Page 34 of So Close

She’d be like that during sex, he thought suddenly. She’d watch him like that, and her pupils would widen with sympathetic pleasure as he drove into her.

In bed, their combativeness would be smoking hot. She’d demand what she needed and meet him stroke for stroke and crest for crest. They’d go up in flames.

His cookie had gotten suddenly tasteless, like it wasn’t possible for his body to enjoy both the pleasure of Auburn’s baked goods and the fantasy of her getting off on his arousal.

She was still watching him, and there was something on her face, an echo of his non-cookie thoughts.

If he hadn’t had both his hands full, he would have—

What? What would he have done?

Nothing, because acting on that particular impulse would be suicidally stupid.

“It’s delicious,” he said, instead. “You can make a cookie.”

She grinned knowingly. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Auburn.” It was the mother from the family of four. “You’re out of snickerdoodles. Are there more?”

“There’s another tray over there,” Auburn said. She bit her lip as she turned to walk away from him, and he had to resist the urge to stop her with a hand on her arm.

The fishermen came down, grabbed a ginger molasses cookie each, and sat on the couch together. Not quite touching, but their non-cookie hands were interlaced. Trey didn’t think he had a romantic bone left in his body, but Auburn’s story must have gotten under his skin because he felt a small curling sympathy in his chest for them. He tried to imagine having made it that far in life without ever admitting to yourself what you really needed. What it would feel like to have those needs met. The sense of liberation would be overwhelming.

At least, that’s what he would imagine if he had a heart. Good thing he didn’t. It would be such a liability in this situation.

He looked up from them and found Auburn watching him. He gave her a slight nod, like the tip of a hat.I see, now. A smile spread over her face. He couldfeelthat smile, like it was moving in his bloodstream.

“Well, well, well.” Deja, the ringleader of the romance writers, had appeared at his side. Her eyes moved from his face to Auburn’s and back again.

“Don’t,” he found himself saying.

“Don’t what?” she asked.

“Don’t do whatever you romance writers do.”

“Whatwe romance writers do,” Deja said primly, but not unkindly, “is believe that love conquers all.”

Across the room, the father and mother were talking to each other and laughing, her head thrown back, his hand reaching out to push strands of hair off her face.

Perversely, it made Trey think of something that had happened when he was ten. His father and mother, talking in tense tones after they thought he was in bed.

I kill myself to keep this family solvent. I worked for that money. And you gambled it away.

She didn’t mean literally. Trey’s father wasn’t the casino or cards kind of gambler. He lovedschemes. And he believed in them. He was sure he’d find one that would change everything for them.

What had struck Trey that night was not his mother’s words to his father. It was that his mother was crying as she spoke.His father had made his mother cry.

He’d vowed at that moment, he wouldneverbe like his father. Weak, impulsive, so unwilling to work hard that he’d rather grasp at a thread that could pull everything down like a house of cards. He’d never be the kind of man who would make a woman suffer because of what he couldn’t give her.

“I’m happy for you if you can believe that,” he told Deja, “but in my experience, love doesn’t conquer anything. Unless by ‘conquer’ you mean ‘destroy.’”

“Do you really think that?”

It wasn’t Deja’s voice, but Auburn’s, at his shoulder. Her gaze searched his face, avid and curious. It made him feel like she could see right through him.

And the worst part was, he had no idea what she would see if she could.

Heownedthe fucking inn. It was his to do whatever he wanted with. In a few days, it wouldn’t matter what she thought of him or what she saw when she looked into his eyes.

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