Blackberry Summer by RaeAnne Thayne

Author:RaeAnne Thayne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2011-02-27T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

SHE HAD A CRUSH ON RILEY McKnight.

Claire would have been astonished if she could find any room around the mortification that swamped every thing else.

She was thirty-six years old, had two children and a failed marriage behind her, but she was still acting as if she were Macy’s age, trying to get the cutest boy in school to notice she was alive.

This was humiliating on so many levels. Every time he smiled at her, color soaked her cheeks until she imagined she was redder than the spaghetti sauce—which she was also terrified she was going to spill all over while she tried to wrangle the spaghetti one-handed and listen to his stories at the same time.

“My first week out of the police academy, I crashed a brand-new bike into a parked car.”

“You did?” Owen asked, eyes shining with a severe case of hero worship, despite Riley’s story showing himself in less-than-perfect light.

“Yep. We were chasing this kid who’d fled the scene of an attempted robbery on foot. My partner and I split up to try to cut him off and I had to book up a hill on a side street to get ahead of him. A car came up behind me and I could hear him coming right at me. We didn’t know the kid had an accomplice in a getaway car. I don’t know if he was trying to hit me on purpose—and I didn’t really care. I just swerved out of the way. My bike hit a parked car and I went sailing over it.”

“Was your bike okay?” Owen asked, while Claire was still cringing from that mental image.

“Completely trashed. I had to get a new one. The guys called me McFlight after that.”

“Were you hurt?” Macy asked.

“Not bad. I felt it for a few days but I didn’t break any bones. Not like you guys.”

His gaze met Claire’s and she flushed and focused on dabbing at her mouth with her napkin, hoping she hadn’t trailed sauce there.

She did not have a crush. The very idea was ridiculous. She was only reacting as any woman would to the man who had rescued her and her children from a dire situation. Riley had risked his own health and welfare to stand out in that water for long moments to ensure they were safe. Any mother would be grateful to a man willing to wade into danger for her children, right?

Not to mention that he was an exceptionally gorgeous man, sexy even, with those green eyes and the tousle of dark hair. The part of her ego that felt frumpy and dried-up and old after the raw indignity of her divorce wanted to bask in his attention like Chester splayed out in the grass on a summer afternoon.

How foolish could she be?

The commonsense part of her was quietly whispering a warning. Riley was a womanizer. He collected women like Evie collected antique beads.

His mother and sisters delighted in telling about his heroic triumphs as a police officer. But

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.