It Was Only a Kiss - By Joss Wood Page 0,52

seemed to accept that as a valid excuse, Luke thought, feeling Nick’s interested gaze on his face. He turned his head and lifted his eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘Well, that was interesting. Ten what?’

Luke ignored him, but Nick wasn’t the only brother to have picked up on the tension between him and Jess. Patrick geared up to needle his sister again.

‘So what’s the deal between you and Savage, Jess? I think that’s the first time in history that you’ve listened to a man without an argument.’

Jess leaned across the table and skewered him with a hot look. ‘What’s the deal between you and brains, Pat? As in...where are yours? And mind your own business.’

‘You are my business. Our business.’ Patrick spooned up his dessert and leaned back in his chair.

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘Here we go.’ He turned to Luke. ‘Patrick and Jess have butted heads their entire lives. They are only nine months apart, and Pat loves to lord it over her. Not that we’re not all interested in what’s happening between you and our baby sister.’

‘But you’re just quieter about it?’ Luke shot back, and read the warning in Nick’s eyes. Mess with her and you’re a dead man. Which annoyed him... After all, she hadn’t caught him in bed with someone else.

And never would. He didn’t cheat.

‘I counted the bedrooms and there’s just enough for all of us,’ John commented. ‘So, where are you sleeping, Jessica?’

Every single Sherwood, plus wives and partners, perked up. Her mother leaned forward in her chair. Her grandmother chuckled. Faces turned either speculative or protective and Jess threw Luke a desperate look.

Ah...this was the downside of a large family. The extreme lack of privacy. ‘I offered Jess a place to sleep in my house for the duration of your stay. Since we do need to do some work this weekend, we thought that was the most practical solution.’

‘So are you sleeping together, and if you aren’t, why not?’ Liza raised her eyebrows. Liza didn’t give him a millisecond to respond. ‘Are you involved? Married? Gay?’

‘Mum!’ Jess shoved her hands into her hair from frustration.

‘What?’ Liza sent her an innocent look. ‘I just want you to be happy. And if you and Luke are just work colleagues then I have at least three young men who want your number.’

‘Good grief,’ Jess moaned. ‘I told you—Luke and I are friends. Just friends.’

‘Then maybe you and Grant can get back together?’ Patrick suggested. ‘I saw him last week. He was asking about you.’

A chorus of approval followed his suggestion and Luke felt his teeth grinding in the back of his jaw.

‘He isn’t seeing anyone else,’ Chris commented. ‘We took him out for a beer and he was crying into it, saying that you were the best thing that ever happened to him. Can’t understand it myself, but there you are.’

‘He’s a nice guy, Jess,’ John agreed.

Jess sent Luke a look of abject misery and mortification. He now knew what she’d meant when she’d said that her family didn’t respect her privacy and that they had no concept of emotional boundaries.

Patrick waved his wine glass in the air. ‘And he’s a mean fly half. If he’s prepared to forgive her for being so anal then she should consider giving him another chance.’

Clem shook her head at Kate. ‘For a doctor, your husband can be extraordinarily thick on occasion.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Kate grumbled.

Jess pushed her chair back and stumbled to her feet. Luke saw the white ring of pain around her mouth and knew that she was at her limit—physically and probably mentally—and certainly not up to dealing with her family. When she swayed on her feet his protective streak flashed white-hot, and he was out of his chair to catch her as her knees buckled. He’d been wrong. She was way past her limit.

‘Okay, that’s enough,’ he said in a hard voice.

Luke wound his arm around her waist and felt Jess’s arms creep around him. He looked at each of her brothers in turn.

‘God, you lot are a piece of work. Can’t you see that she’s not up to dealing with your crap? She’s got ten stitches in her leg and she’s battered and bruised.’

His glare had Patrick’s retort dying on his lips.

‘Jess and I—hell, I don’t even know what’s what between us. But—’ he looked at Liza ‘—it is between us. And the next person who mentions her going back to that waste of oxygen she caught screwing another woman, in her bed, will get his ass