“Willow, is that you?” he said. “I almost didn’t recognize you. What happened? Did that free spirit of yours run away and leave you all alone in my great-aunt Edith’s closet?”
“Ha. Ha. You’re too hilarious for words. I’m about to have an important meeting, if you must know. And I like to dress for success.” Even if dressing for success meant not wearing a single item of clothing from my own closet.
“Sounds fun.” He winked. “Can I come?”
I gulped, willing my temperature to remain steady on this toasty August afternoon. “Absolutely not.”
Cash’s new “moose” came closer. He was still wagging his tail, but I wasn’t buying it. Stranger danger was just as real with animals as it was with humans, and I was going to keep my distance.
I shrank closer to my door, but a solid jab in the back of my arm from my traitor of a cactus reminded me to stand still.
Ouch!
“Will you please keep your animal on your side of the walkway?”
“Oh, he’s not mine. He’s—”
“I know. He’s a foster,” I said as Cash turned to lock his door. “The last fifty dogs you’ve had have been fosters. But will you please keep him back?”
My heart pumped at a breakneck speed, and it wasn’t because of the way the seat of Cash’s jeans fit his booty as he took his sweet time with the key in his lock—I’d hardly noticedthat. My heart raced because of the dog’s invasive nose.
He was coming for me. There was nowhere for me to run and nowhere to hide.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Cash pulled the dog closer to his side. Okay, so Imighthave liked the way his bicep looked when he put it to work, but that didn’t mean I likedhim!
He cocked his head to the side and eyed me up and down with a question written on his face. “Need a little help there?”
I tossed an overly hair-sprayed tendril of hair out of my face and tried to speak with the same air of nobility my grandmother commanded. “That won’t be necessary. I’m not the kind of woman who needs a knight in shining armor to come to her rescue.”
I gritted my teeth, pretending I actually believed what I’d just said. But the fifteen cactus needles prodding the back of my arm were pretty hard to ignore. A little help would have been nice, but I couldn’t afford to give Cash the satisfaction of being the help I needed.
I made a move for my door despite the spines embedded in my skin.
Bad idea!
The cactus refused to let go of me and my bag, and the whole pot was ready to fall over on me.
Quicker than lightning, Cash was by my side steadying the pot and working to free the cactus from my bag. “You might notneedmy help, but you have a habit of accepting it often enough.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I winced silently as he plucked cactus needles from my arm.
“I seem to remember a certain beautiful brunette broken down at the gas station and in need of a jump last December.”
He shot me a pointed look, but I crossed my arms, happy to have them out of reach of the dog’s wet nose. “That doesn’t count. There were twenty other people there who could have given me a jump.”
“They could’ve, but none of them did.” His slow grin sent a shiver down my spine. “How about that night at Angie B’s—you know, the hottest spot to find a date in Austin?”
I gasped and pressed my back against my door now that I was free from the cactus. “That wasnota date.”
The gotcha grin that spread over his lips was unnerving, to say the least. “Never said it was. But I’ve been wondering ever since; who gets their finger stuck in a bottle of soda, anyway?”
“The kind of person who’s trying to get the peanuts out, that’s who.”
Something twinkled in Cash’s eyes. “You put peanuts in your Coke, too?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
His grin turned sly, and I couldn’t read him. The way his bold eyes held me captive made me all squirmy inside. My cheeks warmed, and I had to remind myself that Cash wasnotthat charming.
