Thief of My Heart. Janice Sims

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СКАЧАТЬ will backfire. But at least I’ll know for sure that she’s never going to consider dating me, and then I can move on. That woman has had me in a holding position for too long. I haven’t dated another woman in over a year because of her. I’m going to qualify for sainthood soon.”

      His friends got a good laugh out of that assertion, after which Colton said, “I don’t think there’s a chance of that happening.” Then he gave his cousin a serious look. “So, what’s your plan?”

      Decker pursed his lips, thinking. “I’m going to send her one last bouquet tomorrow with a message that will state my case once and for all.”

      Colton smiled his agreement. “One last attempt, huh?”

      Decker nodded. “And if she sends them back, I’m moving on.”

      There were solemn looks all around the table, true friends sympathizing with the plight of one of their own having to suffer through a case of unrequited love.

      “Women can be so heartless,” Juan said, shaking his head sadly.

      “We’re the real romantics,” Will said, just before downing the rest of his beer and burping.

      “But you know what Adam said when God gave him Eve,” Colton put in with a smile. “Thank you, Lord. She’s way better than apples!”

      “Amen!” Decker said, laughing.

      * * *

      “Desiree, will you slow down?” Lauren Gaines-Riley complained loudly as she and her sisters jogged in a Raleigh park on Saturday morning.

      Desiree glanced back at her older sister and grinned. “Nobody told you to party all night with Colton.”

      The day was bright and clear, the temperature in the low sixties. Lauren squinted at the sun before saying, “If you’re going to party with anyone all night long, it should be your husband.”

      Desiree and her sisters got together every Saturday morning to exercise and catch up with each other’s lives. Desiree, thirty-one, was single and a psychologist with a private practice. Lauren, thirty-three, was an architect. She was married and had a small son. The baby of the family, Meghan, twenty-seven, was single and a history instructor at a local university. The only sisters missing were Mina, twenty-nine, who ran a lodge near the Great Smoky Mountains, several hundred miles away, and Petra, thirty-two, a zoologist presently studying the Great Apes in Central Africa.

      Desiree laughed. She observed the puffiness of Lauren’s eyes and the haphazard way she’d piled her thick black hair atop her head this morning. Lauren was usually put together for every occasion. “Yes, but he could at least let you get your rest afterward. You look like you didn’t sleep a wink.”

      “I’ll have you know these dark circles under my eyes are well worth a sleepless night with my man,” Lauren said, laughing, too.

      “Let’s not start talking about sex,” Meghan protested. The shortest of the sisters at five-six, she had recently cut off her long black hair and now wore it in a sophisticated bob. “Let’s talk about hair, as in do you like my haircut?”

      “I was trying not to say anything,” Lauren said, peering at her sister’s haircut with a critical eye. “I hope you don’t regret it like I did when I cut mine off a few years ago. Long hair can be more trouble to keep up, but it has so many more styling options. I didn’t know what to do with my short hair.”

      “That’s because you were so used to long hair,” Desiree said. “I loved my short hair.”

      “Then why are you letting it grow out?” asked Lauren reasonably.

      “Because I think I look more intelligent with longer hair,” Desiree said.

      Lauren laughed harder. “You have a doctorate in psychology. What does hair length have to do with intelligence?”

      “We look on the outside how we feel on the inside,” Desiree said. “Haven’t you ever wondered why everyone has their own sense of style? Everything we wear, how we style our hair, it all depends on how we feel about ourselves. I think I look smarter with my hair in a bun. That’s how I wear it when I’m in session. Looking intelligent makes my clients more confident in my ability to help them.”

      Lauren sighed loudly. “Wearing your hair up has no effect on your ability to help your clients. Your dedication coupled with your education and your willingness to give of yourself to everyone who comes to you for help is what makes you a good psychologist, my dear sister!”

      “We all have little behaviors we rely on to make it through the day,” Desiree said. “You, for example, have a habit of rubbing your left earlobe when you’re thinking hard about something.”

      “I do not!” Lauren cried, brown eyes sparkling with humor.

      “Yes, you do,” Meghan confirmed. She looked at Desiree. “What mannerisms do I have?”

      Desiree grinned at her. “You have a habit of shaking your leg nervously when you’re sitting at the dinner table. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but you tend not to close things after opening them. You leave drawers open, cabinet doors, closet doors. When we were living at home with Mom and Dad, I used to go behind you, closing things. It drove Mom mad, but I don’t think she ever caught you at it.”

      Meghan laughed heartily. “No, you’re wrong, I know I have that problem, but I still can’t shake it. I’ll go behind myself to this day and close things hours after I’ve left them open.” She looked at her sister with admiration. “That’s why you became a psychologist. You’re very observant of people.”

      “That and the cute boy she wanted to meet, who happened to be taking Psychology 101 at the time,” Lauren quipped.

      Desiree frowned, remembering how she had fallen in love with Noel Alexander her freshman year while sitting behind him in Psychology 101. He was tall and well built with the most beautiful milk-chocolate skin and dark brown eyes. She had been so in awe of him, she couldn’t bring herself to walk up to him and introduce herself. If they hadn’t accidentally bumped into each other one day while entering their classroom, they would never have met. Once Noel looked into her eyes, sparks flew and they were inseparable from that day forward.

      “Why’d you have to bring him up?” she asked Lauren irritably. “I’m trying to forget I ever knew that creep.”

      Desiree picked up her pace. But her older sister was soon at her side again.

      “You need to talk about it,” Lauren said.

      She and Meghan flanked Desiree.

      Desiree sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. “I already told you two what happened.”

      “Yes, but it’s been over a week now, and you haven’t said how it makes you feel,” Meghan said gently. “Finding out the man you loved, a man you idolized, cheated on you, must make you feel something!”

      “And the way his mother just blurted it out in the middle of the cemetery like that,” Lauren put in. “After ten years of keeping his son a secret! Come on, Desi, that must have pissed you off.”

      “Of course it pissed me off,” Desiree СКАЧАТЬ