Page 53 of V is for Valentine
She let out a soft sigh. “Stubborn.”
“Said the pot to the kettle.” He gave his knuckles a lazy crack.
She frowned at him. “That’s not the right…never mind.” The atmosphere was shifting back to one in which she could breathe again. “Don’t you have an office to finish?”
His mouth tipped into the crooked smile, and she very much wanted to tell him to stop looking so…Danny-like. The smile was familiar. It had incited her to near violence more than once, but now it had a different effect. One she needed to learn to deal with.
“I do,” he said, allowing her to step further into her comfort zone. “I should be done in half an hour.”
“I’ll be done by then, too.”
“Great. I’ll walk you to your car.”
Felicity gave a half-laugh. “It’s a date.” The kind she could deal with.
*
“Are you headedoff to work in your warehouse?” Felicity asked after she locked the oak door and they started down the steps to their cars.
“I am. Sandra has another potential tenant that wants a walkthrough. I’m torn about letting them see the place in the current state, but waiting a month and a half until that industrial cleaning crew arrives is making me itchy.”
“You want to nail things down now?”
“I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to screw up. We really want to lease to Fork Horn. It’ll be a nice draw for the other small units that I hope to lease.”
“Fork Horn? The brewery?”
He gave her a quick look. “I need to keep that on the down low, too.”
“Not a problem.”
They continued down the steps in silence, then when they reached the bottom, he looked back at the school and said, “Seven more days.”
“The deadline bears down on us as deadlines tend to do.”
“Seven more days before you leave.”
“That, too.”
“Seven days to keep from falling for me,” he said. He didn’t sound like he was joking.
Felicity shoved her hands into her pockets and turned to face him. She was about to clue him into reality when the sound of tires skidding caught her attention, and she looked past Danny in time to see a low-slung car smoosh into the bank of snow created by the city plows over the course of the winter.
“Ouch,” Danny said as he took her hand, helping her keep her balance as they half-jogged, half-skidded their way down the street to the car. The door opened as they approached, and a man wearing an expensive topcoat and shiny leather shoes got out. His shoe bottoms slid on the ice and he grabbed hold of the door.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asked.
The guy looked up and then in a moment of mutual recognition, Felicity and Danny said, “Cade,” at the same time that he said, “Dan! Feliss!”
Cade Kincaid, her former study buddy beamed at her.
“You’ve been in SoCal too long,” Danny said, nodding at Cade Kincaid’s less than sensible shoes.
Cade gave him an easy grin. “I agree. I’ve forgotten how to dress and to drive.”
“Are you home now?” Felicity asked, recalling that his father the councilman had mentioned something along those lines when he’d stopped by to torment her about the approaching deadline last week.
“I am. Things are growing here in Holly and the surrounding areas, and I decided that maybe I should take advantage and come home.”
