Choosing the Right Man - Nice Girl to Love, Vol 3 (Can't Resist #3)(9)

“Your dad did that?” Abby felt her lungs grow weightless.

“Yeah, most of the junkyards just laughed when he told them the make and model of your SUV. The last junkyard we found was the only one that had it. It was so cool, Abby. The junkyard was this massive place with piles and piles of cars all shoved together. They told us the SUV that had the soft top compatible with yours was blue. And that was it. They pointed us to one section of the junk yard that was as big as a football field and told us to go find it. Crazy, right?”

Helen gasped. “You can’t tell me you went out there with him.”

Skylar nodded vigorously. “It was fun! We had to shimmy our way between most of the cars and it took us like two hours to find the right one. Dad had to climb over a bunch of cars and trucks to even get to it but he was like on a mission the whole time.”

Abby smiled. That sounded like Brian. He was as doggedly loyal to her SUV as she was. Not because he loved it like she did. In fact, he hated it. Worried about her driving it farther than a few miles, or at speeds higher than thirty-five miles per hour. But instead of telling her to dump it like everyone else did, he’d just show up every few months to keep changing its oil or tuning up the engine.

“It’s no big deal, Abby,” he’d always say.

But it really was.

Brian got her in ways no one else did. Always had, always would.

It was in the little things. Like when the electricity would go out in her house, Brian was the only one who knew her house’s ‘time zones.’ She always set her bedroom clock ten minutes fast because she was horrible about getting up, her bathroom and kitchen clock were five minutes less than that because she always lost track of time when she was cooking, and the old clock in her dining room—the one that used to belong to her grandfather—needed to be set ahead three minutes upon any reset for it to read the time accurately a few hours later.

In every way that resonated in her heart, Brian really was the perfect man.

He just…wasn’t Connor.





CHAPTER FOUR


SO WHAT’D YOU HAVE TO DO to get me this week, win a coin toss against Brian?” Abby asked without thinking as Connor’s hand accidentally brushed hers across the table, causing the equivalent of a power surge in her brain.

At Connor’s now innocently-whistling focus on his glass of water, her hackles rose, and all nervousness over this ‘first date’ was quickly forgotten. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?!”

“Even the Super Bowl is started that way!” he defended, the tiny crinkling at the corner of his eyes his only tell. “Besides, Brian wanted to rock-paper-scissors for you but I told him that was just downright insulting.”

She smothered the smile that was threatening to make itself known. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

Then all at once, the humiliating reminder of how she’d spent months waiting for him to return extinguished her good humor in a flash.

He noticed.

“I didn’t mean to stay away for so long, Abby.”

This time, it was her glass of water that was the star of the show. “Then why did you?” she asked quietly, doing everything she could to convey a casualness she certainly didn’t feel.

“I didn’t think Brian was going to take so damn long to try and sweep you off your feet. Hell, I wouldn’t have.”

Scowling, she looked up, utterly confused. “Wait, what?” Understanding tumbled over her like a twenty-foot wave. “You two talked about this before our month was over. You told Brian to pursue me?” She shoved away from the dining table. “And now, what? You’re back because you don’t like that your brother is playing with your toy? Was this all some big game to you?”

“Dammit, you and Brian really do think alike.” He clamped a hand on her wrist to prevent her from running out of his house. “Do you honestly think that little of me?” His eyes drilled into her, pinned her to the spot.

No, she didn’t.

Dropping back down into the seat, she watched his hand slide from her wrist down to her fingers, and she did her best to swallow back a shiver when his thumb trailed over her palm.

“Then what was the whole point, Connor? Or did I decode your gift and letter wrong? If you were always planning on coming back, why push me toward Brian in the first place?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” He pulled back and scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “Nothing about what you and I had was planned. My whole life, I’ve planned absolutely everything. Until you came along. Instead of planning my life, you made me want to simply live it.” Searching her gaze he added, “More and more, I found myself never wanting to let you go. Not after a month…not ever.”

None of this made even a lick of sense. And her instant, melting reaction to every paradoxical thing he was saying was the most illogical part of it all. “So why—”

“Because you two are perfect for each other,” he cut in almost bitterly. “And because you’re both so goddamn good and nice, you were each just ignoring what was plain as day between you two.” His jaw ticked. “So I stepped aside. Even though all I wanted was to hold on to you and keep you as mine forever, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not without letting you two figure out if there really was something there. I didn’t want to short either of you that, and frankly, I didn’t want to wonder over it my whole life.”