Page 58 of The Hometown Legend

The other because...

She didn’t have a reason.

Right then, with his blue eyes on her, making her feel like she might be beautiful, she didn’t have one.

“You look good,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, despising that her voice trembled a little bit. She should try to pretend she was used to compliments. That, she supposed, would make all this more believable. That she was interesting. A siren. A vixen.

With him, she couldn’t be.

Because she wasn’t that good at playing pretend.

She needed to get it together a little bit. Because she needed to exude at least a modicum of confidence when they walked into Smokey’s.

She got into his truck and closed the door firmly, folding her hands in her lap. He got in beside her, and she was struck by how good he smelled. Masculine and spicy and clean.

Her breath left her lungs.

She hadn’t appreciated just how much she didn’t think about desire when she thought of her goals or when it came to this whole endeavor. Whether it was getting a kiss or losing her virginity, it was all about external things.

But he made her heart beat faster. He made her think impossible things.

He made her want things.

And she didn’t especially like that.

Because that made this feel so much riskier. It was one thing when she was out to show the naysayers. It was quite another when it involved him. And her feelings were and always had been so tangled up with him.

Good, bad and impossible.

She was relieved when they pulled into the parking lot, but also afraid.

Relieved because she could get out of this confined space with him. Afraid because it was showtime, and they hadn’t done a dress rehearsal.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Because it was easier to focus on him. On the way that she had noticed his discomfort with the parade. And on the fact that when they walked in, they were going to draw attention. In a way he didn’t want, and in a way she wasn’t used to.

“Just fine,” he said.

“How do you know when you’re fine and when you’re not?” she asked, a genuine question and not just one designed to deflect from her own difficult emotions.

“I’m not battling uncontrollable rage?”

“Oh. Well.”

“I know soon enough when that’s going to happen. I can usually remove myself from the situation in time.”

She looked at him, at the stark lines of his face. “I wasn’t afraid of you.”

“That’s nice,” he said. “Many people are terrified of me.”

“I’m not trying to be nice. It’s true.”

“You never saw me throw a screwdriver through the wall.”

She couldn’t imagine the Gideon from thirteen years ago doing that. She could imaginethisone doing it. There was so much in him. Vibrating beneath the surface. It had to come out somewhere.

“Did you throw itatanybody?”

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