Page 39 of No More Hiding

End of story and the last time he’d thought of a woman...until now.

He parked in Vivian’s driveway. He had no idea what the house looked like inside. He’d never gone in, having stayed outside with Sammie the whole time. She’d told him no to his help with the dishes after their meal.

She was opening the door before he got to the front porch and then came down the front steps. Guess he wasn’t going to see her place now either. Could she be hiding something in there? He had to stop. His job made him too suspicious at times.

“You’re early,” she said.

“Better than being late. I’ve been that before too,” he said. “And you look nice.”

She was wearing a pair of light peach pants. They looked like colored jeans that fit her like a second skin. Her top was white, and on her feet she had a pair of floral flats. She was tall for a woman, probably five foot eight, but still a half a foot shorter than him.

“Thank you. I don’t often get to wear light colors or nice things at work. Too much of a risk of them getting ruined.”

“I don’t have a lot of nice clothes. No reason to when I’m only impressing myself and now Sammie.”

That was a stupid thing to say that he wished he could have taken back.

She laughed though and then made her way to his SUV and climbed in. “Did you want to impress me?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No,” she said.

“Okay. I’m afraid if I say yes you’ll think I’m trying too hard. If I say no and act all cool and cocky—” He paused when she burst out laughing and the shot to his masculinity was hit with lethal precision.

“Oh dear. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it as an insult and I can see it on your face. I’m laughing because you really do overthink things. I thought I was the only one that did that.”

“Obviously not,” he said. “So I’ll blurt out what I was going to. Yeah, I’d like to impress you because I don’t think I’ve done that great of a job of it. Or maybe it’s more like the need to redeem myself.”

“You’re rusty. I get it. We both are. I think it adds to your charm.”

“I’m not sure anyone has ever said I was charming before.”

They drove the few miles to Murphy’s. At least he’d looked it up beforehand. “Have you been here before?” she asked.

“No. I didn’t even know about this place, but it looks to have been around for years.”

“One of my clients suggested it.”

“You were talking about me at work?” he asked. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about that.

“Cat caught my facial expressions over our text exchange on Wednesday. She said only a man could cause them.”

“Do I want to know what that means?” he asked, looking at her as he parked at the pub.

“There was a wide range of confusion, laughter and smiling,” she said.

“That’s good, right? Maybe not the confusion part, but I’m thinking it has to do with me saying I was an idiot.”

She laughed. “You’re funny. Yes to all of that. Then the girls wanted to know who I had a date with. I had to give them the lowdown and catch them up.”

“Not much to catch them up with. You cut my hair and made me burgers then I left without even kissing you.”

“You did,” she said.

He’d thrown that out there to test the waters. Yep, Rob was right. Damn it. “I’ll rectify that later.”

“I hope you do,” she said, winking and getting out of the car. “Was Sammie sad to see you leave?”