Free Midnight Kiss by Robyn Carr, Victoria Dahl, Jean Brashear Page B

they want their partnership to feel.”
    “And you were that way with… Penny?” she asked.
    “I thought I was,” he said. “Thought she was, too.”
    “What if you’re wrong next time, too?” Sunny asked.
    “Is that what you’re afraid of, honey?” he asked her gently.
    “Of course! Aren’t you?”
    He stared at her for a second, then walked into the kitchen without answering. “Let’s hope good old Erin stocked something decent for a cold winter night, huh?”He began opening cupboards. He finally came out with a dark bottle of liquid. “Aha! Brandy! Bet you anything this isn’t Erin’s, but Aiden’s. But it’s not terrible brandy—at least it’s Christian Brothers.” He lifted the bottle toward her.
    “Sure, what the hell,” she said, going over to the sofa to sit. She raised the legs of her jeans, unzipped her boots and pulled them off. She lifted one and looked at it. Now why would she bring these to Uncle Nate’s stable? These were L.A. boots—black suede with pointy toes and spike heels. The boots she normally brought to the stable were low-heeled or cowboy, hard leather, well worn. The kind that would’ve made it up that hill so she wouldn’t have to be carried.
    She threw the boot on the floor. Okay, she had wanted to be seen, if possible, and judge the look on the face of the seer. Her confidence was pretty rocky; she needed to feel attractive. She wanted to see a light in a male eye like the one she had originally seen in Glen’s—a light she would run like hell from, but still….
    Drew brought her a brandy in a cocktail glass, not a snifter. He sat down beside her. “Here’s to surviving a deer strike!” he said, raising his glass to her.
    She clinked. “Hear, hear.”
    They each had a little sip and he said, “Now—that personal question? Since I can breathe and talk again.”
    “It’s probably a dumb question. You’d never be able to answer it honestly and preserve your manhood.”
    “Try me. Maybe you’re right about me, maybe you’re not.”
    “Okay. Did you cry? When she left you?”
    He rolled his eyes upward to find an answer. He shook his head just a bit, frowning. “I don’t think so. Didn’t cry, didn’t beg.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Didn’t sleep either, and since I couldn’t sleep I worked even more hours. I kept trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. For two years we seemed to be fine and then once the ring was on the finger, everything went to hell.”
    “So what did you do?” she wanted to know.
    “I did my chores,” he said. “All the things she wanted me to do that when I didn’t, drove her crazy. There were little rules. If you’re the last one out of the bed, make it. If you eat off a plate, rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. If something you take off is dirty it doesn’t go on the floor, but in the hamper. I thought if she came back, she’d see I was capable of doing the things that were important to her.”
    That almost broke her heart. “Drew…”
    “In medicine we have a saying, if you hear hoofbeats, don’t expect to see a zebra. I was thinking horses—it’s pretty common for surgeons to have relationship problems because of the pressure, the stress, the time they have to spend away from home. Horses. I brought her with me to my residency program, took her away from her mom, away from her job and girlfriends, and then I had even less time for her than I’d had as a med student. And we fought about it—about my hours, her loneliness. But when she left me, she didn’t go back home. It took me so long to figure that out. I thought it meant she was still considering us. She moved a few miles away. Not because I was still a consideration, but because there was a guy. I never suspected a guy.I didn’t even know about him for six months after we broke up. It was a zebra all along.”
    “Ow. That must have hurt you bad.”
    He leaned toward her. “My pride, Sunny. At the end of the day, I missed her, hated