Page 12 of Suddenly Single
What in God’s name had made him say that? “I need a pruner,” he said.At least that much was true.“The hardware shop is near a market.”
“Thank you so much! I’m just going to grab my wallet!” she said, and skipped off, turning halfway up the path to shout, “Don’t leave without me!”
She continued on, and damn it if his bloody beasts for dogs appeared from nowhere to romp after her.
Now, to determine precisely how he could manage this foray into East Beach without being made deaf by her constant chatter.
A half marathon, indeed.
Five
Edan Mackenzie, with his dashing good looks and mysterious gaze and taciturn manner, drove a very sporty little car.“Wow,” Jenny said as she climbed into the passenger seat.“What is this? A Porsche? AJaguar?” she asked excitedly, looking around.
He looked at her strangely.“It’s a Ford.”
“Oh.”
“Are you ready, then?”
“Let me just buckle in here,” Jenny said, and looked around for the seat belt.“You can never be too careful.I read that something like 90 percent of all traffic deaths are caused by people not wearing their seat belts.” She had the clip of the belt, and now she was trying to get it into the slot. “That’s pretty amazing if you think about it.I mean, with all the drunk drivers on the road, it seems so easy to just—”
He suddenly reached around her, grabbed more of the belt and brought it forward, then batted her hand away from the clip and shoved it in.
“Click it,” she finished.Her head was suddenly filled with the scent of Mr. Mackenzie—spicy and musky andwow,he smelled so good.She leaned toward him just a little to inhale his scent again—
Edan sank back into the driver’s side and started the car, taking off like a shot and speeding around the curves on the road to the main road.
Jenny momentarily forgot how good he smelled so that she could turn all her attention to freaking out, because the man drove like a maniac.He took one corner so fast that the tires squealed—but her squeal was louder.
“Is your brake working, then?” he asked, his eyes on the road.
“Not as well as I would like,” she answered truthfully.
In response to that, he goosed it and sent the car moving a little faster.
“I spent way too much time sitting in a car when I was a kid.That’s all you do in California—you drive. I mean, if you’re not taking the excellent public transportation options.That’s what I prefer.Give me a cab or a train or a bus.” She braced one hand against the dash and looked at him.
He ignored her. But it would take a lot more than ignoring her to put off Jenny Turner.Edan reminded her a little of her best friend from high school, Caitlyn Emerson.She’d met Caitlyn in ninth grade in chemistry class.Everyone was tasked with choosing a lab partner, and Jenny had noticed no one was choosing Caitlyn.She knew why, they all knew why—Caitlyn had been labeled undesirable.Jenny couldn’t remember why any longer—stuck-up, or rude—but there was something about Caitlyn that had seemed vulnerable to her, and Jenny had always been one to rescue people from the fringe.She’d chosen Caitlyn as her lab partner and discovered that the girl was not stuck-up, but painfully shy—debilitatingly so.And when she was confronted with a situation that made her uncomfortable, she came across as aloof and detached.
Sort of like her driver.
Jenny hadn’t yet made up her mind about Edan, and she didn’t think he was shy like Caitlyn. It was different than that.He was antisocial.But even that didn’t seem entirely correct, because she could see something in those beautiful green eyes of his, and what she saw told her that Edan wasn’t entirely disinterested.She guessed he probably didn’t know what to make of her. Well, get in line, pal—no one ever did. Okay, so she swam in the pool of tree huggers and natural-food enthusiasts, and sometimes, she ignored big signs and she talked too much, that was a given. But none of that made her unlikable or hard to understand.
The faster Edan drove, the more curious Jenny was about him.
“This is a really interesting drive,” she said, with both hands against the dash now as they whizzed down the road.“It’s moments like this that make me love traveling.I justloveto go to different places and absorb the culture.”
“Riding in a car is no’ a culture,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Point taken.” Her heart was beating wildly as he took a turn on what felt like two wheels. “Still,thisride is very different than any other I’ve ever had. I didn’t know cars could go this fast.You’d think the physics would make it impossible.”
He gunned the car onto a bigger road.“On the contrary, it is the physics that make it possible.”
She tried to get a glimpse of the speedometer, but she’d have to lean too close to him to see.“People are always in such a hurry, have you noticed? They think a vacation is only a week, and that a week is too long.Trust me, you need at least a month to really get the feel of a place.”
He looked at her sharply.
“What?” Jenny asked.
