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"Hey, the way I heard it, you only talked to her three times,” Jase protested.
Ryker rubbed the back of his neck. “I might not have told the whole truth,” he responded slowly.
“Why the hell not? You were talking to Gideon, after all.”
“I didn’t want to admit that after talking to her twice a week for months, she shut me out. It kind of hurt, okay?”
Zed winced, “Yeah, that would have. You couldn’t think of anything that was said that would have made her stop taking your calls?”
“Nope, nothing.”
“Is that when you went to her restaurant and made an ass of yourself?” Jase asked.
“Jesus, isn’t anything sacred?” Ryker asked.
“Not good gossip. Anyway, you were moping around like a lion with a thorn in his paw, everybody was wondering, and you weren’t talking. You would have been the first one pestering Gideon for the scoop. After all, we knew it had to be about Amy because she is all you had been talking about for months.”
“How did you make an ass of yourself?” Zed asked.
“Before I go into that, I need to give you some background. You need to understand why her shutting me out makes no sense whatsoever.”
Jase shrugged and looked over at Zed. “Okay, I’ll bite. Explain it to me, young man, I want to hear your tale of woe.”
“This is how one of our first telephone conversations went. You tell me if this sounds like a woman who isn’t interested.”
He thought back to their first call, after meeting face-to-face.
“I wasn’t sure you’d call,” Amy said with a laugh. “You didn’t seem like the long-distance relationship kind of guy.”
“I’m the ‘What does it take to get to know Amy Linden?’ kind of guy.”
He damned near shivered when he heard that velvet-soaked-in-sugar laugh of hers. It stroked across his skin and made him want to beg for more.
“Now I remember; you’re that puppy kind of guy who made me laugh.”
“Puppy? What’s that supposed to mean? Also, what kind of puppy?”
“Definitely a Golden Retriever. You were eager to please and lapped up affection. Does that sound right?”
Ryker chuckled. “There could be some truth to that, but I disagree on the Golden Retriever part, a young pit bull or German Shephard could be the same way, and then they’d grow up to be your fiercest protector.”
“Would they still want to please me?” Amy’s question was a provocative whisper.
“Absolutely, and they would definitely be lapping up your affection.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Uhm…I…Ryker…”
“Easy there, I think we went down too deep of a rabbit hole too fast for an initial phone conversation. I was calling to ask you out on a date."
“You sure do work fast,” Amy continued to whisper.
“This would be our second date. You’ve got to admit, the one we were on in Maryland was a hit. We had a great time together, didn’t we?”
“Well, yeah.”
How was it he could hear the smile in her voice? It sounded like the sun coming out on a gray day.
