“Oh, I know.” She tried to get rid of some of the tension trapped inside, but instead of subsiding, it was mounting. Her skin felt hot and her heart was racing. Faster and faster. Still, as she took another sip of her juice, she was damned proud to see that her hand was steady. “I was planning on doing it this week, but it’s like everything known to man has gone wrong. A couple of my employees were sick so I was working shorthanded. Then I had to cover for Grace . . .”
She trailed off and shrugged. “It’s been one thing after another. Endlessly.”
A sly grin curled his lips as he looked at her. “You could call him now.”
“You just want to hear me tell him off,” she said, laughing a little. She’d always suspected Zach hadn’t exactly loved the guy, but she hadn’t realized just how deep his dislike had run. He’d kept it hidden pretty damn well, because she’d never seen it, and she should have.
“Maybe I do.” He shrugged a little and shifted around on the stool, lifting one leg to brace his foot on her stool, while stretching his other out behind her. She could feel the heat of him, he was so close. She felt almost surrounded by him now. “How’s the not worrying thing going?”
A faint smile curled her lips and she shot a look at him. Immediately, her heart flipped over a little in her chest and she had to remind herself just what she was supposed to be doing. Saying . . . he’d asked something . . . oh, yeah. She remembered now. “That’s actually going a little easier. I’m not all keyed up to get to every single thing on the list right away, which is good. There are a few things I wanted to do right away, but I’m not letting it twist me up.”
“Was Roger one of them?”
“Yeah.” She reached for her juice but instead of drinking it, she just braced it between her hands and spun it back and forth, staring down into the glass. “I know what I want to say to him. I have it all jotted down . . .”
“Jotted down.” He started to laugh. “Abby, did you go and make a damned script or something?”
She glared at him.
He just laughed harder.
She shot out a hand and poked him in the ribs. It was like jabbing a hand into a rock wall. “You jackass,” she muttered as he kept on laughing. She shoved a hand against his shoulder and he caught her hand around the wrist. “It wasn’t a script. I just . . . hell. I made notes.”
“Notes . . .” He stroked his thumb over her wrist. “So you made notes. Why haven’t you called him?”
She tugged on her wrist but he didn’t let go. Sighing, she shrugged. “It just hasn’t happened yet. You know . . . Never mind.” She went to slide off the stool, but before she could, the hand on her wrist slid up to her arm.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His thumb stroked against the inside of her arm and the dark blue of his eyes bored into hers, like he could see clear into her soul. “That look on your face isn’t nothing, Abs,” Zach said, his voice a low, soft rumble. “Something’s bothering you.”
She swallowed and stared off past his shoulder. “It’s Roger . . .”
The grip on her arm tightened for just a second and then he tugged her off the stool, into the vee of his legs. Her heart, already racing, jumped up into a gallop that just couldn’t be healthy. That scent of his, all soap and male skin and the detergent he used on his clothes, shot straight to her head. Her mouth started to water and instead of looking up at him, she rested her head on his shoulder. “You can’t keep letting that dickhead twist you up, Abby,” he said, stroking a hand up her back to curve it over the back of her neck.
She wanted to whimper. Instead, she forced herself to talk. “It’s not that. Not exactly.” The last thing she wanted him thinking was that she was still all terribly upset over what had happened with Roger. Logically, she should be but she just wasn’t. “It’s what he said . . . about not being true to myself. I know I don’t want that life back. He’s out of his mind, and I know it. But I