AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She will.”
“She won’t. She’s tough.”
Jake eyed his brothers. “Trust me,” he said. “I’m not exactly made of spun sugar.”
“You mean,” Caleb said innocently, “you’re not a
candy ass?”
Jake grinned. “Ten bucks says she’ll not only accept my apology, she’ll agree to have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
“Twenty,” Travis said, “and you’re on.”
The brothers smiled at each other. Jake started off the patio, toward the side of the house, then turned back.
“I left my car near the creek.”
“Why’d you—”
“He just did,” Caleb said.
“Oh. Fine.” Travis dug the keys to his truck from his pocket and tossed them to Jake. “It’s the black Tundra in the driveway.”
“Remember,” Jake said. “Twenty bucks.”
His brothers grinned. “All talk, no action.”
It was one of their old lines. Jake laughed on cue….
But his laughter died by the time he reached Travis’s Tundra.
For a little while there, he’d almost forgotten.
All talk, no action was no longer a punch line. It was the sad truth. His brothers couldn’t know it but he did.
And, yeah, that was the reason he’d gone ballistic. He’d responded to a woman for the first time in almost two years….
Only to find out that she wasn’t interested.
Definitely, he owed her an apology. As for asking her to dinner …
Jake put the truck in gear and his foot on the gas.
Forget it.
He’d pay his brothers the twenty bucks and write the whole thing off as a mistake.
CHAPTER FIVE
CLOUDS HAD swallowed the moon and stars, turning the road into an inky ribbon that stretched toward infinity.
Addison had a head start but Jake drove fast, all but flooring the gas pedal. Every now and then, her taillights glowed crimson-bright ahead of him, but whenever the road curved, those lights disappeared.
She was driving fast, too. Dangerously so. Was she accustomed to dirt roads? Her world was surely one of limousines and taxis.
It surprised him that she could handle a car with such authority but then, everything about her surprised him.
He’d never seen such anger in a woman. Such fire.
