because she wanted to keep our family out of all this.”
“Wait a minute,” Rafferty said. “Isn’t she going back to California soon?”
“Yeah.” I leaned my head back to look at the roof of the patio. “So basically, I’m screwed.”
“Don’t get attached, man,” Soren said. “Keep that old heart locked up tight, or you’re going to get hurt.”
“I know,” I said. “Knowing the truth doesn’t necessarily make the heart any less reckless.”
“Oh no, this is bad.” Caspian sat up straighter, glancing toward the house. “You only kiss girls you care about.”
“Do you kiss girls youdon’tcare about?” I asked. This was news to me. As far as I could see, he did little other than work.
“I mean, I would,” Caspian said. “If there were any girls to kiss.”
“I saw a few in this very house today,” Rafferty said. “That new pastry chef you hired is hot.”
“Elliot? Not for me. No way. She’s the type to chew up and spit out a guy like me.” Caspian tossed back the rest of the whiskey in his glass and reached for the decanter. “And the whole time she’s chewing and getting ready to spit me out, I’d be thinking howawesome it was to be me until I woke up to an empty bed and the sound of her car taking off down my driveway.”
