His grin forced her to smile in return. “Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
Nodding and waving, he trotted over to his car and roared out into the quiet street. She waited a few minutes before pulling her phone out of her purse—the fancy one Kent had bought for her after tossing her old, flip-model version ceremoniously into the trash.
“Come get me. I want to go out and Kent dumped me for ‘the boys.’”
“I’ll be right there,” her friend, Tricia, replied.
Within thirty minutes they sat at one of the new downtown wine bars, snagging a corner that stretched outside onto the sidewalk. After they’d sipped and people watched for a few minutes, Tricia bumped her shoulder.
“Hey, is that your redheaded Love?”
Cara turned to see where her friend was pointing. “Yep.” Heat crept up her neck. “So what?”
“So, he is looking fine,” the other woman said. “Why’d you dump that delicious ginger anyway?”
“You know why,” Cara muttered, angry Kieran had chosen the one place in the newly face-lifted downtown that she figured he’d never visit. He hated wine. Or at least, he used to when they could only afford the cheap stuff.
“Funny how those boys all ended up back home,” Tricia said into her glass.
Cara recalled that her friend had experienced her own run-in with Aiden, right after he’d wandered home to Kentucky over a year ago.
“Yeah, hilarious,” she quipped, making Tricia giggle. “Stupid Love brothers.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Tricia raised her glass. They both observed the tall man squinting into the dark interior as if looking for someone. When he caught sight of them, he waved and headed in their direction. “Uh oh, old boyfriend time. That’s my cue to go.”
Cara reached for the other woman’s arm. “Don’t you dare leave me here with him, Patricia.” She could barely hear anything thanks to her wild heartbeat. “I mean it. I see him every week at PT and that’s bad enough. I can’t...be social with him. Not now. Not after....”
Tricia sighed. “Good Lord. Whatever. I swan those Loves are gonna be the death of me yet.”
Relieved that she’d have someone to run interference if she needed it, Cara tried not to admit that she needed Tricia to keep her from getting drunk and jumping her old boyfriend’s bones for old time’s sake. Even the thought of that made her furious with her weak-willed self.
I have a fiancé, a rich one, a hot one, and have zero business doing anything more than having casual conversation with Kieran Love.
“Well, what a lovely couple of ladies,” he said as he sauntered over, dressed for a date. She tried not to stare at the stubble on his jaw, or the slope of his shoulders, or at that thick mop of bright-red hair that matched her own, or at anything related to him. He loomed over her, making her blink.
Oh boy. I’m gone halfway to drunk-town already. This could get weird.
“It would seem I’m early for my date. May I buy you both a glass?”
“Sure thing. Why the hell not?”
The exasperation in Tricia’s voice came through loud and clear, so Cara attempted to say something coherent but all the spit in her mouth had gone dry. He climbed onto a tall chair next to her and propped his dress-shirt-covered elbows on the bar. The urge to run her fingers through his hair made her palms itch. When their glasses arrived he raised his for a toast.
“To what are we drinking?” Tricia asked.
His gaze met hers and she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something stupid. “To old friends.”
She sipped then spluttered and coughed when the acidic red wine went down her windpipe. Kieran smacked her between the shoulder blades. When it became apparent she would live, he resumed his study of the middle distance over the bar. Without thinking of possible consequences, she touched his khaki-covered thigh.
“You all right?” she asked, catching a whiff of the light cologne and beer that encircled him. He glanced over at her, which placed his face too near hers. But she didn’t move until he pecked her lips quickly then focused on the depths of his wine glass as if it held the very secrets to the universe. Tricia elbowed her so hard Cara yelped and rubbed her arm.
“Old friends, huh,” Tricia said around her to the obviously brooding man. “I don’t know about you boys. I just don’t know.”
He frowned then glanced over his shoulder when someone came in the door. When it proved to be some other couple he slumped over the bar again. Fury at his woman for dissing him tonight, and at her own lame, ancient excuses for letting go of him in the first place filled her brain.