Second Chance for the Single Mom by Sophie Pembroke

Author:Sophie Pembroke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-02-13T03:22:39+00:00

* * *

If anyone had asked—which they hadn’t—Gwen would have told them that of course she wasn’t avoiding her brother-in-law. He was family. They were friends. Why would she do that?

Evie, the only one who did ask after Ryan, mostly wanted to know when her uncle was coming to play again as apparently Monsieur Lapin missed him. Somehow he’d made quite an impact on her. Gwen supposed it was something to do with similar levels of childishness between the pair of them.

But, still, when the knock came on her door on Friday night, her heart skipped a beat. And she knew, without answering it, exactly who’d come to call.

Steeling herself, she took her vegetable stir-fry off the heat, and went to answer the door.

‘Ryan.’

‘Gwen.’

For a long moment they just looked at each other, and she wondered if his thoughts had strayed the way hers had. Back to her dreams. And back to that moment when they’d almost kissed...

God, he looked good. That dark hair, curling over one brow. Those bright blue eyes, watchful and wanting. Those shoulders, almost filling her doorway.

People talked about how alike the Phillips brothers were but, looking at Ryan now, Gwen could only see the differences. The tiny scar that cut across Ryan’s left eyebrow. The way that, although he still stood a head taller than her, the couple of inches he lacked on George’s height meant she could stare right up into his eyes. The slightly fuller lips. The even more muscled forearms. The way he wore his polo shirt untucked and with the collar open.

The heat in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in George’s since even before his accident. She couldn’t be imagining that, could she?

Maybe Joe was right. Maybe Ryan really was as tormented by this attraction as she was.

‘Can I come in?’ His voice rumbled low, and she felt it in her blood. She nodded, and stepped aside to let him enter.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked, as she crossed back towards the kitchen. ‘I was just making dinner. There’s enough for two.’ She’d planned on eating it again tomorrow night—cooking for one wasn’t interesting enough for her to want to do it more than every other night. Sometimes she and Evie ate together, but Gwen’s appetite rarely fancied fish fingers at five p.m.

‘Always,’ Ryan answered, closer than she’d expected.

She took a breath. ‘Great. Come on, then.’

He sat on the stool at her kitchen counter, taking in the surroundings, while she finished off the stir-fry. Sneaking glances at him as she cooked, she saw his gaze linger on Evie’s drawings on the fridge, on the school dinner menu pinned to the notice-board, and skip over the large canvas picture of her wedding day by the door.

They managed some small talk while they ate, at least—about how Evie was getting on in reception class, when his next match was and who it was against, how training was going, final figures from the fundraiser and what she had planned next for the trust.

It was

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