Okay, definitely, legs could blush. I knew this when I felt the heat hit them.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked, taking Bodhi off the subject of Raiden and my legs.
Moving to my basket, I was wishing for the first time I didn’t have a daisy basket
that any six year old girl would be in throes of ecstasy over
,
but, suddenly I was realizing, any twenty-nine year old woman should think twice
about.
“Was fifteen, seein’ as they’re custom-made by Heatherita, but since you gave me a
hug, and I give discounts for hugs, we’ll call it square at ten,” Bodhi answered.
I grabbed my wallet. A long, Coach slimline pocket wallet that was made of a silvery
champagne leather that I
had to have
the minute I saw it
,
but right then I worried was glitzy and ostentatious. I pulled out a ten and a five
and extended the bills to Bodhi.
“Girl, I said ten,” he told me
,
but I shook my head and my hand.
“Take it,” I urged.
He had a bike shop to keep open, a pot habit, expensive hobbies and a questionable
work ethic.
He needed the five bucks.
His shades held mine
,
then he took the money because he knew better than me that he needed it.
“You rock,” he said quietly.
“So do these.” I ran my finger through the streamers, something else I now had second
thoughts about
. T
hen I thought… forget it. I liked them. So Raiden saw me on a cutesie, girlie bike
wearing a cutesie, girlie outfit that matched it.
I had my cop glasses.
I had a groovy friend who made me laugh and taught me to snowboard.
And I probably wouldn’t see Raiden for another five months.
So what did I care?
I mounted the bike
,
wishing I was pedaling home instead of pedaling further into town to run some errands
for Grams. Raiden was parked
,
and thus obviously in town for a reason
,
and that reason might mean I’d run into him again. I turned around to face town.
“We goin’ out on the trails this weekend?” Bodhi asked
,
and I threw him a bright smile over my shoulder.
“Absolutely,” I answered.
He grinned back.
I dipped my chin to look at my feet and again tucked my hair behind my ear as I pushed
up the kickstand and put feet to the pedals. I also looked out the corner of my eye
Raiden’s way.
Just to check.
I felt heat hit every inch of my body making it tingle when I saw that now he was
leaning back against his Jeep, arms crossed on his massive chest, shades, it appeared,
still on me.
He had a sexy smile playing about his mouth and he looked settled in, like he was
enjoying a show.
What on earth?
Okay. Whatever. It wasn’t every day a guy saw a twenty-something woman on a six year
old’s dream bike wearing an outfit that matched her bike. So he had a show.
Again, whatever.
This was what I thought.
What I felt was idiotic.
I had to let it go
,
but more, I had to get out of there
,
so I took off, shouting to Bodhi, “Later!”
“Later, girl!” Bodhi shouted back.
I pedaled away and felt funny, hot and strange
while
picking up Grams’s meds from the pharmacy and grabbing cat food for Grams’s cat,
Spot, at the pet store.
These feelings only died down when I was paying for Spot’s food.
The meds were important, of course. But although Spot couldn’t see the cupboard where
Grams kept the tins of his food, he could sense when they were getting low and he
got antsy.
Grams and I had learned the hard way
that
when Spot got antsy, something needed to be done about it.
I could have picked up the meds the next day
when I usually did Grams’s big shop for the week
. B
ut since Spot only accepted two different flavors of a special brand of cat food that
had to be bought at the pet store and Grams was running low, I’d pedaled into town
,
and unintentionally made a fool of myself the first time Raiden Miller’s attention
turned to me.
I loved that cat, no matter how ornery.
But at that moment I cursed him to perdition.
I’d bought the food and was heading out of the store when Krista, the owner of the
store, called after me. “I
s it
still cool
if
I go over to Miss Mildred’s on Saturday to learn how to make her biscuits?”
Grams was known for her cooking. She was from Louisiana
. F
ull-on Cajun, full-on Southern, and she’d brought to Colorado all the knowledge she’d
learned from home.
She was also generous with it.
I kept heading toward the door as I looked over my shoulder at Krista, smiled and
called, “Absolutely!”
Her head jerked, her eyes went up and she cried, “Hanna!” two seconds before I hit
wall.
This shocked me since I’d been in that pet store more than once in my life, a lot
more, and I knew where the walls were
,
even if I wasn’t looking right at them.
And no walls were there.
Walls also didn’t have fingers that could curl around your upper arms
,
which, by the time I’d swung my head around, had happened.
I saw army green tee and I tipped my head back, back,
back
and stared straight into Raiden Ulysses Miller’s eyes.
Close up.
I’d seen them in his yearbook picture, of course, dozens (okay, maybe hundreds) of
times.
He’d even run them through me when I’d been at Rachelle’s.
But I’d never seen them that close when he was right there, alive, breathing, with
his fingers wrapped around my arms, so close I could feel his body heat.
“You okay?” His deep voice rumbled through me.
He had a phenomenal voice
,
but all I could do was stare in his eyes.
