And he changed the subject once more. “Don’t feel like you have to go through with showing me around tomorrow. I know Matt railroaded you. He seems to have his matchmaking hat on again. Or is it still?”
“You don’t want me to show you around?”
“No, it isn’t that,” he said quickly. “I had a good time checking out Vegas with you. It’d be nice to learn about Elk Creek the same way. It’s just that if you’d rather not—”
“No, it’s okay,” she heard herself say for no reason she understood. Here he was, giving her a break, and rather than take it, she was getting herself in deeper by making it seem as if she wanted to be his tour guide.
Maybe it was because memories of what a good time she’d had with him in Nevada had sprung to mind and made the prospect of repeating it appealing to her. So appealing that she’d forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be steering clear of him.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Too late now even if she wasn’t.
So, trying to cover her tracks, she said, “Matt will never let up if he doesn’t think he’s getting his way.”
“Matt,” he muttered, as if he’d thought her reasons had been her own. And for a split second he looked disappointed.
But then he seemed to rebound. “You think we should play along with his matchmaking, just to keep him off our backs?”
“It might be our only chance.” Oh, you fraud, you, a little voice in the back of her mind chastised, when a part of her knew full well that she wasn’t merely agreeing to spend time with Brady to appease her brother.
“We’d only be pretending, of course,” she said. “And there wouldn’t be anything to it but things like letting ourselves be thrown together once or twice. We talked about being friends, and that would really be all we were doing. It’s just that Matt wouldn’t know it.”
“Only pretending,” Brady repeated.
But there seemed to be some reservation in his tone, and Kate wasn’t sure why.
“Unless you don’t want to,” she said, reversing course in case he was having second thoughts. “I mean, if you want to just hang out with Matt, we can sit him down and tell him point-blank that what he wants to happen is not going to happen, no matter what he does.”
“You think that would help?”
Kate hated that he sounded so hopeful.
“It might.”
“Or it might not,” Brady pointed out. “But if we go along with a few of his maneuverings—”
“And then tell him we’re just going to be friends after that, we’ll have something to back it up. We can say we tried but we just didn’t click.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Brady agreed. “And it’ll be the perfect cover for getting to a notary with these papers, too.”
“True.”
“So, tomorrow. Matt wants to give me the tour of this place in the morning. Why don’t we shoot for leaving around one in the afternoon? After lunch?”
“Fine.”
Had they really just talked themselves into spending part of Brady’s visit to Matt with each other instead?
They had. And Kate couldn’t believe she’d let it happen. Hadn’t she spent nearly every minute since she’d found out Brady was coming thinking of ways to stay away from him?
What had gotten into her?
But Brady stood just then, and she stood with him, hoping that if he left, she could get a handle on what she’d just done.
He didn’t leave, though. Instead he was studying her again, as if he wanted to relearn her face.
“You really do look good,” he said after a moment.
“You, too.” She’d meant that to be a simple volley, but it had come out much more seriously, much more heartfelt, and she had the sense that she’d just exposed something she shouldn’t have.
“Tomorrow then,” she reminded, hoping he’d take the hint before she gave away anything else.
He didn’t respond, though. He just continued staring at her, looking into her eyes now in the same way he had just before he’d kissed her for the first time in Las Vegas.
Was he going to kiss her?
Alarms went off in her mind that told her to move away. To shove him toward the door, if she had to, to get him out of there.
But that wasn’t what she did.
Instead she stayed rooted to the spot, gazing up into those eyes that were the color of a summer sky before a storm, her chin tilted, thinking about the way his lips had felt against hers New Year’s Eve—sweet and gentle and oh, so adept….
But a kiss didn’t come.
All of a sudden he broke the hold he’d seemed to have over her and repeated, “Tomorrow. Afternoon. To keep Matt happy.” Then he headed for the door.
Kate didn’t follow. She couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to, because thinking about him kissing her and then not being kissed had somehow left her drained. As if dashed anticipation had sapped her strength.
Brady opened the door, peered out to make sure the coast was clear and then said, “’Night.”
“Good night,” she answered, watching him step out into the hall.
Only after the door closed softly behind him did Kate feel as if she were breathing freely once more. But as she found the strength to go into her bedroom, it occurred to her all over again that she’d just agreed to precisely what she shouldn’t have agreed to—spending time with Brady.
What was there about the man that always had her doing the wrong thing? Even when she knew just how wrong it was? How much of a mistake it was? What was it about him that attracted her to him even when she didn’t want to be? That had her thinking about kissing him even when she wanted him to leave her alone?
She didn’t understand it. Not any of it. But then, there were a lot of things she didn’t understand about herself and her actions since meeting Brady. In fact, she’d been more confused than she’d ever been in her life.
Maybe she’d had some kind of breakdown over Dwight and just hadn’t known it, she thought, as she got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. And then she’d met Brady right after that, and maybe meeting someone in the middle of a breakdown caused a person to do bizarre, out-of-character things. And to go on doing bizarre, out-of-character things.
But she didn’t actually think a person could have a breakdown and not know it.
Which left her back where she’d started—with no explanation for why she’d done the things she’d done with Brady on New Year’s Eve or why she
