“Scowling at me, you mean?” Mike said. “Yeah, I caught that too. It’s like I wronged her in another life, or I look like her ex-boyfriend or something.”
Kris considered that. “We can hope. Unprovoked bias would work in our favor with Luke, since he has a man-crush on you.”
Mike grimaced. “Really, Kris? Could you stop saying crap like that? It’s just uncomfortable.”
“And true. But the point is that we need to do more research.”
“You need to do more research,” Mike amended. “Remember, I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. Don’t turn this into rocket science, sis. We both know this wedding is not going to happen, just like you’re not going to marry Caleb. I work with engaged couples all day, every day and after a while you get a feel for the ones who are going to make it.”
“And what about me and Luke?” she challenged. “What does your intuition tell you about that possibility?”
Mike was careful not to react, she noted. As if he had anticipated the question and scripted his response. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay?”
“Fine,” she agreed.
“Fine.”
The room grew silent.
Mike let out a resigned sigh. “We can’t leave it at that, can we. You want to talk about Luke.”
Unbidden, filled Kris’s eyes and she turned away to try to hide them. “I don’t want to care, Mike. I really don’t. Not when he so clearly doesn’t.”
“C’mon,” he said, putting an arm around her as he sat on the bed. “You don’t know that. I’ve beat him up more than once for making comments about you. That said, if the reason you’re dating Caleb is to see if you can get Luke to admit he likes you, it’s not a bad plan. If I open the door to being okay with the fact that Caleb likes you, things might play out in a way that I’m completely uncomfortable with, but you might like.”
Kris wiped her eyes, smiling despite herself. “Well, as long as you’re uncomfortable.”
Mike pulled her a little closer and Kris let her head rest on his shoulder.
“Go on,” he urged her. “Get the tears out now, because once the gauntlet starts you’ve gotta keep your poker face on. Anything you’ve got to get out, let it rip now or forever hold your peace.”
There were many reasons Kris loved her brother, but this part of him was near the top of her list. To the rest of world, Kris liked to pretend she was composed and together. The only reason she could pull that off was because she had a brother she could freak out with and confide every insecurity to. And he never told a soul.
Yeah, as far as brothers went, Kris was pretty sure she’d won the jackpot.
Chapter 15
Jet lag. It had been a constant companion to Rori in her life, and she knew when it was useless to fight it.
It didn’t help that her mind was processing everything that had happened that day. The whole meeting with the neighbors had been unlike anything she had anticipated. Then again, Rori’s mother was quite formal. She would be appalled to even consider using paper plates for a party. Children would have been segregated to a separate area and overseen by a nanny, and a toast of celebration certainly wouldn’t have been given with soda from a two-liter bottle.
That said, Rori had been around enough to have much less refined sensibilities than her mother. She liked to think that she acclimated to her environment and went with the flow. Still, the whole evening with the Cannons had just been so…familial. A casual welcome home party turned engagement party without anyone breaking a sweat.
Luke’s insistence that she meet the Cannon family still eluded Rori, even though he’d assured her that it would be clear once they were all face to face. Clearly they were close with Luke, but that was no reason to drag your fiancée half way around the world.
Odd. It was all just odd. From the way Luke had raced at Kris the moment she appeared to Rori’s growing obsession to sculpt the best man.
It was those damn eyes of his. And his mouth. And his hands and arms. And the stupid way Mike emanated a quiet masculine confidence that silently assured her that everything was okay, that he had everything under control. All Rori had to do was trust him and everything would be okay.