Page 3 of Loyally, Luke
Of course, he’d only watched the movie to appease a sick Penelope.
And it hadn’t been so bad because of Cary Grant. And fighting.
His lips curled into a snarl. But did he have to recall the actress’s name? For some reason, that just seemed to hurt. Deep.
And... forced him to open his eyes and reexamine the woman’s profile. Her posture was straighter than Uncle Herman’s in a back brace, which somehow made him want to stand up a little straighter too.
Blonde hair slipped out from beneath the scarf, a few tendrils escaping some sort of bun. He grinned. The only part of her that didn’t look under control.
Tense posture, tense bun—his gaze trailed down—tense skirt.
But those loose curls seemed to defy all the tension.
His attention came back to her face.
And she had a delicate chin.
Ouch. He shook his head. Delicate chin?
He’d blame that on the headache.
He immediately glanced away from the woman toward the cashier, who looked too young to even contemplate Luke’s current inward struggle. Thirty really shouldn’t feel so old.
Why was he even paying attention to the woman in the scarf anyway?
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen pretty women before, in Skymar or otherwise.
She placed her order, or Luke supposed so, but she spoke in the local language. He’d only heard it a few times up close, and it held a lyrical quality. Like a folk song.
He rolled his eyes, but the motion hurt his head.
He’d forgotten how having a headache reduced his IQ.
Allowing his eyelids to drift closed again, he let the passing interest in the woman dissolve into the far back regions of his brain and drew in a steadying breath. The weakness of a moment, plain and simple. After all, he’d just been internally congratulating himself on his happy bachelorhood... or bachelor... ness?
Lord, help him! He was an idiot!
When the woman moved to the side, Luke stepped forward and placed his order, having to repeat himself three times. Evidently, ordering simple black coffee proved a puzzle in frou-frou coffee places around the world.
Or else his accent proved the real trouble.
He frowned. Was his accent really that bad?
Five minutes later, he raised the long-awaited cup to his lips, anticipating the healing powers of caffeine, and took a coveted taste of... flower java? He pinched his lips tight through a hard swallow. He’d been poisoned!
Was this even coffee?
And if so, it wasn’thiscoffee.
Making a quick pivot back toward the counter, he slammed directly into Grace Kelly. She greeted him with a look of pure disgust, probably just like his, and then stumbled from their impact. Luke reached out to steady her and the quick motion did two things at once: jostled the full coffees so that some of the liquid burst from the top,spraying in both their directions, and shook the sunglasses down to the end of her nose.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
Blue eyes—strikingly blue—stared back at him and then narrowed. “You were examining me quite thoroughly earlier, sir”—those pink lips dipped into a frown—“so I would have expected you, at the very least, to watch whereIwas going instead of playing some horrible game in order to speak with me.”
The inviting tenor of her voice contrasted the belittling tone of her words, causing Luke’s comprehension to take longer than usual. The headache didn’t help.
Speak with her? Well, wasn’t she just a bouquet of arrogance!
