The Secret Affair(5)

                Where had those curves come from? There’s no way he would have missed them before. She was short compared with his six-foot-two-inch height. He figured she stood no taller than five feet three inches in bare feet. And speaking of her feet, her polished toes, a flaming red, had been another turn on. Pam might not want to hear it, but her sister was Hot with a capital H.

                When he realized he had been the only one who hadn’t wished her a happy birthday, he was about to do so when his phone rang. He had slipped off the patio to take the call from a friend from college who was trying to fix him up on a blind date for next weekend.

                When he returned to the patio after finishing his call, everyone else had gone inside to watch a movie or play cards, and she’d been alone. She would never know how hard it had been for him to sit across from her without touching her. She looked good and smelled good, as well.

                Jillian Novak had definitely caught his eye.

                But Dillon and Pam would pluck out that same eye if he didn’t squash what he was feeling.

                Everybody knew how protective Pam was when it came to her sisters. Just like everyone knew Aidan wasn’t one to take women seriously. And he didn’t plan to change his behavior now. So the best thing for him to do while he was home for the next three days was to keep his distance from Jillian as he’d always done.

                So why did I get her phone number and give her mine, for crying out loud?

                Okay, he reasoned quickly, it had been a crazy moment, one he now regretted. The good thing was he doubted she would ever call him for help and he would make it a point never to call her.

                That was a good plan, one he intended to stick to. Now, if he could only stop thinking about her that would be great. Glancing down at the medical journal he was supposed to be reading, he tried to focus on the words. Within a few minutes he’d read one interesting article and was about to start on another.

                “Will you do me a big favor?”

                Aidan glanced up to stare into the face of his sister Bailey. She used to be the baby in the Denver Westmoreland family but that had changed now that Dillon and Pam had a son, and Aidan’s brother Ramsey and his wife, Chloe, had a daughter.

                “Depends on what the favor is?”

                “I promised Jill that I would go riding with her and show her the section of Westmoreland Country that she hasn’t seen yet. Now they’ve called me to come in to work. I need you to go with Jillian instead.”

                “Just show her another day,” he said, quickly deciding that going horseback riding with Jillian wasn’t a smart idea.

                “That was my original plan but I can’t reach her on her cell phone. We were to meet at Gemma Lake, and you know how bad phone reception is out there. She’s already there waiting for me.”

                He frowned. “Can’t you ask someone else?”

                “I did but everyone is busy.”

                His frown deepened. “And I’m not?”

                Bailey rolled her eyes. “Not like everyone else. You’re just reading a magazine.”

                He figured there was no use explaining to Bailey that his reading was important. He just so happened to be reading about a medical breakthrough where the use of bionic eyes had been tested as a way to restore sight with good results.

                “Well, will you do it?”