Wow.When this woman committed to a project, whether it was cleaning bird poop off a bench or kissing a stranger, she certainly gave it her all.
But this was the sort of game Nate had never been good at. He was done pretending.
Gripping her by the wrists, he gently unwrapped her arms from his neck and pushed her a few inches back. “You are without a doubt the most chaotic woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered.
Also the most breathtaking, something he didn’t care to admit. Not when he had a whole life waiting for him back in New York after some time with his mom in Tennessee. Breathtaking, chaotic ladies from Nebraska did not fit into his summer plans. At all.
“I’m not usually like this,” she whispered, her cheeks blazing. “I swear I’ve never kissed a stranger like that before. I’ve never kissed a strangerat allbefore. Did it at least work?”
Considering the moose and chipmunk stood directly behind her at the bottom of the bridge, Nate was going to wager it didn’t. Especially when the chipmunk said, “McKenna?”
McKenna—at least Nate could say he knew her name now—slowly unclutched her hands from where she was squeezing the life out of his shirt and turned. “Bobbi? Oh, hey,” she said, her voice squeaking so much that maybesheshould be nicknamed the chipmunk. “What are you doing here?”
Bobbi’s gaze bounced from McKenna to Nate then back to McKenna. “Oliver brought me here on a date. What areyoudoing here?” she said, her voice containing a mixture of suspicion and hope.
“Oh... you know. I’m... I’m...” If McKenna was waiting for Nate to finish that sentence for her, she had a lot moreI’ms to go.
Thankfully Moose Man finally put her out of her misery. “Per-perhaps on a date as well? Perhaps?” He blinked and stuttered his way through a few more perhaps-es while Bobbi’s eyes lost all trace of suspicion and filled with one-hundred-percent undeniable hope.
“Really? You’re on a date? With him?”
“Him? No,” McKenna said, quickly followed by, “Duh. No duh, heck yeah, I’m on a date with him. I mean, why else would I be here?”McKenna’s laugh sounded forced. At least Nate hoped that wasn’t her real laugh.
She punched Nate in the shoulder as if they were old buddies. “Him and me. First date. Blind date. Probably won’t work out. We were just leaving. Come on... baby.”
“Nate,” he supplied.
“Nate. Right. His name is Nate, but sometimes I like to call him baby. Not, like, in a sexy way. Just like...Come on, you big baby.That kind of way. Anyway... like I said, we were just getting ready to leave.” McKenna grabbed him by the sleeve—she was really doing a number on his shirt—and tried dragging him down the bridge, but Oliver and Bobbi had blocked all chances for a quick exit by already meeting them near the top.
“He’s tall,” Nate heard Bobbi whisper to McKenna in a tone that suggested his height was a very good thing.
“Hadn’t really noticed,” he heard McKenna murmur back.
“She refuses to date any guy that’s shorter than her,” Bobbi said, giving up all pretenses of whispering. “Good thing I found my Ollie-bear first, huh?”
Oliver and McKenna both chuckled in what sounded like a competition for world’s fakest chuckle.
“Yep. Good thing. Well,” McKenna said, once again trying to grab Nate and drag him past Oliver and Bobbi, who had unfortunately turned into an impenetrable, unscalable moose-chipmunk wall. “Nate and I were just—”
“How tall are you, exactly?” Bobbi asked, peering up at Nate.
“Six two,” McKenna and Nate said at the same time.
Bobbi’s eyes lit up in approval. “McKenna’s six one.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” McKenna said.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” said Bobbi with a smirk. “She’s five twelve and a half.”
“Clearly not an issue for you,” Nate murmured.
“Never give it a thought,” McKenna murmured back.
“Is this really only your first date?” Bobbi asked, obviously having seen their earlier kiss and now interpreting all their murmurings as sweet nothings.
“Oh.” McKenna honked another laugh that Nate could only pray was fake. “No. That was a joke. We-uh-we-we-we-uh... we’ve actually known each other for... oh boy.” She puffed her cheeks and blew out a breath. “Couldn’t even tell you how long exactly. Feels like a long time though.”
“An absolute eternity,” Nate said.
