Page 54 of Guilty as Sin
“Seen all you need to see here?” she asked him sweetly.
Not even close,he thought, and didn’t say. Instead, he said, “We need to get some plywood and board up that window. The human element’s one thing, but there’s a storm on the way.”
“I was just thinking that,” she said. “But—‘we’?”
“Yeah.” He had to smile now. “As I chased you down the mountain and scared you to death.”
“You didn’t scare me to death. You gave me a little evasive driving practice. I outran you, did you notice? And I wasn’t the one on the ground with the cuffs on.”
“Window?” Probably best to change the subject. “If you don’t have plywood at your place, I do.”
She hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Let’s go get it, then.”
They took Jace’s truck, once he’d got his weapons back from the cop. He had to ask for them, because Paige would swear the cop had forgotten.You should have called for backup,she thought but didn’t tell him. She didn’t think that would have gone over well.
She wanted to insist on taking Lily’s car, and that she could provide her own plywood, too. The problem was, she had no idea if Lilyhadplywood, she’d look like an idiot searching for it and not finding it, and it wouldn’t fit into the back of the SUV anyway.
While she was working all that out, Jace opened the passenger door of the truck and said, “I’ll put Tobias in the back.”
“I don’t mind him.” Tobias was, indeed, wagging his tail in a dignified manner suitable to his station. “Hey, boy.” She fondled the Ridgeback’s silky ears, feeling more settled than she had in hours. A dog and a pickup truck. Getting closer to her happy place.
“Right,” Jace said. “He’s a seat hog, though.” He flipped the convertible seat down between the front seats and told Tobias, “Shove over, mate.” The dog did, but once Paige climbed in, Tobias arranged his eighty-five pounds of muscle so that his head was in her lap.
“I get the good end,” Paige told Jace, and he smiled and headed up Main, where the traffic lights were swaying in the wind and the road was absolutely empty, like it was after the apocalypse and they were the only two people left in town. She added, “I’ve decided that on balance, your offering to help with my window outweighs your chasing me down the mountain like a madmanandchecking out my body. You have three mitigating factors working for you. At least.”
“Which are?” The question was simple. The undercurrents weren’t. He had nothing like the polish of his brother. Too bad she kept right on liking him that way.
“One, given the circumstances, I kind of enjoyed watching you get taken down, handcuffed, and stuck into the wrong end of a cruiser. I’m guessing that was new.”
“You’re guessing right. What’s two? I’m hoping it’s a better look for me.”
“I like your dog.” Tobias’s head was heavy and warm on her thigh, his eyes were closed, and his ears were so soft.
“That’s not about me, though. Sad.”
“Three.” She sighed and said it. “I was a jerk to you last night. You were sweet, and I made you feel like that was worthless. It wasn’t worthless. It was worth a lot. What I said was about me, not you.”
He was silent for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. At last, though, he said, “You can kiss me without being obligated to go any further. You’re entitled to your body, and I’m not.”
She sighed again. “All right, that’s four. In another minute, I’m going to feel bad about enjoying your back-of-the-cruiser moment. And here’s my last one. I read two of your books today. Well, one and three-quarters. You spooked me, which takes some effort. You might be a little hot-tempered and a lot high-handed, but you’re one hell of a writer.”
He was quiet again for a minute, and then he said, “I’m trying not to let that matter to me as much as it does. And I am never hot-tempered.”
“No? I’d say you’ve got a possessive streak a mile wide.”
“When?”
“Oh,” she said, wondering why on earth she was flirting with this man when Lily’s display window was broken out, and when things had already gone disastrously wrong between them,. Maybe because she couldn’t help it. “Maybe two out of two times you’ve seen me in the company of Brett Hunter.”
“That’s not hot-tempered,” he said. “That’s effective.”
“Body language.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll just close my eyes here, then, and remember your body language when a scared rookie cop who practically still had his seventeen-year-old acne had his hand on top of your head and was shoving you onto that grimy vinyl.”
“Which was portraying,” he said, “dignity in the face of adversity.”
