Part 2 (1/2)

”You could wish on the fountain,” Willa said.

The fountain in their courtyard had quite the reputation, as the woman she'd seen earlier had clearly known. The 1928 four-story building had actually been built around the fountain, which had been here in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco for fifty years before that, when the area still resembled the Wild West and was chock-full of dairies and roaming cattle.

Back then only the hearty had survived. And the desperate. Born of that, the fountain's myth went that a wish made here out of true desperation, with an equally true heart, would bring a first, true love in unexpected ways.

It'd happened just enough times over the past hundred plus years that the myth had long since become infamous legend.

A big hand set a mouth-watering looking watermelon mojito mocktail in front of her, the muscles in his forearm flexing as he moved. Pru stared at it for a beat before she managed to lift her gaze to Finn's. ”Thanks.”

”Try it.”

She obediently did just that. ”Oh my G.o.d,” she murmured, pleasure infusing her veins. ”What's in it?”

He smiled mysteriously, and something warm and wondrous happened deep inside her.

”Secret recipe,” he said while she was still gaping up at him. He turned to Willa. ”And your Irish coffee.”

Willa squealed over the mountain of whipped cream topping the gla.s.s and jumped up to give Finn a tight squeeze.

Pru knew that they were very tight friends and it showed in their familiarity with each other. It didn't seem s.e.xual at all so there was no need for jealousy but Finn definitely let down his guard with Willa. And it was that, Pru knew, that gave her the twinge of envy.

Finn waited until Willa sat and attacked her drink before he spoke again. ”Your girl Cara tried to con Sean into a drink last night.”

Willa, who'd just spooned in a huge bite of the cream, grimaced. She always had three or four employees on rotation at her shop, all of them some sort of rescue, many of them underage. ”She have a fake ID?”

”Affirmative,” Finn said. ”He cut it up on my orders.”

Willa sighed. ”Bet that went over like a fart in church.”

Finn lifted a shoulder. ”We handled it.”

Willa reached out and squeezed his hand. ”Thanks.”

Finn nodded and turned his attention back to Pru, who'd sucked down a third of her drink already. ”You need your own order of chicken wings?”

What she needed didn't involve calories. It involved a lobotomy. ”Yes, please.”

”You warming up yet?”

Yes, but that might've had more to do with his warm gaze than the temperature in the room. ”Getting there,” she managed.

The barest of smiles curved his mouth.

Idle chitchat. That's all this was, she reminded herself. They were just like any other casual acquaintances who happened to be in the same place at the same time.

Except there was nothing casual about her being here. Finn just didn't know it.

Yet.

She'd have to tell him eventually, because this wasn't a fairy tale. And she absolutely would tell him. But as a rule, she tended to subscribe to the later-is-best theory.

She realized he was watching her and she squirmed in her seat, suddenly very busy looking anywhere and everywhere except right into his eyes because they made her think about things. Things that made her nipples hopeful and perky.

Things that couldn't happen.

As if maybe he knew what he could do to her with just one look-or hey, it wasn't like her wet white s.h.i.+rt was hiding much-the corners of his mouth quirked.

Which was when she realized that Willa had stopped eating and was staring at the two of them staring at each other. When Willa opened her mouth to say something, something Pru was quite certain she didn't want said in front of Finn, she rushed to beat her friend to it. ”On second thought, can I double that order of chicken wings?”

”Sure,” Finn's mouth said.

Stop looking at his mouth! She forced herself to look into his eyes instead, those deep, dark, mossy green eyes, which as suspected, was a lot like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. ”Um, I think that's my phone-” She started digging through her purse. Wrapping her fingers around her cell, she pulled it out and stared at the screen.

Nothing. It was black.

Dammit.

Finn smiled and walked away, heading back to the kitchen.

”Smooth,” Willa said and sipped her Irish coffee.

Pru covered her face, but peeked out between her fingers, watching Finn go, telling herself she was completely nonplussed by her crazy reaction to him, but the truth was she just wanted to watch his very fine a.s.s go.

”Huh,” Willa said.

”No,” Pru said. ”There's no huh.”

”Oh, honey, there's a huge huh,” Willa said. ”I work with dogs and cats all day long, I'm fluent in eye-speak. And there's some serious eye-speak going on here. It's saying you two want to f-”

Pru pointed at her and snagged the last chicken wing, stuffing it into her mouth.

Willa just smirked. ”You know, it's been a long time since I've seen Finn look at a woman like he just looked at you. A real long time.”

Don't ask. Don't ask-”Why's that?” She covered her mouth. Then uncovered her mouth. Then covered it again.

Willa waited, eyes lit. ”Not that that wasn't fun to watch, but are you finished arguing with yourself?”

Pru sighed. ”Yeah.”

”Finn's got a lot going on. Keeping the pub's head above water isn't easy in today's economy. Plus he's slowly renovating his grandparents' house so he can sell it and move out of the city-”

Pru's heart stopped and she swallowed a heavy bite of chicken wing. ”He wants to leave San Francisco?”

”To live, yes. To work, no. He loves the pub, but he wants to live in a quieter place and get a big, lazy dog. And then there's his biggest time sink-keeping Sean on the straight and narrow. Add all of that up and it equals no time for-”

”Love?”