he smell good? Guys like that usually smell good. Not like actors. They only smell like sweat, coffee and cigarettes.”
Annie merely grunted. How could Tara continue to yank her chain—which she was, with these intentionally ridiculous questions—when Annie was so anxious?
She still couldn’t believe the way it had gone down. She’d practically ordered a stranger to spend a weekend with a bunch of other strangers at a real farm a few hours outside of the city. Even more shocking, he hadn’t laughed in her face or run in the opposite direction.
Sure, one of his brows had shot up somewhere in the vicinity of his black hairline, and he’d been speechless for a few moments. Then, with a twinkle in those beautiful blue eyes—yes, they were really that amazing violet-blue reflected in the picture—he’d simply murmured, “Very well,” taken the business card she offered him and bid her goodnight.
As if it was all set. Easy breezy.
And completely freaking insane.
“He’ll stand me up.”
“Could you tell if that tux was designer-made? It sure looked like it from the back of the room.”
“He’s booking a trip to Siberia as we speak.”
“He’s tall, right? He looked tall.”
“Rather than giving me the rest of this week to prepare myself to show up alone, he’s going to leave me hanging—hoping—then stand me up on Saturday. I’ll be brain-dead from stressing out about it and won’t be able to invent a single excuse, like that my guy is on a top secret military mission to Hungary or something.”
“Are we at war with Hungary?”
“I hate that you’re laughing at me,” Annie said, shooting Tara a glare, fully aware that her friend had been tormenting her intentionally.
Tara finally grinned and stopped harassing her. “For heaven’s sake, will you stop it already? He said he’d be there. He’ll be there. Why would he stand you up?”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe because he looks like he’s never heard the word farm in his life and doesn’t have a clue that the filet mignon he enjoyed for dinner last night once wore a cowbell?”
Tara, the vegetarian—this month—threw a hand up in protest and made a retching sound.
“Sorry.”
Reaching the garage, they got on the elevator to go up to the fourth level. As they ascended, Annie continued to imagine all the excuses Sean Murphy would make for not showing up. She couldn’t think of a single reason he would show—despite how nice his kisses had been. And despite those sensual words and his even more sensual expression when he’d talked about their chemistry. She was almost swearing by the time they reached level two.
“I should have just seduced him. Got a night of good sex out of it, rather than expecting him to come meet the family.”
“Heck, yes!”
Annie glared at her friend. “Do I look that easy?”
“No, you don’t look it, but for a man like that, honey, the Pope’s mama would be easy.”
“I blew it,” Annie murmured, not wanting to get into a how-sexy-he-is conversation with Tara, knowing it would surely lead to an oh-the-man-has-a-great-kiss conversation, which she really didn’t want to have right now.
Those two kisses belonged to her and her alone.
Tara put a hand on her arm, lightly. “Stop, Annie. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d go back on his word.”
“Neither did Blake.”
If Tara’s green eyes could have spewed flames at will, they would have been firing at the very mention of Annie’s ex’s name. “I have never even met this auction guy, but I’m insulted on his behalf that you’d even consider comparing him with that lying, cheating, womanizing slime bucket.”
Sighing in remorse, Annie nodded. “You’re right. Sean seemed like a decent guy.” An incredibly handsome—almost magnetic—decent guy. And, judging from his bio, a heroic one, too. He was a paramedic. Saving people’s lives—not trying to recklessly destroy them, as Blake had done to her.
Frankly, the man seemed like no one she’d ever known. “I shouldn’t cast judgments. Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble.”
“I’m sure you are. Now, tell me everything else about him.” Tara wasn’t teasing this time. She wanted the scoop.
“You saw him.”
“From a distance. They wouldn’t let us losers enter the cocktail party.” Tara wrinkled her nose. “Junior League Nazis.”
“Well, he is tall.”
“Figured that much, honey. Give me something good.”
“He’s got a pierced ear and it’s totally sexy.” Even though she’d never imagined one would be.
Tara shrugged, unimpressed. Then again, she didn’t read romance novels like Annie did, so she probably wouldn’t get the instant gold-earring-long-black-hair pirate fantasy that had immediately gone through Annie’s mind when she’d seen him up close.
“More.”
“He has an amazing voice.”
“Throaty? Like, talk-dirty-to-me voice?”
She shook her head as they exited the elevator and approached her minivan, parked halfway down the center aisle on this almost-deserted level. Annie tugged her small evening bag tighter against her side, sweeping a thorough, assessing stare around the shadowy recesses of the garage.
Despite what her family might think about her being unsafe in the “big bad city” after being raised in a nursery-rhyme town come to life, Annie knew how to handle herself. She clenched her keys in her hands, the longest, sharpest ones between her fingers, and suspected Tara’s fingers were resting lightly on the small can of mace she always carried.
What a couple of Charlie’s Angels. If a thug with a knife approached, they’d probably both toss him their purses and run like hell back toward the elevator. Frankly, that was the smart thing to do.
But for some sicko who wanted more than a purse? Well, the keys-as-spikes and mace were basic necessities when living in the city. Besides, she liked to at least think she was tough, if only to avoid letting her family’s constant worries that she wasn’t get her down.
They’d predicted robbery, rape, mugging…nearly everything except mutilation when she’d informed them she was heading for Chicago, fresh off the farm, after four years of commuting to a small, local college. In the five years since she’d arrived, she’d had her purse snatched, and her first apartment burglarized. Twice.
But otherwise, she’d managed to avoid getting herself murdered and proving them all right, which would have prompted the ultimate—if tearful—“I told you so”
