SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,73
searched the crowd again. Would it be as untethering if she returned it to his mother?
Coward, her inner voice said, and then she saw him standing with Grandpop. Three steps in that direction and then she stopped again, her heart beating so fast she thought she’d swallowed a hummingbird. She couldn’t do it, she decided, she just couldn’t do it. Instead, she threw up her arm to get Mad’s attention.
“Putting this in your car,” she called out, waving the tie.
He looked confused but Grandpop said something to him and he glanced toward the older man, clearly torn.
She took advantage of his divided attention and sped off to his SUV. If need be, she’d tuck it beneath his windshield wiper. But the passenger door was open and she held up the tie, ready to drop the silk on the seat.
Do it, she thought. And she did.
But then her fingers tightened on the door, refusing to slam it shut. Damn, why was she hesitating? She’d returned the tie, she’d said her piece. More than her piece.
But a note might be nice. A nice note. Thanks for the memories.
The pen in her purse didn’t have a paper accompaniment. Frowning, she looked about Mad’s car, but the neatnik didn’t have any newspaper or random snack wrapper she could write upon. Frustrated, she yanked open the glove box, then stared at the contents.
After a frozen moment, she snatched the items out and then closed the door in order to stalk back to the pumpkin field. Her temper fired with each step.
Beside the apple cider stand, Mad stood with his back to her. She didn’t let the small crowd surrounding him deter her from tapping him on his shoulder.
He turned, and she shook the items from his glove box in his face. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
His glance shifted from her face to the items then back again. “What?”
“I know I should be grateful, but frankly…” She could feel the angry flush crawling toward her hairline. “You should have returned them to me upon arrival and saved us both the embarrassment of my untimely admission.”
“Your admission didn’t embarrass me in the least, Harp,” he said.
She glared. “Well, I feel enough shame for the both of us.”
“Harp—”
“Do you have any duct tape on you?”
“On me?”
“It’s not in your glove box and not anywhere else in your terminally tidy sport utility vehicle.” When he looked at her uncomprehendingly, she almost stomped her foot. “I need the silver stuff to tape the plates to my car so I can head to Vegas tonight. Now.”
People were beginning to notice, because under distress she lost her ability to moderate the volume of her voice.
“They attach with screws,” Mad said helpfully. “The plates.”
“Well the thief or thieves must have stolen those, too, because I didn’t see any screws where screws are supposed to be.”
One of his hands reached into his front pocket and when he withdrew it, there were small fasteners nestled in the palm.
“Oh. Congratulations,” she said. “You’re quite the detective. Recovered the plates and the screws.”
“I didn’t recover them,” Mad explained. “I stole them myself.”
Harper’s jaw dropped. “What?”
He was nodding, confirming that she’d not been hearing things. “The plates and the screws—on the night I took your bags to your car.”
Mr. Law and Order had committed a crime? “Why?” she asked, reaching for the fastenings.
His hand closed over them. “To give us more time.”
She stared at his fist. “Time for what?” Her volume now was one step down from screeching. “Time for me to fall for you harder so I hurt more when I go?”
“No—”
“That really sucks you know.” Her gaze swung up to his. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Harp.” His knuckles traced the edge of her jaw and his voice turned tender. “You made me fall in love with you, too.”
Her eyes popped wide and the license plates fell to their feet. The hummingbird she swallowed became an entire flock.
“Believe your ears,” he said, addressing her shock with his lips curved in a smile. “You. Me. The in-love thing. It goes both ways.”
“Mad…how…” Any clear thoughts she had left on the breeze.
“I spent a lot of time in the last six years blaming you for all kinds of things, most importantly, my romantic misery, but then you said something to me a few days ago that finally began to sink in.”
“I did? What—what did I say?”
“‘You didn’t ask me to stay.’ You used those words. And the more they ran around in my head, I