best friend’s jaw dropped in shock. “He what?”
“He tripped me,” she explained with a shrug, knowing it sounded crazy. “I, uh, guess to get my attention.”
“Well, I’ve never heard that one before,” Mic admitted dryly, “but I’ll give him credit for an original approach.”
Feeling the raindrops beaded on her cheeks, Torrance swiped her cool hands over her face, pushing the wayward strands of damp hair back from her forehead. “I didn’t know he’d tripped me on purpose until his friend ratted him out. I thought I’d just been clumsy.”
“Some friend,” Mic snorted, raising her brows.
“Oh, you’d have liked him.” Torrance sent the other woman a teasing smile. “He was a total smart-ass.”
“Just my kind of guy,” the brunette drawled, rolling her eyes.
“Anyway, I swear, Mic, I almost swallowed my tongue when I first set eyes on him. He was…”
Her voice trailed off, and Mic prompted her with an interested, “Yeah?”
She struggled to find the right word, but in the end there was only one that would do. “Beautiful,” she said simply.
“As sweet as that is, I need more info,” Mic complained with a throaty laugh. “Come on, Shakespeare, and describe him for me. I’ve got to have a mental picture.”
Torrance sent the grinning brunette her best “as if” look. “So you can try to make love dolls of us? Don’t think I’m not on to you, Doucet?” she snorted. “I saw you looking through those new voodoo books that came in last week.”
Michaela’s eyes went wide with a feigned look of innocence. “I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that. I’m shocked you could even think it,” she muttered, just before she busted up giggling, and Torrance couldn’t help but join in with the Cajun’s infectious laughter.
“What’s all the giggling about?” a deep voice called out. “Did I miss something good?”
Both women looked over to see Max sticking his dark head around the corner of the employees’ door, his deep blue eyes dark and hazy, as if they’d disturbed one of his little catnaps. At nineteen, he was determined to pull his weight and help his sister get her fledgling business off the ground. Hurrying back to the shop after morning classes at the nearby community college, he managed the stockroom and updated the accounts in the afternoons, all before working the night shift as a security guard at the local hospital. Torrance got tired just thinking about the poor kid’s schedule.
“Hey, Max,” she called out over her shoulder, careful to keep her body turned to avoid another round of twenty questions about her clothing. Max took his man-of-the-shop duties seriously, treating Torrance with the same brotherly concern that he showed his sister. “Sorry we woke you up.”
“No big.” He smiled, running one hand through the rumpled black silk of his hair, his coloring nearly identical to his older sister. “I can catch up on my sleep later. One of the guards at the hospital needed to switch shifts with me, so I’ve got the night off.” He gave them a knowing look, his smile widening. “Guess I’ll let you two get back to your gossiping. Later.”
“Enjoy your night off,” she called back.
Mic waited the five seconds it would take Max to reach the back office, then leaned forward and whispered, “Now back to the gorgeous stud who swept you off your feet.” Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief as she waggled her brows. “Any plans for a hot date tonight?”
Knowing what was coming, Torrance shifted uneasily atop the stool. “Uh, no.”
The corners of Mic’s mouth turned down. “Why not? I know we have plans to catch that lecture at the museum later, but please tell me you didn’t let that stop you! I’ll wring your little redheaded neck if you told that guy no, Torrance! I swear on my…on my—”
Realizing this was only going to get worse, Torrance blurted out, “He never asked me out.”
Mic’s brows drew together, her gaze piercing. “Well, why not? And why didn’t you ask him out?” Tilting her head to the side, her stare took on that strange, unsettling quality that always gave Torrance the impression her closest friend was reading her mind—even though the Cajun claimed that wasn’t in the realm of her powers. “Exactly what happened, Torry?”
“Hey, I said he was gorgeous, not sane,” she mumbled, already feeling defensive.
Mic shook her head. “You didn’t even give him a chance, did you?” she groaned, her voice rough with frustration and disappointment. Unfortunately, Michaela knew all too well about her penchant for viewing men as fickle creatures; here today…gone tomorrow. It was a natural, knee-jerk reaction, after growing up with a mother who went through lovers like new outfits, always searching for one who would fit—the one who would finally stick around. Torrance had truly liked a few of them, wanting them to stay, though they never did. And some of them…some of them had simply scared the hell out of her. Her mother had died a few years ago in a car accident before ever finding a man who truly loved her, and Torrance had taken the lesson to heart.
“Give me a break, Mic. First his friend starts griping about him hitting on me, warning him about God only knows what, and then the guy starts giving me this crock about how it wasn’t safe there and I needed to leave with him! He’s lucky I didn’t call the cops,” she added roughly, hating that she could all too easily recognize the regret in her voice. He may have been one egg short of a dozen, but something about him had felt so uncomfortably…right.
“Damn it, Torrance,” Mic hissed, clearly upset. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
Trying to dispel the burning image of his slow, sinful smile, that wicked look of interest that had all but smoldered in those chocolate-brown eyes, she moaned, “Not now, Mic. Please.”
“I hate to see you drying up and wasting away.”
“Maybe I’m just tired of wasting my time on relationships that are never going to go anywhere. Been there, done that,” she muttered, hopping off the stool to grab her backpack up off the floor. Picking up the book she’d tossed on the bar, she slipped it into the front pouch, ignoring the knowing stare being drilled into her back. She knew Michaela was trying to get a “read” on her emotions. It was a special talent the Cajun possessed but seldom used, since she considered it an invasion of personal privacy. “And you can stop with your mental snooping right now, Mic.”
“You do know what’s going to happen, don’t you, Torry? You’re going to end up missing out on the right one, because you’re like a little ostrich with your head stuck in the sand. Get up off your rump and get out in the world, chère. Because if you don’t, life is going to have passed you by and you won’t have a clue what happened to it.”
“And is that what you’re doing?” she demanded, crossing her arms across her soup-splattered chest as she turned back to Michaela. With one hand, she pushed her glasses up on her nose the way a bull might drag his front hooves through the dirt before a charge. “Not to be rude, Mic, but I don’t think your social calendar has been any more active than mine recently.”
“Our situations are different, Torry, and you know that.” The fire slowly faded
