won’t feel comfortable leaving you behind, Stace.”
“But you must and you will. I like it here and I refuse to let you give up this opportunity. I can visit you when the weather here is bad. I’d give anything to spend time in Florida, Cohen, but only as a visitor. My home is here now and regardless of what you think, I do have roots. I might have come here because of you, but I now have made a life of my own. I like it here.”
She smiled softly. “I’m going to miss you and all, but I’ll visit. I promise.”
He studied her carefully. “Do you know what you’re asking me to do?” he asked in a low tone.
“Yes. I’m asking that you respect me as the twenty-five-year-old that I am. I know I made a bad mistake in judgment with Wallace.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault,” Cohen said in an irritated voice, letting her know Wallace’s actions were something he hadn’t forgotten. “My only satisfaction is that you’re better off without him.”
“Yes and I’m a lot wiser and moving cautiously. You know the saying, ‘I can do bad by myself?’ Well, I plan on doing good by myself.”
She saw the relieved expression in his features. “And you’re sure you don’t want to move to Florida with me?”
“I’m positive, Cohen. You still have friends here and I’m sure just like I’ll be visiting you in Florida, you’ll return to Phoenix to visit.”
“Of course,” he said, leaning back in his chair as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And she figured it probably was. Being named Chief of Surgery of any hospital was a great opportunity, especially for someone his age. But she knew her brother was a gifted surgeon. The beauty of it, as far as she was concerned, was he worked hard and deserved it.
“Do you have any idea when you’ll be leaving?” she asked.
He nodded. “They want me in Jacksonville in two weeks. There is an immediate need for my presence there and Phoenix Baptist has agreed to release me at the requested date.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. She hadn’t expected him to be leaving so soon. “Two weeks won’t give me enough time to plan anything.”
“You don’t have to do that, Stace.”
“Of course I do. Like I said earlier, you have a lot of friends here and they’ll want to see you off and celebrate your good news. Have you told anyone else yet?”
He shook his head. “No, I wanted you to be the first to know.”
She plastered a smile on her lips, determined not to let him know how she really felt. She was missing him already. “Okay, now that I know, I want to work on your guest list for the party.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “You’re really going to go all out, aren’t you?”
Her smile widened. “Of course. You’re the only brother I have and I’m extremely proud of you, so yes, I am going all out.”
Eli leaned back in his chair and built a steeple with his fingers as he listened to his mother. He’d heard all of it before, so he decided to let his mind wander. And for some reason, his thoughts shifted to Stacey Carlson and he wondered what she was doing. Usually she closed the shop around two every day for lunch. Had she gone out or had she grabbed a snack like she normally did?
And why did he give a royal damn?
The only reason he knew about her eating habits was because one day he’d gotten to her shop around two, only to find the out-to-lunch sign posted in the window. Through the glass door he could see her sitting at the counter eating a bag of chips and drinking a diet soda while paging through a magazine. He had stood there staring at her longer than necessary. And as if she’d felt his presence, she had glanced up and he was hit with an intense moment of potent attraction. Before she could get out of her seat to see what he’d wanted, he had quickly moved on.
“Eli, are you listening to me?”
He blinked. Knowing he’d been caught, he could only smile across the desk at his mother. There was no need to lie and claim he had been listening. Eden Steele had the uncanny ability to know when each one of her sons was not being completely honest with her. He and his brothers were convinced she had a sixth sense about that.
“Not really,” he said, and immediately felt the heat of her glare.
“Then why did you let me continue talking?”
He raised a brow. Had she really expected him to tell her to shut up? Her? Eden Tyson Steele? The former international fashion model whose face graced magazine covers the likes of Vogue and Elle? The woman who reminded them often that she’d given birth to six males and for as long as they lived she would always be their mother? He knew that didn’t mean she didn’t respect the men they’d become because they all knew she had.
But…
And with Eden Steele there had to be a but in there somewhere. He figured she should be happy. For years she had complained about not having any daughters-in-law. Now she had one and she was still whining. Good grief! Was Brittany not enough? Evidently not.
His parents had sons who’d appreciated the opposite sex from early childhood. They had grown up as womanizers, all six of them. And it amused them to no end that there was barely a year between their ages. That meant his mother had gotten pregnant every year for six years. Knowing his father, Eli wasn’t surprised.
He breathed out a deep sigh. As far as he was concerned, Eden needed to count her blessings for Brittany and be satisfied because if she was waiting for him, Tyson, Jonas, Mercury and Gannon to follow in Galen’s footsteps, then she had a long wait coming. A very long wait.
“You don’t think there’s a woman out there who’s good enough for the suave, debonair and charming Eli Steele, do you?” she asked in what he detected was an irritated tone.
He shrugged. “I didn’t say that, but since you brought it up…that possibility has crossed my mind a time or two.”
In truth, it hadn’t, but he liked getting a rise out of his mother every once in a while. She would go home and complain to the old man, but honestly, what could Drew say? Especially considering the skirt chaser he’d been before settling down and marrying Eden. Eli and his brothers had heard the story of their father’s past enough to know he made the rakish of rakes look like innocent choirboys.
“You know what I’m hoping for, Eli?”
He saw the gleam in his mother’s eyes and decided not to ask, but then he figured what the hell, she was going to tell him anyway. “No, Mom, what are you hoping for?”
“That some woman comes along who’ll knock you off that high horse you’re sitting on. And I hope when you tumble that you’ll fall head over heels in love with her.”
Eli frowned as he gazed into eyes that were identical in color to his and his five brothers’. Now his mother was being downright cruel. He forced a smile to his lips. “It won’t happen. I’m more like Dad than any of my brothers. Sorry.”
In a way, he was sorry, not for himself
