Page 20 of Trial Run

“This is about your marriage.” He didn’t know why he was so sure of the fact.

She gave a sharp nod. “Yes. But I don’t want to talk about my ex.”

“But that’s why you don’t date.”

“That’s why. I can’t take a chance of a bad relationship again. I won’t do that to Marco.”

Or herself. She’d been hurt by someone, badly enough that she’d pushed everyone away. Ben’s hand balled into a fist on his thigh, but he kept his tone light as he answered.

“I don’t date much, either.”

Her brows rose in surprise. “Why not? I’d think a good-looking doctor would—” She snapped her mouth shut, as if realizing what she’d admitted. Nell thought he was good-looking.

“I guess I’ve always been different in that department. I have to get to know a woman before I feel any attraction at all. And I’ve been told I’m hard to get to know.”

A smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “You are kind of reserved.”

“That’s the word. Are we here?”

Nell had pulled the van into the large parking lot of a chain hardware store. She drove up to the curb, where rows of shriveled-up potted plants stood in neat rows.

“Yep. This is our pickup.”

“Nell. These plants are dead.”

She shot him a grin. “That’s what everyone thinks. But they’re not really.”

“So you pick up dead plants and … do what with them?”

“I take them home and fix them up. It’s fun. And the stores just give them away when they’re like this.”

“So this isn’t for the flower shop.”

“Oh, no. It’s a hobby.”

“And you’re probably not supposed to have these in the florist van, either.” He couldn’t prevent a smile.

“Nope.” The sheer impish joy on her face lit up something inside his chest, kindling a spark of warmth there. “Wanna help me load them in the van? You can stand in the back and I’ll hand them up to you.”

“All right.”

Ben folded his long frame between the front bucket seats, slid past the short bench seat in the back, and waited. When Nell opened the rear double doors, bright sunlight flooded the open space at the back of the van. The sides of the vehicle were lined with shelves, where the bouquets to be delivered stood in buckets of water, with vases and pots contained behind the guard rails.

Nell hoisted up two plastic pots from the curb. “Just set them on the floor there.”

He took the thin, black plastic pots full of dried-out soil and spindly brown stems and lined them up in careful rows.

They worked for a few minutes in silence, Nell handing him two pots at a time. She’d take home at least a dozen dead plants today. And they did look dead.

They’d fallen into a rhythm working together, when several things assaulted his senses at once.

Nell was sweating lightly, a sheen of it on her forehead and dampening her pale blue T-shirt. The shadowy valley between her breasts was visible in the V-neck of the shirt from his vantage point above her. When she twisted her torso to retrieve more pots from the curb, the shirt rode higher in the back, highlighting the curve of her rear end.

Her hips were generous and soft, tapered in at the waist, and her neck was long and pale, which was right where he’d put his lips to taste the hollow of her throat—

He inhaled sharply, because no, that would not be happening. Of all the inappropriate times to develop a sudden awareness of her body. She’d told him more than once she didn’t date, and he would respect those boundaries.

“All done,” she said, brushing her hands off on her now very dusty leggings. She gave him a beaming smile, and another wash of heat went through him. “And you’ve been standing right by the van door for five minutes. That’s amazing.”

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