Page 123 of Make Mine Sweet
“Oh. Right.” I look past them to the table where the other women are piling their plates. Along with the pies I brought, I spot a couple of vegetable dishes, a fruit salad, some kind of spicy chicken, and a hearty loaf of bread.
“Krause is eager to discuss her skepticism about love.” Callahan’s gaze stays stuck on me as the women titter over their plates.
“Yup. That’s me.” I grab his hand.Mistake. Too late to do anything about it now. “You don’t mind if I steal Callahan for a minute, do you?”
Pretty sure fresh laughter rolls around the group as I drag him to the relative privacy of Ada’s hallway. It’s lined with framed photographs and an old-fashioned travel poster of Mount Bachelor. It’s also only about fifteen feet from the crowded table, but shutting ourselves up in a bedroom would be wrong on so many levels.
“How are you here?” I hiss at him.
He smirks down at me. Just a twitch of his lips beneath his short beard, but it’s enough. He dips his head, sending locks of his mouth-length dark hair over his forehead.
Mouth-length?No. That’s not a thing. Ear-length. Somewhere in the vicinity of his cheekbones. Nowhere near his mouth, which I’m definitely not looking at. Whatever the length, his hair is perpetually windswept and messy, like he just hopped off a motorcycle.
Which isn’t really the point right now.
“Rosetta invited me,” he says.
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
A few months? I’ve been finagling my way in for at least that long.
“Why?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I enjoy reading. We were in the library. Just in case ‘Where?’ was going to be your next question.”
“You don’t even read romances.” I have no basis for this assertion but the other option is too absurd to comprehend. Shepherd Callahan, sitting around reading about love and romance and relationships? Never.
“You make a lot of assumptions about me.”
He squeezes my hand, and I’m horrified to realize I didn’t let go of him when I dragged him back here. I make up for it now, and drop his hand like it’s on fire.
“They don’t let anybody into their group,” I hiss again. My gaze darts past him, but nobody’s followed us into the hall. “They keep it a big secret. It took me forever to get them to invite me.”
Isabel tried to pretend ignorance even though she’s come into Blackbird’s to buy desserts for the book club several times.
His smirk widens. “We’re a very exclusive group.”
“Ugh.” My hard-won invitation doesn’t seem so special now. Not if they hand them out to just anybody.
“What? Am I not allowed to read books and discuss them with some of Sunshine’s most interesting minds?”
No. Not really. He can join some other book club. Not the one I’ve been so desperate to get into. I can’t believe he’s been privy to the inner workings of Ada & Isabel’s romance club for actual months.
“But it’sromance.”
That word seems wrong spoken out loud to him. I don’t like having it in the air between us. It’s a giant, invisible mosquito I want to swat away.
He purses his lips at me. “Krause.” He drags it out slowly, teasing me with my own name. “Judging me for reading romance? That’s not very enlightened of you.”
I take a step closer to him. My traitor gaze skims up his open flannel shirt and the tight, black T-shirt underneath. Unhelpful. As is the flush of warmth creeping up my neck. But stepping out of his space would count as a win for him. Better to stand my ground.
“Just tell me what you’re doing here,” I seethe.
He inhales so slowly, I almost think he’s breathing in my orange and lavender perfume. Which would be crazy. Obviously. This is Callahan. He’s probably trying to suck all the air out of the room before I have a chance to breathe it.
For a fraction of a second, his gaze dips from my eyes to my mouth. The heat on my neck becomes an inferno. He snaps his gaze back up to mine.
