Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

I rolled over to face him better. “Didn’t you say you do the same, once? That you smile because it makes life easier.”

“But I’m curious about how you arrived there. Why do you to do that?”

I thought about it. “I guess it developed naturally. I smiled all the time growing up, to be polite. And then I went to college and decided I wanted to be someone else, and—I don’t know, I just found it easier to be happy, and interested, and pleasant. Because then everyone likes you.”

“Or they like who you’re presenting.”

“It didn’t make a difference to me. I didn’t really have a personality—just—obedience.”

“So you manipulated people because then everyone thought it was their idea and they still liked you. Easier than confrontations.”

I drew my knees up to my chest. “I wouldn’t have put it like that.”

He let out a breath. “I was going to go to UMass. Then I picked Notre Dame instead, because it was further away. My dad had been dead six months, and no one there knew, and I just smiled and played ball and they liked me.” He half laughed. “I didn’t have to talk for months. I just smiled.”

I traced a pattern on the comforter. “I can tell the difference in your smiles.”

He raised a brow. “You cannot.”

“Yes, I can.”

He smiled a slow, seductive smile, his eyes heavy. “Okay. So what does this one mean?”

It meant we were late down to breakfast.

* * *

We drove out to Blarney Castle with Mike’s family for the afternoon. MacCarthys built the fortress six-hundred years ago, and today tourists flocked to see the stronghold and to receive the gift of gab by kissing the bluestone block.

Which I wouldn’t do, because any stone worth kissing had usually been peed on.

We crossed grounds filled with gardens and a meandering brook before reaching the tall, rectangular keep, and then we climbed a narrow, spiraling staircase to the battlements. When we emerged, we looked over the lichen spotted, weathered stones to a view of apple green lawns and trees. To one side we could see the 19th century Blarney House, while to another we saw the brook we’d crossed and a picturesque round tower. Anna commandeered another tourist as a photographer, and positioned us all before the fields and then the Blarney Stone, which looked much like every other stone. And she kissed it of course, and then Lauren and Mike and I caved as well and hung backward over the steep drop. A gentle looking employee held me securely, his tip jar crammed with euros and pounds and dollars. The blood rushed to my head as I pressed my lips against the cool rock.

Mike raised a brow when I came back up. “Like you need more reasons to talk.”

“But now I will babble eloquently.”

Anna even managed to bully Kate into kissing it. She actually acquiesced easily enough. “I’ve already spent most of my life bending over backward for my children. Why should today be any different?”

We walked through the gardens and the rock close, where everything was named Witches Stone or Fairy Glade or Wishing Steps, and then we stopped by the stable before heading for the house tour. I leaned against the low stone wall and stared at the water and fields while Anna took pictures.

After less than a minute, footsteps padded behind me, and an easterly breeze washed his scent over me and lifted my hair. He braced his arms just as mine were and didn’t look my way. “So. Tamara Bocharov.”

When had he even—Kate had mentioned I’d looked like her yesterday. I’d completely forgotten. Had he looked it up before or after last night?

I forced a soft laugh. “If you call her a MILF, I’m going to throw up.”

He turned his head. “Why did you just do that?”

I’d thought I’d handled his discovery fairly well. “Do what?”

“Turn the source of one of your issues into bad comedy material.”

I stiffened. “I think I’m allowed to react however the hell I want to about my family.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t your reaction, you just slapped it on so I wouldn’t see how you really felt. You know, it’s okay to talk about your family issues. I find it kind of helps.”

I turned so my back pressed against the wall and my elbows rested on it. “Really?”