Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Everything else faded into the background, all the noise and distractions of the past, the rain, the rapidly cooling air, their soaked through clothing…nothing else existed in this moment but Smith and Kenna.
Until another startlingly loud clap of thunder boomed almost directly above them. It startled them both and Smith lifted his head in alarm, immediately aware of the precariousness of their position.
They were standing on wood and metal bleachers in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm.
Not smart.
Kenna was still clinging to him, but she was also blinking at their surroundings in dawning realization.
“How did you get here tonight?” Smith asked her.
“Tina and Harris gave me a lift.”
“Shit,” he glanced toward the carpark and saw Harris jogging toward them.
He lifted Kenna into his arms when he belatedly recalled her cast.
“I can wa—”
“We need to get to shelter faster than you can walk, sweetheart,” he interrupted her. “I’m taking you home, okay? Harris and Tina are going to want to get their kids home and settled as soon as possible. They’re all pretty soaked.”
It was a half-truth. The kids weren’t wet. They’d gotten them to the cars before the torrential downpour had started. But Harris and Tina were. And they undoubtedly did want to get home quickly.
His words silenced her protest and she nodded, dropping her head to his shoulder with what sounded suspiciously like a contented sigh.
Harris reached them when they were halfway to the parking lot.
“Everything okay?” He looked worried and it wasn’t clear if his concern was for Kenna or Smith.
“Yeah, I’ll take Kenna home.”
“Okay…” Harris hesitated. “Kenna, you sure?”
Kenna lifted her head from Smith’s shoulder and nodded.
“Yes, thank you, Harris. Please tell Tina I’ll see her tomorrow.”
“Will do. Drive carefully, bud,” he said, eyes on Smith. “The roads always get a little shitty in the rain. Parts of it flood quite quickly.”
“Will do, thanks.” With Smith’s assurance, Harris loped off back in the direction of his car, and Smith veered toward where he’d parked his .
Neither of them spoke as he slid Kenna into the passenger seat and then rounded the bonnet to get into the driver’s side.
It was only after he’d been driving for a couple of minutes that she spoke.
“That was stupid, wasn’t it?”
He tensed at the words, bracing himself for what was to come.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, ready to defend that spectacular kiss with his life if need be.
“Because nobody with common sense would simply stand in the rain and get soaked.”
Oh. The tension drained from his body as he realized that she wasn’t talking about the kiss.
Yet.
“I don’t know…” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Everybody else freaked out, ran for their cars, and got soaked anyway. You enjoyed the moment and embraced the inevitable. I’m having a hard time seeing that as stupid.”
“To be fair, most of them had kids to think of.”
“And a lot of them didn’t,” he shrugged.
“I don’t know why I did that,” she admitted. “I’m not enjoying being soaked at all right now a-and I’m starting to feel really cold.”
She was beginning to shiver. So violently he could almost hear her teeth rattling.
“I have a jacket in the back seat,” he told her. “Put it on.”
“It’ll get wet.”
“After which it’ll dry again.” His pragmatism—usually her strength—made her giggle. He smiled helplessly at the light, high-pitched, unfamiliar sound.
She reached back and grabbed the jacket, draping it over herself rather than putting it on.
“Why do you have a puffer jacket in your car in the middle of summer?” she asked, her voice muffled because her face was buried up to her nose under the jacket collar.
He shrugged.
“It’s been there since last winter,” he admitted, and she giggled again.
Fucking hell, when did she get so goddamned cute?
“I’ve told you so many times this car needs deep cleaning and disinfecting.”
“It has character.”
“And probably fleas,” she countered. She sounded so lighthearted that Smith didn’t have it in him to take offence at the slight against his precious car.
It was still raining heavily when he slid the car to a stop in front of her place. When she reached for the door handle, Smith stilled her with hand to her elbow.
“You’re not walking up those steps. They look rickety and dangerous on the best of days. It’s bound to be worse when the wood is wet and spongy.”
Her shoulders heaved with the force of her impatient exhalation.
“Okay, Galahad, do your thing,” she said in resignation. “But remember, I’m not the one with the head injury here.”
He winced at the reminder.
“And also…” he began hesitantly, disliking the nervousness he could hear in his own voice. “I think we should talk.”
Chapter
Nineteen
Oh, he thought they should talk, did he? One toe-curling, reason-annihilating, brain-melting kiss later, and the man thought he was calling the shots? After his constant and demoralizing refusals to have any kind of rational conversation with her over the last week?