Page 17 of At the Heart of It
He grunted and gave a curt nod. “That’s the idea.”
“The idea?”
He stooped down to adjust the dog’s Adopt Me! vest, then gave the little guy a quick booty scratch before straightening up.
Since Jonah didn’t reply, Kate was forced to guess. “You’re whoring yourself out for dog adoptions?”
“Pretty much.” He started walking again, putting an end to that line of questioning.
“So why didn’t you mention it when we met?”
“That I’m a shirtless dog walker?” He shrugged. “Didn’t seem relevant.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You’re smarter than you’re pretending to be right now. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell that’s about.”
She thought she saw him flinch, but he kept walking, not missing a stride. He said nothing for a long time. She’d just decided it was pointless to keep pressing for information when his voice came out in a low rumble.
“You’re asking why I didn’t mention I’m the co-author of a bestselling relationship guide?” he said. “You figure that’s the sort of thing that might have come up during several hours of conversation, followed by an hour of heavy petting?”
“There was no heavy petting!” she argued, earning herself a startled look from the middle-aged joggers running past. She glared and lowered her voice. “You might have had your hand under my jacket?—”
“My jacket?—”
“But you certainly didn’t grope me or even—” She stopped and frowned up at him. “Wait. Are you trying to distract me?”
Jonah sighed. “It was working until you decided to get technical. I may have learned a technique or two from four years married to America’s leading authority on communication strategies.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’ve read all those books.”
“That is unfortunate.”
He walked a little faster, and Kate had to pick up her pace to keep up.
“I’m just saying,” she continued, struggling not to sound too breathless. “That night in Ashland—we talked about literature and careers and even my breakup,” she said. “Hell, I even quoted from But Not Broken during dinner.”
“You did,” he acknowledged. “Though I didn’t write anything for that book.”
“But you were in it,” Kate argued. “You were part of her happily-ever-after at the end.”
Jonah grunted but said nothing, and it occurred to Kate she was arguing the wrong point entirely. “Jonah, come on. Why didn’t you say anything?”
He raked his fingers through his hair, but didn’t look at her. He kept walking, but his pace slowed just a little.
“All right, fine. Look, I wasn’t thrilled with the way I was portrayed in the book.”
“But Not Broken?”
“No, On the Other Hand.”
“The way you were portrayed?” She frowned. “Didn’t you write it?”
“I wrote the sidebars. The comic relief. And yeah, the words were mine—mostly—but not the spin. The whole Average Joe thing—that wasn’t me at all.”
“How do you mean?”
Jonah shrugged and caught her hand. For a second she thought he was trying to hold it, but she realized he was guiding her around a puddle of spilled milkshake, saving her expensive Prada heels. He let go the instant they were past it, and Kate hated the small flutter of disappointment in her belly.
“I did counterintelligence work in the Marines,” Jonah said slowly. “I was trained in elicitation techniques—ways of evoking trust and comfort in a subject to procure information.”
