“So, you weren’t the type of girl who planned her wedding in the second grade?”
“Not even close.” Even as a kid, she’d known she was different. Maybe she couldn’t place her finger on it, but she knew it was true. She took a drink of her beer before the memories could take hold. “I was too busy following my dad around to job sites, which brings everything full circle, since he was a contractor and now I’m up to my nose in renovations.”
“Speaking of which, you have something…” Ford leaned forward, reaching across the table and swiping a bit of foam from the tip of her nose. “Got it.”
Heat burned her cheeks. “Damn thing always gets in the way.”
“I like your nose.” He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms, and his gaze never left hers. “It gives your face character.”
“Oh yeah, that’s just what everyone says.”
His eyes narrowed, and he got that look on his face that all but screamed incoming lecture, which was the last thing she wanted when they were having such a good time.
Rushing in before he could say anything, she said, “What’s your favorite movie?”
His grin made her heart hiccup. “Anything with explosions.”
“Ugh, action movies? Really?” It wasn’t a total shock, but it wasn’t what she’d been expecting from someone as committed to getting to the bottom of things as he was. “I would have pegged you as a film noir guy.”
“You don’t like action movies?” he asked, popping the last of his pizza crust into his mouth.
“Not usually.” Sure, the eye candy was nice, but there was more to a good movie than a buff dude.
“You’ve obviously been watching the wrong movies,” he said, standing up. “It’s time to fix that.”
Oh, this sounded like a very not good idea. Still, she asked anyway, “What do you mean?”
“Time to find out where you’re hiding a TV in your house so we can start your education.”
“I just watch on my laptop.” Brilliant conversational skills, Regina. When are you hosting that banter class again?
“Well, that’s part of the problem, but we’ll make do.” He tossed a few bills on the table. “Come on, I know just what to start you with. It’s a classic about a cop who flies to L.A. to see his family for Christmas and a bunch of German terrorists take over the building.”
“Sounds like fun,” she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice because that plot sounded ridiculous.
“You have no idea.” He pressed his hand to the small of her back, not pushing her bodily but pushing all of her hello-I-want-to-do-naughty-things-to-you buttons. “Now come on, we have a date on the couch. I’ll even share my Ice Knights blanket with you.”
And that’s exactly where she found herself later that night, surreptitiously taking sniffs of the blanket that smelled just like him while explosions lit up her laptop screen and the cop from New York jumped off the roof of a skyscraper using a fire hose as a bungee cord—so in other words, totally different from comedy movie nights with Lucy and Tess, but a helluva lot of fun, not that she was going to admit this to Ford.
“This guy is nuts,” she said as she sort of but not really—okay, really—snuggled a few inches closer to Ford.
“He’s saving a skyscraper full of civilians.”
“And his estranged wife.” It was an important detail. “You didn’t tell me your favorite action movie is really a romance.”
He looked at her like she’d just told him that she alphabetized her books by author’s first name instead of last name. “Not in the least.”
“You really think he’d be breaking that many rules and regulations for just anyone?” Men. So blind to the obvious. “Come on, if it was just a building full of strangers, he totally would have handled it by the book.”
“He’s a cowboy,” Ford said as if that explained everything.
“He’s doing it for love.” She looked up at him, and somehow the inches she’d scooted closer had become much more, because their noses practically touched. His gaze dipped down to her mouth. Her pulse sped up. “Trust me,” she continued, her voice breathier than it had been a moment ago. “Love is my business, I know of what I speak.”
“From personal experience?” he asked.
The rough timbre of his voice and his proximity had her losing IQ points by the millisecond. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, hoping the nip of pain would bring her back from the edge of making a major mistake—one she never wanted to repeat. Handsome men talked pretty but they rarely meant it, not when it came to her. Trusting Ford was the last thing she should do, no matter how easy it was starting to become.
Forcing herself, because it was the last thing she wanted, Gina put a metaphorical chastity belt on, took a deep breath, and got up from the couch. “And I think that’s my cue to head up for the night.”
“You’ll miss the end if you go now.”
Oh man. It wasn’t the movie she was worried about missing. “Let me guess, he beats the bad guys and gets his wife back.”
“Plus, she punches out the dickhead reporter.”
Ten points go to the fictional cop’s wife. “Now that’s a twist I’m almost sad to miss, but I have a client meeting tomorrow morning.” And she didn’t trust herself not to try to jump him on the couch, so she concentrated on moving her feet away from him instead of her hands on him. “Good night, Ford.”
“Sweet dreams, Gina.”
If he meant frustrated dreams of a naked Ford Hartigan, then yes, she would totally be having those. Thank God her sense of self-preservation kicked into gear before that could slip past her lips, and she hustled out of the room and up the stairs, knowing she was skating on a fault line when it came to Ford.
But she couldn’t seem to stop herself from falling a little bit for him anyway.
Chapter Eight
“I’ve got news.”
Gina turned her attention away from the gorgeous pink-and-orange sky to the man standing in the open doorway that led out to the back porch, where she sat with a spiked lemonade and enjoyed the last moments of what had been a beautiful April day. Ford’s face was set into grim lines as he crossed over to her, a brown beer bottle in his hand.
“It’s about your grandpa.”
“They confirmed it was him?” It wasn’t like she hadn’t been prepping for it. She’d known he was gone and wasn’t coming back since she was a little girl—and seeing the ring had only confirmed what had been whispered about for years. Still, the news stung.
“Dr. Dev was able to make the ID.” He stopped next to where she sat, his hair sticking out every which way as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly since six this morning. “Can I join you?”
She nodded. “Just be careful, a few of the boards aren’t in great shape. Stick to the edge by the banisters.”
Ford walked around sat down next to her on the step, close enough that his knee touched hers. They sat in a comfortable silence, watching the too many tufts of weeds fighting for supremacy wave in the spring breeze. A squirrel darted through the yard, on the run from a pair of cardinals chirping at it from a tree in the next yard over. The tulips someone had planted eons ago had bloomed into a bright line of pink and yellow that followed the fence that could use a fresh coat of white paint.
Sitting there, Gina let out a deep breath of acceptance. Her grandpa wasn’t coming back, but the home he’d grown up in was starting to come into its own, and that would have to be her memorial to the man who’d been a criminal and, sometimes, a bad man, but a good grandpa to a little girl who knew from the start that she wasn’t like the other kids.
Ford broke the silence. “Did your brothers figure out the funeral arrangements?”
“Turns out he didn’t want any.” She took a drink from her lemonade, the pink drink the perfect mix of tart sweetness and vodka to go with the end of a very long day with a sad, if expected, coda. “He was pretty specific about it, and my grandma is adamant about adhering to his wishes.”
“Weren’t they divorced when he disappeared?”