chapter 31

"Well, yes."

He regarded her for a minute more before he got up from the table and headed

toward the coat rack by the front door to retrieve his parka. With her following behind, he

went to the rack, picked up his coat, and turned back toward her.

"Look. Call him or don't call him. It's no skin off my ass. But let me leave you with

this thought: Emma, the only woman I'll ever love, is married to another guy." He

shrugged, raised his eyebrows meaningfully, and put on his coat.

Julia tilted her head, looking at him quizzically. "And?"

"And your guy is the tenth most eligible whatsis. How long you think he's going to

be on the market? He likes you, you like him. But he's not going to be single forever.

And that's the last girl talk I'm doing." He shook his head sadly. "I gotta get out of here

before I get the urge to shave my legs."

When Mike was gone, Julia found herself still standing there, looking at the space

where he'd been. Was he right? Was Colin going to meet someone else?

Then she chided herself. Of course he was. He was the tenth most eligible whatsis.

He probably had women calling him more often than telemarketers. And they were

probably rich women who got whole-body waxes and monthly facials. Julia had never

gotten a facial, and she shuddered to think about hot wax on her most sensitive places.

The idea of him ending up with some supermodel-gorgeous woman in size six

Jimmy Choos made her feel grumpy and more than a little hopeless. How could she

possibly compete with that? And then she reminded herself that she didn't want to

compete with that. She didn't want to be with Colin. Well, she did, but she knew the

family turmoil it would cause on both sides would be too much. The cost would be too

high.

By the time Sandra's sixtieth birthday rolled around at the end of April, Colin should

have been over Julia. He hadn't seen her for weeks, after all. He'd dated other women;

he'd gone places, done things. He'd gotten on with his life. He should have been over

her, but he wasn't, and he wondered what was taking so long.

The first clue the rest of the Delaneys had that something wasn't right with Colin

was that when he came to Cambria for Sandra's party, he agreed to stay at the ranch

instead of booking a room at the lodge. The fact was, he was feeling lonely, and the

loneliness was, for the moment, greater than his sense of discomfort around his family.

"Well, I suppose there's no point in getting your room ready," Sandra had groused

when she'd called him to invite him to the get-together she was planning.

"Actually, I think I will stay with you," he'd said. "If that's all right." Of course he

knew it would be all right, but he also knew it would be a surprise that would spark

questions and a certain amount of prying.

"You will?" Sandra had said. "What the hell's going on with you, boy?"

There was no way he could tell her what was really wrong—that the brief glimpse

he'd had of what was possible, of something more than what he'd always known, had left

him feeling bereft in its absence. And now it was somehow not enough to be in a room at

the lodge, alone with his laptop and his stubborn independence.

So, instead, he'd offered a lame excuse. "It's the drive." He'd felt transparent even

as he said it. "It's too inconvenient to have to go back and forth from the house to town."

Sandra was silent for a moment, and he'd wondered if they lost their phone

connection.

"Well, hell," she'd said after a moment, in surprise rather than irritation.

The second clue they had that he wasn't himself was that, once he arrived at the

ranch for the birthday celebration, he was lukewarm on Sandra's cooking. Colin might

have had a number of issues with his family, but his mother's culinary ability wasn't one

of them. He usually dug into her pot roast and pies with as much enthusiasm as anyone,

but now he was mostly shoving things around on his plate like a picky toddler.

He hadn't been picky even when he was a toddler.

"Now, you go ahead and tell me what's wrong with my fried chicken," Sandra

demanded a day or so after Colin's arrival, as the whole family was sitting at the dinner

table—minus Gen, who was working late at the gallery. Liam had come from Montana

for the party, which was to be held the following day.

"Hmm?" Colin had been distracted, as he was so much of the time these days, and he

hadn't heard what his mother had said.

"You're poking that poor bird with your fork like you think it's going to fly away,"

Sandra barked at him. "What the hell's wrong with it? It's the same recipe I've been

using since you were in kindergarten, and I don't recall you having any complaints about

it then."

"Oh." He looked at the chicken as though seeing it for the first time. "It's not that.

It's just … I'm a little tired, is all."

And that part was true. He hadn't been sleeping well. He tried to tell himself that it

had nothing to do with Julia or with his juvenile heartbreak, but the fact was that he

couldn't sleep because his bed seemed empty without her in it.

You'd think he'd never been dumped by a woman before. He had plenty of

experience with that—all of the Delaney boys did—so it made no sense that he was such

an amateur at dealing with it.

"Oh, just call her, for God's sake," Breanna said. She was looking at Colin with

scorn.

"Who is Uncle Colin going to call?" asked Michael, Breanna's nine-year-old son.

"He knows," Breanna said.

"But I want to know, too," said Lucas, who was seven.

"Nobody, that's who," Colin told him. "I'm not going to call anybody."

"Well, that makes Uncle Colin an idiot," Breanna said mildly.

"You always tell me not to use that word," Michael said sternly.

"You're right, honey. I do." Breanna ruffled his hair.

Colin didn't like the direction this conversation was going. He squirmed a little

under the scrutiny.

Finally, he dropped his fork onto his plate with a clank. "I have called her. Okay?

Several times. She doesn't take my calls." He shot a look at Liam, who at least had the

good sense to look guilty.

"Because of Liam?" Sandra scoffed. "I gave the girl credit for having more sense

than that."

"Yes, because of Liam," Colin said. He threw back the last of what was in his

wineglass. "But not just him. Because of her brother, too. She thought it was all too

complicated." He said the word complicated as though it were surrounded by air quotes.

"Oh, Colin. I'm really sorry," Breanna said. She reached out over Lucas's head and

rubbed Colin's arm. He should have found the gesture irritating or condescending, he

supposed, but instead, he found it comforting. At the moment, he wouldn't have minded

much if his big sister had wanted to pat his head and sing him a lullaby. Not that he ever

would have admitted it.

"If you're that hung up on her, you should try again," Ryan offered mildly. "Liam

will get over it."

Liam, who was the subject of a good bit of the conversation, didn't speak. Instead,

he shoveled chicken into his mouth so he wouldn't be expected to defend himself.

"Liam's been seeing that good-looking vet," Sandra said. "Having some kind of

long-distance relationship, I guess. You'd think he'd want his own brother to make some

kind of progress in his love life, too." She kicked Liam under the table.

"Ow," Liam muttered, through a mouthful of chicken.

"Can somebody pass me the rolls?" Orin said, apparently oblivious to the family

drama going on around him.

Colin hadn't wanted to talk about this with his family, but now that the topic was out

there, he found himself wanting to unload on them, and once he started, he didn't want to

stop.

"I can handle Liam, all right?" he said, as though Liam himself weren't right there.

"I'm not going to run my life based on what Liam might punch me in the face for. If I

did, I'd never get anything done."

Breanna smirked.