Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,37

she got back and walked over to him.

She spied the bills on the table. “I told you I’d pay for mine.”

“Forget it,” he insisted, his tone brusque to match his attitude. “Are you ready to go? Because I’m leaving.”

He didn’t plan to walk out and leave her here, not now that he knew just how closely the table full of men had been watching her. But he didn’t need her to know that.

“Sure,” she said, blinking in surprise at his here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry attitude.

He didn’t enlighten her. Telling her what the nosy softball player at the next table had said would only open up a conversation he really didn’t want to have. The only reason he’d need to know if she was available was if he intended to sleep with her.

He didn’t.

Right?

They walked outside to the parking lot. While they’d been inside, the early signs of a storm had blown in. This area didn’t get a whole lot of rain, and what it got usually came in the winter. But sometimes the spring brought wicked storms and it looked like they would have one tonight. The air was wildly alive, with gusts that had the trees bouncing and a whistling sound coming from under the eaves of the building.

Instead of tightening her jacket, ducking against the weather and racing to her car, Candace tilted her head back, smiled and closed her eyes. She apparently liked the feel of the wind battering her body. Liking it, too, he understood. There was something freeing about being in a climate so variable and elemental. L.A. and San Diego were pretty standard all year round—sunny, warm, beautiful. In the winter and spring months he’d been up here, he’d realized you couldn’t really count on anything. You never knew when the winds would change and the air would crackle with electric excitement.

“I love this,” she said, raising her voice to be heard.

“I can tell.”

The gusts kept catching wispy strands of her honey-brown hair, blowing them across her face. She didn’t even try tucking them behind her ears or restraining the long curls. The longer they stood outside, the more primal and tangled it became. She was beautiful, sultry, exotic...he had a sudden image of being back at the estate with her, outside, naked, letting the wind batter them as they came together in an explosion as powerful as a spring storm.

Unable to take it anymore, he looked away, not wanting to be utterly entranced by the wild, erotic picture she presented, all windblown and sexy, with her lips moist and parted in exhilaration as she breathed in the cool night air.

“It’s going to break over us pretty soon,” he said. “And it won’t be a fun drive once it starts pouring. We should go.”

Her shoulders slumped. “All right.”

When they reached her rental car, she said, “It seems like a good night to stay inside. Maybe I could pay you back for dinner by picking up some candy and popcorn for our home movie night?”

He frowned. “It’s late.” It wasn’t that late, maybe ten o’clock. Ten minutes ago he might have leaped at the chance. But the fact that he didn’t know enough about her had been hammered home by the jock inside.

“Tomorrow maybe?”

“I don’t know if I’ll have time for that before you leave.”

Disappointment flashed across her face. “Oh.”

Part of him wanted to take it back, especially seeing the flash of hurt in her eyes. But it was better this way. Better that he put the walls firmly in place again. She’d be gone in a week, returning to her life and her...whoever the guy on the phone had been. Buddy would be home. Oliver would descend back into his self-imposed purgatory. Everything would be as it should. Hell, maybe once he’d gotten his shit together, he’d go back to L.A. and look her up. Find out if she was single or not. But who knew when that would be?

“Well, thanks for dinner,” she said as she got into her car. She wasn’t meeting his eyes. Embarrassed? Angry? He wasn’t sure.

Muttering, “You’re welcome,” he pushed the door shut. He strode to his own truck, not turning around as she revved up her car’s engine, threw it in gear and tore out of the parking lot like she had a dragon on her tail.

Okay, so she was angry.

Hell.

It’s better this way, he reminded himself.

Somehow, though, he didn’t feel better. In fact, he felt like crap. Crappy enough that, rather than heading right for the Sonoma Highway and home,