sister.”
Shea still hadn’t turned to face him yet. She was irrationally afraid that he would be able to read her thoughts. She always had naughty thoughts about Dev but the ones from last night had taken things to a new level. Would he be able to tell?
“Do you know anybody?” She asked, skipping over her greeting altogether in favor of getting down to business. Maybe everything would be okay if they kept the conversation to dogs. Strangely, it had been him coming in the night before that had gotten her thinking. When he came in with her, it had comforted her—tamped down all the anxiety she’d been trying to ignore about being alone in the house.
That whole jumble of emotions was another beast. There were ways she hadn’t ever felt secure and protected, even with Keenan. The one time Keenan had suspected there was an intruder in their apartment, he’d sequestered them in the panic room behind a hidden wall in their closet and called down to the doorman.
It turned out the “intruder” was their housekeeper, who came back hours later for something she forgot. Thirty minutes in the escape room and Keenan had been scared out of his wits. Even if he hadn’t, Shea seriously doubted that Keenan could kick anybody’s ass.
But Dev…if ever there were some random intruder to contend with, Dev would be able to take him. Dev could do all manner of sexy, manly things. Shea had never understood gun obsession and knowing that so many people around here owned them had made her uncomfortable at first. But now, it made Dev all the more sexy to her that he knew his way around a firearm.
“Jessica,” Dev answered, just as Shea was on the brink of getting carried away again with thoughts of how he’d been the night before.
“Jessica?” Shea repeated as he approached the counter where she sat.
“Brody’s wife,” Delilah chimed in. “They live all the way out by Evergreen. She rarely comes out. It’s a lot, taking care of all those dogs.”
“So she’s a breeder?” Shea asked hopefully.
“And a good one, too,” Dev confirmed.
Did Shea imagine that, when he pulled his chair out to sit, he placed it a little closer to hers?
“Don’t worry. I’ll put a call into Jess before lunch.” Dev gave her a little wink as he settled into his seat. “You just leave everything to me.”
Shea did go back to Evie’s house the following Sunday night. They did play Pictionary, and Dev did look like a convulsing yeti. The s’mores bars Evie baked might have been the best thing Shea had ever tasted. Evie did more gentle prying into Shea’s situation, and Shea took it all in stride. It didn’t escape her that Dev seemed to listen intently.
“Heard Buffalo Bill took a liking to you.” Evie slipped this in as she poured the decaf, standing long enough to circle the table to get everybody’s cup. She waited until settling back in her seat on creaky bones before raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “Whaddayathink? You gonna hit that?”
Delilah’s amused smirk matched Evie’s exactly and she asked a playful, “Well?” at the same moments as Dev’s alarmed eyes bugged out. His cheeks puffed in a way that suggested he’d come just short of spitting out his coffee. He shot a reproachful look toward Evie.
“Well, he’s never officially asked me out…” Shea hedged with a little smile of her own before picking up the pint-sized carton of cream.
“Don’t worry,” Delilah returned cheekily. “He will.”
“Plying you with drinks is just the first part of his mating ritual,” Evie cut in. “Next’ll be flowers and gifts. Actually talking to you won’t come ’til at least step three.”
“I thought step three was carrying your books while he walked you home from school and giving you his letter jacket,“ Dev muttered—a bit grumpily, Shea thought—not seeming to enjoy what was left of his s’mores bar as much as he had a minute before. “You know, kind of like they did back at the turn of the last century when he was a boy.”
“Watch it, Devo,” Evie warned, using a nickname she’d used a few times by then, and only when Dev was being a smart aleck. “Billy’s only two years younger than me.”
“Well he looks about fifteen years older,” Dev shot back, looking at Shea for the few seconds it took him to say it, then quickly darting his gaze back to Evie. “A lot of that has to do with you aging so well.”
Shea raised an impressed