Kiss Across Chaos (Kiss Across Time #10) - Tracy Cooper-Posey Page 0,8

was able to get her arms around him and be genuinely happy to see him.

The other one—his lover, her mind supplied for her in a heated whisper—came up behind him and nodded at her.

“Jesse, this is Kyle Fisher. Kyle, Jessenia Hall. She’s an old family friend.” Aran smiled. “Not that she’s old.”

“Not in my estimation, no,” Kyle said. He grinned at her, the blue eyes behind the glasses twinkling. “Not in the slightest. Nice to meet you…Jesse, yes?”

“She won’t answer to Jessenia,” Aran assured him. He looked back at her, his gaze frankly assessing. “Are you housesitting near here?”

“Um…Arlington. This is the only decent patisserie anywhere near, though.”

“It is,” Aran said. “We’re here three times a week, at least. Although the croissants…” He held out his hand and tilted it from side to side.

“They’re not quite right,” Jesse said in agreement.

“God, listen to you two snobs,” Kyle said. “It’s just flour and water.”

“No, it’s not,” Aran said instantly. Firmly. “Until you’ve had the real thing, you can’t understand.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Kyle replied. He put his hand on Aran’s arm. “Listen, you two catch up. I really do have to go.” The hand was just friendly, this time. He let it drop. “I’ll get a cab.”

“‘kay,” Aran said, just as casually. “Ciao.”

“Jesse,” Kyle added, nodding at her. He turned and left.

Aran didn’t watch him go. Instead, he pointed at the other chair. “May I?”

Jesse’s heart had been sinking the moment she realized he would want to sit at her table. Now that he had asked, she found herself reply crisply, “Stupid fucking question. Why would you even ask?”

Aran sat and draped the fronts of the expensive coat over his long legs so it didn’t drag on the slush-covered floor.

She sat and cleared the little table of her tablet and phone to give him room, and to give herself time to pull herself together. Aran was strangely different from how she remembered him. He was four years older, only that wasn’t the sum of the change. He’d always seemed older than God to her. It came from all the jumping about in time, she suspected. He’d experienced more of the world and humanity by eighteen than most middle-aged men ever came close to.

He was just as tall as she remembered. Brody’s height. Brody’s heartbreaking, Celtic good looks, combined with Taylor’s eyes and ridiculously long lashes. And the stubble.

Her hand twitched and she put it on her knee and curled the fingers in until the nails bit her palm. “Does Kyle know? About…?” The tables were too close for her to finish the question. Does he know that you can travel through time?

“Kyle?” Aran shook his head. “He’s just a friend.”

Jesse looked at him steadily. Really? He was going to deny it?

Aran’s smile was quick. Easy. He’d interpreted her expression. “Okay, friend with benefits,” he admitted. “But not that close a friend.”

Jesse batted away the pornographic images that slid into her mind and stole more of her breath.

Aran wasn’t drinking his coffee or eating the inadequate croissant. He was simply staring at her with those eyes. She had forgotten how his eyes could pin her down and make her forget what she was going to say.

“It’s really good to see you, Jesse,” Aran said.

She nodded. “It is.” Something grabbed her throat. The same something which had made her blubber, when Brody had spoken about family at Thanksgiving. But it was different, now. It was harder. Sadder.

“You look great,” Aran added. “There’s nothing of the military about you.”

“It’s all in here,” Jesse assured him, touching her temple. “And muscle memory, too.” She smiled. “I had pinned you as the dangerous man in the room before I realized it was you.”

Aran laughed. “That’s a compliment, I suppose.”

The silence that fell was warm and good, but there was still something beneath it that was making her heart patter. Or maybe it was her imagination.

Aran glanced at his watch.

It was a casual movement, but it reminded her of what she had forgotten in the last couple of minutes. Aran had a life. A career. He was so busy with that life, he never went home anymore, even though getting to Canada was as simple as flexing his knees. He didn’t want to, is what it came down to.

That was why he seemed different. The world he was moving in now was a high-power one, and he was a player. It gave him an air of authority, of supreme confidence—well, he’d always been confident, but now it