Page 30 of Hooked
Tayla burst into laughter. “I can’t decide if you’re making a joke about old ladies or not.”
He smiled. “I wasn’t. My pop would smack me upside the head if I made jokes about any woman’s hair.” He stepped over a creek that cut through the meadow. “I was thinking about blue hair and… I don’t know. Boats? You might be shocked to know that I was not raised near any kind of yacht club.”
“You didn’t miss anything.” She shook her head. “No blue hair. I just kept my head down and left as soon as I could. I played the obedient daughter, got them to pay for school, and got my own place as soon as I got a job. Then I started dying my hair. Getting the tattoos. Generally driving them even crazier than I did before. We don’t speak much anymore, but no one is surprised or shocked by that.”
Jeremy paused at the top of the hill. “That’s sad.”
She shrugged. “It’s my normal. It’s not a big deal. Most of the people I grew up with hate their parents. It’s practically a tradition among the country-club set. They hate them until they turn into them.”
“Maybe it’s tradition, but it’s still sad. Your family should be your biggest fans.”
“Is yours?”
“Embarrassingly so.” He closed his eyes. “Do you know my mom started reading comics after I bought my shop? She said if I was going to sell something, she had to know what it was so she could recommend it. She’s addicted toSagaandLumberjanesnow. And yes, she tells all her patients her son has a comic book shop.”
“Your mom sounds adorable.”
“She is. Now, come this way. Let’s see if the light works.”
Jeremy led her across the top of the hill and toward the oak she’d seen in the distance. Beneath it was a tumble of moss-covered granite rocks and what remained of the twisted roots of another oak. Tayla looked at the waning light and the shadows the tree cast on the rocks and roots below it.
“This is perfect!”
“Good! So find a spot sitting in there and… pose. Or whatever you do with your product-placement stuff.”
She unlocked her phone for Jeremy and walked over, climbing up the roots before she turned. “Do I look okay? I didn’t even check my hair.”
“You look great.” His smile was infectious. “Just climb around like that for a little bit and I’ll take pics.”
She explored the mangled roots and rocks beneath the tree, then she found a broad boulder and took off her backpack, sitting and propping the backpack beside her. “How’s this?”
“Fantastic.”
She changed positions a few more times, showing the bag at different angles. “Okay, I need my phone for some close-ups.”
Jeremy jumped up the rocks like a mountain goat and handed her phone to her. While she positioned the backpack for a few close shots, she watched him from the corner of her eye.
Mountain man hot. Thoughtful. Cute, cute, cute. Good sense of humor.
If Tayla was the keeping kind, she’d totally want to keep him.
But she wasn’t. So she focused on what Jeremy had said.
I want to be with you right here and now.
Here and now? That she could do.
Tayla leanedher head into the sunbeam on the far side of the truck. She’d taken off her jacket to enjoy the sun on her fair skin. Her eyes were closed, and she was more relaxed than he could ever remember seeing her. Jeremy smiled and sped toward the surprise he’d planned on the edge of Lower Lake. They’d been on their date for a little over an hour, and so far, so good.
She’d taken the walk through the meadow in stride. He thought she’d even had fun climbing around on the roots and rocks of the old oak. That land used to belong to his grandfather, and he’d grown up playing in the fields and trees. He’d learned how to ride a horse in that meadow. He’d gone there to cry privately when his grandmother passed. Seeing Tayla there made him happy.
“You hum under your breath,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“Does it bug you?”
“No.” She opened her blue eyes and watched him. “I just realized you don’t have music on.”
“Sometimes you don’t need music.”
