Page 28 of Bride for Keeps

“Lina and I hung out a bit yesterday on her break. She said she wasn’t going to go though, so that was just a guess on my part.”

“I was glad she did.”

“Kaitlin and I have been getting along,” Sierra said, and then immediately regretted it. They weren’t here to talk like they were a happy married couple on a walk.

“Really? How is Kaitlin? I haven’t seen her much since… Well.”

“Since she got knocked up and married Beckett Larson, thus ending her decades-long crush on you?”

“She did not have a crush on me.”

“Oh, please. She was desperately in love with you.”

He scoffed, and it was a little odd, Sierra realized in retrospect, that she’d never really talked with Carter about how stupid Kaitlin used to be over him.

“That isn’t true, is it?” he asked, as if figuring out she was serious.

“God’s honest truth.”

He stopped mid stride and turned to her, eyes wide, mouth open. “That’swhy you came over to me at that party when we met.”

Again she had to fight the urge to smile. “Why?”

“To piss off your sister.”

“She wasn’t there.”

“No, but… You never would have given me the time of day if you weren’t trying to do something. Stick it to your sister is as good an answer as any.” He sounded…awed, taken aback.

She wanted to back away from all this,runaway from where it all began. She didn’t want to rehash, or worse, feel it all over again. But she’d decided to embrace this whole five minutes thing because she wanted to find closure. She wanted to walk away with no regrets, so her fresh start really was fresh.

“Yes, I came over to you at the party because I knew Kaitlin was all hung up on you and would get all pissy if I said I’d flirted with you, especially on New Year’s Eve.” She wasn’t exactly proud of herself, but she’d been bored and restless and it had been something to do.

“But you married me. I assume you didn’t dothatto piss Kaitlin off.”

If only.

*

Sierra started walkingagain and Carter had no choice but to follow. “I know you didn’t,” he said, because even though he did know that, her silence was…perplexing.

“No,” she finally admitted.

The wind was icy and he wanted to bundle her up and put her somewhere warm, but she would bristle at that and only stay out in the cold longer.

See? He wasn’t completely clueless. He understoodsomethings about her.

“Funny thing is I thought I’d go over, flirt with the golden-boy doctor, get him a little riled up then disappear. Have a big laugh with my friends, make Kaitlin seethe with jealousy.”

“You didn’t though.”

“No. The golden boy who I thought would be interested in slumming it for approximately two seconds, ten if I showed enough cleavage…” She sighed heavily and unexpectedly whirled around, immediately striding back toward where their cars were parked.

He had quite a few inches on her, so it was easy to catch up.

“You werenice,” she said, sounding very close to disgusted, which of course made no sense to him. Wasn’t nice good?

“You weren’t disdainful of the bad girl smiling up at you. You didn’t treat me like you knew my nickname in high school was Sierra Do-her. You just talked to me like I was some adult, whole person separate from my reputation or my family or how far out of your league I was.”

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