Do You Take This Man (27)
She laughed, a throaty, warm laugh at my expense. “I think you are falling for your own hype.” RJ tapped my temple. “The odds of me falling for you are so nonexistent, you might as well be dreaming them.”
I met her smug grin but didn’t say anything, waiting for her to catch her own words. When she stopped tapping my temple, her finger grazed my cheek and I thought about asking her the same question I had when we fought about the bar, if she was waiting for me to touch her.
It clicked then, that she’d brought up dreams, and I raised an eyebrow at the subtle twist in her expression. “Don’t even say it,” she said, turning on her heel and sliding through the crowd.
I grinned to myself and walked to the other side of the dance floor, grabbing a handful of Skittles—when in Rome—before stepping away from the tent to check my messages. I had seventeen texts from Penny; so glad to see motherhood hadn’t changed her. Instead of replying, I tapped the icon to dial her.
“How did it go?” Her voice was low, quiet, and almost rhythmic.
“Fine,” I said, unsure. “Are you holding the baby, or do we need to have a talk about appropriate timbre for cousins?”
“Connor is asleep and I’m sitting next to the incubator.”
“How is the little one?” I leaned against the side of the building, just out of view of the tent.
Penny sounded tired, despite the lullaby-like tone. “A fighter. Did the caterer get things right?”
I chuckled. I wasn’t sure Marin and Lola had cared about the exact arrangements of their snacks, but Penny had drawn a map of what snacks should be placed where after meeting with the caterer. To say that caterer was stifling an eye roll during setup would be putting it mildly. “Perfect. Everything went fine—a few small hiccups, but Tina prepped most everything, and the couple is happy.”
“Good. Good. And you and RJ got along?”
“We’re professionals.” Also, I can’t stop imagining what kissing her is like and if she’s as ardent about winning in bed as she is everywhere else. I pushed the thought from my head. “Stop checking up on me and go be a parent.” I bit the inside of my cheek, shaking off the creeping emotion saying that had left in me.
“This business was my first baby.”
“I’m an excellent babysitter,” I said, peeking around the corner. “I gotta go, though. They’re about to do their final dance and wrap things up.”
“Okay,” she said in a whisper I hoped was meant for the baby. “Tell RJ I love her.”
“I’m not saying that.”
Penny’s tone changed but not the volume as she sweetly hissed into the phone. “Give her anything she wants.”
Out of habit, I glanced around the corner, searching for a flash of red, RJ looking at something on her phone or her fingers drifting to her full lips, the same lips I’d been fantasizing about for a week, pretty much nonstop. “Anything she wants, got it.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket and returned to the tent, happy to have something to keep me busy by making sure everything wrapped up well. I didn’t see RJ anywhere, though. No more red dress. No more temptation to put myself out there. Good, need to get her out of my head anyway.
Chapter 15
RJ
MY STOMACH LURCHED as the car came to a soft stop and the slipping, sliding momentum finally stilled. The sound of mud and metal wasn’t as dramatic as a crunch, but just as final. I tested the ground, seeing if giving the car gas would move me forward, but my tires just spun, probably making it worse.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I dropped my head to the steering wheel and let out a long, slow sigh. The deer had run out from the woods and I’d panicked, swerved on the rain-slicked pavement, and ended up here on the side of the road, my car facing the wrong direction and halfway down an embankment. It was late, I was already bone tired after the wedding, and now my car was stuck in a muddy ditch. That, plus I would have reacted faster if my head hadn’t been elsewhere, namely on Lear I-have-some-skills Campbell. On Lear’s lips and his puppy-dog expression when I turned down his request to get a drink, the one he hid quickly behind that stupid smirk. The smirk was all the reason I needed to forget about him. I’d been thinking about his voice, though, how it had been gravelly after our almost-kiss. I lifted my head and let it fall against the steering wheel again, shuddering at the idea of having to call in sick to work because I had been injured while returning from a wedding at a gas station. “Shit.”
I was bent over the middle console fumbling for my phone, which had gone flying, when headlights illuminated the car from behind me. Relief and fear overtook me at once: relief at someone helping me, and fear at someone finding me defenseless in the middle of nowhere. I fingered the pepper spray attached to my key ring. My heart rate sped just the same. I could just stay in my car, but that wouldn’t do any good, so I unlocked my phone, having it at the ready, and pushed open my door, which lodged against something. A figure emerged from the car, but the headlights obscured any details.
“Are you okay?” The voice made my heart stop completely and then double its speed.
Grabbing my purse from the floor of the passenger side, I tucked my phone into it. There was just enough space between the door and the car for me to slip out, and my foot sank into the muddy ground with a sickening slurp. I closed my eyes as my foot slipped into the muck, trying to ignore the vile sensation. “I’m not hurt,” I called out. The next step left me sliding to the ground, my butt sinking into the wet earth, and I shuddered at the squishy feeling.