barely hid the tat, the standard barbed-wired, around the upper part of my arm. “Good to know. So where are you taking me? What is it you think is so special about this place?”
I gave her a look. “I grew up in San Diego or the general area. Yes, I’ve been here.”
“All right, all right, I was just making sure. I thought there was a chance you spent your days in a dark dungeon.”
She was making a joke. Teasing me. That was definitely different than the other women I dated. I quickly reminded myself it wasn’t a date. It was—hell, I didn’t know what it was. “I suppose you want to walk through the shops and stuff?”
“I was thinking we could go on a short walk and then to the Japanese Garden first,” she said with way too much enthusiasm. “I love going there. It is absolutely beautiful. Have you been before?”
My brain felt like it had just been tossed on a hamster wheel. I was trying to keep up with the onslaught of talking. “Yes.”
“Great! Then I won’t have to explain every little thing.”
She was already on the move. I took a second to check out her ass in the shorts she was wearing. The shorts weren’t the booty shorts that had the cheeks hanging out. They were a respectable length that showed off plenty of leg without being too much. She was wearing a pretty pair of sandals with little jewels on the straps. The sandals showed off her toes that were painted with a bright red polish. The shirt she wore was fitted around the waist and flowing in the middle with massive shoulder cut-outs. Her long black hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She was beautiful.
“Are we in a race?” I asked.
She stopped walking and turned to look behind her. “Your legs are twice as long as mine are. Keep up.”
My brows shot up. She was a bossy thing. “What exactly are we doing here?”
“We are enjoying the beauty of the world we live in.”
“Why?”
“Because we can,” she shot back. “Are you always this obstinate?”
“I suppose I am. Are you always this pushy?”
She laughed again. “I am.”
“Why me?” I asked the question that had been on my mind all night. “Why are you insisting I come enjoy life with you? I’m not the most personable man.”
“You’ve got that right,” she said.
“Then why me?”
She let out a long sigh, slowing her pace to fall in line with me. “Because I see a man in need of saving.”
“Saving from what?”
“Yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are fine, but you are not great,” she answered. “I guess I can’t walk away from a project. I see a man in need of a boost. A man that needs to see the brighter side of things.”
“I see things just fine,” I replied.
“You see things in black and white and maybe a hint of gray, I suspect.”
We kept walking, finding an easy pace that allowed us to talk without sprinting. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if you are at work or working on a project. I am a very black and white girl Monday through Saturday. Sunday, I like to see color.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“It means on Sundays, I like to come here. If I don’t have a job on Saturday, I will take the whole weekend and go up the coast. I love to get out in nature and recharge. Nature is the place that reminds me how lucky I am to be alive. I need the color. I need the lively activity of nature. It’s like a reset once a week.”
“You work six days a week?” I asked.
“Most of the time. Sometimes, I take a Monday or Tuesday off, but during our busy season, it is usually six days.”
I slowly nodded, having a newfound respect for her and the work she did. “I had no idea a party planner worked that hard.”
She made a choking sound. “We work our asses off.”
“Where are we going?” I asked when I noticed she wasn’t taking the usual route to the garden.
“I wanted to show you something,” she answered.
“If this was reversed, me taking you to some off-the-beaten-path place, it would be the premise of a horror film.”
She laughed as she started to walk a little faster. “I promise I will not violate your body in any way.”
“Too bad,” I mumbled under my breath.
Her head whipped around to look at me. “My goodness—” She stopped talking. “I get that you want privacy and you