style="font-size:15px;"> “It was a pleasure.”
He was still holding her hand. And her attention. Fighting self-consciousness, she withdrew her hand from his. Uncoupled, she saw that he was nonetheless following her, step for step as she began to edge away.
“CeCe says you’re new to the city.”
She gave CeCe a reproving look. She was going to have to see about getting her daughter to be a little less forthcoming.
“We are.”
He wondered if it was his imagination that made him think she looked a little uneasy, talking to him. “And the state.”
“That, too.” She glanced at her daughter again, making it across the threshold this time. Just how much did CeCe tell this man about them?
He was still on duty until this evening, so he couldn’t very well take off with her, although there was something about her that tempted him to do just that.
So instead, Bryce lingered in the doorway. “Well, since I seem to be one of the first citizens of Bedford you’ve encountered—and you’ll probably be too tired to cook after the movers leave—maybe you’d like to have some dinner?”
“I’m sure I’ll have some dinner.” Lisa tossed her answer over her shoulder, turning away with CeCe.
“I mean, with me,” he added.
She never broke her stride as she looked at him. “I wouldn’t dream of putting you out.”
“You wouldn’t be,” he called after her.
But she was already hurrying across the street, her hand firmly wrapped around CeCe’s, leaving him to stand in the doorway of the station, feeling a little confused, rather like an adolescent who had just been rejected by the prom queen. It wasn’t anything he knew from firsthand experience.
“First time for everything, eh, Walker?”
He thought he was alone on the floor, having left the others in a hot poker game in the main room upstairs. Surprised, he turned around and saw Jack Riley standing next to the truck, laughter in his eyes. He and Riley went way back to a time when both their voices were higher and their permanent teeth hadn’t come in yet.
He might have known this would amuse Riley.
“Though I’d never thought I’d see the day when a woman would turn you down.” Jack laughed to himself, coming forward. “Hell, my mother would go out with you if you just showed a little interest.”
Closer than brothers, they had trained together and signed on for the same station when the time came. Bryce hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, still watching Lisa and CeCe.
“No offense, but I’m really not interested in having my neck separated from shoulders by your father.” There was no disguising the affection he bore for both of Riley’s parents. Riley’s father had been his own father’s best friend, and had willingly taken on the role of surrogate father to Bryce and his younger brother when they’d needed one.
Joining him in the doorway, Riley studied the departing form that had caught his friend’s attention. “Doesn’t look like your usual type.”
Bryce raised a brow. “Meaning?”
“Well, for one thing, she’s got a kid.” Riley knew better than anyone how Bryce felt about family. He paused, taking a different route than the obvious. “How do you know she’s not married?”
CeCe turned at the island and waved at Bryce. He waved back. “Her daughter didn’t mention a father.”
Riley shrugged carelessly. “Doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, Walker. Maybe she’s just mad at him.”
Bryce merely shook his head. He watched as, reaching the opposite street, Lisa and CeCe make their way to the second house from the end of the block. Funny how he’d missed the moving truck earlier. Now that he was aware of it, it was as obvious as an elephant standing in a front yard.
“You had to be there,” he told his friend.
“Sorry I wasn’t.” Riley leaned over a little farther as the woman waved over four burly men in beige coveralls. The latter came trotting over obediently. He would, too, Riley thought. “Nice rear view.”
Bryce knew Riley meant nothing by the comment. Riley was all talk and as honorable as the day was long when it came to women’s feelings. Still, he couldn’t help the rejoinder that came to his lips. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Riley grinned. “Only when she insists on it. Do I detect a chivalrous note coming through?”
Bryce saw another woman hurrying to Lisa, her arms outstretched. CeCe leaped into them. That had to be G-Mama, he decided. “No more than usual.”
“Oh, but this one’s a little different than usual,” Riley observed. “Like I said, she doesn’t seem to be your type.”
The reunion over, the three women went into the house. Bryce turned away. “And my type being?”
“Stringless. Absolutely stringless.” Riley nodded toward the house. “In case you didn’t notice, this one looks like she’s full of strings.”
Maybe he had been paying a little too much attention just now. Bryce laughed it off. “Hey, don’t get carried away, Riley. As you so delicately pointed out, the lady doesn’t even want to have dinner with me.”
Riley knew Bryce better than that. There wasn’t a time he could remember Bryce being easily put off. “Do I detect the call of a challenge?”
It was time to change the subject. Bryce indicated the rooms upstairs. “No, but I can see the dinner bell going off and ten hungry firefighters deciding to string you up because you didn’t make dinner when it was your turn to cook.” He flicked his thumb and forefinger at the date on the calendar that graced the side wall. Riley’s name was written in in the appropriate space.
Riley dragged his hand through his wayward chestnut-colored hair. “Hell, I forgot about that.” He caught his lower lip between his teeth as he looked up at his friend. “The refrigerator still empty?”
Bryce looked at him innocently, as if he didn’t know what was coming. As if they hadn’t danced this dance before a number of times. “Last I looked.”
Riley raised his eyes hopefully to Bryce’s face. The latter’s expression was deadpan. “You wouldn’t want to take my turn, would you?”
“I took your turn,” Bryce reminded him. “Last time, remember? And the time before that,” he added before Riley could protest. “The men are beginning to think you can’t cook.”
Riley sighed. He knew his limitations. “The men are right.”
Riley’s mother ran a restaurant and her cooking attracted people in droves. How this talent hadn’t been passed on was beyond Bryce. Even he had picked up a considerable number of pointers during the years he and his brother had lived with the Rileys. Riley, however, was just slightly beyond the boiling-water-without-burning-it-stage with
