Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency 3)

“I’ll do that, too, eventually. This afternoon I just want to get the lay of the land, and I want company while I do it.” To goad her into doing what he asked, he added, “Why the reluctance? I thought you were immune to me?”

“I’m totally immune to you. I’m just not a big fan of wasting time. But whatever.” She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “It’s your time. Where do you want to start?”

“This way.” He guided her around the main building and onto a concrete walkway that formed a border between the buildings and the sports fields.

She fell into step beside him. After a moment, manners got the best of her. “How’s your family?”

“Predictably dysfunctional.” The reply came out terser than he intended, and he didn’t want to leave her with the impression he gave a shit over something he’d come to terms with a long time ago, so he elaborated. “Derek, as I expect everyone around here knows, is currently a guest of the good state of Alabama. He’s about halfway through a three-year stint at Draper.”

“I know.” She laid a hand on his arm for a brief moment, and said, “I’m sorry.”

The simple sympathy in her voice told him she might be one of the few people to actually mean the words. Though just three years apart, he felt like he hardly knew his older brother anymore. The first time Derek had gotten himself in real trouble—picked up by Atlanta PD for assault—Shane had only been fifteen. Even so, he’d heard all the whispers and seen the way people had looked at him like it was only a matter of time before he followed in his brother’s footsteps. He very nearly had.

He shrugged. “Not his first time, probably not his last. He excels at bad decisions, and he won’t listen to anybody, including me.”

“I hope that changes.” As she spoke, she crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders against the chilly breeze.

“Me, too, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“And your folks? They’re still in Illinois?”

“Mom works at a nursing home outside Chicago. Dad’s doing as little as possible, as always.”

Parenthood had come early and unexpectedly to Mandy and Gregory Maguire. The shotgun wedding arranged by her parents had stuck, but an exchange of rings didn’t actually prepare a person for raising kids. He and Derek had run wild growing up. Acting out to get their parents’ attention hadn’t done anything except earn them bad reputations and ensure that in any situation requiring the benefit of the doubt, they wouldn’t get it.

“You live in Chicago now, too?”

She phrased it as a question, but he detected a hint of deductive certainty in her voice.

“What makes you think so?”

She stopped and ran her hand down the sleeve of his green cashmere sweater until she reached the stainless-steel band of his Breitling chronograph. “Oh, please. You’ve got city all over you. A speck on the map like Magnolia Grove can’t hold you now. It never could.”

He liked her hand on him, even if her underlying intention was to push him away. Technically, she might be right, but he found himself playing devil’s advocate just to keep her engaged. “I’ve been bouncing around the globe since I got my Eagle. I’m not rooted anywhere.”

Even as he said the words, the crisp air, the scent of logs burning in a fireplace somewhere in the distance called up memories, as did the sight of her standing in the shadow of the old brick building. They knuckled through the foundations of the life he’d built since leaving Magnolia Grove, like a tree long gone but never properly excavated. Those useless remnants could still trip him up now and then if he didn’t watch his step.

Maybe she read his mind, because she said, “You won’t stay,” and then turned and started walking again. “You couldn’t get out of here fast enough, and once you left, you never looked back.”

He followed, a little surprised at how ready he was to dispute her summary. She made it sound as if he’d left by his own choice and never contacted her again, which wasn’t how things had gone down. “Seriously? That’s the way you want to play it?”

“That’s the way it was.”

“I could argue your version of events.”

“The past is the past. I don’t want to talk about it.” But her actions suggested otherwise, because she stopped and turned to him. “My only point is, you’re not staying. Despite all the recent growth, this is still Magnolia Grove. It hasn’t changed much from the place you walked away from.” She glanced back at him. “And you haven’t changed much from the guy who walked away. A job brought you back, nothing more.”

Very true. A job had brought him back, and when he finished, he’d jump on a plane and head to the next. Which made her absolutely right, but he resented her words, and the certainty in her voice as she said them. He had changed, and for some pathetic reason, he wanted people to see that. The fact that she didn’t hurt more than he liked to admit, so he spent a purposeful minute noting the potential bottlenecks in evacuation routes caused by the installation of several portable classrooms on one side of the quad. When he glanced at her again, he found her regarding him with a hard-to-quantify look on her face. “What?”

A smile flitted across her lips. “Nothing.” She shook her head and took the path that cut across the quad, lined by a row of big, old maple trees. He measured his steps to hers and kept quiet—a strategy he’d always relied on when he wanted Sinclair to talk. Give her silence to fill.

The strategy still worked. After a moment, she laughed under her breath, and murmured, “Your job.”

“My job is funny?”

“It’s funny that the kid with a reputation for acting first and dealing with the shitstorm later now spends his time considering risks a

nd implementing protective measures.”