AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The diner is where everyone goes!” And breathe. She scowled at him. Where did he get such ideas? “I was looking for Serenity. Like I said.”
“If you say you had no idea my team and I were there, I’ll call you a liar.”
Her mouth fell open. Caleb Hardy might be the best-looking man she’d ever met, but he was also the most infuriating. Thank goodness she hadn’t actually been interested in him. “I knew five strangers had wandered into Ruby’s. You were solo during the Dorito chase. With the pig. Explain to me how I could have predicted that the man who put his arms around me earlier would be one of the strangers everyone is talking about.”
Which wasn’t even the point. He had her so turned around she couldn’t see backward or forward.
Something that could only be described as heat climbed through Caleb’s almondy irises, and she cursed herself for noticing how gorgeous they were.
“That’s the part I remember too,” he murmured.
“I don’t remember that part.”
How dare he twist her words around like that, as if he knew she couldn’t quite brush off the way he’d touched her. He’d been gentle, yet firm. Holding her so carefully, as if he knew exactly which parts of her would break unless he kept her whole. He’d been moving fast, and if anyone else had crashed into her like that, they’d have both hit the floor. But he’d somehow managed to turn it into an embrace that should not make her shudder to recall.
Okay, she remembered it pretty well. But he didn’t have to know that.
He didn’t have to know anything about her. Problem was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that in reality, he knew everything. How she yearned to be a part of something whole and lasting, but being dumped had done such a number on her self-esteem that she’d rather lie to everyone about Damian being her fiancé than deal with the small possibility that Serenity’s prediction might come true.
There was just something superaffecting about the way he watched her so pointedly. He was the type to miss nothing, no matter how much she might wish to keep secrets. Which meant he really shouldn’t be looking at her that way.
“I’m engaged,” she informed him, cursing the catch in her voice that would either tip him off that it was fake or alert him to the fact that she was still not quite sure how she’d ended up on this side of her wedding date without actually getting married. Or without anyone to take care of.
That’s why the shopping center was so important. She needed that project if she couldn’t have the marriage and husband she’d hoped for.
“I heard about that,” he said.
The admission didn’t change his expression an iota. Smug seemed to be his default now that they were having a real conversation instead of working together toward the mutual goal of reclaiming his snack.
“So I’m not looking for any man except for my fiancé,” she continued, strictly to remind herself of that fact. Remind him. He was the one who needed to be told what was what. “Keep that in mind.”
“Noted.”
“Is this really what you wanted to talk about?”
He let
the moment draw out until the tension threatened to flay her skin right from her bones. How did he do that trick where he got so still he didn’t move so much as a hair? If he’d been wearing a shirt the same color as Ruby’s clapboard exterior, he’d blend right in like a chameleon patiently waiting for an unsuspecting insect to crawl by. Then he’d pounce.
She shuddered again and wished she could blame it on a chill, but it was eighty-five in the shade, which was typical for Superstition Springs this late in April. What was not typical—Navy boys with an agenda she didn’t understand who seemed to have some kind of special ability to turn her brain into fettuccine.
“I wanted to be sure you and I were on the same page,” he finally said. “The shopping center? Not going to happen. I’m officially shutting it down.”
Heat flashed through her chest in an instant and not the good kind. “Hold your horses, mister. What business is my shopping center of yours?”
Her temper boiled up and over as he grinned. “That’s the first time anyone’s ever called me ‘mister.’ I feel like I should be sitting in a folding chair, cradling a twelve gauge as I protect my lawn.”
“This is not funny,” she practically spat. “You can’t waltz in here and throw down something like that. The shopping center is mine. I say what happens with it, and besides, this is not your town. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I care about Serenity,” he said flatly, which shouldn’t have been able to pierce the wall of her temper. But did well enough to give her pause because obviously he thought she didn’t care about her aunt. “That makes it my business. If you care about her, you’ll take a long look around at what’s good for the town instead of what’s good for you and your slick boyfriend.”
Without even giving her a chance to explain that her shopping center was good for the town, Caleb turned and sauntered back into the diner, hands stuck in his back pockets as if they’d been discussing the weather instead of a complete stranger dictating the next steps of Havana’s career.
“He’s my fiancé,” she called out to the shut door, furious with herself for letting that man get the upper hand in their discussion. That wasn’t happening again.
Five
It turned out that Serenity owned the old-fashioned hotel next door to Voodoo Grocery and insisted on giving all five of them rooms for as long as they needed. There was a brief skirmish when Caleb insisted on paying for the rooms, and she insisted right back that they were guests, as if that precluded any talk of money.
