But the delicious tingle that rippled through her subsided quickly.
Jack’s number was front and center on the screen.
Huh.
His calls had been few and far between since he’d been in Quantico.
She pressed talk. “This is a surprise.”
“Are you all right?”
At his taut question, she frowned. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I sent you three texts last night. You didn’t return any of them.”
Oh.
She scrolled back.
Yep, there they were.
“Sorry about that. I was a little frazzled by the end of the day.”
“You never get frazzled. What’s up?”
She watched a hawk swoop low over the athletic field in the distance, probably in pursuit of a quarry it had homed in on from high above with its keen eyes.
Like Jack homed in on comments that didn’t ring true to him, thanks to his keen intuition.
She turned her back to the window. “You’d be frazzled too if you’d just finished a two-hour drive back to Cape and realized you had to retrace your steps because you’d forgotten the laptop you needed for an important meeting this morning. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to drive back.”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.”
“That sort of mistake isn’t like you. You never forget anything. Is something else going on?”
Hewouldask that.
Now what?
She couldn’t tell him about the furtive, late-night activity at Natalie’s, or he’d get all protective on her.
And she certainly couldn’t tell him about her distracting romantic daydreams.
“Cara?” His inflection had transitioned to interrogation mode.
“Yes. I’m here. It was just a busy week.”
“Busy never frazzled you in the past.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
Silence.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Oh, brother.
