Taylor's Temptation

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “You know, he doesn’t need to find out.”

  Bobby braced himself and met her gaze. “I can’t be that kind of friend to him.”

  She sighed. “Terrific. Now I feel like a total worm.” She started toward Brattle Street. “I think, considering all things, we should skip the movie. I’m going home. If you change your mind…”

  “I won’t.”

  “…you know where to find me.” Bobby followed her about a dozen more steps, and she turned around. “Are you coming with me after all?”

  “It’s getting late. I’ll see you home.”

  “No,” Colleen said. “Thank you, but no.”

  Bobby knew not to press it. That look in her eyes was one he’d seen far too many times on a completely different Skelly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Me, too,” she told him before she walked away.

  The sidewalk wasn’t as crowded as it had been just a few hours ago, so Bobby let her get a good head start before he started after her.

  He followed her all the way home, making certain she was safe without letting her see him again.

  And then he stood there, outside her apartment building, watching the lights go on in her apartment, angry and frustrated and dying to be up there with her, and wondering what on earth he was going to do now.

  Chapter 4

  Colleen had printed out the e-mail late last night, and she now held it tightly in her hand as she approached Bobby.

  He was exactly where he’d said he would be when he’d called—sitting on the grassy slope along the Charles River, looking out at the water, sipping coffee through a hot cup with a plastic lid.

  He saw her coming and got to his feet. “Thanks for meeting me,” he called.

  He was so serious—no easygoing smile on his face. Or maybe he was nervous. It was hard to be sure. Unlike Wes, who twitched and bounced off the walls at twice his normal frenetic speed when he was nervous, Bobby showed no outward sign.

  He didn’t fiddle with his coffee cup. He just held it serenely. He’d gotten them both large cups, but in his hand, large looked small.

  Colleen was going to have to hold hers with both hands.

  He didn’t tap his foot. He didn’t nervously clench his teeth. He didn’t chew his lip.

  He just stood there and breathed as he solemnly watched her approach.

  He’d called at 6:30 this morning. She’d just barely fallen asleep after a night spent mostly tossing and turning—and analyzing everything she’d done and said last night, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong.

  She’d come to the conclusion that she’d done everything wrong. Starting with crying over a motor vehicle and ending with darn near throwing herself at the man.

  This morning Bobby had apologized for calling so early and had told her he hadn’t been sure what time she was leaving for work today. He’d remembered that she was driving the truck, remembered their tentative plan to meet for breakfast.

  Last night she’d wanted him to stay for breakfast.

  But he hadn’t—because of some stupid idea that by having a relationship with her, he’d be betraying Wes.

  Wes, whose life he’d most likely saved, probably countless times. Including, so it seemed, one definite time just a few short weeks ago.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’d been shot.” Colleen didn’t bother saying good morning. She just thrust the copy of Wes’s e-mail at him.

  He took it and read it quickly. It wasn’t very long. Just a short, fast, grammatically creative hello from Wes, who didn’t report where he was, who really just wanted to make sure Bobby had arrived in Boston. He mentioned almost in passing that Bobby had recently been shot while out in the real world—the SEALs’ nickname for a real mission or operation.

  They had been somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, Wes reported vaguely, and due to circumstances out of their control, they’d been discovered. Men with assault weapons started shooting, and Bobby had stepped in front of Wes, taking some bullets and saving his scrawny hide.

  “Be nice to him,” Wes had written to Colleen. “He nearly died. He almost got his butt shot off, and his shoulder’s still giving him pain. Treat him kindly. I’ll call as soon as I’m back in the States.”

  “If he can say all that in an e-mail,” Colleen told Bobby sternly, “you could have told me at least a little about what happened. You could have told me you were shot instead of letting me think you’d hurt yourself in some normal way—like pulling a muscle playing basketball.”

  He handed her the piece of paper. “I didn’t think it was useful information,” he admitted. “I mean, what good is telling you that a bunch of bad guys with guns tried to kill your brother a few weeks ago? Does knowing that really help you in any way?”

  “Yes, because not knowing hurts. You don’t need to protect me from the truth,” Colleen told him fiercely. “I’m not a little girl anymore.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought we cleared that up last night.”

  Last night. When some extremely passionate kisses had nearly led to getting it on right out in the open, in an alley not far from Harvard Square.

  “I got coffee and muffins,” Bobby said, deftly changing the subject. “Do you have time to sit and talk?”

  Colleen watched as he lowered himself back onto the grass. Gingerly. Why hadn’t she noticed that last night? She was so self-absorbed. “Yes. Great. Let’s talk. You can start by telling me how many times you were shot and exactly where.”

  He glanced at her as she sat down beside him, amusement in his dark eyes. “Trust Wes to be melodramatic. I took a round in the upper leg that bled kind of heavily. It’s fine now—no problem.” He pulled up the baggy leg of his shorts to reveal a deeply tanned, enormously muscular thigh. There was a fresh pink scar up high on his leg. Where it would really hurt a whole lot to be shot. Where there were major veins—or were they arteries?—which, if opened, could easily cause a man to bleed to death very quickly.

