Page 356 of Summer Heat
With Abby being the closest thing Skylar had for an aunt, how the hell was he supposed to explain this without traumatizing the poor girl?
Damn that woman for putting me in this situation.
“Why hello to you too, princess,” he tossed out casually, turning to greet her with a smile. “I had a few hours free so I thought I’d hang out with you on your first day here.”
“Oh, cool.” She looked around. “Hey, where’d Abby go?”
Fan-frickin-tastic. “So you saw her here, huh? She wasn’t here long…she just stopped by to, uh—”
“She left?” A too-mature frown marred Skylar’s little pixie face. “I told her to wait ‘til I brought back an umbrella for her.” Shaking out a butt-ugly yellow rain slicker, she pouted some more. “And she didn’t even take back her poncho!”
He did a double take. “What do you mean?”
“Abby lent it to me before we ran over here.”
Gulping, Connor felt cold hard shame start to prickle over his skin. “Abby ran all the way here in the rain with you?”
“Yeah, it started coming down right when I left school. She found me under a tree trying to stay dry.”
Skylar surveyed the rapidly worsening weather worriedly. “Dad will totally kill me if she catches a cold this week with all her…wait a sec—” She swung a suspicious look back his way. “Abby never leaves without saying bye. Did you say something to her?”
Smart girl.
Choosing to sidestep her question for the time being, Connor pulled out his smartphone and asked instead, “Do you spell Abby’s last name with two T’s or one at the end?”
“Two.” She raised a brow. “Why? Are you looking her up to apologize for something? If so, I have her cell phone number.”
He sighed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think a simple apology is going to cut it. I think I need to send her a whole bunch of sorry-I-was-such-an-idiot flowers.”
“Holy moly, what did you say to her?”
He again, refrained from answering.
No need to piss his niece off too.
Quickly texting a request for his assistant to order him the most extravagant floral arrangement she could find, he ignored his niece’s interrogation once again. “You wouldn’t happen to know Abby’s address would you?”
“Nope.” A slow, serves-you-right smile hooked her lips. “But dad does.”
Silently, he unleashed a string of expletives and began estimating what the going rate was for bribing a kid nowadays.
It’d be worth it for the stay of execution by Brian’s hand.
* * * * *
“HOW THE HELL did you find out where I live?”
Connor winced, but stood his ground atop Abby’s doorstep. Thankfully, the gigantic doorway-filling flower arrangement his assistant had purchased for him was allowing him to hide for a few precious seconds longer.
Blindly shoving the flowers forward, he waited for Abby to take them.
When she didn’t, he took a peek around the massive bouquet to see if she was even still there. She was.
And she was trying her damndest not to laugh.
“Is this monstrosity for a funeral?”
Grateful for the buried humor he heard in her voice, he let out the breath he’d been holding and ventured with caution, “Depends. Are you going to kill me for what I said earlier?”
