He glanced hungrily at the text.
The tension went out of him.
He was clearly waiting for some kind of news.
And then she saw the ficus in the corner of the deck. Barely alive, left to crisp in the sun.
“Oh no!” She dove over to it and knelt next to it to investigate, lifting up one wilting leaf in her hand as if taking its pulse.
She was conscious of his feet thundering across the deck. When she looked up seconds later, it was straight into his blue eyes.
“Wow. Are you The Flash?” She was amused.
“I thought you were falling off the deck. You scared the shit out of me.”
He did look scared.
“I’m so sorry,” she said hurriedly, wildly flattered that he was going to try to rescue her. “It’s just... the plant...”
“Theplantwas about to fall off the deck?”
“No! I’m sorry!” She wasn’t sure how to explain. “It’s just this poor plant was left out here and our landscape guy clearly forgot to water it... and that sort of thing makes mefurious. I mean, it relies on us to stay alive, doesn’t it? And we can’t just let it down. It’s a living thing.”
He was watching her, apparently processing this in some inscrutable way.
“Sure,” he said carefully.
If he thought she was a lunatic, so be it.
That might, in fact, be all for the best.
“I’m going to see if I can save it. Will you help me get it into my car, Mr.McCord? I have to get back to work. I’ll give you a lift back to wherever you need to go.”
Another brief hesitation, and then his eyes flashed a sort of wry resignation. “Sure.”
Silently, like a pair of medics on a battlefield, they ferried the failing ficus down the stairs and installed it in her car. The plant got shotgun. J. T. buckled it in.
It reclined like a carefree tourist on holiday.
He was no stranger to manual labor, but honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d been conscripted into it. But then there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for a beautiful woman who turned pleading green eyes on him.
Even if she had just resoundingly rejected him.
Andthatwas still puzzling. He was puzzled less about the rejection, which was rare enough in his life to be at least a little interesting, but about the why of it. Some women found the whole actor/movie star/fame thing a little overwhelming, but he didn’t think that was what was at play here. This woman was both smart and thoughtful and she could hold her own in any kind of debate. She would draw her own conclusions about a person. Lady peanuts or no lady peanuts.
Britt’s car was a blue Ford Contour circa 1990 and one of the rear doors seemed to be tied shut with a rope. He chose the other door and squeezed himself into the backseat and buckled himself in. His knees were practically under his chin.
“Sorry you’re a little squished back there,” she said as she shoved it into reverse and backed away from the cabin. Not sounding terribly sorry.
“Don’t worry about me. I always ride with my knees right under my ears.”
She smiled at that, apparently utterly untroubled that she’d origami’d an Emmy winner into her car.
“Sorry the air-conditioning isn’t the best,” was the next thing she said, about three minutes later. Which was her way for apologizing for the rolled-down windows and the hot air blowing through the car. J. T. was pretty sure he saw a few insects, a dragonfly, and a skeeter hawk pass through the window on one side on their way out the other, like it was some sort of new and convenient insect bypass.
“These aresomewheels,” he said.
She grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “Thanks. So your truck is broken, eh?”
