Her Sister's Fiancé. Teresa Hill
kind of courtship he’d always been seeking and feared he’d never find, because most women were…well, not so calm or rational or well-organized.
And Kathie…he would have never believed she was capable of causing havoc in anyone’s life.
She could be quiet as a mouse most of the time. Kate was the one in charge, the strong, smart, determined one. Kim was the baby of the family, full of energy and exuberance. Jax was…well, Jax. As flashy and outgoing as Joe was serious and calm.
Kathie could easily disappear in the midst of them, hardly uttering a word. Sometimes when the whole Cassidy family was together, he forgot she was even there.
He’d known about the crush, of course. No way he could not have known. But that had been over for years, he’d believed. She’d always been kind to him, always noticed him but never done anything in recent years to make him think her feelings for him were anything but a history likely to embarrass her.
In a lot of ways, he’d still thought of her as a teenager. It was like she hadn’t aged a day since he’d first met her, when Kate had brought him home to meet her family for the first time.
Little Kathie Cassidy.
His undoing.
“What do you want me to do?” Marta whispered to him urgently? “Get rid of her?”
“No, I don’t want you to get rid of her,” he said, all but prying open his own mouth after that and trying to force out the words, She’s my date. No luck. He just couldn’t get them out.
“I will if you want me to. I can do it. I get rid of people you don’t want to see all the time. I’m good at it.”
She made it sound like she’d been taking lessons from Jax, twisting arms and threatening people with broken kneecaps or something. It was a bank, for God’s sake.
“No one’s getting rid of anyone,” Joe said. “She’s here to see me.”
“Not if you don’t want her to. No one gets in to see you if you don’t want them to.”
“Marta—”
“I’m his lunch date,” Kathie announced to what seemed like the entire building.
Marta gasped.
Maybe the entire room did, as well. Joe couldn’t be sure.
He was too busy staring at her.
No naughty, French-maid-like outfit today.
Just jeans that were the tiniest bit snug and a little no-nothing, T-shirt-like top. Nothing that should have made her look so good, so young and fit and…
Something had happened to her while she’d been gone, he decided.
She looked…different. Not so teenage-girlish.
Oh, she still looked impossibly young to his thirty-one years, but not the way she used to.
Or maybe he’d just never really looked at her that closely because he’d never thought of her as anything but his fiancée’s little sister. Until she’d kissed him that day, and then he’d simply tried not to think of her at all. Guilt had left him all but blind. He wouldn’t even look at her, but now….
She looked different.
She looked…really good.
God, help him, he was headed straight for ruin again.
She was Kate only minus three years and a wealth of knowledge of how the world worked. Kate minus all the determination and drive and seriousness. Kathie was more carefree, a kinder, gentler, happier version of her sister, and he hated the whole idea of comparing the two of them. It brought to mind what a vile thing he’d done, being engaged to the one and kissing the other.
But as she stood before him that day, he couldn’t help but think she was different in ways he didn’t want to examine.
And that he was once again on the edge of sheer ruin because of the odd things he felt for her.
Kathie walked right up to him, stopping only a breath away.
Uh-oh.
Joe braced himself as best he could for what might come next.
Just how friendly were they going to pretend to be?
She put one hand against his chest, another on his shoulder, stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. While she was that close, she whispered in his ear, “You look like you’re afraid I’m going to pull out a gun and rob the place, Joe.”
Which was probably true.
He forced himself to try to relax, to let his hands rest lightly on her shoulders and smile as he brushed his lips against the side of her cheek, something he’d probably done a thousand times when he’d been engaged to her sister and never had so much as a remotely sexual thought.
Nothing but a friendly hello once again.
He could do this.
Except they were trying to look like more than friends, and she’d lingered too close, as did he, for a moment too long.
It only took a moment with her, her hand pressed against his chest, right over his heart, his face against hers, lips lingering beside the soft skin of her cheek, then his nose caught in the vicinity of her right ear, in the edges of her hair, taking in the smell of her.
He remembered this smell, so delicate, barely there. A man had to get this close to smell it.
Maybe it was the scent of her that did it, that went in through his nose and made a beeline to some part of his brain that just…couldn’t take it, had no defenses against that sweet, intoxicating smell.
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