LITMIR.BIZ

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“Yes. Great. Let’s talk. You can start by telling me how many times you were shot and exactly where.”

      He glanced at her as she sat down beside him, amusement in his dark eyes. “Trust Wes to be melodramatic. I took a round in the upper leg that bled kind of heavily. It’s fine now—no problem.” He pulled up the baggy leg of his shorts to reveal a deeply tanned, enormously muscular thigh. There was a fresh pink scar up high on his leg. Where it would really hurt a whole lot to be shot. Where there were major veins—or were they arteries?—which, if opened, could easily cause a man to bleed to death very quickly.

      Wes hadn’t been melodramatic at all. Colleen couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stop staring at that scar. Bobby could have died.

      “It’s my shoulder that’s giving me the trouble,” Bobby continued, pulling his shorts leg back down. “I was lucky I didn’t break a bone, but it’s still pretty sore. I’ve got limited mobility right now—which is frustrating. I can’t lift my arm much higher than this.”

      He demonstrated, and Colleen realized that his ponytail wasn’t a fashion statement after all. He was wearing his hair like that because he wasn’t physically able to put it back in his usual neat braid.

      “I’m supposed to take it easy,” he told her. “You know, not push it for another week.”

      He handed her a cup of coffee and held open a bag that contained about a half a dozen enormous muffins. She shook her head. Her appetite was gone.

      “Can you do me a favor?” she asked. “Next time you or Wes get hurt, even if it’s just something really little, will you call me and let me know? Please? Otherwise I’m just going to worry about you all the time.”

      Bobby shook his head. “Colleen…”

      “Don’t Colleen me,” she countered. “Just promise.”

      He looked at her. Sighed. “I promise. But—”

      “No buts.”

      He started to say something, then stopped, shaking his head instead. No doubt he’d spent enough time around Skellys to know arguing was useless. Instead he took a sip of his coffee and gazed out at the river.

      “How many times have you saved Wes’s life?” she asked him, suddenly needing to know.

      “I don’t know. I think I lost count somewhere between two and three million.” The laughter lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled.

      “Very funny.”

      “It’s just not that big a deal,” he said.

      “It is to me,” she returned. “And I’m betting it’s a pretty big deal to my brother, too.”

      “It’s really only a big deal to him because I’m winning,” Bobby admitted.

      At first his words didn’t make sense. And then they made too much sense. “You guys keep score?” she asked in disbelief. “You have some kind of contest going…?”

      Amusement danced in his eyes. “Twelve to five and a half. My favor.”

      “Five and a half?” she echoed.

      “He got a half point for getting me back to the boat in one piece this last time,” he explained. “He couldn’t get a full point because it was partially his fault I needed his help in the first place.”

      He was laughing at her. Oh, he wasn’t actually laughing aloud, but Colleen knew that, inside, he was silently chortling away.

      “You know,” she said with a completely straight face, “it seems only fair that if you save someone’s life that many times, you ought to be able to have wild sex with that person’s sister, guilt free.”

      Bobby choked on his coffee. Served him right.

      “So what are you doing tonight?” Colleen asked, still in that same innocent voice.

      He coughed even harder, trying to get the liquid out of his lungs.

      ‘“Be nice to him,’” she read aloud from Wes’s e-mail. She held it out for him to see. “See, it says it right there.”

      “That’s not what Wes meant,” Bobby managed to gasp.

      “How do you know?”

      “I know.”

      “Are you okay?” she asked.

      His eyes were tearing, and he still seemed to have trouble breathing. “You’re killing me.”

      “Good. I’ve got to go, so—” She started to stand up.

      “Wait.” He coughed again, tugging her back down beside him. “Please.” He drew in a breath, and although he managed not to cough, he had to clear his throat several times. “I really need to talk to you about what happened last night.”

      “Don’t you mean what didn’t happen?” She pretended to be fascinated with her coffee cup, with folding up the little flap on the plastic lid so that she could take a sip without it bumping into her nose.

      What had happened last night was that she had found out—the hard way—that Bobby Taylor didn’t want her. At least not enough to take what she’d offered. At least not as much as she wanted him. It was possible he’d only used his fear of Wes’s disapproval as an excuse to keep from going home with her. After all, it had worked, hadn’t it? It had worked very well.

      This morning she could only pretend not to care. She could be flip and say outrageous things, but the truth was, she was both embarrassed and afraid of what he might want to say to her.

      Of course, if ever there were a perfect time for him to confess his undying love, it would be now. She supposed it was possible that he would haltingly tell her he’d fallen in love with her years ago, that he’d worshiped her from afar for all this time and now that they’d finally kissed, he couldn’t bear to be apart from her any longer.

      Bobby cleared his throat again. “Colleen, I, um…I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

      Or he could say that. He could give her the “let’s stay friends” speech. She’d heard it before. It would contain the word friend at least seven more times. He would say mistake and sorry both at least twice and honest at least once. And he’d tell her that he hoped what happened last night wouldn’t change things between them. Her friendship was very important to him.

      “I really care about you,” he told her. “But I have to be honest. What happened last night was, well, it was a mistake.”

      Yup. She’d definitely heard it before. She could have written it out for him on a three-by-five-card. Saved him some time.

      “I know that I said last night that I couldn’t…that we couldn’t…because of Wes and, well, I need you to know that there’s more to it than that.”

      Yeah, she’d suspected that.

      “I can’t possibly be what you really want,” he said quietly.

      Now that was different. She’d never heard that before.

      “I’m not…” He started to continue, but then he shook his head and got back on track. “You mean too much to me. I can’t take advantage of you, I can’t. I’m ten years older than you, and—Colleen, I knew you when you were thirteen—that’s just too weird. It would be crazy, it wouldn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t. I couldn’t. We’re too different and…” He swore softly, vehemently. “I really am sorry.”

      He looked about as miserable as she was feeling. Except he probably wasn’t embarrassed to death. What had she been thinking, to throw herself at him like that last night?

      She closed her eyes, feeling very young and very foolish—as well as ancient beyond her years. How could this be happening again? What was it about her that made men only want to be her friend?

      She

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