Frozen slush clungto the back of J.P.’s shirt, tingling his spine where the sodden fabric met his skin in a chilling, unwelcome shock.
Nora’s eyes were the size of silver dollars.
“Oh my gosh.” The crumbled empty cup trembled in her hand and the discarded lid—speared through with a bent straw—landed somewhere in the planter near the Café’s entrance. “I am so, so sorry,” she quaked. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
J.P. had wanted a milkshake. He just hadn’t wanted it smeared down the back of him.
“It’s fine,” he ground out through clamped teeth.
“I really didn’t even see you there.”
“Really?” He found that difficult to believe. At six feet, it wasn’t like he was an easy guy to miss.
“I’m serious. I was looking at my phone.” As though she needed to supply with him some sort of evidence, Nora held up the cell phone clutched in her other hand. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“That’s stating the obvious.”
Her apologetic gaze shifted into cold seriousness. “You know what?” Moving to the trash can, she collected the litter from the ground and tossed it into the open bin, then chucked her mangled milkshake cup into it too. “You also have a little blame here. You clearly didn’t see me either.” She swiped her sticky hands together before landing them on her hips. “It takes two people to run into one another.”
“But that’s the thing.” He craned his neck around and twisted the fabric of his shirt to survey the sugary damage. “I wasn’t the one moving. You were. I was just standing here, feeding the meter. You ran into me.”
“You are kind of a brick wall.”
“All the more reason you should have seen me!” Grabbing the hem of his shirt, he whipped it up and over his head, balled it between frustrated hands, and flung it into the bed of his truck. It took everything in him to keep a little scream of aggravation pinned behind his lips.
Man, this woman’s eyes were going to fall right out of her head if they widened any more.
“Now I can’t even get my milkshake,” he huffed, fully aware he sounded like a disappointed child, but not at all ashamed. He thrust a finger toward theNo shirt, no shoes, no servicesign posted in the window. Funny, he’d always thought a sign like that was sort of unnecessary, but this unexpected scenario proved him wrong.
Standing off in front of him, Nora’s jaw flexed in irritation. “Fine.”
“Fine, what?” J.P.’s arms wove over his torso in a flimsy effort to keep some portion of himself covered. He did realize he was half naked on Harmony Ridge Row and that certainly wasn’t the norm.
“Fine, I’ll go get you a milkshake,” she spat. “I suppose I owe you one.”
A pleased smile flickered over J.P.’s lips before he rallied his expression. “Um, yeah. I’d say that’s the least you can do.”
Twitching, Nora’s hand came up between them like she was going to say more, but she disappeared into the Campfire Café before ever delivering her retaliatory remark.
Out of earshot, J.P. finally released a strangled groan and dropped the tailgate on his truck to hike a leg so he could sit on its ledge. What had just happened? One minute he was stuffing quarters into the parking meter, the next he had an Oreo shake melting down his back and into his waistband.
More than just the cold had stunned him. Seeing Nora standing there, her curly, honey-colored hair tucked back with a twisted bandana, her tanned, bare shoulders exposed from the tank top beneath her overalls—she looked downright adorable. And that shocked him. How could he find someone so unbelievably infuriating and utterly beautiful at the same time? It was entirely unfair that his head and his hormones weren’t in sync when it came to Nora Paisley.
He moved his forearm over his brow to swipe away the sweat gathering there. It was easily a hundred degrees, and he had looked forward to the cool escape the Café promised. They always cranked the air conditioning full blast, a welcome reprieve from the sweltering late-summer temperatures. But now that escape was out of the question, what with his current state of undress. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so frustrating.
Each time he tried to do something, Nora got in the way.
When he’d moved to Harmony Ridge the year before at his mother’s constant urging, he thought he’d like the whole small town way of life. On the surface, it was a romantic notion to live in a place where everyone knew everyone else. It was a real community. What he hadn’t taken into consideration was the fact that the smaller the town, the less room to do your own thing. For goodness’ sake, J.P. couldn’t even get a simple milkshake without literally bumping into someone.
Or being bumped into, because he would not budge on that. This was one-hundred percent Nora’s fault.
“Here.”
His head snapped up. Nora’s hand jutted toward him to pass off the milkshake in a to-go cup, her glaring eyes almost challenging him to take it. She nudged it his way again.
What had she done to it?
“It’s strawberry,” she added, her voice flat. It pitched up when she added, “You’re not allergic, are you?”
