A_Little_Harmless_Fascination by Melissa Schroeder Read Free Book Online Page A

there for you to hear…and see. “Yeah, I told you, crack. What are
you going to buy Maura?”
    “Buy?”
    “You have to take her something. You always did.”
    Then he remembered making sure that he had something for her
each time he visited her at college. He heard the wistfulness in Jillian’s
voice but he wasn’t going to push anymore today. He didn’t want to scare her
completely off.
    “I haven’t thought of it. I rarely go out on a job, so I am
sort of out of practice.”
    She nodded. “We better get her something so you don’t
forget. She’ll whine if you come home with nothing.”
    He chuckled as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his
shorts. “You do know my sister well.”
    “Yep, but then I’m good at reading a person’s character. My
dad said I got it from him.”
    She rarely talked about her parents, so any bit of
information she gave him, he was going to latch on to. “Your father?”
    “Dad said he had to be careful when he got to the game.
People were trying to use him left and right. New people he met, old friends.
But, he said the moment he met my mother, he knew she was interested in him for
him.”
    “Really, how?”
    She gave him a blinding smile. “My mother had no idea who he
was.”
    “Your mother didn’t know who he was?”
    “Yeah. Until she met Dad, Mom paid little to no attention to
sports. Dad was a little put out that he had to try and woo her without what he
considered his biggest selling point.”
    He chuckled. “I can imagine.”
    “It took him a while, but he got her attention. Then they
were married less than a year later, I came two years after that.”
    She eased him over to a tent that had a lot of little
knickknacks that Maura would love. It struck him then that this was the one
thing he wanted to do. He wanted to be with Jillian, looking through the
offerings and just having a lazy day shopping. She was smiling at him, teasing
him, and he knew this is where he needed to be.
    “I think she would like this one,” she said, holding up a
hand-carved turtle, but he barely noticed it. Instead, he was looking at her
smiling at him, and he felt something shift inside his chest.
    “Conner?”
    He shook his head and focused on the turtle. “Yeah, I think
she would love it.”
    The moment over now, he followed her into the tent as he
watched her dive into another haggling session.
     
    *   *   *   *
     
    “You think he’s okay, right?” Maura asked for the third time
during the five minutes they’d been on the phone.
    Jillian started to rub her temple again and tried not to
scream. No wonder Conner was stressed. Just the short time she had been on the
phone with her old friend had Jillian’s blood pressure starting to rise. The
concern was not normal for Maura. She had always worried about Conner, but not
like this. Jillian had a feeling that this was not just because of what
happened. This had been building for a while, in Jillian’s opinion.
    Yes, Conner worked in a high-stress job. He didn’t really
take time off. That was a worry for a man who was so tightly wound. Now,
though, Jillian was wondering just how much of the issue was caused by Maura.
Right now, she was ready to strangle her best friend.
    “He’s fine. He’s been here for a few days, no problems. In
fact, I took him to the swap meet a couple of days ago. He had a great time.”
    There was a pause.
    “A great time shopping?”
    “Yes. I needed to pick up some stuff, including salt for
you. It was kind of fun to get out of the house.”
    “You went with my brother, right?” Maura asked.
    Jillian laughed. “Yes. I really didn’t give him a choice.”
    He had been stiff and formal at first, but soon she’d gotten
him interested in haggling prices and chatting with the locals. And he had made
her go gooey inside. When he had shown the dominant side of his personality,
she’d almost dissolved into a puddle of lust. On top of that, she was beginning
to realize that Conner was a man