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The woman was downright precious. He pushed his plate away and sat back. “When’s the last time you were on a date?”
“Does the charity auction count?” She tugged on her tank top, which only served to make it dip dangerously. “What am I saying? Of course it doesn’t count. The only reason Dave went out with me was because I donated money to the PTA, and really, he kissed like a drowning fish, so it was never going to be anything more than one dinner.”
Adam took a sip of his beer, picking over what she just said. “They still do that charity auction for the high school?”
“Every year like clockwork.” She made a face. “As fun as it is, I can almost tell who’s going to bid on who, though there’s always at least one upset every year. Last year, Mrs. Peterson bid three hundred dollars on Sheriff Taylor. His wife wasn’t very happy about that.”
Considering Mrs. Taylor was one of the scariest women he’d ever met, Mrs. Peterson had balls of steel to pull that one off. But then, he’d known that in eighth grade, when she was his English teacher. She didn’t take any shit then, and apparently that hadn’t changed in the years since. “So, back to your date.”
“It was fine.” She picked up her fork, poked at her salad, and set it down again. For once, he wasn’t the twitchiest person in the room, and he was content to watch her fidget. She used her straw to stir the ice in her water, not looking at him, her head dipped so that her dark hair fell forward to hide her face.
He waited, but she didn’t say anything else, and since she was managing to look everywhere but at him, he figured she wasn’t going to. “Talk about damning with faint praise.”
“It was for charity.” She slumped in her chair and sighed. “It’s obvious I don’t get out much, isn’t it? No wonder the whole town thinks I’m a lonely cat-collecting spinster.”
She was so cute, it was downright painful. He just wanted to scoop her up and tell her that her adorable awkwardness was an asset—not something to be ashamed of. To hell with what the town thought. She was fresh and enthusiastic and as bracing as a dive into a mountain lake.
Adam shook his head and finished off his beer. If he was any other man, he’d tell her to forget her preoccupation with Grant. She didn’t need to fake date him in order to make a point—she was doing just fine on her own.
But he wasn’t any other man, and he had no intention of leaving her alone.
He held the door open for Jules and followed her out into the night. Just get her home without mauling her again and then you can figure out what your next step is. He couldn’t call the whole thing off. Now that half the town had either seen them at dinner or likely heard about it, them “breaking up” would only add a heap of humiliation on Jules’s already teetering pile, and Adam refused to contribute. She’d asked him for a favor, and it wasn’t her fault that his control was slipping by the second.
She climbed into his truck, seeming preoccupied with something. That was fine. If they managed to keep silent for the whole five-minute drive, it would be all good.
But then she went and shot that plan all to hell. “I think tonight went okay.”
“Yep.”
“I mean, Grant wasn’t there, but from the stares we got, he’ll be hearing about our being seen together before too long. Everyone will be hearing about it.” She sounded pleased, which was good. So why did it grate against him as badly now as it had back in the truck? She continued, oblivious to his inner aggravation. “What’s next?”
Did she think he kept a copy of Idiot’s Guide to Being a Small-Town Scandal stuffed in his dresser drawer? Apparently so, because she was looking at him expectantly. He turned out on Main Street. “Sugar, we already made spectacles of ourselves nearly getting busy in my truck with Sheriff Taylor half a block away, then proceeded to shock the locals just by eating dinner. Why don’t we take it easy for the rest of the night?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned. “Shouldn’t we be taking it to the next level? We don’t know for sure the sheriff saw anything.”
Frankly, he doubted the old man had seen anything. Adam knew for a fact Sheriff Taylor liked to nap on that very side street around that time of night, and so he wouldn’t have had his glasses on. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell Jules that. “Are you asking me or telling me?”
She laughed. “Sorry. I haven’t spent much time thinking about indulging in gossip-starting acts. The craziest I get these days is video games. I’m a halfway decent sniper.”
