DINNER WAS INEVITABLY TERRIBLE. There were only three kinds of restaurants in Sherwin—fast food, “family friendly,” and a few independent holes-in-the-wall that hadn’t changed their menus since 1963.
Keira watched Walker poking at his pot roast suspiciously.
“How is it?” she asked.
“Murdered,” he answered. “In more ways than one.”
Keira laughed. “Sherwin’s not exactly the Restaurant Capital of Maine,” she agreed, gesturing to her own dinner, which was more soggy breading and lemon sauce than chicken.
“It’s a good thing I’m not that into food. Otherwise, I guess I’d have to learn to cook.”
Keira shrugged. “I couldn’t help you with that. I can make tea and peanut butter sandwiches, but that’s about it.”
“Too absorbed in your art to bother with the real world?”
It sounded so ridiculous, so pompous when he said it like that. She frowned. “It’s not that. Not the way you meant it, anyway. I just don’t care. If I have an extra hour, I’d rather spend it in front of the piano than hovering over some pots and pans.”
Walker opened his mouth to respond, then he hesitated. His gaze flicked away from her face, looking somewhere behind Keira. Automatically, she turned to see what had distracted him. She should have seen a couple of empty tables and the fern-laced paper that lined the restaurant’s walls. Instead, spread out behind her was a thicket of reddish black undergrowth. The leaves were round and dull, which only highlighted the thorns that stood out between them like needle-pointed fingers.
In the bushes, something rustled.
The noise passed through Keira like an electric current. It rattled her teeth and the fork in her hand clattered to the floor. She spun around to find Walker staring at her. His expression spun—suspicious, then horrified, then amazed, then relieved, and then back to suspicious. Keira was dizzy with it.
“What—what were you looking at?” she choked out.
“I thought I saw a cockroach on the wall,” he said evenly. “Will you excuse me for a second? I need to use the restroom.”
Without waiting for her to respond, Walker slipped out of his seat and strode toward the back of the restaurant, almost angry.
The door closed behind him, and Keira had the oddest sensation that he was gone—not just in another room, but gone.
She sat and stared at her inedible dinner, trying to ignore the invisible hedge looming behind her. When Walker appeared beside her, she jumped.
“I didn’t meant to startle you,” he said. His smile was hot and lazy as a summer afternoon, but there was a tiny, worried crease between his eyebrows. “This place isn’t nearly good enough for you. Maybe we should get out of here?”
Keira watched his face. His forehead relaxed. Maybe she’d been reading too much into his expression. Maybe he was only suspicious because she was acting so weird. She had to figure out what was making her mind play these tricks on her.
“Sure,” she said. Her voice was measured. “I couldn’t eat another bite. At least, not of this.” She gestured to her plate.
Walker tossed some money on the table. “I shouldn’t have eaten the first bite of mine. We could go back to my place. I have some ice cream in the freezer, if you’re still hungry.”
Curiosity swallowed Keira in a single gulp. She wanted to see his place, his things. She wanted to know what would happen if they were finally, really alone. She wanted him.
Her common sense took over. She couldn’t go to his apartment. There was no way that was a remotely good idea. Tempting, yes. Good . . . not so much. Keira checked the time and blew out a disappointed breath. “I can’t. I have to be home by nine.”
Walker’s eyes widened. “Nine? What kind of curfew is that?”
“Big Bad Wolf curfew, I think.”
Walker laughed. “Fine. But if this keeps up, I might have to start calling you ‘Red,’ ” he warned.
Keira shot him her most murderous stare. Ever since she was a kid, people had been trying that cutesy, redhead crap. “Carrot Top” and “Red” and even, for a short but horrible period in the fifth grade, “Clifford,” after the dog in the kids’ books.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, slipping on her coat.
Walker pushed the restaurant door open. “I might,” he teased. “Don’t Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf eventually end up in bed together?”
The thought turned her blood molten, in spite of the cold damp air that twined around her.
“Yeah, right before he eats her,” she shot back.
The look on Walker’s face twisted her words until she was sure she would spontaneously combust right there in the parking lot.
Smug as a cat with a mouse under its paw, Walker opened her car door.
“Come on,” he said, dropping the innuendo. “You can make fun of my music all the way home.”