BEAUTY AND THE BEST MAN by Maureen Child Read Free Book Online

something inside
her twisted in pain.
    Why would he do that again? She’d actually tried to call him
this time, but hadn’t reached him. Was he finally making it a clean break? But
what about everything he’d said over the past couple of weeks? What about what
they’d both felt? Was that nothing? Was she supposed to just ignore the pain and
pick up the pieces of her life again? Pretend nothing had happened? Nothing had
changed?
    She was so confused and torn, Kayla hadn’t even gone in to work
the past few days. She had stayed shut away in her house, reliving the night of
J.D.’s death. Trying to come to terms with what she was feeling, thinking. Yet
every thought circled back around to Matt. She didn’t know what to do about it.
About him. Her feelings for him.
    But she did know that she wouldn’t
go through what she had before. She wouldn’t drown in misery and agony. If there
was one thing J.D.’s death had taught her, it was that life was too short. It
went too fast. And could end all too unexpectedly.
    Life could change in a blink. End in a moment. As for those who
were left behind, their lives could be rearranged, altered forever in the span
of a single heartbeat.
    When the doorbell rang, she set her coffee cup down on the
kitchen table and walked to answer it. Finding Matt on her front porch sent her
reeling.
    “I thought you were gone,” she blurted.
    He snorted. Pushing past her into the house, he grumbled, “You
thought I would leave again? Without talking to you?”
    “I haven’t seen you in days,” she countered, closing the door
and following him into the living room. God, he looked good.
    “I had some thinking to do.”
    “And you had to do that away from me?”
    “Yeah, this time, I did.” He looked at her and she felt his
gaze on her as powerfully as she would have a touch. She’d missed him with a
bone-deep ache that just seeing him again was already easing.
    “Okay,” she said. “What was so important? What were you
thinking about?”
    “Really?” He shook his head. “You can ask me that? I was
thinking about you, Kayla. Us. ”
    “Us?” Her heartbeat jumped and a flurry of nerves awakened in
the pit of her stomach.
    “Of course us.” He pushed one hand through his hair. “Ever
since the night J.D. died, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about us. Hell,
I put off the trip to California because I couldn’t leave without settling some
things between us.”
    She took a deep breath and held it. Her gaze locked on him, and
she couldn’t have looked away for anything.
    “But you haven’t even spoken to me in days, Matt. You didn’t
even call me back after I called you.”
    “I know.” He shook his head again. “You’ve got a right to be
pissed, but hear me out first, at least.”
    Last time, they hadn’t talked. This time, Kayla told herself,
she wanted to hear everything he had to say.
    “Coming back to Cheyenne,” he said, “I knew I wanted to
reconnect with you. I even had a plan. ”
    “What sort of plan?” Kayla watched him and saw emotions dart
across the surface of his eyes in a rush too quick for her to identify any of
them.
    “Doesn’t matter now. Oh, I thought it was brilliant. I’m good
at plans,” he muttered thickly, once again pacing the confines of the small
living room. “Ask anyone. I know how to land a big account for Lassiter Media. I
know how to build a career and make millions. I know how to buy a damn art
gallery secretly.”
    “You bought an art gallery? ”
    He snorted and shot her a quick look. “Yeah. It was supposed to
be a surprise for you. Once my plan was finished.”
    That unsteady feeling she’d been experiencing only got worse as
the whole world seemed to shift and slide beneath her feet.
    “It was a surprise but it’s not now?” Confused, she kept
watching him and couldn’t help thinking that this was the first time since she’d
known him that Matt seemed...unsure of himself.
    “Well, since I just told you about it,