Page 27 of With This Ring

She shook her head. “It’s fine.”

“Take the book, Dakota. I insist.”

She pushed it back toward him. “No, I insist you keep it.”

“I can ask the store to order me another copy. It’s yours.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “No, I’m good.”

“Stop being ridiculous andtakethe book.”

Dakota grabbed it, and he slipped the copy ofHideback onto the shelf before retreating to the next aisle. He located another author he enjoyed, chose a few books, and headed to the cashier.

As he turned the corner, he almost ran right into Dakota, who was holding the copies ofHideandThe Obsessionin one hand and her phone in the other. She met his gaze, and her body went rigid.

He made a sweeping gesture toward the cashier. “After you.”

She shook her head. “Afteryou.”

“I insist.”

She lifted her chin. “Iinsist.”

“Nope.” He took two steps to his left and made another sweeping motion toward the cashier. “After you.”

The skin between her eyes pinched, and he could almost feel her irritation coming off her in waves. He was getting under her skin.

Good!

He worked to stop his lips from tipping up in a grin.

“Fine,” Dakota muttered. She pursed her lips and took her place in line behind a woman holding a plastic shopping basket full of paperbacks, each featuring a ridiculously muscular man in desperate need of a shirt.

“Sorry about that,” Dakota murmured into the phone. “I’ll explain it to you tonight. So what did Gigi say to Brice’s mom?” She listened for a moment and then laughed.

Hudson tried to pass the time by reading the blurbs on the backs of the three suspense novels he had picked. When it was her turn, Dakota walked up to the cash register, quickly paid for the books, and thanked the cashier before fleeing the store without looking back at him.

Buh-bye.

He had almost thanked her for the suspicious coffee shop gift card, but he’d been having too much fun irritating her.

Hudson set the books on the counter and paid for them before stepping back outside and into the warm afternoon sun.

Hopefully that would be his last awkward run-in with Dakota for the week. Or maybe even the next three weeks.

At least, he could hope.

***

“Let’s try skating from one end of the rink to the other.” Dakota clapped her hands from the middle of the rink at the Flowering Grove Rollerama. “Who’s ready?” she asked the kids’ class.

“Me! Me! Me!” Gigi waved both arms in the air, and Dakota grinned. Kayleigh’s six-year-old daughter was a near-expert skater who loved to participate in their classes, usually acting as a mentor to the other children. Tonight she was dressed in an ’80s-inspired rainbow-themed t-shirt and pink jeans, with matching fluorescent pink ribbons on her curly blond pigtails.

Dakota had stayed past midnight on Friday to help decorate the rink, which was now adorned with streamers, inflatable boom boxes and cassette tapes, musical notes, neon balloons, giant Rubik’s Cubes, and banners illustrated like walls of graffiti.

Anissa Wallace, Gavin and Jeannie’s daughter, was also wearing fluorescent clothes. She raised her hand and said, “I’m ready too.”

The other half dozen children agreed.