Page 22 of Suddenly Single
“Aye, you’re a gadabout.”
She tipped her head back with a shout of laughter.“Gadabout! That’s so old-fashioned!”
“And you’re bloody well aimless,” he added.
Jenny’s smile faded a little, and he instantly felt awful for having said it.She wasn’t aimless.He was astute enough to know he was really lashing out at Audra.
“So I’ve been told,” she said with a weary sigh. “Today, as a matter of fact.” She lifted her wineglass, holding it up in a mock toast.“Touché, Mr. Mackenzie.Although I’d like to suggest I’m more undecided than I am aimless. I aim for lots of things—I just never hit what I’m looking for.” She clinked her glass against his.
“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he said. “That was uncalled for.I didna mean it.”
“Don’t be sorry.I know who I am and I’m okay with it, and not everyone can say that, can they?” she asked, her brows dipping slightly over her glittering blue eyes.
“No,” he admitted.
“Seriously, why aren’t you with someone, Edan? You seem like the kind of guy who should be with someone.”
The question startled him. He looked around the kitchen, half expecting some camera crew to leap out and declare this some sort of prank.When none did, he said, “Where did that come from?”
“From curiosity. It’s a reasonable question,” she said. “You’re a catch.”
He thought he could feel himself blushing, amazingly enough. “I’m no’ acatch—”
“You are.”
Edan stared at her, debating how much to say. “I should have been married three months ago, but it was called off.”
“Threemonths?” Jenny put down her wineglass.“I am so, so sorry, Edan. I didn’t realize she’d died so recently.”
“Died,” he repeated, his brows knitting in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Your fiancée. I heard in East Beach that you’d lost your fiancée.”
Edan didn’t know what to say. “You were in East Beach for a half hour at most, and somehow, my fiancée came up?”
“The clerk at the market asked where I was staying and... Well, we had a chat.”
Edan could just bet they did. He rubbed his face and sighed. “She didna die, lass.She left.”
“Oh.She said you lost her—”
“Aye, I lost her to Scotland.She’s gone, but no’ dead.Quite alive, it would seem.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
He shrugged.What was there to say?
“But why?” she asked. “Why would she leave this beautiful place and her handsome fiance?”
He smiled self-consciously. “She said it bored her.I suppose I did, too.”
Jenny stared at him, as if trying to work out which part of him was boring.
“Why aren’t you with someone, then?” he asked her, unwilling to say more about himself. Or face the possibility that Audra might be right about him.
“Easy,” she said with a breezy flick of her wrist, “men don’t like me like that. I mean, I do okay—but let’s just say I spend a lot of time in the friend zone.Not that I haven’t had boyfriends,” she hastened to assure him.“They just never last long.”
That seemed mad to him.What healthy man wouldn’t want a very pretty, if slighty mad lass?
