Page 34 of Catching Mr. Right

“Okay?” I put my arm around her waist as we cross the grass and walk to the car.

She puts her head on my shoulder. “I’m officially on my own.”

“No, never. You’ve got me. You’ve got your friends.” I kiss the top of her head. Summer catches me and it’s a kind of awkward moment of eye contact. No doubt she thinks her friend can do better, perhaps even imagines that her brother is the right guy, the same way Mandy does. But I don’t believe it. Can’t shake my unfailing certainty that he’s not the one for her.

I open the door of my truck for her to climb in. She puts her seatbelt on while I jog around and climb in behind the wheel. There’s a moment of silence where she stares out the window toward where her grandmother rests while I gun the engine and pull away from the curb.

“Sam’s helping me look for my biological parents,” she tells me on our way to the house for the wake. “What do you think they’d be like?”

“I don’t know.” Her announcement throws me. Sam Sweets, jerk and pain in the fucking ass is actually doing something pretty damn nice. Which is good, even if it makes me wish I had thought of it myself. “If they’re anything like you they’ll say the craziest things and be a little obsessive about pink.”

“I doubt it.” She pushes my elbow, but for the first time today she smiles. Then she shakes her head. “We might not find out who they are.” She draws her bangs behind one ear and curls her legs up on the seat. “Even if we do find names, we might never locate them. Or they could be dead.”

I reach out to squeeze her thigh. “You’re going to find them.”

“Maybe,” she says. “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“And Sam?” We haven’t talked about what happened the day she showed up with his marks on her. This week was hard enough on her as it is, plus I’m not sure that I want to know things are progressing between them. It was always going to happen. Nobody could withstand Mandy Pearce and what she wants.

“We kissed.” She puts her fingers to her lips, probably remembering how it felt. “We were in bed, and—”

“I don’t need details,” I croak, my throat closing up over the idea of her and him together. The two of them in bed, doing what? Were his hands all over her? Were they naked? Did she wrap her hand around his dick? Did he touch her between her legs? Put his mouth there? His—

“Nothing happened.” She sighs. “You kind of ruined it with your phone call. He got my shorts undone and kissed my panties. Didn’t even get them down my legs. That’s as far as it went. He’s a sweetheart. Didn’t want to take advantage of me.”

“Good. That’s good.” I pull the truck into the driveway and park it. My heart is pounding, my stomach squeezed tight. I don’t know how I am going to handle the next time she’s alone with him. They can only get closer. With less clothes. Fuck. It should be a relief, but it’s anything but. I try to muster some enthusiasm, but there’s none. “Means he probably respects you and actually likes you.”

“This plan of ours is working.” She slides from the car.

What am I supposed to do? Tell her that I feel something for her? Pretend I don’t? There’s too much at stake for me to stay in Reverence. There’s too much in my past I can’t let go of for there to be any kind of future for us. Let’s face it. Sam Sweets is the better choice.

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