Page 15 of Bear In A Boutique
“Hey,” he whispered. “Up here.” Ryker pointed to his eyes.
Olive’s cheeks flamed, her lips parting. “I—I was trying to figure out what the writing on your shirt says.”
“Oh, this?” Ryker pulled on the shirt to straighten the already perfectly legible lettering. “It says ‘Mitchell Construction’. Big, bold letters. Kind of hard to miss.”
Flustered, she moved up in line too fast and almost ran into the person in front of her. “Anyway, I have bear spray and a bell. I’ll sing and clap my hands the whole time. I’ll be fine.”
“A bell and some weak-ass bear spray won’t deter a ravenous grizzly. You won’t be fine.”
“Want to bet?” Her eyes narrowed in challenge… and then widened in regret when she realized what she’d said. “No, that came out wrong. No bets.”
He grinned triumphantly. “Too late. You went there, Olive, and a Mitchell never backs down from a bet.”
“I know how to take care of myself, Ryker. So forget it.” Reaching into her bag, she produced a can of bear spray. “If it works on you, it should work on a regular bear, right? Should we test it?”
He had a flashback of the fire extinguisher conversation in the fire truck. “It doesn’t work on me. Forget it, Olive. You’re not going hiking today.”
She shoved the bear spray back into her pack with a huff. “I bet that I am.”
“I bet that you’re not.”
When had they gotten close enough to stand chest to chest? She was so small, so fierce. Honestly, he did not doubt that she could hold her own, but even he wouldn’t want to tangle with a starving grizzly. It’s a match she would never win and the protective instinct pulsing through him grew stronger by the second. He couldn’t let her go.
“Why are you so determined to do this?”
“It’s my day off and I want to be out in nature.”
Someone tapped his hip. Ryker looked down at Agnes Kraft peering up at him behind a pair of bright orange, oval glasses without lenses, her skeleton-thin friend beside her. “Is she your date to your mother’s wedding?”
Ryker stepped back and dug his fingers into his hair. Why did this keep happening?
Agnes moved closer; her tent-like dress big enough to house a family of four. “Make sure your tie matches her dress. Don’t forget to buy her flowers, the kind you wear on your wrist.”
Agnes’s friend made an exasperated sound. “It’s a wedding, Aggie, not the prom!”
“Good thing,” Agnes said matter-of-factly and dropped her voice to a whisper shout. “Everyone knows what happens in the back seat of the car on the way home from prom.” She winked.
Her friend gasped. “Aggie!”
“It’s how I got knocked up with Ricky.”
Olive smiled with a quickly crumbling attempt not to laugh, which made him almost laugh because this was ridiculous.
“Agnes, here’s your double hot green tea with honey.” Becks, one of the bakery assistants, carefully slid a paper coffee cup across the counter. Double hot? That wasn’t going to end well. Ryker gingerly picked up the cup and motioned for the elderly woman to make her way to the door. “I’ll carry this, so nobody bumps into you and makes you spill on your pretty dress.”
He waited patiently as Agnes made her way outside, eager to get back to Olive, then handed her the cup and made sure she had a firm grip. “Hang on with both hands, Mrs. Kraft.”
“I’ve got it.”
The cup tipped as soon as he let go, hot tea splashing over the back of his hand. Wincing, he reclaimed control of the cup.
“Wait! I’ve got a tissue.” Agnes struggled to get her purse open and dug inside.
“No need, I’m fine. Here, let’s try again.”
From the corner of his eye, he spotted Olive slip out of the bakery and hurry down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
Damn her.
