Matched(29)

Wasn't sure how he felt about the expiration date. Or with her idea that she didn't do love.

Was that his fault? Did some other jackass need a whoopin'?

Or was it because of what she could see?

"Good book?" he said into the silence between bites.

"Wikipedia."

He grunted and went back to his plate, still watching her. Must've been interesting. She was so absorbed, he might as well have not been there. Not fair. Having his leg against her toes was making him remember her kiss. Hot and deep, right and wrong. That article must've been spectacular. Probably not something for a case. But what-

He choked on his mashed potatoes.

She lifted a brow and slid those deceptively innocent brown eyes in his direction. "Are you okay?"

He remembered the dry sense of humor. She controlled the spark of ornery better now than she had then. But he caught it. It was a glimmer, a shift in her gaze, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, but he saw it. He clapped himself on the chest, right where those potatoes were stuck behind his breastbone. "Great," he managed.

She passed him a cup of water from behind her, and after watching him successfully swallow a gulp, she returned her attention to her tablet.

Turnabout for walking away from that kiss, if he knew anything about women.

The bigger problem, though, was in what he suspected she was reading. "My Web site's more reliable," he told her.

"And slanted to make you look like a saint," she said. No shame there. Not a blush, not a bit of hesitation. "But I assume that's intentional."

Will set his dinner aside and put his arm over the back of the sofa, leaning closer to her, trapping her toes under his leg. She kept her focus on her iPad, but he saw the flutter of her pulse in her neck.

Girl wasn't unaffected.

He wasn't either. She inspired more than his songs.                       
       
           



       

She was pretty. Intriguing. And as far as he could tell, completely indifferent to his being Billy Brenton now. "Not quite fair, my life being an open book on the Internet, and yours being all private. Couldn't even find a Facebook page for you."

She flipped a cover over her tablet and set it aside, then looked at him, big pools of milk chocolate that could've either been inviting him in or warning him to stay out.

He shifted closer to her. "Still planning on being president one day?"

"As it turns out, public speaking is a talent I neither currently possess nor have any hopes of mastering." Her toes burrowed under his leg, tickling and teasing his hamstrings, but her gaze dropped and the softest blush washed over her cheeks. "The signs were there from my first Miss Flower Girl pageant, but after the incident in Colorado-well. Denial is hard to continue with that many witnesses. I still hate microphones. I almost hyperventilated during my toast at Nat's wedding."

Wrigley pushed his whole body to standing so he could put his head in Lindsey's lap. She smiled at him and scratched behind his ears, and dang if that dog didn't smile back at her.

And dang if Will wasn't jealous of the dog. Should've been Will telling her it was okay.

He remembered the incident in Colorado well. He remembered the lights of the stage, remembered the crowd aawing when he pulled his girl up there with him, remembered her panicked smile while he told the whole tavern he loved her. He remembered her blurting into the microphone that she didn't love him. That she couldn't love him. That her mystical powers said he was all wrong for her. He remembered his heart breaking. He'd heard it. Heard it crack, felt it break into chunks. But it didn't feel like it had happened to him anymore.

He'd made a good life since those days. Wasn't right to hold a grudge against her. She'd been nothing but hospitable and nice, hadn't made him any promises, hadn't hinted that she would.

If he liked her, it was his problem.

Not hers.

She tilted her head at him, still stroking Wrigley between the ears, thoughts of her fingers stroking Will instead popping into his mind and stirring his blood.

"Why Billy Brenton?" she asked.

Good question, that. Took him back more than a decade, and he almost smiled. "Hadn't been on a stage in a while when Mikey and me got our first gig in Nashville." It was half the truth, anyway. No sense telling her how many months it took him to not hear the snickers and gasps of the crowd in that tavern, to not hear her saying "We're not supposed to be together. We won't make it. I know these things," every time he and Vera stood in front of an audience. "Felt easier, performing behind another name, being somebody else for a while. The guy who did the booking at the club kept calling me Billy, so I went with it. Gave him my middle name instead of my last name. How it's been ever since."

A faint line appeared between her brows, like maybe she knew there was more to the story.

"How'd your parents take you becoming a divorce lawyer?" he asked before she could press it further.

The line smoothed out, and a humorless smile teased her lips. "Not well."

"That good or bad?"

"I didn't do it to rebel. I did it to be normal." She picked at a loose thread in her afghan. "I know I'm not normal," she added quietly. "But this is as close as I can come."

Will could appreciate that. Probably not the way she meant it-most days, he was amazed in a good way over how not-normal his life was-but he had his moments of wanting normal.

Of wanting what she'd given him since he moved into her house five days ago.

"I repaid them for their contributions to my education." Her fingers stilled in Wrigley's fur. "I don't apologize for what I do. I don't judge The Aisle people for making money off doomed couples. I buy a bachelor in the Christmas auction every year. I help my family's boutique sponsor contestants in the Miss Junior Bridesmaid and the Miss Flower Girl pageants. The people who can accept me do so, and the rest of them-well, that's their problem."

Will swallowed. That part about her buying a bachelor didn't sit so good.

She burrowed her feet deeper under his leg. Her squirmy toes tickled, but in all the right ways.

"We didn't know each other well then, either, did we?" She said it softly, but those pretty eyes of hers were serious and steadfast.

He'd been an open book. He'd told her about his job, his friends and his passion for music. He'd told her about Aunt Jessie and Sacha, about his momma dying, about Mari Belle being the best and the worst sister in the world. He hadn't mentioned his daddy being in prison, but then, Lindsey had been a lady. No need to sully her ears with that.                       
       
           



       

Lindsey, though-she was right. He hadn't known her. He'd known she had secrets, and he hadn't pushed. Probably should have. But she'd done things for him that week. She'd believed in him. She'd encouraged him. She'd made him believe in himself despite Mari Belle and Aunt Jessie and near about everyone else in his life not taking his music seriously.

Even knowing Lindsey had secrets, though, he didn't care. Because most of that week, he'd seen a girl with a big heart, big smarts and a big dream. A girl with courage and determination on a level he'd never knew existed.

A girl who'd inspired his own courage and determination. If you want something, go for it. No one else cares if you reach your dream. Believe in yourself and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it.

He caught himself reaching for Vera's strap. "I knew enough." He tapped his chest, right where his heart had started hammering. "This here? It's pretty reliable. Don't matter why people are who they are. Matters that they are. And you-" He had to swallow, because stripping naked and taking himself out in the snowy front yard would've left him less exposed than what he was about to say. "You were what I needed."

Her toes had quit tickling his leg, but the raw, wary, warning tilt to her mouth and lips hit him somewhere she couldn't physically touch.

Don't get close, it said.

I made the rules, you need to stick to them, it said.

She's right, you're an idiot, his brain agreed.

He leaned closer to her, brushed a lock of hair off her cheek, then let his fingers explore the silky strands, the curve of her ear, the soft skin on her neck.

"Will-"

"Be a long three weeks if I can't say thanks for the inspiration."

She stayed stiff as a statue, but he held her gaze, let his fingers drift into her hair to massage her scalp. Finally, her breath came out on a soft sigh, and her lashes lowered. In that hollow spot in her neck her pulse was still fluttering faster than hummingbird wings, but the stiff, frosty, unflappable, baby-eating divorce lawyer wasn't there on the couch with him anymore.

She wasn't the girl she'd been-there was something not bright enough, not determined enough, not free enough-nor was she the coldhearted lady he'd wanted to believe she was a week ago.

But she was the lady who made him feel like his life was shifting into place.

He knew it was elusive. Knew it couldn't last. But he clung to the feeling anyway.

Why don't you do love? was on the tip of his tongue.