Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2)(11)

“I’ll quote it just in case. So what are we using? Concrete pavers? Bluestone? Was there a particular look or color you’ve seen that you like?”

“Ah, no. Just, you know, a patio. Whatever’s cheapest and quickest. My parents didn’t say.”

He paused, his pencil poised over a grungy notepad he’d finally found in his chest pocket, and Liz fought not to squirm under his gaze. His eyes were a deep green, like an old Coca-Cola bottle. But rather than wholesome familiarity, the color gave an air of reckless changeability to his expression.

That and his lips. He had firm, beautiful lips. Kissable lips, she thought. How often had she daydreamed about this man’s lips? But who wouldn’t? He could smile broadly, the quintessential class clown; tilt them cockily, the smug rebel; or spin some sort of magic spell that transformed his face such than no woman—young or old—could resist his dazzling charm.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

The lips moved, and it took Liz a moment to realize words had passed over them. Her eyes slid up to his. “Uh, sure,” she said, wishing she could stop thinking about this man’s lips long enough to gracefully send him on his way. Oh Lord, had she just said uh?

“Are you free for dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, you know, where they serve food. I’m starved, and I’m thinking if I give you a few minutes you’ll know what you want me to quote out here, and I won’t pass out from hunger.”

“Oh. I don’t think dinner’s a good idea. I’m not staying. In Sugar Falls, that is. This is just a vacation. Sort of.”

Plus I have an almost-fiancé, she wanted to add, realizing she was starting to babble for some unknown reason, perhaps because The Lips were now softly curving in a manner that could only be described as sinfully sensual. Although why she was thinking about ‘sin’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence at that particular moment was something she didn’t intend to think about.

One dark brow shot to the sky. “You don’t plan on eating while you’re here? You’ll get even skinnier than you are now.”

Did he just call me skinny? the unhelpful part of her brain squeaked delightedly. “Of course I plan to eat,” she scoffed. “Besides, I’m a mess. I’d need to clean up. Change...”

“No problem. I can wait.” He flipped his notepad closed and crammed it in his back pocket. Liz couldn’t help but notice how his jeans pulled taut across his hips as he did so.

“I... fine. All right,” she said. She told herself she was agreeing because Trish had yet to take her shopping. It had nothing to do with the shivers of awareness that tickled her spine every time those mesmerizing green eyes slid her way.

Carter smiled again, nodded, and strode away before she could reconsider. Moments later her cell phone rang from her pocket. Liz pulled it out with a shaking hand, glanced at the screen then stuffed it back in. She’d call Grant later.

Just as soon as she figured out why on earth she’d agreed to go on a sort-of dinner date with her high school crush.





CHAPTER FIVE


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LIZ GUZZLED A GLASS OF WATER, stripped like a mad woman and showered in under five minutes. She was downstairs again in fifteen.

She glanced at her knee-length khaki skirt and pale blue tee, satisfied she’d chosen something no-nonsense and sensible, something that said “this is not a date” without going so far as to imply she had no self-esteem or desire to be acknowledged as a woman. It was a lot to expect from an outfit yanked hastily from one’s suitcase, but Liz wasn’t one to leave these things to chance.

Her heart beat high in her chest as she stopped briefly at the hallway mirror on the way by, feeling for all the world as if she were sixteen again and ducking into her locker to check her teeth and hastily chew a stick of Juicy Fruit before study hall.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to come home,” she muttered, cinching her ponytail tight. Coming home made her feel disoriented. And flushed.

Like the flu.

She blew out an impatient breath.

She hadn’t chewed Juicy Fruit in years, but one look at Carter’s disarmingly crooked grin and lazy, loping stride and she was fat old Beth “the Brain” Beacon again, nervously re-sharpening her pencils as she waited in the back room of the library for their weekly tutoring session.

God. She could still remember the giant, slab oak tables. The heavy chairs. How, if she leaned close enough over his trig text and inhaled long and slow she could just catch the intoxicating scent of fresh air and leather and something else she didn’t recognize but knew, instinctively, was way, way better than chocolate.

“Except everyone knows chocolate is bad for you,” she said aloud to her reflection.

Her reflection did not appear to be buying it.

Liz rummaged in her purse for her Altoids and popped one into her mouth, the mint sharp on her tongue, then marched out the door.

Thank goodness she was no longer the ridiculous, na?ve girl she’d been in high school.

A ridiculous, na?ve girl, for instance, would get all fluttery at the sight of Carter as he stood at the end of the driveway, leaning against his truck, all swagger and sex appeal in faded, torn jeans, navy tee and tattered Converse sneakers.

Liz felt nothing. Nothing but minty fresh pragmatism.