Oh, right! The store! “You want me to get some milk for your mom?” She wasn’t used to helping her neighbors.
“How about I come along?” That half smile again. Oh, but he was sweet. Her fingers itched to touch his biceps.
Instead, she hitched her purse higher and nodded. “Sure, no problem.”
A little extra deodorant would not have been amiss.
Or a shower even. Today’s surprise meeting would teach her to go out of the house like this.
Like it mattered to him. Like he even realized she was female.
Penny was old– and worse than that– she felt old.
She pressed the unlock button on her key ring, and at the curb in front of her house, the lights on her Sentra flashed. Hell, even her car was responsible and grown up.
“What do you drive? When you can?” she added. She barely stopped herself from making a joke about him being too young to drive.
“I have an old jeep. It’s back in Colorado Springs. A little rough, but she gets me where I need to go… usually.” There was that half smile again. “Didn’t make sense to buy something newer when I knew I’d be deployed.”
“Huh.” Penny grunted.
Practical and pretty.
CHAPTER TWO
Old Enough
Chaz was usedto girls fawning all over him. Girls who hung around the base wanting to land a pilot. And then there had been the nurses…
The absence of any flirty overtures made this neighbor lady intriguing. Not that she wasn’t already. Intriguing, that was.
She was hot. In a different way than he was used to.
No makeup, no glossy hairdo, or skimpy clothing. In fact, her clothes kind of just hung on her. She wore an old T-shirt from a 5K race and some cut-off jean shorts that weren’t nearly short enough…but there was something about her…
Absolute ignorance as to the sexual vibes she was putting out. She could ignore it all she wanted but she wasn’t fooling him. Not that she was horny, necessarily. But like she’d been lost in a sexless vacuum for years.
Yeah, she did something for him.
“What’s your name?” He’d wondered for a while now.
“Penny. You?” She eyed him across the roof of her car. “Do you need me to get the door?”
He was now holding the measuring cup in his good hand. He transferred it to his other hand again and opened the door with his left. “I got it. Chaz.”
And then she laughed.
“What?”
But then she shook her head. “Nice to meet you… Chaz. Is that your real name or is it short for something else?”
“Short for Charles Ezekiel.” He climbed into the passenger seat carefully. Damn, his shoulder was throbbing again. Once seated, he reached across himself to close the door but lacked the flexibility to grab ahold of it.
God damnit!
But then she was leaning across him. “I’ve got it.”
Soft curves squashed against his chest and arms. His bad shoulder nearly had him crying out in pain but everything else enjoyed the sensations her endeavor evoked.
