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.
I settled on a morning memory, realizing it was Agent Provocateur, and deciding the minute I got home I was ordering another bottle (or seven).
“I best get back to work,” Krista mumbled.
I tore my eyes from Raiden to look at her and saw she was looking at the floor, grinning like an idiot.
She took off.
Raiden spoke again.
“You Miss Mildred’s grandkid?” he asked.
“Sorry?” I asked back.
“Krista said she was goin’ to Miss Mildred’s this weekend. Heard her grandkid was takin’ care of her. You her?”
He didn’t know who I was.
I’d lived for twenty-three years convinced I was in love with him, no matter how totally crazy that was, and he didn’t know who I was.
He heard Krista say my name.
He had no clue.
“Great-grandkid,” I told him.
“You lookin’ after her?” he asked.
I nodded, still coping with the devastation that we’d played tug of war together at Grams’s picnic and he’d been on my team three years running, and he didn’t know me.
“How’s she doin’?” Raiden went on.
“Great. Ninety-eight going on twenty,” I replied, and he awarded me another smile.
I must have been getting better with practice seeing as that one only made my scalp and kneecaps tingle.
“Least that doesn’t change,” he murmured.
He was right about that. Mildred Boudreaux never changed. Even acts of God couldn’t change her. I knew this because, when Grams was sixteen she got struck by lightning, wandered home, clothes still smoking (or that was how the story was told, incidentally, by Grams) and asked her mother what was for dinner.
“Listen, I need to go,” I stated and his head tipped slightly to the side, which I wished he hadn’t done. Because it was just a head tip, but being his handsome head, his fabulous hair, his amazing eyes, his attention on me, it seemed both cool and hot and I wanted to ask him to do it over and over again just so I could watch.
I pulled myself together (again) and kept talking.
“I’m really sorry about bumping into you and, well… then banging heads.”
“I’m good, long’s you’re okay,” he replied.
“Peachy,” I muttered then forced a smile. “Sorry again and… later.”
Then I took off, hoofing it by him and walking fast to my bike.
I dumped the cat food bag in my cutesie, girlie basket, mounted the saddle, put my feet to the pedals and took off, heading straight to Grams’s and not looking back at the pet store.
This was good, seeing as if I did I would have seen Raiden Miller, arms crossed on his chest, sexy smile playing at his mouth, watching me go.
Chapter Three
Sweet Tea
One week, one day later…
I opened the door to Grams’s place and shouted, “Hey, Grams! I’m here!”
To this I got shouted back, “I’m on the back porch, precious. Soakin’ in sun and drinkin’ sweet tea. Bring the pitcher, I’m low!”
I grinned at the hardwood floors and lugged in the bags of groceries, stopping when Spot came into my vision.
He sat on his ample booty in the hall and stared up at me.
He was white with big splotches of gray. He was one of the prettiest cats I’d ever seen. He was also the orneriest. And the fattest.
He wasn’t just fat, he was solid. Twenty-two pounds of compacted cat held in by soft white and gray fur.
It was good he was beautiful because he was a pain in the patoot.
Like when he got in a lovable mood no matter how infrequent that was and you were lying on your back on the couch and he jumped up on you and settled in, there was a good possibility he could crush you.
You didn’t move him, though.
There were two reasons for this.
One, he could turn at any time. I’d had to have his front claws lasered since he kept clawing Grams and breaking skin.
Two, he was so pretty that when he was lovey you took advantage.