His Best Friend's Wife. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ had confided tentatively, her face young and vulnerable in the pale light as she had gazed up at Evan.

      He’d felt his stomach twist, even as his fingers tightened around the beer can in his hand. He’d downed a few too many at that gathering to celebrate Jason’s master’s degree in education. Yet he found Renae’s eyes more intoxicating than the beverage as he asked in a gravelly voice, “What did you tell him?”

      Glancing downward, she had hesitated, moistening her lips and nervously tucking a strand of long, bleached hair behind her ear. “I told him I’d think about it.”

      Evan used his free hand to lift her chin so that he could look hard at her expression, as if he could read her thoughts in her glittering eyes. “Do you want to marry Jason?”

      “I’ve been alone a long time,” she had whispered. “Jason and Lucy love me and want me to be a part of their family.”

      Lucy had been all in favor of Jason marrying Renae. There had been times when Evan had wondered even back then if Lucy had pushed the match even harder than Jason had. Though Jason had seemed oblivious, maybe Lucy had sensed Evan’s attraction to Renae. Maybe that was part of the reason Lucy had been so cool toward him before Jason’s death, and downright hostile afterward.

      “That’s not what I asked you,” he had growled. He’d told himself he was asking for Jason’s sake, not his own. “Do you want to marry him?”

      “I—” She had paused with a hard swallow before saying, “I think I do.”

      Evan had felt his heart drop. His first reaction had been pain—his second, an illogical anger.

      “Well, let me be the first to kiss the bride,” he’d said on a beer-fueled impulse. And he had pressed his lips to Renae’s, intending nothing more than a brief, forbidden, curiosity-satisfying kiss.

      It had instantly flared into so much more.

      “I’m sure Mrs. Sanchez is pleased that you guys want to memorialize her husband with this scholarship.”

      Emma’s comment brought Evan abruptly back to the present. Realizing he had been staring at the noodles on his plate for several frozen moments, he stabbed his chopsticks into the pile, avoiding Emma’s entirely too-perceptive dark eyes. “Yes, she seems to be. Tate and I will tell her this evening that the three of you want to be involved with fundraising. I’m sure she’ll be touched.”

      To his relief, Tate changed the subject then with a funny story about something little Daryn had done the night before. Though Evan participated in the conversation, he still found himself drifting back to that night so long ago, to a kiss that had flared into a hungry, passionate embrace that had almost burned out of control before Renae had broken it off with a shocked gasp.

      Staring up at him with tear-filled eyes, she had asked in a choked voice, “What was that?”

      “Something I’ve been wanting to do for weeks,” he had admitted grimly. “But if you’re going to marry Jason, it will never happen again.”

      “He loves me,” she had whispered, wringing her hands and looking at Evan with raw vulnerability. “Can you give me any reason I shouldn’t marry him?”

      Evan had felt the words trembling on his lips. But then he’d stared down at the crushed aluminum can in his hand and asked himself what in the hell he was doing. Jason was his friend. And Evan had plans that did not yet include marriage or children.

      Renae was young, confused, maybe suffering cold feet at the thought of major commitment, but he knew she cared deeply for Jason. He would do nothing more to come between them.

      “I’m sure you’ll both be very happy,” he had said as he’d turned to walk away without looking back. A month later, he’d been in boot camp, and Renae had been wearing a diamond on her left hand.

      For a long time afterward, he had wondered what Renae would have said if he’d told her that Jason wasn’t the only one who loved her.

      That was something he would never know, he reminded himself as he finished his lunch with his friends. Too much had happened since, too many reasons for him to keep his distance—not the least of which included her mother-in-law who blamed him still for Jason’s death.

       Chapter Three

      “Renae.” Holding her right hand in his, Tate greeted her with a warm smile Wednesday evening. “It’s so good to see you. You look great.”

      She returned the smile, noting that time had made few changes in him. Though his cheerful, guy-next-door good looks had never affected her in quite the same way as Evan’s darker, more solemn appeal, she had always liked Tate. “It’s nice to see you again, too, Tate. Congratulations on your new marriage.”

      He grinned. “Thanks. I got lucky. I have a beautiful wife and an adorable little girl who’s almost a year old. Want to see a picture?”

      Standing nearby, Evan shook his head. “You’re in for it now, Renae. Tate whips out those photos every chance he gets.”

      Rather charmed by Tate’s enthusiasm for his family, Renae assured him that she would love to see the photo. She smiled when he handed her his phone, on which was displayed a sweet snapshot of an attractive, honey-haired woman and a laughing baby.

      “This must be your wife.”

      “Yes. Kim. And the baby is Daryn. The next picture is a close-up of Daryn.”

      Renae dutifully admired several more shots, then returned the phone to Tate. “You have a lovely family.”

      “Thanks. They’re hanging out with Lynette this evening, watching a chick flick on TV—though I imagine Daryn will expect them to pay more attention to her than the movie. What about you? Do you have photos of the twins on you?”

      After only a split-second hesitation, Renae handed her phone to Tate. Evan moved closer to look over Tate’s shoulder at the duo displayed on the little screen.

      “Wow.” After studying the photo, Tate lifted his eyes to Renae. “Your son is a carbon copy of Jason.”

      She nodded. “Yes. If you set their first-grade photos side by side, you can hardly tell them apart.”

      “Leslie looks very much like him, too,” Evan observed quietly. “Definitely has his eyes.”

      “They both do,” she agreed.

      She slipped her phone back into the pocket of the black slacks she wore with a gray-and-black-striped sweater. Though she’d been told the twins shared many of her mannerisms, and that both had her smile, she knew there was little physical resemblance between them. They had inherited Jason’s near-black hair and eyes rather than her blond, blue-eyed looks. She saw him so often in them, as she knew Lucy did, and the resemblance comforted them both, letting them feel that Jason lived on in the children he’d never had the chance to meet.

      Just as his memory would live on in this scholarship in his name, she thought, reminding herself firmly of the reason they were all here now.

      “I brought the donation request letter for the two of you to look over,” she said, digging into her bag. СКАЧАТЬ