Done With Love (4 page)

“I thought you were against one night stands since they don’t allow for enough time to run a background investigation.” I bit back a smile at Roxanna’s serious nod.

“Right, I know.
I’m just saying.
If that’s what I
wanted
to do, I could.”

“So what does this all mean for the doctor? Maybe he’s got good credit and just wants a casual relationship with a pretty, intelligent woman—no white picket fence strings attached.”

She considered it. “Maybe. It’s just the idea of dating my best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend…”

I winced. “Complicated.”

“Possible disaster, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well, good luck telling Gen ‘no’. She’s in love and wants everyone to experience it with her. And since I’m damaged, you’re the only one left in our group for her to set up.” I drank the last sip of cocktail and set the glass down. Gen’s laughter sounded from the next room. I had a clear view of the bar where my twin’s adoring gaze was locked on Matt.

“She’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.” Roxanna stood and picked up my empty glass. “I’ll get us a couple more drinks.”

She turned from the table, and I called after her. “You know what? Grab me a shot of something strong. Maybe it’ll help me sleep tonight.”

The smile on her lips vanished, replaced with a slight frown of worry. She returned to the table and sat down. “Hey, are you sure you want to go home tonight? Gen told me you guys dropped your bags off at your apartment, and Mitzy’s already there.”

I nodded, but my smile didn’t reach my eyes. “Yeah. Mitzy was homesick. And I’m tired of living out of a suitcase.”

“Well, if you change your mind, come home with me, okay? I have plenty of room. You’re always welcome.
Mi casa
and all that,” she said with a wave of her hand. Roxanna had a big enough house, but she didn’t live alone. Leo and Roxanna were cousins. A few months after Leo returned home from the Army, he’d moved in with her. A good thing—I’d always hated the idea of Roxanna living in such a big house alone.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” I assured her.

“Okay. But the offer’s open, always. I love you, lady.”

“I love you, too.” And this time I didn’t have to fake a smile. I wasn’t sure how I could have made it through the last few days without my devoted family and my best friend.

“Now I’m definitely getting us a couple of drinks.” She stood.

“Don’t forget the shot.”

“Just one?” Roxanna raised her brows and walked away.

Propping my chin into my hand, I leaned into my elbow on the table and gazed out the window at the storefronts. Across the street from Decadence, a blue vintage bicycle sat in the front window of the cycle shop; a shiny red bow adorned the handle bars. A subtle hint what a perfect Christmas gift the bicycle would make. The shop had been there since I was a little girl, same as the barber shop beside it, with its red, white, and blue swirled barber pole. This part of the city had always given me a sense of comfort and belonging. It was one of the reasons I’d chosen to open my bridal boutique on this same block, around the corner. If I met Gen and Roxanna at Decadence after work, I could walk to the bar through the back alley.

“So she does smile.”

The deep, familiar voice sent a shiver down my spine. I glanced up into Leo’s eyes, and my stomach fluttered. “Leo.”

“You should smile more often.” The corners of his lips lifted and would have left any other woman breathless, even me, even when I fought the reaction.

I found it odd and deeply disturbing how, only a few days after I’d run out on my own wedding, Leo’s gaze sent my pulse racing. Maybe it always would. I supposed a girl never forgot her first love, even if he’d been out of her life for nearly six years.

Truthfully, I’d been avoiding Leo ever since he’d returned from the Army and settled back in town. The way he’d broken up with me had left so many unanswered questions. I pretended it didn’t matter—pretended
him
being back didn’t matter. Pretended I felt nothing either way. Seeing him at my wedding had jarred so many of those questions out of the corners of my mind where they’d been hiding. Like, why had he come to the wedding at all?

Men irritated me, all of them. Except my dad. He was the only man excused because he’d never broken my heart and he never would.

“Slumming it tonight?” I asked.

“Guess so.” He sat down in Roxanna’s empty seat.

