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“No, I told you that I was going to break the segment down into more than one column—I specifically told you it would be ten days. I did say there were ten ways to know if he loves you.”
“You should have just put all ten points into one column,” my editor complained.
“Jeff, it would have been too long. There is no way I can put all ten reasons you should be with a man in less than five hundred words.”
“You could have if you had tried, Maggie.”
“No, I couldn’t, Jeff.” I stopped on a dime as a man barreled past me, almost plowing into me as he crossed the sidewalk.
“Move.” The man glared at me, his hazel eyes devoid of emotion to the point that I shivered and looked away, noting the black SUV parked at the curb, still running.
Man, didn’t they know that was a crime? It was illegal to leave your vehicle running with no one in it. The two men had disappeared into the store, so I slipped closer to the vehicle and peeked inside, checking the back seat to see it was empty, too.
“What are you going to do now?” Jeff asked, snapping me back to the conversation as I glanced over my shoulder and didn’t see anyone in the jewelry store. They must have gone toward the back.
“I’m going to finish the series. Look, just give it a day. I promise you that more people will tune in tomorrow, and more will keep reading the column over the next ten days. They aren’t going to want to miss even one of the reasons that I give.”
As I spoke, I went around to the other side of the SUV and tried the door handle. Unlocked, of course. I made sure there wasn’t a car coming, then opened the door, reached in for the keys, and turned the SUV off. I stared at the keys for a moment, chewing my bottom lip, tempted to throw them into the street, but I decided to toss them into the rear storage area behind the second row. With that done, I pushed the door closed, checked the traffic, and then ran across the street as my phone began to beep in my ear.
I glanced at the screen. “Jeff, I will be in the office in a few minutes. I have to take another call.” I hung up on him before he even uttered a sound. “Hey, Heather, are we still on for tonight?” I asked as I cut through pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk to get to the coffee shop door.
“Yep, I’m totally game. I have been dying to try out one of those speed dating things for months.”
“It will be great for my next series,” I told her.
“How is the current one going?” she asked as I stepped into the coffee shop and tried not to sigh at the long line in front of me. The only benefit to the line was getting the chance to check out the sweet buns in front of me, and I wasn’t talking about the ones in the glass display case. I glanced from the man’s feet, up his long legs covered in black slacks, to his thick waist and wide back, pausing at the neatly trimmed brown hair on the back of his head.
The guy had to be a cop, or something, with the way he was dressed and the way he stood. I’d dated a cop a few times, and it hadn’t gone over very well. He was too damn macho for me and thought I should be doing cushy things in an office, not trying to dig through the news for a story with grit. I sure as hell didn’t want to be a romance advice columnist for the rest of my life. Hell no! No wonder Babs had kicked the bucket!
“Jeff is still pissed that I broke it down into segments, but he needs to get over it. If I’m going to help this column grow to be something serious, then he needs to give me some space.”
“Good luck with that.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw the man spin around on me. “Would you mind watching your bag, please?”
I turned to snap an apology, and my jaw dropped as I stared into the deep blue eyes of my first love. Holy crap!
“Greg? Heather, I need to call you back.” I hit end call without a second thought. “Gregory Blaire, what are you doing here?”
Oh man, the sight of him had shivers tearing all the way down to my toes, then reverberated right back up to my scalp. He looked incredible, and his voice was just as sexy as it had been back when we were teens. The memory of him whispering in my ear the first time we had sex—my first time ever—that he would love me until the day I died, flashed into my mind. Not that I would mention that, nope. I wasn’t going to point out to him that he had lied. That he had broken my heart when he enlisted in the Marines two weeks later and that when he found out he was leaving for overseas a year after that, he’d broken up with me. I’d cried for a month, and then I’d finished high school, gone off to college, and went about my life.
It was hard to believe that I hadn’t seen this man in nineteen years, and I was ready to drag him into the tiny restroom in the back and do dirty things to him. He might be impressed that I had learned a few things over the years. I was no longer that shy teen.
Nope, now I was a woman who took romance by the balls—I could say that, right? Of course, I could. I was a contemporary woman in charge of her life and in control of her sexual needs. We shuffled toward the cashier, chatting about inconsequential things, and I was dying to ask if he was single or dating or married, or maybe he was gay now. Who knew!
We reached the cashier, and he handed over the card with the coffee orders on it and then added a few more. I didn’t think he’d mind throwing one more on there; I mean he did owe me at least that for breaking my tender teenaged heart—right?
I leaned toward him, waiting for him to say something as I inhaled his subtle aftershave. Oh, Lord, it made me want to rub my face all over his neck and chin so that I’d have something to enjoy for the next few hours. With a scent like that, I could write some rip-roaring romance articles.
Greg’s gaze drifted to my mouth; would kissing him be as incredible as it had been in the past? Did he remember how incredible our kisses had been? I sure did. I had measured every kiss I had ever gotten from other men to his, and I had learned that he had ruined me for most men. Uh, there was my time with Ben, but that was so long ago it didn’t count anymore.
I was about to open my mouth and ask him what he was doing tonight when things got a little crazy behind me, and before I could figure out what was going on, I was standing behind Greg. People were screaming, and a gunshot made me flinch like every other person in the room. Well, everyone but Greg, that is. He seemed to grow taller, rather than make himself smaller, and I cozied up to his back beside the pregnant woman who had been right behind us.
“Everyone get down on the floor!” a man shouted, and I peered around Greg to see a man in a green army fatigue jacket wearing a black ski mask that covered all of his face, except his eyes. Was that the guy that had cut me off on the sidewalk a few minutes ago? It had to be. Whoops! Did he know that I was the one that had removed their car keys? Did they see me get into their car and think that I still had them? Had they come over here to get them back? Holy crap! Had they come here for me?
“Get down!” the second man wearing a black jacket and matching mask shouted, his voice sounding slightly shaky, and he looked around frantically.
Green jacket guy turned the lock on the coffee shop door and pointed a gun at someone. “Close the shades on the front window.” The woman had been going to her knees, and she jerked back up, shaking as she sobbed and moved to the window to do as he asked.
