more space than their share drove me crazy in school. Right now, though? Wade is giving me a lesson in the benefits of muscles.
“Might have to work on that one,” he says with a smile.
“You’re strong.” I think my heart might have stopped beating, or maybe I just stopped breathing.
He winks. “Hockey player.”
Catching my hand in his, he walks backward, pulling me along with him toward the store. That smile as firmly in place as the eye contact he’s not giving up.
It’s another novel experience. Uncomfortable and a little electric all at once.
“You want to look away. I can see it,” he teases in a low, singsong voice. “Bet you can’t make it all the way inside.”
“Oh, I can make it inside,” I assure him, my own smile rising to the challenge.
I’m not afraid of eye contact. In business, I have no qualms about meeting a man’s eyes, and I can say with some degree of certainty I’m rarely the one to blink first. And never because I’m intimidated.
But with Wade, it’s different. None of those business associates offered the undercurrent of smolder in their smiles that Wade Grady seems incapable of shutting down in his.
He pushes through the front door and grins. “You win.” Then, when I think he’s going to let my hand go, he changes the hold so our fingers are threaded together and leads me toward the coolers. “Let’s grab a drink.”
When we get back to the car, me with an iced tea and Wade with some jacked-up water drink, I shake my head. “I can do better.”
He pulls my door open and helps me up. “You did fine. Don’t get in your own head.”
I scoff, waiting until he rounds the hood and climbs in on his side. “That was a seventy percent. At best.”
Wade’s face does something weird and horror seeps into my voice. “Sixty?”
This time he turns to me. “Are you… grading yourself?”
I blink. Feel the familiar burn of embarrassment crawling up my neck and into my cheeks. My arms cross and I sit straighter. “What if I am?”
He reaches for my crossed arms, using a single finger and that smile to pry them loose. Then he leans in, again getting close enough to my ear that I can feel the teasing warmth of his breath. “That was a solid eighty-five. And with another pit stop or two, you’ll be acing this.”
“Sweet-talker,” I say, relaxing into my seat.
“Next exit’s in seven miles.” He starts the truck with a wink and heads back toward the highway. “So I’m guessing you’re the girl who always blew the bell curve, huh?”
I grin, not even trying to hide it. “You know it.”
Chapter 5
Wade
A few hours later, I turn off on Prairie Lane and follow the gravel road back through the trees, passing the first two mailboxes before making a left at the third. The crush of gravel welcomes me even before the trees open up enough to see the house.
“Dad loves to take care of the yard. And Mom’s got some pride over those flowerbeds. If you want to butter them up, that’s the way to do it.”
Clicking her tongue, she shoots me a withering glare. “Now I’m going to feel dirty when I compliment them. And for the record, I would have done it on my own.”
Leaving the joke about feeling dirty untouched, I pull in next to Walt’s Ranger where the drive widens for a turnabout. When I lived at home, he and I shared a beat-up truck that didn’t have privileges in the attached two-car garage, so we parked in the open space on the side.
It’s empty now, but too much to hope it will stay that way.
Shit. I’m an asshole for even thinking that.
When I don’t get out of the truck, Harlow touches my hand. “You sure you want to do this? Lie to your family? It’s not too late to back out. Tell them I broke up with you in the driveway. Honestly, it would be fine.”
I grin at her. “No way. You’re stuck with me. Unless you need to bail.”
Please don’t need to bail.
She huffs a quiet laugh. “No quitter here.”
“Okay, then.” Wrapping my finger with one of those dark ribbons of silk, I give it a gentle tug. Harlow’s lashes lower and she gives me the kind of coy smile that is some serious grade-A work. “They’re probably already watching out the window. But once I open this door, guaranteed, we’re going to have less than twenty seconds before the Gradys