AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No. That’s not it. Even if he did, that doesn’t make him crazy. It doesn’t.
And more than likely he was just here for a piece of pie. She took a deep breath, steeling herself to look directly at him. Which was... Wow. He was hotter than she remembered. And that was saying something. She had first spotted him in the dim light of the bar, with a healthy amount of space between them.
Now, well, now the daylight was bright, and he was very close. And he was magnificent. The way that black T-shirt hugged all those muscles bordered on obscene, his dark green eyes like the deep of the forest beckoning her to draw close. Except, unlike the forest, his eyes didn’t promise solitude and inner peace. No, it was something much more carnal. Or maybe that was just her aforementioned overheated imagination.
His jaw was covered by a neatly trimmed dark beard, and she would normally have said she wasn’t a huge fan, but something about the beard on him was like flaunting an excess of testosterone. And she was in a very testosterone-starved state. So it was like stumbling onto water in a desert.
Of course, all that hyperbole was simply that. His eyes weren’t actually promising her anything; in fact, his expression was blank. And she realized that while he might look sexier to her today than he had that night, she might look unrecognizable to him.
Last night she had been wearing an outfit that at least hinted at the fact that she had a female figure. And she’d had makeup on, plus she’d gone to the effort to straighten her mass of auburn hair. Today, it was its glorious frizzy self, piled on top of her head, half captured in a rubber band, half pinned down with a pen. And as for makeup... Well, on days when she had to be at the bakery early that was just not a happening thing.
Her apron disguised her figure, and beneath it, the button-up striped shirt that she had tucked into her jeans wasn’t exactly vixen wear.
“Can I... Can I help you?” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and found herself tilting her head to the side, her body apparently calling on all of the flirtation skills it hadn’t used since she was eighteen years old.
Very immature, underdeveloped skills.
Suddenly, her lips felt dry, so she had to lick them. And when she did, heat flared in those forest green eyes that made her think maybe he did recognize her. Or, if he didn’t, maybe his body did. Just like hers recognized his. Oh Lord.
“Yes,” he said, his voice much more... Taciturn than she had imagined it might be. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she had built something of a narrative around him. Brooding, certainly, because he had most definitely been brooding a little bit in the bar, but she had imagined he might flirt with a lazy drawl. Of course, it was difficult to tell with one word, but his voice had been clipped. Definitely clipped.
“I have a lot of different pie. I mean, a lot of different kinds. So, if you need suggestions. Or a list. I can help.”
“I’m not here for pie. I’m here to pick up my daughter.”
