“Tea. I’ll remember that.” He leaned in close. The smell of him, peat smoke and flint, wrapped around her, invisible and as heady as ether. She couldn’t think.
Walker watched her. His eyelashes were black as coal and close enough to count. “Friday? Three thirty? There’s a diner around the corner from here—I’m pretty sure they have tea. I’ll meet you.”
“Okay—fine,” she stammered, struggling to regain the self-control she was always so proud of. She wrapped her arms around her middle protectively. “But only because I owe you, and I don’t like owing people.”
“Good enough for me.” He smiled a lazy smile. A waiting smile. “For now, at least.”
The front door clanged. “Keira? Are you coming or what?” Susan sounded distinctly irritated.
“Yeah.” Keira ducked under Walker’s arm. “I’m coming.”
“See you Friday,” he said, turning back to work like nothing had happened.
With a disgruntled snort, Keira turned on her heel and headed for the door, barely pausing to say good-bye to Mr. Palmer, who gave her a grudging wave in response.
Chapter Five
“IT’S ABOUT TIME!” SUSAN stormed off in the direction of the parking lot. “You’d think it was the freaking Smithsonian in there, the way that old man acts! I don’t know why you shop there at all. And what took you so long?”
“I was talking to Walker,” Keira said, hating the way her lips tingled when she said his name. Two days in a row, he’d managed to set her internal compass spinning like a merry-go-round. She kicked a loose chunk of blacktop in frustration.
“You—there was no one else in there!” Susan protested.
Keira jammed her key into the driver’s-side door, unlocking it. “There was,” she said. “He appeared out of freaking nowhere when you went up to pay for your music. And then he baited me into meeting him for coffee. His ego is the size of Montana.”
Susan flopped into the passenger seat, clutching her bag like a shocked old lady. “You have a date with him?” Susan turned and looked through the rear window.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
Keira jammed the gearshift into drive and the transmission whined in response. “It’s not a date. I have a score to settle. He made me a bet that he knew Take Note better than I do, and I lost. You know how I feel about owing someone.” What she didn’t mention were all the other feelings Walker stirred up in her.
Susan let out a long, slow whistle. “So, when are you going to go out? Because what I really want to know is when we can all go out together. You’ll be my chaperone. Jeremy’s going to be supergluing his little heart back together but hey, any date without my parents is a good date, right?”
“Yes! That’s it! I’m not going to see him alone. You’ll come with me. And Tommy, too! You can have a momless date, and Walker’ll get the coffee I owe him and that’ll be all. It’s perfect. Friday afternoon, okay?”
“Friday? I can’t. I have my flute lesson. And besides, I think you need to see him alone first. Otherwise, what if he thinks the coffee is just a friends thing? He might, if all four of us are there.”
“That would be fine with me,” Keira said.
“God. If I’d known you were up for something like that, I would’ve forced you to say yes to Trevor when he asked you to go to the Valentine’s dance last month.”
Keira opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the words to explain that nice guys—like Trevor Benson, who asked her out every couple of months, even though she rejected him each time—made her even more desperate to get away from Sherwin for good. Nice guys made it easy not to date, but though she hated to admit it, Walker was making it really, really difficult.
It’s not a date, she reminded herself. It was a bet.
“When I’m a famous pianist, then I’ll think about finding a boyfriend,” Keira finally said. “But I’m not doing anything to ruin my chances at getting out of here, and dating’s just—”
“A distraction,” Susan finished for her. “You sound exactly like my mother when you say that. If I was half as driven with my schoolwork as you are with your piano, I’d be valedictorian by now.”
“You don’t need to be valedictorian. You’re going to get into a good school and make your parents happy, and then go to law school and be a massive success,” Keira insisted.
“Damn, do I hope you’re right.” Susan slumped down in the seat next to her. Keira had enough determination for both of them. Neither of them were going to spend their lives in this decaying town.
She didn’t care what she had to give up.
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