Page 15 of Me and Mr. Just Right

Maybe he’s just not interested, Lia. Ever think of that?Inner Gwen said in a bored tone as she kicked her feet up on a desk and filed her nails.

“I know you from somewhere,” Jules said, yanking Lia’s gaze away from Haydn’s delts. Jules didn’t look or sound anything like Snape from the Harry Potter movies (maybe if Snape were young and muscled, perhaps), and yet… she couldn’t help but think of him as Jules’s gaze narrowed in on her.

“I just have one of those faces,” she said in a falsely breezy tone.

What would happen if they recognized her? She got all kinds of reactions: people who felt the need to tell her they disliked her music, people who screamed or cried in shock, people who proposed on the spot, people who asked her invasive questions as if they had the right to know everything about her, people who became so starstruck they couldn’t speak … and on and on. The reactions were endless, but the result was always the same: she was never treated like a normal person again.

No matter which way these brothers reacted, it wouldn’t be good.

“No, I know you from somewhere. Are you from Alaska?”

Haydn ran a hand across his mouth as he turned from the fireplace, toward his brother. “Jules,” he said under his breath. It sounded like a warning.

“No,” she said slowly.

“What’s your last name?”

“Hall,” she replied, staring back at him steadily. What was this? The Inquisition? The part in the movie where Harry gets detention?

From the corner of her eye, she saw Haydn tip his head back to look at the ceiling, in the universal sign of someone grasping for more patience. “She’s not on the stand, Jules.”

On the stand. Was he a lawyer? She could see it. She’d worked with many lawyers over the years, with varying levels of hubris. Jules seemed like he would fit right in among the ones who thought the most highly of themselves—and who always underestimated her.

“I’m being hospitable. Getting to know our guest.”

Guest. Riiiight.

“Where are you from?” he shot out quickly as if trying to catch her off guard.

“Tennessee.”

“You look familiar to me too,” Bennett said. And here she’d thought he was the nice one. “I can’t place it, though. It’s driving me crazy. Have you done a fishing tour in Petersburg?”

“She’s never been to southeast Alaska until now,” Haydn said. He came back to the couch holding a camera he must have grabbed while she’d been in a staring battle of wills with Jules, and her heart stopped. She’d heard that phrase before, even written it in one of her songs, but had never experienced it until now.

She didn’t know a lot about cameras, but she knew enough to recognize a very expensive, professional one when she saw it. Because she saw plenty of them, pointed at her.

“How do you know she hasn’t been here before?” Jules asked Haydn, but his words sounded like they were coming from underwater.

The screen on the back of Haydn’s camera lit up, and panic clawed up her chest. It wasn’t that she couldn’t deal with cameras—they were a part of her life. She didn’t even mind getting her picture taken. But this felt like an ambush, on the level of finding out about Gwen and Bo’s relationship. She’d thought she’d be safe out here, thought she’d finally have a moment of reprieve to process and grieve, thought she’d be granted one miniscule portion of privacy, thought—

“Because she told me.” He looked up from his camera screen and smiled as if the two of them shared a secret.

Her heart started beating again, so hard it hurt. “When?”

His smile dimmed in confusion. “The plane. Remember? I pretty much saved your life.”

“You were on the same flight?” Jules asked. “Way to keep that info to yourself.”

“It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to talk,” Haydn retorted.

“Why do you have a camera?” Lia asked. Or shouted, really. In an accusatory tone, as if asking him why he’d stolen all her new songs or betrayed her with Gwen or spread lies through the media about her.

Whoa.This time, her inner voice sounded like her and Gwen—and maybe her therapist—all rolled into one.Not every man is Bo, Lia.

Jules’s eyebrows winged upward, and Haydn’s brows joined his mouth in the downward-turn confusion party. “I’m a photographer.”

“ForAlaska Ridges Magazine,” Bennett said, the pride evident in his tone. He leaned close to mock whisper, “He’s kind of a big deal.”

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