She could feel his muscles relax, even as he sighed and focused on her again. “It is supposed to be a celebration of your birthday tonight, ma bichette.”

As if she could help but think of her mother when celebrating her own birth. It was such a ridiculous thing to say that her shoulders wiggled against the itch of it. “Don’t be stupid, Lukas.”

He wasn’t, and so he could puzzle out quickly enough the idiot thing he’d said. He rolled his eyes.

She lifted her chin. “And if you don’t stop calling me a doe, I’m going to—”

“What should I call you instead? Mon nombre?”

She had to give it to her brother—he knew how to cheer her. “That would do.”

“You are ridiculous. But I shall still give you your gift. Come.”

She let him take her hand and tug her toward the couch. And she sent Drake a long glance as she stepped around him. One that apologized, she hoped, for Lukas assuming he had made her cry. One that said she appreciated him listening—and not being offended at her for all but accusing him of being the reason she hadn’t saved her mother.

One that said, perhaps, that she hoped they could be friends . . . if he’d just stop looking at her as he did.

18

Drake blamed his exhaustion on the churning waves crashing around inside him, knowing very well that had little to do with it.

She’d prayed for him. Whenever he faced the threat of Jaeger, she’d been praying.

Had it been old Mrs. Colton from the flat above Dot’s who said so, he simply would have marveled at the Lord’s care. But it wasn’t. It was her. While her dark eyes had been haunting him, his number had been echoing in her mind, bidding her to pray.

Did it mean anything? That they were somehow connected, other than through his sister? She’d say no, he suspected.

But his heart said yes.

Were the others not chattering and passing Margot a few wrapped packages, he may have splayed a hand over his chest to try to dampen the ache there. He’d have to be a fool to pursue this course. And he wasn’t. He didn’t need the headache and heartache of chasing after a girl who wanted nothing to do with him.

But not nothing. There’d been something in that final glance of hers. Something that acknowledged that there was more connecting them than Dot. Or there could be.

Not romance though. She’d call him a fool for even considering it and pretend he didn’t exist again while sitting a few inches away, as she’d done through dinner.