Page 2 of Don't Fall for a Grump

He suddenly lunges toward me and grabs my arm, yanking me into him. I gasp. A minute ago, he stood there like a waxwork in Madame Tussaud’s. A very cute waxwork, but lifeless nonetheless.

From silence and deadpan to lightening action in naught point three seconds.

Against such super-fast action, my brain does not have the time to tell my feet to move. He may have the speed of Superman, but I didn’t get the memo. I literally fall forward, my face landing straight into his chest. A very solid chest.

Hmm, he also smells delicious. Is that a woodsy scent, maybe mixed with patchouli?

Absently, I breathe him in, and I swear, I nearly sigh with delight.

Like I have the plague, he pushes me off him, swiftly spinning me to stand beside him. Hey, maybe he is Superman. I wouldn’t mind seeing what he looks like in spandex.

Bree! For goodness sake!

His solid grip lingers on my arm, like he’s taking that extra second to make sure I’ve got my balance. Which, I’ll admit, is necessary. I’ve just been spun and repositioned in the blink of an eye, and my brain is still trying to catch up with where my body now stands. Ensuring that I’m back on my own two feet and remain there, he finally lets go.

Only then, though my head is still spinning, even if my body looks still, do I realize what he had just done and why.

Behind me, the door flings open again, and with a lot of bashing and crashing, Ben is trying to shove himself through with great difficulty. He hasn’t quite mastered the wheelchair yet. If Mr. Suit hadn’t pulled me out of the way, I would have been hit by the door, as he had been. Though in truth, it would only have been my butt that would have got any bruising.

I gather myself, feeling a little bewildered at everything that just happened, and how quickly it all transpired. Man meets woman. Woman falls into man. Man says get off me. Woman is flung to the side. Man protects woman’s butt in caveman-like fashion.

“Ah, I see you’ve met Jackson.” Ben beams a broad smile at me, before looking at the caveman. Ben’s finally made it into the kitchen, even if in doing so, he’s taken a layer of paint off each side of the door frame with the wheels of his new vehicle. “Bree, this is my son, Jackson. Jackson, this is my housekeeper, Bree.”

“Well, what an introduction,” I declare, smiling broadly up at the caveman.

Caveman does not smile back. He does not smile at all.

“Nice to meet you,” he mutters, quickly looking away and toward his father.

Ben clearly does not see what I see, and carries on as though his son just threw his arms around me and gave me a bear hug. “Bree’s from the city too. Hey, who knows, you two might even have been neighbors when she lived there.”

I wait for Jackson to ask whereabouts in the city did I live. It’s what normally happens, right? When two people meet, there’s this dance that occurs. The first asks a question that they don’t really want to know the answer to, and the second replies in kind. Then the second does the same pointless exercise, and then the ice is finally broken. In this case, I’d call it a glacier, but still, I’ll wait.

Instead, I get radio silence. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. There’s no ice-breaking here, not a crack, not a splinter, not even a chip.

I begin to feel wholly uncomfortable as a chilly breeze dances over my skin. I have never met the man, so I can’t say for sure if he’s usually this chatty, or if it’s just me. In either case, I need to be in warmer climates. Like, outside. Strangely enough, my thirst has also disappeared. It’s time I make myself scarce.

“OK,” I say, more cheerily than necessary. Maybe I’m just trying to make a point. “Well, I’ll be getting on. I’m sure I have a blade of grass to polish.”

Ben chuckles. There’s no reaction from caveman. Three steps later, I’m through the door, leaving the father and son to it.

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