Hewaslaughing at her. She was getting all hot and bothered, and he was just playing. “Thank you for your time, Captain Wheeler. Obviously, this isn’t gonna work.”
“It’s fine and dandy for you to give me shit over geography and who can fling a coconut farther, but I can’t give it back? Sit down and get over yourself, Miss Know-It-All. Turbulence happens, and the plane keeps flying. Did I let you crash? No. And you know what? The pilot flying a commercial jet won’t crash either. You’re in more danger in a car than you are in the air. You’re not going to crash.”
Ice crystallized over her skin, and her lungs couldn’t take in enough air. “Tell that to my daddy.”
She didn’t wait for understanding to dawn.
She couldn’t.
She needed fresh air, and then she needed to go blow something up.
10
Lance’s plans for Saturday morning had been to ease into putting more moves on Kaci and play a few video games.
Instead, he’d gone and done something he was kicking himself for—he’d found the tough-as-nails, redneck physics professor’s supersecret soft underbelly.
If the woman would’ve told him who her father was, he might’ve gone easier on her.
Maybe.
He still would’ve let her take the controller, but he wouldn’t have told her planes don’t crash. After spending the morning following a hunch and hitting pay dirt on Google, heknew he’d fucked up.
Plain and simple.
She was supposed to be a fun distraction.
She’d just become something more.
Which was why on Saturday night he found himself squatting outside her apartment with two melting hot fudge sundaes when he would rather be hanging out at Pony’s place with the guys.
There weren’t any pumpkin-chucking contests going on in the area or any hog wrestling or pyrotechnic displays, so he assumed she’d be home sooner or later. She hadn’t answered her office phone number, and he didn’t have her personal number.
He’d barely settled on the floor, though, when he felt an ominous presence.
Kaci stopped against the opposite wall, arms folded over the dirt streaks on her Ole Miss T-shirt.
He squinted.
Looked almost like soot. So did the streaks on her tight jeans and her left cheek.
“You lost?” she said.
He’d had a speech planned. Something about pushing too hard. About being sorry about her dad. About…something.
But there was danger written in those sparking blue eyes. As though she were daring him to suggest she’d been a chicken. Or that she needed to be handled with kid gloves.
This woman had been through something. Possibly more than losing her father at a young age.
And he wanted to tear down every last brick in those walls she’d put up, to discover what made Kaci Boudreaux tick.
What made her happy.
What made her sad.
What motivated her. What inspired her. What she’d seen in her ex-husband.
In other words, the woman who was supposed to be his distraction was rapidly becoming a fascination.
