Free Perfect Partners by Carly Phillips Page B

groaned. Bad enough the sexual attraction grew with each passing day. But did Chelsie Russell have to tug at his already battered heart? He hadn’t a clue how to kill his growing feelings. Worse, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
    *     *     *
    Griff eased himself into the worn booth at the diner. “Sorry I’m late. A client wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
    Ryan shrugged. “Refill. Coffee, black,” he reminded the passing waitress. “And a BLT.”
    The woman looked at Griff. He glanced at his watch and shook his head, so she placed her pad in her apron and moved on.
    Food would have to wait. “I’m already half an hour late to put Alix into bed and I still have a quick meeting with a client.”
    He and Ryan always met on Wednesday nights if Griff could manage it.
    “You look exhausted. An all nighter?” Griff asked his friend.
    “I spent last night staked out in front of some dive in the ‘Combat Zone’,” Ryan said.
    “Boston’s answer to sleaze. What were you doing in a red-light district?”
    “Domestic dispute.”
    “I thought you didn’t take those kind of cases anymore. Breaking up marriages made you sick, or some such nonsense.” Griff snorted. “If you ask me, anyone who hires you for a case like that is halfway to a divorce already.”
    Ryan shook his head. “Still cynical as ever, I see.”
    “Like I don’t have a reason,” Griff muttered.
    Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “Back to the all-women-are-alike mentality?” he asked.
    “Aren’t they?”
    “I don’t know. Was your sister-in-law anything like Deidre?”
    That gave him pause. He’d always liked his brother’s wife. Never once during the frequent family dinners and nights he’d shown up unannounced had he ever sensed a similarity between his aloof fiancée and the warm, loving woman his brother had married. Nor had he seen a comparison to his mother, who’d earned the name only by giving birth to two children.
    “No,” he reluctantly admitted. “Shannon was unique.”
    “She was special, but not unique,” his friend said with a smug grin.
    Griff couldn’t help thinking of Chelsie. She was Shannon’s sister, and blood counted for something. If the past few weeks were any indication, Chelsie might well be more like her sister than like her wealthy, selfish parents.
    “Maybe you just haven’t found the exception of your own,” Ryan suggested.
    Maybe he had and wasn’t ready to accept it. “Don’t you ever get tired of spouting advice?” Griff asked. “Maybe if you didn’t spend every night on surveillance, you’d have a life of your own and could quit worrying about mine.”
    Ryan didn’t answer, a rarity in and of itself.
    “So what were you doing last night, anyway?” Griff asked.
    “Family favor.”
    “Your sister?”
    “Yeah. For once, I didn’t mind the boredom. I came up empty.” He formed a zero with this thumb and forefinger.
    “Guess she appreciates you more now than when we used to tag along after her,” Griff said. “Even Jared grew up to appreciate his pain-in-the-butt older brother.”
    “Yeah. After he got over the fact that we tailed him home from school to protect him and ended up blowing his first chance at scoring with the girl of his dreams,” Ryan said on a laugh.
    With his little brother gone, the times when Griff, Ryan, and Jared had stuck together through school, sweat-filled summers on the streets, and a rough neighborhood seemed like distant memories. But to Griff s surprise, Ryan’s recollection made him smile instead of gripping him with grief.
    There were moments, Griff was sure, when his little brother had resented Griff and Ryan’s constant interference, but all three of them had benefited from the closeness they’d shared.
    “So how’s the squirt?” Ryan asked, changing the subject.
    Griff leaned back against the plastic seat cushion. The diner across from the local courthouse wasn’t known for comfort or good food, just quick service. “Actually, Alix is