"I would hope so," Veronica replied airily, "unless, I mean, you're showing up to cancel." And while that wasn't out of the realm of possibility, she was already stepping outside, closing the door behind her before she reached out tentatively to lay a hand in his.

This should have been the easy part, she figured. He'd made it clear, in a roundabout way while female, that he liked her company, and there couldn't be much harder than the vulnerability of sitting guard over his brother's body. Attraction - and mutual attraction at that - should have been simple, an equation already solved. It never was. Still, he smiled like that and she couldn't help smiling, too, trying to dredge up her usual certainty.