LITMIR.BIZ

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rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s a little obvious there’s something going on. I wonder if she knows what you were trying to do with me. I suppose she couldn’t complain because she’s married to—”

      “How dare you?”

      “Your…what did you call it? XO? She’s married to your XO.”

      “Lucy and I are friends.” His face was a thundercloud—his self-righteous outrage wasn’t an act. “She loves her husband. And Blue…he’s…he’s the best.”

      His anger had faded, replaced by something quiet, something distant. “I’d follow Blue McCoy into hell if he asked me to,” Luke said softly. “I’d never dishonor him by fooling around with his wife. Never.”

      “I’m sorry,” Syd told him. “I guess…You just…You told me you never take anything too seriously, so I thought—”

      “Yeah, well, you were wrong.” He stared out the front windshield, holding tightly to the steering wheel with both hands. “Imagine that.”

      Syd nodded. And then she dug through her purse, coming up with a small spiral notebook and a pen. She flipped to a blank page and wrote down the date.

      Luke glanced at her, frowning slightly. “What…?”

      “I’m so rarely wrong,” she told him. “When I am, it’s worth taking note of.”

      She carefully kept her face expressionless as he studied her for several long moments.

      Then he laughed slightly, curling one corner of his mouth up into an almost-smile. “You’re making a joke.”

      “No,” she said. “I’m not.” But she smiled and gave herself away. She climbed out of the truck. “See you tonight.”

      “No,” he said.

      “Yes.” She closed the door and dug in her purse for her car keys.

      He leaned across the cab to roll down the passenger-side window. “No,” he said. “Really. Syd, I need to be able to talk to Lucy and Bob without—”

      “Eleven o’clock,” she said. “Skippy’s. I’ll be there.”

      As she got into her car and drove away, she glanced back and saw Luke’s face through the windshield.

      No, this meeting wasn’t going to happen at Skippy’s at eleven. But the time couldn’t be changed—Lucy McCoy had said she was on duty until late.

      But if she were Navy Ken, she’d call Lucy and Bobby what’s-his-name and move the location—leaving Syd alone and fuming at Skipper’s Harborside at eleven o’clock.

      Bobby what’s-his-name.

      Syd pulled up to a red light and flipped through her notebook, looking for the man’s full name. Chief Robert Taylor. Yes. Bobby Taylor. Described as an enormous SEAL, at least part Native American. She hadn’t yet met the man, but maybe that was a good thing.

      Yeah, this could definitely work.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      LUCKY HADN’T REALLY EXPECTED to win, so he wasn’t surprised when he followed Heather into La Cantina and saw Sydney already sitting at one of the little tables with Lucy McCoy.

      He’d more than half expected the reporter to second-guess his decision to change the meeting’s location and track them down, and she hadn’t disappointed him. That was part of the reason he’d called Heather for dinner and then dragged her here, to this just-short-of-seedy San Felipe bar.

      Syd had accused him of being desperate as she’d completely and brutally rejected his advances. The fact that she was right—that he had had a motive when he lowered his mouth to kiss her—only somehow served to make it all that much worse.

      Even though he knew it was foolish, he wanted to make sure she knew just how completely non-desperate he was, and how little her rejection had mattered to him, by casually showing up with a drop-dead gorgeous, blond beauty queen on his arm.

      He also wanted to make sure there was no doubt left lingering in her nosy reporter’s brain that there was something going on between him and Blue McCoy’s wife.

      Just the thought of such a betrayal made him feel ill.

      Of course, maybe it was Heather’s constant, mindless prattle that was making the tuna steak he’d had for dinner do a queasy somersault in his stomach.

      Still he got a brief moment of satisfaction as Syd turned and saw him. As she saw Heather.

      For a fraction of a second, her eyes widened. He was glad he’d been watching her, because she quickly covered her surprise with that slightly bored, single-raised-eyebrow half-smirk she had down pat.

      The smirk had stretched into a bonafide half smile of lofty amusement by the time Lucky and Heather reached their table.

      Lucy’s smile was far more genuine. “Right on time.”

      “You’re early,” he countered. He met Syd’s gaze. “And you’re here.”

      “I got off work thirty minutes early,” Lucy told him. “I tried calling you, but I guess you’d already left.”

      Syd silently stirred the ice in her drink with a straw. She was wearing the same baggy pants she’d had on that afternoon, but she’d exchanged the man-size, long-sleeved, button-down shirt for a plain white T-shirt, her single concession to the relentless heat. She hadn’t put on any makeup for the occasion, and her short dark hair looked as if she’d done little more than run her fingers through it.

      She looked tired. And nineteen times more real and warm than perfect, plastic Heather.

      As Lucky watched, Syd lifted her drink and took a sip through the straw. With lips like that, she didn’t need makeup. They were moist and soft and warm and perfect. He knew that firsthand after kissing her.

      That one kiss they’d shared had been far more real and meaningful than Lucky’s entire six month off-and-on, whenever-he-was-in-town, non-relationship with Heather. And yet, after kissing him as if the world were coming to an end, Syd had pushed him away.

      “Heather and I had dinner at Smokey Joe’s,” Lucky told them. “Heather Seeley, this is Lucy McCoy and Sydney Jameson.”

      But Heather was already looking away, her MTV-length attention span caught by the mirrors on the wall and her distant but gorgeous reflection…

      Syd finally spoke. “Gee, I had no idea we could bring a date to a task-force meeting.”

      “Heather’s got some phone calls to make,” Lucky explained. “I figured this wasn’t going to take too long, and after…” He shrugged.

      After, he could return to his evening with Heather, bring her home, go for a swim in the moonlight, lose himself in her perfect body. “You don’t mind giving us some privacy, right, babe?” He pulled Heather close and brushed her silicone-enhanced lips with his. Her perfect, plastic body…

      Sydney sharply looked away from them, suddenly completely absorbed by the circles of moisture her glass had made on the table.

      And Lucky felt stupid. As Heather headed for the bar, already dialing her cell phone, he sat down next to Lucy and across from Syd and felt like a complete jackass.

      He’d brought Heather here tonight to show Syd…what? That he was a jackass? Mission accomplished.

      Okay, yes, he had taken Syd into his arms on his deck earlier this evening in an effort to win her alliance. But somehow, some way, in the middle of that giddy, free-fall-inducing kiss, his strictly business motives had changed. He thought it had probably happened when her mouth had opened so warmly and willingly beneath his. Or it might’ve been before that. It might’ve been the very instant his lips touched hers.

      Whenever

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