Bar Bites: A Man of the Month Cookbook (Man of the Month 13)

"Again, no. We don't know until you tell us."

"Phone calls he obviously doesn't want me to overhear." He'd actually shifted direction and gone out onto the back porch yesterday. After, he'd said he hadn't seen her, but Shelby was sure he had. Her house--their house--didn't exactly have dark shadowy areas. She'd been pretty hard to miss.

"And, he was getting a lot of packages. When I asked him what he was buying, he said nothing important. And then the packages stopped."

Celia and Hannah exchanged glances. "So?"

"So, they didn't really stop. He just started having them delivered to the station." Nolan was a drive-time radio host at KIKX. His show was over the top, raunchy fun. And Shelby couldn't think of any reason why he'd need to get packages delivered there. But she knew that he was, because the girl at the front desk called her one day last week when Nolan was out of town at a broadcasting conference. She'd asked if Shelby knew if he needed the package forwarded to the conference or if she should just put it on his desk the way she did with all the others.

"So maybe he watches porn and he's embarrassed to tell you."

"Oh, please." Hannah rolled her eyes. "One, nothing embarrasses Nolan. Have you listened to his show? And two, who orders porn through the mail anymore? That's why we have the internet."

"That means it's bad, right?" Shel asked, looking between the two of them.

"It means he's ordering things," Celia said. "That's all it means."

"What else?" Hannah demanded.

"The rest is less concrete. A feeling, you know? Like we'll be watching TV or sitting together reading, and I look over and it's so clear that his mind is somewhere else entirely." She heard the hitch in her voice and felt like a fool, but in the moment, all she ever wanted to do was crawl into his head and see what he was thinking. She felt so insecure, so unbalanced. Because she'd given him her love, and that meant he had the power to hurt her. A power no one else held.

She wanted to believe he understood that; she wanted to trust him. But her fear just kept growing.

And as much as she hoped it was all her imagination, she hated the thought of being that girl. The whiney, bitchy girlfriend who saw deceit and cheating around every corner.

Surely he wasn't cheating?

She drew in a deep breath and told herself to calm down. "I don't know," she said after Tiffany arrived with the drinks and then slipped away again. "Maybe it's all in my head."

Celia plucked up the plastic toothpick with the bleu cheese stuffed olive on it and pointed it at Shelby. "Take it from the newly married woman. It's never just in your head. If you think something's going on, it is."

"Oh, God..."

"Jeez, Celia." Hannah glared at Celia across the table.

"But," Celia continued, her voice full of purpose, "that doesn't mean the something is bad. Maybe he's having a shitty week at work. Maybe you're just misreading the signs." She popped the olive into her mouth, chewed, then swallowed. "There's only one way to know."

"Yeah?" Shel asked, when Celia didn't go on.

"Oh, come on, Shel. For a woman as smart as you are, you're kind of missing the obvious, aren't you?"

Shelby pushed her glasses up on her nose, then looked between both of her friends, frowning.

Hannah and Celia exchanged glances, and then each took one of her hands and squeezed. "Ask him," Hannah said.

Celia nodded. "Sorry, Shel. But you're never going to know until you ask."

Nolan Wood checked his watch as he glanced around the house. Shelby's house. Or it had started out that way anyway. Now it was his, too. Just as much as she was his.

With a shake of his head, he realized he was smiling. Not that he wasn't usually--on the whole, he was a pretty laid-back, happy kinda guy. But since he met Shel, it took a rock solid effort to wipe the smile off his face. His Shelby. His paradox. The buttoned-up woman who'd let a loose cannon like him into her life--and in the process had changed him completely.

They'd been together for months now, but he'd known right away that she was special. And that feeling just kept getting stronger, until sometimes when he was around her he thought he might burst if he couldn't release the pressure.

Then again, that's one reason why he loved his radio show; that was one hell of a pressure release, after all.

Although it wasn't quite as good as sex...

The thought seemed to shove him around, and he turned to face the suitcase he'd left by the door. For a second, he frowned. Afraid that maybe he was doing this all wrong.