Claimed by the Rebel. Jackie Braun

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      “One of my clients left me her granddaughter’s phone number, even though I advised her not to.” UnKatielike, she was babbling. More hurt that he had not been by than she would ever admit?

      He was not even going to answer her about somebody’s granddaughter. As if he would ever phone a girl he had never met. No sense telling Katie that. His sister probably would not believe him, either. A man who had turned over a new leaf had to prove it. No one was going to take his word for it. But had he turned over a new leaf? There was that feeling again, of not knowing himself.

      Without a word he laid the tickets on the counter.

      She glanced at them, and went to push them back. But as her hand touched them, she really looked at the tickets, and her eyes went round. He was very pleased. It was so evident she coveted those tickets.

      “Tac Revol,” she breathed. “Ohmygod. How did you get these? They’re harder to come by than two scoops of pistachio on the moon!”

      “I thought you might like them,” he said solemnly. The look on her face had been what was harder to come by than two scoops of pistachio on the moon. He had managed, finally, to make her happy. The shadow of wariness disappeared from her features.

      “For me?” she breathed with disbelief and delight. And then the unexpected happened. She picked up both tickets, and began to dance around her shop. She came out from behind the counter and whirled by him hugging both tickets to her bosom.

      The dress suddenly didn’t seem so monstrously ugly as the full skirt moved around her, twirled up to show a beguiling glimpse of legs so long and slender his mouth went dry. Her long hair was doing gypsy things, and the neckline of the blouse had slipped sideways, showing him the creamy perfection of her skin, the curve of her shoulder.

      After he’d watched her drop that vase full of roses, and trip over the edge of a rug, he’d always kind of written her off as a klutz. But now he saw how wrong he had been.

      She was graceful and sensual, at ease in her body.

      But he could see the truth now, so clearly it hurt his head.

      True beauty had a shine to it.

      A shine that could not be disguised, or manufactured, either.

      Katie Pritchard was beautiful.

      He registered this fact slowly, stunned. It had been necessary for him to become a better man to even begin to see the truth about her.

      Really, now was the time to break it to her that only one ticket was for her. And the other was for her escort. Him.

      But somehow he didn’t want to stop the dance, kill the radiant smile on her face. And somehow he needed some time alone with this astonishing revelation. Katie was beautiful. In a way that could change a man’s life in ways he was not prepared to have it changed.

      He thought of what he had come to know about her over the past year, and even more in the past two weeks: that she was funny and shy and smart and sassy. And eminently decent. He realized exactly why he had avoided girls like her.

      “My Mom is going to be in total shock,” she told him, finally, stopping in front of him. Her brow was just a little dewy from exertion, her breath was coming in faint pants.

      A shameful waste of passion.

      “She has tried everything to get tickets to this event,” Katie rushed on. “She even offered her first-born child. Which would be me. Oh, I could just kiss you!”

      He closed his eyes and puckered up, but nothing happened. When he opened them again, she had whirled away, was in the back room on the phone. He felt an astonishing yearning to know what her lips would have tasted like, even though he now knew her to be far more dangerous than he had ever guessed.

      Well, to his detriment, he had never shown nearly enough caution around anything dangerous.

      “Mom,” she said, breathlessly into the phone, “You’ll never guess what just happened. I have tickets to Tac Revol!”

      He stood there for a moment, letting her excited voice wash over him, thinking maybe he was too late. She already was a crazy cat lady, that was the only type of person who could get so excited about those tickets!

      He was aware, suddenly, almost sadly, that he had gotten exactly what he wanted. He had transformed her. This was the moment he had waited for and worked toward. His stated mission was over, except for the going-out-with-him part.

      He had seen her. Passionate. Laughter filled. Playful. This moment had come out of nowhere, a gift almost as good as getting to see her swim with dolphins. But what was even more astonishing than having seen her was the glimpse of himself. This was the kind of girl a man could fall in love with, before he even knew what had happened.

      A woman who loved her mother. He was not sure any of his other recent girlfriends had ever mentioned a mother to him!

      Love. He didn’t like it that that word had entered his mind in connection with Katie. Thankfully, she was the kind of girl a man like him was not really worthy of since he was not certain he could sustain this new and honorable self for long enough. He might even have bad genetics.

      His father had managed a pretext of honor for thirty-five years! His father had taken a vow to love and honor and cherish, through better or worse, and he had broken that vow. He had institutionalized his wife. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was reluctant to go and see her. Dylan was willing to bet it had been more than two months since his father had visited his mother. He suspected a new lady friend. And then his sister wondered what was wrong with him when he could not bring himself to return his father’s calls? The events of his mother’s illness had sent Dylan into a state of shock. He could not believe the fabric of a life that had seemed so strong, so real, could be so easily torn. He had become a man who did not believe in anything anymore.

      And yet, looking at Katie talking to her own mother, he thought, A man could believe in that.

      He realized the enormity of his error. He’d told himself he had been trying to give her back something she had lost. Now he saw he had tried to give her back what he missed about himself.

      Hope. Belief. Trust.

      He was not the man for this task. Foolish to have taken it on.

      Katie glanced at him. Suddenly her whole demeanor changed. “Mom, I’ll call you back.”

      “Dylan?”

      “Huh?”

      “Are you okay?” She came out of the back room, came and stood looking up at him.

      He pasted his breeziest smile on his face, tried to see the plain Jane in her. But he saw something else. A girl who needed a man who could be one hundred per cent real. Katie needed someone brave enough to trust her with who he was once he laid down the shield.

      He folded his arms over his chest. He wasn’t ever having a relationship with her. He’d done the decent thing. He’d given her back her spirit, however briefly. Both of them knew now that it had only been hidden, not lost.

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