Page 4 of The Marriage Deal
“What woman?” Nash presses. “Is it the jumper?” He snickers. “Aww, man. It’s the hot jumper, isn’t it?”
Why did I tell him about her?
“I never said she was hot.”
“Got you to admit she’s pretty,” Nash drawls. “It was like pulling teeth, but I did it.”
I don’t reply as I stab my finger into the screen, ending the call. I don’t know how I do it, but I find myself striding quickly across the boardwalk toward her. Pretty brown eyes the color of warm spiced rum widen as they land on me. And something—anger or attraction, I can’t be sure—spears my gut as her pink lips pop open into an O of shock.
I point a long finger at her. “You.”
She points the business end of the scissors into the center of her chest. “Me?”
Fucking woman. I swipe the scissors from her swiftly. I shove the little weapon into the back pocket of my jeans as she protests with an incensed, “Hey!”
“That’s not how you use scissors,” I snap, watching as her brows do the same. “Have a care for your god-damned life, why don’t you?”
“Ah ha!” She laughs, but there’s a flare of attitude in it that riles me up in a way that I don’t get riled up. “You’re just mad that I jumped and you’re too afraid of life to give it a go.”
How does she do that? See through me with those narrowed rum and burned butter-colored eyes?
Needles of heat nip at the back of my neck. I can feel the red-hot crawl of it up into my face. This woman is?—
I’ve never met a woman who gets to me quite like her. Under my skin.In my blood.
I don’t even know why I’m pissed. I shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t have spared the little flower thief a second glance.
“You jumped off a fucking cliff.” I lean in to growl the words but realize my mistake when a whiff of lilac blooms and that distinct bitter-sweet tang of pinched flower stems and rich earth invades my senses.
She smells likelife. Like the messy chaos of it.
“A cliff I’ve jumped off more times than I can count.” It’s her turn to lean in, and clearly, she isn’tfazed by my scent because she keeps right on yapping. “Which you’d know if you knew anything about Sunset Falls. But you don’t, because you’ve never been here. You’ve never bothered to learn the lay of the land in this little town. Never bothered to know the people or what they want?—”
I cut her off as I dare to lean even closer. “Because you’re all so welcoming here in Sunset Falls, eh?”
We’re nearly nose to nose now. But while she’s standing with her spine snapped straight, little fists on flared hips and head tipped back, I’m bowed damn-near over her. I didn’t realize it on the cliff that looked out over Fire Falls, but the woman is tiny. She can’t be more than five-foot-three against my six-foot-four. But she sure knows how to serve a damn potent dose of what-for. Almost enough to knock me down a peg or two.
I’ve never met another woman capable of getting me going quite like this.
I need to cool it. Take a breath. Walk the hell away.
Why can’t I make myself move?
Her buttery brown eyes flick between my own as she stares up into my face. She wets her lips with a pink tongue—and Iacheto taste them. For a moment, I almost forget I’m mad.
Then she speaks and I remember. “What are you going to do with Alder Wines?”
There’s no reason for the anger that flares inside me at the mention of my father’s business.
“What I do with Alder Wines is my business, not yours or anyone else’s in this town.” I know it’s the wrong reply as soon as the words are between us. I can’t take them back, though. Not sure I would even if I could.
She’s pretty when she’s mad. Right now, she’s spitting mad. Fuming. Fucking gorgeous.
“That’s why they’re not welcoming you, here. You’re an arrogant rich boy playing with the livelihood of this towntheylove. Alder Wines is nothing but a toy to you. A plaything. A business you could dissolve without losing a wink of sleep, huh?” She moves in even closer. This time I can taste the sweet scent of her.
She tastes like the warmth of a new sun spilling in through a window, and honey on buttery toast. She tastes like…home.
What the actual hell is wrong with me?
