Page 97 of You Found Me
Someone else’s cooking, he guessed.
“I don’t know what I did wrong!” Della shouted over the relentless blaring. “The recipe said bake for forty minutes. It’s only been ten.”
“What temperature?”
“Three fifty.” Della stopped waving at the smoke detector and glared at it instead. “Doesn’t this thing ever shut up?”
“Give it another minute or two. It’ll reset.” He checked the settings. “You have it on broil, not bake.”
She blinked at him. “That’s not the same thing?”
“No.” He turned off the oven. “And you managed to set the clock, not the temperature.”
The siren stuttered to a stop, leaving them in blissful silence.
“Finally.” She stuck out her tongue at it, then dropped the magazine on the counter. “So…can I interest you in some broiled, slightly blackened, probably raw chicken?”
His lips twitched, then stretched into a laugh.
“You’re laughing at me.” She put her hands on her hips. “I made you lunch and you’re laughing at me.”
“That’s what that was?”
She wrinkled her nose at the chicken charcoal. “Sadly, yes.”
He jumped on the excuse to escape the stench and the temptations. “Let’s go out.”
Della looked relieved. “Good idea. Where? Sevens? I still haven’t tried the meatloaf.”
“It’s your day off. Let’s go somewhere you’ve never been.”
Yeah, sure, said an inner voice that sounded a lot like Annie.That’s why you want to go. It’s definitely not because you like seeing her smile.
She raised her eyebrows. “Interesting. And easy enough since I haven’t been many places around here. Where are we going? Should I change?”
“You might want to get a jacket.” It would cover up that damn shoulder. “I’ll grab a quick shower, and we can get out of here.” He started up the stairs. “Wear the boots.”
“Okay,” she drew the word out. He thought he heard her say, “Boots. Because every nice meal needs heavy footwear.”
He chuckled, then stripped to take yet another cold shower.
The place he took her was a thirty-minute drive and a million miles away from stalkers, stages, and screaming smoke detectors. The winding road stretched across rolling hills and acres of ripening corn.
“It’s really beautiful out here,” Della said. “I used to love it when we toured by bus because the view was constantly changing. You really can’t see how pretty a place is from a plane.”
“Sure you can. Just a different perspective.”
“I guess.”
They passed a small sign that read “Hellerick Farms Next Right.”
“You’re taking me to a farm?” Della glanced at him. “Are we going to a tractor pull?”
“You’ll see.” He didn’t know why he was teasing her. This wasn’t a date.
He shifted in his seat, fully aware of how delusional that thought was. This had stopped being a protection detail a week ago when he’d watched her drop that tray of mugs.
His first impulse hadn’t been to stay on the sidelines to watch for threats.