about your uncles? They live with you.” And that would likely mean he’d have to spend time with them as well. If his first impression of them was correct, having them around wouldn’t give him much of a reprieve from the lunacy. Instead, it would put him shoulder-deep in it.
“It’s a big house with two wings and separate entrances. I live on one side, and they live on the other. You wouldn’t necessarily run into them.”
Aidan looked for flaws in her proposal and soon found one the size of the Himalayas. After all, Bobbie was the winner of the lottery. A lottery he’d sworn to ignore. Maybe this was just her way of making sure as the winner that she got her shot at him after all.
He shook his head. “As good as the offer sounds, I’d better pass. Thanks anyway.”
“Oh.”
But it wasn’t a plain, ordinary oh. Nor was it a question to ask why he’d come to that decision. It was a hurt, embarrassed oh.
Heck.
One look into her eyes and he confirmed that. He’d lived with his six sisters, a mother and a grandmother long enough to know when he’d stepped in something he should have stepped around.
“It’s not that,” Aidan assured her.
But it was hard to put into words exactly what that was. He couldn’t very well tell her that he was tired of women, could he? No. That’d make him sound like a wuss.
Which he wasn’t.
He just wanted a little vacation from the fairer sex and the constant matchmaking of seemingly every woman in the entire city of Boston. Just because he was thirty-three, why did everyone think he was ready to settle down?
He. Wasn’t.
And he wouldn’t let others dictate that for him. Monkeying indeed. If anyone monkeyed with anything, he’d do it himself, and he damn sure wouldn’t use the word monkeying when he did it.
“This arrangement wouldn’t be, uh, right,” Aidan continued. He could almost taste his own foot in his mouth, and it wasn’t very appetizing. “I mean, I like my privacy.”
“I see. Of course. I hadn’t thought of it that way.” She moistened her lips in a nervous gesture that made him want to find a large rock and hit himself on the head. He hadn’t intended to hurt her feelings.
“It’s not you,” he reiterated. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. For comfort naturally. It had nothing to do with her warm brown eyes and sensuous mouth. Nope. Absolutely nothing. Even if he had a thing for warm brown eyes just like hers.
And he really had a thing for sensuous mouths.
She nodded and tipped her head to the missing merchandise report. “You’ll look into that, please?”
“Of course.” He might even frame a copy of it when he was done. It was the first true job-related assignment he’d had since his arrival in Liffey.
“I just want to make sure I don’t have an employee with sticky fingers,” she added. “The floor manager, Rudy Tate, will answer any questions you might have. I’ve listed his number there at the bottom of the form.”
And with that, she turned to leave. Aidan had a three-second debate with himself. Stop her. Don’t stop her. Tell her why her plan made me squirm. Don’t tell her. Apologize for hurting her feelings. Don’t apologize. Touch her. Don’t touch her.
Especially don’t touch her!
He was still adding more issues to that mental debate when he saw Maxine Varadore making her way across Main Street. She was headed straight for the office, probably to press him again to come and rescue her kitty.
Among other things.
“Have a nice day, Deputy O’Shea,” Bobbie said over her shoulder. “And don’t worry about this lottery stuff. I have no intention of pursuing it.” She would have made it out the door if Aidan hadn’t stopped her.
“It isn’t you,” Aidan let her know—again. He swore under his breath and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his khakis. “It’s just—I have these six older sisters, and they’re always…monkeying with my life.”
Heaven’s bells, why couldn’t he stop using that frickin’ word?
He regrouped and tried again. “It’s a knee-jerk reaction for me to back off when someone suggests anything to do with romance.”
Slowly, Bobbie turned back around to face him. “I understand. Believe me.”
She probably did. After all, he’d met her uncles. God knows what kind of torments they’d put her through, all under the guise of insuring her lifelong happiness.
She eked out a smile. “It’s all right, really.”
The mental debate started again in earnest. And Aidan was losing big-time. The losing went up a considerable notch when Maxine stepped inside.
She glanced at Bobbie and huffed noisily. “Are you still here?”
Maxine didn’t wait for Bobbie to confirm the blatantly obvious. She whipped her attention to Aidan. “Can you pretty-please come and rescue my poor little Sue-Sue now? She’s been up in that tree a long, long time. I’m sure she’s getting awfully hungry.”
Gone was the snippy tone that she’d used to address Bobbie. In its place was a silky purr that had scalding steam rising from it. It was enough to make Aidan take a step back and inform her that he didn’t wear size triple-X underwear either.
“I can’t leave the office unless there’s a crime in progress,” Aidan insisted.
It was a line he’d found himself repeating often, and he was glad he could use it as an excuse right now. However, Sheriff Cooper was due back in a couple of days, and Aidan’s excuse wouldn’t be worth the sudsy scum left inside an empty beer mug.
What then?
There were four weeks, six days and a couple of hours left on this particular exchange tour. Four weeks, six days and a couple of hours that would no doubt make it seem as if he’d lived in monastic seclusion in Boston.
He hadn’t.
But it seemed the women of Liffey could outdo even his own family when it came to forcing romance on a man, and his family had had thirty-three years of practice. Just how proficient would these Texas women be after another week or two of lottery-like shenanigans?
And when the heck had he started using words like shenanigans?
“My little bitty kitty?” Maxine coaxed. She crooked her finger. Smiled. And winked, revealing an eyelid caked with about a kilo of turquoise eye shadow. “Come on. I’ll even make you a big tall glass of iced tea. Or something.”
That wasn’t all she was offering. No way. Aidan recognized that lustful gleam in her eye. A year or two ago, he’d have done his level best to fan that gleam into a scorching blaze. But not now. Like Bobbie, his fanning activities were on hiatus.
“Uh…”
