to be pressed into service. After taking one out, she made her way back to the front door and prayed she was hallucinating.
She hadn’t imagined it.
Adam was still there, crouching with his hands full of broken glass, watching her. Waiting for her to come back.
Adam’s very presence mocked the notions that had filled her head such a short time ago. Notions that comprised the happily-ever-after scenario she’d once woven for herself, thinking that finally she’d found that one special someone she wanted to face forever with.
Until there was Adam, she’d never been in love before, never even experienced a serious crush. At twenty-nine, she’d begun to think that she was destined to face life alone. But then she’d walked into the secondhand bookstore and lost her heart. Just like that.
She’d even joked with her father when she saw him shortly thereafter, gifting him with the first edition Mark Twain book she’d bought in Adam’s store, that she’d never believed love at first sight was anything but a myth—until she’d fallen victim to it.
Victim.
Now there was a good word. Because she really was the victim here. She and this baby. A victim of her own stupidity and her far-too-trusting nature. Otherwise, maybe she would have noticed some things that were awry, things that she should have scrutinized more closely. Warning signs. They had to have been there if she hadn’t been so blind, so willing to love.
She bit back a sigh. She wasn’t up to this. Wasn’t up to dealing with seeing Adam, especially not now, when she felt as sluggish as an elephant that had been hit with a giant tranquilizer dart.
Eve held out the plastic grocery bag. Adam took it from her, murmuring “Thanks,” and smiling that lopsided, sensual smile of his she discovered she still wasn’t immune to.
She stood there, trying not to think, not to feel, as Adam gathered up the last of the glass and disposed of it in the bag.
Just then, as if suddenly hearing the sound of his voice, Tessa came charging out of the office to investigate. Seeing him, she immediately dashed toward Adam, wagging her tail like a metronome that had been set at triple time.
“Hi, Tessa,” Adam said with a laugh, petting the excited dog and trying not to let her knock him over. “How’ve you been, girl?”
In response, Tessa licked his face.
So much for allies, Eve thought.
Still petting the dog, Adam looked at her. “I think I got it all,” he told Eve. “But to be on the safe side, I’d suggest you vacuum the area.” Standing up, taking care not to let the excited dog overwhelm him, he decided to augment his statement. “Better yet, tell me where you keep your vacuum cleaner and I’ll vacuum the area for you.” Anticipating an argument, Adam added, “It’s the least I can do—seeing as how the sight of me made you drop the bowl in the first place.”
Eve squared her shoulders. Don’t let him get to you, damn it. Don’t!
“I can do my own vacuuming,” she told him in a voice that had a slight tremor in it.
He eyed her dubiously, his smile fading and becoming a thing of the past. “You sure? Pushing something heavy around like that might cause you to go into labor prematurely.”
She wanted him out of here—before she wound up caving. “Did you get a medical degree since I last saw you?”
His eyes remained on hers. It took everything she had not to let them get to her. Not to just give up and hold on to him the way she couldn’t seem to hold on to her anger.
“A lot of things happened since I last saw you,” he told her, his voice low, “but my getting a medical degree wasn’t among them.”
It was the same tone that used to ripple along her skin, exciting her. Well, it didn’t excite her anymore. It didn’t, she fiercely insisted.
“I’m just passing on some common sense,” Adam concluded.
She did her best to make him leave. “Always a first time,” she answered sarcastically.
Adam waited for her to continue venting. When she didn’t, he raised an eyebrow.
“That’s it?” he asked. “Nothing more? No more slings and arrows and hot words?” He knew it was baiting her, but the way he saw it, she deserved to be able to yell at him, to put her anger into words. God knew she had the right.
But she just looked at him, the light leaving her eyes. That hurt him more than anything she could have said, because he knew that he’d done that to her.
“What’s the point?” she countered sadly, half lifting her shoulders in a careless shrug.
“The point is that it might make you feel better,” Adam told her. “It might help restore some equilibrium in your world.”
She was a long way from having that happen, she thought. A long way. “The only thing that would do either would be if I’d never met you.”
He had that coming and he knew it. He regretted their time together only because it had placed her in jeopardy and it ultimately had hurt her. That had never been his intention.
In an absolute, personal sense, he’d never, not even for a moment, regretted having her in his life, no matter how short the time they had together had been. But, even though she didn’t know it, she’d had her revenge. Eve had upended his world, showing him everything he’d given up to do what he did, to be what he was. She’d showed him everything he could have had if his life had gone differently.
At least he had a life, he reminded himself.
Which was more than Mona had.
Mona, his kid sister, had been bright, beautiful and blessed with the ability to light up a room the moment she entered it. Her family and friends were all certain that she could have had the world at her feet just by wishing it.
Instead, she opted to keep it at bay, losing herself in the dark, forbidding haze of heroin and meth until no one who loved her could even recognize her. Despite his alternating between pleading with her and railing at her, his sister had continued using even as she made him promise after promise to stop.
When she finally did stop, it hadn’t been voluntarily. He’d found her lying facedown on the floor of the apartment he’d been paying for, a victim of a drug overdose. No frantic attempts at CPR on his part could revive her. His sister was gone, another statistic in the increasingly unsuccessful war on drugs. His crusade against drugs began that morning.
And the way he viewed it, it hadn’t cost him anything. Until he’d met Eve.
“Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner?” he repeated, his voice a little gruffer.
“I said I’d take care of it,” Eve insisted, holding her ground.
He let her win. Maybe she needed that. With a shrug, Adam bent down to pick up the spilled candy. Cradling the small bags, bars and boxes against his chest, he rose to his feet again.
“Where do you want me to put these?”
