Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,23
sexy laugh.
“That would be awesome!” Drew said.
“We won’t all fit in the Range Rover with the fishing gear.” Lauren glanced between Sav and Glen. “You two could car pool. No point in taking three vehicles.”
Glen looked at Sav with a raised eyebrow. “Think you could handle riding shotgun with me.”
“Do you know how to drive on the beach, city boy?”
“Attacking his manliness, Sav—that’s harsh.” Nate hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and grinned.
“I’m sure Glen’s ego can cope.”
Glen showed her his teeth. “So long as yours can fit in my SUV.”
“Bazinga.” Nate pulled Drew over his head, flipping him into a summersault before lowering him to the ground.
Lauren flicked the three of them warning glances and took her son’s hand. “Let’s get the toolbox from the back of the Range Rover for Daddy to fix Daisy’s awning.”
Lauren and Drew strolled across the grass, and the open adoration in Nate’s gaze made Sav’s heart clench, both in happiness for her cousin but also with a tiny smidgen of envy. No one had ever looked at her like that.
Once Lauren and Drew were out of earshot, Nate cocked his finger at Glen and then her. “Since you’ve come to this weird stalemate of being neighbors, you could at least try to be civil.”
Sav jutted out a hip and tilted her chin. They’d only be neighbors temporarily.
“Fishing will be a good opportunity to blow off some steam,” Nate said. “You’re both wound waaay too tight.”
Something inside her was coiled like an overwound watch spring, and it cranked a notch tighter when Glen’s gaze dropped to her mouth and back up again.
“Unlike you, dear cousin, and also my unwanted tenant, I have deadlines to meet—career-changing deadlines—and I don’t have time to blow off steam.”
The warmth vanished from Glen’s eyes. “And my deadline isn’t important?”
Sav snuffed a flicker of unease and shrugged. She had no idea if Glen was on a deadline or if he was just one of many people who thought they had a book in them somewhere. He was a lawyer, living in a fancy townhouse in a nice part of the city. He had job security that didn’t rely on whether crow’s feet appeared in an extreme close up. Sorry, but rainbow-farting unicorns just weren’t as urgent as her audition.
Glen snorted and walked back toward the house. “We’ll head off after I give Nate a hand with your awning.”
“The civil thing needs work, huh?” Nate said as Glen disappeared inside.
“I don’t want him civil. I want him gone.”
Savannah made a beeline for Daisy to get changed—before Nate could guess the truth. Nothing about the reaction Glen stirred in her, physically or emotionally, was civil.
***
Riding with Glen was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.
Savannah knew it the moment she climbed into his vehicle and slammed the door. Trapped with a man who filled the small space with the drool-worthy scent of clean guy. He hulked next to her in black board shorts and an ancient The Lord of the Rings tee.
Can anyone say claustrophobia? Or maybe androphobia—the fear of men. No, that wasn’t quite right, either. Glenophobia. She was Glenophobic in the sense she had an irrational, persistent dislike of the man, not because she was afraid. At least, not afraid in the normal sense of the word, and so, she didn’t need to be snuffling up delicious man-smell for the duration of this uncomfortable trip. She tucked herself into the corner of the passenger seat and buzzed down the window.
The only thing that made the thirty-minute drive to the beach bearable was the utter silence. Sav mentally ran through her lines while staring out the window at the green foliage blasting past as they wound their way down the hill to the wide-open sprawl of Bounty Bay.
Thwack-thwack-thwack. She flicked the flip-flop dangling off her toes against the sole of her foot over and over, her peripheral vision catching Glen’s glance at her legs, bare to the frayed hem of her worn-soft Daisy Dukes. She tugged her loose cotton shirt closer over her swimsuit and folded her arms. Glen cleared his throat and lowered his window, the fresh, salt-scented breeze flicking strands of her ponytail into her mouth.
Ahead, Nate’s Range Rover signaled and turned onto the concrete beach ramp. A few other cars drove slowly along the hard-packed sand, avoiding the paler, soft sand near the dunes. Glen followed, elbow resting on the open sill, steering with easy confidence.
They drove past kids boogie boarding in the shallows, and farther