He grabs a chip from the basket between us and bites into it. The crunch sounds final. But I’m not done, not remotely close to it.
“What information? Where is it? When do I get it back?” I look at the door, grabbing my purse as I slide toward the edge of the booth. “Let’s go get it now.”
Quick as a flash, Connor reaches across the table, placing his hand over mine. The touch of his skin against mine is electric, and I freeze, my body tingling with the sensation. It’s just my hand, but the way he makes me feel, I can’t move. “No. We’re not going anywhere. Not yet.”
I swallow back the shock, searching his face through narrowed eyes. “What? Why?”
Connor releases my hand, his lips twitching up in a half smile. “Anyone ever tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”
“More people than you can imagine,” I reply with a snort. “Better ones than you, too.” The dig is a leftover snipe from our earlier fight popping back up because I’m desperate to get my laptop back and lashing out.
But Connor doesn’t take the bait. “Don’t doubt that a bit.”
Well, that didn’t get the reaction I wanted. “Look, Connor. Whatever I need to do, wherever we need to go, can we please get to it?”
“We are.”
“What?” I snap. Connor looks at me, one brow lifted in expectation. It’s then that it all clicks together.
“It’s here, isn’t it? My laptop is here!” I say.
“Shh,” he shushes me. “And no. But the new owner is.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t ‘say’ that so much as shout it. At least one table looks over at us, a woman giving me a strange look before going back to her conversation with her tablemate. Quieter, I say, “Where?”
“Calm down first,” he orders. I do my best, curling in and pressing my hands into my lap, but I’m buzzing with energy and hope, bouncing in the seat. “That’ll do, I guess,” he says sarcastically. “My contact gave it to his kid who’s at work.”
Connor gestures to the restaurant around us, and it makes sense now. I could so kiss him, and not just in a ‘let’s get it on’ sort of way. At the least, I wish he were still holding my hand, but when he lays his down on the table, one over the other, I clasp mine in my lap.
Looking around, everyone in the room suddenly becomes the potential possessor of my laptop. Connor said ‘at work’, so it’s probably one of the staff. But all I see is a couple of waitstaff and one bored looking girl standing behind the cash register, examining her nails.
“What’s his name?” I demand, ready to pat down search everyone in the restaurant if I have to. I said I’d do anything, and I well and truly meant it. Though maybe paying a ransom would be preferable to kidnapping or assault?
Hmm, I wonder if that would be a good plot arc for my story? Maybe my hero has to rescue the heroine after she’s kidnapped? It is called Trouble in Great Falls, so that would track.
Now that I’m so close to getting it back, my writer’s block seems to have totally crumbled, and all I can think of are story possibilities. Maybe even ideas for a third book? I open my mouth to say something to Connor but stop when a waitress walks up and asks, “Welcome, what can I get you to drink?”
Connor smiles at her, his face transforming as he does. “Two waters, please. And can you tell Manuel I’m here? He’s expecting me.”
The congenial smile and the polite tone are completely unlike the Connor I know. The waitress smiles back at him like I’m not sitting right here, and a very unexpected flash of jealousy surges inside me.
Pointedly, I lay my hand over his and stoically tell the waitress, “Us. Manuel is expecting us.”
If I could piss on Connor to claim him as my territory, I would. But it seems unneeded because the waitress’s smile falls at the obvious rebuff.
“Sure. Two waters and Manuel, coming right up.” She scurries away, and Connor smirks at me.
“Jealous.”
As much as I ask question after question, Connor never does. He states facts, opinions, and sometimes opinions as facts.
“Well, you are my fiancé,” I tease with an innocent blink of my lashes. “I’m not letting any rando bat her eyes at my man.”
“Don’t remind me,” he says, but there’s a tiny twinkle in his eye. Or at