“A bet?” I asked, incredulously. “That’s seriously how you want to handle this?”
I couldn’t help but feel manipulated. Brady knew how competitive I was. Butwhen it came right down to it, if I was involved, he was just as obsessed with winning.
Of course I was reluctant to spend more alone time with him. This attraction thing was weird and inconvenient and messy and?—
“Come on,” Larry encouraged. “We’ve got this.”
My attention snapped to Brady, where he stood, gloating and arrogant with his ridiculously messy hair. His blue eyes held a challenge I was physically incapable of backing down from. My gaze narrowed, and his narrowed right back.
“What’s wrong, Macklemore? Are you scared you’ll lose?”
This whole thing was absurd, borderline preposterous. But at least the interaction was something I was used to. We were back to goading and glaring, pushing each other’s buttons. That off-balance feeling I’d been wrestling with all week hadn’t gone anywhere. I still couldn’t look at Brady without thinking of lips and warmth and orange Tic Tacs. But this, at least, was familiar territory. We’d been trying to get the upper hand with one another for a long time.
And the illusion of power could make you do stupid, stupid things.
“Fine. I accept your terms,” I taunted. “May the better team win.”
I blamed Larry for flubbing the NBA question in the final round.
We’d finished just two points shy of Brady’s team. And when they were announced as the winners, he’d strutted to the front and snagged the microphone, thanking a long list of people—me included—before accepting the winners’ gift certificates to the Hogs Wild food truck.
I never should have agreed to the stupid bet. Now, I couldn’t back out without looking like a sore loser.
So, the following night, I drove across the street to Judd’s Family Orchard while the bitter sting of defeat rode shotgun. There was also a tiny bit of nervousness as I fretted over being alone with Brady once more.
He was waiting on me when I climbed out of my Jeep. Judd’s was closed to thepublic until later in the week, and I wasn’t on the schedule for the next day, so I could sleep off this ridiculous overnight stakeout.
The chances of “the perp” coming back on a random Tuesday night were next to zero. I anticipated being very bored and irritated. I hoped there would, at the very least, be snacks.
I eyed Brady suspiciously as I approached. He looked absurd in head-to-toe camouflage, but his blue eyes sparkled with mirth. I felt a tug in the center of my chest. One that made me want to be close to him and simultaneously run the other direction as fast as my feet could carry me. It was confusing and disorienting. But a bigger part of me was curious enough to go through with this plan. And like hell I’d back down from a challenge.
Was I still attracted to this bozo? Yes.
Did I still want to kiss him? Also, yes.
And the most infuriating part of all: I didn’t know what that meant.
I felt like I was once again on the bow of a ship, getting tossed around by the waves, completely off-balance and out of my depth. And there stood Brady, calm and amused, looking as steady as an oak tree.
“You know camo doesn’t actually make you invisible,” I quipped as I came to stand before him.
He had a green-and-brown-patterned toboggan on his head, covering most of his hair. Camo pants and a camo jacket encased his tall body, and dark brown work boots completed the look.
“At least I’m prepared to be covert,” he replied, unbothered. “You can probably see those fire-engine-red lips in the dark.”
I scowled. “There is nothing wrong with my lipstick.”
“I didn’t say there was.” His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before he cleared his throat. “It looks good. It’s just not very subtle, and we’re supposed to be undercover.”
My mind took a little journey—one that was unwelcome and horrifying—thinking of ways Brady could smudge my lipstick right off.
Thankfully, he interrupted my dirty, dirty mind and said, “Come on,” before leading me out of the parking lot. We walked back up the gravel drive to the highway and quickly locked the chain across the path.
Then we made our way into the Apple House.
I noted the night was quiet except for a faint buzzing, like a fan blowing somewhere.
The whitewashed wooden Apple House was mostly an open-air building, wide and exposed to the elements on three sides with tables, pre-packaged produce for sale, a long counter for employees, and a closed office door beyond. I knew that Candace, Brady’s younger sister, had been using the office since returning to town. She’d gone to school for marketing and sales and had come back home to help out here at Judd’s. We got along well, and she and my sister, Bonnie, had been hanging out quite a bit.
