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“I’ll have these delivered to your condo so you don’t have to carry them all. You need to get something to eat. You look plumb worn out. Colt will kill me if I let you overdo, and it looks like I already have.”
“I can’t stay cooped up forever,” Zoe said. “It’s good for me to be out and get my energy back. But I could definitely use some food and a nap.”
“Well, come on then,” Raven said. “Let’s get you fed and back home before Colt hunts me down.”
Raven steered her and Chewy toward the front of the shop.
“Shoot,” Raven said. “Speak of the devil.”
Zoe’s feet stopped working at the sight of Colt walking across the street and straight toward Raven’s boutique. No man had any right to look that good in a pair of old jeans and a white T-shirt. Looking at Colt made her wonder what she ever could have seen in Todd. There was no comparison. Colt was a man. Todd had been a pretender.
Colt opened the door of the boutique and frowned as he looked at Zoe. “You’re pale. You’ve overdone it.”
“Fancy seeing you here,” Raven said, giving him a quick hug.
“How’d you know where I was?” Zoe asked, eyes narrowing.
Colt’s lips twitched in amusement. “One of my patients told me you were over here buying out the store. You should take something for that headache.” Then he gave Raven and Chewy a disapproving look. “The two of you should have known better than to keep her out so long.”
“You’re right,” Raven said apologetically. “I just got caught up in the conversation. Somehow the minutes turned into hours, and I didn’t even notice. I’m so sorry, Zoe. It’s just that it feels like I’ve known you forever, and it’s been a while since I’ve had anyone who is so easy to talk to.”
Colt frowned at that bit of information. Raven had an entire family to talk to. But maybe something was going on between her and Wyatt that he didn’t know about and she didn’t want to share.
Zoe saw Raven’s distress and reached out to her new friend. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But next time let’s have margaritas instead of champagne.”
Chapter Eight
“I hate to admit it,” Zoe said, “But I don’t really feel up to going to a restaurant.”
“I’m not surprised in the least,” Colt said, putting his hand at the small of her back to lead her across the street. “You did a great job with the makeup, by the way. I can hardly see any of the bruising. Maybe if you’d picked a different color shirt. Something that wasn’t the same color as the bruise.”
“Chewy picked out my shirt,” she said. “Turns out he has opinions about fashion.”
“He also has opinions about lunch,” Colt said.
Chewy woofed and pulled the leash toward The Lampstand. There was outdoor seating, and several people had their dogs with them. Colt took the leash from Zoe just in case Chewy was thinking of doing a repeat of the previous week.
“Why don’t we head to my place and I can make us lunch there?” Colt said. “I’ve got more patients to see in an hour, so it’ll save some time.”
Zoe looked at him curiously and he wondered what she was thinking because color flooded her cheeks.
“You cook?” she asked.
He took that as a yes to his lunch invitation, so he headed toward his clinic.
“Of course,” he said. “I’m a thirty-five-year-old man. If I want to eat, I cook. My mother taught all of us our way around a kitchen. She said her job in life was to train up her sons so their wives wouldn’t want to send them back to her.”
Zoe chuckled at that. “Sounds reasonable to me. I never learned to cook. But truth be told I never wanted to learn. I’m terrified of kitchens.”
“Maybe you just need someone to teach you,” he said simply.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking up at him and laughing. “I think it’s just that I don’t want to learn. I can slap peanut butter on bread or make a bowl of cereal, but anything more complicated than that and I’ll order takeout. There’s something to be said for convenience when you work weird hours.”
“You don’t take time to eat when you’re working?” he asked.
“When I’m in the middle of a story and things are really flowing I might not look up from the screen for twenty-four hours. I forget to eat and sleep for as long as my brain is functioning in the creative zone.”
Colt grunted and said, “That sounds like my brother, Duncan, when he’s in the middle of painting. And heaven help the person who interrupts him. The artistic temperament is real it turns out.”
