Page 70 of Love Puck

Even though I was pretty sure she wasn’t asking me, I answered anyway, “I think he was trying to help you.”

I was not prepared for the scowl she gave me. “By killing my computer?”

Yeah.

She was really pissed.

“Sweetness,” I set my hands on her shoulders, “I think it was already dead.”

She shook her head and turned around. Her hands grabbed the computer and then she whirled around and placed it inside the container.

“I wonder if that’s enough rice?” she said more to herself than me.

But I answered anyway. “There’s not enough rice in the whole world to save your computer,” I told her the honest to God truth.

Her gaze moved from the computer to me.

And it wasn’t a nice gaze.

Nope.

“Whatever,” she spat out, and then plunked the lid on the container. Jillian’s eyes hit the clock on the microwave, then moved to me. “You better go. The show starts soon.”

And with that, she walked around me and headed to the table.

Where she stopped dead in her tracks.

“What is that?” she asked unnecessarily, seeing as the very well-known brand of the computer store—and the computer—was smack dab in the middle of the bags.

I strode up behind her. “I bought you something.” All on their own, my hands found her shoulders again.

“No, you did not,” was her only reply. Her body remained stock still.

“Yeah, I did. Open it up and I’ll help you if you want.” My hands squeezed her shoulders. But she didn’t move. I wasn’t completely sure she was breathing.

“No, you did not.” If it wasn’t so quiet in here, I might not have heard her.

One last squeeze and I said, “Yeah, I did. Let’s get started. There might be some glitches we’ll have to iron out.”

Slowly, she shifted around to me. Her beautiful, perfect eyes held something in them that I couldn’t read. “I can’t accept,” her hand waved out to the side, “all that.”

My eyes scanned her face. Even though I didn’t understand her reaction—it was still cute as hell. And something down deep inside of me—fucking loved the way she was gazing at me right now.

Yeah.

Loved it way too much.

“Good thing I didn’t ask you to accept it, then. Now, hurry up and open it so we can get started.”

Her eyes looked down, and she began biting on her lower lip. When she peered back at me, the emotion on her face nearly knocked me out of my shoes. “You don’t understand, Cash. I can’t pay you back. Not for a while.”

I leaned in. “I didn’t ask you to.” It was obvious that Jillian wasn’t going to get this show on the road. So, I walked around her and began taking everything out of the bags.

“I’m hoping you still have everything backed up, right?” I asked, knowing full well she did. That was one of the things we talked about on our first “date.”

As soon as she told me what she did for a living—other than hockey—I talked to her about security and backing up.

And because Jillian ran her business like a business, she had everything looked after. I did make some suggestions and helped her tweak a few things.

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