They exchanged smiles and then went back to their phones.
Dara blew out a breath. “Looks like the lawyer wants a conference call next week.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Don’t know. Hopefully it’s progress, though. If Jon makes any more stupid demands…”
Matt’s lips pulled tight. “If I had fewer scruples than I do, I could have him…disappear.”
Dara giggled. “How many fewer scruples would you need for that?”
“Hmm…”
“I’m kidding.” She arched her eyebrow. “Sort of.”
Matt laughed. As he perused something on his screen, he said. “Well, hopefully it’ll all be done and over with soon.”
“Preach it.”
“Though if he—holy shit.” Matt sat up, staring at his screen.
“Hmm? What?”
He laughed and showed her his phone. “It looks like I have a date.”
Dara’s insides didn’t even know how to respond to that. Her stomach flipped, her chest tightened, her heart went crazy. She cleared her throat. “Oh really?”
“Yeah. I, uh, took your advice and put up a profile on a website.” Chuckling, he added, “Got a nibble.”
“Only one?” She forced a smile. “I’m surprised you’re not chasing them off with a stick.”
“Well, there’ve been others, but the only one I’ve actually talked to all that much is Julie.”
Julie. Why did her name make Dara’s coffee extra bitter?
Matt went on. “We’ve been chatting a bit for a week or so. Now she wants to meet up. She’s out in Goldmount.” He shrugged. “Maybe then she doesn’t know all the gossip and bullshit from Aspen Mill.”
“Lucky her,” Dara muttered.
“Right?” Matt scrolled through the e-mail, then set his phone down. “I’ll e-mail her back later. She wants to meet tomorrow night.” He met Dara’s gaze. “You’re okay with this, right?”
“Matt.” She laughed and touched his arm. “We’re friends, remember? I was helping you get the hang of things in bed so you can get out there and date.”
So why does this hurt so much?
He eyed her uncertainly. “But we’re still…I mean, we’ve—”
“We’re not doing anything exclusive.” She gestured at his phone. “Go. Meet her, have a ball, and hopefully something will come out of it.”
He glanced at it, then back at her. “I guess it’s worth a shot.” He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll have a date for my cousin’s wedding after all.”
Dara snickered. “You want to scare her off?”
“Hmm, yeah. Good point.” He pocketed his phone. “Well, I’ll see what happens tomorrow night.”
“Good luck.” Dara glanced into her empty cup, and cleared her throat. “Do you want some more coffee?”
“Actually, I should get going.” He gestured toward the door. “My sister’s taking a couple of mares to another farm today, and she asked if I could help her.”
Dara nodded. “Okay. Tell her I said hi.”
“Will do.”
Two cups of coffee after Matt left, Dara was restless. Though her concentration was all over the place, she went into her office and sat down at her desk to get some work done.
She couldn’t focus, though.
Last night, and even this morning, she’d almost let herself believe something was happening between her and Matt, and hadn’t she been disabused of that notion in a hurry. It was just as well, though. She’d let herself get carried away by some good sex—that was the mistake she’d made the first time she’d married, and she wasn’t going to do that again.
Good for Matt. She was proud of him for working up the courage to even put himself out there again. And she had no doubt there was a woman out there for him. Maybe someone who hadn’t failed at marriage and wasn’t on his family’s shit list.
In theory, there was a man out there for her too.
Her gaze drifted to the icon for her Internet browser. In a moment of anger right after Jon had left, she’d signed up for a dating website. Tonight suddenly seemed like a good time to finish filling in her profile, so she logged in and perused the information she’d entered. Of course, none of it mentioned the fact that she was pregnant. It was weird, remembering that night when she’d hammered the keyboard and scrolled through profiles in search of someone new, all the while completely unaware that the embryo transfer had actually taken this time. That very soon, she’d be moving from Los Angeles back to Aspen Mill, and the “this is a waste of time but I might as well check just to be sure” pregnancy test would turn positive.