“If you’re busy, I can—”
“What do you want, Cassie?”
“I…” He was still angry. She had expected that, was prepared for it. “I have some things to say to you.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“I know I hurt you, and that you’re furious with me. You don’t want me to apologize. You get mad when I do, so I won’t.”
“Fine. Aren’t you going to make me coffee?”
“Oh, I—” She’d already turned to the pot before she caught herself. She drew a breath, turned back and faced him. He had a brow lifted. “No.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“I’m used to waiting on people.” Now she was irritated, a not entirely unpleasant sensation, even if an unfamiliar one. “If it annoys you, I can’t help it. Maybe I like waiting on people. Maybe it makes me feel useful.”
“I don’t want you to wait on me.” He could see the irritation clearly enough. It added a snap to her eyes that fascinated him. “I don’t want you to feel obliged to me.”
“Well, I do feel obliged. And I can’t help that, either. And the fact that I do feel obliged and do feel grateful— Don’t shout at me, Devin.”
Impressed with
her no-nonsense tone, he closed his mouth, then added, “I might yet.”
“At least wait until I’ve finished.” It wasn’t so hard, she realized. It was like dealing with the children, really. You just had to be fair and firm, and not allow yourself to be sidetracked. “I have good reasons to feel obliged to you, and grateful to you, but that doesn’t meant that beyond that, or besides that… It doesn’t mean I don’t have other feelings, too.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I haven’t had real feelings for a man in—maybe never,” she decided. “But I don’t want to lose your friendship and…affection. Next to the children, there’s no one I care for more than you, Devin. Being with you…” She was going to fumble now, and she hated herself for it. “The way we were today, this afternoon, before you got mad, was so nice, it was so special.”
She was cutting right through his temper, slicing it to ribbons, the way she was standing there, twisting her purse strap and struggling to find a way to put things right between them.
“Okay, Cassie, why don’t we—”
“I came here to go to bed with you.”
His jaw dropped. He was sure he heard it hit the edge of the desk. Before he could pick it up again, the door burst open and Shane strolled in.
“Hey, Dev. Hey there, Cassie. Thought you might want to go down to Duff’s and shoot a couple games. Why don’t you come along, Cassie? It’s about time you learned how to shoot pool.”
“Go away, Shane,” Devin muttered, without taking his eyes off Cassie’s face.
“Come on, Dev, you’ve got nothing to do around here except read another book and drink stale coffee.” Experimentally he picked up the pot and sniffed. “This stuff’ll kill you.”
“Get lost now, or die.”
“What’s the problem? We’ll just—” All innocence, Shane turned back. The tension in the air struck him like a fist, the way his brother was staring at Cassie. The way she was staring back. “Oh. Oh,” he repeated, drawing out the word on a milewide grin. “Well, son of a gun. Who’d have thought?”
“You’ve got ten seconds to get out the door before I shoot you.”
“Well, hell, I’m going. How was I supposed to know you and Cassie were—”
“Tomorrow,” Devin said evenly, and finally managed to get his feet off the desk and onto the floor, “I’m going to break you into very small pieces.”
“Yeah, right. I guess you two don’t want to play pool, so I’ll be going. Ah, want me to lock this?” he said, winking as Devin snarled at him. But he was obliging enough to flip the latch and shut the door snugly behind him.
“You’re not really going to fight with him?” Cassie began quickly. “He didn’t mean anything, and…” Tongue-tied, she let her words trail off as Devin walked slowly around the desk.