them in the water. “What are you doing out here?” she demanded. “I thought you had plans.”
He’d turned enough that his face was clearly visible in the moonlight, and Babette noticed one sandy brow inch upward. Damn, she’d said too much.
“What made you think I had plans, Babette?”
“You always have plans,” she said, and it sounded like a pathetic response even to her, so she promptly reverted to the previous subject. “And why are you out here sneaking up on me?”
“I didn’t intend to sneak up on you. I had no idea you were here,” he said, then before she could argue, he added, “I mean in the cove. I knew you were in Destin, but I didn’t know you were in the cove.” He ran a hand through his hair, and Babette forced her eyes not to venture toward his biceps, flexing with the action. “I went for a walk and ended up here,” he explained. “I wasn’t looking for you.”
Unfortunately, his explanation only reminded Babette that she was quite irritated over his apathy toward her visit and her purpose, to get him back with Kitty. “Why haven’t you been looking for me, if you knew I was here and needing to talk to you? You had to know I was trying to catch you at the condo!”
“Maybe because I knew what you were going to talk to me about, and I’m not interested. You’re wasting your time, Babette, so you might as well go home.”
Go home? Go—home? “Not in this life. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it.”
“You can’t play Love Doctor for me, so you might as well give Kitty back her money. Go home, Babette.”
No way. She was not giving Kitty back her money; she needed that money. And she was going to do her job. The Love Doctor was the first thing she’d done right in a very long time. It was the only thing that she’d actually stuck to for more than eight weeks, the only thing she’d wanted to stick to for more than eight weeks, and she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel because Jeff was telling her to go home. Nothing was going to stop her from making this work. “I’m not going home until you at least talk to me about giving her another chance.”
“Not happening.”
“Why not?” Babette was frustrated that she hadn’t noticed any body language signals when he mentioned Kitty. She should’ve been concentrating on those, instead of on the man. She’d have to watch that throughout the remainder of her stay.
“Nope. It’s my turn for questions now,” he said. “Why were you out here walking on this section of the beach at night by yourself? You’re smarter than that, and you weren’t even paying attention. I walked up, and you didn’t even see or hear me, and I’m not exactly on the small side.”
Oh no, he wasn’t small; in height, at six-foot-two, or in other areas, which she suddenly remembered with extreme clarity. She was glad that they only had moonlight illuminating them now, or else he’d know that she was blushing. She casually moved her hand to her face to disguise the potential change of hue. Then she remembered the body language interpretation of her hand on her face, that she wanted him to touch her there, and she jerked her hand away.
He noticed. “Babette, are you okay?”
“I was fine until you sneaked up on me.”
“You’re lucky that it was me. What if it hadn’t been me that came up on you out here like that?” He was standing rather awkwardly, she noticed, and she rather triumphantly remembered her heel to the crotch.
She looked at him, there, and asked, “Did I hit paydirt?”
“Not enough to make my voice higher, but yeah, you were close enough to make me reconsider my approach in the future.”
She smirked. “What did you expect?”
“I expected you to recognize my voice. I didn’t expect you to attack.”
“You should’ve said my name sooner.”
“Like I said, I thought you’d recognize me, and I did say your name.”
She shrugged. “Not before I got a heel to your jewels.”
“I said you were close. It wasn’t a direct hit.”
“I’d have gotten it right the second time.”
He smiled, white teeth glistening in the moonlight, and her mind tripped over another time when he smiled at her in the moonlight, and in this cove. “There wouldn’t have been a second time.”
“Says you.”
He stepped closer, so close that Babette’s chest tightened, and he asked