  Wes hadn’t been melodramatic at all. Colleen couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stop staring at that scar. Bobby could have died.

  “It’s my shoulder that’s giving me the trouble,” Bobby continued, pulling his shorts leg back down. “I was lucky I didn’t break a bone, but it’s still pretty sore. I’ve got limited mobility right now—which is frustrating. I can’t lift my arm much higher than this.”

  He demonstrated, and Colleen realized that his ponytail wasn’t a fashion statement after all. He was wearing his hair like that because he wasn’t physically able to put it back in his usual neat braid.

  “I’m supposed to take it easy,” he told her. “You know, not push it for another week.”

  He handed her a cup of coffee and held open a bag that contained about a half a dozen enormous muffins. She shook her head. Her appetite was gone.

  “Can you do me a favor?” she asked. “Next time you or Wes get hurt, even if it’s just something really little, will you call me and let me know? Please? Otherwise I’m just going to worry about you all the time.”

  Bobby shook his head. “Colleen…”

  “Don’t Colleen me,” she countered. “Just promise.”

  He looked at her. Sighed. “I promise. But—”

  “No buts.”

  He started to say something, then stopped, shaking his head instead. No doubt he’d spent enough time around Skellys to know arguing was useless. Instead he took a sip of his coffee and gazed out at the river.

  “How many times have you saved Wes’s life?” she asked him, suddenly needing to know.

  “I don’t know. I think I lost count somewhere between two and three million.” The laughter lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled.

  “Very funny.”

  “It’s just not that big a deal,” he said.

  “It is to me,” she returned. “And I’m betting it’s a pretty big deal to my brother, too.”

  “It’s really only a big deal to him because I’m winning,” Bob
by admitted.

  At first his words didn’t make sense. And then they made too much sense. “You guys keep score?” she asked in disbelief. “You have some kind of contest going…?”

  Amusement danced in his eyes. “Twelve to five and a half. My favor.”

  “Five and a half?” she echoed.

  “He got a half point for getting me back to the boat in one piece this last time,” he explained. “He couldn’t get a full point because it was partially his fault I needed his help in the first place.”

  He was laughing at her. Oh, he wasn’t actually laughing aloud, but Colleen knew that, inside, he was silently chortling away.

  “You know,” she said with a completely straight face, “it seems only fair that if you save someone’s life that many times, you ought to be able to have wild sex with that person’s sister, guilt free.”

  Bobby choked on his coffee. Served him right.

  “So what are you doing tonight?” Colleen asked, still in that same innocent voice.

  He coughed even harder, trying to get the liquid out of his lungs.

  ‘“Be nice to him,’” she read aloud from Wes’s e-mail. She held it out for him to see. “See, it says it right there.”

  “That’s not what Wes meant,” Bobby managed to gasp.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  His eyes were tearing, and he still seemed to have trouble breathing. “You’re killing me.”

  “Good. I’ve got to go, so—” She started to stand up.

  “Wait.” He coughed again, tugging her back down beside him. “Please.” He drew in a breath, and although he managed not to cough, he had to clear his throat several times. “I really need to talk to you about what happened last night.”

  “Don’t you mean what didn’t happen?” She pretended to be fascinated with her coffee cup, with folding up the little flap on the plastic lid so that she could take a sip without it bumping into her nose.

  What had happened last night was that she had found out—the hard way—that Bobby Taylor didn’t want her. At least not enough to take what she’d offered. At least not as much as she wanted him. It was possible he’d only used his fear of Wes’s disapproval as an excuse to keep from going home with her. After all, it had worked, hadn’t it? It had worked very well.

  This morning she could only pretend not to care. She could be flip and say outrageous things, but the truth was, she was both embarrassed and afraid of what he might want to say to her.

  Of course, if ever there were a perfect time for him to confess his undying love, it would be now. She supposed it was possible that he would haltingly tell her he’d fallen in love with her years ago, that he’d worshiped her from afar for all this time and now that they’d finally kissed, he couldn’t bear to be apart from her any longer.

  Bobby cleared his throat again. “Colleen, I, um…I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

  Or he could say that. He could give her the “let’s stay friends” speech. She’d heard it before. It would contain the word friend at least seven more times. He would say mistake and sorry both at least twice and honest at least once. And he’d tell her that he hoped what happened last night wouldn’t change things between them. Her friendship was very important to him.

  “I really care about you,” he told her. “But I have to be honest. What happened last night was, well, it was a mistake.”

  Yup. She’d definitely heard it before. She could have written it out for him on a three-by-five-card. Saved him some time.

  “I know that I said last night that I couldn’t…that we couldn’t…because of Wes and, well, I need you to know that there’s more to it than that.”

  Yeah, she’d suspected that.

  “I can’t possibly be what you really want,” he said quietly.

  Now that was different. She’d never heard that before.

