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“So when I tease you and say that you should have gotten a bigger dog I’m not far off the mark?”
“I’ve no regrets over my choice.”
Too bad she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say the same about Saturday night.
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have a dog? Or are you more a cat kind of guy?”
He shook his head. “No pets—which you know. You’ve been to my place.”
There he went, reminding her of Saturday night again. If he really wanted to keep the tension down he was going to have to do better.
“True. I...” She winced. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No problem. Maybe I should get one, though—so I can train it to wake me up when beautiful women sneak out of my bed.”
What was wrong with him? He wasn’t supposed to be poking the subject with a stick.
“You foresee women sneaking out of your bed as a recurring event?”
“I didn’t foresee it being an event ever,” he admitted, hoping she wouldn’t freeze. “I’d like to think any woman I’d invited into my bed wouldn’t want to sneak out.”
She gave a little shrug. “I woke up and thought leaving was the best thing for both of us.”
“You were wrong. At least from my perspective.”
She jogged beside him in silence for a few minutes. Then, “What would be different had I stayed there?”
Her question caught him off-guard. More the fact that she’d asked than the fact that he hadn’t considered it. He had.
“I’d like to think you’d have given our coworkers a different response to their asking about us today.”
She kept her gaze focused on the path ahead of them. “What kind of different response?”
Did she really not know? Or did she just want to hear him say the words out loud?
“I’ve not kept it a secret that I want to date you, Riley.”
She turned toward him, stumbled a bit, causing him to reach out to steady her. She shook his hand away, then resumed her previous slow but steady pace.
“I didn’t take you seriously.”
“Way to deflate a guy’s ego...” he half-teased.
“That’s not what I meant. I—I meant the opposite, really. I’m surprised you want to date me.”
Once again the vulnerability in her voice surprised him. It was what he’d seen glimmering in the depths of her eyes so brightly at Cheyenne and Paul’s party—what had lured him to her despite his determination to stay away since she’d shot down his dinner offers.
“Why would that surprise you? You’re smart, funny, beautiful...we enjoy talking with one another.” Enjoy so much more with one another.“We have great chemistry. Why wouldn’t I want to date you?”
She hesitated long enough to reinforce the fact that his response truly had caught her off-guard.
“I’m not like the women you usually date,” she said finally.
He didn’t see the connection between that and her saying no. That she wasn’t like other women he’d dated was a huge plus in his eyes.
“I haven’t dated anyone in a couple of months,” he pointed out, “and the reason I want to date you is that you’re different.”
Her intake of breath was her answer. She hadn’t considered that her being different was a good thing. How could she not see how crazy he was about her?
