“No, ma’am.”
She paused beside her car and leaned into him. He smelled peaches and pool water and perfection, and he had to concentrate on breathing steady. “Yes, ma’am?”
She crooked a finger. “I need to tell you a secret.”
Hell with hunting season.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear and most of the rest of his body all at the same time, “a girl appreciates a guy for who he is, instead of who he’s pretending to be.”
She pulled away and held out her hand while he was still puzzling out if she’d just confessed to liking him. “Let me see your phone,” she said.
He handed it over and she typed away on it, tilting it so he couldn’t see what she was doing. After a minute, she handed it back to him. “If you can find it, you can use it.”
He coughed back a chuckle. “That a comment on my technical skills or my puzzlin’ skills?”
“Do you frequently have trouble using your equipment?”
“Don’t reckon you’ll know unless I find that number.”
Her cheeks flushed so dark they blended into the night. “That’s a very good point.”
“Reckon a girl with your organizational skills still has my number.”
“Oh, I kept it. In case I ever needed an exterminator again.”
Funny girl, that Anna Grace.
He stepped away from her car, because she’d found her flirting words tonight, but the way she kept hugging that door told him she wasn’t ready for following through.
That was okay with him. He’d waited thirty-three years to find out he was a pie man. He could wait a while longer to find out what else she could teach him. “You have a nice evening, Anna Grace.”
She winked at him. “You have a nice time hunting for that number.”
It took some effort, but he waited all the way until her taillights disappeared before he tried. And when he finally found it, he wouldn’t even tell Radish how long it took. But he did get a good laugh out of it.
My Favorite Yankee, she’d labeled herself.
He couldn’t argue with that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He knew the pleasure of a kiss with the wrong woman, but he had yet to discover the power of a kiss with the right one.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Alittle over a week later, Anna walked into the lab and found Jules sitting on the floor in khakis and a blue knit shirt amid piles of magazines and old efficiency reports, tossing things into her trash can.
Cleaning.
Anna froze. Maybe if she tiptoed back the way she came, Jules would pretend she hadn’t heard Anna come in. And Anna could pretend Jules’s cube still needed quality time with a backhoe and a label maker, and the world would keep spinning on its axis.
Jules shot her anI dare you to say somethinglook.
Anna smiled, which probably looked as fake as it felt. “Hey, Jules. How’s it going?”
“What’s it look like, genius? Don’t even think of bringing that chipper attitude in here. You didn’t get laid or something this weekend, did you?”
No, she’d apparently hidden her phone number too well for that, becausesomeonehadn’t called. He had sent a verycomplimentary note about her pie through Kaci though. “I studied.” The level one certification test wasn’t for another three weeks, but after squeaking by in thermo with a grade barely high enough for tuition reimbursement, she was enrolled in two classes at Jim-Bob for the semester starting next week.
