The Bridesmaid's Gifts. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ new people, I think. He acted a little suspicious of me at first, too. Not rude or confrontational or anything. Just wary. Reserving judgment until he knew what my motives were. Maybe he’s been burned a few times.”

      “A few.” It was more a confirmation than a guess. She didn’t have the details, but she knew he’d been hurt.

      Maybe Nic was right. Maybe that was the reason Ethan tended to be cautious. She would try to be patient during the getting-acquainted process. For Nic’s sake. And if it turned out that she and Ethan still didn’t like each other after the wedding, it was no big deal. He’d go back to Alabama and they would rarely see each other again.

      A funny feeling went through her with that thought. Oddly enough, she had no clue of what it meant that time, if anything. It was just a…well, almost like a mental shiver. Probably nothing at all, she assured herself.

      She noticed that Nic was scooping whipped cream onto the first of four bowls of what appeared to be chocolate lava cake. “Leave the whipped cream off one of the desserts,” she advised absently.

      Nic didn’t even blink at the suggestion. She simply loaded three whipped-cream-topped desserts and one without topping onto a tray. “Will you bring the coffee carafe?” she asked over her shoulder as she headed for the dining room.

      The Brannon brothers were involved in a discussion of billing practices when Nic and Aislinn rejoined them. Aislinn poured coffee while Nic set the dessert tray on the table. “Is there anyone who doesn’t like whipped cream?”

      “That would be Ethan,” Joel said with a grin. “He hates whipped cream.”

      Nic smiled at Aislinn before handing Ethan the untopped dessert. “Then I’m glad we left one plain.”

      Ethan gave Aislinn a hard look, but he didn’t say anything as he dipped into his dessert. Concentrating on her own, she hoped the awkward evening would end soon.

      Ethan was more than ready for this dinner party to be over. He didn’t much care for dinner parties anyway, being the barbecue-and-beer type himself. He wasn’t really into wedding planning, though he understood why Joel and Nic were preoccupied with that sort of thing now. And then there was the psychic….

      Not that anyone had ever actually called her that. Joel and Nic had actually gone out of their way to avoid the label, claiming that Aislinn didn’t like it. She simply had “feelings,” they had assured him. She’d been gifted with a heightened intuition that made it wise to pay attention when she made predictions.

      As proof, Joel had pointed to an accident Nic had been involved in while spending a few days in Alabama for Joel’s high school reunion. It had been eight months ago, the weekend when Ethan had first met Nic. Aislinn had called Nic’s cell phone several times during those few days with vague warnings of impending disaster.

      As far as Ethan was concerned, it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that Nic had, indeed, been injured that weekend in an incident that had narrowly missed being tragic. There was no way Aislinn could have known a balcony would collapse beneath Nic’s feet, sending her plunging twenty feet to the ground below.

      If Aislinn had been psychic, she’d have been a lot more specific than saying something “bad” was going to happen, right? Even if so-called precognition existed, what good was it if she hadn’t been able to stop her friend from being hurt? So far, all she’d done this evening was guess that he liked Chivas and hated whipped cream. Big deal.

      Her alleged extrasensory abilities weren’t the only thing about Aislinn Flaherty that made him uncomfortable, he had to concede. Joel had told him that she was very pretty, but that had been a major understatement. Aislinn was gorgeous.

      He didn’t know why she felt the need to pretend to have supernatural abilities. Surely it wasn’t an attention-seeking ploy, since a woman who looked like that could attract all the notice she wanted. She certainly didn’t dress for attention; she wore a modest beige knit top and brown pants that were rather plain in themselves but didn’t at all detract from her own natural beauty.

      As far as he knew, she hadn’t asked for any money for her “services” from Nic or Joel—which didn’t mean she wasn’t conning other people. Perhaps it simply amused her to see how gullible others could be. Or maybe she sort of believed it herself, which was even more pathetic.

      Reaching for his coffee, he hoped he would be able to make an escape as soon as dinner was over. He’d been sociable for about as long as he could manage.

      “Good morning, beautiful.”

      The woman who called herself Cassandra looked up from her knitting with a smile and an instinctive little preen. She simply couldn’t help reacting that way to young Dr. Thomas, with his warm green eyes and roguish smile. Even though she was old enough to be his mother, there was still enough of the flirt in her to respond to a good-looking man. And besides, this one was special.

      “Hello, handsome.”

      Walking with a rolling gait that was deceptively lazy, he crossed the room and propped one hip on the windowsill near her chair. She liked to sit here in the afternoons, where she could look out at the beautifully manicured grounds and watch the birds nesting in the trees outside her second-story room. She had always loved spring, with its whispered promises of fresh starts and new lives. Even if those promises inevitably died in the cold darkness of winter.

      “I’ve been told you had a difficult night.”

      Her smile faded in response to his gentle words. She looked down at her knitting, hiding her expression from him as she nodded. “Nightmares.”

      “They’re getting worse again?”

      “Not all the time. Just occasionally.”

      “Do you want to tell me about them?”

      Her needles clicked in the silence that followed the invitation. After a moment she said simply, “I don’t remember.”

      “Cassandra.”

      She could tell by his tone that he was disappointed she had chosen to lie to him. While she was sorry about that, she didn’t want to talk about the dreams. About the faces that haunted her days as well as her nights. The memories that were simply too painful to dwell upon, much less to share.

      “You have a date tonight,” she said instead. “She’s pretty, but she isn’t the one. You’re wasting your time.”

      Though she could tell he wanted to focus on her nightmares, he indulged her with a slightly strained smile. “You’ve been listening to the nurses gossip again, haven’t you? I swear, you can hardly sneeze in this place without everyone knowing about it.”

      She merely smiled and continued to work her needles.

      “That’s what I get, I suppose, for going out with someone on staff here,” he added conversationally. “Hard to keep it a secret. Not that I’m trying. But enough about me. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to talk to me about your dreams? It just might help, you know.”

      She lifted her eyes then, studying him sadly. He was so young. So confident that he had all the answers. About her. About his other patients. About himself. Poor, sweet sap.

      “It wouldn’t help me,” she told him quietly. “But thank СКАЧАТЬ