Page 30 of Courting Gossip (Courting)
The air snapped, and Brody felt himself respond. So she had the temper to match her hair. The soles of his bare feet prickled and his toes curled. On cue, his stomach rumbled. Utter glee leapt into her eyes, and she pointed at him in victory.
‘All right,’ he said, conceding once again. She had a point; he was being a bad host. She’d worked while he’d been sleeping, and she’d made herself useful. Suddenly, the urge to provide for her seemed important. She followed him on his way to the back yard, but he stopped her at the sliding glass door. ‘Stay behind this line.’
She let out a harrumph, but crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorway, pushing right up against that limit. ‘Do you want to hear what’s been reported or not?’
He fired up the gas grill to let it heat. ‘Talk.’
He’d made this outdoor area as a place to escape. It was a quiet haven where he could relax and unwind from the chaos that came with his job, but he hadn’t used it much. He looked around for peepholes in the fence or tree limbs where the paparazzi could have set up to get pictures. Maybe he was being paranoid. He worked with high-profile clients, but he stayed out of the limelight. He’d made sure nobody had followed them here last night. He just didn’t want to take any chances – not with her.
But the yard did look nice. He had to admit, she’d made the space even more inviting, especially if her petunias survived. She’d weeded some, too. Had she hosed down the stepping stones?
God, if she did this much in a day, how was he going to keep her entertained if this drew out much longer?
‘The news,’ he said as he put the burgers onto the grill. ‘Tell me everything.’
She drew up a foot to brace it against the wall behind her, and his gaze slid down to her legs. Did she do things like that on purpose, or was her sexiness embedded down to a cellular level?
‘Everyone seems to be focusing on TMI News right now: who they are, where they came from and what laws they broke. One reporter went to their headquarters, but nobody answered the door. Is it just the two of them?’ she asked.
‘From what I’ve been able to find out, yes.’ And that was a good thing. It meant there wasn’t another scared college dropout running around town with information to trade to keep out of jail.
‘The list of charges against them is long,’ she said. ‘Breaking and entering, invasion of privacy, bribery, destruction of hotel property, and bodily injury. That’s what I remember, anyway.’
She had a good memory.
‘Nina’s detective threw the book at them.’
Brody watched the flames as they danced and swayed. Morgan was a wildcard for him. He didn’t know the guy, and he seemed to have a complicated relationship with Luxxor. Did he need to start working that angle, too? Just how far would the detective push to research the reporters’ motive?
Brody scowled. He should have pressed Gunderson to end that contract with her long ago, like he’d intended.
He flipped a burger, and the flames inside the grill leaped when drippings fell onto the coals.
‘Medium-well for mine,’ she reminded when he began to flip the other one.
He glanced over his shoulder when he thought she followed that up with a ‘well done’.
She was staring at him lazily again, her green gaze sliding down and settling on his backside. A blast of heat went through Brody that had nothing to do with the grill.
Payback.
He wiped his wrist across his brow. She wasn’t even subtle about it as she gave him a dose of his own medicine. He knew he’d stared at her in her little nightie, but he was fully dressed.
‘I like my bun toasted, too,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll toast your buns.’
She blinked, but then her smile turned sexy. ‘Why, Brody, was that a joke or a promise?’
He closed his eyes, shook his head and returned to the grill. Still, his lips twisted as he determinedly stared into the fire. The vixen.
It didn’t take long before the burgers were done with stripes all in a row. He scooped them up, put them on a plate and walked back to her. ‘What else?’
‘I made pasta salad.’
‘I meant the news.’
She looked sheepish. ‘They showed a lot of pictures of me.’
