The Third Daughter's Wish

The woman was stacked.

She also had stylishly short brunette hair, kissably full lips and the biggest hazel eyes Gabe had ever seen. So yes, guys noticed her, Gabe included. Not that Josie would ever suspect. She thought of him as the big brother she’d never had, he was certain.

Which was for the best.

Josie must be unaware of Wisconsin’s interest, or she’d have called him on the carpet for his boldness. If she was receptive to the idea of a Wednesday-night hookup, she’d have told her admirer directly that she didn’t respond to drooling. If she wasn’t, well, she’d have told him directly to get lost.

Josie didn’t hint at what she wanted; she demanded it. And she didn’t hide her thoughts behind societal expectations or womanly wiles. If you had broccoli in your teeth or conceit in your behavior, she told you about it. Yet she greeted you with such an affable enthusiasm it would be hard to dislike her, even with that sometimes blunt honesty.

Obviously, Wisconsin found her agreeable.

She should have reacted by now.

What the hey! The man’s interest in Josie was no more Gabe’s business than her response to it. He and Josie were merely buddies. Unless she was taking up with a conspicuous drug dealer or abusive jerk, Gabe generally kept his mouth shut about her love life.

After waiting for Josie to make a series of shots—she missed the third by a fraction of an inch—Gabe walked around to stand next to her. He lowered his mouth to her ear and murmured, “He’s not your type, kid.”

Josie stood up straight and looked around. “Who?”

“Wisconsin.” Gabe turned to study the table. After pocketing his first solid ball, he scanned Josie’s perplexed expression. “The guy behind us in the ball cap. He’s enjoying those tight jeans of yours a little too much.”

She scowled. “These aren’t tight.”

He raised his eyebrows as he perused the table again. “The outline of your driver’s license is showing through your right hip pocket.”

He nearly cackled when he heard the slap of her palm against her bottom.

“You were looking?” she asked.

Oops.

“Not in that way,” he fibbed. As though he hadn’t noticed the query in Josie’s eyes, he strolled around the table and pretended to find the conversation a bore.

“I certainly hope not,” she chastised. “Anyway, so what if some guy’s noticing me?”

Gabe scrutinized the man against the wall behind her. After he’d bent to hit a great ricochet shot that sent his six ball into the corner pocket, he explained, “As I said before, he’s not your type.”

Josie stood very still, and Gabe knew she was trying not to crane her neck around to see her admirer. “I don’t have a type.”

“Sure, you do. This one’s too young, I think.”

She snorted. “If he’s in Mary’s Bar, he’s old enough.”

“You started sneaking in here at sixteen.”

“How would you know? We met when I was nineteen.”

Oops again.

Gabe had heard about Josie long before the day they’d officially met. The Blume family had been different enough to cause talk, even among the Augusta cliques who considered themselves too refined for small-town Kansas gossip. Gabe’s mother included.

But until he’d met Josie, Gabe had doubted the tales of little girls hiding in the attic or magazine salesmen chased off by the barrel of their mother’s shotgun. Even of the boldhearted youngest daughter, who’d had the grit to defy her mother’s edicts.

“We’ve been friends for a long time, kid,” he said. “You must’ve told me most of your wild-and-crazy youth stories at some point.” Gabe missed his next shot and moved out of her way.

Apparently, she bought his explanation. She walked around the pool table again, surveying the balls, and snuck a peek at Wisconsin on her way past.

“That guy has to be twenty-five at least,” she said a few seconds later, after she’d made her shot and returned to Gabe’s side. “He doesn’t have a noticeable excess of tattoos or jewelry and he’s gawking at me, a female, and not you, a male.”

Gabe bit his tongue. Josie’s standards weren’t exactly celestial when it came to boyfriends. She said it all the time. The guys had to be fun, straight and un-attached. That was it, she swore.

“So he’s my type,” Josie said, as if Gabe had voiced some argument.

“Right, kid. If you have as few restrictions as you claim, why haven’t we hooked up?”

Josie stared at him.

Damn it, he’d done it again. What was wrong with him? He forced a laugh. “I only meant you have more requirements than you think.”

Gabe’s question had bewildered him, too. The idea of hooking up with Josie sounded dangerous—and exciting. She was young, though—even younger than his twin sisters. It took on a forbidden air.

No. He wasn’t the guy for Josie. Besides, if she grew bored with him in a month, as she did often with her lovers, where would their friendship stand?

Josie remained silent as she concentrated through another couple of shots, but as soon as Gabe had leaned over the table and posed his cue stick, she said, “You think you know everything about me, don’t you?”

He gazed at her. “I know a few things, especially about your love life. Remember? I’m the guy you’re usually with when you meet your dates.”

Her eyes slid to his hairline. “Okay, do I prefer my men tall and dark or tawny and brawny?”

Gabe shot and missed. Then he made a quick study of the tuck of hair beneath Wisconsin’s ball cap. Dark blond, he believed, and curly. The guy was only slightly shorter than Gabe. Josie’s last boyfriend had been Hispanic. Squat and muscular, with thinning dark hair. “Guess anything goes in the looks department.”

“Right. My two requirements for men are enthusiasm in bed and simplicity out of it. Commitment makes people fat and boring.”

One of Josie’s pet phrases.

Gabe wasn’t one to question her choices. He, too, intended to lead a single life. Commitment wasn’t a problem for him—it was the kids that most women set their sights on a few years down the road. A decade ago, Gabe’s father had died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a long and debilitating illness. Gabe couldn’t risk passing on those defective genes to any male children.

But at least Gabe stayed with a woman long enough to let her down easily when the time came. Josie tended to seek out guys who had no clue how to handle her. And she left before anyone cared.

Josie maneuvered around so her back was to Wisconsin again. Predictably, the guy leered. When Gabe caught the younger man’s eye, the corners of Wisconsin’s mouth twisted up in a sort of half simper, half gloat.

“Simplicity in the head, lack of skill in bed,” Gabe muttered. A favorite phrase of his own, if usually unvoiced.

When Josie missed her next ball entirely and paused to glare at him, her expression was almost comically disgusted.

Her problem wasn’t her pool game, however.

It was his big mouth.