“Right.” Will conveyed the details she knew about Sid and Lucas’s kiss on the beach, and the subsequent sex offer and refusal. How any man could turn Sid down was a mystery to her, but Lucas seemed to have a valid reason. Which Will couldn’t fault the man for.
“He does have a point about the casual thing,” Beth said, once the story was out. “Has Sid ever even been in a relationship?”
“She’s not a virgin, based on what little she’s told me. But she’s not exactly the queen of girl talk, you know.” Not that Will wanted to have slumber parties and discuss menstrual cycles, but Sid was more likely to talk head gaskets and crank bait.
“Did you know she reads romance novels?” Beth whispered, as if conveying national secrets.
“No shit. Really?” Sid didn’t look to have a romantic bone in her body. Even when she talked about kissing Lucas, there was nothing sappy or swoony about it. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t think anyone does,” Beth said. “In fact, she threatened that if I told the guys about it, she’d kill me. Only she phrased it in a more Sid-like way.”
Sid did have a creative way with violent description. “Good thing I’m not one of the guys.”
“That’s her problem. She’s been one of the guys for too long.” Beth leaned back in her chair. “I was amazed the first time I saw her. She was playing pool with a bunch of the islanders, and they were smacking her on the back and acting like there wasn’t a centerfold bending over the table. Men can be so clueless.”
“Lucas doesn’t strike me as the clueless type, but he’s definitely playing the gentleman.” Will had noticed how Lucas’s eyes followed Sid around the room, so she knew there was interest. Even when he’d been flirting with Will, his heart wasn’t in it.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with him. He’s pragmatic and the most ambitious man I’ve ever met, but what Joe and I did to him left a mark.” Beth looked off in the distance. “I wouldn’t change how things are now, but I wish he hadn’t been the one to get hurt. Even with that, he’s the one who sent Joe to get me.”
“You never told me that.” Will hadn’t been friends with Sid and Beth back when the whole fiancée exchange had happened. They’d met, as Will had been the one to serve them drinks the night the ladies got tanked on tequila, but their little threesome was more recent.
“I was leaving for Boston. I didn’t want to work in law anymore and even if I had, I never could have stayed at the firm. Seeing Lucas would have been like seeing Joe and not being able to talk to him, or touch him.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Lucas called Joe and told him I was leaving. Said to get his ass up to Richmond or he’d lose me forever.”
“Wow. That was big of him.”
Beth laughed. “That’s Lucas. There’s a suppressed superhero behind those Dockers and button-up shirts. Fighting for justice and setting the world aright.”
“So if he thinks having a fling with Sid, then leaving her a few weeks later would break her heart, he won’t do it.” Will hadn’t encountered many men of Lucas’s caliber. Shame there wasn’t a third brother for her.
She nearly slapped that thought out of her head. Will would never drop her guard for a man again. No matter how decent he appeared to be.
The women sat in silence for a long moment, then Beth asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Hell if I know,” Will said. She’d been pondering the situation all day, but kept coming to the same conclusion. “She wants him and is determined she can love him and leave him with no problem. Who are we to say she can’t?”
Beth caught Will’s eye. “Her friends. Don’t we owe it to her to protect her?”
Will knew better than anyone how little your friends could protect you. “Sometimes you have to let friends figure things out on their own. I think this is one of those times.”
Lucas pulled in behind Sid’s truck at 6:55, still with no idea what the hell he was doing there. Nearly twelve hours before, he’d told her they couldn’t start anything. And now he was picking her up for a date. The only place he could think to take her in the rain was the marina restaurant. Dinner at Dempsey’s was out of the question.
Too many people to whom he’d have to explain. Besides, they’d never hear each other over the noise. At the marina, they could have a nice meal, just two adults sitting down to eat, then he’d take her home and this farce of a date would be over.
He considered honking, but his mother’s voice in his ear saying I taught you better manners than that had him climbing from the car. At least he didn’t have to use his mother’s minivan. Now that his parents were home, Lucas could once again enjoy the smooth ride of German engineering.
The rain had eased to a drizzle so he pulled the collar up on his sport jacket and made a break for the porch. The inside door was open so he knocked on the metal screen.
“Come on in,” yelled a voice from somewhere inside. “I’m almost done.”
Torn between irritation that she wasn’t ready and the lack of a proper greeting at the door, Lucas stepped inside and stopped to take in his surroundings. The interior before him could have been a magazine shoot for the perfect beach cottage. White paneling, well-worn aqua blue area rug, seashell-covered picture frames. Even the coffee table looked to be made out of salvaged wood from an old pier.
Two accent pillows on the couch. A multicolored throw draped naturally over the back of the sofa, and the arrangement of frames on the wall was artful chaos. Somehow it worked.
He’d expected something resembling a frat house. What he’d walked into was spotless without feeling sterile, welcoming, and purely feminine. Sid was clearly no frat boy. Something he should have remembered from their encounter on the beach.
“I just have to feed the cat, then I’ll be ready to go,” Sid said, entering the room while putting her hair up in a ponytail. She’d thankfully returned to her normal style of dress with jeans and an oversized gray shirt. Though not her usual tee with some obscene message. This one had a wide neckline that fell off one shoulder, revealing olive skin and what looked to be a black tank underneath.
Two questions hit Lucas at the same time. Why didn’t she ever wear her hair down? And Sid had a cat? He went with the second since having her hair down would undoubtedly have him longing to touch it all night.
“I didn’t peg you for the cat type.”
“I’m not. Curly made me take her.” Sid padded across the floor in white socks and snagged a pair of black boots off the floor beside the couch. “You can come all the way in, you know. I promise not to jump your bones and tie you to my bedpost.”
Lucas ignored the ping of disappointment. “How did she make you take a cat?”
“Curly has her ways.”
He followed her into the kitchen and spotted a smudge of gray fur hovering under a kitchen chair. At first it looked like a dried hair ball, then it moved. “That tiny ball of fur is your cat?”
“Yep.” Turning with a can of cat food in her hand, Sid put the can opener to work. “Lucas, meet Drillbit. Drillbit, this is Lucas. Shake hands and come out fighting.”
Lucas bent down to get a closer look. Big blue eyes blinked up at him. Upon closer inspection, he could see dark stripes throughout the light gray hair and a solid white chest with white on the tips of its feet. He didn’t go for pets much, but this one was cute.
“What kind of a name is Drillbit?”
“Stand around long enough and you’ll see.” Sid scooped the food into a small pink bowl, then moved to the sink to rinse off the spoon.
Before she’d turned off the water, something sharp pierced Lucas’s leg. “What the …” The innocent-looking blue eyes stared up at him again, but this time the rest of the animal was attached to his thigh. And climbing dangerously close to an important area of his anatomy.