“You know,” Kyle said, not taking his eyes off Jack, “maybe you’re right. She’s an awesome girl. Beautiful, too.”
Logan swilled beer and nodded. “If I had a friend who looked like her and was half as sweet, I’d snatch her up before someone else did.”
“Good point, man,” Kyle said, as if the thought had never crossed his mind. “You’re right. I should take a shot with her.”
Jack ground his back teeth together. How could any man be friends with Brooke and not want to touch her, kiss her, or taste her? He couldn’t, simple as that. Which meant that Kyle really was playing the long game, and Jack, with his stupid questions, might have just pushed him into action. How typical. He’d accidentally encouraged another man to ask out the girl he was lusting after. He cracked his knuckles and forced his jaw to unclench. Tione frowned at him.
“What?” Jack snapped.
“Nothing.” Tione held his palms up in a gesture of peace. Jack glared at him, then glared at Kyle for good measure. Kyle held his gaze with something a lot like defiance. What was that about?
“Sterling, what have you got?” Shane asked.
Sterling turned over his cards, and everyone groaned. He’d won, as was becoming the norm. They continued playing for a while, and no one mentioned Brooke again. Jack drank more than usual, determined to wipe the image of her flushed face this afternoon from his memory, and determined not to care if Kyle decided to pursue her. She was all wrong for him anyway—she had a blog for God’s sake, and that alone made her far too similar to Claudia for his peace of mind. He wasn’t about to chase after her because of a short-term infatuation. Especially not when she hadn’t given any indication she wanted him to.
By the time they wrapped up, he was unsteady as he staggered down the stairs and made the short walk home.
8
Since Brooke had been too excited to sleep, she was up at dawn. She made herself a coffee, reheated one of Tione’s muffins from yesterday’s breakfast, and dressed in leggings and a tank top. Then she headed outside and inhaled a lungful of fresh morning air.
“What a beautiful day,” she said, to no one in particular.
Bella wandered across the lawn and Brooke knelt to ruffle her fur and scratch the scruff of her neck, her favorite place to be petted.
“Good girl,” she crooned. “Do you want to come for a walk with me?”
She knocked on Tione’s door and told him she was taking Bella up to the waterfall. He grunted something unintelligible in response. She grinned. Yesterday had been the men’s weekly poker night and he was usually a little worse for wear the next morning. She and Bella started into the forest together. Her muscles were stiff, and it was slow going, but she persisted and after ten minutes, they’d loosened up enough for her to enjoy herself.
Dawn in the forest was a glorious experience. Birds tweeted and chirped from above, and crepuscular insects and animals—those that were active at the beginning and end of the day—rustled in the undergrowth. Light filtered through the branches and speckled the track with patches of gold. It felt like a new beginning.
She sat beside the waterfall pool while Bella leapt in, spraying water everywhere. The border collie’s head broke the surface and she paddled across the pond, staying well away from the waterfall, emerging on the other side to shake herself dry. She sniffed a few rocks, then trotted into the bush. Brooke wasn’t worried about her straying. Bella probably knew the way to Sanctuary better than she did. Tione never bothered to keep her fenced in, and she still found her way back to him every night.
Eventually, Brooke rose and headed back. A moment later, a twig cracked, and then Bella rejoined her. Once at Sanctuary, she left the dog in the garden and went to her room, where she decided to investigate how to build her core strength. She switched on her computer and watched a demonstration video about how to do a prone hold. It looked easy enough. She set a timer for three minutes, assumed the position, raised her knees from the floor, and flattened her back. Almost immediately, her abdominal muscles started to burn. Squeezing her eyes shut, she held the position until she didn’t think she could stand it any longer, then opened them. Twenty seconds had passed. Apparently, her core needed a lot of strengthening.
Her phone rang, and she dropped out of the prone hold with a sigh of relief. Excellent timing.
“Good morning,” she said into the speaker.
“You’re welcome,” Kyle replied enigmatically.
“Huh?”
“You owe me,” he continued, as she shifted onto the bed and kicked her feet up. “Last night, Jack was angling for information about you. I think he was trying to work out if we’re a couple.”
Her heart gave a skip and a hop. What would have given Jack that idea, and why would he care?
“I said we weren’t, but I may have given him the impression I was interested in you, so if you could just go along with that and hang on my every word, it would be great.”
She hid her face in a pillow and groaned. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it seemed like he was trying to scope you out.”
She straightened. “I think you misread the situation. He couldn’t be less interested in me if he tried. Even if, by some miracle, he was, he’s not going to do anything about it now that he thinks you and I might be together.”
Kyle laughed, and her hands twitched with the urge to strangle him. “I beg to differ. Men love a bit of healthy competition.”
She gaped. “Excuse me? I’m a woman, not some trophy for you and your friends to arm-wrestle over.”
He stopped laughing. “I know. You’re an intelligent, classy woman with good taste in friends.”
Classy? That was pushing it. He’d seen her shoveling lime-swirl ice cream into her mouth while wearing fluffy slippers and a baggy hoody, her hair unwashed and eyes red-rimmed after a breakup. How could he possibly consider that classy?
“Whatever,” she muttered.
“You’re not really annoyed with me,” he said with the confidence of a longtime friend. “You should come over for Game of Thrones later. It’s been a while since we watched season two.”
She bit her lip. “Much as I’d like to, I’m busy today. I’m seeing Bex about a workout plan and I’m falling behind on my thesis. Maybe we could do something in a couple of days?”
“You’re on. Hey, what do you say we have a public outing? Get Jack’s attention. Make him jealous.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. He’s not interested in me.” Pain pinched at her chest even as she tried to tell herself she didn’t care. “Anyway, I’m not the type to play silly jealousy games, so drop it, okay?”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “It would just be nice if one of us were seeing some action.”
Inwardly, she sighed. She couldn’t disagree with that. “You’re more likely to get action than me, hot librarian.”
Bex studied Brooke from above, mirth dancing in her eyes. “Brooke doing a sit-up. That’s something I never thought I’d see.”
Brooke groaned midway through and collapsed onto the floor. She plucked at her tank top, which was plastered to her chest, and tried to let her skin breathe. Everything was sweaty, even her hair.