  “I’m not…” He started to continue, but then he shook his head and got back on track. “You mean too much to me. I can’t take advantage of you, I can’t. I’m ten years older than you, and—Colleen, I knew you when you were thirteen—that’s just too weird. It would be crazy, it wouldn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t. I couldn’t. We’re too different and…” He swore softly, vehemently. “I really am sorry.”

  He looked about as miserable as she was feeling. Except he probably wasn’t embarrassed to death. What had she been thinking, to throw herself at him like that last night?

  She closed her eyes, feeling very young and very foolish—as well as ancient beyond her years. How could this be happening again? What was it about her that made men only want to be her friend?

  She supposed she should be thankful. This time she got the “let’s stay friends” speech before she’d gone to bed with the guy. That had been the lowest of a number of low-relationship moments. Or it should have been. Despite the fact that Bobby obviously cared enough not to let it get that far, he didn’t care about her the way she wanted him to. And that hurt remarkably badly.

  She stood up, brushing off the seat of her shorts. “I know you’re probably not done. You still have one more mistake and another sorry to go, but I’ll say ’em for you, okay? I’m sorry, too. The mistake was mine. Thanks for the coffee.”

  Colleen held her head up as she quickly walked away. And she didn’t look back. She’d learned the hard way never to look back after the “let’s stay friends” speech. And never to cry, either. After all, smart friends didn’t cry when stupid, idiotic, completely clueless friends rejected them.

  Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back.

  God, she was such a fool.

  Bobby lay back on the grass and stared up at the sky.

  In theory, telling Colleen that they should stay friends instead of rip each other’s clothes off had seemed to be the least painful way of neatly dealing with something that was on the verge of turning into an emotional and physical bloodbath.

  Physical—because if Wes found out that Bobby had messed with his little sister, he would have been mad enough to reach down Bobby’s throat and rip his lungs out.

  Bobby had been direct with Colleen. He’d been swift and, if not quite honest, he’d certainly been sincere.

  Yet somehow he’d managed to hurt her. He’d seen it in her eyes as she’d turned and walked away.

  Damn. Hurting her was the dead last thing he’d wanted to do.

  That entire conversation had been impossibly difficult. He’d been on the verge of telling her the truth—that he hadn’t slept at all last night, that he’d spent the night alternately congratulating himself for doing the right thing and cursing himself for being an idiot.

  Last night she made it clear that she wanted him. And Lord knows that the last thing he honestly wanted was to stay mere friends with her. In truth, he wanted to get naked with her—and stay naked for the entire rest of this week.

  But he knew he wasn’t the kind of man Colleen Skelly needed. She needed someone who would be there for her. Someone who came home every night without fail. Someone who could take care of her the way she deserved to be taken care of.

  Someone who wanted more than a week of hot sex.

  He didn’t want another long-distance relationship. He couldn’t take it. He’d just gotten out of one of those, and it wasn’t much fun.

  And would be even less fun with Colleen Skelly—because after Wes found out that Bobby was playing around with his sister, Wes would come after him with his diving knife.

  Well, maybe not, but certainly he and Wes would argue. And Colleen and Wes would argue. And that was an awful lot of pain, considering Bobby would spend most of his time three thousand miles away from her, him missing her with every breath he took, her missing him, too.

  No, hurting Colleen was bad, but telling her the truth would hurt them both even more in the long run.

  Chapter 5

  Colleen had just finished picking up a load of blankets collected by a
women’s church group and was on her way to a half dozen senior centers to pick up their donations when a taxi pulled up. It stopped directly in front of her, blocking her exit from the parking lot with a TV-cop-drama squealing of brakes.

  Her first thought was that someone was late to their own wedding. But other than the representative from the ladies’ auxiliary who had handed over the bundles of blankets, the building had been silent and empty.

  Her second thought was that someone was in a major hurry to repent their sins, probably before they sinned again. She had to laugh at that image, but her laughter faded as the absolute last person she’d expected to see here at the St. Augustus Church climbed out of the cab.

  Bobby Taylor.

  His hair had partially fallen out of his ponytail, and his face was covered with a sheen of perspiration, as if he’d been running. He ignored both his sweat and his hair as he came around to the passenger side of the truck’s cab. She leaned across the bench seat, unlocked the door, and he opened it.

  “Thank God,” he said as if he really meant it. “I’ve been following you for an hour now.”

  More than just his face was sweaty. His shirt was as soaked as if he’d been running a marathon in this heat.

  Wes. Her brother was the only reason she could come up with for Bobby to search her out so desperately. Wes had to have been injured. Or—please, God, no—dead.

  Colleen flashed hot and then cold. “Oh, no,” she said. “What happened? How bad is it?”

  Bobby stared at her. “Then you haven’t heard? I was ready to yell at you because I thought you knew. I thought you went out to make these pickups, anyway.”

  “Just tell me he’s not dead,” she begged him. She’d lived through one dead brother—it was an experience she never wanted to repeat. “I can take anything as long as he’s not dead.”

  His expression became one of even more perplexity as he climbed into the air-conditioned cab and closed the door. “He?” he asked. “It was a woman who was attacked. She’s in ICU, in a coma, at Mass General.”