“Hey,” she interrupted. “Did everybody get the new pictures of Simone and the baby? I emailed them yesterday.”
“Uh, sure,” Eric said.
Jamie squirmed. “Cute kid.”
“She’s adorable!”
“Tessa,” Eric said carefully. “They kind of all look the same at that age.”
“Yeah,” Jamie agreed. “Squishy.”
“Anna doesn’t look squishy! She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Luke?”
Luke nodded, but his eyes slid away.
“Oh, you’re all ridiculous,” she huffed, throwing down her napkin. “Just for that, you guys get to clean up.”
“Aw, come on,” Luke said. “You know I think she’s beautiful.”
“You won’t even hold her!”
“She’s too small!” he shouted.
Tessa rolled her eyes and stomped off to the family room to turn on the game. But over the sound of the endless pregame chatter, she heard Luke and her brothers talking. Ten minutes later, when laughter broke out in the kitchen, she couldn’t help sneaking back in to a steal a peek.
Eric and Luke were washing dishes, and Luke was laughing so hard about something that he had to wipe tears from his eyes with the dish towel. Though Tessa suspected they were talking about her, she still smiled.
But when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, her smile faded. Jamie was in the backyard, sitting on a bench near the fence. The bench faced the small stone they’d put there thirteen years before. Their parents’ names were carved into the stone.
He must have heard her as she walked down the path toward him, but he didn’t look up.
“Hey, Jamie. Are you avoiding the dishes?”
“Nah. Just thinking.”
She bumped her hip against his shoulder. “About what?”
“Nothing you want to talk about on a Sunday.” She’d made a rule long before that they couldn’t talk about the brewery on Sundays, but she didn’t like the tension in his shoulders.
“Come on,” she urged. “Spill it.”
“Eric pissed me off, that’s all. He thinks I’m irresponsible. Nothing new.”
“So why are you out here?”
“Because I can’t do this anymore. Things are going to have to change. I can’t keep going like this.”
“You have to give him time, Jamie. After your little slipup with Monica—”
“It wasn’t a slipup,” he snapped.
“Fine. Call it whatever you want. The point is, you screwed up.”
His laugh was so bitter that it sent a bolt of alarm through Tessa’s chest.
“Give it time,” she insisted. “You can’t just—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. It’s been like this for years. I can deal for a few more months. What do you say we go inside and make your boyfriend uncomfortable.”
She wanted to press him. Ask him what he meant about plans and changes. But it was Sunday, after all. So when he stood, she dropped the subject and gave him a little sisterly shove. “Leave Luke alone.”
“In your dreams.”
As they wound their way through the overgrown garden, Tessa hooked her arm through his. “His nickname isn’t Babe Magnet, you know.”
“I heard it with my own two ears.”
“Nope. You got it wrong. In L.A. they called him Bullet Magnet after he was shot.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“He’s a good guy, Jamie. I love him.”
That chased all the amusement from Jamie’s face. In fact, he paled a little. “I’ll kill him if he hurts you.”
Tessa decided not to broach the subject of Luke moving in. Instead, she just murmured, “I know,” and gave him another affectionate shove.
Luke was waiting for her when she came through the patio door. The national anthem floated in from the family room. Jamie left them alone with only a quick glare at Luke. As soon as he disappeared around the corner, Tessa took the opportunity to snuggle into Luke’s arms and steal a kiss. “This is nice,” she whispered.
“Yeah, it is.”
“I meant this. You here with my brothers.”
“Eric’s being nice,” he said. “But I admit, I didn’t expect Jamie to be pissed for quite so long.”
“Well, I won’t ask for any details, but I suspect he might have seen a little too much of your dating life in college.”
“Uh. Yeah, don’t ask for any details.”
She kissed him again before drawing away. “Fair enough. Lucky for me, he didn’t see any of my dating life. You’ll never learn a thing.”
“I’ve been assured you were untouched and innocent before I came along. What more do I need to know?”
“Nothing. Just don’t open any of the closets when you move in. There could be a skeleton avalanche.”
He pulled her close again. “You sure you really want me here?”
Tessa closed her eyes and put her cheek to his chest. She listened to his heartbeat. She listened to the sound of her brothers in the next room cheering over the first play.
This was her life now. And all she’d had to give up was fear and a few years of sorrow. And in return, she got Luke Asher and everything he meant to her. Instead of breaking up, her family was getting bigger.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1185-8
GOOD GIRLS DON’T
Copyright © 2011 by Victoria Dahl
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Table of Contents
PRAISE
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM VICTORIA DAHL AND HQN BOOKS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
COPYRIGHT