Cathy Gillen - Lone Star Valentine

“You see, Lily?” Gannon shot back. “That’s the difference between us. Because I never thought a relationship between us would end in failure. And if you had been brave enough to start something with me, regardless of the timing, you would have discovered what I already knew—that we would have been the exception to the rule. The couple everyone else looked up to because we had made our relationship work in the face of impossible odds.”

Briefly, Lily looked as crushed as he had felt back then, when she had turned him down. As though her heart had been broken.

As usual, however, she bounced back fast.

With an angry sniff, she folded her arms in front of her and asserted, “Not that we ever had a chance to find out, since you went on to pursue everything in a skirt that came your way over the next three years. Thereby unwittingly proving my point that relationships forged in the maelstrom of professional school do not last.”

Acutely aware his serial dating had been a mistake, embarked on because he was still smarting from Lily’s rejection, and knew she would never do anything more than hold him at arm’s length, no matter what she said, Gannon shrugged.

“So sue me for not wanting to sit on the sidelines while you soldiered on bravely alone!” Gannon volleyed back. Because, true to her self-flagellating vow, Lily hadn’t dated anyone until the very last few weeks of her law school years.

Lily stuffed papers in her briefcase willy-nilly. “You always were an all-or-nothing kind of guy.”

His gaze swept over her, head to toe. Reminding him all over again what a lithe, beautiful body she had. How she was determined to let the satisfaction he could bring her go untested. “Whereas you live your life in all half measures,” he retorted just as stubbornly.

“You’re right. I do see the value in compromise.” Lily zipped her briefcase shut with quick, jerky motions. Hunted around for her purse.

Finally finding it, she flung it on her desk next to her briefcase, then defiantly marched toward him, chiding him all the way. “And if you’d grown up the way I had, as the fifth-born of six daughters, you, too, would be happy to get whatever you could—whenever you could—and never ever expect too much because...”

Recognizing another We Can’t Do This speech coming on, Gannon decided the time for treating her with kid gloves had passed. Lily was all woman. He was all man. And the attraction between them was tantalizingly real.

Wordlessly, he closed the remaining distance between them and took her in his arms. Flattened one palm over her spine and threaded his other hand through her hair.

Smiling at her gasp of surprise, he tilted her head up, lowered his mouth slowly and deliberately over hers.

“What are you doing?” Lily sputtered, her turquoise eyes flashing.

Just this once, Gannon decided to stop putting his own wants and needs aside. “Showing you exactly what you could expect if you ever let down your guard with me.”

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