“It’s not as easy for me as it is you,” Her defenses remained engaged. “You work for yourself, so you can set your own schedule. It’s kind of hard to meet someone when I spend all my days at school and my evenings grading papers or making lesson plans.”
It sounded like a plausible enough excuse for not putting herselfout there.Lo, however, wasn’t buying it.
“This is me you’re talking to remember?” Her friend’s expression went totally deadpan. “I know for a fact you could very easily carve out a couple of hours a week to go out and do something fun. Or better yet…” A corner of Lo’s full lips curved upward. “You could go out and do someonefun.”
“Lo!”
“I’m serious. I bet you haven’t even slept with anyone since Preston.”
Now it was Evie’s turn to let her face fall dramatically flat. “I thought we agreed never to speak of him again.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Lo brushed her broken promise away. “We’re in desperate times, here, and that calls for desperatemeasures.” The other woman gave a slight pause and then, “Look, Eves. I know that whole thing with…He Who I Shall Not Name…ended badly, but dumping his pretentious ass was the best decision you ever made.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that front.”
“That being said, you dumped him because you wanted better for yourself, right? That’s what you told me, anyway. You said you wanted more out of life than some hoity-toity husband dragging you off to the same kind of fancy-ass parties our parents always forced us to attend.”
“Your point?”
“Mypointis, you’ll never find more if you don’t look. And…now, I mean this with nothing but love, but…I’m pretty sure you weren’t going to find your happily ever after in some desert village that’s halfway around the world.”
The comment hit her square in the gut, and it took everything Evie had not to outwardly react. Lo had been less than thrilled about Evie’s decision to go to Afghanistan, and now she understood why.
Not only was her friend worried about the obvious risks to an American woman traveling to that part of the world, but apparently, Lo was also convinced the trip had been a way for Evie to avoid facing her newly single status.
Well…is she wrong?
Regardless, Evie insisted, “I didn’t go to Afghanistan because I was running from something. I went because I believed in the cause and thought I could help.”
And yeah, okay. So maybe she was also hoping to find some sort of clarity on where the rest of her life was headed.
Instead, I almost ended up dead.
“If you say so.” Lo didn’t sound convinced. “As I was saying, this is the perfect time to go out and try something new. In fact…” Her friend cleared her throat and changed her tone to onefar more formal and pretended to straighten a necktie that didn’t exist. “I hereby challenge you to go on at least one date before I get back into town.”
“What?” Evie stared back at her friend as if the other woman had lost her damn mind. “That’s in like two weeks, Lo. You can’t seriously expect me to meet a single, non-creepy, self-sufficient, halfway-decent-looking guyandgo on a date with him that quickly.”
If I was tall, blonde, and supermodel gorgeous like you, maybe. But not this chick.
“Oh, come on, sweetie. It’s not like it has to lead to anything serious. Hell, you could even start the whole thing off by letting him know up front that you’re not looking for strings. It could at least get you over that dreaded rebound hump. And then maybe, after a few good, sweaty rolls in the hay with some massively hot stranger, you’ll be ready for something a little more serious when youdomeet a man you really like.”
Evie couldn’t help but laugh at the “roll in the hay” bit. But on the inside, her heart ached with the urge to tell her friend the truth…
That she’d already met someone she was interested in, and he was tall, dark, muscular, and sexy as sin. Yes, the man she was thinking of—the man shealwaysthought about—was the epitome of strength and masculinity.
A true hero in every sense of the word.
But she couldn’t tell Lo about Beckett “Bones” Stone. She couldn’t tell…anyone.
Right on cue, Beckett’s handsome face suddenly filled her vision. It was the same face that had occupied her thoughts to the point of distraction ever since she’d last seen him.
The car. The kitchen. The shower… It didn’t matter where she was or what she was doing. Out of nowhere, a barrage ofquestions would hit without warning. And Evie was defenseless against them.
Where is he?
What’s he doing?
Is he okay?