“Kaci—”
“And I’m sorry for having a meltdown on you. All the meltdowns. Have fun with your friends tonight.”
“Kaci,” he said again.
“Seriously. Go have fun with your friends. Miss Higgs and I have plans tonight, andshe gets cranky when I leave her too long.”
She faded into the dark night.
But if she thought she was leaving that easily, she could think again.
This wasn’t the Kaci he knew.
Which meant something was wrong. She’d hit her head on landing this morning. Or she was still dealing with the trauma. Or not dealing with it at all. He trailed after her, his slow gait turning into a trot as he realized how quickly her shadow was disappearing into the night. “Kaci, you should probably go see your doctor.”
“I’m fine. Just trying to be a better person.”
“We crash-landed in an airplane this morning.”
“Wasn’t any crashing, Captain Hot Shot. You put that plane down just like we were on a runway.”
“You’ve never seen a plane land on a runway.”
She was almost to her Jeep down the street from Pony’s place, still speed-walking as though the devil were on her tail. “True enough, but if we crashed, that plane would’ve been in pieces.”
“Kaci—”
“Go back to your friends. Have a good time. You and me? We need a little breathing room. My head’s not on straight, and you just make it more muddled.”
He could relate.
“I said I’ll call you,” she said. “You ever known me not to follow through with a threat?”
She drove him crazy and she brought out the worst in him, but the woman knew how to make him laugh. “Don’t wait too long,” he said. “I might forget who you are.”
“Don’t you wish.”
Of everything in his life he might ever wish he could forget, Kaci Boudreaux was not onthat list.
She hugged the edges of her Jeep while she marched to the driver’s door. “I won’t hold it against you if you don’t take my call,” she added.
Damn impossible woman.
He stalked around the Jeep, cradled her head, and covered her lips with his.
To make her quit talking, he told himself.
To prove to her that he wasn’t a total asshole, he told himself.
To kiss a hot chick because he was a red-blooded male who liked sexy blondes, he told himself.
The truth, though, might be that he needed to know she was okay.
That she wasn’t still mad at him for making her go up in that airplane today.
That she still liked him enough to want to kiss him back.
Because if she kissed him back, maybethey’d go farther.
