The Surprise of Her Life

“Well, don’t take this personally, but having all but cried my way through Christmas because I missed my family and we were too busy to get time off to fly down to see them, the last thing I needed was my past hitting me in the face like a tacky pie-throwing joke.”

As she witnessed Derek’s head rear back as though she’d struck him on the chin, Eve grimaced and turned to face him. “I didn’t mean you. I meant the affair and everything. You’ve been all kindness. But you don’t know Rae. She may have appeared apologetic, but she’s taking your consideration to me the wrong way, as she will your presence. Trust me, regardless of what I said, or will say, she’s got an idea in her head and she will Frankenstein monster it into—I don’t want to think what.”

If he was upset at that news, Derek didn’t show it. Instead, he ripped off a sheet from the paper towel roll beside him and handed it to her.

“Oh, good grief, see? I’m dripping all over the hardwood floor and myself.”

“I wish you weren’t so uncomfortable about our reunion,” he said as she dried her hands, blotted her skirt and quickly dabbed at the few drops on the floor.

“You aren’t?”

“Not at all. I remember you as lovely in all ways, and I felt as badly for you as I did for myself. More actually.”

His flattery was as potent as wine and she was grateful for the need to turn her back on him so she could toss the paper towel in the trash compactor. “Why? You don’t know me. Maybe I deserved what happened. Do you realize this is the longest conversation we’ve had in all the time we were neighbors?”

“My work requires me to read people well.”

Thinking of his choice in marriage partners, she spun around. “I have two words for you and her initials are—”

“Resist that one.” Derek came an inch away from touching his index finger to her lips before stopping himself. “I don’t want to be remotely tempted to speak your ex’s name in rebuttal.”

As he continued to be transfixed by her lips, Eve grasped at humor as she always did when finding herself in an uncomfortable moment. “Hey, I never said I’m a good judge of character. I’m always surprised when people don’t mess up or let me down. Take my mother for example—I counted on her to produce another sibling so I wouldn’t be stuck being the baby of the family and forever being treated as if I have packing bubble for brains and shouldn’t be let outside after dark. But did she follow through? Nope.”

His tender smile was a dirty trick. It transformed his face in a way that made her tummy tighten and her heart flutter. In self-defense, Eve circled the island the long way around to take the plastic wrapping off of the last two trays.

“I have to get the rest of this sushi out there,” she told him.

“Let me take it,” Derek said. “No doubt you’ve been going nonstop since before this party started. Sit down. Breathe. I’ll bring us back a glass of something. Do you prefer bubbles or ice?”

He intended to prolong this? After a moment of dread, she had to admit she would be grateful to delay Rae’s inevitable questions. “Neither,” she forced herself to say. “If there’s any Cabernet or Pinot Noir open, that would be nice.”

He left before Eve could change her mind.

If only she could sneak out the back door and leave. However, having arrived early this afternoon, she knew her SUV was undoubtedly blocked in several times over. The plan had been for her to spend the night in one of the guest rooms.

Feeling trapped and so off balance that she was starting to scratch at her wrist, then her neck, she withdrew to the little garden table in the sunroom. “No hives,” she commanded herself. “Please no hives.”

The coolness and darkness enveloped and soothed her. Just these few yards even cut the sound of the revelry going on in the other parts of the house.

Breathe.

“Where did you go?”

He had returned quickly, Eve thought, or else she’d managed to zone out longer than she’d imagined. “Back here,” she called, raising her hand to wave. She hadn’t turned on the sunroom light and knew she was concealed in the shadows.

“Nice,” he said, setting the two fat goblets of dark red wine on the glass table. He eased onto the diminutive iron garden chair that faced her. “Is this thing going to take my weight?”

“It manages Gus’s. He and Rae often have coffee or wine here. Rae made this set herself.” Eve enjoyed Derek’s startled look. “Physically, she may trigger thoughts of a flashy bird-of-paradise blossom, and heaven knows that’s her personality, but she’s as serious a craftsman in her free time as she is a businesswoman.”

“Great praise considering that you sounded like you wanted to take clippers to those French nails of hers for her attempted matchmaking.”

The man saw entirely too much for her peace of mind. “Rae has no sense of boundaries where her affections are concerned. She expects us to recognize that what she does is for our own good. Just ask Gus,” Eve added with a chuckle. “But she’s been the equivalent of that college degree I never got as she’s mentored me. And she’s generous to a fault.”

“Then I’m glad you found her. Has this been your first position since moving up here?”

“My second, actually. My first was a secretarial position in the front office of the Broncos, but that was all too much of a reminder of what I’d just left.” Trying to think of a segue out of this line of conversation, she stroked the cool edge of the smooth goblet. Glass was one of her favorite mediums, but she had no artistic passion to do something creative herself. She was beginning to wonder if she had any passion whatsoever. She had Wes to thank for that self-doubt, as well.

“Doesn’t the D.A. want a little of your time?” she asked a little too brightly. “I thought when someone invites you to something like this, it’s because there are things they want to talk about. Or there’s someone you needed assistance in meeting at the function.”

As he tasted his wine, Derek’s gray eyes lit with amusement. “That’s mostly the case in fiction when you have to fill the pages between action scenes. If it wasn’t for my swollen ego, I’d worry that you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“No,” she lied. “But I just wanted you to know that I understood if you wanted to get back to mingling or—I don’t know what’s off-limits to talk about given your job?” Our past. Did you ever have a clue as to what was going on? Was Wes as friendly to you as Sam was to me pretending that everything was normal?

“Ask what you’d like—except for the number of the red phone on the president’s desk. Also, if there really are aliens at Area 51.”

Suddenly, Eve got it—she was fluff to him. Harmless. Her makeover may have upgraded her sex appeal, but he undoubtedly knew better and just saw her as an easy route to getting through his own difficult holiday break before returning to his real world. That compelled her to ask a question that would have annoyed her if their places were reversed.

“Have you heard anything from Samantha since your divorce?”

“No,” he said, without hesitation. “But I’d made it clear to her that I expected not to, except through our attorneys. Are you hoping to hear from Wes?”

“Good grief, no. I think that’s the one thing that would make my family disown me.”

“Whatever it takes,” he mused.

While his lips curved in that appealing way, Eve thought she read something in his smoke-colored eyes that made her think of secrets. She grew immediately apprehensive. “But you … know … something?”

“Eve, it’s New Year’s. Do you really want to do this?”

“The fool got fired, didn’t he? It serves him right. I was always baking brownies and fried pies to soothe the assistant coaches he’d offend—”

“I hear through reliable sources that our exes are expecting.”

She didn’t gasp, she had that much control. But otherwise, Eve was shocked into just staring at him.

“There lies the lesson,” Derek said quietly, almost apologetic. “Sometimes flirting with the idea that you want information ends up teaching you that you don’t.”

Summoning what pride she could, she straightened her spine and squared her shoulders and insisted, “I’m only surprised at how fast it happened.”

“I suspect, being several years older than you, Samantha’s biological clock was sounding like Big Ben’s toll to her.”

“You didn’t want children?” she asked, without thinking.

His look was enigmatic, but he replied, “A child isn’t always the solution to problems.”

Eve looked out into the magical night and watched the lights twinkle on the shrubbery and trees. “I’m so clueless, I didn’t know we had problems. We were married for almost eight years, and I believed him when he reasoned that we should wait before starting a family.” Until he had job security, then it was a larger nest egg, then it was something else.

“Well, if money was one of the reasons, they don’t have that concern now. I gave Sam the house, and she’ll get close to half of my pension to date.”