Page 66 of I'm Not Yours
I ripped the card from the flowers and tore it open, my anger zip-zapping along my body, head to foot. He’d done this before, and each time it made me more mad that he could intrude on my life, my time, whenever he wanted.
But . . . but . . . it was from. . . . I gaped at the card and made a choking, gulping sound in my throat. It was not fromhim.
It was fromhim.
The chariot rider.
Him.
That him.
Estelle and Leoni leaned over my shoulder.
“By gum and golly, this is a miraculous moment. It’s from the sneaker wave rescuer,” Estelle said. “You should get knocked over by sneaker waves more often. What’s a life-threatening event when you can meet a muscled, seductive rancher?”
“You obviously didn’t tell him that the male species will soon die out because of flaws in their genetic makeup,” Leoni gushed.
I stared at the roses and lilies, delicate, sweet, elegant.
“The note says,” Leoni said. “Looking forward to our survivor’s luncheon.”
“What’s a survivor’s luncheon?” Estelle asked. “I think, at my age, I should go to one of those daily. But I don’t want to hang out with men my own age. They’re boring. They complain all the time about their aches and pains. They have bladder problems. They have intestinal problems. They’re fascinated by their bowels. I want to hang out with the younger men. I want to be a cougar.” She curled her hands into paws and made a cougarish sound.
I was not a cougar. Reece was not younger than me.
He sure was cute, though.
Estelle made another cougarish sound.
Leoni and I laughed.
Leoni pawed her hands in the air, too.
I growled back at both of them. “Grrrr . . .”
“To cougars!” Leoni shouted, holding up an imaginary champagne glass.
“To cougars!” We clinked glasses.
“Thank you for the flowers.”
“You’re welcome.” Reece smiled at me, dwarfing his doorway, his blue button-down shirt somehow making those piercing green eyes even brighter.
It had taken me hours of encouraging self-talk while I sewed my bridesmaid’s dress for August’s wedding—and an online Scrabble game where I spelled the words “fear,” “loathe,” and “prick,” and therapy-eating where I downed five warm chocolate chip cookies—before I could gather up enough nerve to slink next door to thank Reece.
And to tell him what he needed to know immediately.
On my way over, Estelle leaned out the studio’s window like an avenging gargoyle and yelled, “Don’t mess this up. It’s not like you’re going to get a lot of other chances to prove you can be nice to a man. You had to almost drown to meet this one.”
Leoni said, wringing her hands, “Be gentle, kind . . . feminine. “Do you know how to do that?”
Estelle said, “Don’t be a cougar, be a cougarette!”
“Grrrr,” Leoni called out.
“Grrrr . . .” I was almost shaking with fear.
“They’re beautiful,” I said into Reece’s handsome, chiseled face. “Sexy.” He blinked.
