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Adam tried to smother his frustration—or at least hide it.
“Look, I don’t have a dog in this race,” he said. “But I’ve also visited a lot of historic places over the years, and I know how important they are.”
“So that’s turned you into the Gardenia House’s savior?” Marilyn picked up her drink. “You’ve got something in this race, Adam. Maybe not a dog, but possibly a little bee.”
She smiled and swept back to her stool at the end of the bar. Adam stalked back to his table, his spine still tense. He had no idea if he’d just made things worse for Bee…or himself.
He sat back down and pushed the plate of now-cold food away. As he closed his laptop, he couldn’t help himself from glancing in Bee’s direction. She was watching him.
His breath stuck in his chest. She said something to Scott, then rose and approached him. Adam’s pulse ratcheted up with every step she took, and by the time she was standing in front of him, his heart was punching against his ribs.
“Hi.” Though she smiled, wariness shone in his eyes. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Why?”
“I saw you talking to Marilyn, and you look annoyed.” She gestured to the creases on his forehead. “In fact, you’re still scowling. Is there a problem?”
Adam almost laughed. Hisproblemswere starting to pile up. He narrowed his gaze on the fire chief. “No problem. How’s your lunch date?”
Bee lifted her eyebrows. “You sound jealous again. I told you Destiny was looking to set me up. And yes, she arranged a date for Scott and me, but I texted him yesterday that I was starting to have feelings for someone else and that it wouldn’t be fair to anyone if he and I went on a date.”
Adam’s heart bumped against his ribs. He’d never wanted to be “someone else” more in his life.
“So Scott texted back that he understood but had the time off,” Bee continued, “and would I like to get together anyway to talk about the book display for the community fire safety program. I said yes, I would like that since we just got some new firefighter picture books in. Any other questions?”
Relief filled his chest along with something else—the sense that his goals and plans over the past for years, his drive to resurrect his true scientific career, were fading compared to what he was starting to feel for this woman whom he hadn’t expected. A woman who didn’t need any explanations.
Bee rested one hand on the back of a chair and leaned closer to him. “For what it’s worth, Scott is nice and a great fire chief, but I have no romantic feelings for him. Besides, Virgo isn’t my Juno sign.”
“Okay.” Adam had no idea what a Juno sign was, but it was hard to ask or even think about anything when his heart was doing a happy little jump rope-type thing.
“Sorry for being an ass,” he finally muttered.
“Thank you.” She straightened. “I was going to tell you about the lunch, but you’ve been locked up in the conference room all morning. Are you going back now?”
“Yeah. I need to get the script finished.” He tossed a few bills onto the table, adding an extra twenty for Rory as an apology for…also being an ass.
“I’ll walk out with you.” Bee started back to her table. “Just give me a couple of minutes to wrap things up.”
Adam put his laptop in his backpack and hitched the strap over his shoulder. He waited by the door, the last of his tension sliding away as Bee came toward him. It was even easier to breathe when he was around her.
“Confession.” She nudged him with her elbow as they walked out to the parking lot. “I know we agreed to the whole friendship thing, but I personally don’t need any more experiments to find proof of the fact that I like you as more than a friend.”
His heart started skipping in addition to jumping. He couldn’t think of anything to say beyond an inane, “I…uh, I like you as more than a friend too.”
She smiled. “Good to know.”
For the first time, Adam didn’t curse the tangled route between his thoughts and his speech. Because if he’d been able to articulate what he was actually thinking, he was pretty sure he’d end up telling Bee that he liked her as more than…like.
A lot more.
