Page 32 of Will Bark for Pizza
“Yeah, okay. I’ll be over in half an hour?”
“See you then.”
I stood frozen for several beats. Something about his tone at the end left me with an overwhelming sense of dread. I had a feeling I wouldn’t much care for this conversation. But I’d come all this way, at Mom’s beckoning. The least I could do was hear him out.
As I approached the garden to ask Grandma Connie if she’d keep an eye on Husker, I noticed Connor greet the man in the black truck. Maybe he was a delivery guy?
“Who—”
“I’ll watch Husker,” Opal said, as though I asked her to do just that. I looked at her, wondering if she’d developed a mind reading ability in the past year.
“Thank you, Opal.” I looked at Grandma Connie and added, “I’m going to head over to Dad’s.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“Don’t feed him too much P-I-Z-Z-A,” I said to both of them as I followed everyone inside the house. Huskerwent straight for the kitchen—no surprise there. “And absolutely no onions.”
“I ordered the supreme without them,” Grandma Connie reassured me.
I washed my hands, grabbed my keys, and headed to my Jeep.
“Hey, Kira,” Connor called to me, waving his arm from the opposite side of the black truck.
Though I planned to stop by and pick up Dad’s favorite local brew on the way to his place, I was still running early. Maybe Connor had some more advice to give me before I walked into this heavy conversation. It was worth hearing him out, so I walked over.
“I can’t remember. Have you met Beckett?”
When my eyes locked on the other man, my heart stuttered a few beats. It was Mr. Sexy Stranger.
“You again,” I said, shaking my head in amusement. Because, of course it was too much to hope I’d be able to steer clear of this mysterious man who kept popping up everywhere I went. Including my family’s farm.
“Red?”
“It’s Kira,” I said, admitting defeat.
“I should’ve known that was you,” he said, nodding toward my Jeep.
“You two have met?” Connor guessed, his eyebrows drawn in confusion.
“We’ve run into each other,” I admitted, my gaze still locked with Beckett’s. God, even his name was sexy.
“You must be the author.”
I snapped my gaze to him, instantly feeling uncomfortable that he possessed that knowledge when he only justlearned my name. My heart rate spiked before I could stop it. It took several beats for the irrational paranoia to pass. If he was friends with Connor, it wasn’t impossible to think I came up in conversation at some point. Connor bragged about his family more than any of us. I willed my pulse to chill the fuck out, silently cursing Travis for the tenth time today.
“And you must be?”
“He served with us,” Connor explained. “Beckett Campbell?”
“You’reCampbell?” My brothers had always referred to theirfourth musketeerby his last name. They talked about him all the time, especially during deployment calls. I’d never seen his face, but in many ways, I felt as if I knew him. I didn’t know what to do with that information now.
“Afraid I am. Is that a bad thing?”
I remembered how observant Beckett was out at the lake. Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. He had military training.
“Guess you’re not a serial killer after all,” I said, letting out a single laugh.
Connor gave me a funny look, but it was Beckett’s amused smile that captured most of my attention. Just because he was no longer a complete stranger did not mean this was okay. If anything, it made Beckett Campbell completely off-limits. Probably for the best, considering I was still a certified train wreck. Though my wandering eyes—that were currently sneaking up-and-down glances of the man in his dusty jeans and tight-fitting shirt—hadn’t yet gotten the memo.
