God, he was good-looking. Every time Casey wasn’t around him, she convinced herself that he couldn’t possibly be that strikingly attractive. It was her imagination, running away with her. But then, when she came face to face with him again, she had to admit that she was dead wrong. He was. Entirely. Heart-stoppingly handsome. And when he smiled that charmingly heartfelt smile that touched his eyes and lit him from within...?
On top of all that, he was smart and funny and genuinely, sincerely kind.
Lucky Dave. Lucky, lucky, lucky Dave.
“I’m still on hold,” her brother announced as Casey steered carefully around a police car and over to the curb.
“Well, we’re here now, so—” Casey started, but he cut her off.
“Oooh, shhh! Hello! Yes! I have a reservation for tonight—both a suite and a single room, and I just got an email saying that the room’s been cancelled and— It’s a mistake.” Jon widened his eyes at Casey. “I told you it was a mistake.” But then he frowned as he listened to the resort rep.
“Hey, how was the drive?”
Casey turned as Luc opened her door for her. “It wasn’t too bad. What’s going on?”
“From what I’ve heard, a major pipe burst in the east wing,” he reported as she got out of the car and stretched her tired legs and back. “It somehow triggered the fire alarm and the sprinkler system.”
“Oh, wow,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Laura over there thinks two hundred rooms are out of commission. Manny heard it’s more like three.”
“Hundred...?” Casey said, even though she’d clearly heard what Luc had said.
“I haven’t heard anything official though,” he told her.
“So the suite’s ready for us, and we still have an extra room reserved for our security team,” Jon said into his phone as he unfolded himself from the passenger seat. “But the extra room is off-site... where...? Desert Hot Springs...?” He looked across the top of the car at Casey and Luc. “Where the hell’s Desert Hot Springs?”
Luc was already shaking his head at that. “No,” he said. “That’s not going to work. It’s too far. It’s at least an hour north of here. I’d rather sleep in my car than be that far away.”
“I’m not going to let you sleep in your car,” Casey told him. “Let’s check in and look at the suite. I know the bedroom has two queens, but maybe there’s a separate living room with a sofa. We can all squeeze in together.”
Luc looked skeptical. “We should talk to the front desk, see what they can do.”
Casey grabbed her handbag from the backseat and gave her keys to the valet—Luc’s new friend, Manny, according to the handsome young man’s name badge. “Hold the luggage until we know what we’re doing, please,” she told Manny as Luc briskly led the way to the resort’s main door.
Jon, however, was looking at her with an expression of total horror on his face.
“Squeeze,” he said. “Together? No. Nope. Nope.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she whispered to him. “If it was Dave, we’d all pile into the same suite, no problem.”
“But it’s not Dave,” Jon whispered back. “It’s Luc. Casey, I can’t. I won’t. I... I’d rather go to Napa.”
She’d given him a choice between coming with her to this engagement, or visiting their parents at their new place up north. He’d rather desperately not wanted to spend even an overnight with Mom and Dad, as much as he loved them.
But then again, he hadn’t realized Dave wasn’t going to be in Palm Springs with them—not until they were in the car and halfway here. She’d told him, yesterday, but he apparently hadn’t listened.
“It’s a chance—for both of us—to get to know Luc,” she told Jon now, but he just kept shaking his head. “He’s really nice.”
“I don’t care if he’s nice. I don’t want him to be nice,” he whispered rather fiercely back. “And I absolutely don’t want to get to know him.”
Casey knew in that moment that everything her brother had previously said was a stinking pile of crap—all his contrite and sometimes tearful acknowledgments that because he’d strayed too far, too often, Dave was out of his life for good. It was suddenly crystal clear that Jon didn’t want to get to know Luc because his intention was to steal Dave back—Luc’s impending broken heart be damned.
Assuming, that is, that Dave could be stolen. If she were dating someone as impossibly perfect as Luc, she’d hold on tight and never let go.
Jon was already surfing escape routes on his phone. “There’s a flight out of PSP in two hours,” he told Casey—Luc, too. They’d caught up to Luc, who was holding the door for them both. “It’ll be easier if I don’t stay,” he explained to the SEAL.
“Palm Springs to...?” Casey looked over his shoulder, trying to see his phone.
