Page 40 of Suddenly Single
“I’m sorry!” she suddenly blurted.
“It’s all right, no harm done—”
“I’m such anidiot,kissing you in your kitchen like that and then telling you to get out more and talking about how lonely you are.I had no right.”
“Jenny—”
“Even worse, Iknowwhat it’s like to lose someone.Not exactly like you, but my mother died when I was ten.And I know how insensitive people can be about loss, because I feel like I’ve lost my father, but he’s alive, and he’s happy, and no one really gets it.But I do, and I never thoughtI’dbe insensitive. I’m mortified that I—”
He suddenly cupped her chin and forced her head around to look at him.“Jesus, lass, it’s all right.You’ve no’ offended me. I am no’ so tender I canna withstand a verra pleasant kiss from a verra bonny lass.”
A lovely little shiver ran down her spine. “Okay, then,” she said softly.“I mean, since you said I was bonny.”
He pointed to her line.“Best keep your eyes out there.”
Jenny glanced back at the sliver of line floating across the water.She didn’t know what else to say to him. What more could possibly be said?
At that very moment, something jerked her line.
“I think you’ve got something, aye?” Edan said. His body surrounded hers, his arms shadowing hers, his chest, his legs, his groin, all pressed against hers in an effort to reel in whatever she’d caught. “Slowly, very slowly. Easy,” he urged her.
“Ohmigod, it’s afish,” she said, astonished that she’d caught anything.
“Donna get ahead of yourself, now.We’ve no’ seen it—might very well be an old tire.”
“Really?”
“No, no’ really,” he said, grinning.“Come on, then, don’t give any slack.”
“She has one?” It was Lorenzo, somewhere behind them.
“I have one!” Jenny said excitedly.
“Slow,” Edan warned her and, impossibly, shifted closer so that she was now smashed up against the full length of him.His head was just over her shoulder, his cheek brushing hers as he helped her reel it in.Her heart was pounding; she felt floaty and unsteady on her feet as she tried to do as he said and bring the fish in, while trying to ignore the sensation of every place they touched.
Lorenzo suddenly moved past her, splashing into the water and pulling up the line.At the end of it, a fish about six inches long was struggling.
“Huh,” Jenny said.“That’s it? I thought it was huge.”
She could feel Edan’s chuckle reverberating through him before he let her go.
“There’s your supper,” Lorenzo said.
“No, put it back,” Jenny said.
Edan and Lorenzo exchanged a look.
“I can’teathim!” she exclaimed.“This is the same as catching one of those feral chickens under the Hollywood freeway.Everyone wants to catch them, but no one really wants to eat them.”
The two men stared at her.
“Wait…you’ve never heard of the Hollywood chickens?”
Lorenzo sighed and handed the fish to Edan.Edan was smiling at Jenny.Actually smiling.
“The fishing, it is good,” Lorenzo said.“Now, you come and give me your luck, no?” He stepped out of the lake and extended his hand for Jenny.
But she didn’t want to leave.She wanted to fish with Edan. But Lorenzo had ruined the moment—Edan moved away from her to the water to cut the fish free.
