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“Neveris a strong word,” she said, reorganizing the papers on her lap so Luke’s wasn’t on top anymore.
“Then you wouldn’t use the wordneverif I bugged you about going on an adventure with me again?” He straightened and folded his arms across his chest as Ginger poked her nose into Leah’s school bag at her feet. “Maybe a harmless bike ride? Do you have a bike?”
“Of course I have a bike.” She’d considered riding it to school, but hadn’t devised a good method of carrying her school bag, lunch, and purse yet. She used to bike all over New York City. Even had a scar on the side of her lower left leg from where a taxi tagged her when it pulled over to the curb. Fortunately, after a few stitches she’d healed up nicely, but she’d paid more attention to the activities of taxis after that.
Turned out far more dangerous things lurked in the city than taxis.
“Okay,” Dakota said. “So you have a bike. I have a bike. Let’s bike together. I can show you some spots around Maplehaven that are even more picturesque than this park.”
God, he made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. She was going to have to be straight with him.
“Look, Dakota,” she rubbed her forehead then neatened her pile of papers again on her lap, “you seem like a nice guy, bu—”
“I am a nice guy. Areallynice guy. Ask anyone.”
She didn’t have to. She’d read an entire essay on how nice he was from a source who clearly worshipped him.
“You see, I—”
“Oh,” he interrupted. “You’re not looking for a nice guy, are you?” He angled his head at her. “You think nice guys from cozy little Vermont towns are boring, right? You’re used to hot-shot city dudes who wear suits and roll around in their money or something. You want someone who will shower you with expensive gifts, but probably won’t share any real emotions with you. Yeah, I’m not that guy.”
The air crackled around him. He was genuinely pissed. And somehow still sexy though he’d just insulted her. And he was wrong. Totally wrong. If she let him believe that about her, however, he’d back off.
“Looks as if you’ve got me all figured out,” she said, an aloof tone to her voice she’d never heard before.
He stared at her for an uncomfortable moment. “No,” he said, “I don’t think I do. Not yet.”
Which meant he was going to still try? Luke had called Dakotadeterminedin his essay. Guess the kid was spot on with the word choice.
“I’m sure there are plenty of women in town who want to bike and do all sorts of other things with you.” Her voice cracked on the wordsother thingsas her mind wandered to the potential activities. She needed Dakota to go now before she did something stupid.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m bikingaloneright now.”
Leah pointed to Ginger, now nearly asleep on top of her school bag. “You’re not alone. You’ve got Ginger here.”
“Ginger is a wonderful sidekick, but I had other company in mind. Company who wears crazy shoes with...” He bent down to get a closer look. “Black-eyed Susans on them?”
She was about to tell him that she and her black-eyed Susans shoes weren’t interested, but a breeze kicked up and sent the essays fluttering off her lap and down the path. Popping off her seat, she snagged a few of them, but some continued their dance in the wind.
Ginger barked at the spectacle as Dakota pedaled ahead of the paper parade, hopped off his bike, and fielded the papers as if he were a world class goalie. Luke had mentioned Dakota played hockey in his essay, hadn’t he? In under thirty seconds, Dakota had rounded up the runaway essays and was walking back toward her.
“See, this wouldn’t happen if I stayed indoors,” she said as she held out her hand for the stack.
He held the papers out of reach. “If you stayed indoors though, you’d miss all this witty banter between us.”
“You call this witty?”
“If you came on a bike ride with me, you’d see I’m wittier when I’m active. This standing still conversation is hard for me.”
A laugh escaped Leah before she could contain it. She cleared her throat and wiggled her hand for her papers, but he took a step back.
“What are we correcting here anyway?” He turned the stack of papers around so the first one was facing the right way. “Hey, this one has my name in it.”
“Give me those.” She reached for them, but he held them up higher, his height making it impossible for her to grab them. If she wanted to get her hands on those papers, she’d have to climb him. That shouldn’t seem like a good idea.
“I will give these to you,” he handed her the larger stack, “but I’m reading this one. My little buddy wrote it.”
“And I don’t know if Luke wants you to read it.” She didn’t want to betray her student’s trust by letting Dakota read his work. Though she wasn’t really letting him. “You’re kind of being a bully right now.”
