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Jordan shook his head. “Not particularly. Too easy for everyone to know everyone’s business.”
“Ah, it wasthatkind of town.”
“Sure was.”
“And did you have business for everyone to know and talk about?”
A muscle ticked in his strong, angular jaw and his throat moved in a swallow. Rayma couldn’t help but notice that the man had a very nice profile. Long-ish nose, but not too long. Sharp features, masculine, and for a guy who could not be a day over twenty-five, she could see he didn’t have any trouble growing a beard based on the shadow that was starting to form in on his jaw and chin.
Her pussy clenched.
He cleared his throat. “Hard not to be talked about in a town that size, whether your business is interesting or not.”
Well, that was a vague, beat-around-the-bush kind of answer if she ever heard one.
Which only meant one thing: hedidhave business that had been talked about, so as soon as he could, he got the fuck out of there and moved to a city where nobody would recognize him if he went and bought condoms at the drugstore.
“Address?” he asked, his voice coming out grittier than it had a moment ago.
“I’m on Torquay in a basement suite a couple of doors up from the elementary school.”
He nodded and turned off McKenzie onto Shelbourne.
Since it was nighttime on Christmas day, the streets were uncharacteristically quiet. The orange glow of the streetlights reflecting off the snow cast an ominous, almost purple hue to the low gray clouds. As much as some people grumbled about the snow, Rayma loved it.
She loved getting bundled up in gloves, warm socks, a scarf, knit cap and big puffy jacket and going for a walk through the fat, falling flakes at night. It was a magical time and some of the few fond memories she had about her parents and her family involved the icy flakes.
Her parents had been ridiculously strict, but one thing they allowed was no matter what time of night, when it started to snow, whoever noticed it first had to alert the rest of the house, then they all got bundled up, Rayma, her four older sisters and their parents, and they went out for a walk.
“Left side or right side of the road?” Jordan asked, breaking through her memories.
He’d turned onto Torquay and had slowed his roll to a crawl.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Three doors up on the left. The house with the purple and blue Christmas lights.”
“Got it.” He sped up just a little, still keeping his speed to that of a snail, and pulled up to the curb in front of her place.
“Thanks,” she said, opening her door. He didn’t shut off the ignition, but he did climb out of the truck, too, meeting her around the front near the grill. “What are you doing?”
“Walking you to your door?” He phrased it more like a question. Like she was the crazy person, and it was brutally obvious what he was doing. “You’ve been drinking and this driveway is on a downslope. Krista would fire me, or one of those giants would kill me if you slipped and broke something when I could have prevented it.”
Her lip twitched, but she took his offered arm. “Well, thank you. How … gentlemanly of you.”
He snorted. “Sure, we can go with that.”
“Just self-preservation?” she grinned up at him.
His smile made her belly grow warm. “No … not completely. I genuinely do not want you to fall. But those five guys back at the house are an intimidating bunch. Not to mention their women.”
They navigated their way down the driveway until it was flat again. Rayma removed her arm from his and they walked single-file along the side of the house to the door for her basement suite. “Oh, I’d say their women are scarier than the men. Hands down. I’d take on Brock before I’d take on Krista.”
She reached for her door, but then turned to face him.
He was adorably scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, I think I might agree with you on that.”
Nibbling on her lip, she let her eyes roam his face for a moment. “So uh …”
He scratched the back of his neck again and tipped back onto his heels.
