Where Angels Tread (31 page)

“A little,” Shane admitted. “But mostly I’m just relieved that this is going to be over with. I can’t really move on with my life until it’s in the books.” He shifted in his seat and pressed his forehead against the window, watching as the bright green hills of Santa Ynez rolled by.

“I meant to ask you,” he said after a time, glancing over at Jaime through the corner of his eye. “Are you interested in going out on a date with one of the male nurses that Heidi works with? She’s decided that he’s perfect for you, but I told her that I hadn’t seen you date anyone in years. You’re too focused on your career.” At his last words, he rolled his eyes at her dramatically. “Which is ridiculous, by the way. Your business is still going to be there, even if you cut loose and have a little fun once in a while.”

Jaime gripped her hands on the steering wheel, watching as her knuckles slowly changed from pink to white. Here we go again, she thought wearily. There was always someone in her family trying to set her up on a date; just last week, her sister Lacey had called from Los Angeles and practically begged Jaime to go out with an actor she had met on the set of the new movie she was filming. Lacey didn’t seem to care that the last thing Jaime wanted to do was date someone in Hollywood; she vastly preferred the intellectual type, a man who had no problem keeping up a good, long conversation. At that last thought, a pang of pain shot through Jaime’s chest; she rubbed it discreetly with the tips of her fingers until it disappeared. She tried not to think about Alan these days.

“I’m just not interested in dating right now,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. Or ever, she thought to herself as she jerked the steering wheel to the left and swung into the parking lot of the courthouse, where she could see a crowd of familiar faces gathered between the two white pillars supporting the old building. When her mother Michelle spotted Jaime’s car, she hurried forward to greet her two children, her brown eyes wide from nerves.

“Are you ready?” she asked Shane, holding out an arm to steady him as he stepped out of the car. “We’ve been waiting for you. What took so long?”

“Sorry,” Jaime said, walking around the front of the car to peck her mother’s cheek. “I was running a little late this morning. Forgot to set my alarm clock last night.” Her mother frowned at Jaime, who blushed deeply and ducked her head. To Jaime’s immense relief, Michelle didn’t pursue the matter other than to throw her another suspicious glance as she helped Shane navigate the courtroom steps.

“Are we all here?” Jaime’s father Robert called, his ruddy cheeks growing even redder under the glare of the sun. Shielding his eyes, he counted out his children; five of the eight Kensington siblings were mulling around, chatting amicably and waiting to enter the courthouse. “Let’s go,” he called, cupping his hands together around his mouth to amplify his voice. “We should have been inside fifteen minutes ago.”

Trudging up the steps behind her brother Cody, Jaime poked him in the back. “How were you able to get away from the restaurant?” she whispered when he turned around in surprise. Cody, an amazing chef with a penchant for mouth-watering Italian dishes, owned Ristoranti Rossi, one of Santa Ynez’s most popular restaurants that he named for Michelle’s side of the family. Cody rarely left the restaurant during operating hours; he was entirely mistrustful of allowing anyone else to take over the reins. Like Jaime, he was somewhat of a control freak.

“I’m forcing myself to take more breaks,” he said, flashing her a wide grin; his light blue eyes, so like her own, sparkled in the sunlight. “Guess who was at the restaurant last night?” he said to Shane, who was limping up the stairs behind Jaime. “Ethan Conway.”

At the mention of Ethan’s name, Jaime’s heart performed a small cartwheel in her chest. Dr. Conway, as she usually referred to him, had been one of the men responsible for saving Shane’s life after the shooting. He was a highly respected doctor in the community, not to mention jarringly handsome, with deep green eyes and dark hair that was thick and luxurious. During Shane’s stay in the hospital, Jaime ran into Ethan many times on her regular trips to visit Heidi to receive an update on Shane; Ethan, the emergency room doctor, was Heidi’s boss.

“He looked like he was getting himself into some kind of trouble,” Cody was snickering, and Jaime perked her ears up attentively. “There on some kind of date, by the looks of it, but it wasn’t going well. The woman made a scene in front of the entire dining room and stormed out.”

“I’ll have to ask Heidi about it,” Shane said, breathing heavily as he leaned on his walking stick. “But Dr. Conway’s pretty private from what I understand, so she probably won’t know much.”

Lost in thought at the idea of Ethan on a date with another woman, Jaime almost ran headlong into the heavy wooden doors leading to the interior of the courtroom. She had harbored a minor crush on him since they first met, and even though she had no intentions of starting up a relationship with anyone for the foreseeable future, the image of him with another woman did nothing to help her bad mood.

She was dying to know what he did, though, that made his date so angry. It was typical, Jaime thought, shaking her head in annoyance; men couldn’t be trusted. There was once a time, long ago, when Jaime had believed in the possibility of true love. She thought that she had found it with Alan, until he proved to her that it was all just a selfish game, designed to see who could inflict the most pain. And he had most definitely won the gold medal.