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“Very creative.”
“I had to say something plausible. Something to make it look like we were together. Familiar. Something that would, at the very least, get you out on the dance floor with me.”
“You could have simply asked me to dance.”
“Yeah, but that would have been boring. It also would have left an opening for you to turn me down.”
“Well, thank you again.”
“You’re welcome again.” He shuffled her around another couple. “Are you from around here?”
“Not originally.”
“Southern accent.”
“I grew up in Tennessee,” she said. “Near Nashville.”
“Nice area.”
“Yes.”
“Pretty terrain.”
“Hmm.”
“Good music, too.”
Brilliant conversation, Cross, he thought. Scintillating.
She didn’t even honor the last inane statement with a response, and he didn’t blame her. If he kept this up, she’d be out of here before the song ended. He maneuvered them around another couple who were executing an intricate turn, then, in a deadpan voice, he asked the lamest of all lame pick-up lines. “Do you come here often?”
She caught the joke and smiled the smile that might reduce him to a total fool if he wasn’t careful. “Actually, I haven’t been to a fair like this since I was a teenager.”
“Me, too. I remember going to one with some buddies. We must’ve been about fifteen and were on a quest to buy beer.”
“Any success?”
“None.”
“That was your last one?”
“No. I went to another with a date. I took her into the House of Fright specifically for the purpose of making out.”
“And how successful was that?”
“It went about like the attempt to buy beer. God knows I tried. But I always seemed to be with the one girl who…” His voice trailed off when he felt her tense up.
“They don’t give up easily, do they?”
Sure enough, the trio of troopers were standing just beyond the edge of the dance floor, nursing fresh beers and glowering at them.
“Well, if they were quick to surrender, our national security would be at risk.” Giving the young men a smug smile, he tightened his arm around her waist and waltzed past them.
“You don’t have to protect me,” she said. “I could have handled the situation myself.”
“I’m sure you could have. Fending off unwanted male attention is a skill every attractive woman must acquire. But you’re also a lady who was reluctant to cause a scene.”
She gazed up at him. “Very perceptive.”