They were a weird light brown/green with a yellow tint at the pupil
,
but as it radiated out to the edge of the iris it went pure light green.
Startling.
Amazing.
Gorgeous.
I dropped my bag of kitty food.
The crash was loud. The tins overflowed and started rolling everywhere
,
and all this helped me jerk myself out of my stupor.
I also jerked myself out of his hold and immediately went into a crouch to rescue
the cans.
Unfortunately, so did Raiden
,
and our heads smacked together with a painful thud that sent me falling back, right
on my behind. It also sent my sunglasses, which were on top of my head, flying.
I slowly lifted my hand to my head where it slammed into his, thinking,
S
omeone kill me.
Please. Right now. Kill me.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked. He was in a crouch, leaning toward me, his hand coming
up, fingers wrapping around my wrist.
They burned the instant they touched skin.
I lifted my eyes to his.
Startling.
Amazing.
Gorgeous.
With effort, I found my voice
,
but when I did, it came out high.
“Are you… uh, okay?”
“Got a hard head,” he replied. “I’m good. You got knocked on your ass.”
That I did.
God!
“I’m good… fine, fine… just, uh, fine and, well… good,” I murmured.
And babbling!
I thought
,
then realized there were cans everywhere
,
and I realized this mostly because a kid went running toward the door, kicking some
and they went flying.
Not thinking and freaking way the heck
out,
I pulled my hand free from his, shifted to my hands and knees and started crawling
around on the floor of the pet store (gah!), gathering up stupid cat food tins.
Seriously, Spot was lucky I loved him or I’d kill him.
I stopped doing this when I felt a tingle shift along the small of my back
.
I turned my head and saw Raiden had hold of my bag in one hand. He had four tins
of cat food clamped in his other
,
but his body was still and his eyes were locked on my upturned booty.
Oh
God.
I was a klutz and a dork.
I was a dorky klutz!
Quickly, I shifted to just my feet, still gathering tins, piling them in my arm, snatching
up my glasses, shoving them on my head and not wanting to
,
but having to move toward Raiden
,
who had my bag.
“How ‘bout we take this in turns. You go up first,” Raiden suggested.
I forced myself to look at him and saw he was grinning at me.
I’d seen that grin. It was beautiful. I’d seen him smile. That was even more beautiful.
Way back in the day, I’d heard his lush, rumbling laughter. Sublime.
But he’d obviously never grinned
at me
.
I was right. It was beautiful.
Beyond beautiful.
Life altering.
I froze.
Entirely.
Every inch of me.
And I stared.
“Everything okay here?” Krista asked, coming curiously late to this harrowing incident
I knew I’d play over and over in my head, wanting to do every second differently and
kicking myself that I didn’t.
I forced myself to speak
,
and this time it wasn’t high. It was squeaky.
“Me first?” I asked Raiden.
His grin got bigger. My insides melted and he jerked up his chin.
I straightened to standing.
“Here’s another can, Hanna,” Mrs. Bartholomew said as Raiden rose to his full height
. I
n other words, towering over all of us.
I turned to her and took the can she was offering. “Thanks, Mrs. B.”
She gave me a smile then looked up at Raiden. “Raid, tell your Mom I said hi.”
“Will do,” he mumbled.
She grinned at him and took off.
Raiden opened the plastic bag, indicating to me I should divest myself of my pile
of cat food tins
,
and I had to lean forward to dump in all the cans I had clutched to my chest. This
I did, excruciatingly aware that he could see right down my shirt.
That was when I thanked God I’d tossed all my crappy underwear five months ago and
loaded up on the good stuff during my now-not-infrequent trips to Denver.
“I think you got them all,” Krista shared
,
and I looked to her, lifting a hand, tucking my hair behind my ear and wishing I
was anywhere but there.
And I meant
anywhere
.
A sweatshop in China. At a phone making marketing calls to people who hated marketing
calls and thus would abuse me before they hung up on me.
Anywhere.
Krista was scanning the floor for cans then she looked between Raiden and me. “You
guys conked noggins pretty hard. You good?”
“I am
,
but Hanna seems a bit dazed,” Raiden answered and I stopped breathing.
He said my name.
He said my name!
I looked up at him, my lips parted.
Then I realized he thought I’d been dazed by our head knock and that was not good.
I had to get myself together.
I pulled in a breath
,
and on the exhale I reached out and gently took the bag from him, then assured them
both in my normal voice (thank God), “I’m fine. Just… I have a lot on my mind. But
I’m okay.” I looked up at Raiden. “I’m also klutzy. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, honey. You didn’t run into me, I wouldn’t have a chance to smell
your perfume. Made my day,” he replied
,
and I blinked.
Oh cripes. He called me honey in that rumbling voice.
And he was being (could it be?) kind of flirty.
God!
I had to keep it together.
I did this (just barely), then I ran through my morning again
,
seeing as I was a perfume whore. I had at least twenty bottles of it. It could be
anything.