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Carl snickered. “You’re telling me. Getting within a five-mile radius of you is a mistake.” Having said that, he took off down the street, anxious to make his escape.
“Would you kindly stop? I have something I want to say,” she shouted from behind him.
They’d be shoveling snow on the equator first.
Undeterred by his lack of interest, Candy raced ahead of him, then turned to face him, walking backward. “Would you please listen?”
Since they were already attracting a fair amount of attention, Carl stopped. “What?” he asked, and clenched his hands into fists. He was convinced nothing she had to tell him was going to make the least bit of difference. But he knew she was stubborn enough to peck away at him until he did as she asked.
Her shoulders heaved as she caught her breath. The movement was unfortunate because it brought attention to a part of her anatomy he’d rather ignore. Which, despite everything, were probably the finest pair he’d seen on a woman. Okay, so thinking such things would probably be enough to get him arrested. He couldn’t help it.
“I want to apologize,” Candy whispered, her eyes avoiding his.
She announced at the top of her lungs that she was the one responsible for my black eye, Carl mused darkly, then apologized for giving it to him in a voice so low it needed to be dug out of the asphalt. “Okay, you’re sorry. As well you should be,” he said.
Her mouth thinned.
“Oh, so you aren’t sorry?” How like a woman to apologize and not mean a word of it.
“Not about the black eye. You deserved that.”
There was no logic to Candy Hoffman and therefore no reason to talk to her. Shaking his head, Carl sidestepped her and continued down the sidewalk.
He’d gone a half a block or more when she pulled the same trick, jogging ahead of him and then whirling around to face him. “Now what?” he asked icily.
“Please,” she said breathlessly, “just hear me out.”
The frustration was getting to him. “Is this really necessary?”
“Please, Carl, hear me out.”
It wasn’t thepleasethat convinced him, but the soft, sexy way she’d said his name. He decided he must be getting addle-minded in his old age.
“All right. Just hurry up about it, will you? I got better things to do.”
“All right.”
For having made such a big deal about it, she didn’t seem to know what she wanted to say. “It’s about what happened at the dance last week.”
“I already guessed that much.” He tried to look bored, but if the truth be known, he wasn’t opposed to having Candy grovel a little. The way he figured it, she owed him that much.
“I should never have accepted the dance with Derrick in the first place.”
“Amen to that.”
“I…I don’t know why I was so foolish.”
If she hadn’t figured it out, he had. She’d wanted to thwart him, and by heaven, she’d succeeded. He’d be jailed before he let her or anyone else at that dance know, but he’d been madder than blazes when she opted to dance with Showberg over him.
“I knew the minute Derrick got me on the dance floor that I’d made a terrible mistake. Then he started making sexual innuendoes and touching me in places he had no right to touch.”
Carl hadn’t seen that. Showberg had better count his blessings because if he’d seen the ape so much as lay an unwanted finger on Candy, he would have taken delight to dragging the bum outside and beating the snot out of him. Which, as a matter of fact, he had.
Candy rubbed her palms together and appeared to be studying the lines in the sidewalk. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stepped in when you did.”
He shrugged, making light of his contribution.
“I mean it, Carl. I’m more grateful than words can say for your help.” She glanced up nervously. “I feel bad about the black eye—really I do. It’s just that…well…” She hesitated. “We’ve already gone over that.”
