Page 31 of Our Little Secret
“Okay.”
And that was that.
With everything else going on, the last thing Brooke needed now was Leah, with all of her drama and problems, but, for the meantime, she was stuck with her younger sister.
What had Nana called her two granddaughters? Irish twins? Because they’d been born about a year apart?
“You girls should be close,” Nana had scolded when they’d been fighting over licking the beaters covered in cookie dough. She’d scraped off the thick, sugary paste that smelled of vanilla and cinnamon and handed each girl a beater, then took off her smudged glasses and wiped the lenses on the hem of her apron. “It wouldn’t kill you two to get along, you know,” she reprimanded softly as she settled the glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and looked pointedly at Brooke. “You only have one sister.”
CHAPTER 7
The day had been long and emotional. After Marilee stormed out of their bedroom and Neal headed to his office, Brooke finally stripped and stepped into the shower.
Leaning against the wet tiles, she closed her eyes and let needles of hot water drive into her back, soaking muscles that were starting to ache from her struggle with Gideon. What had she been thinking? Why had she even gone to meet him? How had she let this go so far?
She’d been a fool to get involved with him.Idiot, she chided herself.
She remembered the first time she saw him that day early last June, before summer had really taken hold, at Pike Place Market. It was innocent, totally not intended, and she’d literally bumped into him near the stall for a vendor of handmade jewelry. Well, if she was honest, she’d admit that she’d been distracted and angry. She’d recently lost her job and Neal had just moved out. Their last fight, when she’d accused him of seeing another woman, was still ringing in her ears. It seemed as if their rapidly fraying marriage had finally snapped apart.
In the crowded market she’d been fingering a braided bracelet with a few glass beads that reminded her of garnets, Marilee’s birthstone. Brooke had been thinking her daughter might like the bracelet, as Marilee too was despondent about the breakup. Would the bracelet cheer her up?
Brooke had stepped back and held up the piece of jewelry so that the beads would catch the light. At that moment someone had tried to get around her. Instead, he’d bumped into her, and the coffee he’d been carrying splashed, dousing both of them. She’d dropped the bracelet.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Brooke had cried, horrified, as she spied the stain blooming on his Mariners T-shirt.
He’d held up both hands, one still surrounding the now nearly empty cup. “No worries.”
“But your shirt—”
” Butyourshirt,” he’d said.
That was when she realized coffee had sloshed and dripped over her blouse, even splattering onto the lapel of her jacket. “No worries,” she repeated and he smiled, a crooked grin in two-days’ growth of beard that showed off slightly uneven white teeth.
“Tell ya what, you buy me another coffee and we’ll call it square.” He leaned down, picked up the bracelet, and handed it to her.
She arched a brow. “So you do think it was my fault?”
“Totally.” He nodded, sandy hair shifting over his eyes.
“Okay. Fair enough.” She returned the bracelet to its stand, then they walked through the booths and around the customers and tourists who clustered around everything from displays of fresh fruits and vegetables and local wines to flowers and exotic fish. Near a counter filled with baked goods, a woman pushing a stroller nearly cut her off, and this man—whose name she didn’t yet know—caught her fingers in his to help her through the throng, then dropped her hand as they reached the coffee shop.
They found a booth near large, curved windows that looked over the street. “I’ll have a coffee. Large. Black,” he said. His gray eyes seemed to touch hers. “I’m Gideon. Gideon Ross.”
“Brooke Harmon.”
He smiled again, and she felt her pulse jump stupidly. What was wrong with her?
She said, “Time to pay my debt. One black coffee coming right up.” She left him at the table to order and as she picked up his coffee and her latte, she noticed that the barista had decorated her drink with a foam heart.
Oh sure.
Back at the table, she handed him his cup, then sat down and quickly took a sip before he could see the artwork in her cup. Too late, his eyes had followed her movements. She felt herself blush and quickly looked away, returning her change to her wallet before dropping it into her purse.
When he looked up his gaze lingered on hers for a second too long. Breaking it off, he leaned back in the booth. “So, what’re you doing down here at the market?”
“Shopping,” she said evasively. She wasn’t about to confide in him that she’d just been let go from her job, that the start-up tech company she’d given her all to for the past two years had failed. That she, as of this very afternoon, was unemployed. A male coworker’s last words still rang in her ears: “Don’t let the door hit your pretty ass on the way out.” Max Wyckoff was such a sanctimonious jerk.
Worse yet, the nest egg she’d invested in the company was gone.
