Page 8 of Handling Skylar
“What will that be? Like your third piece?” I chided.
She rolled her eyes and smacked me again. “Are you judging me?”
“I wouldn’t dare. How about this? How about a few dances, then you can justify a piece of pie?”
Her brows rose, and she looked around. “Where’s Anna Kate? I’m not sure she would like that.”
I slipped my hand over her elbow, loving the feel of her beneath my fingers, finally. It was like a boon to my restlessness. “This is just between us friends, right, sugar?”
I led her out under the twinkly lights, and she slipped into my arms like we’d been doing this slow dance for some time. “Really? Her idea or yours?”
“Mine,” I whispered, breathing deep of her scent.
“I see. I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
That made me laugh. “Are you referring to me as a horse?”
“If the horseshoe fits,” she said.
I chuckled again. “I’ve been wondering. Did you rope and ride out there in Wyoming?”
Her mouth flicked up in wry amusement. “You get points for actually remembering what state I came from and yes. I roped, rode, branded, mended fences, mucked out stalls. All of that.”
“You miss it?”
“Sometimes. But I so enjoy cutting hair and all that beauty stuff, too. You seem to have me pegged, but I bet when you were at Harvard, you…rowed or I think the correct upper-crust term is crewed. Debate club, I think. Maybe even some golf?”
“Yes, on crewing and debate.” Genuinely surprised at how well she’d guessed. It was more than Anna Kate had even attempted. “Emphatically no on the golf. Too sedate for me.”
“Of course. What was I thinking, Varsity? You and your sports car are too busy roaring around. I’ve often seen you heading out of town.”
There was a glint in his eye, probably his reaction to her nickname. “I was heading out of town mostly to go to Baton Rouge,” he said, huskily.
“What’s in Baton Rouge?”
“My master’s classes.”
“You got your graduate degree?”
“Yes, in a year and a half.”
Her eyes sparked with admiration. “Wow, that’s fast.”
I shrugged. “I don’t like to waste time, and I get bored easily. I’m thinking about going for my Ph.D.”
“Really, in what?”
“Crop physiology. I want to expand on my knowledge to help with the business. Our groves are our business.”
She glanced at my cuts. “Is that how you got your hands all scratched up?”
“Yeah, should have worn gloves. There’s this old grove that somehow got left behind for faster growing pecans, but the Elliott, that’s the name of this particular variety of nut, is sweeter and worth the effort of clearing out the orchard, assessing the trees and thinking about harvesting them next fall.”
“If you ever need a second pair of hands, I could pitch in.” I smiled and nodded, thinking that Anna Kate wouldn’t be caught dead in my grove for any reason. “Now, tell me more about harvesting pecans,” she said, her eyes directly on mine. Her phone chimed, but when I expected her to answer it, she didn’t. She just waited for me to talk. And, out of everything I’d experienced with her, this…her attention was the most dangerous of all.
Chapter 3
SKY
