LITMIR.BIZ

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mind. This was probably the last time for a while that she’d make this drive up Comm. Ave. and over the BU bridge. It was certainly the last time she’d do it in this car.

      She refused to feel remorse, refused even to acknowledge the twinge of regret that tightened her throat every time she thought about signing over the title. She’d done too much pro bono work this past year. It was her fault entirely, and the only way to make ends meet now was to sell her car. It was a shame, but she had to do it.

      At least this final ride was a memorable one.

      She glanced at Bobby Taylor, sitting there beside her, looking like the perfect accessory for a lipstick-red 1969 Ford Mustang, with his long hair and exotic cheekbones and those melted-chocolate eyes.

      Yeah, he was another very solid reason why she didn’t mind at all about the traffic.

      For the first time she could remember, she had Bobby Taylor alone in her car, and the longer it took to reach Harvard Square, the better. She needed all the time she could to figure out a way to keep him from getting out when they arrived at his hotel.

      She’d been pretty obvious so far, and she wondered just how blatant she was going to have to be. She laughed aloud as she imagined herself laying it all on the table, bringing it down to the barest bottom line, asking him if he wanted to get with her, using the rudest, least-elegant language she knew.

      “So…what are you going to do tonight?” she asked him instead.

      He glanced at her warily, as if he were somehow able to read her mind and knew what she really wanted to ask him.

      “Your hair’s getting really long,” she interrupted him before he could even start to answer. “Do you ever wear it down?”

      “Not too often,” he told her.

      Say it. Just say it. “Not even in bed?”

      He hesitated only briefly. “No, I usually sleep with it braided or at least pulled back. Otherwise it takes forever to untangle in the morning.”

      She hadn’t meant while he slept. She knew from the way he wasn’t looking at her that he was well aware of what she had meant.

      “I guess from your hair that you’re still doing the covert stuff, huh?” she asked. “Oops, sorry. Don’t answer that.” She rolled her eyes. “Not that you would.”

      Bobby laughed. He had a great laugh, a low-pitched rumble that was always accompanied by the most gorgeous smile and extremely attractive laughter lines around his eyes. “I think it’s fine if I say yes,” he told her. “And you’re right—the long hair makes it kind of obvious, anyway.”

      “So is Wes out on a training op or is it the real thing this time?” she asked.

      “I don’t know that myself,” he admitted. “Really,” he added as she shot him a skeptical glance.

      The traffic light was red, and she chewed her lip as she braked to a stop and stared at the taillights of the cars in front of them. “It worries me that he’s out there without you.”

      When she looked at him again, he was watching her. And he actually held her gaze for the first time since they’d gotten into her car. “He’s good at what he does, Colleen,” he told her gently. She loved the way he said her name.

      “I know. It’s just…Well, I don’t worry so much when he’s with you.” She forced a smile. “And I don’t worry so much about you when you’re with him.”

      Bobby didn’t smile. He didn’t do much of anything but look into her eyes. No, when he looked at her like that, he wasn’t just looking into her eyes. He was looking into her mind, into her soul. Colleen found herself holding her breath, hypnotized, praying that he would like what he saw. Wishing that he would kiss her.

      How could he look at her like that—and the way he’d looked at her in the church parking lot, too—and then not kiss her?

      The car behind her honked, and she realized that the light had changed. The line of traffic had already moved. She fumbled with the stick shift, suddenly afraid she was making a huge fool of herself.

      One of Wes’s recent e-mails had mentioned that Bobby had finally ended his on-again, off-again relationship with a woman he’d met in Arizona or New Mexico or someplace else equally unlikely, considering the man spent most of his waking hours in the ocean.

      Of course, that so-called recent e-mail from her brother had arrived nearly two months ago. A lot might’ve happened in the past two months. Bobby could well have hooked up with someone new. Or gotten back together with what’s-her-name. Kyra Something.

      “Wes told me you and Kyra called it quits.” There was absolutely no point in sitting here wondering. So what if she came across as obvious? She was tired of guessing. Did she have a chance here, or didn’t she? Inquiring minds wanted to know.

      “Um,” Bobby said. “Yeah, well…She, uh, found someone who wasn’t gone all the time. She’s actually getting married in October.”

      “Oh, yikes.” Colleen made a face at him. “The M word.” Wes always sounded as if he were on the verge of a panic attack when that word came up.

      But Bobby just smiled. “Yeah, I think she called to tell me about it because she was looking for a counteroffer, but I just couldn’t do it. We had a lot of fun, but…” He shook his head. “I wasn’t about to leave the teams for her, you know, and that’s what she wanted.” He was quiet for a moment. “She deserved way more than I could give her, anyway.”

      “And you deserve more than someone who’ll ask you to change your whole life for them,” Colleen countered.

      He looked startled at that, as if he’d never considered such a thing, as if he’d viewed himself as the bad guy in the relationship—the primary reason for its failure.

      Kyra Whomever was an idiot.

      “How about you?” he asked. “Wes said you were dating some lawyer.”

      Oh, my God. Was it possible that Bobby was doing a little fishing of his own?

      “No,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Nope. That’s funny, but…Oh, I know what he was thinking. I told him I went to Connecticut with Charlie Johannsen. Wes must’ve thought…” She had to laugh. “Charlie’s longtime companion is an actor. He just got cast in a new musical at Goodspeed-at-Chester.”

      “Ah,” Bobby said. “Wes will be relieved.”

      “Wes never wants me to have any fun,” she countered. “How about you?” She used Bobby’s own words. “Are you seeing someone new?”

      “Nope. And Wes isn’t, either.”

      Okay. She would talk about Wes. She’d gotten the info she’d wanted.

      “Is he still carrying the torch for—” What was her name? “Laura?”

      Bobby shook his head. “You’ll have to ask him about that.”

      Yeah, like Wes would talk to her about this. “Lana,” she remembered. “He once wrote me this really long e-mail all about her. I think he was drunk when he wrote it.”

      “I’m sure he was.” Bobby shook his head. “When you talk to him, Colleen, it’s probably better not to mention her.”

      “Oh, my God, is she dead?”

      “No. Do you mind if we talk about something else?”

      He was the one who’d brought up Wes in the first place. “Not at all.”

      Silence.

      Colleen waited for him to start a new topic of conversation—anything that wasn’t about Wes—but he just sat there, distracted by the sight of the river out the window.

      “Do you want to go see a movie later?” she finally asked. “Or we could rent a video.

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