My gaze drifted down to his lips, full and smirking—he might have been an older, bigger version of the guy I had fallen in love with in high school, but the smile was the same, still affected me the same. Some things never changed. His hair was wet, as if he’d just come from the gym. When he reached up to drag a hand through the tousled brown locks, his arm bulged beneath the dark grey thermal he wore. I had to tear my eyes away.

Looking down at the clock on my cell phone, I said, “I figured you wouldn’t be joining us this late.”

Ten o’clock wasn’t late, but it was for me. My mind raced so fast at night, making it difficult to sleep, so these days I was always tired.

“Oh? Did you miss me?”

My cheeks warmed. “No.” His open flirtation caught me off guard—talk about zero to sixty. I fidgeted under his gaze.

“And she blushes, too.” He studied my face. “I really do think you missed me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s been two days since you crashed our pizza party and ate half the pie.”

“If Roxanna wants me to run errands for her, she has to feed me, too.”

How could I argue with his logic? “I guess that makes sense.”

He leaned back into the chair and crossed his arms over his massive chest. The Army had been good for his physique; he must have spent most of those years in the gym. I pictured him drinking raw eggs and bench pressing cars in his free time.

“Plus, you girls eat like birds anyway. I don’t believe in wasting food.”

“That’s not true. Gen eats like a horse. After you ate all the pizza and left, we had to order Chinese,” I said, and he grinned in answer.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” Roxanna said as she walked around the corner. She stopped beside him and socked his shoulder. “You need to quit abusing the weights. Your arms are going to explode.”

“Why do you always have to pick on me?” Leo pretended to pout, which only made me stare at his lips again.

“You are such a baby sometimes.” Roxanna’s smile revealed just how much she cared for him. She and Leo were close. She’d spent a lot of time at Leo’s house after her dad left—I think Leo’s dad had done his best to make up for the hole his brother had left in Roxanna’s life. “Move it,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood and pulled the chair out so Roxanna could sit down. “Lexie doesn’t want to sit by me anyway. She’s mad I ate all the pizza the other night.”

“Oh please, she only wanted one slice.” Roxanna slid a frothy blue drink across the table. “I thought you might like this one.” Then she slid over two shots of amber tinted liquid. “And these will help you sleep.”

“Rox.” There was a hint of warning in Leo’s tone. “That whiskey’s too strong.”

He’d remembered how poorly I handled liquor, and I wasn’t sure if I was annoyed or charmed by it. There’d been a couple of nights in high school he’d held my hair back while I tossed up everything in my stomach after drinking too much peach schnapps.

“I better only have one.” I slid one of the shot glasses to Leo, the whiskey spilling out onto the table.

His fingers brushed against mine, and I jerked in my seat. He raised his brows. “Why so jumpy tonight?”

My cheeks warmed again. Lately he was everywhere, slipping back into my life as if he hadn’t been gone for so long—it set me on edge, especially with everything else going on in my life.

“I’m not,” I said.

“Give her a break. Her nerves are fried,” Roxanna chided.

“You look tired, Princess,” he said, studying me. His dropping the nickname so casually left me speechless.

Long before I had loved Leo, he’d been calling me Princess, along with tugging my pony tail. Back then, it had been to tease me, and then it had become a term of endearment while he hugged me close. Hearing the nickname on his lips made my stomach flutter-flop. I had no idea what it meant now, but he smiled as he said it, and the heat in his gaze told me it might mean something I wasn’t ready to analyze.

What was he thinking, flirting with me like this? Not only was his timing way off, but everything with Leo was way off. It had taken me years to get over missing him, years to get over loving him. Even his smiles were too much, too addictive.

He poured the drink down with a quick flick of his wrist, and his tongue snaked out to lick a drop from his bottom lip. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Setting the empty shot glass down on the table, he said, “Now my cousin can’t talk you into drinking it.”

“You act like I’m a bad influence or something.” Roxanna fake pouted, and I clinked my shot glass to hers.

