Crazy in Love (Blue Lake #3)(59)

Tonight, his dark hair was parted down the side and slicked back, and he wore much too much cologne.

“Let me get that,” he said, smiling, swinging the door wide. “Step up and grab the handle to jump in.”

“Okay.” As she did what he said, his hands found her hips. “Oh!” She repressed a flinch and a backhand smack.

Although Rachael couldn’t hear the clicks of the cameras, she could feel the heat from the lenses boring into her back.

“I’ll help you up,” he said.

Sure you would.

He gave her a boost, shut the door, and then strode around the hood to get in. They drove down the street, turning after the Candy Shoppe, and down a gentle slope in the road leading to the residential part of Blue Lake.


“That was crazy back there,” he said, breaking the silence in the cab. “All those people wanting to dish up gossip. You think it’ll chill out soon?”

“I hope so.” She blew out an exasperated breath.

“Reporters have been to the station,” he said. “Asking about you and Cole.”

“They have?”

Nodding, he turned the radio up and then tapped the steering wheel as the cab heated with tension. Rachael craned around to stare behind them. The Lincolns hadn’t followed. They must not have been interesting enough.

“Where are we going?” she asked finally.

“It’s a surprise.” Grinning, he turned toward her. “Do you like surprises?”

“Only the good ones.”

She’d had a few this weekend. The biggest surprise was six-feet-six with rippling cords of muscle and melting-honey eyes. He’d made her heart dance and her legs quiver, despite her best efforts to resist him.

Joey turned left and drove behind the small shops lining Main Street. When the road ended at the highway, he made a right and followed the gentle bends in the road to the edge of the town. A small ranch house set apart from the others on the street came into view: white siding, blue shutters, white picket fence and a bright red barn in back.

“Do the Sutherlands still live here?” she asked.

Jan and Ox Sutherland owned the place when Rachael was in high school, and their daughters, Tiffany and Tierra, used to throw massive parties in the barn. If she thought back, her first kegger had been there sophomore year.

“Tiffany moved in after her parents passed. I asked if it’d be all right if I brought you out here, and she said no problem. Actually,” he corrected, pulling into the drive alongside the house, “she said it was one of the most romantic things she’d ever heard.”

Oh yeah. A date in a barn. If he handed her a bouquet of oats, she was really going to swoon.

“I’ve got some interesting memories here,” she said instead.

He met her gaze. “Me too.”

As he parked in front of the red-paneled barn, he turned off the truck, rolled down the windows and cranked up the radio. A country song blared from the speakers: Carrie Underwood’s Someday When I Stop Loving You. One of her favorites. Rachael let herself out and met Joey at the front of the truck. He smiled and grabbed her hand. His skin was cool, his touch firm. There was no spark. No za-zing!

Maybe that would come with time…

He led her into the barn where a table and chairs had been set up in the center. Dinner had already been served—steak, from the peppery aroma filling the air. Tealights in mason jars lined the dirt floor. Music from the truck drifted into the barn, creating a very warm, cozy, romantic vibe plucked straight from The Bachelor.