Falling for the Good Guy (Can't Resist #2)(13)

He snagged her by the waist and planted her on his lap. “You can’t say something like that and not give me a kiss.”

“Is this another rule in the casual high school dating handbook?”

“Yep.” He pointed to his cheek expectantly.

She leaned in and he turned just in time to intercept the kiss with his lips.

“Stop stealing kisses,” she laughed.

“It’s not stealing. Those are your dues owed me as Charter president of the throwback high school dating club.”

“Really? President, huh? So that would make me?”

He arched a wicked eyebrow. “A newbie pledge. Now, there may be few ‘initiations’ you’ll have to—mmpff—” The California roll Abby shoved in his mouth effectively shut him up, but it did nothing to cool him down when he saw the effect his teasing was having on her breathing.

The loud horn honk from the driveway stopped him from exploring it further.

Brian quickly helped Skylar gather up her things before walking her outside. “I’ll be by to pick you and Becky up around five okay? I’m making you girls spaghetti tonight so don’t get too many snacks at the mall.”

“Okay.” Skylar hurried up the driveaway and then slowed to a stop as she walked past Abby’s car. Suddenly, she turned back to Brian with a mischievous little gleam in her eyes.

“Hey Abby!” she called out before he could stop her. “Dad’s saying the duct tape on your car isn’t even shiny anymore!”

“Are you trying to get her to kill me?” he hissed, equally amused and alarmed.

“You should totally make him wash your car!” she continued, eyebrows waggling at him.

“For that crack, he can wax it, too!” shouted back Abby from the house..

Skylar beamed at him. “You’re welcome.”

“For what?” he queried as she ran over to the small silver hatchback waiting for her.

Instead of answering, she just turned and tugged on the hem of her shirt a few times and then curled her arms into a bodybuilder pose before giggling hysterically and hopping into the car.

He almost jumped ten feet in the air when Abby came up behind him. “What’s she saying to you?” she asked curiously.

“I have no idea,” he lied.

Abby handed him a bucket and sponge. “Thank Skylar for me. That was the most impressive carwash shanghai move I’ve ever seen,” she teased.

Brian looked from the bucket to Abby’s beloved clunker and then decided to just go for it. Silently questioning his sanity for taking advice from a twelve-year old, he peeled off his shirt and called out to Abby innocently, “Hey, can you bring the hose on over?”

When Abby all but stopped in her tracks and just stared at his chest for a second in naked appreciation, he felt his ego swell.

Okay, so he owed the little rugrat some ice cream after dinner tonight.





CHAPTER FOUR



ABBY PEERED OUT HER WINDOW at the darkening landscape off the horizon up north and the reddish haze off the clouds over toward the mountains. Frowning, she checked the news feed on her phone to confirm her suspicions.

Yep, a dust storm. In freakin’ January.

She really shouldn’t have been surprised. The storms were becoming far less rare now a days in Arizona; there’d been a couple this past monsoon season alone. And with the especially dry winter they’d had, it really wasn’t all that unexpected.

Keeping a wary eye on the pick-up in the wind, she ran out to her car and began adding a bit more duct tape to the rear ‘window’ corner of the soft top backing of her car, aka the littlest SUV in Arizona. The plastic flaps had long ago parted in a jagged tear that left a large gap. Normally, she didn’t need to worry about it because honestly, no one in their right mind would ever try to steal her car. But the gap was large enough for dirt and debris from the storm to sneak in, and if the massive rain that was apparently following the dust storm came down as hard as it usually did following these storms, she’d have a big ole mess to clean out of her car again. The last time, she’d been out on the road in the middle of a dust storm and had ended up vacuuming out sand and scooping out mud for hours afterward.

At least this time she could prepare…and try out the brand new roll of industrial duct tape she’d found at a military surplus store last week.

“Don’t let me down,” she muttered as she finished up her extravagant patch job.

Seeing the slow rolling brown clouds coming closer, Abby quickly sprinted back to the house. She knew how deceiving the creeping dust haze was. The whole thing basically looked like an impenetrable wall of smoke that started at the ground and went all the way up to the sky. Until it was right over you. Then it was like you were in the eye of a storm. The winds alone could be brutal, but combined with all the sand and debris in the air, and the rain pounding down, the effect was a pretty destructive weather event that usually resulted in rivers of red dirt and debris flooding down all the streets within minutes.

Sugarplums, this particular dust storm looked especially bad—already, she couldn’t see a thing past the house two properties down from her. Just as she was thanking her lucky stars that she’d be relaxing at home for this one, she caught sight of a gray and white ball fluff on the drain pipe of her roof off the far end of her porch.