Page 10 of Mended Hearts

Oliver Hart

You coming in, Trouble?

When tears burned my eyes,I blinked them away.

Stupid.

His little nickname was not a reason to be emotional, but it was oddly comforting.

Like I had someone in this damn city who actually gave a shit.

My phone buzzed again.

Oliver Hart

I’m past my daily caloric allowance and have a large deep dish, Chicago-style pepperoni pizza with your name on it. Stop casing the joint and come inside, you weirdo.

With a watery laugh,I glanced in the mirror, wiped the mascara from beneath my eyes, pinched my cheeks so I would resemble a zombie slightly less, and opened the door.

Oliver

Normally,I’d leave Leighton to let herself in, watching her approach the doorbell camera on my phone.

Normally, I’d keep scrolling through Halloween costumes with Mattie and Beau as they argued over what they wanted to be in a few weeks.

We always picked themed outfits. Cheesy, I know. But if I only got eighteen of these with my kids in the best-case scenario, I was damn sure gonna make them count.

But... she’d sat out in her Jeep for nearly forty minutes.

Just...parked,in my driveway.

No kicked-open door with armfuls of food.

No new vinyl dropped from one of Mattie’s favorite artists.

No pissed-off declarations vowing to end a reporter’s career over the bullshit they spewed in a gossip magazine.

I might not have known a whole lot in this life, but I knew this: ‘silence’ did not belong in the same sentence as ‘Leighton Rhodes.’

The woman was hell on wheels. Orheels,occasionally, though she was more prone to Converse.

Powerful curves packed on a compact little frame gave her the air of an athlete, but fuck me if that muscled body wasn’t exactly what I looked for in any crowd.

There were beautiful women, and then there were the Rhodes sisters.

While I’d always thought my brother’s wife was stunning, Leighton was... out-of-this-world beautiful. With a temper to match, much to my amusement.

Temptation, personified.

Even if lusting after Greyson’s new sister-in-law wasn’t just poor form to begin with, being nine years her senior drove a nail through the coffin of that thought the moment I’d had it.

But, friend? That I could do.

And myfriendlooked nothing if not downtrodden.

So I told the kids to keep looking, handed the iPad to Mattie—who wasn’t phased for a second—and headed for the front door.

It should be a crime to make a woman’s shoulders slump like that.

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