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him feeling like a spurned puppy.

      And with the nagging feeling that that was exactly how she saw him, like an immature, bothersome puppy.

      And now he had to ask her for help.

      Only for you, Trish, he muttered to himself.

      He dug his smart phone out of the pile of parts on his worktable; Ian’s new, ultrasecure, wireless network router design was proving to be a bit of a challenge. But then, that was why he loved his job, and considered it a great honor to be working with Ian Gamble, Redstone’s genius inventor.

      At the last second he decided not to call Sasha directly. He still had her number in his phone—assuming it hadn’t changed—but he didn’t want her thinking this was just an excuse. This situation, and his concern for his little sister, was genuine, and calling the foundation would show her that.

      So instead he found the number for the foundation and called it instead. As the call went through, he decided maybe the best approach would be to just pretend he’d forgotten all about their aborted relationship. Like it had meant nothing, that he’d thought about it no more than she likely had.

      Yeah, that was it. That was the way to go. Sasha Tereschenko? Yeah, I remember her. Works for the Westin Foundation, right? Met her a couple of times, I think…

      Sure, that would work. Never let her see you sweat, wasn’t that how it went? So he wouldn’t. Besides, he didn’t, not really. It wasn’t like he obsessed about it, about what had gone wrong. He’d moved on, just as she had. He hadn’t been ready for any kind of permanence anyway.

      No strings, that’s the way for me, he’d said to himself, and two years later that hadn’t changed. Not at all.

      He really did barely think about it.

      Which didn’t explain why his stomach took a wild tumble when that unmistakable smoky voice rang in his ear.

      “Westin Foundation, this is Sasha. How can I help?”

      What the hell was she doing answering the phone? They had somebody who did that. Why was she—

      He reined himself in, grimacing at his flustered reaction. It was like Sasha to just jump in if someone else was busy. She had no compulsions about job descriptions, only the job itself; he’d learned that about her early on. And he had a real, solid reason for calling, he reminded himself. Get to it.

      “Do you have someone missing? I’m here, just tell me what you need.”

      What you need… That gentle, soft urging note had come into her voice, the tone that Ryan remembered so well. She could get a guy to eat broken glass with that voice, he’d thought then.

      It hadn’t changed.

      “Yes,” he said suddenly, not exactly sure what he was saying yes to. With an effort he shook off the effects of that voice. Thought about addressing her as Ms. Tereschenko, but that sounded so weird even in his head he abandoned the idea as soon as it formed.

      “Sasha, it’s Ryan. Ryan Barton.”

      “Ryan?”

      Well, at least she only sounded surprised, and not like she had no idea who he was. That was something, he supposed, that she hadn’t forgotten him completely.

      “It’s been a while. How are you?” She sounded, he thought, annoyingly cheerful.

      “Okay,” he answered, not quite able to sound the same.

      “I heard about you helping with Gabe Taggert’s missing wife. That was a good thing you did.”

      He was warmed by the words, but didn’t like the fact. He didn’t want to care at all. So he said, “I didn’t do it. Ian’s new metal detector did.”

      “But you ran it,” she said. “If you hadn’t found that car, he might never have known what happened to her. And I heard there were a couple of other missing persons cases closed because of the other things you found. Definitely a good thing.”

      “Yeah, well,” he muttered, not knowing what else to say when he was thinking, If I’m so great, why did you walk away?

      “So what are you—” She stopped suddenly. Then, quickly, “Wait. You said yes when I asked if you had someone missing.”

      Thankful she’d made the change, he shifted into the real reason he’d called. “Yes. My sister. For a week.”

      “Ryan, no!”

      She sounded genuinely appalled, and that enabled him to get going on the things he’d planned to say.

      “Yes. I know the foundation deals with children mostly, and Trish is eighteen, but only by five days. So the principles of searching can’t be much different, can they?”

      “It’s very different looking for a teenager than a child,” she said.

      “I get that. Look, if you can’t help, at least tell me how to start.”

      “Ryan, I never said that.”

      Her voice had taken on that gentle, coaxing tone again. Only this time it stung, made him think she’d put him into the category of frantic-relative-to-be-calmed. That that’s exactly what he was didn’t help any.

      “Let’s meet. Russ and I are just finishing up the paperwork on a case, but it should only take another half hour or so, then I’ll be free.”

      Great, Ryan muttered to himself. Russell C. Langer, resident stud, GQ-handsome and so smooth he made Teflon seem like sandpaper.

      And so hot for Sasha it was infuriating.

      Or had been. He had no right to be infuriated anymore. And maybe Russ wasn’t hot for her anymore.

       Maybe he’d gotten what he wanted.

      That thought made Ryan’s stomach knot. Sasha’s lively vividness and the polished, slightly older Langer’s practiced charm made for…well, the perfect couple. Especially when contrasted with his own laid-back geekiness. Russ was all that, and he was none of it. At best, his sister’s sometimes irritating friends called him cute, which was something he associated with little kids and puppies again, and thus not particularly flattering. Trish just told him he should be glad he didn’t look like a typical geek, but he hadn’t found much comfort in that.

      “Shall I come there, or can you come here?” Sasha was asking.

      There? At the foundation, where she and Russ were cozily working together? No way, he thought. I so do not want to go there.

      Ryan shook his head sharply.

      Trish, he ordered himself. Get back to Trish, she’s what really matters here, not your stupidity.

      “Ryan?”

      “I…Let’s meet in between.”

      “Okay.” She didn’t seem to find anything odd in the request. “It’s lunchtime, how about at The Grill in an hour?”

      “Great.”

      He wasn’t at all hungry, but at least at the popular restaurant—known to locals as The Grill despite it’s longer name involving the street it was on and the ethnicity of the owner—he could have some coffee, or a soda, something to do instead of staring at her like that pesky pup.

      It would make it easier to hide the truth, that he’d never, ever forgotten her.

      Ryan Barton, Sasha thought as she leaned back in her chair. She certainly hadn’t ever expected to hear from him again. She’d known that he’d been bewildered by her sudden withdrawal, although she’d tried to explain. It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked him, she had. A great deal. It wasn’t that she didn’t have fun with him, she did. A great deal.

      It wasn’t that she wasn’t attracted to him, she was. An even greater

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