Page 24 of On the Fly
“What’re you doing here?”
“What happened to your face?” Ander said, scrunching his brow while going to the bedroom door. Emma had to close her eyes and concentrate on breathing to slow her speeding heart. “Mom, it’s me. We’re fine,” Ander called out and she heard a distant, “Okay.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she covered her chest hoping to keep it from pounding out and stomped her foot for good measure. “Answer me! What’re you doing in my room?”
“This is my room,” he said as if that were completely obvious. “Now, answer me. What happened to your face?”
“I don’t have time for this.” Emma left him standing there, dashing into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. She stumbled when she saw her face in the mirror—such garish stage makeup. The aesthetician—and she used the term loosely—had even applied a black mole above the lip for dramatic effect.
Focus, you don’t have time for this.
Emma reached over and turned on the shower, then grabbed the cleanser and started lathering her hands. “What’re you doing here?” she yelled through the closed door, scrubbing at the thickly applied makeup.
“I got an email this morning from your stepmother with the wedding itinerary.” For the second time in minutes her heart stuttered, and panic had her yanking open the bathroom door, not caring in the least that she stood there with her face and hands covered in sudsy makeup wearing nothing but her bra and blue jeans.
“You what?” The words were yelled at not necessarily maximum volume, but close.
“Yeah.” He pressed his shoulder against the door frame as he crossed his arms in a casual pose. “If you didn’t give her my email address, then my mother must have.”
“No!” She only turned away to rinse the soap from face and reached for a hand towel nearby, burying her face in the soft terry cloth, rubbing to dislodge any residual makeup left behind. “Why did you come?”
He didn’t answer in the two seconds she gave him and lifted her gaze. His frustrating smirk slid into place. She didn’t like that look at all. “I’ve come to enjoy a lively tour of downtown Whispering Hollow and have a delicious lunch with my girlfriend.” His grin spread as his gaze boldly landed on her bra-covered breasts. Technically, he couldn’t see anything from this angle. She was more covered in her current outfit than in her favorite bathing suit, but she looked down then rolled her eyes while reaching for the door. “My girlfriend’s got a nice rack.”
“I don’t have time for this.” She slammed the door right in his face, most likely not hitting him square in the nose like she wished.
“You keep saying that. Twenty-one minutes before the bus leaves.” Emma hurriedly ripped off her jeans, shedding her underclothes.
“Leave the room. I’m in too big a hurry,” she yelled before jumping into the shower for the fastest wash of her life.
Chapter 11
“Your family loves you,” Ander said, pushing open the door to The Tavern where the wedding party had held their group lunch. Emma eyed him, seeming distrustful of just about everything he had done since his arrival this morning, but the current distrust seemed to do with something simple as holding open the door out for her to walk through first.
“If by love you really mean wildly inappropriate comments and the butt of a lot of their jokes,” she said, coming to stand on the sidewalk in front of the building. “Then they absolutely love the heck out of me.”
“Well, that’s just family. If the tables were turned, my family would be in rare form trying to climb all over each other to make sure they told you ever disparaging story about me they could think of,” Ander said, walking through after her.
“I doubt that,” she said and swiveled around to face him. He laughed. No question, his brothers and sister would do that very thing. Where Emma’s family joked in good fun, his family thought the fun came with his utter humiliation.
“Then you’d be wrong,” he said, putting a hand on her lower back, encouraging her to walk down the crowded downtown street.
“Where are we going?” she asked, dropping her sunglasses in place to shield her eyes from the bright sun overhead. She didn’t seem interested in the quaint shops or window shopping. That was fine by him, and he lifted a hand, pointing to a small sign outside an art gallery a few storefronts down the path.
“One of my friends from high school opened an art gallery. I saw it was still here when we drove in. I thought I’d show you.”
She never stopped walking, but she narrowed her eyes and gave him a side-eye.
“You had friends?”
He barked out a laugh, tucking his hands in his front blue jean pockets. “You never give, do you?” he asked, good naturedly bumping her arm.
“Not since I boarded that plane and started living in an alternate reality,” she said. He laughed again, enjoying her honesty.
“It hasn’t been that bad.”
She pushed the sunglasses back on her head, encasing her long hair, as she gave him ayou’re certifiableglare and finished the look off with a critical arch of the brow. That had him giving such a loud bark of laughter, heads all around them turned to find the source. He reached out this time and placed her hand in the crook of his arm and kept her next to him by holding her hand on his arm, even when she tried to pull free.
“Stop, you’ll give me a complex.”
