Читать книгу Irresistible You - Barbara Boswell, Barbara Boswell - Страница 9

The afternoon session moved at a glacial pace, and several of the jurors had trouble staying awake. Brenna was one of them. Her eyelids felt heavy, keeping them open was an effort and a numbing lethargy spread through her.

It was too warm in here, the lawyers droned on and on, citing one dull legal reference after another. Plus, she’d eaten too much for lunch. The combination was narcotizing. She allowed herself to close her eyes. It would be all right to close them for just a moment.

Brenna drifted in the netherworld between sleep and wakefulness….

Images glided through her mind. She saw herself and Luke sitting at their table in the China Palace eating lunch. He used chopsticks—adeptly, too—while she and everybody else in the restaurant ate with plain old forks. Brenna smiled now, as she had then. She didn’t know why, but his prowess with the Asian utensils amused her.

And then he’d put down his chopsticks and asked her quietly, “Why did you tell the truth about your pregnancy to me and nobody else?”

Brenna was faced with the very question she had asked herself when blurting out the truth she’d kept carefully guarded all these months. Why had she told Luke?

“I think it was because you were goading me,” she’d replied slowly.

Luke nodded, seeming to accept the answer. Brenna was glad he did, but she didn’t buy her own explanation. She should’ve dismissed Luke’s speculations with a shrug, not caring what he thought. Instead, she’d told him her deepest secret. It made no sense at all, or else it made very revealing sense.

“What is the story you’ve told everybody else in town?” Luke demanded.

“Unlike you, I’m not too well known in this town, so everybody doesn’t want to know about me. I did tell my neighbors and my doctor that I, uh, was in a relationship that didn’t work out, and when I found out I was pregnant, the baby’s father left.”

“Which is exactly what I thought at first—until you emphatically informed me that there was no boyfriend,” Luke reminded her. “Hasn’t anybody else pushed for more details?”

“No. Nobody else has been that rude. Or pushy. Or intrusive. They’ve respected my privacy.”

“Maybe they figured talking about it—about him, the supposed father—would upset you,” surmised Luke. “Or maybe they just weren’t interested enough to ask you anything more.”

“Maybe,” she’d agreed.

After that Luke had grown very quiet. He hadn’t spoken much at all as they finished their meal and drove back to the courthouse, where he reclaimed the VIP parking spot for his truck again.

“We will now take a brief recess!”

The judge’s stentorian tones plus the bang of his gavel startled Brenna back into full consciousness. Her eyes flew open, and she jerked forward. She felt a hand close over her upper arm, steadying her.

It was then she noticed how very close she was sitting to Luke. Their shoulders were touching, and she was leaning heavily against him. His hand was on her arm. Was she imagining it or was his thumb lightly stroking?

Brenna stood up as quickly as she could. Unsteady on her feet, she gripped the front rail for support.