Perfect Fling Read Free

in her stomach caused by being near him and his delicious masculine scent. With a long line of people waiting for drinks, he’d had no choice but to indulge her.
    She’d even made him laugh once or twice, giving rise to a stupid flurry of hope . . . that what? Erin refused to go there, which was smart, considering that as soon as his beer was served, he’d grabbed the bottle, treated her to that elusive nod, and disappeared. Cole made it clear that one night meant just that. They weren’t even destined to be friends. Her stomach cramped at the reminder.
    She couldn’t pretend his indifference didn’t hurt, and she wished he’d leave their small town so he wouldn’t be a permanent reminder of her one step outside the lines. She
couldn’t
be pregnant, and not with his baby. She couldn’t think of a worse, more awkward scenario, and her stomach lurched at the possibility.
    “Ding!” Trina’s too-cheerful voice shook Erin out of her painful thoughts.
    “You look.” She wrapped both arms around herself, aware she was shaking.
    Trina extended her hand, and Erin gratefully accepted her friend’s support. She held her breath, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she could swear she heard the sound in her ears, while at this point she couldn’t tell if the lump in her throat was from nausea or panic.
    “Well?” Erin asked, unable to stand the silence or the suspense.
    “It’s positive,” Trina whispered, no longer feigning upbeat excitement.
    Erin let out a sound she didn’t recognize and ran for the nearest stall, unable to contain the nausea she’d been holding at bay.

Two
    Cole woke up to the sun shining through the window in his small apartment over Joe’s Bar. As he did every morning since his return home from his last deep-undercover assignment, he catalogued his state of mind and concluded that today was no different than any other.
    Yep, status quo in his world.
    He took a hot shower, dressed, and headed downstairs to the coffee shop where every morning, Cole picked up his much-needed jolt of caffeine, ignoring the fact that most people in town gave him a wide berth. Most, not all—and
not all
included the owner of Cuppa Café, Trisha. Much like her bar-owning brother, Joe, Trisha could listen to anyone’s tales of woe. Unlike Joe, she tried to use her charming personality to chitchat him into revealing something about where he’d been the last year and why he hadn’t come around before now. When her well-meaning prying failed, she tried to get him to agree to let her set him up on a date with one of her friends. That wasn’t happening either.
    Cole was back in his hometown on standard R and R after a deep-undercover assignment. Usually he and one of his fellow agents did some traveling or he crashed at one of the guys’ cabins in Montana, but Cole hadn’t been back to Serendipity in a while. Much as it pained him to admit it, he’d missed the place where he’d grown up, if not all the people.
    So here he was, back in good old Serendipity, where he had some family he liked, some he didn’t, and a job to return to soon enough. At least he loved his job. Cole liked knowing he was taking down the scum of the earth, never mind that his father was convinced he was just like them. Jed Sanders hadn’t approved of his son long before he’d gone into undercover work. He wasn’t a replica of the old man and never would be. He was used to being a disappointment, but he couldn’t deny the constant digs got to him, which was why he’d avoided coming home until now.
    Cole figured the last job had gotten to him more than usual if he was back to thinking about Jed’s opinion of him. He tried to avoid looking back on his childhood, taking stock, and learning that just maybe his father had a point.
    His cell rang and he picked it up on the first ring. “Hey,” he said to his cousin, Nick Mancini.
    “Sorry to tell you, but we’re not working today. Fire inspector’s coming by, so everything’s