Great. Recording or no, this little incident is going to be all over the Sapphire Springs gossip network by nightfall. I’d bet my next premonition on it.
Officer Cooper runs a beleaguered hand through his hair and mutters something likechoco-strawberry-boonana my ass.Then he fixes his gaze on me again.“Areyou all right?”
At the thought of having to run interference about all of the absurd events that have befallen me today, my tact evaporates,along with my patience. “No. No, I’m not! My butt hurts, if you must know. So do my knees. And my face. Also, if we’re being blunt here, I could have done without running into you again.”
“Strictly speaking,Iran intoyouthis time.For which I apologize.” He clears his throat. “And what’s wrong with your, um, butt?”
“She fell in a puddle,” Donovan says gruffly. “I need your insurance information, Cooper. And to get my car out of the goddamned road. Are we done here?”
“Ms. Whitlock was unconscious,” Officer Obvious points out. “Do you want me to radio EMS?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head vigorously, which turns out to be a mistake. God, I need some Advil. “No ambulance. I just…I want…”
What the hell do I want, other than to forget this day ever happened? My eyes flit across the street, falling on the lit coffee cup logo of the Peach Tree Grille. “A milkshake,” I say triumphantly. Maybe D’Andre had the right idea.
“Amilkshake?Are you delirious?” Cooper’s staring at me again. Between him and the glowering yet gorgeous Donovan, I’m half-tempted to make a crack about how my milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard. Somehow, I restrain myself.
“Yes,” I say with what dignity I can manage.
“We were about to have one, before you lost control of your vehicle and careened across two lanes of traffic.” Donovan sounds every bit as icy as he did back in Ethan’s office. Hereallydoesn’t like Officer Cooper, which…not that I do, either, but what the hell ishisproblem with the guy?
“I didn’tlose control. There was a—oh, forget it, Frost. You”—Cooper points an accusatory finger at me—“sit tight. Let me know if you feel dizzy and if you change your mind about the ambulance. And you”—he points the finger at Donovan—“move your car while I get my registration.” Turning his back on bothof us, he stalks off toward the Camaro, leaving me and Donovan alone together.
But Donovan doesn’t round the car to the driver’s side. Instead, he peers down at me, and when he speaks again, his voice is unexpectedly soft. “Are you really all right?”
His solicitousness gets under my skin. Where does he get off, pretending to care about me after the way he behaved at Smashbox? “Other than my butt, my knees, and my face, I’m fine,” I say, trying to match his haughty tone.
His lips twitch, the way I remember them doing before the crash. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to say anything in front of Cooper. You two obviously have a history.”
At this, I crack a smile. It hurts my cheek. “Oh, we do. It dates back to this morning.”
“But you called him ‘valentine.’” Donovan looks so confused.
I can’t help myself; I start to laugh. I double over, ignoring my bruised everything, and giggle until tears run down my cheeks. And then I’m full-on sobbing without warning, so hard I can’t catch my breath.
“Rune? What’s wrong?” Donovan’s voice is cautious, like he’s trying to figure out how to disarm a bomb and doesn’t want to trigger it by mistake. But it’s too late: this particular bomb has already exploded.
His face blurs through my tears as I wrap my arms around myself, wracked with shivers. “What if my laptop’s broken? I can’t afford a new one. Plus I’m w-wet,” I wail, unable to contain myself, “and I’m hungry, and I hurt, and my sh-shoes…”
Donovan’s brows lower, and he backs up, looking horrified. I hear him rummaging in his trunk—maybe for an emergency flare to rescue him from the dire meltdown in his front seat. But a moment later, he reappears, inexplicably clutching a handful of fabric. “Here,” he mumbles, thrusting it at me.
Sniffling, I unfold it, and my eyes go wide.
Donovan Frost, Ice Man Incarnate, has handed me a hoodie with a caricature of my cat printed on the front.
Chapter
Eight
If you’d toldme when I woke up this morning that I’d be sitting opposite a gorgeous, taciturn man in one of the Peach Tree Grille’s red vinyl booths, barefoot and wearing his hoodie, I would’ve said you were crazy. But here I am, swallowed up by Donovan Frost’s vanilla-and-cedar-smelling sweatshirt, perched crisscross-applesauce on my seat. Donovan himself is cautiously sipping the chocolate-caramel milkshake I insisted he order. It’s vegan, made with coconut milk, because apparently the Ice Man is lactose intolerant.
In a day of strange developments, this little rendezvous might be the weirdest one yet.
“Well?” I ask, hands wrapped around my own milkshake—mint chocolate chip, because even though the chocolate-caramel one is clearly the best, I make it a rule to never get two of the same flavor. Otherwise, how are you going to share?
Not that I usually have anyone to share with, other than Charlotte and her girls, but it’s the principle that counts.
Donovan spent the time while we waited for our milkshakes to arrive aligning the salt and pepper shakers perfectly with the ketchup bottle, then sorting the little jam packets by flavor,presumably to avoid making conversation with me. Now he leans back in his seat, stretching out his long legs. “Well, what?” he says, the two syllables clipped.
