Instant Attraction Read online

  was there, it was real, and she…and she wanted to be a part of it. Damn. Damn, that was really unexpected. “Anyone?”

  Cam kept his mouth firmly shut.

  So did Stone.

  Annie crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, my husband is an idiot. There. You’re right. I do feel better.”

  “You’re giving him a complex,” Stone told her. “And now he’s trying too hard.”

  “He’s trying too hard? Are you kidding me? I’m the one trying too hard!”

  “All you do is yell at him.” Cam put his hands up when she whirled on him. “Hey, I’m just saying that you could try something else.”

  “Really? Should I try something else, Cam? Like maybe try to seduce him, only first ruin his painting, and then strip naked in front of Stone?”

  “Well, Jesus Christ, Annie.” Stone was already cringing. “You’re supposed to scope out the room first. I was standing right there.” He rubbed his eyes, like the sight of her was still burned on them and he needed to get rid of it.

  “Well, there won’t be any need to scope out anything,” Annie informed him. “Because he doesn’t get a third shot at me. No way, no how.”

  And with that, she stormed off.

  Stone looked at Katie. “Yeah, now see, that’s why we don’t do much talking.”

  “No, that was good. She’ll feel better for having vented.”

  “Maybe some of us should try that,” Cam said, and sent her a long look.

  She pretended not to look at him.

  “We’ll all be eating our boots for dinner,” Stone said a little glumly.

  “Or,” Katie said. “One of you could just go to Nick and have him reverse the damage. Tell him how badly Annie wants to reconnect, that she’s trying to get him back, and if he could just meet her halfway, that would be great.”

  “She broke his heart,” Cam said.

  “So you think he has no interest in getting back together with her? Are you kidding me? It’s all over his face how much he loves her.”

  Cam was already shaking his head. “It’s not that easy, Katie. It’s never that easy.”

  “Maybe when it comes to matters of the heart, it is that easy. You just follow its lead.”

  “Down Fuck-You-Up Road maybe.”

  “Pretty damn cynical.”

  “Hello, Ms. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.”

  Stone headed toward the stairs. “Tell you what. You two keep snapping at each other. I’m sure that will fix everything.”

  Cam sighed and headed toward the stairs as well.

  “Cam.”

  He turned back. “I’m not sorry about what I said to you,” he said.

  “I know you’re not. And I’m not sorry about what we’ve had.”

  “Okay, that makes two of us.” He was looking at her with frustration and heat and affection and temper. “So where does that leave us?”

  She held her breath. “With a few nights left that we could spend together?”

  “Not talking,” he guessed.

  “Not talking. Will you come?”

  He blew out a breath as that heat in his gaze flamed to life. “Yeah, I’ll come. And so will you.”

  Chapter 22

  Later that day, Cam walked into Stone’s office and found his brother sprawled back in his chair, booted feet up on his desk, hands folded over his belly as he spoke to the speaker phone. “And Cam just walked in, so you can tell him yourself, Teej.”

  “I’m held up by a bitch of a storm in Seattle,” T.J. said, his voice tinny and faraway sounding. “But I should still be there by tomorrow.”

  “Just in time.” Cam headed for Stone’s computer. “Annie might kill Stone.” He opened the browser thinking as he typed “Santa Monica bridge collapse” into Google that he should have done this weeks ago.

  Nick opened the door. “Holy crap, it’s icy today. What’s going on?”

  Stone set his feet down. “What are you talking about? There’s no ice out there.”

  “I meant Annie. She’s icy.”

  “Yeah, that’s because you’re a little slow on the uptake.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your wife’s trying to patch things up, and you’re not paying attention,” Stone told him.

  “I’m paying attention all right. She’s trying to drive me crazy. Giving out signals one minute and yelling the next.”

  Through the speaker, T.J. said, “That’s what women do. Deal with it.”

  “Says the guy who slept his way through every woman in town,” Stone interjected. “Several times.”

  “Hey, not every woman.”

  “No? Name one.”

  “Harley.”

  “Yes, because she was the only woman who ever turned you down, remember?”

  T.J. sighed heartily. “I remember.”

  Cam’s gaze was glued to the news reports and pictures of the bridge collapse. Horrifying, devastating pictures of cars smashed into sheets of steel. The fiery fire of the brush on either side of the collapsed bridge. People lined up on the streets trying to find out about their loved ones.

  Thirty dead.

  One survivor.

  Katie.

  Jesus. Cam rubbed a hand over his mouth and thought so much about her made more sense every day. Her needing out of Los Angeles. Heading north to snow country, where everything would be new and different, where nothing could remind her of what she’d faced.

  But things had reminded her, that couldn’t be helped. And whereas he’d slowly come to accept that, she’d not gotten there yet. Ironic, since all along he’d thought she was the one of the two of them to have their shit together.

  If anyone had asked him even a minute ago who’d gotten more out of this past month of knowing each other, him or Katie, he’d have laid down his very last dollar that it had been him.

  And yet now he could see, that maybe, just maybe, he’d given her something too. That he had more to give still. Lots more. He turned to face Stone and Nick. “I slept with Katie.”

  “Shock,” Stone said.

  “I’m going to sleep with her again.”

  “More shock,” Nick said.

  “I’m sleeping with Katie, and you’re all okay with it?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “But I’d have figured getting laid would relax you a helluva lot more than it has. You doing it right? Or do you need some pointers?”

  All of them laughed except Cam, “You guys are a riot.” He looked at Stone. “Explain this to me. When you slept with the cleaning crew, T.J tried to beat the shit out of you.”

  “Because he was an ass,” T.J. pointed out.

  “Yeah, it’s not the same,” Stone agreed.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because I wasn’t halfway in love with either of those women.”

  Staggered, Cam stared at Stone. “What?”

  “He said you’re halfway in love with Katie,” T.J. repeated.

  Falling in love, his ass. Stone had no idea what he was talking about, none. He grabbed the phone from its cradle and put it to his ear. “And what the hell do you know about this?”

  “I know love,” T.J. reminded him very quietly. “And I’ve talked to you often enough over the past month to hear it happening to you.”

  “Jesus.” Cam slammed the phone back down, ignoring Nick, who leaned over the desk and hit Talk again before T.J. was disconnected.

  “Classic sign of being a goner,” Nick said with a tsk. “A quick temper.”

  “Shut up.” Cam shoved his hands through his hair and glared at them. “And thank you all for being no help at all.” With that, he walked out and slammed the door, leaving no mistake as to how frustrated he felt.

  In the office, silence reigned for a full moment.

  “Well, that went well,” T.J. said. “Great idea, Stone. ‘Nudge him in the right direction,’ you said. ‘Let him know we’re behind him,’ you said. Now he’s a flight risk again.”

  Stone looked at the door and let out a breath.