Page 19 of Good Girls Don't Kiss and Tell (Rock Canyon, Idaho 7)

Now all he had to do was wait.

The clock on the wall chimed six times, and Eric cursed. The guys were supposed to come over for poker tonight, and he had nothing but leftovers and beer in his kitchen. Travis had texted to cancel earlier, so there was one less mouth to feed.

Pulling on his coat, he headed out to the store and walked back through the door forty-five minutes later with enough junk to feed an army.

Just after seven, there was a knock on his door, and he opened it to find Gabe and Mike on his doorstep.

“Hey, guys, come on in.”

Gabe stepped inside first, pulling off his gray wool cap and revealing the short strip of hair along his otherwise dark shaved head. He shrugged out of his jacket and pushed up the sleeves of a gray sweater that looked out of place with the diamond studs and the tattoos.

“Nice sweater, J.Crew.”

Gabe grimaced. “It’s warm.”

“Apparently, Caroline’s sister Ellie made it for him. Knitted it herself,” Mike said.

Eric couldn’t imagine Ellie, one of his bartenders and a bit of a wild child, sitting around knitting anything, but the fact that Gabe was wearing a sweater his girlfriend’s sister had made him spoke volumes about the domestication some men could experience.

Mike tossed his coat over Eric’s couch and made a beeline for the snacks across the counter. None of his friends were shy about their appetites.

“I thought Chase was coming with you guys?”

“Nah, he said something about going to bed early,” Gabe said. “Justin and Everett Silverton are coming, though.”

Eric nodded. He liked the Silverton brothers. Justin was married to Val, Caroline’s other sister, who was in her second trimester. He shuddered. Whatever was in the water this year, Eric hoped none of the women he’d slept with had drunk it.

Everett had been dating Callie Jacobsen, but the two had split suddenly a few weeks ago, and Eric couldn’t figure out why. They had been pretty perfect together, and Everett seemed to be taking it hard.

Hopefully a night with the guys would do them all some good. Eric knew it would help him at least get his mind off a certain, hot-tempered blonde who took offense to just about everything. Eric was still blown away by the way she’d gone off on him, but lesson learned. He was going to avoid Gracie like the plague and stop trying to help her.

At least, he hoped so.

Chapter Seven

“Never trust a man who hates kids and animals.” - Miss Know-It-All’s Gossip Column.

On Saturday, Gracie was just putting Pip down for her nap when she heard her cell phone ringing in the kitchen. Trying to sneak out of the room without waking her, Gracie waited until she hit the hallway to pick up speed and grab her phone.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly.

“Gracie, it’s Darrin.”

Gracie didn’t know why his tone made the hackles on the back of her neck stand on end, but it definitely wasn’t friendly.

“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m fine, except we were supposed to have breakfast this morning, and you never showed.”

Gracie covered her mouth, trying to fight back exhausted laughter. “I am so sorry, Darrin, I’ve just had so much going on, it completely slipped my mind.”

Her apology didn’t seem to ease his irritation. “What’s been going on?”

“Well, it’s the craziest thing, but on Thanksgiving, I was delivering meals for the church, and at one of the houses, there was this abandoned toddler, and I offered to take her home for the night—”

“Why would you do that? Why didn’t you just let social services handle it?” he asked.

Gracie was a bit taken aback by his attitude. “Because it was Thanksgiving, and they couldn’t get out right away. She’s so sweet, I just couldn’t leave her at the police station.”