Free Beach Lane by Sherryl Woods

apparently ready to have the talk they should have had days ago.
    “Okay, hear me out,” he said, a coaxing note in his voice. “This just happened a little over a week ago. I was trying to absorb the news, work through what it meant for the future.”
    “Thus the funk,” she said.
    “Exactly.” He regarded her earnestly. “I wanted to have a plan before you found out. I needed to feel as if I was in control of the situation.”
    “Mack, I adore you, but you don’t think that fast.” When he was about to protest the insulting comment, she added, “What I’m saying is that you ponder things, think them through from every angle. It’s a good trait in many ways, but it’s not a fast track to decision-making. You had to know the gossip mill in this town would beat you to the punch.” She couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice when she repeated, “I should have heard this from you, not from my family, who heard it on the street.”
    “Okay, you’re right,” he said apologetically. “I knew I was taking a huge risk, but I didn’t want to see that look in your eyes, the one you have right now.”
    She couldn’t imagine what he meant. “What look is that?”
    “You feel sorry for me. No man wants a woman’s pity.”
    Susie rolled her eyes. It was such a guy comment. “I do feel sorry for you, but certainly not because I think you’re some kind of failure, if that’s what you mean.”
    He shrugged. “More or less.”
    “Well, here’s a news flash. I feel bad for you because I know how much that job meant to you. You live and breathe sports. That column was all tied up in who you are. It gave you a very public professional identity. Losing it has to be killing you.”
    He looked vaguely relieved by her words. “That’s exactly it,” he said.
    “You don’t have to sound so surprised that I get it,” she said wryly. “I’ve had a lot of years to figure out what makes you tick.”
    He met her gaze. “I really am sorry about how you found out about this.”
    She gave him an amused look. “Do you actually know how I found out? Not just that it came from my family, but the circumstances?”
    “Your father filled you in?” he guessed.
    “ And my mother and my brothers,” she said. “They staged an intervention to warn me against getting involved with you right now.”
    For the first time, he looked truly guilt stricken. “Geez, Susie, I am so sorry.”
    “They forced me to consider for the first time that I must not mean much to you if you’d keep such a huge secret from me.”
    “You know that’s not true,” he said emphatically, then studied her closely. “You do know it, don’t you?”
    “Actually, no, I don’t. And to make this little intervention of theirs even more fun, Matthew also mentioned that he and Luke had warned you to stay away from me. Why on earth didn’t you tell me about that? I was horrified.”
    He waved it off. “Trust me, it was no big deal. They were just being protective brothers.”
    “Then what they said had nothing to do with why you and I, well…” She couldn’t quite bring herself to put it into words. “Why we haven’t, you know, done anything?”
    He blinked in apparent confusion, then caught on. “No,” he said quickly. “Hell, no. We’ve just had these boundaries between us. I guess I always knew the rules. Heaven knows, you were clear enough about them, made sure I understood that we had this totally platonic thing going on.”
    Susie sighed. “Forget the stupid rules, Mack,” she snapped impatiently. “I’m sick to death of them.”
    Looking a little stunned by her vehemence, he stood up and started to pace, then paused to meet her gaze. “We talked about this on Thanksgiving, Susie. Now’s not the time—”
    “Who says?” she challenged.
    “I do,” he told her. “And your whole family, for that matter. Didn’t you listen to what they said?”
    “They don’t get a say.”
    “I just think it’s for the best,” he