“I read about you today.” She followed a barely there hiking trail, heading straight away from their properties. “The online article didn’t mention you’d quit being a cop.” Which was lucky for her.
“I was still in the hospital when the news moved on to better stories.” He reached in front of her and held a tree branch out of the way so she could pass. “Are there any news articles about you? I feel like I’m behind in the getting-to-know-you phase of this friendship,” he said.
Was he flirting with her? Her body heated in a way she’d all but forgotten. She glanced back and had to look up. “No. I’m pretty boring.” It hit her, then. She was in the woods, completely isolated, with a man she’d just met. Away from her home and out and exposed. But she’d read about him, and there had even been a picture, so he had to be all right. Didn’t he? “So . . .”
He grasped her arm and turned her to face him. Trees bracketed them on both sides and clouds had started rolling in. “Your breathing just changed and you’ve gone pale. Why?” Those dark emerald eyes seemed to look right through her.
“I’m fine.” Her lungs seized, but she looked him in the eye.
He released her and took a step back. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at the trees all around them. “What’s your deal, Pippa?”
Oh boy, that was a question. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice was a low rumble. “Yesterday I thought you were a terrified shut-in who couldn’t even answer the door. Then you let me inside your house last night. Now you’re walking outside, away from the house, with somebody you barely know. Oh, you just registered that, and it freaked you out. But you still came outside with me.”
It figured an ex-cop would be so observant. “I’m not agoraphobic. I just don’t like crowds. Cities and big groups of people bother me.” As well as cameras. They were everywhere. “It’s not so much that I have to stay in my home. I just don’t like going anywhere else.” As an explanation, it was the best she could do.
“Why?” he asked, his tone soft. Inviting. Coaxing.
Her heart sped up and adrenaline flooded through her. A fight-or-flight reaction. Instinctive. His tone, the trust-me tone. She heard that in her nightmares. A manipulation that could be felt, if not defined. She couldn’t outrun him, and she more than likely couldn’t outfight him. So she smiled her prettiest smile and lightly kicked the ground. “I’m just a serious introvert. Really shy, too.”
His eyes narrowed.
She fell back on looking innocent and clueless. It had saved her life more than once.
Then, that quickly, his expression cleared. “Fair enough. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. It’s the detective in me. Always trying to solve puzzles.”
Oh. She swallowed. Had she totally misinterpreted him? Her past just wouldn’t leave her alone. “Okay.” Scrambling, she tried to think of something, anything, to say. “How did you get the scar over your eye?”
He gingerly rubbed the moon shape. “Still looks bad, huh?”
“No,” she blurted out. “Makes you look tough. Dangerous and kind of sexy.” Why wouldn’t her mouth workwithher brain instead of against it? She hunched her shoulders.
He snorted. “That’s sweet of you.”
Darn it. The guy probably didn’t want to talk about it. Scars were personal. Very. “I’m sorry to pry,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, it’s all right. I got hit with a golf ball while undercover a long time ago. Just thought the scar was fading.”
“A golf ball,” she murmured.
His smile invited shared amusement. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the truth. I suck at golf, for the record.”
Her smile matched his, grounding her in the moment. With him. “I’m more of a gin rummy player myself.” Especially via the computer. The seconds drew out, tying them in a way she couldn’t decipher.
He blinked. Then he sighed. “It was a bottle to the head. From my grandfather.” His eyes darkened. “I tell most people the golf ball story.”
Her heart warmed. Hot and bright. “Oh.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like the sad, pitying look.”
Yet he’d told her the truth. The real truth. Without even meaning to, he’d made her feel special. “I think you’re brave,” she whispered.
He cocked his head to the side, studying her.
Okay. Back to business. She turned and pointed at a large rock. “That rock is the far end of our properties. Your twenty acres go to the south and mine go to the north from here.” She wasn’t walking forty acres with him.
Thunder ripped closer than she’d expected. The air charged.
