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“I’m serious. It’s over. No more kissing or groping. No more…sex. I can’t do this. I can’t afford to lose everything I’ve been working so hard for because I’m distracted byyou. You’re quicksand and I can’t afford to drown in you.”
Garrett drops his hands, steps forward, and cups his hand beneath my jaw. He draws me in for a long, sultry kiss that gives me temporary amnesia. My traitorous lips respond in earnest. It takes several long seconds to realize what’s happening. I pull away and slap the police chief right across his bearded cheek.
The jerk has the audacity to grin.
“We’ll talk later, Gray.” He leans forward and lowers his voice. “I meant what I said last night. You’re mine.Mineforever.”
“Ugh! You’re so frustrating,” I groan, marching to Grandma Rose’s car and yanking the door open. I speed away, daring the jerk to pull me over for peeling out of the parking lot.
Focus, Aurora. Focus.
Because the local grocery doesn’t open for another hour, I decide to call in all the favors I’ve saved up over the summer. I start with Todd Crowley, who happily offers up the rest of his carton of eggs. Eight is a start. “You’re a life saver.” I give him a hug and turn to run back to Grandma Rose’s car.
“Bess is going to need another couple days,” Todd calls out to me. “Waiting on a part.”
I wave an acknowledgement and speed off, trying not to freak out about that. I have a court appearance tomorrow because the judge apparently really hates me. While we were in the shower this morning, Garrett offered to drive me so I didn’t have to admit to Grandma Rose I’d been arrested. That and I’m still deadest against hiring a lawyer no matter how much that judge is out to get me. I still need to buy books for classes that start next week, and I owe Jade another three hundred I managed to almost scrounge up over the busy weekend in tips. There’s no money for a lawyer.
Riding with Garrett seemed like such a great idea an hour ago.
When I’ve collected my first three dozen eggs, I return to the diner so Grandma Rose has something to work with. “I’m not done,” I tell her, rushing out the door before she can make me feel any worse about myself than I already do.
I spend the remainder of the morning collecting eggs from people only too happy to help. Hell, word must travel fast because some of them are already on their front porch with a carton in hand. Some offer a full dozen. Others only have three or four. I take all I can get with promises for free coffee the rest of the week to everyone who’s been saving my bacon.
By lunchtime, I’ve managed to collect twenty-one dozen eggs. It’s enough to last Grandma Rose the day and then some. “I’ll head toThree Bearsand pick up the rest,” I tell Grandma Rose as I drop off the last of what I managed to collect in town.
She focuses on the griddle, refusing to look at me for more than a moment or two. If it kills me, I’m going to spend every day making things right until I’ve gotten back into her good graces again. I refuse to let Garrett Bradley—or any other man for that matter—derail my plans ever again.
CHAPTER16
Garrett
I’ve allowed Aurora to ignore me during the drive to Anchorage, during the time we waited in the courthouse for her hearing, and even during ninety-five percent of the drive back to Caribou Creek. I’ve given her the space she clearly wants, but I’m not backing down on us.
I’ll never back down onus.
Any hopes that winning her bench warrant court hearing—a miracle if ever I’ve witnessed one with this judge—would soften her up went right out the window when she stuck in those damn earbuds and opened a textbook before we even left the city limits.
Ten miles from Caribou Creek, I slow for a pull off and put the truck in park.
Aurora looks up from her book, her eyebrows drawn in confusion as she pulls out one earbud. “Why are we stopping?”
“Because it’s time to talk, Gray.”
“I’m studying.”
“You’ve been reading the same page for over an hour. I might not know how a photographic memory works, exactly. But I know it doesn’t take a hundred miles to memorize a couple of pie graphs.”
The cute blush I’ve come to love so much spreads quickly from her chest to her cheeks as she slams her book shut. I’m not apologetic about my gaze lingering on the dip of her sweater. Memorizing the way her nipples are already pebbling hard enough to poke through the fabric. This need between us goes far deeper than surface level.
“I meant what I said,” she says.
“You think I’m a bad influence.” When she doesn’t answer, I unbuckle my seat belt and push the center console up and out of the way. I jab the button on her seatbelt and it whooshes out of the way. “You’re a bad influence, too, Gray.”
“Me?”
“That night I taught you to make scrambled eggs, I didn’t even hear my work phone because I was too distracted by your tits.” I scoot closer, the familiar heat swirling hotter and hotter. I drop my hand to her thigh. She stares at it, but she doesn’t move it. “If it wasn’t for you pulling me out of my daze, I would’ve missed the call completely.”
“What’s your point?”
