LITMIR.BIZ

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it was that very conscientiousness that caused, she had no doubt, the look she’d seen all too often in his son’s eyes—the son still smarting over his mother’s loss. It sometimes made her want to smack Wes Phillips upside the head.

      True, it was none of her business. Nor was the kid neglected—Wes’s parents lived with Wes and Jack, and seemed to be the most doting grandparents ever. But still. It was obvious how much the kid needed, wanted, his dad. And how much he resented having to share him with the entire Eastern Shore. And, having endured similar crap-page from her own parents while growing up, Blythe’s heart broke for the boy.

      Meaning there was no way she’d ever let his father anywhere near it.

      Dimples be damned.

      Happened every damn time he saw her, that kick to the gut that made Wes wonder if he was losing it. Because it was insane, the way Blythe Broussard got his juices flowing. Insane, and inexplicable, and highly inconvenient, what with his barely having time to figure out the why behind the insane, inexplicable attraction, let alone pursue it. Even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. He didn’t think.

      But there she stood, holding his gaze hostage even from several feet away. Man, she looked at him like she wanted to do a feng shui number on his brain, her eyes huge, somehow accusing, a weird shade of deep blue in a pale, sharp-boned face. Her hair was almost as short as his and nearly a white-blond, her mouth a dark red few women could pull off and not look macabre.

      She wasn’t even pretty, not in a conventional sense. And so unlike Kym, who had been. Still. Juices. Flowing.

      Like the flippin’ Potomac.

      He deliberately turned to Mel, as short and curvy as Blythe was tall and … not. “So are you headed back to St. Mary’s?”

      The brunette snorted. “In this?” She gestured toward the snow, now coming down as if intent on beating all previous records. “No way.”

      Wes liked Mel, was more grateful than he could say that her daughter, Quinn, and Jack had become close friends. Losing his mom and then, ipso facto, Wes as well, had been rough on the kid. And he was glad, he really was, that Ryder had been able to move on after Deanna’s death. But then, he hadn’t known her—loved her—for twenty years, as Wes had Kym.

      “We decided to camp out at HoJo for the night,” Mel said. “And you?”

      “Now that you mention it … I’m not wild about driving in this, either. Hey, Jack!” He called over to the two kids, standing in the parking lot, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. “You okay with hanging out here tonight?”

      The kid turned. “At the Food Lion?”

      “No, goof—at the hotel over there.” Then his eyes grazed Blythe’s, and the punch to his chest knocked his breath sideways. Not that he’d doubted the attraction was largely sexual, but after all those months of feeling like he’d mainlined Lidocaine … holy hell.

      Must be the weather. Or the buzz left over from the afternoon’s schmoozings, reminding him of the reason he tossed his hat in the ring to begin with. That he’d left it there even after …

      Wes jerked his gaze, and his thoughts, back to Mel. “If there’s a room …?”

      “I’ll see if April can book a third room,” she said, pulling out her phone as Blythe walked away, dodging a family coming out of the store, their three kids jumping around like snowsuited fleas. And he saw her smile, watching them, before their eyes met again and she flicked the smile off like a switch and turned away. Right. Because maybe all that gut-kicking and chest-punching had less to do with sex than it did aversion. On her part, that is.

      Hey, it happened. He was a politician, after all, even if the term still didn’t feel right, like a pair of new shoes he couldn’t seem to break in. Plenty of people disliked him, simply because their vision didn’t mesh with his. Just came with the territory. And God knew nothing to get his boxers in a bunch over, even if his time in office—not to mention his campaign manager and half his staff—would try to convince him he was too nice for his own good.

      Well, tough, he thought, as Mel gave him a thumbs-up—about the room, he presumed, before ducking into the store with the kids—because while sacrifice also came with the territory, he wasn’t about to slap his integrity on the altar. For anyone. Or anything. He’d thrown his hat in the ring for his own reasons, reasons many might consider idealistic, even naive. But at the end of the day none of it meant diddly if he lost his self-respect. Not to mention his son’s.

      “You’re not going in with them?” he called to Blythe.

      She glanced over, then shrugged. “Nah, I’m good with whatever Mel gets.”

      Wes nodded, feeling oddly out of his depth. Closing arguments, no problem. Ditto giving speeches, or discussing issues with constituents. Although he wasn’t an attention seeker for its own sake, neither was he an introvert. Words, ideas, usually came easily to him, and one of his “gifts” was his ability to work a crowd. And yet, he hadn’t felt this tongue-tied around a woman since those agonizing months in the ninth grade working up to asking Kym out.

      Not that this was anything like that, of course.

      He closed the space between them, wondering what she was looking at so hard out in the parking lot. Boldly, Wes regarded her profile, the harsh, storefront lighting emphasizing the almost grim set to her mouth.

      “Flurries, the weatherman said,” she said.

      Wes faced the lot, his hands in his pockets. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

      “Do they ever get it right?”

      “Not a whole lot, no.” He cleared his throat. “So did your cousins find their dresses?”

      “What? Oh. Yes. They did.”

      “Weddings,” he said, shaking his head, remembering.

      After a long pause, she said, “Was yours large?”

      He shoved out a breath through his nose. “Yeah.” He laughed. “I barely remember it, though.”

      “Too drunk?”

      Surprised at the tease—if that’s what it was—he laughed. “No. Too scared. Not that I didn’t want it—I would’ve married Kym at eighteen, if I could have—but when the day came, I panicked. You know—what am I doing? What if it doesn’t work out? That sort of thing. Then she started down the aisle, and all I saw was her smile …” He shook his head. “And for the rest of the night I blotted out everything but that smile. Only thing that got me through.”

      A long pause preceded, “I’m sorry. Not about your wedding, about—”

      “I know what you meant. Thanks.”

      Blythe nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. “So. Guess we’re all stuck with each other tonight.”

      “I wouldn’t worry too hard about it,” Wes said, ridiculously irked. “After all, we probably won’t even be on the same floor. So we wouldn’t, you know, have to see each other.”

      Beside him, he heard her mighty sigh. “So much for hoping that didn’t sound as bitchy as it did in my head—”

      Mel and the children burst out of the store, all carting bulging plastic bags. “Let’s hear it for self-checkout lanes!” Mel said, then started across the lot, her yakking charges in tow.

      “We should probably follow,” Wes said, moving to take Blythe’s elbow; not surprisingly, she avoided him. Whatever. Still hugging herself, she cautiously stepped into the rapidly accumulating slush, completely at the mercy of her high-heeled boots. Ahead of them, Mel—in far more sensible flats—was deliberately skidding in the snow as much as the kids. Laughing as much, too.

      No wonder Blythe’s cousin been able to help Ryder move past his grief—even if they hadn’t already been childhood friends, Mel was exactly what

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