Free A Gift for All Seasons by Karen Templeton Page A

how he interacted with Lili. His crew. His lame attempt at scaring her. “No,” she said, very softly.
    “Then what are you waiting for? Get out there and cast those pearls, girl!”
    “Except you forget I have no idea how to go about that,” April said, right about the same time Mel poked Blythe again, this time nodding toward the restaurant’s entrance. Which April couldn’t see because she had her back to it.
    “Tell me he just walked in.”
    “Yep.” Mel thrust out her hand. “Rings off. Now. Before he spots us.”
    “What? I can’t—”
    “You can. And you will. Can’t cast the pearls while you’re still wearing the diamonds.” She waggled her fingers. “They’ll be perfectly safe, I promise. And you can have ’em back when...” Her eyes crinkled in thought. “When you score your first date.”
    “With Patrick?”
    “With anybody. His brother’s with him and he ain’t half bad, either.” She shrugged. “Options.”
    “This is very true,” Blythe said. “They clearly breed them well, those Shaughnessys—”
    “April!” Mel said under her breath. “Now.”
    “Okay, okay...” She twisted off the rings and handed them over, thinking, There, done, as April slipped them into a zippered compartment in her wallet, then her wallet back inside her purse.
    Strange that anticipation should feel so much like panic. Especially when she heard voices coming closer, Patrick’s brother’s and the waitress’s, mostly. Luke was a notorious flirt, if the stories were to be believed. The kind of man known to make women go all fluttery and stupid. Then, as she rubbed where her rings had been, she heard Patrick’s rumbly voice, she shut her eyes, thinking, Yeah. Like that .
    Then somebody kicked her under the table, making her yelp, forcing her to look up and smile at the Shaughnessy brothers, both dark-haired and blue-eyed, one grinning, one not. Only, in that instant, she saw the glower for what it was—or more to the point, what it wasn’t—and her heart melted.
    Let the games begin, she thought, and tossed out that first, all-important pearl.
    * * *
    Leave it to his dumbass brother to make a beeline for the cousins’ table. Or more to the point, to take Patrick’s muttered, “Not a good idea, bro,” as a challenge. So here he was, standing in front of April with his hands shoved in his pockets without a clue what to say.
    Not that this was a huge issue with Luke around, who’d been chatting up girls since the sixth grade. Yeah, the nuns had had their hands full with that one, boy.
    But while Luke and Mel and Blythe were yakking away—about what, Patrick had no idea, he couldn’t hear for the ringing in his ears—April fixed that soft, sweet gaze on him, smiling like they’d never had that last conversation. Like she hadn’t told him he was an idiot.
    Like he hadn’t acted like one.
    In the reflected light splashing through the window, her hair seemed redder, her eyes more turquoise. And although the cream-colored, fluffy sweater covered her from chin to wrists, it also clung to everything between. How she could look so hot and so innocent at the same time was beyond him, but it was a deadly combination, that was for damn sure.
    The waitress brought them their check. Mel and Blythe scrapped over it like cats over a chicken bone, making Luke laugh and Patrick breathe a sigh of relief. A few minutes more, and they’d be gone.
    “How’s it going?” April said over the din.
    “Okay,” he said, making himself shrug. Avoiding her gaze.
    “Business good?”
    He squinted out the window at a sailboat in the open water beyond the marina, its white sails blinding against the blue sky. “Getting by.”
    “And Lili?”
    The check folder clamped in her hand, Blythe rose from the table and gathered her purse, flirting with his brother in that way women did when they didn’t mean it. And Luke was eating it up. Dumbass.
    “Um...she’s great,” Patrick said, reluctantly returning his