LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      Her heart seemed to thud once and stop dead cold.

      The grin on his face faltered the moment he spotted her—at least that was what it seemed like to Delainey before he recovered and smiled as he moved across the room toward her.

      He stopped in front of her.

      Hunter Morrison. His deep blue eyes touched by sienna near the irises scorched her soul as they had when she and Hunter were pals in high school and when they were lovers after college.

      She gulped champagne until she’d drained the glass. The urge to flee nearly overran her good sense. Instead of giving in, she stood fast and as steady as the rocky Maine coast facing the ocean tides. She was a Maine woman, bred of hardy stock.

      Then why couldn’t she seem to make her brain function or her heart beat?

      He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “Hello, Deelee,” he whispered. His breath hot on the shell of her ear restarted her heart and slammed anger to the forefront inside her head.

      “Hunter Morrison.” Of all people. The one man who had never wanted to stay in Bailey’s Cove was back. She should welcome him, but right now she just wanted to kick something...or someone.

      * * *

      HUNTER FORCED HIS smile to stay put, but smiling to placate an obnoxious client was easier than smiling at Delainey Talbot. How in the hell was it possible she was still here in Bailey’s Cove?

      He had expected law school to have opened her eyes to the world, to have shown her other options. His gaze shot to her wedding-ring finger and he was disgusted with himself and almost glad she had her hand bunched up in the unseasonal sweater covering a body that had sent a college graduate to heaven. Deelee, who, when he left Bailey’s Cove behind, saw fit to kick him out of her life for good. Her marital status was none of his business.

      When she suddenly reeled and hurried away as if he had threatened her, he saw Shamus Murphy watching him. His puzzled gaze shifted back and forth between the two of them.

      Greeting her as Deelee would have already given her the impression he had thought about her more than a few casual times in the years since he’d left Bailey’s Cove. He had thought of her often and none of his thoughts about Delainey Talbot had been casual.

      Shamus intercepted her and gave her a long hug. The older man had not mentioned anything about Delainey being an attorney in the office. Shamus said something to her that made her look across the room at him and then nod with a dazed look as if she was trying to make sense of what Shamus was saying.

      Her long blond hair still hung to the middle of her back. Age had defined her features and made her gray eyes bigger, her high cheekbones more pronounced. Her face was fully adult now and as alluring as the rest of the package, he was sure, that she hid under the large sweater with the ducks wearing Christmas wreaths.

      No woman, no matter how hard he tried, had ever morphed into Delainey Talbot. When he’d found himself dating only blondes, he started dating anything but. He dated lots of women. He stopped seeing women altogether. Nothing helped.

      Shamus led Delainey across the room until she stood next to him. When she looked up at him, her features were intentionally blank, an empty champagne glass in her hand.

      Shamus filled each of their glasses and held his up until the two of them were obliged to clink their glasses together against Shamus’s.

      “To Morrison and Morrison, may it live forever.”

      “Hear, hear,” they chorused, and sipped.

      “I had forgotten you knew each other.” Shamus smiled between them. “That’s great. The transition will be all the easier for it. Hunter, Delainey is the beating heart of this office. Harriet and I look so much smarter with her here.”

      Neither he nor Delainey said anything. When they stared at each other, it was like two sides of an urgent conflict sizing up the enemy. Maybe it was just that.

      Shamus gave Delainey another arm-around-the-shoulder squeeze. “I’m sorry to spring all this on you so suddenly. Things happened and I had to move quickly.”

      The blank expression left Delainey’s face and now she looked defeated. That nearly tore Hunter open. Of all the things he wished for the woman who’d ruined all women for him all those years ago, defeat was not one of them.

      “I’m sure you did what you needed to do, Shamus.” Her words rang a clear false, as if she was saying what Shamus needed to hear. Then she gently removed the old guy’s arm from her shoulder and ran away. She actually walked quickly, but it was not hard to see flight in her steps.

      * * *

      DELAINEY RACED UP the front steps, stalked down the hallway, yanked the door to her office open and once inside closed it quietly. The lock that might never have been locked before clicked sluggishly into place. Then she leaned against the door and sank to the floor.

      Hunter Morrison.

      She pinged a fingernail against the champagne glass she couldn’t seem to let go of. She sipped a bit and then pressed the cool of the glass against her cheek.

      He had a lot of nerve showing up in Bailey’s Cove. He had left her behind. After three glorious weeks together, he’d told her he had accepted an internship in Chicago at one of the largest international law firms and he needed to focus on that, make it his priority. He’d said he had a lot to accomplish. He’d never asked her to join him; they hadn’t even discussed it.

      Hunter had attended law school while she’d prepared for a child and attended paralegal training mostly on the job at Morrison and Morrison, where she had been an office assistant during the previous summer.

      She remembered well the day he drove away. She’d run as fast as she could from her parents’ home to his grandmother’s old house. Then, when she missed him by seconds, she’d stood in his driveway and watched until his car disappeared down the street. She had been too late to say goodbye. She wasn’t sure he wanted to see her anyway. After being friends for ten years, they apparently had nothing much to say in the end.

      They’d carried on a distant but friendly relationship after that, but she had ended even that—abruptly.

      Not that any of her life was Hunter’s fault. She’d wanted to have sex with Micky—the dark, mysterious outsider. Micky’s motorcycle with the Arizona plates might have been a clue she should be at least careful if she was going to be rash.

      Micky was long gone when she discovered she was pregnant. A month after he’d left, the stick had indicated her life plans had suddenly changed for the sake of what she had to admit felt more like revenge than any kind of real attraction.

      She hadn’t known she had any such capabilities until Hunter told her he was finished in Bailey’s Cove. Her Bailey’s Cove, the place she had always loved, had pined for when she was in college and had always been glad to be back to in the summers.

      That made her an oddity. A large percentage of the young people who attended college in a city had a tendency to find jobs and lives elsewhere. Not that she blamed them. The road to advancement in life didn’t usually involve a town that struggled to grow.

      In an email later, she’d told Hunter there was nothing left for them because she had someone else in her life, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him any of the details.

      It hadn’t been a lie, but it had given him the impression, she was sure, that he wasn’t welcome in her life. The whole truth was she didn’t deserve him in her life. She couldn’t ask him to care for her and the child of another man.

      Shame made her sink closer to the floor. It was all her fault. Both of them had been so young, so full of their own plans. If they had parted today, she liked to think they would have been able to find some center ground, some compromise. At the very least, she would amicably wish him well and maybe that way there wouldn’t be a damaged heart beating in her chest.

      She

Скачать книгу