“Where are you taking me?”
“My parents’ farm.”
I straightened, panic tightening my throat. “What? You can’t!” I wasn’t ready to talk to his parents. I wasn’t dressed right. They’d read the guilt on my face.
He arched a brow. “I thought a journalist needed to be evenhanded. Get both sides of the story.”
“I’ve heard plenty about your glorious childhood as the hometown choirboy.”
“I was never in the choir.”
“Not according to Pastor Beck.”
He snorted. “Pastor Beck drank a lot. I doubt he remembers who was president, much less who was in his choir.”
Well, that was interesting information, if completely irrelevant. “Take me someplace else. Someplace we can talk in private. I don’t want to meet your parents.” It would be too humiliating. I’d be the ex-lover meeting his parents. Awful.
He exhaled. “Fine. But I have to hide this car. And change.”
I looked at his clothes. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt. Nice attire that made him lookGQhot. James Bond on his day off. My girly parts were already drooling. “Take me back to my hotel. We can meet in the morning.”
He shot me a heavy look. “One hour, Heidi. I’ll show you the real me.”
I folded my arms across my chest, mostly because my hands were practically itching to touch him. This close, his charisma was off the charts. My fingers wanted to brush the hair out of his eyes and stroke the muscled length of his forearm. My heart wanted nothing more than to give him whatever he wanted, and lower down was already aching from the memory of what we’d done and the desire to do it again.
But my brain was in charge. My brain that was slightly beer addled and a lot peeved at the way he’d looked at Brittany. The camera had gotten a close-up of the softening in his eyes and a quiet longing. I couldn’t forget that look and I was still pissed about it. How could he look at another woman that way days after what we’d done in the press box?
I sighed. “Fine. An hour. But fair warning, I’m going to ask you about Jill Sullivan.”
I was watching him closely, so I saw it clearly when he jerked in reaction. “Jill’s not a topic for conversation.”
“Then drop me off here. I’ll walk back.”
“You can’t walk back from here,” he practically snapped. “You’re miles away from town.” Then he lifted his chin. “You’re just going to have to wait for me to take you back. In Dad’s truck.”
“So basically, you’re kidnapping me. How is that going to work if I tell my editor about it?”
“Badly,” he answered, his voice grim. He turned left at the junction of four cornfields, then right onto a gravel driveway that I hadn’t even seen in the dark. Two minutes later, he parked beneath a towering maple that—no kidding—sported a tire swing. To the right was a large family home that looked like it belonged in the Farmhouse Edition ofArchitectural Digest.
I was still staring at it when he pulled open my door for me.
“Come on, Heidi. Give me a chance to explain.”
What could I say? I wanted to hear him tell me that he felt nothing for Brittany. That I was the woman for him. That we’d work things out. Sure, there was zero chance of him saying anything like that, but when he looked at me with those earnest blue eyes, I just wanted to say yes to everything. Including what we’d done when we both knew it was stupid.
“Please?” he asked.
I nodded and unbuckled my seat belt.Farmville, here I come.
Chapter Twelve
Rob
I love the scent of my mom’s cooking. The minute I stepped inside, I smelled meatloaf buried in ketchup and macaroni and cheese. Sounds gross, but it was my favorite. I think Mom kept a pan on hand just so it would be there when I visited. I took a deep breath and grinned, but even that glorious scent couldn’t stop the knot of anxiety in my gut from bringing the first woman home to meet my parents.
I wasn’t introducing her to them as my girlfriend or anything. That would have been easier. Heidi was a contract violation, a kidnapping mistake of epic proportions, and the woman I’d been longing for since spring break. So how, exactly, was I going to introduce her to my parents?
It was Saturday evening, but I’d called ahead so they were awake. Dad clicked off the news while Mom headed straight for me and enveloped me in a big hug.Flour.Mom always smelled like flour, though I never fully understood that. She rarely baked, but it didn’t matter. She was my mother and I inhaled deeply. And then she pulled back, arched her eyebrows at Heidi, and looked back at me.
