Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

Kate smiled. “You are always so sweet.”

“This is the problem with my family,” he said to me, sotto-voice. “They say one thing, but I suspect they actually mean two or three other things. Makes conversation very complicated.”

Kate laughed. “And doesn’t Natalie look lovely too?”

I jerked up as they all turned my way, Kate smiling a little too smugly. Mike turned his head, ever so slowly, and tilted it up and down as he took me in. I tried to fight the rising color in my cheeks. God, why didn’t he ever blush? He was the redhead.

“Yeah,” he said. “She does.”

I was almost positive both Anna and Lauren kicked their brother when he said that.

I kept stealing glances at him all through breakfast. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was used to seeing him in jeans or in running gear, not in a formal suit. A red tie hung loosely around his neck, and I barely heard anything as he laughed, his eyes glinting, lips parting...

I placed my silverware down and practically leaped into the air. “Excuse me. I have to get my...something...from the car.”

Outside, I leaned against the warm stone of the inn, my breath rushing in and out. This was crazy. I couldn’t get involved with Mike when Kilkarten lay between us. Maybe once we were back in New York, or after his sisters decided definitively that there would never be an excavation, but when everything still hung in the air—it felt too much like emotional manipulation.

Lauren’s voice floated out, and I jerked upright and tried to look like I totally hadn’t been fantasizing about her brother. But she was nowhere. Instead, I noticed the closest window propped slightly open. Ever so stealthily, I sidled over until I stood next to it. A rose trellis got in my face and made the world smell all pink and orange and candy-like.

Lauren kept speaking. “She’s really pretty. I mean, she always looked pretty, but normal pretty. Today...”

I preened.

Kate ruined that. “You know who she reminds me of?” She paused, and I pictured her taking a long sip of coffee. “Tamara Bocharov.”

Oh, shit.

But what had I expected, putting on a dress and make-up?

I guess I hadn’t expected anything. I’d just wanted Mike to think I was pretty, due to my certifiable insanity.

Still, no one said anything. Kate sighed. “You’re all too young to remember her. That’s depressing.”

“I remember when Pluto was a planet,” Anna said.

Lauren snorted. “Barely.”

“So who was Tamara?” Mike said.

“Oh, a model back in the day. She—”

“Ahh,” Anna said. “That explains why you like Natalie. I was wondering why you were hooking up with a girl who actually has a brain.”

“I told you, we’re not a couple—”

“Whatever. You should just admit it. The keys to a happy family are open communication.”

“For Christ’s sake—”

“Mike,” Kate said.

He groaned. I snickered, then clapped my hand over my mouth and pinched my nose shut to stifle the sound.

He groaned. “Don’t we have a memorial to go to?”

* * *

Four hundred years ago, local O’Connors and O’Malleys and Murphys painstakingly built the local church by hand, making it older than America, as Eileen’s son and grandchildren cheerfully informed us as soon as the building came into view.