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Instead of replying, Brian slid his attention over to Co
“Never better.” Co
“Uh huh.” Brian nodded over at her kitchen. “Nice flowers. Who died?”
Abby drew out a forlorn sigh. “The perils of ordering flowers online. Small summer bouquet, my ass.”
Co
Brian rolled his eyes. “You suck at lying.” He turned on his brother. “What’d you do?”
“Nothing!” Abby broke in, cutting Co
Arms folded over his chest, Brian silently looked from her to Co
Abby shot Brian her loudest shut the hell up glare, knowing that the power of telepathy she’d secretly wished for as a kid was still on back order.
“You did the big brother thing, didn’t you?” he sighed, shaking his head at Co
Co
Brian frowned. “Hey, ease up. I asked Abby to play along so you’d stop looking at me with such pity.”
Co
“Yeah,” Brian said softly, “you have. Look, I get it—my wife died, I’m a single dad of a preteen daughter, and my last date before Beth was at a bowling alley when I was fifteen. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’d be a pain in your ass too. But it’s been a year; I’m doing fine. Better than fine. You’ve got to stop worrying so much about me.”
“Not happening,” grunted Co
Brian gri
Co
And their manly bickering was just plain cute.
She smiled, half expecting a poignantly awkward bro hug at some point.
Unfortunately, she realized much too late to do any good that she wasn’t just smiling, she was staring. At Co
And he was staring right back.
A slow smile transformed his expression, right before he abruptly asked the inevitable, “So that means the two of you…”
“—aren’t really dating,” shrugged Brian.
“Interesting.”
Lordy, Abby had heard of a ‘wolfish grin’ before, but no one told her it’d make her panties catch on fire.
She quickly moved to usher both brothers out of her doorway. “Well, since that’s all settled, everyone can head on home and I can get back to that much-needed shower I never got to take.”
Great, there was that wolfish grin again.
You just had to bring up the shower didn’t you?
Co
Eventually, they had no choice but to run back to their cars to avoid getting soaked.
And the very moment they were both out of sight, she rushed through her house to her bathroom, pulling her clothes off as she went.
Screw the shower, she needed a long, hot bath.
With some waterproof accessories.
She was stripped bare and just about done filling up the tub when her cell phone jangled from her bag in the bedroom.
Groaning, she hurried out to grab the phone, answering it on the way back into the bathroom without checking the caller id. “Hello?”
“That was a quick shower.”
Abby almost fell headfirst into the tub.
Luckily, she managed to hang on to her wits though. “You know, I’m really starting to hate your investigator.”
Co
“So blood really is thicker than milkshakes,” she grumbled as she stomped over to the tub to shut off the water before it overfilled. “What do you want, Co
“Now there’s a loaded question.”
The sigh she aimed at herself bounced off the tiled walls in stereo. She’d walked right into that one.
There was a brief silence over the phone line and then a very curious, “Are you talking to me from the bathroom?”
Oh my, Miss Ma
His quiet laughter was the stuff of bath-time fodder.
The deep sound went through her like whiskey as she perched on the tub edge and swished a lazy hand through the water.
She heard him suck in a soft breath. And every nerve in her body flared to life at the sound.
“You’re taking a bath.” His voice was a full octave lower, his tone almost reverent.
Startled, Abby looked around to check the walls for eyes. A pair of piercing blue eyes in particular…a distinctly sexy set that always looked deep in thought.
“No. Not yet, anyway.”
Another pause. “So what’s stopping you?”
“You.”
Was it possible to hear someone smile?
“So because of me, your water’s getting cold?”
“Exactly. Now if you’d hurry and tell me what you want, I could get back to my bath before it gets any colder.”
“Maybe what I want is to join you in the tub. What are the chances of that happening?”
“None to none at all.” Liar.
He made a disappointed sound, but didn’t give up that easily. “I promise I’ll behave. Unless…you’re going to do something in the bath that you’d need privacy for.” He put just enough goading in his tone to tick her off, but not enough for her to hang up on him. “Is that the case?”
Yes. And the jerk was being deliberately obtuse about it.
She maintained radio silence.
“Because if that is the case, I don’t have to behave. I could…misbehave.”
Her jaw locked at his audacity.
A firm believer that one should never negotiate with terrorists, she decided to instead fight fire with fire. “Since it doesn’t look like I’m getting rid of you anytime soon, I’m just going to go ahead and start…my bath.”
She gri
Placing her phone on the counter, she dropped her towel and slid into the water. The slow, purring sound she let out wasn’t for his benefit.
But it seemed to affect him all the same.
“Am I on speaker?” The words were smoky, stilted.
“Mmm hmm.” Her eyelids drifted closed as she sank back against the tub, letting the hot water unravel the tension from this crazy day. “Co
“Have di
She bolted upright—to avoid taking in a gaping mouthful of bath water.
“Di
“Because the next time you’re in that tub, I want to be there with you. And, well, I figure it’d be wise for us to eat beforehand.”
He was smiling again, she could hear it.
The guy had balls, she had to give him that. “What on earth makes you think I’d agree to take a bath with you?”
“Nothing but sheer hope.”
She resisted the urge to melt at that, reminding herself that this was a veteran player she was talking to here.
And she’d barely even cut it in little league.
“I don’t think di