I’ll leave the ring to you. But I’ll pay for it.”
“Under fifty dollars. I don’t want to be worrying about losing it or anything.”
“How would you lose it? I thought you were supposed to wear an engagement ring all the time and not take it off.”
“That’s in a real engagement, which this isn’t.”
“Okay…But spend at least a hundred. I don’t want people thinking I’m cheap.” He used the stylus to change screens. “I made a checklist….”
“If you’re that prepared, I would have thought you’d have come up with a better cover story for your fiancée than saying the name of the first woman that came to mind. What did you tell her about me?”
“That you were a bookseller.”
“That’s all?”
“I may have said that you used to be a swimsuit model,” Rad couldn’t resist teasing her.
“You what?”
“Just kidding.”
“I should hope so. No one would believe I was a swimsuit model.”
“Why not?”
“Because real women have curves and I’m a real woman.”
His eyes strolled over her from head to toe. “I had noticed that.”
“I have hips.” She pointed to them as if he needed help locating them.
“Yeah, you do.” He nodded approvingly.
“Swimsuit models never have real hips.”
“I like females with hips. And long legs. And long blond hair and green eyes. In fact, there are a lot of things I like about you.”
His comment made her feel as if she’d swallowed a goldfish. Not that she’d ever done that, but still…
She had this strange fluttery feeling of what…anticipation? Is that what this was? She anticipated the next Harry Potter book, but it didn’t make her all funny inside.
Great. Now she knew what this was. It had just been a while since she’d experienced it, and never to this extreme. This was sexual attraction. This was her hormones leaping up and yelling yes, yes, yes, come to momma.
This was her inner-female responding to all that yummy male testosterone wrapped up in Rad’s six-foot-plus body.
Serena firmly ordered her hormones to shut up. She could not afford to be ruled by sex here. She needed to be a savvy businesswoman. To be practical. To be Serena Serious. “You don’t know me at all.” There, that was a practical, factual statement, even if she had delivered it in a too-breathy voice. Since when had she started sounding like Marilyn Monroe at Kennedy’s birthday party?
“But I want to get to know you,” Rad murmured. “And I need to if we’re going to pull this off. Tell me what I should know.”
“That I don’t think this is going to work,” she muttered. Not if leaping hormones got in the way.
“Of course it will work. We just need to do some prep work. Winning any battle is predicated on good recon and accurate intel ahead of time. I know you’re a bookseller, and the Realtor told me you’ve been here a year. That’s all I know.”
“I’ll write you a brief bio tonight then you can enter it in your PDA.”
He shut the hi-tech device down and turned his full attention to her. “Some things are unforgettable. Forget writing the bio. Have dinner with me instead and we can work out the details while we eat. I know a good seafood place down on the beach. Unless you have other plans?”
“I suppose it would be a good idea to get our stories straight.” That was her practical side speaking.
“Affirmative.”
There, that was his military voice. Not his bossy military voice, just the crisp tones. Crisp was good. She could handle crisp. She could even do crisp herself. “Okay, then.”
It wasn’t okay when she nearly tripped over the long skirt of her dress when he handed her into his car a few minutes later. You’d think she’d never gotten into a silver gray Corvette before.
And you’d be right. She’d never gotten into a Corvette of any color before. The men she tended to date drove sensible cars like four-door sedans. Buicks or Oldsmobiles. Not low-slung race cars.
She was surprised and pleased to discover that Rad didn’t drive as if he were trying out for the Indy 500. He showed no sign of road rage when a car filled with teenagers cut him off or when an older driver pulled in front of him and barely went the speed limit.
Twenty minutes later, Serena was seated at a table with an ocean view and a huge plate loaded with fresh steamed shrimp. The place wasn’t fancy. The tablecloths were red-checked oilcloth instead of white linen. But the food smelled heavenly and the view was great. White-topped waves tossed their frothy manes as they landed upon the smooth beach with rhythmic regularity.
“This is nice.”
Rad nodded. “You’ve never been here before?”
Serena shook her head.
“You’re not originally from around here, are you? No accent,” he added.
“I’m from all over. Mostly east coast although we lived in Indianapolis for a year when I was eight.”
“Are you an army brat? You said your dad had been out of the military for a while now.”
“He left the army when I was ten.” Her crisp tone of voice made it clear that she didn’t welcome any further discussion on that topic.
“What made you decide to settle here?”
“My best friend lives here. We were college roommates our freshman year at UNCW, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. I came to visit her for her wedding several years ago and liked the area. I’m an ocean person, so I like being on the coast.”
“I know what you mean. My older brother Striker has a beach house out on Pirate’s Cove. It’s a little island off the coast. I get over there as often as I can when he’s not using the place. Since he’s moved to San Antonio, it’s vacant a lot of the time.”
“Is he a Marine as well?”
“He’s in the reserves. Most of his time these days is spent running King Oil and chasing after his baby son. He’s as smart as a tree full of owls, to quote my Texan brother.”
“Did you grow up in Texas?”
“No, although I did spend a summer or two there. Like you I grew up all over. My dad was a Marine, he’s retired now. All my other brothers are Marines.”
“All? How many are there?”
