“I’d really like the company,” Matt urged softly.
His last words trapped Lauren. If he’d come on strong, she might have easily refused. But he sounded sincere, and she caught a drift of the same unsureness she’d seen when she’d first faced him. Though large and rugged-looking, he had an odd gentleness to him. His eyes were brown, warm and soft. At that moment they hinted at vulnerability; above all, Lauren Stevenson was a sucker for vulnerability.
Releasing the breath she’d subconsciously been holding, Lauren acknowledged an internal truce. “I’ll get my things,” she whispered.
Soon after, she and Matt were walking side by side toward the waterfront. He was as quiet as she, casting intermittent glances her way, and she wondered if he felt as strange as she did.
In an attempt to break the silence, she asked the first thing that came to mind. “How did you know I was in Boston?”
“Your parents told me.”
“Myparents!”
He sent her a sidelong glance. “Shouldn’t they have?”
“No—yes—I mean, I’m just surprised. That’s all.”
They walked a little farther before he spoke again. “You’re thinking that they wouldn’t have willingly given your address to any friend of Brad’s.”
“I … guess that says it.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “At least you’re honest.”
She shrugged. “How much do you know about Brad’s reasons for leaving?”
“Only what Brad told me—that your parents couldn’t accept his wanting to work with his hands rather than with his mind, that they flipped out when he left college and pretty much washed their hands of him.”
Perhaps Matt had known Brad after all. “Spoken that way, it sounds cruel.”
“It was, in a way. Brad was badly hurt by the split.”
“So were my parents, yet none of the three tried to mend it.”
“And you, Lauren? Did you do anything?”
Her gaze shot sharply to his, then softened and fell. “No,” she admitted quietly. “I think I might have in time. Then time ran out.”
“You regretted the distance?”
“Brad was my only brother. We had no other siblings. He was four years older than I, and his interests were always different. We weren’t close as kids, but I like to think that we might have found common ground as we’d gotten older.”
They had reached Atlantic Avenue. Matt put a light hand on her elbow as they trotted across to avoid an on-rushing car. He dropped it when they reached the median strip, where they waited for a minute before finishing the crossing.
“Then you were seventeen when Brad left.”
Lauren blew out a breath. “You reallydoknow about Brad, don’t you?”
“He told me he was twenty-one when he dropped out. If you were four years his junior …” Matt’s voice trailed off and his features tensed. “Did you think I was lying about being his friend?”
“No. Well, maybe. I have to take your word for it that you knew him, since he can’t verify it, can he?”
“Are you always distrustful?”
She looked him in the eye. “Only when I see someone lurking outside my shop for two days before coming in.”
“Oh. You saw me.”
“Yes.” Was that a sudden rush of color to his cheeks? She wondered if it was guilt, or embarrassment. In case it was the latter, she softened her tone. “I assume you weren’t trying to hide.”
