Page 10 of Peach Blossom Hollow

“I think your expression was sufficient,” thesecond woman said with a laugh. “He’ll never slide in for a kiss like that again.”

“I doubt that very much.”

Leo looked over his shoulder to see Daisy-Mae and Violet striding toward him, the latter’s entire body vibrating with outrage. Daisy-Mae spotted the headphones swinging in his grip, stopped short and smacked her forehead with a palm. “I forgot to get our earpiece thingies from the charger upstairs.” She gave Leo a quick wave and turned to head back the way they’d come. “Meet you in the locker room, Vi.”

“Okay.”

Leo leaned against the green cinderblock wall and pretended to be adjusting his headphones as he waited for Violet to reach him. She looked good. Red dress, her straight black hair clipped into some sort of twisted bun, with curled strands framing her wide cheekbones. Her bangs were swept to the side and her eyeshadow was what his younger sister called smoky. Sara-Lynn had spent hours practicing the look, vowing she was moving off the smelly ranch and becoming a makeup artist for the stars as soon as she graduated from high school. She’d gone to cosmetology school, but had married a cowboy. She seemed happy on her husband’s family ranch, though, doing makeup for brides on the weekends.

“Hey,” Leo said, as Violet moved past him. She gave a jagged sigh, and he focused on her puckered brow and frown. She looked like she was trying to hold it together. He fell into step beside her before he even realized what he was doing. “You okay?”

“Disaster blind date,” she said, voice cracking, eyes blinking furiously. She bit her bottom lip sohard he was afraid she was going to bruise it or make it bleed.

“Dragon Babes failure?”

“I’m not cut out for this.” Her voice was weak and it sounded like she might be holding back tears. She stopped walking and faced him, indignant. “I don’t want to be serious and responsible for the rest of my life. I want to have some fun.” A tear drew a line through the dark charcoal under her right eye.

“Don’t cry,” Leo said, wincing.

His sisters used to spin on him, pummel him with their fists when he said that. Apparently, crying was their release.

His, apparently, was fighting to stay dominant over a livid animal weighing as much as a pickup truck.

Or had been. He wasn’t so sure what it was now, but he knew it wasn’t tear-related, and that he still wanted to rescue anyone with tears in their eyes.

Violet gave Leo an incredulous look. Don’t cry?Don’t cry?

Was she supposed to bottle it up like a dude and explode later?

Did he not understand howbadher blind double date had been? The men had lacked basic manners and had belched and picked their teeth at the table. They’d undressed Daisy-Mae with their eyes the whole time and then had split the bill four ways—after inviting them to the most expensive place in the city and ordering a ton of beer! Which neither she nor Daisy-Mae had consumed.

Violet figured she could darn well shed tears of frustration and anger if she wanted to.

She put her hands on her hips and squared her shoulders. “Does crying make you uncomfortable?”

“I mean,” he amended quickly, his eyes darting to the side, “you can cry if you want to…”

“That’s right. Icancry!” Her voice was higher than normal, her indignation blatant. She knew she should hush, but it felt good to let her rage and disappointment out for once. “Nobody can see me when I’m in my costume, so I can cry the entire game while waving at everyone and blowing kisses. Nobody’ll ever know.”

Leo caught her arm, stopping her when she started to march off. She kept her eyes on his chest, afraid to look into those kind eyes of his. She’d already noted they had slashes of green through the dark blue irises. He tentatively wiped a tear from her cheek, and her body stiffened with a held-in sob.

The date, which had been before everyone had to work the game tonight, had been such a disaster, and he was being so incredibly nice to her. This was how crushes deepened. And she really couldn’t afford that for a never-gonna-happen man like Leo right now.

“But I’ll know you’re crying,” he whispered. “And it’ll throw me off my game.”

Was he trying to break her heart?

She brushed his hand away. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what? A nice guy?” The hurt in his voice surprised her.

“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms. “You don’t have to act like a decent human being.”

“Why not?” Eyes narrowed, he echoed her posture, squaring off with her.

“It makes me feel stupid.” Her voice was wavering again and she willed herself not to cry.

“How on earth does me being a nice guy make you feel that way?”

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