Kathleen Brooks - Secrets Collide

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Cy lied. This was not relaxing. The food was amazing. She had chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy and a side of homemade macaroni and cheese with chunks of country ham in it. The first bite made her alternately groan in delight and shake in fear at what the scale was going to read the next day. For the past month, she’d been living on salad, tofu, and yucky cleansing drinks.

While her stomach wanted to lick the plate, her mind kept flashing to the picture of the barely dressed actress Cy received early that day. She knew she wasn’t Cy’s type, but she would like to feel she had a fighting chance.

“Dear? Is something the matter with the dinner? Do you want me to make something else?” Marcy asked, her feelings clearly hurt that Gemma wasn’t eating.

“Don’t worry, Mom. She’s just trying to justify eating that many calories. Remember, she’s still on California food. Took me months to give in. Give in, Gemma—it’s delicious.” Katelyn winked as she took a big bite of her food.

Gemma gave in, and it was better than sex. At least the sex she’d had recently. In fact, she was so in love with the food that she didn’t even hear the conversation going on around her. When her plate was clean, she looked up and Katelyn gave her a knowing smile.

“You’re lucky you’re not dating Cy,” Annie said.

Gemma looked at her in confusion. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten so eagerly?

“Yep, you're lucky. It would be bad,” Cole agreed.

“It definitely wouldn’t be an enjoyable dinner for you, to say the least,” Morgan added.

“Oh, yeah, it’s not fun then,” Katelyn smiled sweetly.

“Stop scaring her. It would be so cool if she was dating Cy,” Tammy giggled.

Gemma felt glued to her chair. She was stunned. She’d never been warned away from someone so blatantly and was too embarrassed to even be insulted.

“Well, of course we’d love for her to date Cy,” Marcy said with a sweet smile. “Don’t you dare scare her off.” Marcy narrowed her eyes at Pierce and he just grinned wider.

“Who? Me?” he asked innocently.

“And your sister and brothers.”

“Us?” they all asked in unison. Gemma was totally confused, but the way their faces all showed mocked innocence had her cracking up.

“Don’t try to act like y’all didn’t interrogate every date one of you brought home. I was grilled to well-done when I first came to dinner.” Cole stared at his brothers-in-law and shook his head.

“I think we all were. Although, I must say Miles and Pierce were the worst. Miles with all his serious questions about our stability and Pierce just shouting out randomness,” Annie said to Cole and the other wives.

“Totally agree with you there,” Katelyn laughed.

“For me it was Pierce and Marshall,” Morgan said with a smile.

“If I recall, y’all handled it like a pro. We’re happy to have each and every one of you in our family. Now that we’ve settled that our sons and daughter are rude interrogators of unsuspecting dates, let’s have some dessert,” Jake said, putting an end to the discussion.

Paige rolled her eyes. “We weren’t that bad. Okay, maybe we were. I’ll get the pies I made this morning.”

“Excellent. I’ll go check on the babies in their new room.” Marcy shot from the table and disappeared upstairs. Within seconds her voice came over the monitor as she cooed to the babies.

“We won’t see her again,” Jake said. “Guys' night to do dishes after dessert. I get her piece since she left the table.” Jake grinned and Gemma could see what Cy would look like when he was older. All the brothers shared the hazel eyes and the strong build of their father.

Gemma took a seat in the corner of the living room and let her thoughts take her away again while the women talked weddings and babies. She guessed that was why Gia was so successful and Gemma was still working for a gossip rag. Not that she wasn’t good at what she did; she was just a dreamer. This time however, her thoughts made their way back to the same thing—Cy. He worked with ease as he cleared the table. But then he stopped and looked at his phone and reality came crashing in. She could like him and be attracted to him, but that was all it was ever going to be.

“Focus on the case,” Gemma murmured.

“What was that?” Paige asked.

“Sorry. I was just thinking of the case.” Gemma gave a little smile and hoped they couldn’t see her blushing.

“What about the case were you contemplating so hard?” Cy asked smoothly as he came into the living room.

“I’m itching to get back to my sister’s notebooks. I know the answers have to be in there.”

“Well, I’m all done with my part of the cleaning. Let me take you back and we can get to work. Good night, ladies.”

“Good night, Cy.” Tammy smiled and looked to Gemma and she realized she hadn’t gotten away clean. Someone had noticed her looking at Cy. The question was what Tammy was going to do, if anything.

Miss Lily’s porch light was on as they pulled to a stop at the bed and breakfast. Gemma was relieved to see the warm lights of the old house. She’d only been there for the day, but it felt like a retreat.

Cy opened the front door for her and she walked into the large entrance way. These old houses with the wide, sweeping staircases and gorgeous wood detailing just didn’t exist in L.A.

At the top of the stairs, Gemma paused at her door to dig for her key. No matter how small a purse she carried, she still couldn’t find what she wanted in it. Somehow her tiny purse would turn into a bottomless pit the second she tried to find something.

“Gemma.”

She raised her head and saw that Cy stood closer than she thought. He was looking down at her with a look she hadn’t seen before. Whatever it was, it was not the normal carefree mask he always wore.

“Yes?”

“I wanted . . . well, I thought . . .” Cy leaned forward and Gemma held her breath as anticipation coursed through her. Dink-dink . An incoming text on his cell phone interrupted the moment. Cy barely acknowledged the phone as he pulled it out, but Gemma caught an eyeful.

“Isn’t that the lingerie model who just posed nude on the cover of . . . ?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Gemma gave a shy smile. Was he really talking about her? Dink-dink . Gemma let out a frustrated breath. Every dink of that cell phone was a splash of cold water to the face. How stupid did she have to be to think he would want to be with her when that was texting and calling him? “And it seems she wants to talk to you. Better answer. Good night, Cy.”

Cy wished Gemma had slammed the door. Then he would know that she cared. Instead, Gemma quietly closed and locked her door as Angelina kept calling his phone and he kept sending it to voicemail.

With a sigh, he turned and headed for his room. He may not be taking Angelina’s call, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be making one of his own.

“Hello. Tonight?” Cy said into the phone as he stood by the window looking down to the front yard. “Good. I’ll see you then.”

Gemma took her time getting ready for bed. She had worked a couple hours on the first notebook as darkness fell outside her window. She took a seat on the window bench and stared at the stars, still unused to seeing them so clearly.

She glanced at the clock and saw it was already close to midnight. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had to admit the reason she hadn’t let the exhaustion claim her was hope. Hope she would hear a small tap on the door and open it to find Cy standing there ready to finish what it appeared he wanted to start earlier. Of course, that was just a dream.