“You
are
a bad influence.” I choked the whiskey down and coughed against the burn in my throat. Wincing, I chased it with the blue frothy drink she’d gotten for me, though it was meant for sipping. My eyes watered.

“Nice,” Roxanna laughed. “Thought you might enjoy that—tastes like fuel.” She drank her second shot and grimaced from the liquor’s burn.

I glanced over at Leo. “It’s a good thing you’re here to drive Roxanna home.”

“I see that,” he replied.

Roxanna reached an arm around Leo’s wide shoulders and squeezed. “I’m so glad you’re home now, hanging out with me, driving me home from the bar, fixing things around the house.”

Leo laughed. “I suppose I need to earn my keep somehow since you won’t let me pay rent.”

She gave him a wide smile. “I can hardly charge you rent when you sign my paychecks and let me work flexible hours.”

“I didn’t approve flexible hours.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“We’ll talk about that on Monday. I have this thing.”

“This thing?”

“Yes, this thing,” Roxanna said. She turned to me. “A creative thing.”

I perked up at this. Maybe she’d started writing again.

“A creative thing,” Leo repeated.

“Yes. We’ll discuss it over donuts.” She looked down at his biceps. “Or a protein shake.”

“So how did the conversation go with Gen about the hot doctor?” I asked.

“What doctor?” Leo asked in full protective mode.

“No one,” Roxanna told him. She looked to me. “He’s not coming. And since Gen is insisting on a date—one date—I’ll have time to run a background check.”

Leo nodded in approval. “Good.”

“To some people, that would be a severe breach of privacy,” I pointed out. “Illegal, maybe.”

“All’s fair in the land of crazies,” Roxanna said.

“No one dates my little cousin without passing a background check first.”

“Ah, the background check,” Matt said, holding out his hand to Leo, who shook it.

Back when Matt had been nothing more than a stranger to the rest of us, Roxanna had taken it upon herself to check up on the man who’d swept Gen off her feet. I’d been in full agreement, though. In fact, thinking back on it, the idea might actually have been mine. She was now full time at LM Security, running background investigations for Leo, and she loved it.

Roxanna leaned into the table and batted long black lashes at Matt. “You’re lucky you turned out to be a catch or I’d have sent Leo after you with a taser gun.”

“What’s wrong with your taser?” Leo’s gaze shifted to Roxanna’s purse hanging on the back of her chair. “You carry it with you at night, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes,” Roxanna said. “
Sheesh
.”

“And she’s got one in her glove box, too,” Gen added with a grin.

“Excessive, don’t you think?” I laughed, though “excessive” could have been Roxanna’s middle name.

“Every woman should have one.” Leo gave me a pointed stare.

I shook my head. “Not me. I’m good with my little can of pepper spray. I don’t know anything about taser guns.”

“I’ll teach you.” The warmth in his gaze made my nerves tingle.

Gen’s phone rang, and she answered. “Hey, Cat, what’s—” Her eyes widened and she whispered, “Oh my God.”

I sucked in a breath. “What’s wrong? Is she okay? The babies?”

Catherine’s twins were only three months old. The idea of anything happening to them scared me to death. When Gen scrambled to her feet and rushed to the next room, my throat constricted with fear. Matt was on his feet in an instant, seconds behind her. I jumped from my chair, and it fell back onto the floor with a
clang
as I hurried after them. By the time I reached Gen, she was at the bar, telling Ted to turn on the television anchored up in the corner near the bar.

Right before Ted hit the power button on the remote, Gen placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s Deborah,” she said.

I hadn’t thought it possible for my blood to run so cold, so fast.

The screen flashed on, and an image of Deborah Buchanan stared down at me. She sat with perfect posture, looking expensive and elegant with a string of pearls around her neck. Her blonde hair was twisted up into an impeccable bun. She was the image of a conservative politician’s wife. Knowing Deborah as I did, she had her sights set on her husband climbing much higher than the seat on the Senate he campaigned for.