“I think you’re careful.” He took another long sip of beer, and Courtney wished she had a drink of her own.
“I have good reason to be careful,” she said, trying to find a more comfortable spot on the bench without getting too close to him.
“Don’t we all?”
“Ha!” She leaned back, increasing the distance between them. “What do you have to be careful about?”
He shrugged. “I’m not exactly the guy you think I am, Courtney.”
“Oh? Then who are you?”
“The quintessential middle child.”
“I feel so sorry for you, really.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “You know, I can see through what you’re doing. You’re telling me what I want to hear. You probably already know that I was the dorky, insecure girl at Jefferson High, the one with zits and braces and an eye patch. But I have—”
“Eye patch?”
“I had a lazy eye. And even though I had surgery to correct the problem, I was required to patch my good eye in order to force my brain to use the lazy one.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The thing I like so much about your eyes. They’re not quite symmetrical. It’s sexy as hell, you know.”
The man was exasperating. “You know, Matt, I’ve been around. I know how this works. You compliment me on all the things I’m insecure about, and it makes me go mushy inside, and I drop my barriers.”
He stabbed his hands through his hair in a gesture that conveyed a certain amount of frustration. “You’re right. I do that. All the time. And it really sucks now that I’m trying to tell the truth. And the truth is, I love your slightly asymmetrical eyes.”
The wounded romantic who lived deep in her heart started seeing rainbows. Courtney tried her best to yank that foolish girl back, but she failed. A tiny chink formed in her wall of protection. Something warm and sweet and utterly intoxicating flowed through her blood, making her suddenly aware of the moon and the man and the scent of summer on the wind.
She should go. Now. Matt would hurt her, and she hadn’t been hurt in decades. She stood up. “I want my cat back,” she said, retreating a step.
He stood too. “Okay. I stopped by your apartment several times last week to give him back, but you haven’t been home. What are you up to? Where have you been? Not interviewing sperm donors, I hope.”
Her face flamed hot, and she sincerely regretted the things she’d said that night at the Red Fern Inn. “I was visiting a friend in the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
“A friend of my parents. He’s going to be okay.”
He took a step forward. Was he going to kiss her? Oh, please.
When his right palm cupped her cheek, she leaned into the touch, closing her eyes and savoring his warm skin. Her heart exploded in her chest right before his lips brushed hers.
His kiss was so incredibly soft and gentle that she opened for him without even thinking about it, and when his tongue met hers, the pleasure was so intense that she groaned out loud.
She expected him to come in for the kill, but instead he backed up. “Nice,” he said, and then turned and walked away.
Chapter Nine
Weekends were always hard on Courtney, working late on Saturday and then sometimes having to show up on Sunday for yet more weddings. But this Sunday she’d have to do it on almost no sleep. Matt’s brief, erotic kiss had left Courtney tossing and turning all night. Why had he walked away?
Easy answer. He was luring her. And she was stupidly falling for it. In fact, she’d spent most of the night thinking about crossing the landing and knocking on his door. After all, she had a good excuse. She wanted her cat back. But he might have seen through that at three thirty in the morning.
So she was grumpy when she arrived at the Winchester Medical Center at 9:30 a.m., and discovered that the café in the hospital’s lobby didn’t open until 10:00 a.m. Was this some kind of joke? People needed caffeine. And in her case, the caffeine she’d ingested with her first cup this morning had worn off.
She strolled into Sid’s room and found him sitting in the chair by the bed wearing a bright green and orange Hawaiian shirt with birds of paradise plastered all over it. His skin tone looked brighter today, but whether it was the shirt or his improving health Courtney couldn’t say.
“Good morning. Since when do you wear Hawaiian shirts?” she said in her best happy voice. Barbara, Sid’s late wife, had disapproved of loud shirts, so the birds of paradise were a big surprise. But maybe not an unwelcome one.
“Since I talked him into one. With my employee discount, I was able to buy a whole bunch of them at ten percent off.”
Courtney turned to find a sixtysomething woman with beautiful white hair and big hazel eyes standing in the doorway. Her lips glistened with poppy-pink lip gloss, and she wore a pair of slim white slacks and a chambray shirt open at the neck to expose a turquoise necklace. Matching earrings dangled from her ears.
The woman stepped forward, her hand out, the nails painted a shade of pink that matched her lips. “Hi. I’m Leslie Heath.”
“I’m happy to meet you. I’m Courtney. Sid is like—”
Leslie waved her hand, silver bangles clinking. “Oh, honey, I know all about y’all. And I think it’s so sweet the way you’ve been visiting Sid, especially with you so busy over at Eagle Hill Manor. Don’t you worry. I’ve got my car, and I’ll take Sid home. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure he takes his meds. He lives right across the hallway from me. And I don’t want you worrying about his groceries, now. I can pick up anything he needs at Walmart. I’m there three days a week as a greeter.”
“Uh, thanks,” Courtney managed. Who was this woman? And why hadn’t Sid
