Keely bit her lower lip. “I suppose you’re right. I’m a wimp.”
“You’re not,” her best friend replied, smiling. “Here’s your chance to prove it.”
“With your shield or on it,” Clark intoned dramatically.
Keely glowered at him. “I am not a Spartan.”
“An Amazon, then,” Clark compromised, and grinned. “Go get him!”
“We’ll be right here,” Winnie promised. “You can yell for help and we’ll come running.”
Keely had her doubts about that. Winnie and Clark loved Boone, but neither of them had ever been a match for his temper. If she yelled for help, they’d assume that Boone was bristling and ready for a fight, and they’d be under heavy pieces of furniture trying not to get noticed. Still, they had a point. She was almost twenty years old. It was time she learned to fight back.
She poured a cup of black coffee from the pot and took the cinnamon buns out of the oven. She put two of them on a saucer and added a napkin to her burdens. She glanced at her audience.
Clark flapped his hand at her.
Winnie mouthed, “Go on!”
She would have made a smart remark, but her heart was in her throat. It bothered her that Boone had asked her to bring dessert to him. Considering his reaction to her friendship with Clark, he had to be up to something.
* * *
She tapped nervously on the door.
“Come in,” he called curtly.
She balanced the saucer holding the cinnamon buns on the cup of coffee and gingerly opened his office door, closing it with her back once she was inside.
It was a small, intimate room, with ceiling-to-floor bookcases on two walls, French windows opening onto a small patio, and a fireplace with gas logs. The carpet was deep beige, the curtains echoing the earth tones. But the furniture was red leather, as if the very sedateness of the room commanded a touch of color. Boone looked right at home in a big red leather-upholstered chair behind his enormous solid oak desk. Over the mantel was a painting of Boone’s father. It was a prophecy of what Boone would look like in old age—with silver hair and a distinguished, commanding expression.
“You look like him,” Keely mused as she put the coffee and its accompanying dessert gently in a bare spot on the paper-littered desktop. Her hands were cold and shaking and the cup rattled in the saucer. She hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Do I?” He glanced at the portrait. “He was a head shorter than I am.”
“You can’t see height in a painting,” she pointed out.
She didn’t want to argue. She started toward the door.
“Come back here,” he said curtly. It wasn’t a request.
It was now or never. She took a steadying breath and turned. “Winnie’s waiting for me.”
“Winnie?” he asked with a cynical smile. “Or Clark?”
She swallowed. Her hands began to shake again. She clasped them at her waist to still them. “Both of them,” she compromised.
He leaned back in the chair, ignoring the buns and the coffee. “You and Clark have been like siblings for years. Why the sudden passion?”
“Passion?” she parroted.
“He’s dating you. Didn’t you notice?” he asked sarcastically.
“We went horseback riding,” she pointed out. “There are a lot of things you can’t do on a horse!”
His eyebrows made arches. “Really? What sort of things?”
He was baiting her. She glared at him. “You said you wanted cinnamon buns and coffee. There it is.”
