Page 34 of Over & Out

After saying our goodbyes to Cindi, Chris declares it’s time for us to go. She sets her shoulders back andheads for the hallway, her ponytail flipping in a way that has me jamming my hand in my pockets to fight the urge to run it through my fingers. I start to sweat before remembering I need to follow her.

This needs to stop.Ineed to stop.

“Your appointment is at ten,” Chris says, all breezy as she reaches the foyer. When I don’t say anything, she looks over her shoulder at me.

When she does, I freeze, getting the strangest flash of déjà vu. Something about the way she looks doing that seems so familiar.

She’s asked me something, but I’ve completely missed it.

She turns fully around. “Is there something wrong?”

I saw her do that at the restaurant, I think. Look over her shoulder at me with a haughty little shake of her hips.

But even thinking of her hips isn’t enough to distract me. I don’t think it’s the restaurant.

But I’m fully staring now, and she’s starting to look concerned. “No,” I say, my voice a little louder than I intended.

“You sure?”

“I’m fine,” I snap. “Didn’t you say it was time to go?”

She rolls her eyes, apparently satisfied that I’m just being my normal idiot self. “Okay. So it’s a forty-minute drive down to Swan River. I was going to stop to pick up your shake things, since Aziz says you’re a picky little B about the flavors, but I think we have to do that on the way back.”

I give my head a mental shake. Then a physical one, since her back is to me again as she reaches for her shoes.

“Forty minutes? I guess that tracks for you,” I say.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I do it in thirty. But you’re a slow driver. I get it. Everyone is in this town. Small-town girl.”

Chris looks offended. “Slow?” She jams her feet into her shoes. No, not shoes, but hot little ankle boots with tabs she’s hooked a finger through to pull onto her feet. She pulls the second one on, her dainty little ankle disappearing inside the sleek black leather. I have to fight tooth and nail to keep my gaze from drifting up the length of her legs to the roundness of her ass as she bends over. But I won’t do that. This is my assistant, so I’ll weirdly fixate on her boots like a good boy.

“You saw me pull out of here last week,” she says. “I was not going slowly.”

Luckily she’s standing now. But then she shrugs into this giant wool coat, and when she flips her ponytail out of the collar, her throat long and chin high, I have to suppress a groan.

I focus on my own shoes, seriously worried about my sanity at this point. How easily my convictions fly out the window when it comes to thoughts of Chris.

“You were pissed off that day,” I manage. “I figured that was why you were driving all weird.”

If her cheeks go pink again, I make sure I don’t see it.

“Why do you suppose I was pissed off that day? Maybe it was because of the big oaf who lives here doing big oaf things!”

I slip on my sneakers and pull my coat over my shoulders, trying very hard not to laugh.Oaf?

Chris pulls her bag onto her shoulder. “I don’t drive erratically, by the way. I’m always in control.”

“It’s okay.” I reach over and pull the front door open. “I said my prayers this morning when I woke up,” I say as I wait for her to go through. That’s not even a joke, not if I count the little notes I write in the book I bought the day after she said she’d stay. “It worked when I asked God not to let you ring the gong,” I continue. I follow her out into the damp morning, trying to ignore the scent of her still lingering in my nose after she slipped past me. “So I’m hopeful about the highway.” I rub my chin as if contemplating. “It does run along the side of a mountain, though…and has all those blind corners. You know what? CGI is good these days. They can just Photoshop me into the movie posthumously.”

“I think you’re praying to the wrong deity, Donnach.”

This time I let myself grin at her back as she struts down the path toward the detached garage.

Chapter 11

Hopper

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